Okmulgee Daily Times from Okmulgee, Oklahoma • 4

Page 4, Okmulgee Daily Times, Friday, May 18, 1990 Okmalge? DAILY TIMES Did CIA reap profits from bank fraud? By Robert Walters from court documents, sworn testi- Nugan Hand Bank was explored in a mony, law enforcement records and 1987 book, "The Crimes of Patriots: A ETTA 1990 FORT WORTH STAR- TELEGRAM HULME NEA FIRST ROBIN OF EASTERN EUROPE HOUSTON (NEA) What role did the Mafia and the Central Intelligence Agency play in the looting and collapse of savings and loan associations in Texas and elsewhere in the country? For almost a year, the Houston Post has been probing for answers to that intriguing question. Its investigation, conducted under the leadership of veteran journalist Pete Brewton, has produced disturbing results. 'A number of sources, including a former Justice Department prosecutor, have told the Post they are convinced the CIA either masterminded or condoned a certain amount of fraud," says David Burgin, editor of the spunky newspaper. "The Post has found evidence suggesting a possible link between the CIA and organized crime in the failure of at least 22 thrifts, including 16 in Texas," says the first of the paper's reports, published earlier this year. The in other states include one apiece in Florida, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Kansas, Louisiana and Colorado.

The Texas include four in Houston, five in Dallas and one each in Austin, Lubbock, Wichita Falls, Llano, Cameron, Alvin and Kingsville. "Eighteen of the 22 were either owned or controlled by people with links to organized crime, the CIA or both. And in each institution's failure, fraud was a key factor," the paper says. "The evidence obtained by the Post interviews with key government investigators and prosecutors suggests that the CIA may have used part of the proceeds from fraud to help pay for covert operations and other activities that Congress was unwilling to support publicly," it adds. Brewton says his probe of failures "has found numerous links between organized crime figures and CIA operatives, including some involved in gun running, drug smuggling, money laundering and covert aid to the Nicaraguan contras." He quotes Lloyd Monroe, a former prosecutor with the Justice Department's organized crime strike force, as saying that the federal agencies mandated to probe fraud are "being precluded from investigating wrongdoing that is possibly being conducted in the name of national security." Adds Monroe: "How do you expect the government to investigate itself?" Brewton cites an unrelated mid1980s attempt by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe the collapse of a small commercial bank in Kansas.

In that case, he says, the FBI was waved off by the CIA, which designated a key figure in the investigation as being "off limits." Because both the CIA and the Mafia have to do their banking somewhere, their involvement with commercial banks and is hardly surprising. It has only rarely been documented, however. The CIA's alleged extensive involvement in a host of unlawful operations financed through Australia's True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA," by Jonathan Kwitny. Currently pending in U.S. District Court in Baltimore is a civil suit filed by a former vice president of the First National Bank of Baltimore, Robert Maxwell, who alleges that his ex-employer assisted the CIA in illegally laundering money and establishing secret accounts to finance more than $20 million worth of covert weapons deals.

First National denies the charges. In Washington, CIA Director William Webster recently turned down a request to appear before the House subcommittee investigating fraud to respond to the Post's revelations. Instead, he wrote a letter to the congressional panel summarily dismissing the paper's work as "scurrilous and Meanwhile, Brewton's reports have attracted the attention of news media ranging from New York's Village Voice, the country's leading alternative weekly newspaper, to National Public Radio. But the nation's largest and most influential news-gathering organizations unfortunately remain reluctant to join Brewton in exploring the murky world of the the CIA and the Mafia. 1990 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.

ROBERT WALTERS they fear homosexuals may try to seduce heterosexual soldiers? And if so, do they seriously believe homosexuals are going to be successful in that regard, or pose any threat, among the population of red-blooded, gung-ho heterosexuals the military has historically attracted? In July 1988, the Marine Corps -martialed Sgt. Cheryl Jameson for engaging in a lesbian relationship with a former recruit. The affair did not happen while Jameson was training the recruit. The Marines sentenced her to a year in prison, then demoted and dishonorably discharged her. In the same case, the Marines deprived another woman Marine of supplementary pay she was due as a drill instructor, put a negative report in her file.

This Marine, former Staff Sgt. Christine Rene Hilinski, had nothing to do with the lesbian incident; and during her 11 years as a Marine, she had received nothing but outstanding evaluations. Hilinski's crime? While testifying as a character witness for the defendant, she was asked by a prosecutor if she agreed with what Jameson had "done, what she has pled guilty to?" Hilinski answered that since the homosexual affair didn't happen while Jameson was training the recruit, she had no bad opinion of it. You don't have to have an opinion risy of a system that puts a female soldier in prison for making love to another woman, while shunning any responsibility for the actions of its male soldiers who have impregnated women and abandoned their children around the world. And as regards the Pentagon's "No Gays" policy, I can only guess that those in charge have never known or worked with responsible credits to their jobs and communities.

