The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, May 20, 1981-Page 5 HABIB MEETS WIT H SYRIAN AND ISR AELI LEADERS Efforts to avert crisis clouded JERUSALEM (AP)-U.S. envoy Philip Habib met yesterday with the leaders of Syria and Israel, but his effort to avert a showdown over Syria's missiles in Lebanon was clouded by signs of Israeli impatience and Syrian charges he was covering for an impending Israeli attack. Syria said it had shot down an unmanned Israeli reconnaissance plane yesterday over the Syrian port city of Latakia, 60 miles north of Syria's border with Lebanon. A military spokesman said the craft was similar to one downed last week over Lebanon. ASKED ABOUT the report, an Israeli military spokesman said, "It's completely denied." Habib spent 22 hours with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus, then flew to Tel Aviv, spending 90 minutes with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. After the meeting with Begin, he said "the diplomatic efforts will continue." It was the veteran American diplomat's third round on the Syria-Israel shuttle he has been traveling for 12 days. BEGIN PRAISED Habib's "immense, perhaps unexampled efforts" and said he would "convene the appropriate authorities to take the appropriate decisions." The comments prompted speculation the U.S. en- voy had made some progress, but neither Begin nor Habib would answer questions, and there were other signals yesterday that the issue was far from settled. As Habib was meeting with Assad, Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzbak Shamir was telling reporters in Jerusalem that Israel will not wait indefinitely for diplomacy to remove the Soviet-made anti-aircraft missiles-that the Israeli air force will eventually be called in. "IT IS NOT a question of days or hours," Shamir said, "but we cannot wait for months." In Damascus, the government newspaper Al Baath said Habib's mission was -a deception: "Habib is preparing the grounds for a large-scale Israeli aggression on Lebanon to partition that country, liquidate the Palestinian cause and eventually invade Syria." Adding to the chilliness of Syria's treatment was' Hassad's decision to keep Habib waiting for 20 hours after his arrival in Damascus before seeing him. An-Nahar, a Beirut newspaper, reported yesterday that during a visit to Riyadh over the weekend, Habib had obtained Saudi Arabia's backing for a four-point. plan to defuse the missile crisis. THE PLAN WAS said to call for gradual with- drawal of the weapons in exchange for a moratorium on Israeli flights over the area; peace talks under U.S. auspices; a return to the Lebanese army control of the strategic high country that Syria and the Christians have been disputing; and resumption of Saudi and Kuwaiti aid to Syria's force in Lebanon. Syria's 22,000 soldiers in Lebanon are under an Arab League mandate to enforce the armistice that ended the 1975-76 civil war between Christians and a coalition of Moslems and Palestinian guerrillas. But the Christians say they have become an army of oc- cupation. - Israel's Begin, however, said Monday he doubts Saudi Arabia will be of much help with the plan and described it as "one of the most corrupt states in the world." ASKED ABOUT that yesterday, State Department spokesman Dean Fishcer said, "We do believe that this is a time when everyone concerned . . . should restrain their rhetoric." Israel's state-run radio said Begin would chair a cabinet meeting-probably on Wednesday and probably to discuss the peace plan. The threat of war has hung over the Middle East since Israel shot down two Syrian helicopter gunships operating against the Lebanese Christians in eastern Lebanon April 28. Syria responded the next day by moving SAM-6 anti-aircraft missiles into the area. President Reagan was reported yesterday to have taken a personal role in the crisis. According to deputy press secretary Larry Speakes, Reagan met on Saturday with Saudi Prince Turki El Faisal, an adviser to the Saudi royal family. Senate reviews civil rights chief WASHINGTON (UPI) - The White House gave Ernest Lefever a vote of confidence as President Reagan's top human rights spokesman yesterday in the face of strong opposition that threatened to block or delay in- definitely his Senate confirmation. Most if not all of the committee's eight Democrats are opposed to Lefever because of his general view that the United States should publicly condemn human rights violations in communist countries but respond with "quiet diplomacy" to violations by non- communist governments friendly to Washington. "CHAIRMAN Charles Percy (R-Ill.) announced at the end of the day that the committee will vote on Lefever im- mediately after the Memorial Day recess ending June 1. "There is no reason to rush this matter," Percy said. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a strong Lefever supporter, and National Coun- cil of Churches President M. William Howard clashed during the afternoon session. Howard said he opposed Lefever on behalf of the council's 42 million mem- bers, but Helms disputed that. When Howard said he represented the coun- cil's 177-member governing board, Helms told him: "Then you don't represent 42 million Americans." LEFEVER'S supporters also in- cluded the American Jewish Forum, the National Association of Evangelicals, and Michael Novak, U.S. delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. The NAACP, Mayor Donald Fraser of Minneapolis, the National Council of Churches, the New York Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights and Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov and Shcharansky were among those arrayed against the nominee. Butz will plead guilty to tax evasion charge FORT WAYNE, Ind. (UPI) - A federal prosecutor said yesterday for- mer Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz has agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion charges. U.S. Attorney David Ready said he had reached a plea bargaining agreement with Butz, 71, who served in the cabinets of Presidents Nixon and Ford. But he refused to say how much money was involved in the tax-evasion case. WHEN REACHED BY phone yester- day, Butz declined to comment on the case, but did observe other tax cases "aren't spread all over the front pages. Ready indicated Butz will plead guilty to a charge involving the 1978 tax year and said all the alleged violations occurred after Butz ended his gover- nment service. But the prosecutor refused to elaborate, pending Butz' appearance before U.S. District Judge Jesse Esch- bach on Friday. THE MAXIMUM sentence is five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Ready refused to comment on published reports that Butz failed to report and pay taxes on thousands of dollars earned for public speeches and lectures. Butz was appointed secretary of agriculture by Nixon in 1971 and con- tinued in the post under Ford. He resigned in October 1976 when a racial joke he told was made public a month before the 1976 presidential election. SHORTLY BEFORE word of the joke surfaced, Butz outraged some Catholics and Italian-Americans with a comment chiding Pope Paul VI for his stand on birth control. "He no playa the game, he no maka the rules," Butz said in a mock Italian accent. Butz, a former dean of Purdue University's school of agriculture, still is much in demand as a speaker and has had his own syndicated radio program. He makes about 200 speeches a year coast to coast for fees ranging up to $2,500. Some of those fees he turns over to the Dean Butz Scholarship Fund at Purdue, which received nearly $10,000 in 1977.