state/nation/world
MacDonald still serving life
Supreme Court refuses new hearing in 1970 murder case
By JAMES H. RUBIN •
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON Former Green Berets Dr.
Jeffrey MacDonald yesterday lost a Supreme
Court bid to overturn his conviction and life
sentence for the 1970 murders of his pregnant
wife and two young daughters.
Although the Supreme Court denied him a new
hearing, his lawyers vowed• to return once again
to a federal trial court in. North Carolina in
another effort to gain freedom for MacDonald.
Brian J. O'Neill, a lawyer from Santa Monica,
Calif., said in a telephone interview that the
process of appealing to higher courts is "at an
end. There ain't no higher than high."
$10.5 million award being reconsidered
1 By RICHARD CARELLI
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON The Supreme
• ", Court said yesterday it will consider
reinstating at least part of the $10.5
million won, and then lost, by Karen
Silkwood's family in a suit against
the Kerr-McGee Corp. She was
• killed in a • 1974 auto crash on her
way to see a reporter over a plutoni
um plant's safety, just days after
- her own exposure to radiation.
The justices revived the lawsuit,
closely watched by the nation's nu
• clear industry, to decide whether
But O'Neill said that within the next year he
intends to ask a judge in North Carolina where
MacDonald was convicted to grant his client a
new trial. O'Neill said he will ask the court to
consider new evidence in the case but declined to
elaborate.
MacDonald, who is in federal prison in Bas
trop, Tex., is not eligible for parole until 1991. He
has been behind bars since last March when the
Supreme Court reinstated his murder conviction
after an earlier reversal.
, The Supreme Court yesterday rejected without
comment arguments that MacDonald was denied
a fair trial.
It marked the fourth time the nation's highest
court has acted during the 13-year legal odyssey
federal law demands that the bulk
of the jury's award be thrown out.
Miss Silkwood, a 28-year-old labo
ratory analyst at Kerr-McGee's
Cimmaron plutonium plant near
Crescent, Okla., died in an auto
mobile crash Nov. 13, 1974 while on
her way to meet with a New York.
Times reporter.
A union activist responsibile for
monitoring health and safety mat
ters at the plant, Miss Silkwood
reportedly wanted to make public
evidence of missing plutonium and
falsified safety records. Days be
fore the accident, she had been
radioactively contaminated. Kerr-
McGee claimed her exposure re
sulted from materials that she had
improperly removed from the
plant.
In the Silkwood case, Kerr-McGee
was sued in an effort to collect for
injuries primarily fear and anxi
ety suffered by Miss Silkwood
during the nine days from her con
tamination to her death.
A federal trial jury in Oklahoma,
using state law, said Kerr-McGee
should pay the Silkwood family
$500,000 in actual damages and $lO
million in punitive damages. The
VW executive commits suicide
PITTSBURGH (AP) Those who knew Volks
wagen executive William B. Brock say he was a
thoughtful, reasonable man a corporate loy
alist whom superiors called "an important part
of our organization."
• But Brock shot himself in the head over the
weekend, driven to suicide, his attorneys claim,
by company pressure to help end a $7O million
racial discrimination suit at VW's New Stanton
plant. Volkswagen of America Inc. officials have
denied the charges.
By all accounts, Brock, 32, was a model citizen
in his hometown of Washington, about 27 miles
south of Pittsburgh.
"I always had the idea I was going to be
someone big," he once told his mother-in-law,
Fredda Nelson.
He was a fraternity member at the University
of Pittsburgh, where he earned a degree in public
administration. A fraternity brother, District
Justice Dennis Schatzman; recalled that Brock
was often too busy to have fun in college because
he worked two jobs.
Brock was married; father of three children, a
practicing Moslem and president of the NAACP
branch in Washington County. He had been an
investigator with the state civil Rights Commis
sion. The Jaycees had named him one of their
outstanding young men.
In 1977, he joined Volkswagen's new plant in
Westmoreland County near Pittsburgh as equal
employment opportunity coordinator.
"(Volkswagen) wanted me, someone with
short hair and a suit, who'd be easy. to handle,"
he told The Pittsburgh Press last week.
of the MacDonald case, one of the most publi
cized criminal prosecutions in recent U.S. histo
ry.
MacDonald's lawyers said the jury should have
heard more testimony from a woman who
claimed to have seen drug-crated hippies com
mit the slayings 13 years ago.
, MacDonald steadfastly has maintained that his
family was bludgeoned to death at its Fort
Bragg, N.C., home by drug-crazed intruders who
chanted "Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs."