My experience with gays as friends, acquaintances and co-workers has been so positive, all I can think is that Uncle Sam should be so lucky. Perhaps a government so blind doesn't deserve to benefit from the talents of the many high-quality people, who happen to be gay, who would like to serve it. Trouble is, it is their right as American citizens to serve in their country's military. It's time that either the Supreme Court or the Congress makes sure that right is respected. 1990 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.

Military policy on gays is hypocritical cal By Sarah Overstreet what the Pentagon is afraid of. Do of Jameson's actions to see the hypoc- Three gay people made headlines recently. Two of them, Miriam BenShalom and James M. Woodward, were in the news because the Supreme Court rejected their appeals to be allowed to continue to serve in the military. For the third, Armistead Maupin, it is the second time he's hit the news.

The first time was almost 20 years ago, when he won a military commendation from then-President Richard Nixon. Now Maupin has been in People magazine because he's a best-selling author and because he is gay. How ironic that Maupin should resurface just at the time the Pentagon's "No Gays Allowed" policy is receiving so much publicity. Maupin might not have had to go to Vietnam at all. He joined the Navy and volunteered for the war.

Afterward, he returned as a civilian to help rebuild the war-torn country. Yet the Pentagon doesn't believe his ilk deserve the opportunity to serve their country: Ben-Shalom, a sergeant in army Reserve, has been forbidden to re-enlist because she is a lesbian; Woodward was booted from the Navy because he is a homosexual. Set aside for the moment that these people are being discriminated against solely because of their sexual preference; I'm bewildered as to just Teen Pregnancy Birth rates (births per 1,000 women per year) among women aged 15-19 in selected countries Bangladesh 237 Kenya 168 Indonesia 115 Mexico 104 Thailand 62 United States 52 England Wales 28 Canada 25 Sweden 1 12 In Bangladesh, almost one-quarter of all women between the ages of 15 and 19 give birth to a child the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. HOSTAGES 5-C IRANIAN CURRENCY By William A. Rusher But in a fascinating article in the of this natural buffering." Don't believe the 'acid rain' myth It's a good thing for the more extreme environmentalists that they have largely managed to change the subject from "acid rain" to such untestable hypotheses as "the greenhouse effect," for research on the mer has pretty well exploded its alleged factual basis.

Acid rain, it turns out, is not the cause of fishless lakes in the northeastern United States and Canada. Unfortunately, the political response to the environmentalists' earlier shrieks on the subject is only now taking shape as law. As a result, Americans will shortly find themselves ponying up several billion dollars a ye. for "improvements" in emission standards that won't solve the problem, while overlooking a much less expensive remedy that would. According to Edward Krug, a soil scientist with the Illinois State Water Survey who formerly studied lake acidification for the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, rain and snow over the Northeast are indeed more acidic than normal, and the reason indisputably is the combustion of fossil fuels by Midwestern industry.

spring 1990 issue of Policy Review, Krug points out that, even so, only one-fiftieth of 1 percent of the lake water in the whole eastern United States is "acid dead" (i.e., has a pH of 5.0 or lower, in which most fish cannot survive), and more than half of that is in Florida, which doesn't receive high rates of acid rain. Moreover, Krug reports a remarkable discovery: Studies "of the fossil record in lake sediments reveal that many lakes that are acidic today have been highly acidic for centuries, except for several decades in the late 19th century and early 20th century when they were unnaturally alkaline." It was the record of early scientific tests dating from those exceptional decades that misled many wellintentioned people into assuming that today's acid rain is making matters worse. But what, if not acid rain, is making the lakes acidic? "Fish and many other species," Krug explains, "can survive in rainwater only because acids are naturally buffered by lime-like substances in rocks and mineral soils of lake and river drainage The acidity of lakes in the Adirondacks and Nova Scotia results not from acid rain but from the absence Living With Mom Children under age 18, in thousands (1988) Age Total number Living with Percent living of children mother only with mother only Total under age 18 63,179 13,521 21.4% Under age 3 11,047 2,206 20.0% 3 to 5 10,917 2,325 21.3% 6 to 9 14,219 3,203 22.5% 10 to 14 16,520 3,593 21.7% 15 to 17 10,476 2,193 20.9% Source: 1988 Current Population Survey, Bureau of the Census NEA GRAPHICS About one in every five children in the United States lives in a household headed by a mother only, according to statistics compiled by the Bureau of Today in History By The Associated Press Today is Friday, May 18, the 138th day of 1990. There are 227 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: Ten years ago, on May 18, 1980, the Mount St.

