World News
FBI indicts six on
conspiracy charges
WASHINGTON AP—The
government Tuesday indicted
imprisoned antiwar priest Philip
Berrigan and five other persons
on charges of plotting to kidnap
presidential advisor Henry
Kissinger and blow up heating
systems in federal buildings.
FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover
earlier linked the alleged plot to a
move to force the United States
out of Vietnam and release
socalled political prisoners in this
country.
Seven other persons, including
Berrigan’s brother Daniel, also a
Roman Catholic priest, were
named as co-conspirators in the
alleged plot.
Altogether three priests, a
former priest and nun were cited
as plotters and three nuns, a
priest and a former priest as co
conspirators.
Both brothers are serving
federal prison sentences for
destruction of draft Selective
Service records at Catonsville,
Md., in 1968.
The indictment charged that
last August, Philip Berrigan,
after his arrest on charges of
destroying draft records, sent
instructions from the U.S. prison
at Lewisburg, Pa., to Sister
Elizabeth McAlister. Sister
McAlister was named a co
conspirator in the alleged plot.
Hoover told Congress late last
November the alleged con
spirators planned to kidnap
Kissinger, Nixon’s chief foreign
policy adviser, and hold him until
the United States dropped all
participation in Vietnam and
released the so called political
prisoners.
Hoover declared the plan to
kidnap Kissinger and blow up
heating system in government
buildings in Washington was the
work of a group calling itself the
East Coast Conspiracy to Save
Lives.
Spokesmen for the group later
denied the Berrigans were
members and the brothers
challenged Hoover to retract his
statement or prosecute.
The indictment said the six
conspired to "maliciously
damage and destroy by means of
explosives" federal building
heating systems at five locations
next Feb. 22, George
Washington’s Birthday.
The indictment did not mention
specific demands, but said
Kissinger would be held until
certain demands of the alleged
plotters were met. The six named
in the alleged plot were arrested
after a grand jury i Harrisburg,
Pa., returned a sealed seven
count indictment.
Warrants were served on the
five by FBI agents Tuesday after
sealed indictments were returned
by the grand jury.
The charges include con
spiracy to damage government
property, conspiracy to possess
unregistered dynamite and other
explosives, conspiracy to take the
explosives across state lines,
and conspiracy to kidnap and
take the victim across state lines.
The indictment said as part of
the conspiracy the six were to
obtain maps and diagrams of the
underground tunnels in
Washington, D. C. that contain
heating systems for the govern
ment buildings.
Hoover’s testimony naming the
Berrigans as head of the alleged
plot raised a furor when it was
made public last November.
One congressman, Rep.
William Anderson, D-Tenn., said
Hoover should apologize to the
Berrigans or show further proof
of his accusations.
Speculation at the time of
Hoover’s testimony centered
around Kissinger the possible
kidnap victim but until Tuesday
was never confirmed by official
sources.
Rep. Anderson said Tuesday
night he is “delighted that the
matter has finally been removed
from the trial-by-headline arena.
At last the matter is in proper
judicial channels . . .
“An open ajudication of the
allegations against the Berrigan
brothers has been my prime
concern in this matter from the
beginning,” Anderson said in a
statement issued by his
Washington office. “I have faith
in the judicial system.”
John Cottone, U.S. attorney of
the Middle District of Penn
sylvania based in Scranton, said
Tuesday night the grand jury met
in Harrisburg because the con
spiracy allegedly took place in
the Middle District.
Cottone said the jury heard
testimony for four days spread
over several weeks. He said the
indictments were returned
Tuesday.
In Haverford, Ann Advidon,
wife of alleged co conspirator
William Advidon, said she was
shocked by the announcement.
“We know Daniel Berrigan and
are interested in his projects and
what he is involved in. We are
opposed to the war. I haven’t any
ideas where they dug that plot
up,” she said in a telephone in
terview.
The warden at the federal
institution where the Berrigans
are prisoners, J. Norton, declined
comment on the indictment or on
any plans to move Philip
Berrigan to another institution.
Another prison spokesman said
it would not be possible to obtain
a statement from the Berrigans
“except through their lawyers.”
The day after Hoover’s
statements to the Senate sub
committee, the Berrigans
released a statement through two
of their lawyers in New York.
News Roundup
From AP Reports
NEW YORK—Rabbi Meir Kahane, head of the militant
Jewish Defense League, was arrested Tuesday in connection
with a demonstration in December. The anti-Soviet tactics of
Kahane and his group have figured in U.S.-Russian con
troversy. The rabbi was arrested on a bench warrant when
he missed a court date to answer charges stemming from a
Dec. 27 demonstration to protest death sentences given two
Soviet Jews. The sentences were later commuted.
FT. BENNING, Ga.—Ex-GI Paul Meadlo testified
Tuesday that he shot women and even their babes in arms
when Lt. William Calley Jr.’s infantry platoon swept into My
Lai. Meadlo said he was convinced the women and children
were deadly agents of the Viet Cong.
