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One hundred three years of editorial freedom
Special counsel says Whitewater probe could last 18 months
THE WASHINGTON POST
Special counsel Robert B. Fiske, Jr. told a
*ederal judge yesterday his investigation of
President Clinton's Whitewater real estate
venture and ties to a failed S&L may last 18
months, cover more than a million documents
and involve 20 or more investigators.
After meeting with Fiske behind closed
doors, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen M.
Reasoner in Little Rock, Ark., agreed to
empanel a special grand jury to exclusively
handle the federal probe of Madison Guar-
nty Savings & Loan, and the Whitewater
evelopment Corp. real estate venture, a cor-
poration jointly owned by President and
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Madison owner
James McDougal and his former wife, Susan.
"The duties of any grand jury investigat-
ing this matter are much more extensive than
the court had previously envisioned,"
Reasoner said in his order.
Early this week, Fiske's office served a
subpoena seeking a widerange of documents
on the Rose Law Firm, where Hillary Clinton
and several high-ranking administration offi-
cials were once senior partners. They include
Associate Attorney General Webster L.
Hubbell, assistant White House counsel Wil-
liam H. Kennedy III, and Vincent Foster, the
deputy White House counsel who committed
suicide last July. The scope of Fiske's work
includes looking at how the investigation into
the Foster suicide was handled by the White
House and law enforcement officials.
Rose firm lawyers did legal work relating
to Madison. Hillary Clinton represented Madi-
son during the mid-1980s when it sought
regulatory approval for a stock plan from state
officials. McDougal, a longtime Clinton
friend, has said he placed the Rose firm on a
$2,000-a-month retainer when then-Gov.
Clinton complained to him about his family
finances.
Hubbell represented the government when
it sued Madison's accountants for malprac-
tice in 1990. The Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp. has been examining whether Hubbell
and the Rose firm properly disclosed possible
conflicts of interest in handling the case.
After his meeting with Reasoner, Fiske
told reporters in Little Rock that it was neces-
sary to ask for a special grand jury "because of
the importance of this investigation and the
importance of doing it as quickly and as
thoroughly as possible."
In his order, Reasoner said that even if the
regular grand jury was asked to extend its
term until the end of the year, it would not be
able to complete the investigation. Those grand
jurors, who have already begun work on the
Whitewater investigation, initially thought
they could do the job, Reasoner wrote, but
believe it would be impossible now that the
"actual scope and magnitude of the duties that
would be involved in such a task has become
more apparent."
Reasoner asked James Burnett, the fore-
man of the grand jury, to attend his meeting
with Fiske. Burnett served as head of the
National Transportation Safety Board under
President Ronald Reagan.
In addition to the criminal investigation
going on in Little Rock, a special civil task
force assembled by the Resolution Trust Corp.,
the federal agency charged with overseeing
the S&L crisis cleanup, has been working
feverishly in Kansas City for the past several
weeks.
RTC investigators and lawyers, as well as
lawyers from the firm of Pillsbury, Madison
& Sutro hired under contract by the RTC, are
poring over Madison files to see if there are
any civil claims that can still be brought
against Madison attorneys, officials or bor-
rowers.
U.S. will sell
Saui Arabia
$ 6 billion in f
jet airliners}
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON-In an unusual
step, President Clinton announced in
White House ceremony yesterday
that Saudi Arabia will purchase 50 .
new airliners from U.S. manufactur-
ers -- an order worth between $5
billion and $6 billion
The decision to trumpet the agree-
ment from the White House marked
an uncommon level of official par-
ticipation in a commercial transac-
tion that was designed to underscore
t he administration's growing involve-
ent in promoting U.S. exports.
The Saudi order is extremely im-
portant to Seattle-based Boeing Co.
and to the McDonnell Douglas Corp. F *,*
of St. Louis, which will share produc-
tion of the planes. It also provides a
major boost for McDonnell's strug-
gling Douglas Aircraft Co. division
in Long Beach, Calif., and for dozens
of aircraft parts makers that supply
:omponents to both Douglas and
Boeing.
Although the order is not likely to .
prompt a new wave of hiring, it is
expected to help stabilize employ-
ment - welcome news for the com
panties, which have had steady layoffs
because of defense cutbacks. The
purchase could keep as many as
100,000 workers employed over the d
ext several ears administration of- .
ficials said. g isv
The precise division of work be- Th dj
tween the two companies and the ess
act types of planes the Saudis will buy C4;:t"'siii::nceent o:i"i:dea::is gle was d . .e sad. :
will not be announced until after a House, where he was " ss shes
final round of negotiations between:{ .+},,;;.. "wr
the companies and Saudi officials.
