Logansport Pharos-Tribune from Logansport, Indiana • Page 28

it left to me to falser foe tfa6e a gofeerttment fcriittmii nefespajwrs nr newspapers forUiout a apbsmment, £8 sitoitlb turf tjesilaie a nunrsnt fa prefer life latter, Jefferson The Indiana Gazette Monday, March 1 7, 1986 Page 2 How buyers get disarmed By ROBERT J. WAGMAN (NEA) The Pentagon, under fire for its weapons- policies, has been stuck with yet another item that doesn't work right. And this case is particularly embarrassing the weapon, a machine gun, was bought "off the shelf," not specially de- sjgned. the Pentagon must answer to Congress, which is already deeply sceptical about the military procurement program. It must tell why tens at thousands of the M-249 light machine guns were ordered, and thou- delivered, before anyone thought to have some soldiers shoot it and stee if it worked.

President's Commission on Defense Management, known as the Commission, recently criticized the fact that the Pentagon pteces multibillion-dollar weapons orders before it fully tests prototypes. r-Regular production often starts before design faults are apparent, and then expensive changes are made or whole programs are canceled. recent examples of this: the Sgt. York anti-aircraft gun and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. the Sgt.

York was finally tested under battlefield conditions, it proved to be so flawed that it was canceled after production began, costing the taxpayers more than $600 million. The Bradley isn't as flawed, but requires major changes that will cost million or more. These weren't discovered until the Army had already taken delivery of more than 1,000 vehicles. I The commission said this shows faulty planning by the military. However, the Pentagon had a ready explanation: A very long lead tune is needed to develop and test new weapons.

Therefore, if the military flidn't order weapons until prototypes were finished and fully tested, Jhere would be an unacceptable delay in delivery so the present system must continue. I But the case of the M-249 light machine gun casts serious doubt on the Pentagon's explanation. The M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), which is designed and made in Belgium, is a 5.5-millimeter machine gun that weighs 20 pounds. Jt can deliver a maximum of 700 rounds a minute at a maximum range of 3,500 meters; and it is considered highly accurate up to 800 meters. The Pentagon felt that the SAW would be the light machine gun of the iuture for the Army and the Marine Corps.

Last year the Army called it "an outstanding weapon" and ordered than 50,000 for delivery through 1991, at a cost of about $13 million a year. More than 7,000 have already been delivered. Now, however, the Army has put the program on hold. The first full field test showed that the SAW has major problems. The feeld test found that the gun's barrel became so hot after firing it could feasily burn a soldier's hand; that sharp edges on the weapon could and flid cut hands and forearms; that there were problems with the gun's recoil suppressor; and that the front aiming sight could be adjusted only with a special tool that didn't come as part of the regular equipment.

The Pentagon stressed that the gun still performed as expected. It was j-eliable, highly accurate and "performed its intended mission" very well. But the problems were serious enough that the $14.5 million for SAW purchases in the 1986 budget was "set aside for other purposes," and the J12.9 million earmarked for SAWs in the 1987 budget has been removed. The Army says the weapon can be fixed by substituting a strengthened liuttstock and folding carrying handle, adding a heat shield and replacing Jhe recoil spring with a different recoil buffer. The changes will take time to design and implement, and the Army says it expects to go Ihrough with the order after the altered weapon is delivered and retest- jed.

That sounds reasonable. But the real snag is that the Pentagon knew what it was getting. The SAW isn't a highly sophisticated plane or a Complex weapons system. It's a gun that was bought virtually off the jshelf. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger says he'll act quickly to imple- jnent the Packard Commission recommendations for fuller testing before military purchasing.

As the SAW case shows, it can't be done quickly enough. Newspaper Enterprise Assn. Stethem's killers By WILLIAM A. RUSHER Somewhere in the Middle East, under the protection of Syria or Libya perhaps simply hidden by their relatives and friends, are the three who last June hijacked TWA flight 847. Their names are: JMohammed Hammadei, Ali Atwa and Hassan Izz-al-Din.

