The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 1

Peaefitree a fpiie lie PoaulntiTGO Hodl Hae 118 if Morning STREET Edition Morning STREET Edition THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION CtpyrlfM 1M7 Tie AU10U Joaratl and The AtUnU ComUUUoo SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 1987. ONE DOLLAR iVleese allegedly CASTING DESTINY III CONCRETE North onors to i ia. si IS, i- i fy i M. -V By Scott Shepard Journal-Constitution Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Attorney General Edwin Meese, while serving as counselor to President Reagan, steered potential contributors to the rebels in Nicaragua to Lt. Col.

Oliver North, sources familiar with independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's investigation of the Iran-contra affair said. And according to a report by The Associated Press, a grand jury investigating the deals has heard testimony that White House aides who complained early last year that North's actions on behalf of the contras may be illegal were told that Meese had approved those actions. Meese was in Europe on Saturday and unavailable for comment. Terry Eastland, his chief spokesman at the Justice Department, declined comment about Walsh's investigation. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February that Meese's activities in the initial investigation of the Iran-contra affair had come under review by Walsh as possible obstruction of justice.

Congressional hearings last week sparked renewed criticism of Meese after one of his assistants, Charles Cooper, testified that the attorney general took no steps to protect evidence of potentially illegal activities by North. Meese served as chief counsel in the White House from 1981 until his confirmation as attorney general in 1985. The National Security Council (NSC) reported directly to Meese during that time, and it was as the president's chief counsel that Meese CLOSE CONTACT: Edwin Meese reportedly met almost weekly with Oliver North. JOEY IVANSCOStaff REINVENTING THE HU8: Field engineer Mike Bonanno surveys from an old building site in Underground Atlanta, where, In one of the most complicated undertakings in the city's history, planners hope to re-create a town center. City tests its faith on Underground Atlanta U.S.

backed MIA effort despite ban ARCHITECT'S APPRAISAL Atlanta's $140 million gamble that he, like everyone, sure is looking forward to Dante's return to the old haunt. "He always mentions it," Stephensen says. "He's quite evangelical about it" There's reason for the preacherly arm-twisting. To Young and other Atlanta movers and shakers, Underground is more than quaint shops and nightspots. It's faith in downtown, civic patriotism, municipal manifest destiny.

After six years of mayoral cajoling and cheerleading, this is the year Young's earth- By Jim Auchmutey Staff Writer Seventeen months before the debut of the new Underground Atlanta, Dante Stephensen is brooding with the passion of Hamlet. The planners of the resurrected entertainment district desperately want him to move his club, Dante's Down the Hatch, from Buckhead to the downtown grottoes he helped make famous. He's not sure what he wants. Every couple of weeks a leasing agent phones to divine his state of mind. Every night This is first in a three-part series on Underground Atlanta, the Rouse Co.

and the project's architecture. so many patrons ask whether he'll move that Stephensen has to stifle the urge to snap, "Oh, shut up!" And every time he sees Andrew Young at a civic function, the mayor introduces the restaurateur to the audience and says 14A 9A See UNDERGROUND See MEESE South Korea weighs concessions Ruling party may scrap constitution, call new elections to curb unrest Tale of white Forsyth not fully factual By Ron Martz Staff Writer The funneling of millions of dollars in private funds to support Nic-araguan rebels was not the first time the Reagan administration acted in apparent violation of established government policy in the con duct of foreign relations. In 1982 and 1983, the White House operated through the same network of wealthy conservatives to endorse private efforts to obtain information about American prisoners of war in Southeast Asia. About $200,000 was donated to firivate groups after solicitations by und-raisers who frequently worked on behalf of White House-supported causes and by others close to the administration, according to sources and financial records of one group. The donations dried up after the money failed to uncover substantial information about the more than 2,400 Americans still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.

But beginning in 1984, shortly after the private POW operation ended, the administration gave its approval for private groups to solic- See MIA 16A i win If "His candidacy should not be an obstacle for dialogue between the ruling and opposition parties," Lee Chi-ho, a national assemblyman and senior member of the ruling party, said in a television broadcast Friday night Officials of the government and of Chun's Democratic Justice Party, requesting anonymity, said the government was considering new elections for the National Assembly. Specific concessions are to be announced in the next few days. They would come after earlier conciliatory gestures by Chun, including his offer to release several hundred jailed protesters and his meeting Wednesday Thi New York Timet SEOUL, South Korea Senior members of the ruling party said Saturday that they were preparing what they described as dramatic new concessions intended to draw the opposition into negotiations that might defuse South Korea's political crisis. In what might be the most important move, the party reportedly is ready to commit itself to rewriting the nation's constitution before President Chun Doo-bwan leaves office in February. Officials said this in effect would nullify government plans to use the existing constitution to transfer power from Chun to his hand-picked successor, Roh Tae-woo, the party chairman.

