The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 1

FIRST CARBON, MONROE AND SCHUYLKILL COUNTIES WW JONES: DOWN 31.13 Page B6 PARTLY SUNNY 70V50 Page BIO business Approval likely for Conrail sale PAGE B6 LOCAL SPORTS Phillies' first pick: Pat The Bat' Burrell PAGE CI morn: A.M. MAGAZINE Carbon wrangles over GOP committee race PAGE Bl Cookbook offers fat-free sweets PAGE Dl 500 1998 The Morning Call Inc. All Rights Reserved WEDNESDAY JUNE 3, 1998 NO. 38,594 OTB fcrodkein) LbegjnoD mmassiwe effort off dteaiiniiup dltd turf war heats up Pocono Downs seeks to keep Phila. Park from operating in Allentown.

By RON DEVLIN Of The Morning Call The licensing hearing on Philadelphia Park's application to operate an off-track betting business in Allen-town turned into a horse race for the largest stakes in Pennsylvania the last OTB license and the right to compete in the state's most lucrative horse-betting market. Pocono Downs, which operates an OTB in suburban Allentown, launched an aggressive campaign Monday to deny Philadelphia Park a license to operate Allentown Turf Club, a proposed OTB in the former Laneco supermarket on Lehigh Street. At a joint hearing of the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission and the Pennsylvania Harness Racing Commission, held at Day's Inn in South Whitehall Township, Pocono Downs officials argued that competition from the proposed turf club would devastate their $58-mil-lion-a-year wagering business at The Downs in Hanover Township, Lehigh County. Please See STAKES Page A7 wrr. rmMmtw agyvy-ryn vcejS-JSjj i 3 VPj I -1 Sff' -w: Steady stream of volunteers turns out in tiny hard-hit Berks town.

Pike starts cleanup B1 By MARTIN PFLIEGER Of The Morning Call Members of the Kerper family stood alone Monday outside their. demolished Berks County faced with the daunting task of putting their lives back together in the wake of Sunday night's tornado. But any helplessness they might have felt quickly vanished Tuesday morning as a steady stream of people from neighboring farms and from Lancaster and Shippensburg trekked up their driveway in Richmond Township wearing work gloves and toting chain saws. More than two dozen volunteers took some direction from William Kerper and in no time the sound of Pennsylvania German dialect spoken by the Mennonite volunteers mixed with the sounds of chain saws, a bulldozer, a crackling fire burning debris and hammers against wood. Some of the volunteers were in their second day of volunteering.

"It really shows you how great it is to have neighbors who are so thoughtful and considerate," Kerper said. Helping hands were fully extended Tuesday across eastern Berks County as the massive job of cleaning up and rebuilding escalated. In Lyons, where dozens of homes were hit especially hard by the tornado, emergency personnel had more offers to help than they could readily handle. Please See RIDGE Page A3 DON FISHER The Morning Call Workers help clean up the tornado-damaged home of William Kerper (center, with beard) Tuesday in Richmond Township. Starr asks high court for help S3 Monica Lewinsky hires 2 veteran criminal lawyers to replace William Ginsburg.

Li Waming system worked, officials say if r. I c.s I The word went out over television, telephone, radio, or from neighbors as tornado neared. By JOE McDERMOTT Of The Morning Call They got the word by television or telephone. They heard it on the radio or from neighbors. The bottom line, say regional emergency management officials and weather forecasters, is the existing advance warning system for severe weather or other pending disaster does work.

"Absolutely," said Brian Gottschall of the Berks County Emergency Management Agency. "The residents we talked to indicated they had more than adequate warning and that was evidenced by the lack of fatalities or injuries." The F-3 tornado mid-range in the Fu-jita measurement scale that swept By PETE YOST Of The Associated Press WASHINGTON Declaring President Clinton is "under serious criminal investigation," Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to compel reluctant Secret Service employees and a top White House aide to testify before a grand jury. Starr asked the high court to consolidate in one urgent appeal the dispute over testimony by three Secret Service employees with the White House's effort to keep presidential confidant Bruce Lindsey from answering certain grand jury questions in the Monica Lewinsky investigation. "We will be blunt: The nation has a compelling interest that this criminal investigation of the president of Please See STARR Page A8 through Lyons and Bowers Sunday night left an unusually large 8.5-mile-long, 300-yard-wide swath of destruction, but better radar technology and emergency alert systems helped the National Weather Service get the word out fast, said meteorologist joe Micetta. "What really shocked me was that people got the warning and knew what to do about it," said Micetta, who spent Monday viewing the damage in Berks County and interviewing survivors.

