Reluare marți, 19 februarie 1985

PRESS CAUTIOUSLY HAILS WESTMORELAND'S WITHDRAWAL OF LIBEL SUIT

Date: 19 February 1985

Television, newspaper and magazine executives yesterday applauded Gen. William C. Westmoreland's decision to drop his libel suit against CBS and said the outcome affirmed that journalists should examine public issues without having to fear legal action. Many were cautious, however, about claiming the result as a clear-cut victory for CBS or the press in general. ''Some legitimate questions were raised about the fairness of that particular editing process,'' noted Dave Lawrence, chairman and publisher of The Detroit Free Press, who is directing a study of press credibility for the American Society of Newspaper Editors. ''The questions still stand in the public mind about our devotion to accuracy and fairness.'' General Westmoreland, who commanded American troops in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, had sued CBS for $120 million, saying he was libeled by its assertion in a 1982 documentary that his command had underreported enemy strength in a conspiracy to withhold information that might lessen public support for the war.

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SCIENCE MAGAZINES FROM U.S. THRIVE IN SOVIET AND CHINA

Date: 19 February 1985

By Walter Sullivan

Walter Sullivan

EACH month, 20,000 Russian language copies of Scientific American magazine are snapped up as soon as they hit the streets in the Soviet Union. In Peking, the circulation of Discover magazine, published in the United States by Time Inc., is expected to go above 100,000 by 1986. In Shanghai 50,000 translated copies of the American publication Science News are printed each week. The popular science journals of the United States are being circulated to the far corners of the earth as foreign governments, including the Soviet Union and China, recognize their education value in keeping pace with the explosive growth of high technology elsewhere.

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2 GERMANYS: A NEW CHILL

Date: 19 February 1985

By James M. Markham

James

The two Germanys, which a year ago were single- mindedly striving to build a semblance of trust and detente in the heart of Europe, are feuding again. The causes for the latest falling-out between East and West Germany lie both within their own political systems and without, mostly in Moscow, according to diplomatic and academic specialists. Few speak of an eventual rupture in the West German-East German relationship, but there seems to be a consensus among officials on both sides that momentum for a substantial improvement has been lost. Diplomatic ceremonies last week to mark the reopening of the Semper Opera in Dresden, which was virtually destroyed in the bombing of the eastern German city 40 years ago, highlighted the new coolness. Erich Honecker, the East German Communist leader, snubbed the senior representative of Bonn's governing Christian Democrats, Ernst Albrecht, the Premier of Lower Saxony.

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'Star Wars' Plan Criticized

Date: 19 February 1985

Reuters

West Germany's main opposition leader added his voice today to the criticism of President Reagan's ''Star Wars'' proposal. Hans-Jochen Vogel, parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic Party, told NATO ambassadors at a lunch in Brussels that he shared ''the skepticism voiced in Paris and London'' about the proposed space- based antimissile research.

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Once More With Feeling

Date: 19 February 1985

By Phil Gailey and Marjorie Hunter

Phil Gailey

Sometimes timing can be everything. Last year the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a local research organization, came out with ''The Military Payoff: A Report on the U.S. Government's Most Generous Pension Plan.''

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Craxi and Peres Meet; No Mideast Plan Seen

Date: 19 February 1985

Reuters

Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy told Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel tonight that the time was not yet right for a new Middle East peace initiative. ''There are not yet enough conditions for a new peace initiative,'' Mr. Craxi told Mr. Peres, who arrived today on a three-day visit to Italy.

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WASTE IN HOUSING COSTS CITED

Date: 19 February 1985

UPI

Upi

Pentagon auditors, tracing allegations that servicemen and landlords were defrauding a military housing program, have reported that taxpayers paid $49 million in unnecessary expenses in Alaska and Hawaii for two years. The audit reported that the Air Force alone destroyed records essential for tracking $17 million in annual costs in the ''rent-plus'' program for personnel living off base in Hawaii.

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NEWS SUMMARY

Date: 19 February 1985

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1985 International South African demonstrators fought the police in running battles in a packed squatter camp outside Cape Town. At least five people were reported killed and 60 injured. Officials said the protest was generated by a fear among the 100,000 residents that they were to be forcibly removed to a newly created black township several miles away. (Page A1, Column 1.) Shiite Moslem fundamentalists drove into Sidon, Lebanon, to celebrate the departure of Israeli forces from the port city. The thousands of armed demonstrators called for an Islamic republic in Lebanon. (A1:2.)

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MIXED NEWS ON HEART PATIENTS

Date: 19 February 1985

By Lawrence K. Altman , Special To the New York Times

Lawrence Altman

Reports on the progress of the third artificial heart recipient, Murray P. Haydon, were encouraging today, but the optimism was dampened by an unusually gloomy assessment of the progress of William J. Schroeder, the second recipient of an artificial heart. A hospital spokesman suggested that Mr. Schroeder, who is suffering from a fever of undetermined cause, might never be well enough to leave the hospital. On the other hand, said the spokesman, Dr. Allan M. Lansing, ''Mr. Haydon's conditon is so good it is frightening.'' He said Mr. Haydon, whom he described as ''very alert'' and in excellent spirits, gave a thumbs-up sign to the nurses and doctors at Humana Hospital Audubon today.

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CBS NEWS RELIEVED OF BURDEN OF SUIT

Date: 19 February 1985

By Michael Oreskes

Michael Oreskes

CBS News began work today for the first time in three years relieved of the burden of defending the integrity of its 1982 documentary on Vietnam troop strength. ''I was exhilarated,'' Van Gordon Sauter, the executive vice president of the CBS Broadcast group, said yesterday in the wake of Gen. William C. Westmoreland's decision to drop his $120 million suit charging that the documentary, ''The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception,'' had libeled him. ''For the last three years,'' Mr. Sauter said, ''in one way or another, this has been a part of every day in one's life.''

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