The Buffalo News from Buffalo, New York • 1

1 IT Ray Hill it i i inn IS 4 COLOR The BuffaloNews IVtNINCfDITION British Crown to aldoB 1 Upset in PlateB 1 ittipaldi Captures CARTB 1Cards Clark Shakes Slump 3 Meet Someone Who Knows the Col North HUMID Partly sunny today air to night Sunshine chance of after noon thunderstorm Tuesday (COMPlETt DETAILS ON PAGE A 2) Think Pirnir Your Outdoor Meal SS Can Range rom if Simple to Sumptuous fO Page 1 i 4 MHWm Dm fl' If I 52 Pages vi ccxiv no tot MONDAY JULY 20 1987 35 Cents Downpour Subsides The mud slide that killed 15 people and de slowed to a waterfall today Six people are stroyed these houses in Tartano Italy has missing Story on Page A 2 1 1 dv VlI Cn ywk3Mp mMKijg WfSk I Tzl: 5 pj 7 3NHHk MBn ioPMWEk 1 aw wmEgw yf Wk mTTjrwMA 7 JEM' jhPTM MMw ao 'W UPlReuter Owners of Sabres Set to Buy Channel 49 and Air Games By ALAN PERGAMENT chase is subject to CC approval perfect marriage or years accus TVJtadio Critic which could take from 45 to 120 tomed to being the only team in the Poindexter Actions Gaining Credibility By DANA WALKER and JOSEPH MIANOWANY I 'niffd Pn'ss bitt rnaliiiiuil WASHINGTON ormer na tional security adviser John Poindexter who today began a fourth round of testimony in the Iran contra hearings has con vinced at least some congressio nal investigators he did not tell President Reagan of the crucial diversion scheme but they have different reasons for be lieving him Lawmakers such as Sen Warren Rudman NH have concluded that the Navy rear admiral did not grasp the significance of what ho was doing when in his own words he hid from the president a decision to approve the diversion of money to Nicaraguan contra rebels from secret US arms sales to Iran Other investigators including Rep Thomas oley Wash say they believe Poindexter's assertion that "the buck stops here with me" because the low key officer knew just how much it could hurt Reagan politically if ever exposed Rudman oley and other mem bers of the congressional commit tees investigating the scandal dis cussed the growing debate over credibility on televi sion interview shows Sunday find Poindexter astonishing and yet I believe him because 1 think he did not realize the enormity of what he was said Rud man vice chairman of the Senate committee on ABC's "This Week With David just decided that this partic ular decision was so dangerous and such a special decision in terms of political vulnerability that he was going to take unto himself to make the decision and not tell the presi dent" oley argued Either way most Democrats and Republicans agreed self described action was dangerous and disturbing Partisan fighting was reserved mostly for the ques tion of whether his claim of solo Poindexter has yet to tell the full story of the Iran cover up PAGE A 7 responsibility fizzled the hearings evidence shows that the president did not know of the diver sion and that takes some of the air out of the balloon" declared Sen Orrin Hatch Utah a steadfast Reagan defender in the case on NBC's the Press" Hatch and other conservatives also took up the political cudgel against those who would agree to a criminal prosecution of Poindexter andor his ex National Security Council deputy Lt Col Oliver North Both men admitted destroy ing potential evidence in the case and North acknowledged lying to Congress "I think in all honesty it's time to end the persecution of those people There's no corruption Hatch insisted "I think frankly the notion of criminal prosecution of North or Poindexter is absurd I think the outrage has been added Rep Dick Cheney Wyo the House committee vice chairman on CBS's the On a related point Reagan de fenders such as Rep Henry Hyde IU complained that Democrats are finding fault unfairly shifted the Hyde said "It used to be 'Did the president know of the that that has sputtered out and no smoking gun not even a holster has been found moved the issue around that the president ought to have known I think the president has won a Rudman and others argued that the question of what Reagan knew had been painted unfairly by the White House as the chief question the committees were seeking to an swer Larger overall issues remain to be addressed these lawmakers said "There's a myth that this com mittee was set up to decide whether the president was involved in the diversion knowledge" oley re marked "Now that it has been es tablished that he guilty of knowledge I'm glad because I think if does give the president an oppor tunity to function in the last 18 months of his administration" Meanwhile a former member of the National Security Council staff has told the Iran contra committees in private testimony that he has seen two memos by North proposing the diversion of Iranian arms sales money to the Nicaraguan contras congressional sources said Sunday The sources who requested ano nymity said former council aide James Radziinski may be called to testify after Poindexter finishes on the witness stand probably Tues day However the committees have the option of releasing private testimony as has