"A lot of times people say they didn't get the warning, but if you are not listening to TV or radio, how would you?" Marko Bourne, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, said that, despite Sunday's tornado outbreak, the state's level of tomadic activity does not warrant changes to its advance, warning system. "Quite frankly, we don't see a problem Please See WARNING Page A3 A DON FISHER The Morning Call GPU employees string new power lines Tuesday in Lyons. The old ones fell Sunday when a tornado ripped through the small Berks County town. INDEX Report links Vatican with Croatian Nazis immediately return a phone call. National, World Section A Local, Business Section Sports Section A.M.

Magazine Section college where war criminals took U.S. has long known "Answers may only exist in Vatican and Croatian and Serbian archives. A full 09 Dining B6 Letters C7 Lottery Movies A15 People Bridge Business Classified Comics Comment D4 A14 A2 04 A2 02 accounting should be Church was communism," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Si. mon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. His organization asked Pope John Paul II late last year to open its archives to search for Ustasha regime and Nazi gold "We're not holding our breath," Cooper said, noting thst the Vatican only recently released documents on the Inquisition which was 500 years ago.

-The report, produced mainly by the State Department with contributions from other government agencies, said the pontifical College of San Girolamo was a refuge Please See VATICAN Page A8 made. The United States has long known about the Rome pipeline for hiding fascist Croatian leaders because U.S. Army intelligence also used it to shuttle former Nazis secretly to South America, said the report, which relied on recently declassified U.S. documents. With postwar concerns focusing on the Soviet Union, U.S.

officials helped anti-Communist leaders and politicians, most notably Klaus Barbie, to safety despite their wartime records. Pope Pius XII was anti-Communist as well. "From the Vatican's point of view, the No. 1 enemy of civilization as seen by the Catholic sanctuary. The Vatican connection was raised in the second U.S.

report on Nazi gold, a document focusing on how neutral nations provided Germany with materials for weapons and goods during World War IL Stuart Eizenstat, U.S. undersecretary of state for economics, urged the Vatican to search its records on Croatia's Ustasha regime, which may have escaped with up to $80 million. "Answers may only exist in Vatican and Croatian and Serbian archives," Eizenstat said. "A full accounting should be made." Eizenstat said Vatican officials told him such a search would be about Rome pipeline for hiding fascist leaders. By LAURA MYERS Of The Associated Press WASHINGTON The Vatican may have helped leaders of the Nazi-backed fascist regime in Croatia escape after World War II with plundered gold and other valuables from Holocaust victims, a U.S.

report concluded Tuesday. "It seems unlikely that they were entirely unaware of what was going on," the report said of Pope Pius XII and his advisers, who helped run a Rome pontifical Deaths A12.C7 Television Stuart Eizenstat U.S. State Department mcall. Will) The Morning Call's online source. http:www.mcall.com difficult.

Previously, Vatican officials said they could not find any Nazi gold-related records. A Vatican spokesman did not Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre Call 821-8300, Enter 7529 For Show Ticket Info. Musikfest Memories Contest Call 821-8300. Enter 7664 Win Musikfest Tix More WIN SPICE GIRLS TICKETS! Call 821-8300, Enter 7697 Play Spice Girls Trivia Allentown Fair Box Office Open Call 821-8300, Enter 5421 For Grandstand Show Details Win Nascar Racing Event Tix At Pocono Raceway Call 821-8300, Enter 7223 All Flower Hang Bskts All Perennials Buy 1 Get 1 Free Dan Schantz Greenhouse, Emma us.