TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93TT0633> <title> Nov. 22, 1993: Chronicles </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 Nov. 22, 1993 Where is The Great American Job? </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> CHRONICLES, Page 15 THE WEEK:NOVEMBER 7-13 </hdr> <body> NATION As NAFTA as They Wanna Be A risky move may have paid off for the Clinton Administration as a contentious, sometimes personal debate between Vice President Al Gore and NAFTA opponent Ross Perot seemed to raise support for the pact. Polls showed that opinions of NAFTA became more favorable after the debate, televised on CNN's Larry King Live. At week's end, however, the White House was still at least 20 votes short of the number needed to pass NAFTA when it comes before the House this week. Sexual Harassment Redefined The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that women need not show they have been psychologically damaged to prove sexual harassment in the workplace, merely that they are working in a ``hostile or abusive" environment. The decision stems from a complaint by Teresa Harris, a manager at a Tennessee manufacturer, who said her boss insulted her and made sexual advances. Brady Bill Passes House The Brady gun-control bill passed the House by a vote of 238 to 189. A diluted version of the original bill, it requires a five-day wait and a mandatory background check for the purchase of a handgun. The Senate may vote on a similar measure this week after acting on a broader anti-crime bill. The Brady bill passed in the House in 1991 but then fell victim to an 11-month Senate filibuster. State Official Ousted Amid intensifying concern about the competence of President Clinton's foreign policy lieutenants, Deputy Secretary of State Clifton Wharton Jr., the second highest State Department official, resigned his post. Wharton had been the subject of damaging leaks, and his departure was essentially forced. His duties had been administrative, not policymaking, however, and his resignation did not mollify the Administration's critics. Clinton Backs Porn Laws In response to what he deemed a new looseness in the Justice Department's interpretation of laws related to child pornography, President Clinton wrote a letter last week to Attorney General Janet Reno ordering a clampdown on porn. The President became concerned when Justice decided not to prosecute a man in possession of videos of young girls posing seductively, on the basis that the girls were clothed. Not-Walking-Around Money Flush from victory, veteran Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins inadvertently caused a scandal for newly elected New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Rollins boasted to reporters that the campaign had distributed some $500,000 to Democratic workers in black neighborhoods and to black ministers in an effort to hold down the black vote in the election. Whitman insisted the payments "never happened," and Rollins retracted his statements. At week's end federal and state prosecutors had launched criminal investigations, and the Democratic Party was suing to invalidate Whitman's victory. A Cardinal Is Accused Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, one of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church's most influential leaders and a pioneer in the church's effort to root out sexual abuse by the clergy, was himself accused of having molested a teenager in the mid-1970s in a $10 million lawsuit filed by the alleged victim, now a 34-year-old man, who said he began recalling the incident after therapy. The Cardinal denied the charges and immediately referred the matter to a church review board. Gulf War Illnesses Defense Secretary Les Aspin announced that while low levels of nerve and mustard gases may have been detected in the Gulf War, they were not sufficient to explain the mysterious illnesses reported by thousands of gulf veterans. Symptoms ranging from cancers to mysterious rashes have been blamed on exposure to unidentified toxins. Bobbitt Acquitted Lorena Bobbitt, the woman who severed her husband's penis, lost her first court battle last week when John Wayne Bobbitt was acquitted of marital sexual assault. She faces her own trial on Nov. 29 on charges of the "malicious wounding" of Bobbitt. Phoenix Autopsy Toxicology tests showed that actor River Phoenix had a lethal mix of cocaine, morphine, Valium and over-the-counter cold medicine in his blood when he died. The traces of morphine may signify that Phoenix took heroin, which metabolizes as morphine in the body, according to the Los Angeles coroner's office. WORLD Yeltsin's Constitution Boris Yeltsin unveiled his new Russian constitution, which not surprisingly grants the President stronger powers. But it also establishes freedom of speech and religion and the right to own property. If voters approve the document on Dec. 12, the same day they will elect a new parliament, the Russian President will be able to dissolve the lower of the two new houses if it rejects his Prime Minister three times or passes votes of no confidence. Those powers are denied him under the present constitution. It also makes impeachment of the President more difficult and requires a two-thirds vote to override a presidential veto rather than the present simple majority. A Shaky Peace Five Palestinian suspects arrested for slaying a Jewish settler last month admitted that though they acted on their own, they belonged to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the P.L.O. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with the backing of President Clinton, demanded a public condemnation from the P.L.O. At week's end Rabin got his wish: Arafat himself condemned the killing and appealed for an end to violence. It was the first time the P.L.O. chairman had ever spoken out against a specific attack on Israelis by Palestinians in Israel or the occupied territories. The events capped a week of Arab-Jewish violence that was ignited when Palestinian gunmen shot up the car of a leader of Jewish settlers, wounding him and killing his driver. At their Washington summit, Clinton pledged to Rabin to help pay for implementing the P.L.O. agreement and to give Israel more military aid. Jordan Votes for Progress Rejecting the platform of anti-Zionist Islamic militants, Jordanian voters drastically reduced the fundamentalists' seats in parliament--from 32 to 18 in the 80-member lower house--and gave King Hussein a large majority to pursue his pro-peace policies. Another notable victor was Toujan Faisal, a strong feminist who will be the first woman to serve in the parliament. China Rights Opening After decades of refusing to let outside human-rights monitoring agencies inspect its prisons, where thousands of dissidents have been held, China said it would give "positive consideration" to such visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The statement comes just before President Jiang Zemin meets this week in Seattle with President Clinton, who has made continued favorable trade status contingent on improved human-rights policies. Burning Bridges Mostar's 16th century Old Bridge, one of the most exquisite examples of Ottoman architecture and a symbol of ethnic harmony in prewar Yugoslavia, was destroyed by Croatian gunners. Meanwhile, some of the deadliest shelling in weeks hit Sarajevo, killing at least 17 people, including several children at a school. The U.S. State Department warned that more than 4 million lives could be lost this winter because of the war, weather and disease. The El Salvador Papers U.S. intelligence reports revealed that Reagan and Bush Administration officials had far more detailed knowledge than they admitted to Congress at the time about the role of right-wing military and civilian leaders in death-squad killings in El Salvador. Both Administrations worked with these leaders, some of whom are in the current governing party, in order to crush left-wing guerrillas. BUSINESS Magic Kingdom's Spell Broken For the first time since Michael Eisner became chairman a decade ago, the Walt Disney Co. reported a quarterly loss. The $77.8 million in red ink was attributable to Euro Disney, which has lost nearly $1 billion in its first fiscal year. Not that the experience has driven Disney to swear off theme parks. In Manassas, Virginia, Disney announced plans to build an American-history theme park near there. Paramount Buys Macmillan Paramount Communications outbid three rivals to buy publisher Macmillan for a hefty $553 million. Paramount, which will become the world's second largest publisher, is itself the object of a fierce bidding war. QVC raised its offer for Paramount to $90 a share, topping Viacom's price by $5 a share. United to Disunite? United Airlines rejected a bid from two of its unions to sell itself to its employees. As it faced threats of labor strife, the nation's second largest carrier was reported weighing the possibility of splitting the company into as many as five smaller carriers. SCIENCE Ozone Danger Confirmed The idea that thinning ozone will let more solar ultraviolet radiation strike the earth (leading to increased skin cancers and cataracts as well as weakened immune systems) has been so far a mostly theoretical danger. Four years of careful measurements, however, now show a direct relationship between ozone loss and ultraviolet leakage. Scientific Ethics Scientists routinely claim that professional misconduct--plagiarism, for example, or tinkering with research data to make the numbers come out right--is rare. They're wrong, says a shocking poll conducted by American Scientist: 43% of students and 50% of faculty members report having first-hand knowledge of some sort of scientific impropriety. THE ARTS & MEDIA Barry