MacDonald, now 39, was a captain in the Army
Medical Corps and was assigned to the Green
Berets, the special forces unit, when Fort Bragg
military police rushed to his home Feb. 17, 1970.
jury also awarded $5,000 for Miss
Silkwood's contaminated belong
ings that had to be destroyed.
It said the federal government's
exclusive regulation of radiation
hazards from the nuclear industry
precludes or "pre-empts" any
punitive damage award based on
state law.
In essence, the appeals court said
that since state court punitive dam
age awards are intended to deter
future misconduct, the awards con
flict with exclusive federal regula
tion.
But, Brock told friends, he was "demoted" to
assistant personnel manager in 1978 because
"within days after I had joined the organization, I
made it clear that I saw discrepancies between
what they were saying and what they were
doing."
'All I know is that it's
painful and agonizing, and
I'm sick of it. It's my
company. I'm loyal to it.'
—Volkswagen executive
William B. Brock
Recently, Brock became spokesman for the
plant employees' Black Caucus. But he resisted a
federal discrimination suit against Volkswagen
last week, according to friends, believing instead
that differences among the caucus and exec
utives could be worked out within the company.
"This has affected my life in general," Brock
told The Press last Friday. "All I know is that it's
painful and agonizing and I'm sick of it. It's my
company. I'm loyal to it."
Late last week, Brock finally decided to add his
name to the list of nine current and former
Volkswagen plant employees who had filed the
suit.
Reagan staff ordered
not to talk to press
By JAMES GERSTENZANG
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON President .meeting at which the rules were
Reagan ordered his staff yester- discussed. Keister is slang for
day not to talk to reporters without buttocks.
approval of his official "The president does not appre
spokesmen, one of whom quoted ciate having people who are what I
him as saying "I've had it up to call the freelance artists who
my keister with these leaks." come out of a private meeting with
David R. Gergen, the presi- him and disclose the contents of
dent's assistant for communica- the private meeting before he or
tions, said "I wouldn't call 'this a his advisers even have a charice to
gag rule," but said it was intended reflect on what is going on," Ger
to stop aides from attending meet- gen said.
ings with Reagan and then disclos- The guidelines say the press
ing details to reporters. office should be "the first stop" for
A page-long set of 10 guidelines reporters seeking information,
for "press coordination" was is- and that requests for interviews or
sued by James A. Baker 111, the comments "should first be re-
White House chief of staff who was ferred to the communications de
quoted one day earlier as suggest- pa i rtment." White House staffers
ing that Labor Secretary Ray- are not supposed to give inter
mond Donovan should resign. views unless they receive advance
Reagan termed those remarks clearance or a recommendation
"regrettable" and affirmed- his from the communications depart
"full confidence" in Donovan yes- ment to talk with reporters.
terday.
But Gergen said that Baker's
, On occasion, the communica
remarks, in an interview while the lions department will designate
chief of staff was hunting, had not key staff members to be available
prompted the guidelines. • to the press to answer questions on
Baker, in a post-script to his a specific subject.
memorandum explaining the new Gergen, asked if staffers who
rules, said "The President has .violate the rule would escape pun
refused to make an exception for ishment, replied, "I didn't say
interviews in turkey blinds," that." But he added: "Let me tell
where the interview with the Dal- you something, the president
las Morning News took place. takes this very seriously."
The Daily Collegian
Tuesday, jan. 11
"I've had• it up to my keister
with these leaks," Gergen quoted
Reagan as saying during a staff
On Friday, Brock wrote a letter which was
never delivered or mailed, but reportedly was
later found, torn up, in a wastebasket of his
attorney's office in Pittsburgh.
In the letter, apparently written hours before
Brock went home and shot himself with a .38-
caliber revolver, he said the company was trying
to "muscle" him on the discrimination suit with
sexual harassment complaints against him.
Brock's wife, Renae, told police her husband
was distressed and depressed when he arrived
home Friday 'and that he had been under pres
sure lately.
Tom McDonald, a Volkswagen spokesman in
Troy, Mich., said there was "absolutely no truth"
to the charges in Briick's letter, which was
printed by The Press.
"They can't say I'm a militant rabble-rouser,"
Brock told the newspaper Friday. "The majority
of white employees are fair and evenhanded and
can accept a person based on the content of his
character, not on the color of his skin."
Since the plant opened, its management has
been the target of allegations from big& work
ers, who charged they were victims of racial
discrimination and harassment. As recently as
last October, black employees had urged the
state not to buy 150 Volkswagen Rabbits because
of the' alleged discrimination.
