European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 5, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday. Septembers 1986 the stars and stripes Page 3 Perot tried to buy alleged Mia video Texas billionaire s $4.2 million offer rejected Washington a Texas billionaire h. Ross Perot after conferring with vice president George Bush pledged s4.2 million in a futile Effort to obtain a videotape purporting to show american prisoners of War alive in Laos. I was asked by our government in pursue this thing to get the Lane if it existed Perot said in a recent Telephone interview. I said Fine it s a Long shot but i lab glad to do  the tape was never produced and the Money was never paid. Perot refused to identify who in the government asked him to pursue the matter. Martin Fitzwalter spokesman for Bush said wednesday the vice president discussed the tape with Perot and asked him to take a look Al the issues there and see if he thought hey were  but Fitzwater added i m sure he Bush did t ask him to make  also involved in the Effort was rep. Bill Hendon r n.c., who said wednesday he discussed the videotape matter Wilh Bush and that later the vice president called me and based on our discussion i tried to assist or. Perol in any Way 1  according to a former army major who first told Blaze again hits big Library in la arson suspected los Angeles a the Central Library rav aged by a $22 million arson Blaze five months ago. Again was hit wednesday night by a fire that destroyed valuable collection of books and musical scores. Some a Century old an investigator said the Blaze appeared to have been set. This was sort of like Nightmare part ii it was i replay of what happened several months ago City librarian Wyman h. Jones said. We can t begin to put a value on the collection destroyed in the latest fire he  spokesman Michael Leonard said the Lales fire struck the previously undamaged Art and music department Reading room containing some materials More than 100 years  engine companies responded to the alarm shortly alter 6 p.m., extinguishing the fire in about 30 minutes officials said. No injuries were reported. City fire chief Donald Manning said the cause Hadnot been determined and was under investigation. But anon investigator Tony Lapalio said outside the Flam ing building. The Bug who lit this thing is Here in the crowd right  one has been arrested in connection with the previous Blaze the big Library at 5lh and Hope streets has been closed to the Public since april 29, when fire erupted in the Northwest Book stacks. By the time it was extinguished More than six hours later in had destroyed about 20 percent of the Library s collection. After mat fire volunteers helped remove 700.000 volumes waterlogged by firefighters hoses so the works could be  15 percent of the original collection remained in the building to be cleaned and inventoried Leonard said. The Story of the tape the Money was on Deposit in theban of America in Singapore last april when he at tempted to obtain photographic evidence thai Ameri cans were is ill being held prisoner retired maj. Mark Smith told the Senate veterans a flairs committee last june he and Hindon went to Singapore with instructions from the defense intelligence Agency to offer �4.2 million to Robin Gregson a British citizen who claimed to have Possession of the videotape. Smith told the committee that Grigson who also uses the name John Ubassy rejected the offer. Smith testified Gregson told him i did t ask you for s4.2 million in Cash. I asked you for support for these people in Laos Perot i have never asked for  the people in Laos were rebel forces fighting the com Munsil government. The major also told the committee he had seen the tape and it showed caucasians being held prisoner and forced to work in Limber and mining operations in Northern Laos. The defense department lists 2,441 americans who did not return from the conflict in Southeast Asia. In its monthly tally of reports pertaining to possible pos the defense intelligence Agency lists 881 cases of alleged sightings of live americans being held Pris Oner since the fall of Saigon in 1975. The latest Dia tally lists 136 of that total As currently unresolved. The Agency said the remainder were disproved. Perot said of the videotape like everything else around the pow-m1a thing it s a will of  the Dallas computer magnate first became involved in the pow Issue in 1969 when he attempted to Fly to Hanoi to deliver medical supplies and Christmas Din ners to american pos he also financed a successful 1979 Rescue Mission to Iran to free two of his employees from a Tehran prison the fact that we have one american a special forces major who says he has seen the tape makes it More than just some bogus thing floating out there in Asia said Perot. The Basic Steps involved were id produce the tape see the tape and if in fact the tape was what it was purported to be at that Point pay for the tape and have it available to our government he added. So it was a kind of reasonably fail Safe process in that you got a Chance to look before you  docked in a void spec. 4 Mark Hansen snapped Ihl photograph of a boat on a Lute Al Beder Kesa Germany. Titled docked in a void the photo took second plact in the Black and White Scenic and nature category in the Dsa eur photo contest. Hunston 26, is with the 581 it signal co 39lb signal in Breur Hivon. Newly released Nixon tapes draw few listeners Washington Dpi Richard Nixon s tapes famous and trivial Are stored a fair distance from town these Days but few visitors to America s capital seem willing to make the trip to hear them. A new Balch of Lapes was released this week including an interview made three months before Nixon re signed the presidency in disgrace in which he pro claimed his innocence in the watergate scandal and said he would t have lasted one minute in office if they were True nonetheless the Lapes attract few visitors. Some May be put off by the fact that the Nixon presidential materials project is housed in a nondescript office building near the Capitol Beltway in Southern Alexandria in Virginia about a 15-Minuie drive from the More glamorous National archives building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Those who do come generally ask for the 31 secret tapes Nixon made in the White House that were used in the trials of his aides charged in the watergate scan dal. Those have been available for years. The 4,467 new tapes kept by the White House communications Agency Are of Public events like press conferences and speeches but the new Baich also includes several speeches delivered at slag  those events according to archivist Fred Graboske. Were All male dinners during which the talk was Loose but not particularly Bawdy. Most of those tapes Are no available to the Public Tor National Security reasons. Graboske who has heard most of the tapes said that usually Means there is an unkind reference to a foreign Leader in one of Nixon s speeches. In one of the new tapes a May 13, 1974, inter View with Slauch Nixon defender rabbi Baruch Kroft who used the conversations to write a Book Nixon still proclaims his innocence in the watergate scandal three months before he resigned in the face of impeachment if these charges on the watergate the coverup etc., were True nobody would have to ask me to resign Nixon said. I would t serve for one minute if they were  1 know they Are not True so therefore i will Flay Here and do the Job i was elected to  he said the break in Al democratic Headquarters in the watergate would never have happened if he had been paying More attention to his re election Campaign and said that from a historical standpoint watergate was probably the broadest but the thinnest scandal in american history i will survive it he stated flatly. May. On aug. 9,1974, Nixon resigned