On June 15 at Beirut airport, in the course of that hijacking, they put a gun to the of Robert Stethem, 23, and blew him away, for the crime of being a 'member of the U.S. Navy. i Outrage over the killing was widespread in the United States, and nowhere more so than among the Reagan administration's most staunch- Hy conservative supporters. There were ill-considered demands for in- Ss'tant and bloody reprisal, not against the killers (they hadn't even been identified yet), but against loosely described groups alleged to be sup- Jporting them: "the terrorist camps in the Bekaa valley," etc. Aside from the frustrations of their proponents, these spastic yelps for re- Avenge served little purpose save to demonstrate how difficult it was to devise and execute a practical plan for reprisal.

The individuals and organizations that actually sponsored the hi jacking and supported the hijackers are difficult, perhaps impossible, to identify. It is certainly far from clear that they are, or ever were, based in specific camps in the Bekaa valley or anywhere else. And the indiscriminate bombardment of Lebanese villages, on no better ground than that 'their inhabitants are Arabs, would merely shock and outrage the whole Middle East, damaging America's interests still further. Some conservatives, therefore, counseled patience when the Reagan I administration made it clear that it would not go along with such rash Revenge, we reminded the hotheads, is a dish best eaten cold. I There was no real need for hurry: There would be time to identify the actual killers, locate their hide-outs and arrange for their extermination.

Some of us for one were prepared to go a step further: If the three killers proved permanently beyond our reach, it should be possible to bring about the death of enough of their blood relatives and close friends make the murderers regret their crime, and also to generate heavy communal pressures against further such conduct. (This, apparently, was what the Russians did when four of their people were kidnapped and -I one of them was killed, and it swiftly resulted in the release of the re- three.) President Reagan, however, decided against such indirect retaliation, 5 feeling perhaps rightly that it would lower us to the hijackers' own I level of indiscriminate slaughter, and that this would not be acceptable to the American people. Guilt, he insisted, is personal, and so must punish- Very well; but more than eight months have now passed, and although our intelligence facilities have identified the killers, all three remain at 3 large. Some observers are convinced that the matter is being allowed to slide slowly toward a back burner, where it can simmer indefinitely. But the murderers of Stethem are in a different category than Ameri; ca's other terrorist foes in the Middle East.

The drivers of the vehicles that destroyed the Marine barracks and our embassy an: hex in Beirut gave their own lives to insure the success of their missions. The hijackers of the Achille Lauro, who coldbloodedly killed Leon Klinghoffer, are thanks to Mr. Reagan's prompt intervention when an Egyptian airliner tried to fly them to sanctuary in Tunisia in an Italian prison, awaiting trial. Stethem's killers are known, but in hiding. Surely enough money, tered around the Middle East, could locate them.

If and when it does, it will of course be splendid if they can be kidnapped a la Eichmann and I brought to this country for trial; but it is not essential. What is essential absolutely essential is: They must die. Newspaper Enterprise Assn. Stealth bomber would be a mistake WASHINGTON The Air Force's fast-talking salesmen for the super- secret Stealth bomber are whining adherents in Congress by minimizing the plane's astronomical costs and clamping a lid of secrecy on its potentially serious design drawbacks. In one closed hearing after another, insiders have told us, the Air Force hucksters have assured members of Congress that the Stealth bomber will cost about the same as its chief rival, the B-l, which is already in production.

The point of this maneuvering and manipulation is that Congress must soon decide whether to fund the new Stealth program or buy an additional 100 B-l bombers. Even though the B-l program is a rarity in defense procurement ahead of schedule and under anticipated cost conservatives and liberals alike on Capitol Hill generally like the idea of the futuristic Stealth bomber, which supposedly can penetrate Soviet air defenses by being invisible to radar. Defense Undersecretary Donald Hicks has told Congress the Pentagon wants a plane that will set the Soviets "back on their rears." What he hasn't told Congress is that likely cost overruns on the Stealth bomber could set the U.S. Treasury back on its rear. The true cost of the Stealth program is a closely held secret.

Our associate Donald Goldberg has learned that the Pentagon, in a classified report ordered by Congress, predicts that the 132 Stealth bombers the brass wants will cost $36.6 billion. This is misleading at best, because it is based on 1981 dollars and doesn't include everything. When it comes time to pay for the Stealth bombers, our sources say the real price including inflation and research and development costs will be more like $80 billion. And that's not counting possible overruns. Even at $80 billion, Stealth would be the most expensive aircraft project in U.S.

history. But the chances of cost overruns are high. Unlike the B-l, which flew thousands of hours of tests before full production began, the Stealth will go directly from drawing board to assembly line, bypassing critical tests that might uncover design Our sources estimate the cost of additional B-l bombers at about $190 million apiece; each Stealth bomber would cost about $540 million, not including research costs. And the taxpayers would be getting an untested plane rushed into production to meet a political timetable. Cost aside, insiders insist that the Stealth bomber simply won't be the plane it's cracked up to be.