The suit, filed in Pittsburgh federal court last
Tuesday, claims blacks have been discharged
without justification, that they have received a
disproportionate number of disciplinary repri
mands, that they have been hanged in effigy and
have received written and telephone threats.
state news briefs
Buehl to 'tell the truth', blame others
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) ney A. Charles Peruto Jr. said in
Roger P. Buehl, charged with opening arguments in Montgom
murdering retired Lockheed ery County Court.
chairman Courtlandt Gross and District Attorney Joseph Smyth
two others, will "tell the truth" in Jr. told jurors he would prove that
his own defense and blame the Buehl, 25, used a borrowed revolv
crime on others, his attorney said er to kill Gross, 79, a co-founder of
yesterday. Lockheed; his wife, Alexandra,
"He comes in here cloaked in 72; and their housekeeper, Cathe
innocence, and he's going to tell rine VanderVeur, 69, last July 15.
you the truth, and the truth is Their bodies were found the next
going to get him into a lot of day in the Gross' Main Line man
trouble in a lot of places," attor- sion in suburban Villanova.
Highway closed due to old mine fire
CENTRALIA, Columbia County • cials of the Pennsylvania Depart
(AP) The state closed a section ment of Transportation.
of this town's only major highway "The visibility was very poor
yesterday because smoke and and we didn't feel we could handle
steam from a 20-year-old under- traffic in the evening hours," said
ground mine fire hampered mo- PennDOT spokesman Paul Heise.
torists' visibility. Before the road was closed, offi-
Route 61, a four-lane highway, cials said the . smoke and steam
was ordered closed at 4:25 p.m. contributed to a minor accident,
from south of here to Ashland, although no serious injuries were
about eight miles away, said offi- reported.
1 ,
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1 0 00
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nation news briefs
.1
0 '
More problems delay shuttle mission
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) latest tentative launch date of
A dress-rehearsal launch count- sometime near the end of Feb
down for the trouble-plagued ruary.
space shuttle Challenger was post
poned a day yesterday because of
failure of a component that sup
plies power to the orbiter.
The latest difficulty was not
expected to further delay the start
of the five-day mission beyond the
New equipment may aid 'ET' search
BOSTON (AP) Scientists try- beings, according to the Universi
ing to contact extraterrestrial life ty of California at Berkeley re
have been "searching for a needle searchers.
in a cosmic haystack" for 20 years - And a more sympathetic atti
without success, two astronomers tude on the part of lawmakers,
said yesterday. NASA and the public perhaps
However, an equipment break- due to the popularity of the movie
through soon will allow scientists hit "E.T., The EXtra-Terrestrial"
to greatly expand their hunt for —also is helping the search, they
radio communication from alien said.
DES lawyer sues former clients
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A litigation in 1980 over their prod
lawyer for makers of DES, the uct, diethylstilbestrol, commonly
anti-miscarriage drug that has known as DES,
been linked to cancer, is suing his
former clients because he devel
oped testicular cancer and learned
that his mother took the drug
Craig Diamond, 28, was part of a
team of lawyers defending Upjohn
Co. and E.R. Squibb & Sons in
world news briefs'
New engraving of God's name found
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) An Tel Aviv University archaeolog-
Israeli archaeologist said yester- ist Gabriel Barkay said the amulet
day he has unearthed a silver dated from the seventh or early
amulet engraved with the earliest sixth century 8.C., around the
Hebrew inscription of God's name time of the Babylonian conquest of
ever found in Jerusalem. Jerusalem.
The find, along with a trove of
jewelry, was described in archae
ological circles as an important
and unusual discovery in the exca
vation of ancient Jerusalem.
Thatcher's tour gets mixed reactions
LONDON (AP) Conservative Daily Express declared the Con-
British newspapers yesterday servative prime minister's visit
praised Prime Minister Margaret "is right on every count."
Thatcher's Falklands tour, but
opponents accused her of politick
ing and needlessly provoking Ar-
gentina
Argentina still claims the is- tour," recalling the word British
lands despite Britain's triumphant marines invented for the long
74-day war to retake them. treks they made during the strug
"Maggie Conquers the Falk- gle to retake the windswept South
lands —Again,", headlined the tab- Atlantic islands Argentina seized
loid Daily Star, while the rival April 2.
•
• . •
stockreport
.......
