Wisconsin State Journal from Madison, Wisconsin • 1

Monday September 11, 1978 Madison, Wisconsin 44 pages 20 cents State Jfoiinirinisil dlrfve ft tote 7eir Gnsirg3iiy)3 MANAGUA, Nicaragua (UPI) In a nationwide offensive, Marxist Sandinista guerrillas said they seized control the nation's second-largest city and parts of the capital Sunday. Government forces disputed the rebels' victory claims. National Guard troops battled the insurgents in streets with tanks, fighter planes and machine guns and said they had retaken Leon, the second-largest city. There were no reliable casualty reports from any of the battlefronts, but witnesses said dead and wounded littered the streets. Hundreds were feared dead in the fighting that began control of most of Leon, a city of 80,000 people SO miles west of Managua and the Prensa Latina news agency said the Sandinistas made the same claim in a communique issued in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Prensa Latina said the Nicaraguan air force began intense bombing and strafing of the Laborio, Guadelupe and Subtiava sections of Leon. A National Guard plane dropped concussion bombs on suspected Sandinista stongholds. In Masaya, about 15 miles east of the capital, five major fires were burning out of control, including one that covered the entire six-block busi forced out of their locations because of the efficient attacks of National Guard patrols and the indifference to them of the peace-loving citizenry." The communique, issued by Col. Aquiles Aranda, said National Guard troops had begun "neutralization" of "subversive elements" it the cities of Esteli and Masaya, where it said they were "setting fires and looting private property." Fighting raged in most of the principal cities of this Central American nation of 2.5 million, which has been ruled by the Somoza family for 40 years. Witnesses said the guerrillas seized late Saturday night Masaya, Nicaragua's fourth-largest city, was in flames and the military warned its 40,000 residents to take cover, saying it would bomb guerrilla positions from the air.

The National Guard used tanks to retake the populous Managua barrio of Open Tres, seized by the Sandinistas in a coordinated national offensive aimed at toppling the government of President Anastasio Somoza. A National Guard communique said Sunday the military had "cleaned subversive elements out of the city of Leon, retaking those sites that had been occupied by snipers that were ness district Refugees from the fighting streamed out of the city on foot, carrying bundles of food and clothing. Others rode in cars adorned with makeshift white flags, trying to escape the continuous heavy-arms fire that engulfed the city. National Guard helicopters flew over the flaming rubble and the military broadcast a warning to the population either to flee the city or take cover, saying bombing raids were planned on rebel strongholds. Witness said troops commanded by Somoza's son, Maj.

Anastasio Somoza Porto Carrero, blasted guerrilla "Sir-- strongholds in the Open Tres barrio of Managua with tanks and heavy arms, forcing the insurgents to flee. In San Jose, prominent Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal announced to the Costa Rican press that a provisional government had been formed in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas last month seized and held the National Palace for two days. The National Guard took control of Nicaragua's radio and television stations and urged the people to remain indoors. "There is nothing to fear," one communique said.

"Everything is under control." Heat a factor in child's death at East Towne Jennifer Sue Pike, age 18 weeks, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Pike, 419 Second Baraboo, was pronounced dead on arrival about 4:30 p.m. Sunday at a Madison hospital apparently from aspiration on vomited milk while she waited in her father's pickup truck in the East Towne Mall parking lot. Coroner's Investigator Richard R.

Peterson said outdoor temperatures in the 90s may have attributed to the child's vomiting that resulted in the fatal aspiration. Peterson said that Pike brought Jennifer with him to East Towne Sunday because his wife, Peggy, was working and they could not get a babysitter. Pike purchased a television set, after talking by phone to his wife to get her approval, and gave Jennifer, who was in her stroller, her bottle of milk when she became tired and fussy. Peterson said when the television payment contract arrangements were taking longer than anticipated, Pike took Jennifer out to the pickup truck where she stopped crying when he put her in her car seat, turned on the radio ana rolled down the truck windows. Pike told Peterson that he went back to sign the payment contract, thinking it would take only a few minutes, but it took more than half an hour.

