December 9, 2006

• Ferrari Testing,Coast Guard Stumbles,Kirkpatrick Dies,Today’s Papers,Havana Medical Study,36 Hours i

  Saturday, December 09, 2006 Reconstructing a Menswear Classic The long and the short of it at MaxMara. Shirt Tales Reconstructing a Menswear Classic December 7, 2006 – Spring found the white shirt transformed in myriad ways. Balenciaga‘s Nicolas Ghesquière, Karl Lagerfeld, and Ralph Lauren customized that summer staple, the shirtdress, into novel shapes. Designing duos Dan and Dean Caten and Rolf Snoeren and Viktor Horsting, meanwhile, went even further, toying with perception by showing tailored shirt/jacket hybrids. Pairing their starchy toppers with lace-trimmed tap pants, the Dsquared brothers were intent on exploring ideas of masculinity and femininity. Likewise, on the Paris runway of St. Petersburg-based designer Alena Akhmadullina, some of the models sported butch wigs and one wore a shirt printed with a professor-ish vest. Marc Jacobs went in for a “white collar” look too, opening his New York show with a crinkly shirt and chinos, and ingeniously morphing oxfords into side-buttoning skirts at Louis Vuitton. see all the looks >

  36 Hours in Berlin Oliver Hartung for The New York Times Roses, a lounge that stays open till 5 a.m. Multimedia Slide Show 36 Hours in Berlin Map Berlin, Germany December 10, 2006 36 Hours Berlin By DENNY LEE BERLIN is like New York City in the 1980s. Rents are cheap, graffiti is everywhere and the air crackles with a creativity that comes only from a city in transition. And few cities are changing as profoundly. Nearly two decades after the Berlin Wall tumbled down, the city’s two sides are still locked in a kind of cultural dialectic, as the center of gravity shifts to the once desolate boroughs of the East. Bullet-scarred buildings are metamorphosing from squatters’ homes, to artists’ studios, and then to retail showrooms. Gray Communist alleys are laboratories for trendy bars, restaurants and galleries. And, like the city itself, Berliners continue to reinvent themselves as cultural vanguards, pushing the boundaries of art, fashion and design. With so much to explore and create, the city never sleeps. Friday 3 p.m. 1) REICHSTAG AIRLIFT Berlin is a big city, about eight times the area of Paris, so get your bearings. Follow the tourists to the Television Tower, the Sputnik-like needle in Alexanderplatz (www.berlinerfernsehturm.de; 8 euro admission, about $11 at $1.36 to the euro). Or, for more intimate views, head to the Reichstag. Skip the hourlong line by making reservations for afternoon tea at the Dachgartenrestaurant, or roof garden restaurant (49-30-22-62-99-0; www.feinkost-kaefer.de). Afterward, you’re free to loop around the glass igloo. 5:30 p.m. 2) TRANS-EURO EXPRESS Sightseeing mainstays like the triumphant Brandenburg Gate, the crystalline Potsdamer Platz (www.potsdamer-platz.net) and the sobering Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (www.holocaust-mahnmal.de) are within an easy stroll. But don’t miss the Hauptbahnhof (www.hbf-berlin.de). Opened in May, the glass-and-steel spaceship is the Grand Central Terminal of Europe, a great place to watch daily life unfold. 9 p.m. 3) NOTHING WURST Forget Bratwurst. For lighter versions of Teutonic cuisine, try Schneeweiss, a nouvelle German restaurant in the Friedrichshain district, Berlin’s equivalent of the Lower East Side (Simplonstrasse 16, 49-30-290-497-04; www.schneeweiss-berlin.de). Dishes like grilled trout in a red wine sauce and pork ragout in a red berry coulis are served in a sparse, candlelit room that draws young couples and trend-conscious diners. Entrees rarely exceed 12 euros. 11 p.m. 4) NIGHT OUT AT SPROCKETS Stay in Friedrichshain. The smoke-filled cafes around Simon-Dach-Strasse are full of young Berliners priced out of the central Mitte district; beers are usually under 2.50 euros. Later, cross the Spree River into the borough of Kreuzberg, the former punk quarter and Turkish enclave that is experiencing a Williamsburg-style revival. The bars and clubs along Oranienstrasse offer something for everyone. For rollicking music, strut to S036 and hear live bands like Napalm Death (No. 190; 49-30-414-013-06; www.so36.de). Or, for drag queens and plastic Virgin Marys, sashay a few doors down to Roses, a kitschy lounge that sparkles until 5 a.m. (No. 187; 49-30-615-65-70). The night is still young, so pick up a copy of Zitty (www.zitty.de), a biweekly arts magazine, or Exberliner (www.exberliner.com), an English-language monthly, for the club of the moment.   