The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 18, 1988 Page: 4 of 20
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: The Baytown Sun and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Sterling Municipal Library.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
THE BAYTOWN SUN
Friday, November 18.
1988
^EDITORIAL 4
Jack Anderson
VA guards easy marks
-
WASHINGTON - Ronald Hearn believed (working for the VA) whose integrity is being chers, social workers and local public health
in protecting other people, but he couldn’t questioned because of poor management,” professionals — toink^the^federm^^U(^t
protect himself. jaiu uan x amici, yicaiucm
Hearn was a police officer at a Veterans police union in Richmond, Va.
said Dan Painter, president of the federal
Administration hospital in the Bronx. He was
shot and killed last summer as he stood
guard at the entrance to the facility, unarm-
ed.
The tragedy has renewed the rallying cry
among police officers working at VA medical
centers across the country. For more than a
decade, they have begged the federal
government to allow them to carry firearms
for protection. To this day, the only weapon
they are allowed to carry is a can of Mace.
VA officials say a hospital is no place for a
gun. But there are plenty of guns in and near
the hospitals — in the hands of psychotic
former patients, drug-dealers and Tobbers.
The fact that VA cops can’t carry guns is at
General Accounting Office recently polled
AIDS workers around the country. State and
the root of their low morale, said Painter, local public health officials thought that next
who is leading a campaign to have the rule year’s federal budget for AIDS should be $1.7
changed. The police want a congressional billion, at the very least. If they were spen-
hearing on the issue. The shooting deaths of ding the money and were restricted to $1.3
Hearn and two other officers are their trump billion, the public health workers said they
cards. would take away from the research budget to
Hearn, 49, was shot to death on July 25 pay for more education, patient care and
when he tried to stop two youths from enter- programs for intravenous drug users. As the
ing the Bronx hospital. They had triggered a budget now , stands, 45 percent goes to
metal detector when they walked in the door.
One of the youths fired five shots at Hearn,
which went through the bullet-proof vest he
had bought fon himself, since the hospital
wouldn’t supply one. The youths ran away
research, 31 percent to public health control
measures and education, 18 percent to track-
ing the spread of the disease and 5 percent on
programs for drug users.
PENTAGON SHORTCOMINGS - The waste
and delays involved in buying new weapons
Texas rebounding
from recession
During the state’s 1988 budget year, Sept. 1, 1987, to
Aug. 31,1988, Texas began to rebound from two years of
severe economic recession caused by collapse of oil
prices, real estate and construction, and state govern-
ment ended the year on Aug. 31,1988 in the black for the
first time since 1985.
This‘information, as well as other pertinent facts
about the state's recovery, IT presented In “Fiscal ________r________, _____________________ ____________________
Notes,” state Comptroller Bob Bullock’s monthly report VA hospitals are not run-of-the-mill medical and were never apprehended.
to the people centers. Many of them are in high-crime Skeete said she worried about her son, but niiu u ^ .......j...L_________
Manufacturing has keved the economic rphminri from areas. They are a magnet for panhandlers he was committed to his job “He would say, systems are not new to the 1980s. The
one end of the Safetnthoand thieves' S°me °f the patientS are V°latile ‘M°m’ U’S my job'1 have t0 pr°tect people' General Accounting Office recently looked at
one end Ol tne state to the other. This part Of the and easy targets for drug dealers. Last sum- He never thought of himself. He thought of the record of the Pentagon and found that the
economy continues to benefit from the lower value Of the mer, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner the people,” she said. headaches of the’80s aren’t much different
dollar, .which makes U.S. goods less expensive in foreign reported that heroine, cocaine and other Hearn was not the first VA officer to fall in from the headaches of the ’70s. The root of
markets and increases competitiveness of U.S. products dru§s were °Penly traded amon8 Patients the line of duty. In January 1986, Mark the problem is unpredictable funding. When
in domestic as well as world markets and emPloyees at the VA hospital in Los Decker, 30, and Leonard Wilcox, 36, were they get money for a project, Pentagon of-
Texas shinnpd noarlv 1(90 hillinn worth nf pvnnrts tn Angeles shuot to death bY a former mental patient fields hang on to that project, even if it turns
l exas snipped nearly SZU Dlllion worth Ol exports to Hearn’s family and colleagues say it is un- when they confronted him m the parking lot out to be ill-advised. They defend an idea to
foreign markets in 1987, second only to California in ex- fair to make VA police officers work under of a VA hospital in Brecksville, Ohio, near the death rather than spend money looking at
port value. Surging demand for exports has encouraged such dangerous conditions without standard Cleveland. The killer then ran into the alternatives. That slavish devotion to an un-
Texas manufacturers to increase emolovment and in- toolsofthe police trade. hospital lobby, held a nurse at gunpoint and proven design leads to cost overruns and
vestment P “ “I think those men should be protected. It’s took a patient hostage until police over- delays while the Pentagon tries to stuff a
m.____/ , . . , , ... . . , unfair to them,” Hearn’s mother, Evelyn powered him.
