Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 6

TuesdayMarch Z1 989 Star Tribun Eastern Coatinaed froa page 1A IT i But the pilots' union denied the allegation. "The pilots are not on strike," said spokesman John Knudson. "We are simply honoring a picket line because of many serious common concerns that we share with the machinists and the fact that their union obviously tried to avoid this." The company said the pilots would be classified as being on strike if they did not return by noon today, and implied that they could lose their kciiiorily, liieir pensions or their job. Matell said about 200 pilots out of 3,600 were flying, but the pilots' union put the number at 88. years in the White House.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, wno heads the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, criticized for not ordering a period of mediation and cooling off that would have postponed the strike. Kennedy said that with the nation's economy "fragile," Bush's failure to postpone the strike amounted' "rolling the dice." He declined to say what he would do if the administration sent up legislation Wring sympathy strikes by workers on commuter rail -He said his attitude might depend oa whether the administration proposed an overall settlement of the Eastern strike. Meanwhile, Rep. James who is chairman of a House aviation subcommittee, scheduled a hearing for today and said he hoped for quick action on separate legislation to force Bush to appoint an emergency board and stay the strike for 60 days.

Before the strike. Eastern claimed losses of more than 1 billion in the Dast decade and $1 million a day, ill. i J-l-o-T i iii i. t- i 1 i i. 1 1 V' A iff 1 I Any widening of the Eastern strike could propel the White House, Congress and union leaders into a battle that might define labor relations throughout the Bush administration.

On Capitol Hill, members of Congress are splitting along party lines on proposals to deal with the strike. There is concern that if the strike widens, it could cause as much ill will as did the air controllers' strike in 1981, when President Reagan's dismissal of striking controllers created an adversarial relationship with unions that lasted through his eight Let Foreman Clark Suit You! i Inn I Staff Photo by Bruce Bisping Protester Manuel Melendez, of St Paul, and his 3-year-old daughter, Lori, someone threw water onto demonstrators and journalists from a window in New arrivals for Spring at Foreman Clark. Why pay more and choose from less! Suits $100-200 Sportcoats $75-125 Slacks $25-45 Eastern asked US. District Judge Edward Davis in Miami yesterday to order its pilots back to work and to permit those who are crossing the machinists' picket lines to work longer hours than allowed in their contract But no hearing was scheduled. To keep its shuttle flights running yesterday, executives in parkas sprayed a de-icing compound on Boeing 727 jets in New York and Boston.

Eastern said it ran 20 of its 36 scheduled shuttle flights, although it would not say how many passengers were on each flight But the usually bustling Eastern shuttle terminal at La-Guardia Airport was all but deserted. Yesterday was not the commuters' nightmare that many train travelers had feared. The machinists, who had threatened to picket the nation's railroads, confined their demonstrations to airports in the face of a federal court order issued Sunday night Yesterday in New York, U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson expanded his ban on such walkouts to include Am-trak workers. Eastern, the nation's seventh-largest airline, said it operated 41 flights yesterday, including the 20 shuttles.

The airline said it ran two flights yesterday to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and that several hundred Eastern ticket-holders who had been stranded in the Caribbean over the weekend were flown home, either by Eastern or other airlines. Matell said the cutbacks and layoffs would leave Eastern flying only on its most profitable routes: the shuttles between Washington, New York and Boston, and three round-trips a week from Miami to Santiago, Chile, with a stopover in Buenos Aires. Many of the strikers were open in expressing bitterness against Frank Lorenzo, the chairman of Eastern's corporate parent the Texas Air Corp. The strikers accused him of trying to break the unions at Eastern, as he did at Continental Airlines six years ago. They also maintained that Lorenzo wants to dismantle Eastern by stripping away its profitable routes and sending the remaining shell into bankruptcy.

But the airline focused more on its pilots than the striking machinists yesterday. Matell accused ALPA, the pilots' union, of "clubbing manage ment by honoring the machinists picket lines. "This has turned into an ALPA strike," Matell said. The machinists' union, the International Association of Machinists (1AM), "is not what's causing us to reduce the operation as drastically as we have," he said. "It's the pilots.

