The Montgomery Advertiser from Montgomery, Alabama • 1

LOW Pasel4E CI lil 1 1L i 91L tllil Weather details, 18A V'" m's 1 -7 ywyiiy -v MOOT MEW ADERTI FEBRUARY 17, 1994 Incorporating The Alabama Journal FINAL EDITION 35C HIGH (STOP slim Some veterans wait years for cases to be heard Soaring: By the end of fiscal year 1995, the backlog of pending claims could hit 870,000 By Jim Abrams ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER WASHINGTON America's 'military veterans often must wait for decisions on compensation for injury or illness, the government and upset veterans' groups say. The federal claims backlog is soaring toward one 'million. currently exists in VA's Compensation and Pension Service," Joseph Violante of Disabled American Veterans testified before Congress. Appeals board delays "have become unconscionable and intolerable." John Hanson of the American Legion said other issues "must not be allowed to overshadow the true crisis" in the claims process and "the impact this is having on the lives of tens of thousands of veterans and their families." "Overall, the system stinks," said Sam Ledwith, 73, a former Marine who fought in the Pacific in World War II and in the Korean War. Mr.

Ledwith, of Valley Stream, N.Y., recently learned after four years of appeals and an even longer period of hospital visits that the VA was restoring a 40 percent disability Please turn to VETERANS, 10A ing the battle of coping with the tens of thousands of new claims for compensation and pensions coming in every year. Four years ago, the backlog of pending claims was 377,000. By the end of fiscal year 1995, the VA estimates it could hit 870,000. On average, it takes more than 200 days to get an initial compensation claim processed, and a veteran can expect to wait more than two years to get a decision from the Board of Veterans Appeals. VA Secretary Jesse Brown said the backlog "remains one of the foremost concerns" in the Veterans Benefits Administration, predicting that claims completed will actually decline in the immediate future because of new legal requirements and the more complex nature of today's claims.

Veterans' groups are up in arms over the delays. "We believe that a crisis situation, approaching a state of emergency, Ti 7 r-v ment acknowledges it is now los DBDOlD'Saci MORRIS DEES and the SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER TT 0 liiiilQ OTEli ili ill Voting record Special session: The governor signed paperwork to keep lawmakers in the capital this spring J-- --4. By Mary Orndorff ADVERTISER STAFF WRITER Once accused of being on a railroadlike path into the law books, Gov. Jim Folsom school reform plan lost most, if THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The vote by which the Alabama House Rules Committee refused to put Gov. Jim Folsom education plan on the House work agenda Wednesday: Voting against (12): Reps.

Jenkins Bryant, D-Newbern; James Buskey, D-Mobile; Jim Campbell, D-Anniston; Jim Car-ns, R-Birmingham; Joe Caroth-ers, D-Dothan; William Clark, D-Prichard; Albert Hall, D-Gurley; Ron Johnson, D-Sylacauga; Tony Petelos, R-Pleasant Grove; Allen Sanderson, R-Birmingham; James Warren, D-Castleberry; and Frank White, D-Flomaton. Voting for (5): Reps. Tommy Carter, D-Elkmont; Joe Ford, D-Gadsden; Bob Harvey, D-Oneonta; Clarence Haynes, D-Talladega; and Bobbie McDowell, D-Bessemer. not all, of its steam Wednesday when a House committee refused to bring it up. Lawmakers still have Mallroom workers at the Southern Poverty Law Center process donor mall In August 1992.

Last year, an average of more than $31,000 a day poured Into the center. MARK MILLERSTAFF more than half of the session to answer a judge's order to improve schools, but just in case they don't, the governor signed paperwork to keep them in Montgomery this spring the heart of campaign season. "I want them to think long and hard about the court order," Gov. Folsom said in a news conference within minutes of the damaging vote. He decried special interest groups for "flagrantly and inhumanely short-circuiting the legislative process," then called the action of the 17-member House Please turn to PLAN, 7A Graphic appeals lifeblood of center INSIDE: Reaction: Wayne Flynt blasts legislators for voting down Folsom plan.

1C. Poverty Law Center anything but poorCA Some donors unaware of center's weaithSA Law Center aggressively solicits funds while reserves grow7 A Lawmen arrest 12 in major drug bust of Mr. Dees' fund raising Others include Dennis Balske, the Law Center's former legal director; Millard Fuller, a former business partner of Mr. Dees who now is president of Habitat for Humanity International, a charity that builds homes for poor people; and Jody Powell, former President Jimmy Carter's press secretary. Three major charity watchdog organizations also have faulted the Law Center for using misleading fund-raising letters.