The petrochemical industry, which accounts for one- skeete, told us. Wilcox’s widow, Cynthia, told us her hus-
third Of the state’s manufacturing exports, is operating Our associates Scott Sleekand Stewart band often talked about the need to carry a
at full capacity along the Texas coast, and 70 new plant Harris have been investigating the VA gun.
projects With a value Of $4 billion are on the drawing Security Service for several months. We Many private hospitals let their security
board or under construction. kave reP.^ted that thf.fVA has recruited £ f a"dsfcarry gu"s; ?ut VA sP°kes,"ian
. , ... ficers with poor qualifications, some with Smith told us that firearms aren t needed
Also fueling the economic rebound is strong defense criminal backgrounds. There also have been and could be dangerous in a tussle with a pa- MINI-EDITORIAL Last month in Kenya,
spending, contributing to robust expansion in the state’s reports that crimes at the hospitals aren’t tient. “We recognize there are incidents humankind once again proved its short-
defense-related and high-technology industries. adequately investigated or properly reported where in hindsight the possession of a sightedness by killing the last five white
As Of August, statewide employment in aircraft, and that training for the security force is lax. firearm might have prevented a tragedy,” rhinosliving on publicland.Poacherscarry-
The dubious record of some officers, combin- Smith said. “But the feeling is it’s a m£> S11118 attacked a national park head-
ed with the potential for violence, makes the dangerous element that’s not needed as there quarters and wounded park rangers before
VA security system ripe for an overhaul. are appropriate ways of dealing with these slaughtering the rhinos. They took the rhino
The VA police brass say that if its record is situations that don’t require the use of hums which will end up as someone’s
bad, their superiors at the VA should share weapons,
the blame foy poor recruiting and failure to
treat the Security Service as a serious pro- PAYING FOR AIDS — American taxpayers
fession.
square peg into a round hole. When the top
brass does summon the courage to cancel a
bad idea, the decision often comes after
millions of dollars and thousands of hours
have been spent on the idea.
missiles and other transportation equipment manufac-
turing had jumped 4,200 or 4.7 percent from the
preceding year. #.
During the same period, manufacturing employment
in computers, oil field machinery and other industrial
machinery was up by 3,100, or 3.1 percent. An additional
2,600 workers were employed in electronic manufactur-
ing, a gain of 2.2 percent.
will pay at least $1.3 billion to fight the battle
“There are a lot of professionally trained, against AIDS next year. B.ut the people on
highly qualified police officers out there the front lines of that battle — the resear-
as someone’s
trinkets. Poachers sacrifice endangered
animals to amass personal wealth. But a
world without a wealth of animals is not
worth living in. By the time the shortsighted
poachers learn that lesson, it will be too late.
United Feature Syndicate
smarms dmdufhs-jaimi
Caittthd&iiiice.
Bob Wagman
The JFK theories
“I had to sell the company so I could buy it...”
Today in history
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sixty years ago, on Nov. 18,
1928, the first sound-
synchronized animated cartoon,
Walt Disney’s “Steamboat
Willie,” premiered at the Colony
Theater in New York. The short
subject featured the debut of two
of Disney’s most famous
characters -- Mickey Mouse and
Minnie Mouse.
In 1936, Germany and Italy
recognized the Spanish govern-
ment of Francisco Franco.
In 1949, Jackie Robinson of the
Brooklyn Dodgers was named
the National League’s Most
Valuable Player.
In 1964, FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover described civil rights
leader Martin Luther King Jr. as
“the most notorious liar in the
country” for accusing FBI
agents in Georgia of Jailing to
act on the complaints of blacks.