They are not coming to work, and they can't stay on picket lines under the guise of supporting IAM when they're trying to use sympathy strike to obtain their own economic objectives." "This has gone way beyond a sympathy strike," Matell said. "It's nonsense to think that. This is an outright strike by pilots." Soldier pleads guilty to charges of espionage From News Services Washington, D.C. An Army warrant officer pleaded guilty to 10 espionage charges, in cluding giving top-secret information on U.S. electronic-eavesdropping techniques to Meister, at the opening of his court-martial Monday.

Warrant Officer James W. Hall III 30, of New York City, admitted that he participated from 1983 to 1988 in a conspiracy to deliver classified mil' itary information to representatives of East Germany and the Soviet Un ion. Hall, an intelligence analyst with a top-secret security clearance, was arrested Dec. 21 near Savannah, Ga He was assigned to the 24th Infantry Division and worked as an intclli gence analyst in the Army's G-2 in telligence section. He joined the Army in 1976 and spent most of his career in Europe working as an ana lyst of intercepted radio and tele phone traffic and coded messages.

On Dec. 20, Hall, while serving in an intelligence unit at Fort Stewart, Ga. allegedly sold secret documents to an undercover FBI agent for $30,000. Hall and his alleged accomplice, Hu seyin Yildirim, 60, known as "The Meister, were arrested the next day, A federal grand jury in Savannah indicted Yildirim for conspiring with Hall to sell to Eastern Bloc agents secret material the warrant officer stole. Col.

Howard C. Eggers, the military judge presiding at the court-martial at Fort McNair in southwest Wash ington, did not immediately accept Hall guilty plea. Under Army rcgu lations, Eggers will hear the prosccu tion case against Hall and defer witnesses before deciding guilt a punishment Court officials said ttv. final verdict and sentence probably will not come before Friday. KJ, iJmmmmim St; 1 i 1 were among those drenched when the Faust Theatre.

sing said. "He was involved in the process of covering a legitimate news story when he was assaulted. He was willing to leave the premises if he had been given the opportunity, but that opportunity was taken away when our photographer was assaulted." Mendes Napoli, KSTP's vice president for news, said no estimate of the water damage to Elliot's camera had been determined. Afterward, Faust manager Hafiz said he repeatedly had warned the cameramen to leave. He said he was surprised that neighbors protested the theater on its last day of business.

"We've always been cooperative with the neighborhood, but all we get is harassment," he said. The city of St. Paul has purchased the Faust for $1.83 million and plans to redevelop the corner. The business, which includes peep shows and nude dancing as well as a theater and X-rated videos and magazines, was to close permanently at midnight last night, but the owners have until April 6 to vacate the premises. Business was brisk inside the theater yesterday, even with TV crews pa trolling the sidewalk outside.

Hafiz said several hundred customers had entered during the first two hours of business. Most customers were examining the supply of videotapes. At times, up to 10 men stood in line at the cash register, many with several tapes. Some of the men were young and wore suits and ties. Others were older and wore leather jackets or T-shirts and jeans.

"I got a great deal on these tapes," said one customer, who didn't give his name. deplores and media 1990, and hopes to raise more than $1 million by the end of March in preparation for a possible candidacy by former vice-president Walter Mondale. Boschwitz said he has received about 18 boxes of research on the Mondale record, collected and compiled by former President Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign. He said he hoped that President Bush would make a trip to Minnesota in his behalf this summer. Although Mondale would be a formidable opponent Boschwitz said he was "more concerned with the economy (and a possible downturn) than my best possible opponent." Prison lockdown More than 260 inmates at California's San Quentin prison were under lockdown Monday after prison officials discovered five homemade weapons during weekend searches, officials said.

and said it had $2.5 billion in debts stemming from its acquisition by Texas Air in February 1 986. "mm' 'Sv SAVINGS lu. mm 1 A Faust Continued from page 1A questioning. They also suffered cuts and bruises. All three men told police that they had been assault victims.

