Alabama Journal from Montgomery, Alabama • 35

ID THE ALABAMA JOURNAL, WEDNESDAY. MAY 1 1 991 Decade-o id yacht myst ery has new twist with fugitive's arrest By the lcx Angeles Timet were found, and searchers could find no wreckage or any trace of the yacht Freedom II. Within days, authorities expressed doubts about the sinking story. Then the two men disappeared after being interviewed by investigators. Authorities later claimed that insurance fraud had been involved in the alleged sinking of the yacht.

They connected the case with the reported theft in Los Angeles of a yacht owned by Doug Reinertson, then a 46-year-old investigator with the Las Vegas public defender's office. Mr. Reinertson was charged with insurance fraud for falsely reporting his yacht Inspiration had been stolen, and he subsequently was convicted, according to authorities. Also, about that time, insurance fraud warrants were issued for the arrest of Mr. Russell and Mr.

Dozier. According to Det. Espinoza, FBI agents found Mr, Dozier after a lengthy search touched off by a tip received from a television viewer who saw the case profiled on the NBC-TV series "Unsolved Mysteries" about two years ago. Authorities still are seeking a second man, 54-year-old John Paul "Poppa John" Russell, Det. Espinoza said.

It has been nearly 10 years since Nov. 13, 1981, when the two former Las Vegas, men were found in a cove near Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco. They said had struggled ashore after a freighter hit and sank their yacht in heavy weather. They reported that two women also on board were missing. Neither of the supposed victims, identified as Russell's wife, Suzanne, and Kristen Tomlin, 19, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Rex Shields, who later retired from the force, theorized then that that the yacht Freedom II was Mr.

Reinertson's yacht, on which he had collected $110,000 in insurance money. The detective charged in November 1982, that Mr. Dozier and Mr. Russell took the Inspiration to Richmond, repainted it and had it registered as Freedom II. Det.

Espinoza took over the case after Mr. Shields' retirement. The tip that ultimately led to Mr. Dozier's recent arrest was a telephone number for Mr. Russell's missing wife in Hawaii, Mr.

Espinoza said Tuesday. In searching for her, he said they found Mr. Dozier. But no trace of Kristen Tomlin has ever been found, Det. Espionza said.

LOS ANGELES The decade-old mystery of what happened to the 51-foot yacht Freedom II and two women reported missing from the vessel has resurfaced with the FBI's arrest of a 44-year-i old fugitive in Hawaii, Robert Dozier was taken into custody April 19 in Paauhua on the Big Island of Hawaii on a warrant naming him as a grand-theft suspect in the case of a yacht falsely reported missing from a Los Angeles Harbor slip in June 1981. Los Angeles Police Department detective Rob- ert Espineraraid Tuesday he plans to fly to Ha-t waii next week to return Mr. Dozier to face the theft charge. Mr. Dozier has waived extradition, he said.

1 Del ico Diplomats say U.N. may police Kurdish camps take inju red from villages otters Armenia's first deputy prime minister, Gevork Vartanyan, according to the official Tass news agency. Officials in Georgia said the earth was still shaking and settling today in the Onei region of the north-central Caucasus Mountains. The village of Khakhietj was destroyed by tons of rock that slid from the side of a mountain. About 40 people were buried.

"It was awful," said Georgian Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua, who viewed the village from a helicopter. "Simply put, it was a nightmare." Prime Minister Sigua said he expected the death toll to rise as more complete reports are received from villages where communications were cut off by the quake. Other towns such as Sachkhere did not suffer as much as Khak-hieti but still had their share of death and destruction. The independent Iberian news -agency said 25 people were killed in and around Sachkhere. Power in the town was out.

A two-story railroad station was wrecked with a collapsed roof. Wind kicked up dust that swirled through a traffic circle in the middle of town that was serving as a makeshift rescue center, with gasoline tanker trucks, cranes and emergency generators. About 60 families camped in tents on a soccer field. "I think a lot about why it happened, but I have not come up "with any answers," said Nana Shugakidze, who was standing at a campfire amid the tents. She said she was working In a medical clinic when the quakes-truck and was briefly trapped in the rubble, managing to free herself.

