News
Thursday • August 7,
Natives arrive in Guam hoping Hutchison: Mor
find survivors of olane crash tax cuts needed
Authorities said at least 13 Americans were on board
AGANA, Guam (AP) — The nighttime world
beyond Customs at Guam International Airport
harbored unequal measures of hope and horror
for the anguished relatives of the injured and the
dead from Korean Air Flight 801.
Just arrived Thursday on a special flight from
South Korea, they faced grim 9-1 odds: Were their
relatives among the 29 Korean Air reported had
survived Wednesday’s crash? Or were they
among the more than 220 dead?
They veered between optimism and despair.
“I have hope,” said Kim Moon-Hyun, who de
clined to say which of his relatives had been on
the flight. Then: “I don’t even want to imagine
what I will face outside.”
The Boeing 747 from Seoul, South Korea,
crashed in a deep ravine three miles from its air
port destination on this U.S.-governed Pacific is
land. Seventeen hours later, rescuers said they
had found all the survivors.
Flight 801 was carrying mostly Korean
tourists, including many families heading to
Guam’s tropical beaches for vacation, when it
crashed in a driving rain just before noon Tues
day EDT. On board were 23 crew members and
at least 13 Americans.
Korean Air said the survivors included three
Americans, identified as Grace Chung, Hyun
Seong Hong and Angela Shim. Their hometowns
were not immediately available.
Sixty-nine bodies had been recovered from
the wreckage by the time the rescue effort was
called off for the night, said Ginger Cruz, a
spokeswoman for Guam Gov. Carl Gutierrez.
“We scoured the whole area all day today,”
Air Force Col. A1 Higgle said. “We know there are
some bodies still down there, but it’s smolder
ing too hot.”
^ ^ We know there are some
bodies still down there, but
it’s smoldering too hot.”
Air Force Col. Al Riggle
Many among the 300 relatives — flown in on
several flights as a courtesy by Korean Air — wore
black. They stared ahead numbly, ruddy faces
damp with tears. Some embraced each other.
“Right now there’s a lot of anxiety, a lot of dis
belief, a lot of shock,” said Elena Scragg, head of
Guam’s department of mental health and sub
stance abuse.
The survivors, some of them severely injured,
were being treated at two hospitals on the island.
Burn experts were being flown in from the U.S.
mainland, and among the passengers arriving
from Korea on Thursday were nurses and doc
tors, apparently sent to help the survivors.
National Transportation Safety Board in
vestigators were due to arrive Thursday morn
ing to examine the wreck site in the thick,
tropical underbrush where the plane went
down, and officials from the Los Angeles
County coroner’s office were on their way to
help process the dead, many charred beyond
immediate recognition.
The voice and flight-data recorders have been
sent to Washington for analysis.
The survivors had been seated in the front of
the plane, which was largely intact. But the
plane’s pilot and co-pilot were missing and pre
sumed dead, the airline said.
“I join with all Americans in expressing our
deepest condolences to the victims of the terri
ble plane crash in Guam,” President Clinton told
reporters in Washington, pledging assistance
from the Federal Aviation Administration and
other agencies as needed.
The Boeing 747-300, delivered used to Kore
an Air in 1984, had attempted a landing at an
airport that lacked both a main landing system
and a government-staffed control tower.
r -T
AUSTIN (AP) — New federal tax
breaks will help many working peo
ple, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison
said Wednesday. But she added that
deeper cuts are needed and ac
knowledged that some people won’t
see any benefit.
“My hus
band pointed
out to me that it
really wasn’t
that great for
everybody. If
you are a smok
er who lives in
an apartment
who doesn’t
have children
and flies a lot,
this is not foryou,” Mrs. Hutchison
quipped at an appearance before
a chamber-of-commerce crowd.
The $152 billion tax cut legisla
tion, signed into law Tuesday by
President Clinton, offers tax breaks
including a tax credit for children
Hutchison
16 and under anti a dropi
capital-gains tax rate. It also
the cigarette tax and revises
extends airline ticket taxes.
Along with a budget-bal
measure, the tax cut billisa
touted bipartisan effort,
Hutchison, a Republican,
she’d like to see further chan
including the elimination
heritance taxes, which she
“unAmerican.”
“We have welcomed peo|
this country and we have sai
you work harder, you can
ter and you can give your chl(
a little bit better chance than
had to start. That’s theAmeri
dream,” she said.
The tax bill phases in an
crease in the individualexeni|
on estate taxes, to SI million
the current $600,000. Fai
owned businesses and farms
ify for a $1.3 million exemi
starting next year.
Ozone levels still higti
Businesses seek Clinton’s intervention in strike desp,te em,ssl0ns tes:
President said he lacks legal authority to stop the UPS walkout
WASHINGTON (AP) — Business
leaders clamored for the White
House to step in and end the Team
sters strike against United Parcel
Service on Wednesday. But in a twist
of history, one of the nation’s most
anti-labor laws is thwarting the
company’s appeals.
President Clinton intervened
swiftly to stop the American Airlines
pilots’ strike in March, and UPS
maintains that he would not have
hesitated to order the Teamsters back
to work if its union contract fell un
der the labor law designed to protect
the movement of commerce by rail
ways and airlines.