heen done with other witnesses His assertion would vary from testimony by Poin dexter ttnd North Poindexter testified last week that until Attorney General Edwin Meese 111 began his inquiry into the matter last November he had not seen any of the memos North said he had sent him with a request they be shown to the president on the subject of the diversion North testified that he thought he had shredded all such memos but that the one Meese's investigators found apparently escaped destruc tion Poindexter said that except for that document do not recall any memo that addressed the question of diversion" One source said statements "will shed some light on the number of diversion memos" The other source said he did not know whether Radzimski who was the control officer for the National Security Council's most sensitive documents told the committee in vestigators he saw the memos as signed The Buffalo Sabres' broadcasting picture brightened today with the announcement that the National Hockey League club has decided to purchase its own television station The Niagara rontier Hockey Corp owners of the Sabres an nounced that its subsidiary And Enterprises Inc has signed agreement in principle to purchase WNYB TV Channel 49 from TVX Broadcast Group Inc" Channel 49 is an independent television station that is scheduled to go on the air in mid September AdelphiaInternational and TCI of Buffalo already have announced they plan to carry the new station and other systems in the area are expected to follow suit shortly The largest cable system in Toronto Rogers Cable says it wants to carry the new station but has to go through some Canadian red tape be fore getting the go ahead TVX which is located in Virginia Beach Va had to sell the station because it was over the ederal Communications Commission own ership limit of 12 stations The pur days No purchase price was an nounced but $48 million is a good ballpark figure the price for which TVX agreed to sell the station to a previous buyer in a deal that eventually fell through "If the purchase of Channel 49 is Sabres officials said in a statement released by Vice Presi dent and counsel Robert 0 Swados purchase will guarantee a con tinuation of our practice of showing a full schedule of home and away games on (broadcast) televi sion and on cable and will assure first class programming of our Na tional Hockey League games for US and Canadian fans" The purchase of Channel 49 was no great surprise The Knox brothers Seymour and Northrup who own the club confirmed they were interested in the station last week Club officials went behind closed doors for much of last week to dis cuss buying the station The Sabres and the new station appear to have the makings of a NHL with their games on a network affiliate the Sabres found this year that Channel 2 wasn't as interested in continuing its expensive decade long romance with the club Channel 7 has expressed interest in carrying Sabres games but is wary of being too aggressive be cause it realizes Channel 2 could match its bid and retain the pack age The deal with Channel 49 moved so quickly that it is possible that a number of the Sabres' games could go on the new outlet as early as this season The Sabres who finished dead last in the NHL last season are hoping for improvement with the addition of the league's Nol draft choice Pierre Turgeon The Sabres might not take over the station in time for the opening of the season but the club could steer the games to its eventual station Channel 2 still could retain the games by Matching an offer from See Sabres Page A 2 Column 4 Stuyvesant: an Eye Opener This is the second article in a five day series on the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority By THOMAS DOLAN News Staff Reporter or thousands of mostly black mostly poor resi dents public housing means anything but wall to wall carpets and air conditioners They live in the crime prone Commo dore Perry Homes off South Park Avenue the half empty rederick Douglass Towers off Jefferson Avenue or the aging Kenfield Apartments along the Kensington Express way But a few public housing projects offer special touches chandeliers air condi tioning dishwashers and well equipped re creation rooms in some of the city's best neighborhoods Like all 27 projects that the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority operates admission to these projects is restricted to low income residents A single person can have a maximum annual income of $15800 a family of eight $28200 In reality tenant income is usually much less The median income of tenants in the 27 projects in 1986 was $6062 a year But for years projects such as the Stuyvesant a former luxury hotel on Elmwood Avenue have been havens for influential senior citizens most of them white and many with relatives and friends at City Hall according to sources who have worked for the Housing Authority and who spoke on the condition they not be identified "The (Stuyvesant) has a reputation for conceded authority Executive Director Lawrence Grisanti when asked about