Around the Nation

Around the Nation

Rescue workers search train wreakage

Authorities said the truck driver, John Stokes, was driving on a probationary license after receiving three speeding tickets within a year. He suffered only minor injuries.

As many as 216 people were aboard Amtrak's City of New Orleans when it hit the tractor-trailer at a rural crossing near a steel mill 50 miles south of Chicago on Monday night. Four to six people were missing and feared dead in the wreckage.

"We need to make sure there are no survivors and if that means taking the wreckage apart part by part, that's what we'll do," Bourbonnais Fire Chief Mike Harshbarger said.

The collision left the train's two engines and leading cars scattered like burned and broken toys over a quarter-mile. One engine punched through a car behind it, and the crash sparked a fire that burned for more than five hours.

All of the dead were found in a double-deck sleeping car that was three cars behind the engines of the 14-car train. Many passengers were settling in for the night when the train slammed into the truck shortly after 9:30 p.m.

"All of the sudden everything just started crashing and catching on fire and people hollering and running," said Blanche Jones, a passenger from Memphis, Tenn.

"We couldn't get out, couldn't find a way out. That was the most devastating thing of all. By the grace of God, I just went down a stairway and found a way to get out and let everybody know how to get out."

Amtrak president George Warrington visited the scene in the afternoon, and in Washington, President Clinton offered his "thoughts and prayers" to the victims and pledged to do whatever he could to help them and their families.

The crossing was protected by gates and lights that appear to have been functioning at the time of the crash, according to David Farrell, a spokesman for the Illinois Commerce Commission.

Stokes, the driver of the truck, said that he didn't see the train as he approached the tracks and that the lights started flashing after he had started driving across, according to Cy Gura, a safety engineer with the National Transportation Safety Board. Stokes said he saw the train coming and tried to get out of the way.

Gura described Stokes as "very sad and upset. He felt he did whatever he thought he could do to clear the train track but he didn't do it."

Trains are allowed to travel up to 79 mph on the line, but NTSB investigators said they didn't know how fast the City of New Orleans was going.

Farrell said the crossing has a relatively good safety record, with three deaths in the last 35 years - in 1964, 1968 and 1988. He said about 40 trains and 1,800 vehicles a day use the crossing.

Sensors turn on the lights and bells 26 seconds before a train reaches the crossing, and five seconds later the gates come down, Farrell said.

Mike Stead, head of rail safety at the ICC, said the gates were intact, and authorities have not been able to verify where the truck was at the time of impact or when the gates were lowered.

The worst accident in Amtrak's 28-year history happened on Sept. 22, 1993. Forty-two passengers and five crew members died when the Sunset Limited went off a bridge into a bayou near Mobile, Ala. The bridge had been damaged minutes earlier when it was hit by a towboat.

The most recent Amtrak crash killed 16 people in January 1987 in Maryland.

The City of New Orleans runs almost the same route between Chicago and New Orleans as was used by the original Illinois Central train with that name. Illinois Central also ran a second train, the Panama Limited, which was considered more luxurious, so Amtrak retained that name when it took over passenger rail service in 1971.

About 10 years later, though, owing to the popularity of the song "City of New Orleans," Amtrak resurrected the name to City of New Orleans. The song was written by a Chicago folksinger, Steve Goodman, and was a hit for Arlo Guthrie.

North Korea allows inspectors on site

In return, the United States promised to help the famine-stricken communist nation increase potato yields.

The dispute had threatened a 1994 accord under which North Korea agreed to freeze what the United States believed was a developing nuclear weapons program, in exchange for energy supplies and help from the United States, South Korea and Japan.

A joint statement issued after the latest round of talks between U.S. Ambassador Charles Kartman and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan reaffirmed Washington and Pyongyang's commitment to the 1994 accord "in its entirety."

Since last August, the United States has been pressing for access to the Kumchang-ni underground site, 25 miles northwest of Yongbyon, where U.S. officials believe North Korea may be developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 1994 accord.

Kim reiterated North Korea's claim that the site "has nothing to do with nuclear activities." He said, without elaborating, that it "is related to sensitive national security purposes."

Even though the United States refused to pay the $300 million that North Korea demanded, Kim told reporters that his government was "very happy" with Tuesday's agreement.

Under its terms, North Korea will give the United States "satisfactory access" to Kumchang-ni, with an initial visit in May and additional visits "to remove U.S. concerns about the site's future use."

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in a statement that the U.S. team will have access to the entire site and follow-up visits can continue "as long as our concerns about the site remain."

The United States agreed in return to take a step "to improve political and economic relations between the two countries" by helping North Korea increase potato yields.

Food shortages and famine-related illnesses have killed up to 2 million of North Korea's 23 million people during the past three years, according to U.S. congressional estimates. Two-thirds of all children under seven are malnourished, and lack of food has stunted the growth of millions more.

Kartman said discussions on details of a pilot potato program will continue in the coming days and "we hope that it will be implemented very quickly."

While insisting food donations would not be part of any deal, the United States earlier this month pledged 500,000 tons of additional food aid in response to an appeal for donations by the U.N. World Food Program. North Korea demanded 1 million tons.

For the U.S. government, Kumchang-ni was a boulder in the middle of the road to improved relations with Pyongyang.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said removing "the very substantial suspicion" about the site should have "a salutary effect" on getting international funding for two nuclear power reactors for North Korea, as called for in the 1994 agreement.

While Tuesday's agreement may resolve a major U.S. nuclear question, it will not diminish U.S. concern over a possible revival of North Korea's nuclear program. The United States also has expressed concern that North Korea may be producing biological and chemical weapons.