Helens volcano in Washington state exploded. The blast took 13,000 feet off the top of the mountain, left 57 people dead or missing, devastated 150 square miles of forest and blew an ash cloud around the world. On this date: In 1642, the Canadian city of Montreal was founded. In 1804, the French Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte emperor. In 1860, the Republican Party convention in Chicage nominated Abraham Lincoln for president.

In 1910, Halley's Comet, as seen from Earth, moved across the sun. In 1911, composer Gustav Mahler died in Vienna, Austria. His last word: "Mozart." In 1926, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson mysteriously vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, Calif. (McPherson reappeared a month later, claiming she had been kidnapped.) In 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority was created. In 1934, Congress approved a package of anti-crime measures.

emperor. LOCALLY OPERATED MEMBER DONREY MEDIA GROUP Donald W. Reynolds, Founder Ok DAILY TIMES Jerry Quinn, General Manager Joe Foster, Editor Terry Stewart, Circulation Manager Bob Phillips, Advertising Manager Tommy Laxton, Press Supervisor Carol Purkey, Composing Supervisor Norma Swallow, Office Manager Jo Newnam, Mainstream Editor Why, then, did these lakes become unnaturally alkaline in the decades before and after the turn of the just century? According to Krug, in the late 19th century the Adirondacks "became a major center for lumberand paper pulp and also for the ing destructive slash-and-burn methods that until recently were typical of logForests gone, spongy and forest floor were burned off and ter-absorbent mosses and the acidic peaty replaced by alkaline ash. The ironic result, though, was that sport fish could now survive in lakes that had previously been uninhabitable." This happy state of affairs lasted until an earlier generation of conservationists made a state park out of the Adirondacks. "Forest fires are now put out quickly.

As a result, the forests, acid peaty soils, and acid-requiring and acid-producing trees and mosses are coming back. And lakes that historically have been highly acidic are nearing their natural pH balances." The story in Nova Scotia, and even in Norway, is broadly the same. What is the solution? "Lime dropped from a helicopter buffers acids in exactly the same way that cutting and burning, or limestone in rocks and gravel, does." Krug estimates that "all acid lakes in New England and New York could be limed for under $500,000 per year." But it's too late for common sense now. Fasten your seat belts, and prepare to fork over your share of the several billion dollars a year that it will cost America to calm the hysteria of nut environmentalists over yesterday's "crisis." 1990 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN. THE CONSERVATIVE ADVOCATE WILLIAM A.

RUSHER of OUR LANGUAGE by Jeffrey McQuain SARAH OVERSTREET FLUKY describes something that happens by luck or coincidence. It's no coincidence, however, that FLUKY in the dictionary follows the related FLUKE. COFFER refers to a chest or strongbox for money and valuables. For help with spelling the end of COFFER, there's a tip I can offer. Q.

I know that "Dear Sir" is a letter's salutation, but what do you call "Sincerely yours" at the end? A. Those concluding words that come before the writer's signature are known as the "complimentary close" (sometimes "complimentary Expressions such as "Sincerely yours" or "Very truly yours" may not be sincere flattery, but they do show respect for the person receiving the letter. A piece of hate mail that ends with "Hoping you'll break an arm" uses only a "close," though, not a "complimentary including the so-called "Lindbergh Act," which called for the death penalty in cases of interstate kidnapping, In 1951, the United Nations moved out of its temporary headquarters in Lake Success, N.Y., for its permanent home in Manhattan. In 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier as she piloted a North American F-86 Canadair over Rogers Dry Lake, Calif. In 1969, astronauts Eugene A.

Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young blasted off aboard a "Apollo 10." In 1982, a jury in New York City convicted the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder and leader of the Unification Church, of tax evasion. (Moon ended up serving 13 months in prison.) Today's Birthdays: Movie director Frank Capra is 93.

Singer Perry Como is 78. Movie director Richard Brooks is 78. Ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn is 71. Pope John Paul II is 70. Actor Bill Macy is 68.

Sportscaster Jack Whitaker is 66. Actor Pernell Roberts is 60. Sen. Warren Rudman is 60. Actor Robert Morse is 59.

Actor and television executive Dwayne Hickman is 56. Baseball Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson is 53. Retired baseball player Reggie Jackson is 44. Actor James Stephens is 39..