European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 16, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse 12 the stars and stripes James j. Kilpatrick saturday september 16, 1978 president getting paranoid Over Energy Bill the Carter administration has been moving heaven and Earth for the past ten Days trying to win enactment of the natural Gas Bill but Seldom has so great an Effort been expended for so poor a cause. This is a miserable Bill. It ought to be scrapped altogether. The president has fallen into the errors of judgment that result when form be comes More important than substance. He wants an Energy Bill. The details he says do not matter. He has to have a Bill. Otherwise the Dollar will fall unemployment will soar our defences will col lapse and so on. The posture smacks of panic the panic of a spinster who has to have a husband. Carter is exhorting the Congress with a mindless imperative Don t just sit there do something but Given this particular Compromise Bill Congress would be better advised simply to sit there. We can Start Over next year. Consider the pending Bill. Its purpose is to promote the discovery production and distribution of additional supplies of Natu ral Gas. The idea is to achieve this goal by providing modest incentives to the producers without letting them actually get Rich. The further purpose is to protect the con Sumer from sudden and unreasonable rises in the Price of natural Gas. To Advance toward these useful goals it is necessary to begin at a starting place. This Means the dual Market system that now obtains. Somewhat oversimplified the system regulates the Price of interstate Gas but leaves intrastate Gas alone. The conference report puts it this Way the Central Issue before the conferees during consideration of this natural Gas pricing policy was the question of whether Market equalization should occur through deregulation of the interstate Market As in the Senate Bill or through regulation of the intrastate Market As in the House in other words the Choice was Between Tom Wicker freeing that which is now controlled or controlling that which is now free. Sad to say the conferees lumped into their Mish Mash the worst of both worlds. They came up with an incomprehensible mass that runs to 171 pages. A report of 130 pages undertakes to explain what is meant by the171 pages. Let me give you a Sample. Here the Bill is dealing with the operation of indefinite Price escalator clauses seven years hence. A special Rule is to apply. This special Rule limits the operation of indefinite Price escalator clauses in exist ing intrastate contracts for which the con tract Price on dec. 31, 1984, is higher than $1.00 per a Btu s so that the contract Price May not exceed the new Gas ceiling Price As of Jan. 1, 1985, adjusted by the monthly equivalent of the annual inflation adjustment Factor plus 3.0 percentage Juull o t the House Bill As it was adopted More than a year ago had a reasonable internal consistency. So too with the vastly different Senate Bill. The Compromise measure strives for Harmony and misses. It is As if a band of hurried tailors had run up a de Nim Tuxedo. If details Don t matter As the president says this curious garment might suffice. But details do matter. Last month As the enormity of this Blunder began to sink in Sheila s. Hollis sent a memorandum to Charles b. Curtis. It was some memorandum. Curtis is chairman of the Federal Energy regulatory commission. Hollis is director of the commission s office of enforcement. Her staff had just completed a study of the pending Bill from an enforce ment perspective. Said Hollis the proposal is so com plex ambiguous and contradictory that it would be virtually impossible for this com Mission to enforce it in a conscientious and equitable manner. The provisions Are so involved that of fails to understand How any reasonably accurate assessment of the Price and Revenue Impact could be made. Put another Way the Bill is not necessarily a Good Bill or a bad Bill it is merely impossible to administer con to urge that this mess be spread upon the statute books simply to get an ener = by Bill is pure Folly. Scrap it i submit and let the next Congress make a fresh Start. C Washington Star Syndicate findings May shake Juk conspiracy theories j a Ftp Mph Lippi i pm narc pc it a i to. A i i. The panel of medical experts assembled by the House assassinations com Mittee has reached conclusions which just might begin to break Down the elaborate web of conspiracy theories surrounding the murder of John f. Kennedy. But Don count on it. The panel s findings made Public at a committee session were of great significance because they confirmed the most important and controversial conclusions of the Warren commission the body that investigated the Kennedy assassination right after it happened fifteen years ago. But even some of its members had said in commemorative stamp later years that they were not entirely cer Tain its report had been accurate the Cia and the Fri have been shown to have been less than candid in telling the commission everything they knew and in general grave Public doubts about the commis Sion s performance had impaired the credibility of its report. The vastly detailed document contended that Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone killed Kennedy and wounded governor John Connally of Texas As they Rode in a motorcade through downtown Dallas. But this Central Contention never accepted in Europe and with the passage of time less and less credited in this country rested on two others that assassination theorists have consistently disputed. One was that a single Bullet fired by Oswald had struck Kennedy in the Back exited through his Throat passed through cunnally s Torso hit his wrist and lodged in his thigh. This Bullet later was found on a Stretcher on which Connally had been car ried into Parkland Hospital in Dallas. The governor himself has said he did not be Lieve this version of events. But the panel of pathologists who among them had conducted More than 100,000 autopsies concluded with Only one dissenting voice that the single Bullet theory was Correct. Their spokesman the respected or. Michael Baden chief medi Cal examiner for new York City reported that careful examination of All autopsy photographs a rays victims clothing and other evidence fully supported this finding. If the single Bullet theory had been repudiated by the pathologists that would have Lent much weight to contentions that More than one gunman must have been involved in the shooting. In the period of time within which the shots were fired it would have been All but impossible for a single Marksman to have hit Kennedy and con Nally with separate shots. Altogether three shots were fired. The Warren commission reported that in Addi Tion to the shot that hit both men one shot missed both and the other struck Kennedy column Sand comments in the Back of his Skull and killed him. All the shots the commission said in its other crucial and frequently disputed finding were fired from behind. Millions of americans came to doubt this primarily because they saw a television showing of the so called zapruder film the Home movie of a bystander which in slow motion seemed to show Ken Nedy s head lashing backward As if from a terrific Impact. This suggested he had been shot at least once from in front per haps from behind the Grassy Knoll from which some reports said a second gunman was at work. But on this Central Point there was not even a single dissenter among the pathologists who reassessed the evidence All agreed that All three shots did come from behind. Or. Baden said there was no Evi Dence to support any but a single gunshot wound of Entrance in the Back of the presi Dent s this ought finally to Lay to rest Persis tent allegations that there was an entry wound in Kennedy s Throat which was reported even by the doctors at Parkland Hospital on the Day of his death and which i and other reporters included in our Sto Ries of that unforgettable Day. Apparently in making a medical incision in the presi Dent s Throat the Parkland doctors distorted the exit wound and confused them selves about its nature. Or. Baden said the panel of pathologists found Clear photo graphic evidence that the wound was an exit but even this authoritative confirmation of the essential findings of the Warren commission probably will not put an end to the speculation suspicion and myth Mak ing surrounding the Kennedy assassination not just because there Are zealots and charlatans to keep conspiracy notions alive but because it is too difficult for Many people to accept that a cat can look at a King or that an emotionally disturbed misfit can kill a president. People want to believe naturally enough that there must have been some reason of state or High politics for something so nearly a regicide so we Are Likely to keep on hearing that Castro did it or the Cia did it or that unnamed conspirators of unimaginable Powers not Only did it but fixed the War Ren commission As Well no doubt also the most diligent of the conspiracy theorists will continue to find loopholes in the Warren commission the Sis but no Case of this kind can Ever be made airtight especially with Oswald him self having been killed before he could testify. And no one has brought Forward an alternative thesis of what happened in Dallas that is either so plausible or so Well supported by the evidence. C new York times