Those negotiations are expected to m fsd. -ss.t fU Jg
begin next month in Saudi Arabia. AP::::,<:::<::>::>«:>:>:>:;::::}: PHOTOi>}
That the Saudis intended to buy A HT
*~imerican planes - rather than the President Clinton speaks about the sale of jets to the Saudi Arabian government yesterday at the White House.
:European-made Airbus - first be-
came clear through official confirma- and Germany. cials of both Boeing and McDonnell tively; we're serious about working
tions last summer. But the final deal The degree of government in- Douglas. in conjunction with American busi-
was made only after intensive lobby- volvement in the deal wasunderscored As the president announced the ness and industry to win those battles,"
ing by the president and by other by Clinton's announcement of it in deal, his glee was evident.. he said.
senior officials who were competing the White House, where he was "What this demonstrates is that The announcement follows ameet-
for the business against senior gov- flanked by the Saudi ambassador, we're serious about opening markets; ing in December in which officials of
erment officials from Britain, France members of his Cabinet and top offi- we're serious about competing effec- See SAUDI JETS, Page 2
U.N. demands
Serb artillery
out by Monday
Serbian and Bosnian
weapons in Sarajevo
must be withdrawn
by Monday or U.N.
willcollect and
control them; U.N.
insists on absolute
authority over guns
LOS ANGELES TIMES
NAPLES, Italy - The Monday
deadline for the withdrawal of heavy
weapons from around Sarajevo is
unambiguous, and U.N. troops will
exercise total control of weaponry
turned in by Serb and Bosnian forces,
the NATO commander who would
order any air strikes said yesterday.
"Control of weapons means that
they are regrouped and collected and
under U.N. control. If a warring fac-
tion wants to use those weapons, it
would have to fight to get them,"
Admn. Jeremy M. Boorda told report-
ers here, gainsaying speculation from
Washington that the United Nations
might settle for less than absolute
authority over weapons remaining in
the area after the deadline.
U.N. commanders in Bosnia have
exactly the same understanding of
what control means, said the Ameri-
can four-star admiral. "It's the U.N.'s
deadline, and it's the NATO dead-
line; there's no ambiguity about that."
"Our mandate hasn't shifted. Our
rules haven't shifted," said Boorda,
who heads the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization's Southern Command
here along with the bristling armada
of NATO warplanes poised at Italian
air bases and on aircraft carriers in the
Adriatic.
In Brussels yesterday, NATO
ambassadors also reaffirmed the Feb.
21 deadline, saying there would be no
extension.
A NATO ultimatum issued last
U.S. will not
send troops to
support NATO
THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- The
United States has rejected United
Nations requests this week for
troops and equipment to support
a NATO ultimatum to silence
Serb artillery around Sarajevo,
U.S. officials said yesterday.
In a meeting in New York on
Tuesday among several coun-
tries involved in Bosnia, U.N.
officials conveyed a request from
Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, the Brit-
ish commander of U.N. troops in
Bosnia, for an additional 2,500
to 3,000 soldiers. The troops
Iwould help U.N. forces monitor
Serbartillery that cannot be
moved out of the 12-mile exclu-
sion zone declared by NATO
last week. This monitoring ef-
fort has become critical to the
joint U.N.-NATO effort to stop
the shelling of the Bosnian capi-
tal.
In addition,f ose requested
sophisticated counter battery ra-
dar that can pinpoint the source
of shelling and fix blame in the
See NATO, Page 2
week and aimed principally at the
Serbs gives both sides in the Bosnian
struggle until just after midnight Sun-
day to withdraw artillery, mortars and
other heavy weapons from within a
12.5-mile radius of Sarajevo or turn
them over to U.N. peacekeepers. Fail-
ing that, NATO warplanes-- Ameri-
can, British, French and Dutch -
could strike at U.N. behest anytime
See DEADLINE, Page 2
*Brater, now a 'U' prof, is
still active in city politics
Students give up ice
cream, chocolate,
Limbaugh for Lent
By JAMES M. NASH
DAILY STAFF REPORTER
The bad blood resurfaced at Monday
night's council meetingwhenNicolas
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