The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 25

Kirk Wants Law School Named For Holland Hijacker Wanted Daughter In Free Land A 1 I 4 1 Slf I -A" 'V W. v'1 1 v) if ft, cv ft -r J. I frVvf vV; X. I PS I ikir I 1 I i t.iJ i ill i MIAMI (UPI) Army deserter Willis Jessie decided almost immediately upon arriving in Havana last August he would rather be the first airplane hijacker returned from Cuba than have his 3-year-old daughter raised by a Communist family in Havana. "That was the key decision the thing that tipped the balance," West Virginia Congressman Ken Hechler said Saturday.

HECHLER SPEARHEADED five months of delicate negotiations with Cuba that ended Friday night when Jessie and little, blonde Patricia Sue Jessie returned here from Havana via Mexico. The congressman and Jessie's ex-wife, 22-year-old Mary Jane Jessie, were waiting at the International Airport here when the 27-year-old Army deserter from Holden, W. got off a plane from Mexico City and was taken into custody by FBI agents. Jessie was being held in the county jail under $200,000 bond on charges of hijacking a single-engine plane he hired last Aug. 4 to take his daughter on an aerial sightseeing tour of Naples.

HE HAD taken the chubby little girl from his home in West Virginia Aug. 1 and vanished. Mrs. Jessie, with tears streaming down her cheeks, took custody of Patricia Sue at the airport and exchanged brief words with her ex-husband before he was taken to jail by FBI agents. "It's been a long and torturous experience," Mrs.

Jessie wept. "I'm so glad its over and that the baby is safe and all right." CONGRESSMAN HECHLER said Jessie was put in a Cuban prison outside Havana soon after he arrived in Havana. Patricia Sue was turned over to a Cuban family in Havana. "Jessie said he never understood why he was imprisoned, and I don't think he knew if that was the fate of other hijackers," Hechler said. "Jessie came to the conclusion almost immediately that it would be better to return home than have his daughter raised in a Communist country.

That was the key decision, the thing that tipped the balance." HECHLER SAID he began negotiations with the Cuban government for the release of Jessie soon after Mrs. Jessie came to him seeking help, "We have been working since mid August with the Swiss embassy in Havana, the Department of State, and the FBI to put the pieces together and persuade the Cuban authorities to let him come back with his daughter," the West Virginia congressman said. Hechler said the negotiations that were handled through the Swiss embassy which represents American interests in Cuba were "extremely HE SAID they made their strongest push for Jessie's release just before Christmas, "stressing how wonderful it would be, to have a Christmas reunion for the family. "It was all set up for him to return home five'or six days before Christmas on one of the Cuban refugee airlift flights," Hechler said. "But all of a sudden the Cuban government said the refugee flights were for Cubans, not ARMY DESERTER WILLIS JESSIE AND 2-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER Arrive in Miami on flight from Mexico City to face arrest hcl Legislature Promised Cooperation By D.

G. LAWRENCE Stntlnil Staff SARASOTA Gov. Claude Kirk disclosed Saturday he had asked the regents to name the new University of Florida Law School in honor of U.S. Sen. Spessard Holland.

In a speech to the annual legislative weekend's governor's luncheon, Kirk pledged "a new spirit of cooperation with the legislature in solving the state's "ALL OF our that we didn't have a new constitution, that we needed annual all those are in the past now, said the governor in an off-the-cuff speech. Kirk said his Republican party no longer could blame the Democrats for unsolved problems. "Mr. Nixon will be in the White House and it's up to him to make things right on the national he observed. "Now it is up to us, working in the two-party system, to clean up our slums and to provide the jobs for the 65,000 who were graduates of high school this year." As to honoring a former governor who has been In the United States Senate since 1946 Kirk said he could se no controver sy in the law school naming, "MR.

HOLLAND has done more than any other man for his state," he declared. Kirk first ventured into Florida politics with an unsuccessful race against Holland in 1964. The governor drew laughter with his observation: "I'm very pleased to be here with all the other gubernatorial candidates." SEATED ON the dais with him were Atty. Gen. Earl Secretary of State Tom Adams," and Tsenate president John Mathews Jr.

At the other head table was Sen. Reubin Askew. All are expected tfl be Democratic gubernatorial candidates in 1970. The luncheon marked the first public appearance of the state's new lieutenant governor, Ray C. Osborne.

HE SAID he had "grown to love" the legislature in his four years of house membership and already admired the governor's staff. "I don't believe in government by consensus," he explained, "but the problems are so tremendous that all three branches the I executive, legislative and the judi- cial must fight the battle of government shoulder-to-shoulder or the battle cannot be won. The flu bug curtailed activities of both Kirk and Osborne. KIRK LEFT a dinner for legis- lators Friday night to retire early because of a recurrence of the illness which put him out of action several days last month. Osborne attended only the gover- nor's luncheon, stayed away from other legislative weekend activities.

