The Michigan Daily
Vol. LXXXVII, No. 3-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Friday, May 6, 1977 Ten Cents Sixteen Pages
VA nurses will take
stand in own defense
Locals chide, praise
and pity Tricky Dick
Daily reporter Lani Jordan roamed the streets of Ann Arbor
soliciting public reaction to Wednesday night's Frost-Nixon inter-
view. Below we present some of the responses.
By KEITH RICHBURG
The two Veterans Administra-
tion (VA) nurses accused of
poisoning nine patients will take
the witness stand in their own
defense, their attorneys confirm-
ed yesterday.
The attorneys were arguing a
defense motion before Judge
Philip Pratt to exclude the
nurses' grand jury statements
and statements to FBI agents
from being admitted into evi-
dence when defense lawyer Mi-
chael Moran remarked that the
prosecution couldn't use the
statements until the defendants
took the witness stand. "Miss
Narciso has every intention of
testifying," he added:
MORAN REVEALED that de-
fense attorneys had "made an
offer" to the government that
the defendants would testify.
"The government won't be de-
prived of its day in court,"
Moran told Judge Pratt during
his oral argument. "They can
use every one of these state-
ments (to the grand jury and
FBI) on cross-examination. volved in allowing such earlier
The statements in question statements into evidence is that
were made by Filipina Narciso they can only be used against
and Leonora Perez during the the person who made them.
investigation of the breathing "USING PEREZ'S statement
failures at the Ann Arbor VA to show that she was somewhere
hospital.- else and that she can account
The legal technicalities in- See VA, Page 9
"I think Frost really knew
what he was talking about. Nix-
on really stuck his foot in his
mouth. He kept going ott on a
tangent and giving a rounda-
points," Andy Hart, Pharmacy
point." Andy Hart, Pharmacy
sophomore.
Fate o mayor s -race
"I was interested to see what
By GREGG KRUPA he (Nixon) had to say. I really
In the continuing saga of Ann Arbor's contested April 4 mayor's feel sorry for the man despite
race, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge James Kelley yesterday the case against him. He clings
refused to grant a motion made by defeated Republican mayoral to the belief that he didn't have
candidate Louis Belcherathat, ineffectedenied the validity of Al- anything to do with the cover-
bert Wheeler's position as mayor of the city.up. He's always had a flawed
character and that showed
Judge Kelley rnled that Belcher and his attorney Robert Henry through. He had a misguided
should first seek relief from the state Attorney General's office. sense of loyalty to those peo-
Judge Kelley did not deny the motion, but merely refused to grant ple like Ehrlichman and Halde-
the request until the Attorney General has had a chance to clear man." Mike McGee, LSA jun-
-up the matter. This leaves open the possibility of the case return- ior.
ing to court.
LATE YESTERDAY, Henry received word from the Attor-
See NEXT, Page 12
"I thought it was very im-
pressive, evil Richard Nixon
came out looking like a human
being. To some extent he was
railroaded (about the Water-
gate issue). The part where Nix-
on did confess his culpability
seemed sincere to me. He won't
seem so to Nixon - haters and
I think he knows it." John
Wilhelm, Economist.
"I wasn't surprised at what
Nixon said. ie didn't deny
anything morally, just in the
legalistic sense, using his law-
yer's tactics. I think he feels
worse about the fact that he
cheated himself out of two more
years in the history books."
Claire Obringer Business School
senior.
A BICYCLIST PAUSES to make a refreshing purchase from the portable fruitmarket which has
been travelling campus perimeters since the warm weather began. Fruit cart owners Hal Davis
and Bruce Dondero constructed their store-on-wheels from odds and ends of wood they found on
their farm.
Fruit vendors cart their wares
By RON DeKETT about a month ago," Dondero said.
The cart with its dangling bananas, bright red
A trombone bellows off-key in the distance and cover, bicycle wheels, slightly tarnished trom-
all fresh fruit lovers eagerly search for the bone and barn-wood frame draws curious onlook-
source-a gaudy cart making its daily rounds ers like flies.
laden with delectable apples, juicy pears and "We put it together just from old wood scraps
scrumptious bananas. , we found around the farm that we live on, so the
Street vending, a dying tradition in Ann Arbor, cost wasn't much ($1.30 for nails and axle),"
is kept alive by the fruit wagon and its two un- Davis said.
employed musician owners, Hal Davis and Bruce "WE PUT IT together in two evenings with a
Dondero, bottle of whiskey and no ruler. Just sawed every-
"I WAS SURVIVING as a musician for a long thing and nailed it together and we were on the
time, but over the past three months there wasn't street three days later," he added.
any work. So Hal suggested doing a fruit cart See MOBILE, Page 9
"I thought it was a farce. Ite
still continues to say he's inno-
cent. He insists that his fallacy
has to do with his heart. It's a
travesty of justice that he's to
be paid $600,000 to present his
criminal act to public. I don't
think there should have been
any interview at all. His worst
crime wasn't Watergate, it was
the illegal murder (bombings)
in Cambodia. That was his big
lie." Wilbert Gurley, Education
graduate student.
"I thought it was obvious that
Nixon was criminally guilty. I
thought, he was pulling a big
political trick on the American
people. Like he was running
for office, he came off more
like a politician than a human-
being. A play on the public's
emotions. He's a pathetic man;
a sick person." David Bornstein,
English gra'duate student.