Noon 5) MITTE ART MILE O.K., you’re still asleep. But when you do wake up, you’ll need some fuel before hitting the much-hyped art scene in the Mitte district. Do both at Monsieur Vuong (Alte Schönhauser Strasse 46; 49-30-3087-2643; www.monsieurvuong.de), a Vietnamese restaurant that serves as a kind of high school cafeteria for the neighborhood’s galleries. A spicy bowl of glass noodles with chicken is 6.40 euros. Then hop over to Auguststrasse, Mitte’s Art Mile, where the buzz originated at places like Galerie Eigen+Art (No. 26; 49-30-280-66-05; www.eigen-art.com) and Kunst-Werke Berlin, the city’s answer to New York’s P.S. 1. (No. 69; 49-30-243-45-90; www.kw-berlin.de). Like SoHo in its pre-mall days, the galleries can afford to be refreshingly uneven and irreverent. And new ones open every month. Goff+Rosenthal (Brunnenstrasse 3; 49-30- 4373-50-83; www.goffandrosenthal.com), an offshoot of a Chelsea gallery in New York, opened three months ago and showcases emerging artists from Berlin and elsewhere. For a handy gallery map, pick up the free Index (www.indexberlin.de ). 3 p.m. 6) POSTMODERN SHOPPING SPREE I shop, therefore I am. While global brands like American Apparel and Diesel have recently colonized Mitte, low rents mean that concept stores, micro-boutiques and street-wear designers are still around, blurring the line between gallery and galleria. Comme des Garçons opened one of its clandestine temporary stores in a hard-to-find alley (Brunnenstrasse 152; 49-30-280-45-338; www.guerrilla-store.com). Über is a retail chameleon, so it might sell handbags one month and garden crows the next (Auguststrasse 26A; 49-30-6677-90-95; www.ueber-store.de). And the Apartment looks like an empty white box, until you descend into the dark cellar crammed with fashion labels like Bernhard Willhelm and Caviar Gauche (Memhardstrasse 8; 49-30-2804-2253; www.apartmentberlin.de). How does anyone in this underemployed city afford 300-euro shirts? 7 p.m. 7) SAND, SUDS AND SAUNA Ponder that question at one of the groovy beach bars that have washed up along the Spree. There’s the U.F.O.-themed Space Bar in Friedrichshain, behind the longest extant section of the Berlin Wall (Mühlenstrasse 63; 49-30-4606-84-91; www.space-beach.de). The BundesPresseStrand has two pools and a glass pavilion near the Reichstag (Kapelleufer 1; www.bundespressestrand.de). But the favorite of the skinny jeans and fauxhawk set is Badeschiff, just east of gritty Kreuzberg (Eichenstrasse 4; 49-030-533-20-30; www.badeschiff.de). During the winter, its swimming pool, on a barge, is cocooned under a bubble tent and turned into a floating sauna. 9 p.m. 8) WHAT’S BISTRO IN DEUTSCH? In another sign of Berlin’s ascension, the city now boasts 10 Michelin-starred restaurants, 4 of them in the former German Democratic Republic. But as in Paris and Hong Kong, good food is not confined to white-tablecloth establishments. Take Altes Europa, a smoky tavern in Mitte (Gipsstrasse 11; 49-30-2809-38-40; www.alteseuropa.com). For around 15 euros, you get Old World ambience, a smart-looking crowd and bistro-quality fare like plump green salads, velvety soups and tender steaks. A neighborhood gem, to be sure, and one that isn’t rare. 11 p.m. 9) NEO-WEIMAR Few streets have mutated as much as Oranienburger Strasse, the spine of Mitte. A squatters’ row as recently as the late 1990s, the street is now littered with bars and tourist traps that recall Bleecker Street on amateur nights. For a glimpse of Berlin’s quickly fading underbelly, grab a beer at the Tacheles art house (No. 54-56A; 49-30-282-61-85; www.tacheles.de), the ruins of a former department store that feels like the inside of CBGB’s legendary bathroom. Then flee to White Trash, a cabaret and tat- too parlor that resurrects the Weimar Republic inside a gaudy Chinese-Irish restaurant (Schönhauser Allee 6-7; www.whitetrashfastfood.com). Packed with out-of-work artists, punks rockers and assorted freaks, it’s fringe Berlin at its finest. 