It will be dangerously slow and unstable, and will have a range too limited for anything but one-way suicide mis- Washington By JACK ANDERSON DALE VAN ATTA JOSEPH SPEAR Merry-Go-Bound flaws, according to our sources. Despite these obvious fiscal dangers, Air Force briefers persist in assuring Congress that the Stealth bomber will cost about the same as the B-l. Here again, the Pentagon is not telling Congress the whole truth. Research, 'development, plant construction and worker training for the B-l have already been bought and paid for. So an additional 100 B- 1s would clearly be a lot cheaper to produce than the all-new Stealth with its need for new plants and worker training.

sions to Soviet targets. As if this weren't enough, even the Stealth's supporters concede that it isn't designed to elude the older, long-range radar the frugal Soviets still have in place after 25 years. CONFIDENTIAL FILE: Iran has never been known for the humane attitude of its jailers. During the shah's regime, human rights groups regularly protested the brutal treatment of political prisoners, and under the Ayatollah Khomeini the complaints have multiplied. But intelligence analysts have detected some light at the end of the dungeon corridor: Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini's designated successor, reportedly has taken steps toward prison reform.

A onetime victim of the shah's less-than- tender turnkeys, Montazeri apparently feels that the Islamic revolution is getting a bad name from its torture chambers. TWICE VICTIMIZED: Because of their obdurate state senate, an estimated 5,000 victims of asbestos-related injuries in New York are barred from claiming their share of the $2.5 billion set aside for damage claims by Johns Manville the former asbestos manufacturer. Six years in a row, the state assembly has passed a "discovery" law that would start the three-year statute of limitations running only upon discovery of asbestos-related disease, which often comes years after exposure. But the senate, reportedly under pressure from other companies that manufacture chemicals with long-range poisonous effects, kills the legislation each year. MINI-EDITORIAL: The effort of White House aide Pat Buchanan to impugn the patriotism of those members of Congress who oppose aid to the Nicaraguan contras resulted in a richly deserved backfire.

Now some of the administration's supporters and some distinguished media figures who ought to know better are trying to say that Buchanan's vitriolic attack on those who would choose "Ortega and communism" over "Reagan and democracy" didn't really question the patriotism of administration opponents. The truth is, it was a very low blow and ought to be ruled a foul. Even Joe McCarthy was open about his red-baiting. United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Did Palme's political mission succeed? By WILLIAM PFAFF PARIS Olof.

Palme was buried Saturday, and with him a certain idea of Sweden. It was an idea that undoubtedly had a harder shape and a stronger meaning for Swedes than for foreigners, but that is to be ex-. pected. It had nonetheless an international resonance. It was an idea of a Sweden that could stand apart, as moral leader of the small nations of the world and also as unimplicated in the world's disorders.

It was a notion of Sweden as a moral force in political affairs as in words once applied by The Times of London to Mr. Palme himself- "the conscience of Europe." It is said that every nation has two dominant myths, the myth of origin and the myth of mission, and Olof Palme provided Sweden with a formulation of a modern international mission consistent with Sweden's past, its privileged geopolitical position and, above all, with the demands of a powerful Lutheran religious tradition, now largely secularized. Was the mission defined by Mr. Palme a success hi practical terms? One thinks not. Certainly neither the United States nor the Soviet Union has been deflected from anything either wanted to do by the criticisms of Sweden.

The various initiatives organized by Sweden among the smaller countries, for nuclear-free zones or to solve such crises as that of the American hostages in Iran, came to nothing. Mr. Palme's efforts to resolve the Iran-Iraq war failed. Third World nations and various liberation movements have undoubtedly benefited from Sweden's aid, but none has expressed much wish to be guided by Sweden toward a less violent world. Nor have the smaller European powers, seemingly confident in their ability satisfactorily to exercise their own consci- ences.