"I don't know whether it's a cold or the bug, but I've been feeling rotten," he apologized. Kirk flew to Palm Beach after the luncheon i to host a reception for Vogue magazine editors and said he hoped to catch up on some rest at his vacation home there. The magazine is devoting its next issue to Florida. Activities Saturday for the city's 11th legislative weekend also in- eluded a formal dinner at the Ringling Museum. Tennessee Williams Converted Playwright Now Catholic pip I 5 It Wni'J KEY WEST (UPI) Playwright Tennessee Williams, author of such plays as "The Glass Menagerie," and famous for his four letter words, became a Catholic here Friday.

Williams, recovering from a severe bout of the Hong Kong flu, was baptized by Father Joseph LeRoy at St. Mary's Star of the Sea. He has a home at Key West where he does some writing. IT WAS just two weeks ago that Father LeRoy said he first talked to Williams about converting to Catholicism. "Tennessee had been at death's door, and felt convinced that God was calling him to become a Catholic," Father LeRoy said.

Father LeRoy said Williams readily accepted everything in his profession of faith, except immortality. "He didn't understand much about that," the priest said. Williams has written many Sunday, Jan. 12, 1969 3 Center student in political science from Melbourne. "We have nearly people in this campus community 20,000 of them students who don't know each other.

"This is a wonderful place to rub elbows and say hi. But if it turns into a bar, we, the students, will be the first to ask that it be Shut down." The funds, Hilliard points out in a flash, didn't come from Joe Blow's taxes but involve about $20,000 from the Student Activities Fund" a sort of slush fund for renovation. Only faculty, students and special guests on occasion will be admitted through a maze of checking points. '70 Join Race hotly-contested primary races in Florida history. Last year he made it through the second primary against LeRoy Collins for the Democratic U.

S. Senate nomination, and finished only 3,000 votes behind the former governor. The latter was defeated in the general election by Winter Park Republican Ed Gurney. Faircloth is a native of Chief-land in North Central Florida and practiced law, first in St. Petersburg and then in Miami, after his graduation from the University of Florida.

family in Havana, "even though she got the measles and chicken pox. She was taken to the prison camp every day and allowed to see her father. Hechler said Mrs. Jessie held no bitterness or animosity toward her. ex-husband, "which is quite remarkable considering what she has been through.

"I also have to admire Jessie for his decision that he wanted his daughter to grow up in a free country even though he knew he would face stiff penalties by returning." the congressman said. Unwritten State Code Secret Sudsy step. If not, they might come asking for plans." The students on campus who are over 21 will simply pay one dollar a year to the faculty club for "associate memberships" in order to get beer sipping privileges. The whole deal, beer and all, has the quiet blessings of the Board of Regents and university officials. "THIS IS strictly an internal matter," said former regents' chairmen Chester Ferguson of Tampa, "and as long as they don't break any state law or local law, there's nothing wrong with it." "This whole thing was planned on a high-level and it will be carried out that way," says Joe Hilliard, 21, a senior honor Will Rim For Governor Faircloth To SARASOTA Attorney Gen.

Earl Faircloth confirmed Saturday he would enter the already-crowded Democratic governor field in 1970. The cabinet officer said he was "pretty" certain that Spessard Holland would seek a seventh term that year, and that he would not oppose the veteran Democratic senator in a primary. "IT APPEARS to me that Sen. Holland will hold off on any decision and if he does decide to retire he'll make it known so late that I would not have time to set up a Senate campaign organization, Faircloth explained. the attorney general said that he had "about decided" not to make a race for reelection to the post he was elected to first in 1964.

That year he beat then attorney general James Kynes by only about 100 votes in one of the most Sen. Jerry Thomas In Governor Race A A A SSEE (fl Another name was added to the growing list of possible gubernatorial candidates in 1970 when Sen. Jerry Thomas, D-Riviera Beach, confirmed Saturday he was seriously considering the race. Thomas said a number of people have been talking to him about becoming a candidate for governor next year and "after all these years in government and public service, I can't turn a deaf ear." In Americans. Then they hinted they might release him through Mexico, "But just as we got arrangements for a release through Mexico underway, the girl got chicken pox and this caused another delay," Hechler said.

JESSIE WAS flown to Mexico City on a Cuban Airlines plane, taken into custody by Mexican immigartion authorities, who then declared him an undesirable and put him on a flight for Miami. Mrs. Jessie said her daughter was well cared for by the Cuban Rathskeller' To Break UF Unveils GAINESVILLE (UPI) The University of Florida apparently will break the beer barrier soon with a $50,000 bit of old Bavaria smack dab in the middle of the campus. The big "rathskeller," to be used by both students and faculty opens Thursday with everything from knachwurst mit sauerkraut to grune erbsen (buttered peas). And hopefully, beer.