Ten years ago: U.S. Rep. Leo
J. Ryan of California and four
other people were killed in an
ambush in Jonestown, Guyana,
by members of the Peoples Tem-
ple. The killings were followed
by a night of ritual mass murder
and suicide by 912 cult members
led by the Rev. Jim Jones.
Today’s birthdays: Actress-
comedian Imogene Coca is 80.
Former astronaut Alan Shepard
is 65. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-
Alaska, is 65. Actress Dorothy
Collins is 62." Actress Brenda
Vaccaro is 49. Actress Linda
Evans is 46. Actress Susan
Sullivan is 44. Singer Kim Wilde
is 28.
Thought for today: “There’s
nothing funnier than the human
animal.” - Walt Disney,
American movie producer (1901-
1966).
In the 25 years since the
assassination of President John
F. Kennedy, a virtual cottage in-
dustry has grown up around
writers and investigators
trumpeting their theories about
the assassination.
Twenty-three years ago, a
presidential commission headed
by Chief Justice Earl Warren
devoted 26 volumes to trying to
prove that Lee Harvey Oswald, a
former Marine who had spent
time in the Soviet Union, was a
lone assassin. He was found to
have gunned down Kennedy as
the president’s motorcade rode
through Dallas on Nov. 22,1963.
But the Warren Commission’s
conclusions have been challeng-
ed frequently and loudly. Today,
a complete Kennedy assassina-
tion bibliography goes on for
pages. More than 70 books have
been written on the subject,
ranging from William Man-
chester’s Death of a Presi-
dent,” the epic 1967 minute-by-
minute examination of Ken-
nedy’s last days and funeral, to
lawyer-researcher Mark Lane’s
1966 “Rush to Judgment.”
Lane’s book introduced us to the
now famed “grassy knoll” from
which most Warren Commission
detractors believe a second gun-
man fired.
There are any number of
books critical of the way the
Warren Commission did its job.
From Sun files
These include Edward Epstein’s
1966 “Inquest” and Sylvia
Meagher’s 1967 “Accessories
After the Fact,” as well as David
Lifton’s massive 1980 work
“Best Evidence,” which in-
troduced the now widely believ-
ed (by conspiracy theorists)
hypothesis that there were three
assassins.
In recent years Kennedy
assassination theories have
taken one of two lines: The first
theory is that the president was
killed by agents of Fidel Castro
who was out for vengeance for
both the Bay of Pigs invasion
and attempts made on his life by
the CIA. This theory holds that
the KGB recruited Oswald for
Castro and that Kennedy’s killer
received his orders while
visiting the Soviet and Cuban
embassies in Mexico City. Ac-
cording to variations on this
theory, there may or may not
have been additional gunmen in-
volved, and nightclub owner
Jack Ruby, who shot and killed
Osward, may or may not have
been a KGB agent.
The second theory is that the
U.S. Mafia had Kennedy killed
because it saw him as a threat to
its criminal empire.
Some conspiracy theorists
combine these two scenarios,
claiming that Castro either hired
the American Mafia to do his dir-
ty work, or convinced the mob to
do so by promising that he would
reopen Havana to gambling.
In recent weeks a novel twist
has been added to the Mafia hit
theory. An American writer,
Steve Rivele, who spent four
years investigating the
assassination, theorizes that the
killing was carried out by three
Corsican hitmen hired by
American mobsters, and the
fatal shot was fired by a killer
named Lucien Sarti who was
himself killed in Mexico in 1972.
Rivele’s theory received
something of a jolt when French
police tracked down the other
two men said to be a part of the
three person “hit squad” and an-
nounced the two had iron-clad
alibis, proving that they were in
France on Nov. 22,1963.
The next Kennedy assassina-
tion book due out almost brings
the conspiracy theory full circle.
“Final Disclosure: The Full
Truth About the Assassination of
President Kennedy” is by David
Belin, counsel to the Warren
Commission.
He argues that the commis-
sion’s finding that Oswald alone
fired three shots from an upper
floor of the Texas School Book
Depository, striking Kennedy in
the back of the head, is the full
and complete story.
Newspaper Enterprise Association
£ljc Paptoton &un
'68: Sgt. David Alford war hero in Vietnam
Leon Brown. . .
Fred Hartman
Wanda Orton
Bruce Gjynn. .