politically influential ten ants But Grisanti insisted that no such favoritism has occurred since he was appointed exec utive director in January 1986 And despite the rumors he said he does not know if political connections were used to place persons in these projects in the past But two of predeces sors said they confronted political influ ence when they ran the authority made sure that everybody on the staff was told that any political requests or pressure requests had to be directed imme diately to said George Wyatt who was executive director of the Housing Au thority from 1973 to 1979 It some for the staff to comply with his order he said Wyatt said that he found ways to deal with re quests for special treatment but he insisted he never broke rules to help influential people He the only one to feel the pressure See Stuyvesant: Page A 6 Column 1 A House Divided: The Politics Public Housing North Reportedly Leaked Story That He Says Congress Divulged I'nitcd Int rrnatiunal WASHINGTON Lt Col Oliver North leaked the very story he said last week was leaked by Con gress Newsweek reports In his testimony before the con gressional Iran contra committees North acknowledged intentionally misleading Congress about US arms sales to Iran and diversion of sale profits to the Nicaraguan con tra rebels He justified this deception by cit ing what he claimed were two leaks by members of Congress of sensitive information one involving the US attack on Libya another in volving interception of an airliner carrying terrorists believed guilty of the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro But Newsweek in releasing its next issue Sunday said neither charge by North is accurate and in fact it was North himself who leaked details about the Achille Lauro capture to New sweek North testified last week that shortly before the bombing of Libya two members of Congress left a last minute briefing by President Reagan on the attack and told re porters that Reagan was going to speak to the nation about Libya that evening The Marine lieutenant colonel fired from his National Security Council job for his role in the Iran contra scandal strongly intimated that the statements by those mem bers of Congress tipped Libyan lead er Moammar Gadhafi sufficiently to allow him to increase his anti air craft defenses American airmen died as a consequence of that anti aircraft fire" North declared North then charged that num ber of members of Congress" di vulged details of the US intercep tion of an Egyptian airliner carrying the suspected terrorists who hijacked the Achille Lauro kill ing Leon Klinghoffer an American tourist aboard the ship The disclosure North said seriously compromised our intelli gence But Sen Daniel Inouye Hawaii chairman of the Senate Iran contra committee not ed in the hearings that it was the Reagan administration itself not Congress that had hinted more than a dozen times in news accounts published in the week preceding the attack on Libya that some sort of US attack was imminent even to discussing possible targets The Newsweek report said: "But the colonel did not mention that de tails of the (Achille Lauro airliner) interception first published in a Newsweek cover story were leaked by none other than North continues News week "David Halcvy a Time mag azine correspondent who used North as a source co wrote an arti cle in the July 1987 issue of the Washingtonian (magazine) in which North identifies the Israelis as the source of major intelligence during the Achille Lauro affair" Postal Service Unions Near Pact Deadline United Prcaa International WASHINGTON The US Post al Service and negotiators for two unions representing 579000 postal workers worked today against a midnight deadline in their attempt to agree on a contract No disruption of mail service is anticipated even if an accord is not reached because federal law pro hibits strikes by postal workers A complex procedure leading to binding arbitration would be used if no agreement is reached although the negotiators also could agree to keep talking if a settlement seemed close The talks broke off acrimonious ly Wednesday with a walkout by representatives of the two unions over Postal Service refusal to dis close terms of its tentative contract with a third postal workers union the Mail Handlers Union At issue were provisions of the tentative Mail Handlers agreement that the Postal Workers Union be lieved would remove some postal workers from its jurisdiction and membership and transfer1 them to the Mail Handlers Union The Letter Carriers Union walked out in soli darity with the Postal Workers Union The talks resumed Sunday after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the joint See Mail Page A 7 Column 1 Inside Today Ann Landers 3 Classified Ads 5 16 Comics 8 9 Deaths 8 8 Editorials 2 Entertainment 5 6 inancial A 1 2 1 3 lifestyles 1 4 Local News 1 4 News Power 5 People in The News A 3 Picture Page 8 10 Puzzle Corner 16 Reporters Notebook 5 Sports 8 1 7 Joyce Swan 9 Television 7 Weather A 2 JINGO Today's Numbers Are on Page A 15 IB PAGE.