European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 21, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 c the stars and stripes saturday March 21, 1992check bouncers Loans questioned records could reveal new Low in scandal Washington apr a congressman and two former lawmakers listed among the top abusers of the House Bank have acknowledged they made Loans to their own election campaigns by writing checks on those accounts. Candidates for office Are allowed by Law to make Loans to their campaigns and Are required to report them to the Federal election commission. The three lawmakers did report the Loans Fec records show. However if the Campaign Loans came from House Bank accounts during periods when they were overdrawn the lawmakers in effect provided interest free and penalty free Loans to their campaigns for an undetermined amount of time some critics have suggested. Quot i think it is a new Low in this entire scandal that a congressman would write a hot Check to finance his own Campaign a said Karen Hughes executive director of the Texas Republican party. The three who acknowledged making Campaign Loans Are rep. Charles Wilson a Texas and former reps. Jim Bates d-calif., and Doug Walgren a a. They Are among the 24 current and former lawmakers on the House ethics committees list of worst offenders who wrote checks on their House Bank accounts with insufficient funds. Mark Liedl a spokesman for . Attorney Jay Stephens declined to comment thursday on whether Stephens preliminary criminal inquiry into the House Bank includes the Issue of Campaign Loans. The three were first identified in thursdays editions of Roll Call a Capitol Hill newspaper. Roll Call quoted rep. Porter Goss r-fla., a member of the ethics committee As saying he noticed heavy activity involving House Bank funds during Peak Campaign periods when the committee examined Bank records. Goss did not identify any House members involved in the activity. Wilson overdraw his account on one occasion in 1990 when he Lent Money to his Campaign committee. But Wilson said thursday the overdraft was not his fault because he had immediately deposited a Check from his personal account in Texas to cover the $10,000 Check written on his House account. A we deposited a Check the same Day for the exact same amount a he told the associated press. The dec. 21, 1990, overdraft resulted when either the House Bank or his Campaign Bank in Texas did not credit the Deposit in a timely manner Wilson said. Wilson who had 81 overdrafts totalling $143,857, said he is trying to have his name removed from the abusers list. Walgren also said he Lent his Campaign $10,000 from his House Bank account but he added that at the time he believed he had a a substantial positive balance in his account. Walgren said Bank records now indicate that his account balance at the time was Only $8,000. A there was no Way to know that certainly no notice to me that there was not plenty of Money to cover that Check a said Walgren who now practices Law in Washington. A i did not misuse this  Walgren made the loan on nov. 2, 1990. His Campaign committee repaid him $5,000 the following dec. 11 Ana the balance in 1991. Walgren said he has not verified the ethics committees finding that he had 858 overdrafts Over 16 months. Earlier this week in san Diego a democratic primary opponent challenged Bates to prove he had not written overdrafts on the House Bank to infuse Cash into his failed 1990 Campaign for Congress. Bates who is seeking to return to Congress responded that the accusations of candidate Bob Filner were Quot pure speculation and untrue. Bates acknowledged however that $30,300 Worth of checks he wrote on the House Bank for Campaign Loans in the Spring of 1990 might not have been immediately covered by deposits. A according to my Bank statement and the checks the deposits were made and the checks All cleared within a week a he said. A any Check was covered within three or four Days if you take the worst  the ethics committees list shows that Bates wrote 89 checks on a House Bank account with insufficient funds during a nine month period. Bates cited checks totalled $170,686, according to an account published sunday in the Washington  Reagan commends recovered addicts efforts Nancy Reagan applauds while being serenaded at the new Way recovery program facility. Washington apr former first lady Nancy Reagan was moved to tears on thursday by the personal stories of former drug and alcohol abusers who turned their lives around with the help of a dependency program she supports. The Nancy Reagan foundation recently contributed $50,000 to new Way recovery program a private non profit organization that provides counselling support and education to homeless people who Are dependent on drugs and alcohol. A i know from All the places in be gone How hard it is to turn your lives around a she told about 50 people gathered to commemorate the programs fourth anniversary. A i know that but we Only make this trip once i think and you really should make it count. A a in a so proud of you i really am so proud of  just As Many of the programs alumni became emotional while speaking about their own struggles the former first lady also became teary eyed joking that a it is  after the commemoration she shared a Buffet lunch with volunteers staff and participants of the program a project of the Community for creative 9on-violence, which runs the City a largest Home Ess shelter. The shelter provides space including about 100 Beds for the dependency program As Well As one meal a Day for program participants. The building that houses the shelter was a vacant government facility that then president Ronald Reagan ordered turned Over to conv in 1984. The action ended a 51-Day hunger strike by cd Nve a founder Mitch Snyder. Snyder died of an apparent suicide in july 1990.Barr appoints special counsel for investigation Washington apr attorney general William p. Barr on Friday appointed a retired Federal judge to conduct a preliminary inquiry into whether the House Bank scandal involved any violations of Federal criminal Law. Barr appointed Malcolm r. Wilkey a retired Federal appeals judge who also served As . Ambassador to Uruguay to serve As a special counsel on the House Bank scandal. Barros appointment of Wilkey appeared calculated to take the matter away from . Attorney Jay b. Stephens who on monday disclosed that his office had been conducting a preliminary inquiry into the House Bank since last november. But Barr said Quot putting judge Wilkey in charge of this review does not reflect any escalation of the Justice department s Effort or any change in the nature of the  t. The attorney general said in a statement that while he had Complete confidences in Stephens a Given the unique circumstances and sensitivities of this matter i have concluded that the Public interest will be served by appointing an individual like judge  on monday Stephens caught Justice department officials off guard when his spokesman Mark Liedl told reporters that the . Attorney had been investigating the House Bank scandal for evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing. The spokesman later scaled Back his statement to say that Stephens was conducting a preliminary inquiry to determine if Laws May have been violated. The statement issued Friday by the Justice department said that Wilkey would conduct the preliminary inquiry and report to Barr a on the extent if any to which further investigation is  smoke risk of heart disease tied Memphis Tenn. Apr exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke increases the risk of heart disease among nonsmokers by significantly narrowing their arteries a researcher says. The link Between secondhand smoke and narrowing of the arteries a by virtue of a thickening of the artery Walls a a is a Strong effect a said George Howard of the Bowman Gray school of Medicine in Winston Salem . He is principal author of the study released thursday. Narrower arteries Are More prone to clogging by cholesterol deposits and clots. Blockage of those arteries causes heart attacks and strokes. The study is the first to use ultrasound to examine arteries directly to look for the effects of secondhand smoke Howard said. A the Point is to get a More direct measure of the process that leads to a heart attack Howard said at the annual american heart association meeting on heart disease epidemiology. Exposure to secondhand smoke is an established risk Factor for lung cancer but its role in heart disease has Only recently become Clear researchers said. Last year a study in the american heart associations journal circulation found that secondhand smoke caused an estimated 37,000 heart disease deaths per year among non smokers in the United states. Howard said the researchers also found that the More hours per week a person was exposed to secondhand smoke the narrower the arteries became. Although that effect was smaller than the Overall association it helped give the researchers Confidence that they were correctly assessing the data Howard said. Also boosting their Confidence in the findings was a consistent pattern when they compared non smokers to smokers. People who had never smoked and who said they weren to exposed to secondhand smoke had the least artery narrowing. The degree of artery narrowing was greater in those exposed to secondhand smoke greater still in people who had smoked but had quit and highest in current smokers Howard said. Howard and other researchers cautioned that the study a findings weren to yet conclusive