Bonds MVP Once Again For the third time in four years, Barry Bonds, left fielder for the San Francisco Giants, was named Most Valuable Player by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Art Lovers After cutting a hole through the roof of Sweden's Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, thieves walked away with $75 million worth of uninsured artworks by Picasso and Georges Braque.The stolen paintings and bronze sculpture are extremely well known, so whoever took them will never be able to display or sell them openly. -- By Melissa August, Christopher John Farley, Sophfronia Scott Gregory, Michael Lemonick, Michael Quinn, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart DISPATCHES Clinton Campaign Home Movies By Margaret Carlson, in Washington I laughed. I cried. Better than Cats! Well, no one actually said that at the Washington premiere last Wednesday night of The War Room, the new documentary about last year's Clinton campaign, but that's probably because many of those watching were too choked up by the memories, and their own performances. About half the audience at the Key theater in Georgetown were veterans of the campaign, and half of those were on-screen. Paul Begala, James Carville's partner, wiped away a tear as he watched the scene in which he is a voice speaking from the campaign plane to his spiritual twin on the ground in Little Rock, Arkansas, George Stephanopoulos, the day before the vote. "Paulie," Stephanopoulos says in his power whisper, "I got up this morning and driving in I started to cry...If we lose this, we'll have to jump off a bridge...or drink some Kool-Aid." It's now no surprise when Carville puddles up, but it's really something when the emotional flatliner Stephanopoulos gets misty-eyed. While Stephanopoulos is by far the most swooned over Clintonista, this insider audience cheered loudest for the Little People of the campaign. Carville's assistants and all-around War Room anchors Melissa Green, sitting on the floor in her backward baseball cap, and Collier Andress sent the applause meter jumping, as did Stephanopoulos' aide Heather Beckel. And Robert Boorstin, now a special assistant to the President, won a mixture of laughter and sighs for his Best Supporting Nerd walk-ons, in particular a scene recorded at the morning staff meeting during the convention at which Boorstin wouldn't give up on his quest to have hand-made signs on the convention floor, and when he appeared to win, wanted to have a second discussion over whether they should be red or blue. The biggest hiss went to Pat Buchanan, the second biggest to Ross Perot; a dog wearing a "Barkin for Harkin" sandwich board got an arf (former Harkin aides were present). The eeriest reverse deja-vu moment came when the camera caught Begala outside a hotel doing his drop-dead Perot imitation to abc's Mark Halperin's decent Al Gore, a preview of the matchup the night before on Larry King Live. The deepest groan sounded when, on-screen, campaign chairman (now U.S. Trade Representative) Mickey Kantor, in his power tie and suspenders, enters a room full of jeans and T shirts with election-day returns and apologizes to the camera for saying s------. After the movie, the stars moved on to the Dixie Grill, a faux southern bar with big fish and stock-car racing signs, where the ensemble acting troupe spun its own live performances. Mandy Grunwald, sitting in the opening-night audience, got to see Carville, Stephanopoulos and Boorstin in Little Rock indulge in an eye-rolling exasperated riff at her expense as she tries to sell them on a campaign ad by speakerphone from Washington. "Were you guys embarrassed for Mandy to see you acting that way?" Stephanopoulos spun that one: "Not at all. It was James who was the jerk." And Carville had his sound bite ready. "I'm glad I don't have to watch me everyday. I made my own self nervous." HEALTH REPORT THE GOOD NEWS -- One consequence of diabetes is a greater risk of kidney failure. A new study suggests that captopril, a drug used to lower high blood pressure, strengthens the kidneys, halving serious kidney problems for diabetics. -- Women who take estrogen to control symptoms of menopause and reduce the risk of osteoporosis may be reaping an unexpected bonus: estrogen seems to lessen the risk of Alzheimer's or to decrease its severity in those who do get it. -- Balloon angioplasty--inflating a tiny balloon to widen a clogged artery--is much less expensive and dangerous than a heart-bypass operation. Unfortunately, the artery tends to squeeze shut again. But inserting a tiny wire coil to prop the artery open appears to solve the problem. THE BAD NEWS -- Three drugs given to heart-attack victims--magnesium, nitrates and captopril (the drug just found to be good for diabetics' kidneys)--are surprisingly ineffective. Still worth taking: aspirin, clot dissolvers and beta blockers. -- Tobacco