3:30 a.m. 10) ‘BEST CLUB IN THE WORLD’ Maybe it’s the hypnotic techno, hedonistic frisson or illicit party favors, but globe-trotting clubbers rave about Berghain, a huge disco in a weedy stretch behind the Ostbahnhof station in Friedrichshain (www.berghain.de; admission 12 euros). How else to explain the 45-minute wait at this ungodly hour? According to its detailed Wikipedia citation, “Berghain is best-known for its decadent, bacchanalian, sexually uninhibited parties which often continue into the following afternoon” And some stay even longer. Sunday 1 p.m. 11) BIRDS AND BEERS Need a break from the über-hipsters and existential banter? The huge and green Tiergarten — Berlin’s central park — is an urban oasis popular with joggers, bird-watchers and nude sunbathers alike. To shake off last night, take a long stroll through this swampy former hunting ground. Drop in on the pandas and penguins at the Zoological Garden and Aquarium (Hardenbergplatz 8; 49-30-254-010; www.zoo-berlin.de). Or grab an outdoor seat at Cafe Am Neuen See, a calming beer garden and restaurant that sits on the edge of a lake (Lichtensteinallee; 49-30-2544-93-00). It is your quiet time in Berlin. 3 p.m. 12) TRADE YOUR EUROS Despite the lousy exchange rate, you’ll be surprised by how many euros you have left. Use them along Strasse des 17. Juni, the park’s main transverse, which turns into Berlin’s oldest (and priciest) flea market on weekends. Forage for early-20th-century antiques, used books and a jumble of odds and ends. Alternately, for some East Village flair, make a beeline for the Sunday flea market at Boxhagener Platz. It’s crammed with funky T-shirts, vintage Kraftwerk vinyl, plastic housewares and plenty of genuine junk. Don’t forget your camera: the crowd trends toward purple-dyed punks, nose-pierced vamps, dreadlocked crusties and, everyone’s favorite, aging hippies. In other words, it’s the 80s all over again, but with even more kitsch. The Basics Continental Airlines flies nonstop to Berlin from Newark, and Delta flies nonstop from Kennedy. Flights start at about $400 this month and take about eight hours on the outbound leg. Berlin’s tiny Tegel airport is five miles from the city center. The 20-minute taxi ride costs about 20 euros ($27 at $1.36 to the euro). Sleep in grand style at the Hotel de Rome, the latest from the luxury hotelier Rocco Forte (Behrenstrasse 37;49-30-460-60-90; www.hotelderome.com). Opened in October, it occupies a former bank in Mitte, just off Unter den Linden. The 146 rooms are spacious, furnished in Art-Deco and neo-Classic styles, and start at 380 euros a night. For modern style at a moderate price, check into Lux 11 (Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 9-13; 49-30-936-2800; www.lux11.com). With rooms starting at 99 euros, the boutique hotel keeps costs down by eschewing daily maid service and 24-hour attention, and focusing on what matters to its fashionable guests: sleek design. If that’s outside your budget, try the nearby Circus Hostel (Weinbergsweg 1A; 49-30-2839-14-33; www.circus-berlin.de). Clean, friendly and efficient, the hostel has private rooms with baths starting at 62 euros for a double; dormitory-style bunks start at 17 euros.   Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

  Hippocrates Meets Fidel, and Even U.S. Students Enroll Jose Goitia for The New York Times Nancy Gonzáles, center, using a cadaver to teach anatomy to Jamar Williams, left, of Brooklyn and others December 8, 2006     Jose Goitia for The New York Times Students from many countries at the Latin American School of Medical Sciences, founded by Fidel Castro, on a campus just outside Havana. December 8, 2006 Havana Journal Hippocrates Meets Fidel, and Even U.S. Students Enroll By MARC LACEY HAVANA, Dec. 7 — Anatomy is a part of medical education everywhere. Biochemistry, too. But a course in Cuban history? The Latin American School of Medical Sciences, on a sprawling former naval base on the outskirts of this capital, teaches its students medicine Cuban style. That means poking at cadavers, peering into aging microscopes and discussing the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power 48 years ago. Cuban-trained doctors must be able not only to diagnose an ulcer and treat hypertension but also to expound on the principles put forward by “el comandante.” It was President Castro himself who in the late 1990s came up with the idea for this place, which gives potential doctors from throughout the Americas and Africa not just the A B C’s of medicine but also the basic philosophy behind offering good health care to the struggling masses. The Cuban government offers full scholarships to poor students