When he returned to the truck, Jennifer was unconscious. She was taken to the hospital by Fire Department rescue ambulance. Peterson said an autopsy will be performed today to verify that the death was caused by accidental aspiration. He cautioned everyone not to leave small children, pets, or adults with respiratory difficulties in parked cars without air conditioning during hot weather, which is forecast again for today. i S-V -V- k'.

-1 t) ft- our town," he said. "We want the peo-pl of the community to realize that the businessmen here appreciate them. "There are other watermelon contests in Oklahoma and Texas," he and cylinder wall, was a Navy 'garden variety' paint scraper which is selling today in shop stores for 54 cents. "That little 54-cent paint scraper cost about $171,000 to locate and remove. "When the jammed piston was discovered divers tried for over a week to remove the scraper while Swordfish was waterborne.

They cut itwith an underwater torch and used a 40-ton hydraulic jack to try and free the piston. No luck. That's why she docked, so we an eye on the competition, speed-eater Jim LaMarche Jr. of Pardeeville prepares to dig in. State Journal photo by Joseph W.

Jackson III test mouths pi? spittieirs, simpers and consume all the free watermelon they can hold. Richard "Hoot" Thompson has been involved in the contest since its inception 11 years ago. "We started it to draw attention to Cheap scraper runs up big bill With 'Melons By Dianne Lynch Of The State Journal He stepped up to the marker, his face tense with concentration. The muscles in his legs rippled and tightened as he rocked back and forth, his fists clenched, his head thrown back. He waited until he was in perfect position, in complete control, before beginning.

Suddenly he pursed his lips, sucked in his breath and spit a watermelon seed onto the pavement before him. The crowd cheered as he stepped back to let the next contestant try his Hundreds of watermelon-seed-spitters sucked in their breath and gave it their best shot Sunday at the 1978 U.S. Watermelon Eating and Seed-Spitting Championship at Lake Park in Pardeeville. The event, which is sponsored annually by the Pardeeville Area Business Association, draws thousands who come to watch the competition Inside Today's weather: Continued warm Partly cloudy and continued warm today. Chance of rain tonight.

Highs In thm uppar 80. for mora weather Information, turn to Pago 14. Packers beat Saints, 28-14 Stories, photos in sports PRIMARY ELECTION LIFCC weas tfough ccsinidid iystftee Meti said, "but ours is the U.S. contest because we started doing it first." The seed spitting contest is open to anybody who feels long-winded. It began about 2 p.m.

and continued until all the contestants had completed could use our 'big guns' on it, so to speak." The Log theorized the scraper could have gotten lodged in the launcher by being sucked in but said the "most likely thing is that the tool was left somewhere in the superstructure" and fell through several passages until it got stuck. The Log said the cost of repairs was equal to 10 years' wages for a journeyman and noted it was a "sheer loss of funds, completely unnecessary." tempered Labrador to whom Robert and Ethel were devoted, perhaps because most people, even veteran dog lovers, detested him. On weekends, he might import an assortment of children. A new informality pervaded the staid old department. Kennedy wandered the corridors, put his head into offices to find out what was going on, talked to people who had worked in the department for years without ever speaking to an attorney general.

But there was no sacrifice of Early on, calling In the department's lawyers in a series of informal meetings, he sat on his desk, one of them recalled, "legs crouched beneath him Indian fashion, necktie open, shirtsleeves rolled up, hair askew Strangely enough, in that posture of utter informality, almost humility, Robert Kennedy lent an air of dignity to the assembly. I felt at one with him and was aware that that was the mood of the entire group." He was a superb questlon-asker, an excellent listener and an excellent rememberer. their spits. After several hours of intense seed spitting, Lee Roberts, Rio, won his fourth national seed championship with a distance of 34 feet, 10 inches. He won the seed spitting contest in 1972, 1974 and 1975.