Not only Americans criticized Mr. Palme's sympathy for liberation movements not overscrupulous in their methods and Sweden's willingness to overlook the authoritarianism of governments in the Third World so long as these professed to be progressive. It may be answered that this was not so different from the United States' tolerance for authoritarian governments so long as they profess to be anti-Communist. But Sweden claimed to hold itself to a higher standard. The idealistic international mission framed for Sweden by Olof Palme solved a problem experienced by other modern industrial societies.

What happens when a religious nation gives up religious practice and belief and yet remains driven by a religious conscience? The answer is found hi redirecting into political channels both the imperative to do good works and the willingness to judge others. As the United States is also a society deeply marked by Protestant Puritanism, there was a special sting to the moral judgments passed by Sweden upon American conduct. There was also a reproach felt by Americans in the fact that Olof Palme was educated at Kenyon College in Ohio and knew the United States very well. This was not a controversy between natural opponents but between two peoples with much in common, but most of all both with a conviction that their international political roles are moral missions. But if the United States or the other European countries have proven unwilling to accept Sweden as a guide, they have found a certain security in the fact that a contented nation of conscientious democracy and equally conscientious social justice could so confidently exist in the north.

The implied claim of Sweden to be better than other countries had, in practice, enough in it to make the others, even Americans, reflect on whether it might, after all, be true. A Swede might object, to say that all is not so wonderful within Sweden and that the assertion of Swedish superiority has served as a way to deny the threatening predestined darkness that lies on the other side of this confidence in being among the Elect, the political Elect at least. To others, however, outside Sweden, Sweden has seemed a kind of state of grace. Hence the dreadful shock of what happened the night of Feb. 28.

Sweden was no longer a nation apart from the rest of us. When Chaos made itself known that cold Friday night two weeks ago Chaos striking from darkness, making no claims or demands, offering no explanations for gunning down Olof Palme the rest of the world drew hi its breath in fear. We were suddenly afraid that it is Chaos that may await us all. Los Angeles Times Syndicate Questions merits of teacher pay Dear Editor, What is our Pennsylvania House of Representatives doing passing a bill to pay teachers a starting wage of $18,500 a year? This averages out to be one hundred dollars a day. There are plenty of college graduates who would like to be guaranteed one hundred dollars a day as soon as they gjraduate from college plus the folio whig: Paid health insurance Paid dental insurance Paid eye care Paid life insurance Paid sick leave Paid personal days Lucrative retirement Teachers can accumulate unused sick and personal days from year to year.

They can accumulate enough days to actually miss an entire year of work without losing a day's pay. Upon retirement, if there are any accumulated days left, they will be paid a bonus. Every seven years teachers are entitled to take a sabbatical leave of alette absence for one school year for sickness, travel, or education, and still be paid hah 0 salary. Fifty to seventy- five percent of the tuition will be paid for them if it is an educational sabbatical. Teachers who are paid $100 a day receive a day in a retirement fund.

In this area, some higher paid teachers are fast approaching $200 a day, thus receiving $54 a day in the retirement fund. Some districts are now offering a $10,000 bonus for retiring at age 55. This might not seem like a lot of money, but the retirement benefits don't stop there. A teacher's retirement is based on an average of their wages received during the last three years. The $10,000 is added to wages for the last year before the average is taken, thereby adding a 10 percent increase in retirement income.

As more districts offer this bonus, the retirement fund will be drained. Higher taxes will result because of the need to set aside a higher percentage for the fund. We are now paying 27 percent to this fund, which has been increased by 8 percent over the past five years. If you add retirement and social security, a teacher will be receiving the some on retirement as when was working. One of the most inequitable items in a teacher's contract is a salary schedule.

This means all teachers receive the same pay. Dedicated English, science, mathematics, and computer teachers may well deserve $100 a day, but can the same be said for gym, home ec, art, music, industrial arts, driver's education, school nurses, librarians, and guidance counselors who have little or no additional work other than their normal work day? Sincerely, Walter Brendlinger New Florence R.D., Pa. (USPS 262-040) by THE INDIANA PRINTING i PUBUSHING COMPANY Indiono. Po. 15701 Phone 412-465-5555 Ei'obliihed in 1890 LUCY R.

DONNELLY PrcsidentfCo-Publilher SALLY R. NAYION JOAN RAY REECE ure JOE OONNEUY MICHAEL J. DONNELLY Director WILLIAM 8. HASTINGS Monoging Editor FRANK HOOD Aswciot. Editor.