1'
One hundred three years of editorial freedom
ti
Tuesday, September 13,1984
0 1994 The Michigan Daily
Plane crashes
onto lawn of
White House
AP PHOTO
President Clinton shares a laugh with members of AmeriCorps during a
ceremony at the White House where he swore in the first recruits.
Clinton iaguae
national service pla
Los Angeles Times "Every generation in our history
WASHINGTON - President has learned to take responsibility for
Clinton inaugurated his national ser- our future and your generation is no
vice program for youth yesterday, exception."
swearing in thousands of young re- The ceremony, attended by first
cruits across the country who will lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice
work in schools and hospitals and President Al Gore and leading con-
help clean up the environment. gressional sponsors of the national
The program, dubbed service legislation, was delayed sev-
AmeriCorps, was approved by Con- eral hours and later moved to the front
gress last year to allow youths to earn of the White House from the larger
college tuition or to pay off tuition South Lawn because of the crash ear-
loans by performing community ser- lier of a small aircraft on the grounds
vice. of the executive mansion.
"Service is a spark to rekindle the Fulfilling a key pledge of Clinton's
spirit of democracy in an age of un- presidential campaign, AmeriCorps
certainty," Clinton told hundreds of is a domestic version of the Peace
recruits gathered on the White House Corps, which was created by Presi-
lawn in a ceremony beamed by satel- dent Kennedy, the chief executive
lite to thousands of others. See SERVICE, Page 7
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - Secret Ser-
vice officials suggested yesterday that
a dramatic suicide, rather than an as-
sassination attempt, was the most
likely motivation behind the crash on
the White House South Lawn of a
light plane piloted by Frank Eugene
Corder, a 38-year-old truck driver
with a history of alcohol and drug
problems.
The plane's dive onto the White
House South Lawn at 1:49 a.m. EDT
yesterday "does not appear (to have
been) directed toward the president,"
Secret Service spokesman Carl Meyer
told reporters, warning that the con-
clusion was "very preliminary."
The plane contained no explosives
or other weapons, Meyer noted, and
investigators have found no evidence
that Corder had any political griev-
ance against President Clinton nor
that he had ever threatened the
Clintons.
Investigators did discover that
Corder, who lived in Perryville, Md.,
northeast of Baltimore, had been
treated last year for alcoholism at the
Perry Point Medical Center, a Veter-
ans Administration hospital in Mary-
land, had separated three weeks ago
from his wife and had been distraught
over the death of his father last spring.
Clinton said during a speech to
young people enrolled in national ser-
vice programs that "we take this inci-
dent seriously because the White
House is the people's house and it's
the job of every president who lives
here to keep it safe and secure."
But even as workmen removed
the debris from the wrecked plane
and the Clintons moved back into the
White House from a five-night stay
across the street in Blair House, offi-
cials conceded that they cannot now
- and may never be able to - guar-
antee that a pilot determined to pen-
etrate the airspace around the White
House could be stopped.
The White House lawn became an
See CRASH, Page 11
White House
not assecure
abelieved
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The crash
of a small plane onto the White
House lawn yesterday revealed
what a former senior security offi-
cial said is the "sad little secret" of
presidential security: Numerous
systems devised by the Secret Ser-
vice to protect the president have
been breached, strengthened and
then breached again.
The piercing of the protected
airspace over the White House
yesterday came despite strength-
ened procedures put in place after
a 1974 incident during which an
Army private stole a helicopter
and landed it on the South Lawn,
about 50 feet from yesterday's
crash site.
Presidential helicopters are the
only aircraft allowed to fly in the
patch of airspace from the Capitol
to the Lincoln Memorial to three
blocks north of the White House.
Under the guidelines put in place
after the 1974 incident, the Fed-
eral Aviation Administration
monitors the area 24 hours a day,
and any other intrusion is to be
reported immediately to the Secret
Service.
Federal sources said last night
that the plane was detected by FAA
radar minutes before the crash.
The preliminary investigation sug-
gests that the information was not
relayed to the Secret Service in
time for agents to prepare for some
type of threat, the sources said.
Secret Service personnel,
sources said, are trained to follow
a series of "emergency response"
See SECURITY, Page 11
U.N. delegates
compronse on
population plan
Los Angeles Times
CAIRO, Egypt - Finally clearing nagging disputes over
reproductive health, birth control and migrant workers, U.N.
drafters yesterday completed an ambitious new population
plan that U.N. officials say has allowed the world for the first
time to deal frankly with sex and spiraling human reproduc-
tion.
The plan, scheduled for adoption today by nearly 180
nations gathered for the International Conference on Popula-
tion and Development, contains important compromises with
both Roman Catholic and Islamic nationsaimed at assuring
that sex education, reproductive health care and family plan-
ning programs comply with each nation's own religious and
cultural traditions.
It emphasizes that abortion is not encouraged as a family
planning tool and leaves that contentious issue - which at
one point threatened to overtake the conference - up to each
nation's own legislation.
"It's all over but the shouting," U.S. Undersecretary of
State Timothy Wirth said of today's upcoming floor debate.
See POPULATION, Page 2
INSIDE
MICHIGANENSIAN
Michelle "Shelly" Ziska, who graduated from the University in 1981, was
one of the 132 people who died after USAir Flight 472 crashed last
Thursday. She is survived by her husband and two-year-old son.
Officials downplay possibility
of flaw in jet's braking system
* LANSING (AP) - A new poll
shows GOP Gov. John Engler with an
I1t percentage point lead over Demo-
~rat Howard Wolpe in the gubernato-
ial race. It also shows Republican
Spence Abraham and Democrat Bob
rArr in a ctatictiale dh eat fnr.
NEWS
3
Ann Arbor teachers and students went back to
school yesterday after a two-week strike.
ARTS
8
The Washington Post
PITTSBURGH - Boeing Co.
company's headquarters in Seattle that
it would be virtually imnossible for
1.)r.i.
If you don't like Chinese food now. you'll love it