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Show MdDW AIblI3lt lit? yr to " Page A2 :1k it vdo meanta ctmewt account,,, WUHT!,,,. CS-Tl by Vtf iCCli&.Ujy Cyj;ttyUJllami& Joe Spear Will cold snaps result from future 'weather wars'? Washington This winter is shaping up as one of the worst in recent memory. Record low temperatures have been tallied on thermometers in Chicago. Washington has been in the grip of the coldest weather it has suffered in a century. Europe is engulfed in snow and ice. The National Football League playoff in Cincinnati was played in a wind-chill factor of 59 degrees below zero. Sooner or later, someone is going to blame the cold weather on the Russians. Surely, the Kremlin's diabolical dia-bolical scientists are behind it all. Crazy as it may seem, there is a chilling possibiliijr tfcat scientists might well be tampering with" the world's temperatures. The white-smocked white-smocked masterminds in their laboratories labor-atories have been toying with the idea of man-made changes in the weather. Our sources say there is at least a theoretical possibility that cold snaps like those of this winter can be engineered by scientists in the pay of a major world power. So-called "weather wars" could be even more devastating than the nuclear holocaust that everyone has been so concerned about since 1945. The idea of a "weather war" may sound like something out of "Star Wars" or "Buck Rogers." But it has impressed both the scientists and the politicians in Washington and Moscow. In fact, the U.S. Senate quietly ratified a treaty on "weather wars" with the Soviet Union in 1979. It prohibits efforts to change the world's weather for military or otherwise-hostile purposes. American presidents have been concerned with the possibility of "weather wars" for at least 10 years. We've seen secret memorandums on the subject. THINK, M01HER,1P VDO WENT TDM pOSTOFRCe THIS MORNING ID REGISTER THAT tCTrER...WHMUNE WVDU STAND IN ? One of these documents, still in effect, states that the "United States shall continue research bearing on climate modification, but no climate modification operation civilian or military shall be conducted until its total impact can be predicted with great assurance approval of the president." There is, of course, another possible explanation for the recent cold wave. It may not be the devilish work of the Kremlin after all. Some experts think the world is in what they call an "interglacial" period. In this view, we're just overdue for another ice age. . . HOLED UP IN MOSCOW: Last monthp Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov staged a hunger strike to pressure the Soviet Union into letting his stepson's wife leave the country. Now there is another hunger strike in Russia this one inside the U.S. Embassy. Two women, confined in the basement base-ment of the embassy, are refusing to eat. They belong to the Vashchenko and Chmykalov families who sought refuge in the embassy three-and-a-half years ago. They managed to slip past the KGB policemen who guard the single entrance to the embassy 24 hours a day. The refugees begged to be allowed to emigrate to the United States. But the Soviet government refused to grant them safe passage out of the country. Certainly, they would be severely punished if they were kicked out of the embassy. So the two Russian families were put up in small makeshift quarters in the embassy basement. They are still down there in the basement as the two superpowers haggle over their fate. Presumably, Thursday, January 21, 1982 Jack Anderson their situation is better than it would be in an internment camp in Siberia. But the American officials have not been the perfect hosts. For example, fom er Ambassador Thomas Watson co fined the two families to a limited rea and barred them from talking to the press. "Embassy families," he ordered in a confidential instruction, "may not act as intermediaries passing communications communi-cations and printed materials to and from" the Russians in the basement. Meanwhile, the two Soviet families have become, so-djeUlusioned and -desperate thatlwo of the women hae gone on a -hunger-strike. & jf WATT PROBEi" Interior Secretary' " James Watt has been roundly censured by environmentalists. Now his social life is being investigated. It seems the secretary used money from a special fund, donated by historical and other non-profit groups, to pay for his private soirees. The money was ear-marked for America's parks, not Watt's social events. And a historical mansion where one party was thrown may even have been damaged. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., has decided to investigate Watt's socializing. social-izing. But insiders say Watt has put a muzzle on the people involved with the festivities. He has even ordered the caterers and dishwashers not to talk to congressional investigators. So Markey has asked the General Accounting Office the government watchdog that answers to Congress to conduct a hurry-up inquiry. Markey wants to hold special hearings as soon as possible so the full story can be told. Copyright, 1982 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. The Historic District Commission is working hard to preserve Park City's historical heritage. With fires consuming our old buildings regularly, do you think we have anything left to preserve? Dale Nelson Any building with charm or historical value should be preserved if it can meet an individual's or developer's economic standards for the 1980s. Jim Davis I'd like f John Peck What has been burned can be rebuilt at a later date to help preserve the history of Park City. It would be a good idea to introduce intro-duce sprinkler systems in residential and commercial structures. by Stanley Karnou flpflaDlball View Western alliance needs much stronger economic .Washington: Strong language came out of Brussels the other day as Secretary of State Alexander Haig persuaded America's allies to denounce de-nounce the Soviet Union for the Polish crisis. But it remains to be seen whether there are teeth in the rhetoric. President