No arrests were made yesterday, and police said they are assembling a report that will be given to the city attorney's office. Throughout the altercation, dozens of men were inside buying X-rated videos and magazines in a going-out-of-business sale at the Faust, on University Av. at Dale St. The confrontation had begun as a media event. City Council Member Kiki Sonnen had been asked to do a live interview in front of the theater for KSTP's 11:30 a.m.

news show, and she invited other council members, city staff members and neighborhood activists to join her. Other media organizations then were informed of the "protest." While the TV cameras were taping, about 20 protesters chanted and held up their signs. When they tried to tape their signs to the outside of the Faust, theater employees ripped them down. Then one protester Nick Davis, a candidate for a City Council seat from the area ripped down several paper signs advertising the Faust's closing sale. A few minutes later, a Faust employee, leaning out of a third-story window, threw a bucket of water onto the protesters.

Several protesters and KSTP-TV cameraman John Elliot were drenched. Elliot and others went into the building to complain about the water. "Who's going to pay for the camera?" hp demanded. "I don't know. Talk to your bosses about it," Hafiz said.

fs r. Manuel Melendez had brought his young daughter to the protest, and the two of them were hit by the water. He brought the girl along when he went into the Faust to complain about the water. "No children allowed in here. Get her out," a Faust employee said.

Melendez refused to leave. Two TV crews were taping the encounter, and Hafiz ordered them several times to stop taping and leave. Finally, he told his employees to remove the camera crews. O'Connell was the only one physically removed. WCCO-TV cameraman Gordy Leach left through another door and videotaped the scuffle on the street.

WCCO later gave copies of the tape to the other TV stations because KSTP's camera was damaged by the water and O'Connell's was knocked down and rendered inoperative. During the fight, Molly O'Rourke, 30, an aide to Sonnen, jumped on the back of one Faust employee and was shaken off. "They were both going at him (O'Connell), so I jumped on one of them, trying to distract him. I tried to hold his arm, but he just kept hitting him," she said. Melendez and Davis also joined the fray, but were not injured.

John Lansing, assistant news director at KARE-TV, said O'Connell was "badly shaken up." He said the amount of damage to the camera, worth about $40,000, has not been determined. "We're going to push the authorities to file charges against those people who assaulted our cameraman," Lan to support Tower, but that he had no other comment. Implying that a history of immoderate alcohol consumption is not enough to disqualify a nominee, Boschwitz said the Senate "surely wouldn't have confirmed Winston Churchill," the British prime minister whose leadership was instrumental in the Allies' victory in World War II. Boschwitz said reports about Tower's alcohol problem and alleged indiscretions with women are based mostly on exaggerated and downright false allegations, many of them from anonymous sources. "It's the biggest collection of junk and hearsay, and it's most disappointing," he said.

Tower is "a tough-minded, extraordinarily smart" nominee with all the qualifications and character traits to be a strong secretary of defense, Boschwitz said. Despite the merits of the case, Boschwitz acknowledged that Tower's confirmation "doesn't look so good." Boschwitz also told reporters that he is off and running for reelection in A 1 HUGE Bosch witz backs Tower, treatment by Democrats OH ALL WINDOWS Call now and receive FREE installation on every high performance vinyl window you order! Now thru March 31st. Enjoy a lifetime of smooth operation without the fuss or the mess. Call now. lib mi 1 FT By Dane Smith Staff Writer Some of John Tower's former Republican colleagues in the U.S.

Sen-atejrnay be reluctant allies, but Minnesota's Sen. Rudy Boschwitz is not one' of them. Boschwitz, in a meeting with Minnesota news reporters at the state Capitol on Monday, vigorously defended Sower and said his treatment by emocrats and the media is "a terrible thing." He said the Democrats in the Senate went after Tower because they "smelled blood." The Minnesota Republican acknowledged that Tower was something of an abrasive, "mean little bastard" who had offended some of his former colleagues, but he said those characteristics would serve Tower well in running the Pentagon. Bosthwitz's advocacy contrasts with the lukewarm support offered by Republicans such as Minnesota's other senator, Dave Durenberger, who has said he plans to vote for Tower only because I'm a good Republican." A spokesman for Durenbergef said yesterday that the senator still intended.