House International Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) said he supported the agreement but was concerned that the precedent would encourage other rogue nations to charge the United States for "ensuring their compliance with their international agreements."

"This agreement smacks of a food-for-access deal which could lead to further provocative actions on the part of the North Koreans to extort future concessions from the U.S.," he said in a statement.

Henry Sokolski, executive director of The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, said the 500,000 tons of grain the United States is giving North Korea will cost taxpayers $165 million annually.

He questioned what the United States will get from the deal, since North Korea is reportedly working on making weapons-usable uranium and has had almost a year to "clean out" Kumchang-ni. He also noted that the Defense Department has reportedly singled out 12 other sites it would like to visit.

First Lady says she did not monitor loan

Hillary Clinton also said on the tape, played at Susan McDougal's trial, that she was unaware of a $27,600 loan for Whitewater taken out in Bill Clinton's name a decade before he became president.

Forty minutes of the first lady's testimony, recorded at the White House last April, were played for the jury in the trial of Susan McDougal, who is charged with criminal contempt for refusing to answer Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's questions about the loan and other aspects of the couples' Whitewater business dealings.

The new attention comes at a sensitive time for Hillary Clinton, as she is considering a run for the U.S. Senate from New York.

The Clintons' lawyer, David Kendall, had no comment on Starr's use of the first lady's videotaped testimony. In it, Hillary Clinton told prosecutors repeatedly that she had little information to give.

''I have never seen these documents before and have no information about them,'' she said when asked about a 1982 Clinton loan that prosecutors allege is linked through a series of transactions to a fraudulent $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal 3 1/2 years later.

Clinton testified at the McDougals' trial in the spring of 1996 that he had never borrowed money from the savings and loan the McDougals owned in the 1980s. Three months later, Jim McDougal told Starr's office that Clinton had signed documents for the transaction. Jim McDougal has since died.

Hillary Clinton, wearing a yellow suit and serious expression, appeared on two television monitors in the federal court yesterday. Her deposition was taped at the White House on April 25, 1998, with her lawyers present and played for the Whitewater grand jury four days later.

During the questioning, she often put on reading glasses to review documents shown to her by Starr deputy Hickman Ewing Jr., at one point complaining, ''I can't see anything anymore.''

Hillary Clinton's clipped, businesslike but polite answers contrasted with the low-key, friendly approach of Ewing, a career federal prosecutor from Memphis, Tenn.

Ewing underscored the seriousness of the occasion by reminding Hillary Clinton of her constitutional rights: ''You ... have the right to refuse any question if the truthful answer would tend to incriminate you. Do you understand that?''

''Yes I do,'' Mrs. Clinton replied.

When shown a Nov. 15, 1982, cashier's check for $27,600 made able to ''Bill Clinton,'' Mrs. Clinton answered, ''I'm sorry, Mr. Ewing, I don't know anything about this.''

After another question about the loan, she explained, '' I never spent any significant time at all looking at the books and records of Whitewater.''

Starr's office is using Mrs. Clinton's videotape in an attempt to convict Mrs. McDougal of criminal contempt and obstruction for refusal to cooperate with prosecutors. Given Mrs. Clinton's assertions that she knows little or nothing about the matters in question, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge George Howard that they have nowhere to turn for answers but to Mrs. McDougal, who watched the videotape intently.

After seeing the videotape, Mrs. McDougal's lawyer, Mark Geragos, said if he had known what was on it he would have introduced it himself as evidence. He had objected to showing the video.

Prosecutors ''weren't doing anything here but stalking the president and first lady and they were using Mrs. McDougal to get to that,'' Geragos said.

''I don't see that there's anybody that can follow'' the complex financial transactions that Ewing walked Mrs. Clinton through, he said. Prosecutors ''spent and wasted taxpayers' money of $40 million on absolutely nothing,'' he added.

Ewing questioned Mrs. Clinton on several subjects:

-A $5,081.82 check signed by Mrs. McDougal and bearing the notation ''payoff Clinton.'' The check was used to make a payment on the Clinton loan. Mrs. Clinton said ''I do not know'' anything about the check.

-Mrs. Clinton's law firm billing records that indicate she spoke with Mrs. McDougal on July 18, 1985, at a time when the McDougals were desperately trying to save their floundering S&L. Mrs. Clinton said ''I do not'' know anything about the conversation revealed in the billing records, which turned up inside the White House in 1996 two years after prosecutors subpoenaed them.

The president has never been questioned about the $27,600 loan, which wasn't discovered until early December 1996 when FBI agent Mike Patkus, who works for Starr, found a microfilmed copy of the cashier's check. The original of the check turned up in 1997 in the trunk of an abandoned car.

In 1996, Mrs. McDougal was given limited immunity from prosecution by Starr's office in order to compel her testify. She still refused and was jailed for civil contempt. Then she was charged with criminal contempt because Starr deemed her a crucial witness.

Later Tuesday, a former employee of the McDougals' savings and loan explained why he abandoned the car with the cashier's check and other documents inside.

Henry Floyd testified that he was supposed to be carry Madison Guaranty documents to a warehouse in 1988 but dropped off his car at a garage for repair. When a dispute arose over the bill, he left the car there, forgetting the documents, Floyd said.

The garage owner opened the car's trunk 10 years later, after a tornado, and discovered thousands of S&L documents.

When Floyd was asked why he sought a limited grant of immunity from Starr's office before testifying, Mrs. McDougal remarked from the defense table: ''Scared.'' That led to a complaint from prosecutors and admonishment from the judge.

03-17-99