Across shady Lake Park, the speed-eating contest also began at 2 p.m. and continued through the afternoon. Ray Forbes, president of the Pardeeville Area Business Association, said the contestants don't eat "they inhale." He was right. The eating competition is divided into five categores: women, men, ages 0 to 7, 8 to 10, and 11 to 14. Six eaters at a time plunked themselves at a table and were given equal rations of the sweet, juicy fruit.

Rules demand that the watermelon remains on the table, held by the contestant's hands. When Bob Williams, the man in charge, said "go," six faces immediately disappeared into Turn to Page 2, Col. 3 Below the top staff, he exerted control, according to mood and need, through humor, through brusqueness, through solicitude. Addressing Justice employees, he sought to inspire them by the example of his own dazzling rise from the ranks. "I started in the department as a young lawyer in 1950.

The salary was only $4,000 a year, but I worked hard. (Pause.) I was ambitious. (Pause.) I studied. (Pause.) I applied myself And then my brother was elected president of the United States." Rueful jocularity, ordinarily at his own expense, was more than ever a conditioned reflex. When Angie Novel-lo, his secretary, admonished him in a plaintive memorandum that "it would be extremely helpful if the attorney general of the United States would notify his immediate staff of his whereabouts at all times," Kennedy returned it with a handwritten scrawl, "What if I'm lost? Love." Still, he was on occasion preoccupied, moody and unpredictable.

"He has a horror of wasting time," Turn to Page 2, Col. 3 PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (UPI) It cost the Navy $171,000 to fix a problem in the nuclear submarine USS Swordfish caused by a misplaced 54-cent paint scraper, the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard Log reports. The vessel was drydocked for a week because someone apparently left the paint scraper behind after working on the sub and it fell into a torpedo launcher, jamming it, the publication said. "Jammed up in her launcher," the Log said, "between the piston Robert Kennedy that were going everywhere and airplanes that were flying through what they said was the air. But they were wild, beautiful colors, the kind of thing that would jump out of a child's imagination and fantasy.

Robert Kennedy never offered any apology for these pictures, nor did he offer any explanation of them." The attorney general leaned casu and His Times Second of six parts A decade after his death, Robert Kennedy still haunts the American imagination. is the first in a six-part series, "Robert Kennedy and His Times," by Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Schlesinger Jr. which will appear daily in The Wisconsin State Journal. It. Hi lot t-fitfM tetlp Iti.ltttlt.

ftnp SEPTEMBER 12 Sample ballots for Tuesday's primary election can be found on Pages 9, 10 and 1 1 of Section 1 in today's Wisconsin State Journal. By Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. The center of action was the attorney general's office, a vast, somber, walnut-paneled chamber, with arched indirect lighting, red carpet, fireplace and, in the past, a general air of solemnity. Over the next years, Robert Kennedy filled it with sofas, tables, lamps, children's photographs, a varnished sailfish over the mantlepiece, an old blunderbuss on the wall, a model of a 'Chinese junk on a table, a stuffed tiger near the fireplace.

(The attorney general carefully explained to a foreign newspaperman that he had shot the tiger himself. If he had shot it himself, the newspaperman re- fleeted, he would not have said any- thing.) I Affixed to the panels by Scotch tape was an ever-changing montage of children's drawings. 4 "There were fish," recalled the astonished Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "that only they would describe as fish. There were chimneys sticking up at wrong angles and roads Sttction 1 Section 3 People 3 Citystate Editorials 8 Death Movie Want ads 4 Records 14 Weather 14 Sction4 Look Section 2 Comics 4 Sports TVradio ally back on his leather armchair in the midst of genial clutter, foot propped on an open drawer, jacket off, tie yanked aside, trousers rumpled, hair uncombed. "You'd never confuse him with Dean Acheson," Kennedy's wife, Ethel, said.

Often, in defiance of government regulations, he brought with him his menacing dog Brumus, a large and ill-.