Critics contend the letters plead for money without fully explaining that millions are put into the Law Center's reserve fund. During the Seraw "much-needed funds" campaign, for example, the Law Center had reserves of more than $24 million. Today, it has reserves of $52 million. Mr. Dees said donors are made fully aware of the reserve fund.

But the Advertiser contacted six donors quoted in center literature, and none knew the size of the fund. Critics also contend the Law Center exaggerates the threat posed by violent racists, particularly in the South. Please turn to APPEALS, 7A By Dan Morse ADVERTISER STAFF WRITER Four years ago, people throughout the United States received an alarming letter from Morris Dees, the co-founder and driving force behind the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery. Mr. Dees wanted money for legal expenses; he was suing white supremacists on the West Coast.

Enclosed in the letter was a small brown envelope with the message: "WARNING. DO NOT OPEN this envelope unless you are prepared to be shocked." Inside, a close-up autopsy photograph showed a bloody gash down the back of Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw's head. Oregon skinheads had cracked it open with a bat. Mr. Dees contended the California-based White Aryan Resistance incited the violence.

"Let me know today we can count on your help in this crucial legal struggle against racial violence," Mr. Dees wrote. Emotional direct-mail solicitations like these are the financial lifeblood of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Mr. Dees is considered a genius when it comes to pushing the right buttons of potential donors. In the past five years, donors have responded with more than $40 million.

Was the Seraw mailing successful? "Nothing. That was a loser," Mr. Dees said in an interview with the Montgomery Advertiser. "It didn't work for this reason: It was confusing to a potential donor to see how a group in Alabama was representing an Ethiopian person in Oregon for a crime committed in California." Such a businesslike summary of the mailing's results is telling of how Mr. Dees markets his causes, his critics say.

"He (Mr. Dees) is the civil rights movement's television evangelist," said Millard Farmer, an Atlanta defense lawyer and nationally known death penalty opponent. "Making money achievement for him. That's got to be involved in the enterprise with him." Mr. Farmer, who feuded with Mr.

Dees in 1978 over the Law Center's funding of death penalty cases, is not the only critic clined to comment Wednesday. In a brief interview Wednesday night, Mr. Wells, who once owned a nightclub, said he understood the charge against him to be possession with intent to distribute cocaine. In a statement released Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Jim Wilson announced the arrests had been made, but because of the nature of the drug bust, federal and local officials questioned Tuesday refused to identify anyone arrested.

The statement did include that 16 kilograms, or 35.2 pounds of cocaine, and a large amount of cash had been seized. Please turn to BUST, 10A By Carla Crowder ADVERTISER STAFF WRITER Authorities seized more than 35 pounds of cocaine and arrested 12 suspects including at least one Montgomery businessman believed connected to a major interstate cocaine-distribution ring located in central Alabama. Jerald "Jerry" Wells of Montgomery was arrested Tuesday on federal drug charges and placed in Montgomery City Jail. He has been released on bond, the amount of which was unavailable Wednesday, said Officer C.L. Davis, a jail official.

Officer Davis referred questions to U.S. Marshals, who de 1 7 MM Surgeon pioneers endoscopic fetal surgery DAILY PLANET: Summary of today's newspaper. See 2A. New frontier: Such surgery could provide a weapon against abnormalities Jackson 7 a.m today to 7 a.m. Friday poses unlimited possibilities." Operating on a fetus is extremely rare because of the risks it poses to the mother and baby by opening the womb.

But doctors wondered whether endoscopic surgery performing operations through needle-sized holes guided by miniature cameras inside the body would be safer. Such surgery is becoming commonplace in adults, but had failed repeatedly in fetuses, with the exception of one case in Britain. Please turn to FETAL, 10A ft Such surgery represents a "new frontier in fetal medicine" and could provide a new weapon against a variety of abnormalities, doctors said Wednesday. "There is a parallel in adult surgery 20 years ago women were not having hysterectomies through their belly button," said Dr. David Cotton, chief of obstetrics at Wayne State University in Detroit, where the operation, the first successful use of the technique, was performed.

"What you're seeing for the first time is a fetus has undergone this type of surgery. It ft BUSINESS 12A LIFE IB CLASSIFIED 9B.5C LOCAL NEWS 1C COFFEE BREAK 4B MOVIES 17E COMICS 5B OBITUARIES 4C CROSSWORD 4B SPORTS ID. EDITORIAL 16-17. TV LOG 3B GOVERNMENT 3C WEATHER 18A By Lauran Neergaard ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER WASHINGTON Surgeons using tiny needles and a miniature camera saved a fetus endangered by his malformed twin without cutting open the mother's womb. We recycle paper and use soy-based Inks.

A Multimedia Newspaper 0 1994 The Advertiser Co. Vol. 167, No. 48 56 Pages.