Daily News from New York, New York • 271

Friday, January 26, 1990 DAILY" NEWS 15 qo0CoDgl LRJUUIJ pHlWHTIMaflM BH8 Wfill II III I 111 III Jl I Iry r.id AH 'j 3 I rV. Chinese students rip veto In New York, some Chinese students yesterday expressed anger and frustration over the Senate's failure to override President Bush's veto. "We are very frustrated," said Xin Yuan Fu, a postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at Rockefeller University. "We hoped (Congress) could do something to show that Americans are still on the side of human rights." "We feel very strongly that if we return we will be persecuted," said Lianchao Han, vice president of the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars. But some hailed the Senate vote, saying the Chinese government would have prevented future exchange programs if the veto were overridden.

Said Chen. Jun, member of a Queens-based dissident group called China Spring, "I have received many letters from people in China saying they feel (the veto override) would only help students here and that those who worked hard for democracy in China wouldn't be able to leave." James Dao By FRANK JACKMAN News Washington Bureau WASHINGTON After an all-out lobbying blitz by the White House, the Senate handed President Bush a narrow political and foreign policy victory by upholding his veto of a bill to protect Chinese students from being sent home. The vote was 62 to 37 against Bush, but it was four short of the two-thirds margin needed to override his veto. Bush, who had warned that an override would prompt China to shut the door to more student exchanges, hailed the action as "reaffirming our commitment to Chinese students in this country as well as the goal of improving relations with China." He said he thought recent liberalizing actions taken by Chinese leaders had helped to influence the vote. But his victory appeared to owe more to hard-nosed efforts by Senate Republican leaders who whipped wavering GOP members into line by warning that the majority Democrats would be tougher to deal with in the future if they beat Bush in the first big test of the year.

Former President Richard Nixon also lent a hand in persuading Republicans to stand with Bush. Bush. The other senators from the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area, all Democrats, voted for the override. During the debate. Senate Democrats portrayed the battle, in the words of Sen.

Edward Kennedy as a "referendum on human rights." But Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole (Kan.) said the showdown was "not about China policy, it's about American politics Today, we're throwing out the first ball some might say the first bull of the 1990 election Nixon, whose trip to China in 1972 opened the way for resumption of U.S. relations with Beijing, was "very concerned and very involved" in the veto battle, said Senate GOP whip Alan Simpson Only eight of the 45 Republican senators voted with the Democrats to override the veto. On Wednesday, all but 25 of the 175 Republicans in the House deserted Bush to join the Democrats in voting 390 to 25 to override the veto. New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato voted with rKtaiutn i ouan crosses nis lingers yesieraay aner rjeing asKea about the Senate vote on China students in this country.

Senate failed to override President's veto of a bill to protect Chinese students from oeing sent ap i 00 mi Bwuy By MARK KRISGEL Dining with the Don: Our restaurant critic pays the price. Arthur Schwartz column, page 60 and an underling are charged with ordering the 1986 shooting of a carpenters union leader, John O'Connor, who ran afoul of the Gambinos. The shooting was carried out by the Westies, a Hell's Kitchen gang that the Gambinos. used for strongarm purposes. Today, the trial's star informant, former Westie James preme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin ruled such testimony inadmissible "because it was not made during the course of, or in the furtherance of, the conspiracy charged in the said Gerald Lebovits, the judge's law secretary.

Gotti, the reputed boss of the Gambino Mafia family, Daily News Staff Writer The judge in the John Gotti trial yesterday barred a stool pigeon from testifying that Gotti congratulated a Hell's Kitchen gang leader "for a job well done" in shooting a carpenters union official. Acting Manhattan State Su- McElroy, will take the stand to testify that O'Connor was shot at Gotti 's behest Prosecutors say that McElroy and Westies leader Jim- By ALFRED LUERAMO my Coonan got the assignment to shoot O'Connor at a' wake for a murdered Gambino underboss. After the shooting, Gotti supposedly "congratulated the Westies for a job well-done," law-enforcement sources said. But McElroy won't be allowed to tell that to the jury because Gotti was allegedly speaking to Coonan, not McElroy. As testimony, therefore, the "congratulations" are hearsay, McLaughlin ruled.

In 1988, federal prosecutors said that "as Coonan's right hand man and chief enforcer, James McElroy has committed murder, loan-sharking and extortion." McElroy, 45, nicknamed "Studs," has a long and varied criminal resume. He is serving a 60-year federal sentence and still faces another state murder charge. echoing the sentiments at Aldo's Pizzeria, Seviroli Pastry, Oz Hardware and John's Pharmacy. Another such anonymously crafted banner was hung from an abandoned Long Island Rail Road trestle farther tip 101st Ave. at 99th St, nearer Gotti's Queens hangout the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, about two weeks ago.

Inside the club, a man playing solitaire said he was unaware of the banner's author. Asked the name of the club in which he was sitting, the man, in true Gotti-country parlance, said, "I don't even know that" Nobody knows 'nothinl ciation. "But I wish somebody would put up a sign saying, 'I love Vito. Crudely scrawled in large black letters, the mystery valentine on a white sheet has the scratchily unsteady look of a fourth-grader's Mets banner at Shea Stadium. It hangs by wires attached to a telephone pole on one side of the street and a fire escape on the third floor of an apartment house on the other.

No one in the building was home to answer questions about the sign's origins. Store owners couldn't explain, where it came from. "I don't know nothing, sir," a woman-from. Happy "Travel1 said'virtually5 Daily News Staff Writer Nobody knows nothin. Yeah, there's a banner strung across 101st Ave.

near 77th St in Ozone Park that reads, "GOOD LUCK JOHN GOTTI FROM ALL THE MERCHANTS ON 101 AVE." And yeah, it's been hanging there for a few days now, like a piece of laundry, flapping and forgotten. The only thing is, no one can say who put it up. "Hey, I can't give any light on the subject," said Vito' Narducci, a member of the 101st Ave. Merchants Asso-.