Foamy, foreign beer. ENTERTAINMENT? The agenda starts with "Your Father's Moustache" singing group for three days at $1,000 a day. Next comes the Lee Shaw jazz trio from New York. The FBI has been checking fingerprints of those concerned and the beverage department has not officially issued the beer license yet But the dean of students is "confident" that all is ironed out and legal. No alcohol will be served at Thursday's show opening, but the taps are expected to run on Friday night, if the license comes through by then.

THE PROJECT, which drew its life blood from student sweat and funds while the faculty club went after the beer license, has been hush-hush until this late in the game. Public ire was feared with the first break in Florida's ancient, unwritten code against alcohol on state school grounds. "It was kept secret at first so the whole project could get off the ground," concedes Dean of Students Lester Hale with a twinkle. "The beer is incidental really. What we want to do is break the communications barrier on campus.

This is no bar. "And no one need he adds. "If you're not 21, you can't get the beer it's as simple, and as tough, as that." SEVERAL OTHER Florida uni-versities have their eyes on the project, which has style, to say the least. It's massive beams, Bavarian costumes, a planned moat and beer garden have especially drawn the eye of the University of West Florida. "You can bet they all have their eyes on us," says Hale.

"It's on a one-year trial. If it fails, they will be glad they didn't take the first Trial Moved Up FORT LAUDERDALE (A Trial of Robert John Erler, accused of being Broward County's "catch-me killer" has been moved up two days to Jan. 27. Father Of Abandoned Tivins Scheduled In Court Monday TENNESSEE WILLIAMS Converted smash hits, and on a Hot Tin Roof" became an award winning movie. But his latest play, "Descents of Myrtle," closed after a short run on Broadway.

Father LeRoy believes he celebrated the last mass heard by President John Kennedy at St. Ann Catholic Church in West Palm Beach. she said, "but he left town with the twins and this Mary." She referred to a go-go girl who was arrested at Jacksonville Beach once for topless dancing. "I just can't wait until I get may arms around my babies," she said. But she added that she hasn't the money to fly up and she's just getting on her feet financially.

It will be at least a week before juvenile authorities in Dade (Miami) and Duval (Jacksonville) counties complete their investigation and return the tots to her. OFFICIALS AT the nursery said the little girls were well taken care of by Harris and were dressed nicely when he left them there. "Sometimes he's as good as gold and sometimes he's just poof," said Mrs. Harris. She added that she had planned to try to work things out with her husband again but now will seek a legal separation.

The Harris' also have an eight-months-old boy who is being taken care of by the welfare department in Miami until Mrs.Harris gets the twins back. Meiklejohn Tells Realtors Need For Solid State Development JACKSONVILLE (UPI) -Young William Harris, who abandoned his pretty little twin daughters at a nursery, goes to court Monday for a hearing on a robbery charge. Harris, charged in a Jacksonville Beach robbery with three other men, left the 2-year-old girls, Barbara and Rita, at a local nursery Jan. 3 saying he would be back in an hour to get them. HARRIS, WHO did not identify himself before he left, did not return and the identity of the happy tots was not known for several days until he was found in the Duval County jail on the robbery charge.

The girls, whose mother is a waitress in Miami and claims that Harris took them away without her permission in December, are still in the nursery and "drinking gallons of milk." Mrs. Linda Harris, 19, said in Miami that she had separated from her husband recently and he asked to see the children. "CHRISTMAS DAY he was supposed to come back with the kids," By CHRIS SHEAROUSE SentlnH Staff "Selling Florida should be as easy as selling Playboy magazines on a troop train," said Don Meiklejohn, quoting a pundit friend of his in speaking at a meeting of the Florida Association of Realtors in Orlando Saturday. Meiklejohn, who recently stepped from the role of state beverage director to that of executive director of the Florida Development Commission, agreed that selling Florida could be easy. But the commission is "interested in attracting solid industries, not Playboy magazine-type business," quipped the stumpy Democrat.

MEIKLEJOHN DEFENDED the proposed Development Commission budget, which includes for the first time a state public relations department. He is requesting in salaries and expenses for this department. He said money for this could be provided by cutting back the estimated $4i million spent annually by the state for various state agencies' public relations. He said most of this money goes into material that winds up in newspaper office trash baskets. "We cannot promote Florida' with sawdust-in-the-transmission sales tricks.

Our promotions must be the product of a cooperative effort of a dedicated commission and a dedicated staff," he said..