SACRAMENTO, Calif.-Calling Welfare “a cancer
eating at our vitals,” Gov. Ronald Reagan proposed a major
overhaul of the state's program Tuesday—including creation
of a WPA-like public work force. California has been more
than generous to the needy, the Republican governor told the
legislature in his fifth “State of the State” address. But, he
added, “we must also insist that able-bodied recipients work
and meet their own responsibilities.”
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.—About 50 policemen fired a
barrage of gunfire and tear gas into a Black Panther
headquarters Tuesday, forcing the surrender of a man and
15-year-old boy later charged with stealing a truckload of
meat. Police chief Justus Tucker said officers opened fire on
the Panther headquarters after a “shot, or shots” were fired
from an upstairs room.
WASHINGTON—A special House elections investigating
committee recommended Tuesday that the names of all
House candidates who failed to comply with financial
reporting laws be turned over to the Justice Department. The
requirement applies to losing as well as winning candidates
in the November congressional elections.
SAIGON—U.S. military sources said Tuesday the
Communist command is unable to mount a TET offensive
this month against Saigon or the heartland of South Vietnam.
They saw no enemy buildup of significant size for a drive at
Tet, the lunar new year which starts Jan. 27, or even for a dry
season offensive later in the spring.
MU
Lunar soil kills Earthly germs
HOUSTON, Tex. AP—Soil from the moon can be used to create an
antiseptic powerful enough to easily kill some of the earth’s most
troublesome germs, a biologist said Tuesday.
Moon dirt from core samples collected by the Apollo 11 astronauts
provides some unknown ingredient that is highly toxic to bacteria, Dr.
Gerald Taylor reported to the second annual Lunar Science Con
ference.
Dr. Taylor said the antiseptic was created by chance while
scientists at the Manned Spacecraft Center here were attempting to
revive any organisms living in the moon dust. No lunar organisms
were found.
The scientist, who works in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the
center, said the soil was mixed with a protein solution and allowed to
incubate for some time. The fluid from this mix, he said, was then
exposed to three types of bacteria for 10 hours.
"It killed them all,” said Dr. Taylor. The test has since been
repeated several times, he said.
Two of the bacteria, pseudomonas aeruguiosa and staphylococcus
aureus, are virulent germs which are troublesome medically and
usually very hard to kill, he said. The third is a common soil bacteria,
azotobacter vinelandii.
Asked if it was possible to create a “new penicillin” if the unknown
substance could be isolated and produced artificially, Dr. Taylor
would say only, “That’s a possibility.”
The scientist said the unknown substance is not apparently
available everywhere on the moon. He said attempts to create the
antiseptic from soil samples from the Apollo 12 landing site or from
soils gathered on the surface at the Apollo 11 site have been un
successful. Only soil from two Apollo 11 core samples have suc
cessfully produced the antiseptic.
Chemical comparison of the soils, said Dr. Taylor, shows that the
Apollo 11 core has about 28 per cent more scandium, a rare metallic
element, than is found in other moon soils studied.
Fraud besets
housing progam
WASHINGTON AP—Senate investigators and a
federal grand jury in Charleston. W. Va., are zeroing in
on a federal housing program that House committee
staffers have reported is beset by abuse and fraud.
Staff members of the Senate investigations sub
committee headed by Sen. John McClellan, D-Ark , are
fanning out around the nation in preparation for
hearings on the program of home-ownership subsidies
for low- and moderate-income families, committee
sources said
The Charleston grand jury has been deliberating for
several months and is expected to return fraud in
dictments in the mortgage-subsidy program, a source in
the Department of Housing and Urban Development
said
Nixon administration officials are particularly
concerned about the probe by McClellan, a dogged and
experienced investigator
Dana fi
New medicine policies
• • •
Continued from Page 1
that disclosure by Look and the Digest would have been
proper. He also said the Digest and Look had reacted to
the hearings as had others in a pro-pill “establishment. .
automatically, like Pavlov’s dog.”
Nelson pointed out that it was at these hearings that
the FDA said that women were being inadequately in
formed and announced that it was going to require in
clusion of a cautionary message to the user in every
package of the drugs
The Digest and Look attacked the hearings of the
principal ground that they panicked women to no pur
pose and produced no new information
Nelson faulted the magazines for not having written
“the other side a largely untold story that the public
is entitled to know" and that fills “three printed
volumes" of his senate subcommittee on monopoly.
The Digest, which prints no letters to the editor, said
it would be “happy to consider" other articles on the pill
For what i'worth, the Digest was making this
claim last summer, in promotional ads headed “Number
One Remedy”:
“Last vear, drug and remedy advertisers invested
more thau 7 '6 million dollars in the pages of Digest.
That's nearly more than 3 xh. million more than Life and
Look combined.
“What 'o more, the Digest has been the leader since
1962—further proof that a schedule in the Digest is the
kind of prescription that works.”
But it could be a grave mistake to assume that an
appetite for advertising dollars alone, or possibly even
significantly, explains the Digest’s record in promoting
medicines: surely the Digest turned its back on huge
amounts of revenue when it refused cigarette ad
vertising and campaigned against smoking.
The fundamental problem may be one that affects
everyone in the media and. indeed, everyone with a
responsibility to report to others: whether to indulge in
gimmickry such as Orwellian newspeak—new is better,
for example—or whether to level with the audience.
1-os Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service