Ms. Shugakidze said she ran to the school her two sons attended and found them safe, already standing outside. A group of 43 rescuers from posed by Prime Minister Major, is a complex and delicate way of bringing U.N. forces into the area without the need to obtain formal approval through a Security Council resolution. It is widely assumed that the Soviet Union and China might veto such a resolution as interference in Iraq's internal affairs.

But the two countries seem willing to acquiesce to the transfer of U.N. police to northern Iraq if President Saddam Hussein can be persuaded to accept them. "If the Iraqi government gives permission, why not?" Soviet Ambassador Yuli M. Voront-sov told journalists. Chinese Ambassador Li Daoyu appeared to agree; The arrival of a U.N.

police force, guaranteeing security to the Kurdish refugees still fearful and supicious of President Saddam, would enable the U.S. and other allied troops to withdraw. It is obvious that the Bush administration through personal pleas from U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and telephone calls from President Bush has tried hard to dispell Mr. Perez de Cuellar's early doubts about the plan.

At first, the secretary-general said that he could not send a U.N. police force -r technically, a type of U.N. peacekeeping force to northern Iraq without authorization from the Security Council. But Monday he seemed to change his mind, saying, "Perhaps the Security Council is not needed." American and British officials have argued that authorization already is implied in the Security Council resolution passed in early April that condemned Iraa for its repression and instructed the United Nations to use all its resources to mount a relief operation for the Kurdish and other refugees. President Bush, in fact, invoked this resolution to justify his dispatch of U.S.

troops to northern Iraq to create a kind of relief enclave for the Kurdish refugees. According to U.S. sources. Mr. Perez de Cuellar is expected to ask Prince Saddrudin Aga Khan, the head of the U.N.

relief operation in Iraq, to go to Baghdad to seek Iraqi approval of the U.N. police force. By 1t Los Angeles Tlmw UNITED NATIONS U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, under swelling pressure from impatient British and American leaders, began steps Tuesday to try to persuade Iraq to accept an allied plan for a force of U.N. police to take over security from American and other allied troops at Kurdish relief camps, diplomatic sources said.

After receiving a sharp letter of rebuke from British Prime Minister John Major, Mr. Perez de Cuellar met at U.N. headquarters with Iraqi Ambassador Abdul Amir Anbari. The U.N. police force plan, pushed hard by the United States, Britain and France, obviously was a major issue in their discussions.

But afterward, Ambassador Anbari would not comment on his government's position, telling reporters, "This is only an idea, not a formal proposal." Iraqi approval is the missing keystone to the U.N. police plan. But, while Iraq publicly disdained the plan Tuesday as another infringement on its sovereignty, Iraqi leaders may feel privately that they have little choice but to go along. Evidently as a means of applying pressure on Iraq, the U.N. Security Council sanctions committee, clearly under American influence, again refused Tuesday to take up Iraq's request to be allowed to sell almost $100 million worth of oil and unfreeze $1 billion worth of assets held in American, Swiss, Japanese and British banks to buy food and medicine.

In his letter to Mr. Perez de Cuellar, Prime Minister Major, according to British government sources, complained about the United Nations' slowness in supplying relief to the Kurds and urged the swift dispatch of a U.N. police force to the scene. Prime Minister Major warned that thousands of Kurds could still die in the mountains if U.N. personnel do not provide supplies, shelter and security more quickly as the Kurds struggle from mountain camps on the Iraqi-Turkish frontier to an enclave around Zahko.

The U.N. police plan, first pro By the Associated Pi SACHKHERE, U.S.S.R. Helicopters evacuated more injured people from remote mountain villages today, two days after an earthquake ripped through Soviet Georgia, killing at least 81 people. More than 100 people were missing, 500 injured and 80,000 homeless, said Archil Kostava, prefect of Kutaisi, the city closest to the hardest-hit area. The devastation of hillside villages could be clearly seen from helicopter.