from abroad, and many, including 90 or so Americans, have jumped at the chance of a free medical education, even with a bit of Communist theory thrown in. “They are completing the dreams of our comandante,” said the dean, Dr. Juan D. Carrizo Estévez. “As he said, they are true missionaries, true apostles of health.” It is a strong personal desire to practice medicine that drives the students here more than any affinity for Mr. Castro. Those from the United States in particular insist that they want to become doctors, not politicians. They recoil at the notion that they are propaganda tools for Cuba, as critics suggest. “They ask no one to be political — it’s your choice,” said Jamar Williams, 27, of Brooklyn, a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany. “Many students decide to be political. They go to rallies and read political books. But you can lie low.” Still, the Cuban authorities are eager to show off this school as a sign of the country’s compassion and its standing in the world. And some students cannot help responding to the sympathetic portrayal of Mr. Castro, whom the United States government tars as a dictator who suppresses his people. “In my country many see Fidel Castro as a bad leader,” said Rolando Bonilla, 23, a Panamanian who is in his second year of the six-year program. “My view has changed. I now know what he represents for this country. I identify with him.” Fátima Flores, 20, of Mexico sympathized with Mr. Castro’s government even before she was accepted for the program. “When we become doctors we can spread his influence,” she said. “Medicine is not just something scientific. It’s a way of serving the public. Look at Che.” Che Guevara was an Argentine medical doctor before he became a revolutionary who fought alongside Mr. Castro in the rugged reaches of eastern Cuba and then lost his life in Bolivia while further spreading the cause. Tahirah Benyard, 27, a first-year student from Newark, said it was Cuba’s offer to send doctors to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, which was rejected by the Bush administration, that prompted her to take a look at medical education in Cuba. “I saw my people dying,” she said. “There was no one willing to help. The government was saying everything is going to be fine.” She said she had been rejected by several American medical schools but could not have afforded their high costs anyway. Like other students from the United States, she was screened for the Cuba program by Pastors for Peace, a New York organization opposed to Washington’s trade embargo against the island. Ms. Benyard hopes that one day she will be able to practice in poor neighborhoods back home. Whether her education, which is decidedly low tech, is up to American standards remains to be seen, although Cedric Edwards, the first American student to graduate, last year, passed his medical boards in the United States. If she makes it, Ms. Benyard will become one of a small pool of African-American doctors. Only about 6 percent of practicing physicians are members of minority groups, says the Association of American Medical Colleges, which recently began its own program to increase the number of minority medical students. Even before they were accepted into Cuba’s program, most of the Americans here said they had misgivings about the health care system in their own country. There is too much of a focus on the bottom line, they said, and not enough compassion for the poor. “Democracy is a great principle,” said Mr. Williams, who wears long dreadlocks pulled back behind his head. “The idea that people can speak for themselves and govern themselves is a great concept. But people must be educated, and in order to be educated, people need health.” The education the students are receiving here extends outside the classroom. “I’ve learned to become a minimalist,” Mr. Williams said. “I don’t necessarily need my iPod, all my gadgets and gizmos, to survive.” There are also fewer food options. The menu can be described as rice and beans and more rice and beans. Living conditions are more rugged in other respects as well. The electricity goes out frequently. Internet access is limited. Toilet paper and soap are rationed. Sometimes the water taps are dry. Then there is the issue of personal space. “Being in a room with 18 girls, it teaches you patience,” said Ms. Benyard, who was used to her one-bedroom apartment