Clinton said Wednesday he was
concerned about the inconve
nience the UPS strike was causing,
but said he lacked the legal author
ity to intervene.
The UPS-Teamsters pact is cov
ered by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act,
under which the
standard for gov
ernment inter
vention is much
stricter than that
of the 1926 Na
tional Railway
Labor Act.
“It’s an anom
aly of history,”
said Rutgers Uni- Clinton
versity econom
ics professor Leo hoy. But he said, “I
don’t think anyone would demand
that the two sectors be brought un
der one labor law today.”
UPS, which began as a trucking
company but has grown to rely in
creasingly on its 2,000 pilots and
planes, has argued in court that it
now belongs under the railway act,
according to spokeswoman Gina
Ellrich. Rival FedEX Corp. is covered
by the railway law.
But UPS’ only recourse now
would be special legislative relief,
Ellrich said. “It’s kind of a moot
point,” she said. “We have to live
with things as they exist.”
Congress began regulating rail
way labor relations towards the end
of the 19th century, when it already
was clear' that railroads were involved
in interstate commerce and therefore
fell under federal jurisdiction.
The Railway Labor Act granted
the president authority to stop a
strike that could profoundly affect
the economy.
But during a news conference
Wednesday, Clinton stressed that the
work stoppage had not met the “ high
standard” oftheTaft-HartleyAct. In
the case of American Airlines, the
company dominated many air
routes and rival carriers couldn’t be
expected to replace the airline.
“It’s a totally different law from
the law that affected the American
Airlines case,” he said.
Former Labor Secretary Robert
Reich said presidents should allow
the collective bargaining process to
work. The Railway Labor Act, he
said, was intended to deal with na
tional monopolies.
lOUSTON (AP) — Environ
mental watchdogs are question
ing the effectiveness of the state’s
year-old vehicle-emissions test
ing program because of a lack of
any noticeable improvement in
air quality in the Dallas-Fort
Worth area.
Ozone levels in the Dallas-Fort
Worth area have reached unhealthy
levels as many times this year as in
all of 1996, despite a vehicle-emis
sion testing program intended to
control air pollution.
The state program has been op
erating in Dallas and Tarrant coun
ties for one year now — a test
thousands of automotive polluters
have failed.
Nevertheless, ozone levels have
reached unhealthy levels on four
days this year, matching the 1996
total, the U.S. Environmental Pro
tection Agency reports.
he Wail Street Journalrepcr j
in its Texas Journal onWedns
that it was unclear what eftec
any, the testing programhashail
pollution. However, critics!
testing program are unappeai
since EPA surveys show that 1! art I
than half of the region’s sitiolortl|
caused by motor vehicles. |om|
“They settled for a subpai
spection and maintenance pi
gram, and now air quality isn't iifeti
ing the projected improvemem
says Ramon Alvarez, a
list at the EnvironmentalDeh
he I
it heal
ifstt
Fund in Austin. “They need 102 Hi
vise their program.” hop
Since July 1996, nearlyZli herd
lion Texas cars have been tested
excessive emissions levels.0/dios jfy/j
7.3 percent failed, while for son jhj rt;
late-model cars the ratehasreachi
25 percent. In Houston, the fail
rate is 8.9 percent.
Documents show cigarette makers
worried about lawsuits decades ago
Weather Outlook
n
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Cigarette makers
have been working for more than 30 years to protect them
selves from the kind of lawsuits that now threaten the in
dustry, internal documents released Wednesday show.
The eight documents from the Liggett Group, the
maker of Lark and L&M cigarettes, include attorney
memorandums on how to defend the industry against
charges of misconduct, and show how cigarette mak
ers plotted to manipulate data and shape public opin
ion. One document said the ingredients in cigarettes
could be likened to those in a Hershey bar.
The documents, totaling 69 pages, were made pub
lic after the tobacco industry exhausted all appeals to
keep them private.
The documents are part of Florida’s lawsuit against
the industry. Forty states have sued the industry; this is
the first such case to go trial.
The oldest of the documents, an unsigned confi
dential memo from an unspecified Jan. 20,1964, meet
ing, recommended the industry not distribute any in
formation on cigarettes and health without running it
by their attorneys.
“It was recommended that The Tobacco Institute not
distribute any new health material without clearing first
with the Special Lawyers Committee in the first in
stance,” the memo said.
The institute is the lobbying and public relations
arm of the tobacco industry. The seven-page memo
randum came out just after the surgeon general re
leased a report on smoking and health. A year later,
Congress passed the law requiring the surgeon gener
al’s warnings on cigarette packs.
A May 1964 document from Philip Morris Cos.’ attor
neys detailed how the industry might show there was no
need for labeling by conducting a survey to prove the
public already knew about any health risks. The memo
described efforts to ensure that lawyers held all the re
search documents to keep them from falling into the
hands of Congress or other government agencies.
The lawyers suggested the surveys could be destroyed.
“If the returns were unfavorable they could be de
stroyed and there would be no record in any office of
the nature of the returns,” the document said.
Attorneys for the state of Florida conceded the docu
ments contain no smoking gun. However, they said the
papers show that industry lawyers engaged in efforts to
hide smoking’s dangers — efforts that other secret docu
ments so far have pinned solely on tobacco executives.
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