According to some reports, Roh, an ally of Chun's since their army days, also may renounce his nomination as the party's presidential candidate. CHUN DOO-HWAN: South Korean president has resisted demands for reform. 18A See KOREA 'Jesus save teens cried before bus left mountain road! Candidates flock to play risky game of TV debates Sunny Clear In metro area. Low near 65 with light winds. Details, 24E By Mike Chrlstensen Staff Writer In early January 1933, two decades after black people were driven in fear from Forsyth County, L.B.

Strickland and Frances Glenn were married and settled down to live in the county's Shakerag community. Both Strickland and his bride were black. Forsyth County's racial history, as it gradually unfolds from courthouse documents and state records, is not quite living up to its 75-year-old reputation. For generations, Forsyth has been known as the place where blacks were not allowed to live. None.

The stories of 1912, of the white girl named Mae Crow who was raped, of the lynching and burning that followed, were handed down into legend, which no one questioned. Black people were all hounded from the county, the stories said, forced to leave their homes, farms and possessions to the night-riders with their torches and terror. It was the legends that drew civil rights marchers and segregationists alike to the courthouse square in dimming last winter and fixed the world's attention on what seemed a defiant bastion of racial exclusion. While there is no doubt the county's black population dropped from a thousand to a handful after the violence of 1912, and there is no doubt that many whites want it to stay that way, Forsyth's history is not written in absolutes. By John Harmon Staff Writer The bus, loaded with 27 children and three adults, struck a guardrail Friday and plummeted 50 feet down an embankment on its side, striking several oak trees.

One girl, Angela Jones, 13, was killed, and several other passengers were seriously, injured. Cathy Pooser, 15, suffered a broken neck and has not regained consciousness. She was in critical but stable condition Saturday night at Egleston Hospital, one of three Atlanta-area hospitals where the more seriously injured passengers were taken, most by helicopter. Two other youths, Terry Crew, 15, and her brother Charles, 13, who debate in Houston on Wednesday know about the gaffes that helped tip the balance in past races. Richard Nixon's face looked gray and sweat-streaked during his first debate with John F.

Kennedy in 1960. President Gerald Ford slipped up on Poland in 1976. President Jimmy Carter's homey reference to his daughter, Amy, backfired in 1980. Not only will the debaters try to avert similar disasters; some will aim higher, hoping to score a win, as when Ronald Reagan deflected President Carter's assault with the famous "There you go again" line. The Houston debate, coming seven months before a primary bal- Index VOLUMI NUMBER 4S8 PAOtt, 21 tECTIONS Arts Entertainment 1G Business IE Classifieds 30L Dixie Living 1J High Style 1Q Home Garden 1L Metro State 1B Obituaries 22E Perspective ID Southeast 10A Sports 1C Travel Guide 1F Complete Index on 2A To subscribe call 522-4141 By Julia Malono Journal-Constitution Washington Bureau WASHINGTON There they go again.

Democratic presidential candidates this week will line up before TV cameras for a full-fledged debate. After years of refinements in the art of these quadrennial forums, at least they'll know what not to do: Don't show up in makeup that streaks. Don't suggest that Poland is a free country. And don't quote your 13-year-old daughter on nuclear strategy. Avoiding blunders will be a major priority in the 1988 campaign, which started early and is shaping into the most debate-filled in history.

The seven Democratic hopefuls BLAIRSVILLE, Ga. Some young passengers held hands and prayed while others shouted for Jesus to save them as the Baptist church bus barreled faster and faster down the steep mountain road. The brakes had failed. The adult driver struggled to keep control of the orange and white bus, while another man tried unsuccessfully to jam the shift lever into a lower gear to slow the runaway vehicle. "I Just remember thinking, 'I'm going to die, but I'm glad I'm a Christian because I'm going to said David Harris, 14, a passenger on the bus from the First Baptist Church of Winter Haven, Fla.

18A See BUS 13A See FORSYTH Sce DEBATES 12 A.