In the village of Sachkhere was nothing but a mpss of concrete rubble, smashed wood and collapsed red clay roofs. In nearby Chordi, huge cracks cut zig-zags across lush green fields and dirt roads. Qne fissure swallowed a farm building only its red metal roof was still visible. Workers were digging through Ikn unuuibnita tt in fin pi apartment building in Sachkhere. "We know there are still peo- pie in the ruins, but there's no way they're alive," said Besik Kukateladze, an official in the village, where the quake flattened a third of the homes and damaged many others.

Monday's quake, which registered 7.1 on the Richter scale, had" its epicenter near Mount Samertskhie, 90 nujs northwest of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Official mourning was declared throughout the southern republic of 5.3 million people, which proclaimed independence from tb Soviet Union this year, t. 'Aiorcame in today from other republics, including neighboring Armenia, where 25,000 people were killed by an earthquake three years ago. "We cannot forget the help that our Georgian brothers gave Armenia in the first hours after the 1988 earthquake," said Building in Ambrolauri, U.S.S.R., was badly damaged was fortunate that the quake occurred at midday Monday, when children were released from school for recess. "We were very, very lucky, because all the children were outside," he said.

"Otherwise, the disaster would be 20 to 30 times worse." Rescuers managed to save 30 miners trapped in the Barital barium mine high in the Caucasus Mountains near the quake't epicenter, said Georgia's deputy health minister, Merab Ketash-vili. "None of them were injured, although several were short of breath," he said by telephone. Gorbachev faces mild May Day protests Kuwait's oil reservoir may be fouled by water Moscow arrived Tuesday night in Sachkhere, but city official Alexander Cherbakov said, "They aren't needed." Only one person was pulled alive from a wrecked building the day before. Some survivors were pulled from shattered houses days after the 1988 quake in Armenia, but there was little chance of that in Georgia, he said. "There were no hills there" in Armenia.

Mr. Cherbakov said, noting the mountains of rock that flattened homes in the Georgian towns minimized chances for survival. Prime Minister Sigua said it The sarvey was to a random sarrple of 2.430 irm-hers of the American Sooety of CLnxal Oncoiory. or oe-lhird of the JL br Trvtrx'-rT Puck 1 C3A. or 43 percent retpoMed.

Lei itatxtt of en a prtrrrttoi bat the ef a i Jt Xb fvmh In PEA ircd tS ch-jre c4 am dJiftratr law fi a-! i tk r-l til Ve. p-rrr carver feli At te I I rwirtswH (. c-f- -fi La 'a. tn curity a dampening was the Even could not hundred dictator "Comrade ashamed of the Union!" who spoke bloc of portraits allegiance Party of white ctarut police, sealed off downtown, prevent-ing planned counterdemonstration and the already grim mood. The turnout lowest in decades.

with the restrictions, authorities prevent the infiltration of several admirers of Josef Stalin, the Soviet from 1929 to 1953. Gorbachev' You ought to be to have the post of General Secretary Communist Party of the Soviet shouted marcher Viktor Ampilov, through a megaphone and led a hard liners, some of whom carried of Stalin and anu Semitic placards. Anti-Semites alo demonstrated in Leningrad. About 1.000 people, proclaiming to the newly formed Republican Rus.ua. earned black, yellow and banners, a ivmbol of the neo-fascist group.

loons, papier-mache flowers and placards bearing slogans approved by the party. This year, the customary huge portraits of Lenin, Karl Marx and Frederic Engels were absent from the GUM department store on Red Square, replaced by rainbow-colored billboards extolling "Peace and Happiness," "May" and "Success in Labor." "The working people today demand that the breakup of the state be stopped, ihe economy be brought to order and people be given an opportunity to work ami earn a decent salary," said Vladimir Shcherbakov, head of the Federation of Trade Unions. "It's time that all who are vested with pern-er must be held responsible for it." Mr. Shcherbakov said in one of a half dozen official speeches. He stood beside President Gorbachev atop the mausoleum.