is the primary nongenetic contributor to death in the U.S.; among other things, it doubles the chance of having a stroke. Poor diet and lack of exercise are second, alcohol abuse is third, and microbes and viruses are a distant fourth. -- Large-scale clinical trials of several promising anti-AIDS vaccines, originally scheduled to begin later this year, may be put off indefinitely. The vaccines unexpectedly failed laboratory tests that decide whether they're worth trying in humans. Sources--GOOD: New England Journal of Medicine; New England Journal of Medicine; American Heart Association. BAD: American Heart Association; Journal of the American Medical Association; Science. WHITHER THE FIRST FAMILIES? Last week Herbert Hoover's son Allan died, Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis, 41, announced her engagement to a 27-year-old laborer, and George Bush's eldest son George W., 47, declared his candidacy for the Texas governorship. Here's what other children of recent Presidents are up to: PRESIDENT BUSH Jeb, 40, candidate for Florida Governor Neil, 38, works at oil-supplies company Marvin, 37, partner in investment firm Dorothy, 34, fund raiser for Dad's presidential library foundation PRESIDENT REAGAN Maureen, 52, lecturer living in L.A. Michael, 48, radio talk-show host Ron, 35, reporter on Fox's Front Page PRESIDENT CARTER Jack, 46, foreign-exchange adviser Chip, 43, banking consultant Jeff, 41, works in "document imaging" Amy, 26, graduate student PRESIDENT FORD Michael, 43, university administrator Jack, 41, owns mall information booths Steven, 37, horse breeder and actor Susan, 36, breast cancer spokeswoman INSIDE WASHINGTON THE GRAVEST THREAT: DEALING WITH NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM Last week on Meet the Press, President Clinton pointedly declined to rule out any "specific options" on how he might militarily deal with North Korea's advancing nuclear-weapons program. But Time has learned that Clinton Administration officials have studied--and dismissed--the possibility of launching an air strike to wipe out the communist regime's nuclear program. The locations of North Korea's nuclear reactors are known, but analysis has shown they could not be destroyed without releasing unacceptable levels of radioactivity that could spread through East Asia. With the surgical-air-strike option now off the table, diplomatic pressure and economic embargoes, ineffective so far, are the chief remaining options. WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS TED KOPPEL Besting Letterman in the ratings war. And no Top Ten list either. JOHN WAYNE BOBBITT Dismembered husband is acquitted of marital sexual assault. TERESA HARRIS Sweeps Supreme Court in 9-0 sexual-harassment victory. LOSERS EDWARD ROLLINS Victorious G.O.P. politico inexplicably volunteers payoff scandal details. CLIFTON WHARTON State Department No. 2 takes fall for bosses' flops. ROSS PEROT Who knew he could seem even smaller and crankier? INFORMED SOURES Foot-in-Mouth Commandant Washington--Marine Corps Commandant General CARL MUNDY JR. caused a firestorm by trying to bar married Marine recruits; now he's feeling the heat for saying on 60 Minutes that minority groups don't swim, shoot or read compasses as well as whites. Mundy has apologized and asked to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus. Nevertheless, the Navy Secretary has removed Mundy from a study he was heading on--ironically--the status of minorities in the Corps. The White House is set to oust him if he makes one more mistake. Aristide, the Lesser of Two Evils Washington--Although they wonUt say so publicly, some Clinton Administration officials are convinced--along with Jesse Helms--that exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide did in fact order the 1991 murder of Roger Lafontant, a thuggish Duvalier militia leader. One senior policymaker says the murder allegation was mentioned in the State Department human-rights report on Haiti "because we believe it to be true." However, even these officials support the reinstatement of Aristide as Haiti's President, believing the continued rule of the Haitian military is a far more terrible prospect. A Strange Message from Cocaine Kingpins El Paso--The motivations of drug dealers are often hard to interpret. Lately, U.S. Customs agents on the border between Texas and Mexico have seized several cocaine shipments with the name Clinton stenciled on the wrappings. Cocaine cartels usually mark their product with initials, brands or color coding. "We have no idea why they might be using the President's name," says agent Michael Lappe. "It's something we'd like to find out." FROM THE CREATORS OF DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN "If we go out of business, God help us from the crap that will be on TV in the future." -- CBS PRESIDENT HOWARD STRINGER </body> </article> </text>