Hot Spots

HOT SPOTS

He prepared a report on the Watergate affair for the CIA just two weeks after the now-famous Washington break-in. He acted as a secret link between Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy. And he was Howard Hughes' official Washington rep.

Robert Bennett may well be the same Deep Throat who repeatedly met the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward in a D.C. parking structure with the inside dope on the Nixon administration. The fascinating Mr. Bennett, son of a former Republican senator, associate of Nixon aide Charles Colson, and owner of a former CIA front employing Hunt, may also be the celebrated secret songbird. according to New York Times writer Tony Lukas. Woodward, no Deep Throat himself, admits Bennett was a source but won't confirm or deny his exact role . . .

Billion-dollar boondoggle of the week: Navy's Trident missile, being produced by the same Lockheed which has thrown Japan into an uproar, is in serious trouble, according to Pacific News Service. A Pentagon source says the Trident contract had financial incentives to maximize the missile's range, thus stimulating Lockheed's subcontractors to develop an extremely "hot" fuel capable of premature explosion. The Trident missile-launching submarine, planned as the U.S.'s main sea force, is the single most costly weapon in production, with the total bill estimated at $18.5 billion.

Navy officials say they've been able to make the fickle fuel more stable, but in the process they've cut down the potential range of the Trident, eliminating the very reason it was being built! The Pentagon's plan for Trident was to increase the strike range over that of the Poseidon missile, which can travel 2,800 nautical miles. Trident was to have a range of 4,800 miles, but now it looks like Trident may have to use the same fuel as Poseidon. Some arms experts are now saying the project should be scrapped. Can you imagine what our cities could do with $8.5 billion?!

Anyway, lest "detente" be completely forgotten, Congress has approved a plan to colonize the Mariana Islands in the Pacific, the first U.S. territorial expansion in half a century. The United Nations must still prove the scheme, under which Congress will control the Islands, and the islanders will have no power to end the arrangement. American militarists hope to use the isles for "Fallback" bases if they're forced off the Asian mainland.

Bridgeport, Texas, which sits atop a natural gas field, says it will build its own solar generator to supply the total electrical needs for its 4,500 residents and its businesses. "It's the cheapest power on earth," says the Mayor . . . Colombia has legalized use and possession of grass up to 28 grams, about an ounce. A Colombian official says the government felt that dope smokers were sick, but not criminals . . . An IRS study of 1972 tax returns shows that 74 per cent of returns filed by private tax services such as H&R Block have errors; 79 per cent of the returns prepared by IRS people also had errors! . . . Sears Roebuck's New York ad agency sent letters to radio and TV stations complaining about weathercasters who suggest listeners stay home when bad weather's coming. This "does terrible damage to retail store sales," they say. . .

The human rights group Amnesty International has released details of 22 torture-deaths of political activists by the Juan Bordaberry regime in Uruguay. The South American dictatorship now holds 6,000 political prisoners, one for every 450 citizens – the highest such ratio in the world. One of every 50 Uruguayans has been arrested on political charges within the last four years. In spite of the extent and intensity of Uruguayan political repression, which is in some ways on a level similar to Chile, the

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Hot Spots

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Uruguayan political situation has failed to awaken even a modest level of world attention," says the group. Wake up, everybody! Known murders include that of an agricultural worker killed in June, 1972 by being staked to the ground and torn apart by dogs. A.I. hopes world criticism will help a growing Uruguayan movement pressuring Bordaberry to hold democratic elections later this year.

Shoppers take note: the United Farm Workers has called another boycott, this time against the Sunmaid Raisin Corp. and the Diamond Sunsweet Co. Sunmaid Controls a third of the U.S. raisin market; Sunsweet is the largest producer of prunes, prune juice and walnuts. "This boycott is serious," says UFW Vice President Mack Lyons. "The law of the jungle has returned to California again, and the only way to get elections started again is to boycott the hell out of them." The two firms launched a massive lobbying campaign resulting in withdrawal of funding for the state agency supervising California farm elections. As of February, when election funding stopped, the UFW had won 205 elections to represent 30,000 workers, while the rival Teamsters Union had won 102 elections, representing less than 9,000.

-Dennis Rosenblum