In Moscow, thousands of KGB and Interior Ministry troops, along with plainclothes se MOSCOW Workers and official speakers alike criticized Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev today in a May Day march that larked the pro-Communist fanfare of years past but was more subdued than recent anti-government protests. Kremlin authorities successfully prevented a repeat of last year's May Day demonstration, when thousands of reformers marched into Red Square, shouted anti-Communist slogans, and humiliated President Gorbachev and other members of the Politburo standing atop Lenin's mausoleum. Today, the crowd was limited to the number of people ho could fit into the square at on time. Most people were subdued and filed out quietly after exactly one hour. In pit yean, officially ortaniied crowds have marched for hours, earning bright bal doctors say legalize medical marijuana KUWAIT CITY.

Kuwait Many of Kuwait's burning oil wells now show evidence that the nation's vast underground petroleum reservoir is losing pressure and has been fouled by water, a development that experts say could significantly boost the cost of producing the oil and shorten the life span of Kuwait's reserves Most of the 500 well fires still burning across Kuwait produce evil black clouds of soot But lately, the oilfields are dolled with billows of pretty white smoke. For the reservoir managers of the Kuwait Oil Co however, the white smoke is ominous; It signals steam, and steam means water is fouling the reservoir, perhaps enough to reduce Kuwait 100 year supply of ol by 10 or 20 years, according to Kuwaiti oil officials and outside experts- "The reservoir is damaged. That much is certain." said Basil Butler, former managing director of Bntuh Petroleum and former chief petroleum engineer for Kuwait Oil Co, after touring the fields Sunday. "The extent of the damage is unknown but the steam is clearly not a good sf again, oil eipert say, will Kuwaiti oil be so eay and so cheap to produce. "CoU will ne.

perhaps mnificantly." sad VSorub Yaeem. general supervisor for rrmotr Before the Iraqis set the fields afire. Kuwait produced oil almost efforUesily. The cheap cost of production made Kim am oil officials push hard to keep prices down so they could sell more Before the invasion, Kuwait could bripg Oil frora the ground for about tl a barrel That fifure may bow triple, a the combined damage of Irxji tabouce, allied bco-Nir and unchecked bsrmrg takes its toll Even t.Se capping we enr-pies some berd repair, caking sew dnI.r,g necery ka fiekSs have torg been famous foe their pressure 1 puTped ia tV Ir.ited State, which m-rt flea be coaied to the urfce with tt irjectioi of gas. the Kirwa.li re-rnrosr bef tq veered ty a of water U-m furrounds the Oil f- "Tey rtve temfkawy water drive," Mr.

jr Ai ye Uie IM o-i ovrt. tfee rr ae b4ew th ref-lred ty water. Water prwrirt Many cancer 1 PHILADELPHIA Half of all cancer specialuu to a survey have rec- ommerKied arcana to paueeu nauseated by chemotherapy perrert UurJk it shcvsJd be Ve-i2 for iedii4l use. re-, it yn sad today. Tfce Drag EsferceKeet Its tilt doctors tft'y recorejmd to rebev a-3e cS-d fcj crtNnry rJ to if jwt pt'jnti' appetne ia tve tii if to eearcNrs at the agency's chief, tharictemed cUimt of medical im fulneu as a "cruel and darje rows hoax." A federal arPU court ent the case back to the DEA on Friday, ordering tbe afency to its cntena tor currently acceded iredKa! ttte." Hr ITtetlis sid tui wrvey radicated tfee DEA i -ice', rs'ed tNe e'e-t of ft acrr4-ir of the rrrd of rr, rt "At the art a ierj a.Wf ruwrty cf a'i vsr-rts i tbe rMiI te 4" be Me nd ra- Harvard t'nivernty's John F.

Kennedy School of GovemrowJt, 44 percent of the re pond. 'g oneo kr its M-d they had reewn-mended naryuan to at least orse pa tie t. Ia dd.uon. 43 percent sdl they wowkj precnb the Jrf if it were trmL 33 percert aa-d they Peeked rxsre a before deod.rf arJ 12 pwefit sad they r4 take Ut of a Vae its laws Fij -r perron r-rrcrted a--1 44 presl were tppte to 1' A lev.rr -J tV msntf was it tie A. tf Mf--- in.