• Market climbs Volume Shares
119,022,140
to record highs Issues Traded
NEW YORK (AP) The stock 1,978
market climbed to record highs
U
for the third straight session yes
1P
1 52
terday in an advance inspired by ,
hopes for a broadening economic
recovery. , Unchanged
The Dow Jones average of 30 307
industrials, down about five points
at the outset, was up 16.28 at
1,092.35 by the close. Since last
Aug. 12, the average has risen Down s 9 //////,
more than 315 points.
Volume on the New York Stock.
Exchange came to 101.89 million oN.Y.S.E . Index
shares, against 127.29 million Fri- 84.62 + 0.95
day. O.S &P. Comp.
Analysts said investors found
increasing cause to believe that 146.78 +1.60
the economy was beginning to pull ODOVV Jones Ind.
out of its slump of the last 18 AP 1,092.35 +16.28
months.
NASA has had to postpone the
launch, originally set for late Jan
uary, because it has not deter
mined the source of a potentially
dangerous hydrogen leak into , the
main engine compartment.
But in the fall of 1980, soon after
undertaking the assignment, he
discovered he had four different
types of cancer in his right testi
cle. He learned that his mother
had taken the drug while she was
pregnant with him.
He said that two such amulets
were found in a tomb chamber
opposite Mount Zion three years
ago, but only now were being
deciphered.
Britain's largest-circulation dai
ly, The Sun, reported gleefully
how "Plucky Premier Margaret
Thatcher went on a yomping
UNIVERSITY CALENDAR
Tuesday, January 11
Poetry reading by Steven Dunn, 3:30 p.m., Rare Books Room, Patteel
ARHS meeting, 6:30 p.m., Room 225 HUB.
Circle K meeting, 7 p.m., Room 314 Boucke.
P.S. Science Fiction Society meeting, 7 p.m., Room 307 Boucke.
Student Perfomance Organization meeting, 7 p.m., Room 316-317 HUB
College Democrats meeting, 7:30 p.m., Room 308 Willard.
Equestrian Club meeting, 7:30 p.m., Room 206 Ag. Eng:
Artists Series film, All About Eve, Bette Davis, 8 p.m. Schwab.
Sports: women's gymnastics vs. New Hampshire, 8 p.m.
Finance Club
presents
MELLON BANK
on
"CASH MANAGEMENT AND
RETAIL BANKING"
Wed., January 12, 7:30 PM
214 Boucke
R 076
McKeesport Campus I it,
shares the Lion's Pride. '4 6 ---
fr e,
With us, Joe and the
- • "
team are always Numb ,
One. Now the World
acknowledges it!
Thanks for making us
"Penn State Prouder.'
****************•* * * * * * * * *.* * * *
The Penn State Jazz Club
and Hetzel Union Board
PRESENT
W.C. BILLHICK
HiMiliWWWi
8:00 P.M. WED., JAN. 12
AT THE HUB BALLROOM
FREE ADMISSION
* RlO9
**************** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The USG Dept. of Legal Affairs
is accepting applications for
staff positions.
Applications are available
in 213 HUB.
Deadline: Friday, Jan. 21st
R• 268
DIET COKE HAS ARRIVED
ON CAMPUS!
At Liones East Pizza Shop, Liones
West Pizza Shop and Pollock Snack
Bar, Warnock Snack Bar
Introductory Offer $5.75/case
(Can pick up 7:00 pm. -11:30 p.m.)
OFFER GOOD UNTIL JANUARY 14, 1983
Tonight at the Brewery
Tahoka Freeway
Paul Bros. coming next
Tues. & Wed.. !
Suzie Wong Eggrolls Nightly 10.2
...
i
INTERVIEW REQUEST FORM
(PSU Student Use Only) (Type or Print)
...
Request interview with
Division (if given)
Job Title: let choice 2nd choice (Optional)
Date of Visit Job Location
Applying for: (Check one) Perm Summer Intern
NAME lbir
At Social Security No.
" )
----.
PRES ' 1004 t kinko's copieit I (
AD ii
PE ittlijlijk (City) —..
OPEN 7 DAYS 238• COPY I
AD ... wr. .. - 1 (
(across from Penn Towers)
41,1 0 111110 . .. 6 . 1.
ai (City)
copies • business cards
ch e r I manent Reside stationary • rubber stamps
= 4 .10 8 ° I
• I binding • passport photos
Vit .4133 t
COttlat intlC\
'We've Open
24 Vioors
Om ele ttes!
yo.v
to .
••
O r aelett est
• itusgersi.
I?astrie si.
and 010
fa
and• •
tioute
• utade
• Ice Cram &
lks 'Butts
• Stie
1 221m".".' 59C
26 •)
The Daily Collegian Tuesday, Jan. 11, 1983-5
Y -1