Russell Maroney.
Janie Halter.....
Gary Dobbs.....
...........Editor and publisher
.......................Editor and publisher, 1950-1974
—HHtOWALDIEARIMINI_:__________^__________
........ ..........................Managing editor
Associate managing editor
ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT
......Advertising manager
• Classified manager
CIRCULATION
................................Circulation manager
55 Press room foreman
Composing room foreman
matter at the Baytown. Texas Post Office 77522
tvough Friday and.Sundays c
PRODUCTION
Buddy Jones................................*
Lynne Morris................................
The Baytown Sun (USPS 046 180) is entered as second da;
under the Act of Congress of March 3. 1879 Published aftern
Memorial Drive in Baytown. Texas 77520 Suggested Subscription Rates By carrier. $5.50 per month $66 00 per
year, single copy price, 25 cents Doily. 50 cents Sunday Mo.1 rotes-on request Represented nationoltrby Coostol
Publications POSTMASTER Send address changes to THE BA YTQWN SUN. P.0 Box'90 Baytown Ty.77522
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for ^publication to any news dispoteffes credited to it or
not otherwise credited in this paper ond local news of spontaneous origin published herein Rights of ^publication
of all other matter herein are also reserved The Baytown Sun retains nationally known syndicates whose writers'
byt'med stories ore used throughout the newspaper There ore times when these articles do not reflect The Sun s
LETTER POLICT
Only signed letters will be considered for publication Names will be withheld upon request for good and sufficient
reason Please keep letters short The Sun reserves the right to excerpt letters
To The Sun:
Thank you for your support in
National Employ the Han-
dicapped Month, in editorials
and in work with BARC, BOC
and Bayshore MHMRA.
David B. Cohen
Texas Rehabilitation
Commission
Baytown
Bible verse
The wicked flee when no
man pursueth: but the
righteous are bold as a lion.
Proverbs 28:1
From The Baytown Sun files,
this is the way it was:
55 YEARS AGO
The Texas Editorial Associa-
tion, composed of newspaper-
men men with at least 20 years
of experience, tours Humble’s
Baytown Refinery. After the
tour and a boat trip on the ship
channel, the group is feted with a
dinner at San Jacinto Inn. Hosts
include refinery officials R.E.
Powell, W.H. Reber and A.C.
Kraft.
New choir officers at Baytown
Methodist Church are M. Heide,
president; Mrs. T.T. Peck, vice
president; Ruth Bunting, secre-
tary-treasurer.
50 YEARS AGO
Nearly five barrels of “booze”
are confiscated in a series of
raids. Among officers leading
the raids are Deputy Sheriffs
H.C. Spence, George Scott, Ray
Allen and J.B. Arnold.
’ 40 YEARS AGO
Cleve Dickens is promoted to
sergeant in the Baytown Police
Department.
Theo Wilburn is building a new
home on East Texas Avenue.
30 YEARS AGO
M.C. “Buddy” Bray, Lowell
Lammers and Harry Massey
work with the Baytown Chamber
of Commerce Highway Commit-
tee to push a bond election in
Harris County for freeway con-
struction.
20 YEARS AGO
Sgt. David Alford, son of Mr.
and Mrs. Sam Alford, is award-
ed the Vietnamese Cross of Gal-
lantry with Bronze. He is serving
in the U.S. Marines with the 1st
Amphibean Tractor Battalion in
Vietnam.
Robert E. Lee High School is
one of 136 high schools in the U.S.
identified as having superior
English programs. These
schools are singled out by a com-
mittee in the National Council of
Teachers of English.
Astronaut Gene Cernan is
picked for the Apollo 10 moon
flight. He is married to former
Baytonian Barbara Atchley,
1956 graduate of Robert E. Lee
High School.
Jack Hillhouse, 22, of Bay-
town, is killed in a car wreck at
Garth and Cedar Bayou-Lynch-
burg road.
Baytown Mayor Seaborn Cra-
vey and Chambers County Judge
Oscar Nelson head delegations
appearing today before the State
Highway Commission. They are
asking for a loop to be construct-
ed between Highway 146 and
Farm Road 1405 near the site of
U.S. Steel buildings now under
construction.
i* wUmHhi
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Brown, Leon. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 18, 1988, newspaper, November 18, 1988; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1052323/m1/4/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.