European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 7, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes columns Tom Wicker do voters want Excia chief in White House vice president George Bush has refused id commit himself la Dales places and formats for de Bates with his democratic opponent next fall raising the possibility Hal he might use disagreement on such details in avoid debating altogether. Everything con silk red that would t be Loo surprising. After All if you were running for president How would you like to be forced on National television to Deal with certain questions your opponent would be sure to ask Why you did t know. For instance or claim you did to Hal the secretaries of slate and de sense opposed Selling arms to Iran actually Bush s problem May be More than his role whatever it was in the iranian arms Deal. He faces the Likely Prospect also of having to reply to questions about his dealings with Panama s unsavoury strongman. Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. Such questions might include something like the following since Noriega has been on the payroll of the Central intelligence Agency at least since you were its director during the Ford administration didst you have some inkling that he was  ring. And gun running and other illicit activities was t it after you. As vice president Mcl with Noriega in late 1983 that he became a major figure in the Supply operations of the contras in Nicaragua As head of the Reagan administration s task Force on drugs and As a former Cia director should t you have known or at least suspected that Noriega was deeply involved in the drug Trade should t you have warned those involved in Supply ing the contras to keep him out of it once he was part of the Supply operation. Should t that have suggested to you that Contra Supply flights might be used for drug traffic what do you and your advisers think it Means that Noriega or agents of his have told americans vis iting Panama Hal if he chose he could damage your presidential Campaign and change the course of it Here s another subject on which a democratic opponent surely would try to quiz the vice president in a nationally Ici Vised debate Abc news reported recently on an operation hat took place before he arms sales to Iran. In this scheme. Americans and israelis provided arms to the contras. And then the same network of operatives smuggled drugs into the United slates Noriega was specifically reported to have been part of this opera Tion As were employees of the notorious Medellin drug Cartel of Colombia so was one Feli Rodriguez also known As Max Gomez and later a familiar figure to William Safire of Ron you can let go now Iran Contra buffs. Bush was not mentioned in the add news report bul Rodriguez is known to have had a close relation ship with the vice president s office a memo from that office obtained by the House Senate Iran Centra committee in its investigation last year said that Rodriguez had briefed Bush an the Contra Supply Effort but Donald Gregg the former Cia agent who is the vice president s National Security adviser denied under oath that any such briefing took place. On the other hand col. Samuel Watson. Gregg s Deputy remembered thai there had been such a briefing the vice president s office has had to revise twice a chronology issued supposedly to provide full disclosure of his and his staffs meetings with Rodriguez. The first version omitted two trips by Watson to con Ira Camps in Honduras then a revised form of the full disclosure chronology was found to have overlooked a 1986 meeting Between Watson and Rodriguez. Just oversights the Bush staff insisted. Ken if Bush could provide satisfactory answers or Stonewall sufficiently to silence questions on in Sci dubious matters they might raise a More general question thai hardly would be helpful to his Campaign do the american people really want to elect a former director of the Cia As their president thai s hardly been discussed so far bul it Jems obvious thai a Cia chief might Well be privy to the kind of Black secrets Hal could later make him As a Public figure subject to blackmail. Given the Agency s worldwide reputation for Covert intervention and political meddling moreover one of its former directors in the while House certainly would be inc object of suspicion and mistrust in numerous parts of the Globe and Well be might be. A a Alrh Tim i something s Rotten with the Market mechanism John q. Investor remains fear Ful of the Slock Market Tor Good reason six months after the crash computerized program trading still remains a Honan a for the heavy hitlers and a constant danger to the Small investor on whose Confidence Ull markets depend. Twice this year the Dow industrials plunged 100 Points or More two thirds of inc declines within 90 minutes with program Selling accounting for Uxer a third of new Vork Slock Exchange vol ume in Sod key stocks. These Sharp drops happened Post crash and cannot be blamed on Public frenzy As so Many analysis did last year. Something is rot ten in the Market mechanism. Robert Menschel a disciple of Guslav Levy and inc Wisest head i know on Wall sired Points 10 an unacknowledged danger caused by the Maricl instability equity underwriting providing the new capital Hal is the life blood of Plant construction competitiveness and Job creation has declined by almost 50 percent against the same period a year ago in number of deals the drop has been 7 5  if thai is not changed soon Iacre goes what remains of our technological Edge. Thai same erosion of investor Confidence is the reason thai the Price of a Slock docs not follow earnings upward and As a result of Hal lower Price earn Ings Ralio american corporations Are increasingly vulnerable to foreign takeovers. What is Rotten is this the creation of ghostly investments called derivative securities or Stock futures combined ii their unequal margin Regula Tion has turned Stock trading into the tar More volatile commodity trading and is turning inc Slock exchanges into casinos. The initial margin on stocks is 50 per cent meriting the investor must put up at least half Cash the maintenance mar Gin before the investor gels a Coll to Pul up More Money is Aboul 30 percent. Bul inc margin on the new Stock futures is ostensibly i 5 percent and in Many cases dips below 10 percent. That dangerous disparity Between the margin on stocks and the margin or Good Lailah Deposit on Stock futures helps speculators in inc Chicago markets id Jerk stocks around in the new Vork and other markets. The difference in margins is at the Root of the sudden Selloff and the ensuing investor suspicion. What s being done to rectify h7 commissions festooned Wilh Blue ribbons have been appointed testimony has been taken and the investment Community seems to await another plunge to impart a sense of urgency in the meantime we gel proposals for circuit Breakers a Celebration of Illi quidly in which broken head for the Hampton when Selling gets heavy. That s like a Bank warning ils depositors that in the event of a run. The Bank will close until they come o their tenses. Or we get Wall so Eccl  limit ing the use of computers in program trading when the Dow Industrial average moves 50 Points but inc flying fingers of the program traders have shown Hal re form to be a deceptive palliative. The reason we gel no enforcement of margin Equality is that the mercantile Exchange and the Board of Trade in Chi Cago like this new speculative Edge and their View profoundly influence the commodity futures trading commis Sion. Chicago s trick is to keep i scaling stocks in Bunches like pork bellies or soybeans under the commodities category and away from the securities and Exchange commission in thai Way the midwestern weight in agriculture Over Powers the Eastern Hafl in securities. In the House of representatives no Democrat wants to take on Chicago s Dan Rosiczkowski and no Republican wants to encourage More regulation which is Why the speculative Stock fun lure s Tail in Chicago continues to wag inc Stock s dog in new York. At the fed Alan Greenspan wants no pan i an expansion of his authority and Dithen on margin changes Wilh a grammatically meticulous the data arc ambiguous. Where is candidate Michael Duka Kis in the Prol Calion of the Little Guy in Vestor invisible he cannot want to alienate Illinois and a crash in october would help him. And or. Bush dependent on Treasury s Jim Baker who does not seem to Sec the danger in procrastination. I m beginning to gel Back in the mar Ket and coming from a pundit who predicted Jack Kemp would be running against Gary Hart Hal May Nigger some Selling on this Assumption somehow in a presidential year the party in Power will make an Effort to reassure Small investors including tens of millions of workers whose pen Sion funds Are invested in common stocks Hal their Money will rot Godown the Drain in another debacle ing a Rcd by program trading