JOPLIN GLOBE: TERRORIST THREAT IS NO MOVIE PLOT, IT'S VERY REAL

Talk about something straight out of a Hollywood scriptwriter's imagination and a Washington nightmare. Two Lithuanians tried to peddle tactical nuclear weapons and anti-aircraft missiles to representatives of a Columbian drug cartel. That the potential buyers happened to be U.S. Customs agents and the fact that the pair of would-be arms dealers were arrested doesn't change one inescapable and terrifying fact: Such advanced weapons are out there and available for the right price.

There has always been speculation that eventually the proliferation of nuclear weapons in military arsenals and the spread of technology for producing these devices cheaply in, say, abandoned warehouses would create a global blackmarket. With the support of a few dollars here and a few pounds there, any group with a cause or an abiding hatred could make a terrorist nuclear attack a very real threat, not something out of a novel or movie. -- Joplin Globe

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You can see signs of it everywhere ... businesses getting more done without adding people. Its all over ... discount stores, gas stations, hospitals, banks, grocery stores and, especially, manufacturing plants. We're seeing a quantum leap in technology that's increasing productivity. That helps hold inflation down while keeping U.S. firms more competitive. Some examples:

1. Anyone attending the Fox 23 KBSI-TV and UPN WDKA-TV Cape open house last week had to marvel at the first-rate facilities plus the obvious benefits of sharing technical, sales and management people.

2. Southeast Missourian Managing Editor JONI ADAMS represented our newspaper and web site at the international Connections '97 program in San Francisco this week. The sharing of facilities, computers and content were reason for JONI to be invited to speak on the program.

Incidentally CLASSIFIED ADS are on-line on Semissourian.com this week. Learn and enjoy with us as we expand our services to you ... our readers and viewers.

Took my young grandson SHO (from Osaka, Japan) to SHERM SMITH'S classic car auction at the Show Me Center Sunday. Looked like some good bargains to me ... but little I know of auto values. Auctions are always enlightening entertainment.

Also visited the GORDONVILLE MODEL AIRPLANE facility, and both of us were fascinated with the versatility, style, skill and friendliness of all involved. (Wendy was babysitting the twins).

Then took SHO to run his radio-controlled motorcycle on the Wehrenberg new 14 CINEMA parking lot.

After satisfying a short attention span, we did a sneak preview of the new theaters. A lot of work to do before the opening Friday, but what a nice facility in which to have an unobstructed view (stadium seating) of the movies. I recommend "ULEE'S GOLD," which is one of the features during the opening. PETER FONDA is excellent, although he previously was never one of my favorite actors.

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Trade Deficit

The new trade deficit figures out last week show our trade deficit with China has now surpassed our deficit with Japan. At least in the case of Japan, the deficit was with an "ally" that broadly shares our geopolitical goals. In the case of China, the deficit is providing hard currency to an adversary who wants to be the preeminent power of the 21st century. Mark my words though--you are unlikely to see a major Washington political leader in either party on tonight's news sounding the alarm over these trends. -- Washington Update

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Missouri makes good choice on flag etiquette

Missouri's new law requiring flag etiquette to be taught in schools is considerably less controversial than the flag-burning proposal on Capitol Hill, but it might accomplish positive results.

Both measures are aimed at achieving more respectful behavior toward the flag. But the new Missouri law does it through education, rather than through limitations on free speech.

The legislation signed recently by the governor and sponsored by Kansas City Rep. Bill Boucher requires the state's Board of Education to promulgate a rule requiring schools to teach the correct use and display of the flag, based on federal statutes.

Supporters, including veterans groups, pointed out that schoolchildren until recent years did learn flag etiquette. Now many do now, unless they are in Scouting or similar organizations.

The new law, effective Aug. 28, might help to instill in young Missourians some of that patriotic spirit evident over the recent holiday but which at other times of the year seems sadly lacking, particularly in the young.

