The Michigan Daily--Tuesday, July 14, 1981-uPage 3
WIFE AND CHILD ARE CONT ACTED
Taiwan affair progresses
By JOHN ADAM
Daily staff writer
Contact was made recently between the wife and
child of former University graduate student Chen
Wen-Chen and members of Carnegie Mellon Univer-
sity faculty, according to CMU President Richard
Cyert.
Cyert said that Chen's wife, Sue Jen, has said she
will leave Taiwan in "the middle of August maybe."
There had been suspicions that Chen's wife and child
were placed under house arrest after her husband's
mysterious death on July 3.
INVESTIGATION OF Chen's 'death is now being
conducted by the Nationalist Chinese government in
Taiwan. If the inquiry appears to be merely a "white-
wash," said Cycrt, he will ask other university
presidents, including University of Michigan
President Harold Shapiro, to push for a congressional
investigation.
A congressional investigation threatens to give
Hughes estate
still in dispute;
judge rej.ects
four claim
Taiwan's government a lot of bad publicity, said
Cyert. "They'd clearly like to have a good reputation
here so they can get arms," he said.
Now there seems to be "a little more action" in the
Eighty-three members of the Free
China Student Association, in a letter to
the Daily, refuted charges that agents of
the Taiwanese government are working
through their organization. See their let-
ter on the Daily's Opinion Page, Page 8.
investigation, said Carnegie-Mellon's president. He
said he sent a cablegram to President Reagan and a
subcommittee hearing on Chen's case is scheduled
for today.
HOUSTON (AP)-Billionaire Howard Hughes had
no close relatives and left no will when he died five
years ago, a probate judge ruled yesterday in rejec-
ting four claims to the recluse's estate.
The ruling, which came after one woman disclosed
alleged details of the billionaire's sex life, set the
stage for hearings beginning Aug. 10 on claims by a
group of 22 cousins and other distant relatives and by
hundreds of people alleging some family link.
IN YESTERDAY'S ruling, Probate Judge Pat
Gregory threw out claims by two people who said
they were Hughes's children and two women who
said they had married Hughes.
Among them was a woman who identified herself
as Alma Cruise Hughes and wept as she insisted
Hughes married her in a hospital operating room in
Dallas in 1973, three years before he died.
"WE HAVE SOME deep suspicion that someone
from (the CMU) campus sent information that led to
his (Chen's) death," said Cyert and added, "I'm
fairly confident that there are spies." Chen was an
assistant professor at Carnegie-Mellon in statistics.
Students at Carnegie-Mellon have put on a bulletin
board a list of alleged government agents working in
the Pittsburgh university community, but Cyert said
it "will be very difficult to prove" they are, in fact,
spies.
Shapiro said yesterday that "it's very dangerous to
make judgements about individual people" such as
the alleged secret agents, and added it is "hard for us
here to sort this out now."
SHAPIRO SAID all kinds of different charges have
been made at the University such as the "mainland
Chinese versus the Taiwanese," but "what's obvious
is not always what's true" in these type of cases.
In another development, a group of students at this
See TAIWANESE, Page5
The elderly woman told Gregory that Hughes'
autopsy was falsified, because she said it made no
mention of her allegation that he only had one foot.
SHE ALSO said she and Hughes lived apart at his
request because "Hughes was awfully rough in bed
with his women." She said she got pregnant by
Hughes by artificial insemination and bore him a son
in 1974.
The four claims were the only ones left by people
alleging to be close relatives of the eccentric recluse.
TOWARD THE END of yesterday's hearing, a
woman and her son, sitting in the spectator's gallery,
claimed Hughes died in 1970 but that his remains
were frozen and not thawed out until 1976. Gregory
ruled them out of order and told them they could file
an appeal.
A2 woman fi hts for the ERA
Utah project poses tough
'Eia; NNW",challenge to NOW member
By JENNIFER MILLER -
Daily staff writer
This energetic Ann Arbor woman is
putting aside two job offers and using
her savings to go to Utah this month.
Kathy Fojtik, a dedicated member of
the National Organization for Women,
is determined that the Equal Rights
Amendment should be ratified next
year.
Utah is one of the 15 states yet to
ratify, and the Mormon Church there is
a strong opponent of ERA. But NOW
will continue to push for ERA in Utah,
because, as Ann Arbor NOW Chairman
Marcia Pupkewitz said, "We believe
the Mormon leadership is out of touch
with their people."
FOJTIK, WHO will stay witha Utah
family, and other NOW members will
be conducting surveys and lobbying in
Utah. "The strategy is to try to turn
around the Mormon church," Fojtik
said, adding that as of a week ago, one-
third of the Mormons and two-thirds of
the non-Mormons polled in a survey
supported ERA.
The fight for Utah ratification will be
difficult, if not impossible, however.
"The strategy is far out," Fojtik said,
"The Mormon Church is one of the
tightest patriarchies I've ever seen."
Fojtik, a past president of Ann Arbo
NOW, said she was inspired to join
NOW's "Utah Missionary Project" by a
speech given by a former Mormon
woman last month.
IN HER SPEECH, Fojtik said, the
woman told of an anti-ERA talk given
to Mormon women in her church. She
said her own commitment to the ERA
sprang from her outrage and in-
dignation at the male speaker's misin-
formed talk.
"Her speech as a Mormon, as a
Mormon who was excommunicated,
and as a woman in a male world,"
Fojtik said, "made me forego getting a
job and take some of my savings to help
educate the people of Utah about the
ERA."
The ERA, Fojtik said, "has nothing to
do with government control over
people's lives. It's giving more personal
freedom." As a Constitutional amen-
dment it will form "the principles on
which judges and juries base their
decisions," Fojtik said.
HUT THE ERA will be largely sym-
bolic, she continued, because "I know it
would be interpreted conservatively by
the courts, which are 94 percent male.
And history tells you that every con-
stitutional amendment is interpreted
conservatively." Fojtik added, "It will
See ANN ARBOR, Page 5
KATHY FOJTIK, a former city NOW chairman, makes "El
skit put on for the crowd at an ERA rally held here last month.