D.C.'s Second-Class Status
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 17) -- D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is tired of what he sees as Washington, D.C.'s, second-class status. "Every country in the world treats its capital a lot better than this country treats us," Barry complained during a weekend appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." "The French treat Paris as the grande dame of that situation. The British treat London -- even in Communist China, where I was in Beijing recently, they treat Beijing as a crown jewel." Barry complained that half of D.C.'s budget goes for state functions, like welfare, health care and a prison. The mayor wants to refinance the city's debt to help balance the budget and if he cannot do that, Barry said, he will have to cut police, fire and school services.
Richardson To N. Korea: No Provocations
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 17) -- North Korea should be wary of taking any provocative actions in the wake of the defection of high official Hwang Jang Yop, says Bill Richardson, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. On the weekend talk show circuit, Richardson called the incident serious and said the U.S. is watching it closely. Richardson added: "North Korea has to be very careful about provocative action." Hwang is in the South Korean consulate in Beijing, and North Korea claims he was kidnapped.
Nixon, Aides Considered Destroying Tapes
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 17) -- A new memoir says Richard Nixon and his aides considered destroying the Watergate tapes that ultimately brought down the president, but finally decided there was no way to legally do it. In his book "Crazy Rhythm," former presidential lawyer Leonard Garment says the debate over what to do about the tapes raged for several days. Finally aides went to visit Nixon, sick in the hospital. When they talked it over, Garment says, there was agreement that "the tapes could not lawfully be destroyed." The reason? The Senate Watergate committee already had signaled that it was going to subpoena them. And the tapes were so important to Nixon's sense of his role in history, Garment writes, that erasing them "would have been something like an act of self-mutilation."