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Clinton's healer: President Clinton has created a new body to supposedly conduct a healing "conversation" about race relations in America. Conveniently for Clinton, however, all the members of his new advisory body side with him in backing racial quotas. If all these members who already agree need something to talk about, perhaps they can discuss the remarks the black chairman of Clinton's council, history Prof. John Hope Franklin, has made about Surpreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

In an interview with the Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities printed in the foundation's spring 1997 newspaper, Franklin, in response to a question about Thomas, said: "You always have such people in any group. I don't know what name I would call them. I suspect they may be Judases of a kind ... betrayers ... opportunists. It's very tempting, I suppose, for people of weak character to be co-opted by the majority that can use them. They are rewarded in one way or another." Wrote Pat McGuigan, editorial page editor of the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman, "One could call those words a slander of the highest ranking black man in the U.S. government. Some might even describe them as mean-spirited. And this is the man Bill Clinton chose to serve as chairman of his advisory committee on race relations." -- Human Events

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Presidential Alzheimer's

I served in Ronald Reagan's administration for eight years, so I keenly remember the sport that his political opponents and much of the media made of his alleged forgetfulness. By comparison, we're hearing next to nothing about President Clinton, who is only 51 and now seems to have developed a textbook-case of selective amnesia. In the last week the man who is known for his photographic memory has been unable to recall 1) making fundraising calls from the Oval Office (illegal), 2) recommending John Huang for his fundraising job (where he broke the law) 3) ever meeting Paula Jones (who accused him of sexual harassment). These convenient memory lapses don't pass the "straight face" test. -- Gary Bauer

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Hardball with the Uuions?

House Republicans have tenatively decided to go after the big labor unions who have made life so miserable for them in recent years. The House Oversight Committee voted to give Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich) $1.4 million and 11 new staff people to launch oversight hearings on the status of American workers. Part of the investigation is likely to focus on the political activities of the AFL-CIO with an emphasis on its practice of using compulsory union dues for political purposes. (The AFL-CIO spent at least $35 million in 1996 to defeat GOP candidates.) -- Washington Update

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Where's the media? Specter smells espionage

After Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) surprised the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee with the announcement that John Huang would be willing to testify if granted limited immunity, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) struck back by musing about the use of the "death penalty" in espionage cases.

"The proposed immunity grant to Mr. Huang is really fascinating, for many reasons," said Specter. "He had at least 37 briefings by the CIA. And he saw a number of documents which they can't even tell us ... and they can tell us only as to 15 documents, where he made comments. And I reviewed those, and they are highly sensitive. They deal in sources and methods. They are matters we would not tell the Brits or our closest allies. And yet the CIA made those available to Mr. John Huang. And shortly after he saw those, he went to an outside office and made faxes and made telephone calls, and visited the Chinese embassy, with all the earmarks of a disclosure of highly sensitive governmental information, which is espionage. And it carries a life sentence...and in some cases, it could carry the death penalty. I don't know that that's applicable here. We'd have to see."

Lindsey-Huang axis

The Commerce Department has provided House Rules Chairman Jerry Solomon (R-N.Y.) with a list of 98 "possible classified meetings" attended by John Huang during the 17 months he worked in the Clinton Administration. These meetings are in addition to the 37 classified briefings Huang received individually in his office at the Commerce Department from Central Intelligence Agency liaison John Dickerson.

Eight of these "possible classified meetings" occurred at the White House. One was a meeting with Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey on Sept. 15, 1995, just two days after a White House meeting featuring Huang, Lindsey, Lippo Group President James Riady, Lippo consultant Joseph Giroir and President Clinton, at which the President decided to make Huang a Democratic National Committee fund raiser. Huang also attended two more "classified" meetings at the White House in the last few weeks of his tenure at Commerce before he began work at the DNC.

Lanny Ain't Talking

White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis, who has been deputized to speak for the president in these matters, did not return phone calls from HUMAN EVENTS inquiring as to why Huang and Lindsey may have been having a "classified" meeting, and just exactly what sort of classified information may have been exchanged at such a meeting.

A spokesman for Rep. Solomon told HUMAN EVENTS that the list of "classified" meetings attended by Huang is noteworthy not only because it implies Huang received national security information inside the White House, but also because a number of the meetings on the list, including some in the White House, had not been previously noted in documents released by the Commerce Department in response to the congressman's inquiries. Particularly interesting is that some of Huang's White House meetings are not listed in his own logbook. Big question: Where is the full record of these meetings, and why haven't congressional investigators gotten it already? -- Human Events