Reagan has been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to get the Western alliance to subscribe to his sanctions against the Kremlin. Under Haig's prodding, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization finally agreed to discuss the question, and disbanded without pledging action. I am skeptical that the West Europeans will do more than utter strong words. For it seems to me the Atlantic alliance is confronted by a dilemma that goes far deeper than the immediate issue of punishing the Russians. The basic problem is economic. The United States and its traditional friends have been heading in different and often divergent economic directions direc-tions for years. Thus disputes are inevitable unless they can formulate a joint economic strategy. The alliance would be hard put to achieve unity under the best of circumstances. The prospects for cohesion in the present recession are even more remote, since the industrial nations are motivated less by their devotion to a common objective than by their individual interests. Western Europe is plagued by record unemployment and the danger of renewed inflation, both of which threaten its political and social stability. In the United States, the ranks of the jobless are swelling again as business activity falters, while Reagan's whopping whop-ping budget deficits augur another climb in interest rates and the Newspaper Subscription Riles, S6 a year in Summit County, SI 2 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. USPS 378-730 Publisher Jan Wilting Wi,or David Hampshire Advertising Sales j wilking. Bill Dickson Business Manager Bjck LaBnill GraPhic!( Becky Widenhouse, Lta Heimot Benin Mocnck, Rick Bro.gh pho, l:dilHf , Phyllis Rubensiein Tpeselling Sabina Rosser, Sharon Pain, Kalh) Deakin Subscriplion & Classifieds i Mlrjol l)is,ribu,iHn .....Bob Grieve Entered as second-class mailer May 25, 1977, al the post office in Park City, Utah S4060, ander the Act of March 3, 1897. Published every Thursday at Park City, Utah. Second-class postage paid al Park City, Utah. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs are welcome and will be considered for publication, however. The Newspaper will assume no responsibility for the return of such material. All news, advertising and ahotos must be received prior lo the Taetday noon deadline at our office, 419 Main Street In Park City, by mail P.O. Box 738, Park City, Ut. 84060, or by calling our office (801) 49-9014. Publication material must be received by Tuesday noon for Thursday publication. Sue Auger .. ... B(i We should preserve the old charm. Otherwise, the city will ena up looking like another Vail. . . . .. to see a reDlica of the Coalition Building built. But it doesn't seem like we have much to preserve likelihood of a, continued. slump., So it is unrealistic to expect that West Germany will significantly curtail its trade with the Soviet Union, which runs to more than $4 billion per year. The French similarly show no signs of canceling their deals with the Kremlin, even though their Socialist leaders have been among the loudest critics of the crackdowns in Poland. By the same token, Reagan has made a mockery of his own pleas for toughness by refusing to restore the embargo on U.S. grain sales to the Russians. After all, American farmers stand higher on his list of priorities than abused Polish workers. This is not to suggest that the ties that have linked the United States and its partners since the end of World War II are frayed beyond repair. The bonds can be tightened, but only if the members of the alliance awaken to the fact that conditions hav? changed drastically over the past generation. Too often, in my opinion, Washington policy-makers persist in the antiquated anti-quated notion that Western Europe is still an American dependency. But West Europeans also harbor an illusion in believing, as many do, that they can survive without U.S. support. The challenge at the moment, therefore, is to renovate the Western alliance so that it becomes a coalition of more or less equals aware that they must hang together if they are not to hang separately. Haig, the most sophisticated figure in the Reagan Cabinet, has asserted repeatedly that the allies have their own concerns, and cannot be compelled com-pelled to march in "lock step" with the United States. But his advice has frequently been ignored by Reagan's close aides, who tend to be "unilateralist," the new 7 . u i any more. pillars euphemism for jsolationistLikc the president, they are essentially insensitive insensi-tive to attitudes abroad. Last month, for example, Reagan committed the unpardonable error of announcing his sanctions without consulting America's allies beforehand. before-hand. In particular, he blatantly neglected West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, whom he knew to be opposed to the move. From the start of his term, however, Reagan has consistently spurned the allies in his pursuit of an America-first economic policy that has had enormous enor-mous and largely negative global repercussions. His tight-money approach has sent interst rates soaring everywhere, with the result that foreign industries have been unable to borrow the money to invest. Reaganomics also has strengthened the dollar to the point at which other countries have been clobbered by skyrocketing oil prices. The West Germans, French and others have appealed again and again to the administration to temper its heavy focus on monetary restraints, but to no avail. Reagan has been no. more receptive to their complaints than he has to Wall Street's cries of woe. The fault is not one-sided, of course. The allies must be prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of exerting pressure on the Russians, and the kind of verbal admonitions that emanated from Brussels is not enough. But above all, I think, the Western alliance seriously requires reconstruction reconstruc-tion on stronger economic pillars. Otherwise, the sound and fury of its Copyright 1982 The Register and Tribune Syndicate Inc. . |