back home and described her current living conditions as like a military barracks. Other students cited the American government’s embargo as their biggest frustration. The blockade, which is what the Cuban government and many of the American students call it, means no care packages, no visits from Mom and Dad, and the threat that their government might penalize them for coming here. Last year Washington ordered the students home, but the decision was reversed after protests from the Congressional Black Caucus, which supports the program. One topic that does not come up in classes is the specific ailment that put Mr. Castro in the hospital, forced him to cede power to his brother Raúl and has kept him out of the public eye since late July. His diagnosis, like so much else in Cuba, is a state secret.   Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

  Today’s Papers Looking the Other Way By Joshua Kucera Posted Saturday, Dec. 9, 2006, at 4:27 AM E.T. The Washington Post leads with results of a House panel investigating the Mark Foley page scandal; it found that no laws were broken but that House leaders probably knew about Foley’s inappropriate behavior yet did nothing to stop it. The New York Times leads with news from Iraq that government officials are close to reaching a deal on a law regulating how oil revenues will be shared. The Los Angeles Times leads with Congress approving a deal to provide India with nuclear technology. The Wall Street Journal worldwide newsbox leads with a last-day-of-Congress roundup. The House ethics panel recommended no action against any House leaders in the wake of the Foley scandal. Unsurprisingly, House leaders of both parties said the decision was just. The Post got in touch with two of the pages whom Foley e-mailed and neither was happy. “I’m surprised they aren’t doing anything, but it’s not shocking, given the lack of real accountability we’ve seen in Congress in general,” said one. It was just one of many doings on the last day of the Congressional session, the end of a 12-year run of Republican dominance. The vote on the India bill was too late for any of the East coast newspapers. The vote wasn’t close in either chamber—unanimous in the Senate—but the LAT gives heavy play to skeptics of the deal, who worry that it will damage worldwide nonproliferation efforts. “Such a policy unravels years of successful U.S. diplomatic efforts to convince countries that the benefits of surrendering the right to develop nuclear weapons outweighed the risk of staying outside the treaty and pursuing a nuclear weapons option,” one analyst told the paper. And only the Journal and LAT closed late enough to note a postmidnight vote on a tax cut bill; the Journal says it amounted to $45 billion, the LAT $38 billion. The dispute over oil revenue is a key ingredient in Iraq’s sectarian conflict, and resolving it could be a huge step in building confidence between the three major groups in Iraq. But, given the massive violence on the ground, it may be too late. “Officials cautioned that this was only a draft agreement, and that it could still be undermined by the ethnic and sectarian squabbling that has jeopardized other political talks. The Iraqi Constitution, for example, was stalled for weeks over small wording conflicts, and its measures are often meaningless in the chaos and violence in Iraq today,” the NYT says. The Post off-leads with news that the White House is looking at three options for a dramatic strategy shift in Iraq, which it plans to unveil before Christmas. Call them “Go Slightly Bigger,” “Go Ignore the Insurgency,” and “Go Shiite.” This is the must-read story of the day. The three options bear little resemblance to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. They are: a short-term increase of 15,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops, shifting U.S. forces away from “internal strife” and focusing them on fighting al-Qaida, and backing Shiites and Kurds against the Sunnis. Vice President Dick Cheney is apparently in favor of the last option. “A source familiar with the discussions said Cheney argued this week that the United States could not again be seen to abandon the Shiites, Iraq’s largest population group, after calling in 1991 for them to rise up against then-President Saddam Hussein and then failing to support them when they did. Thousands were killed in a huge crackdown,” the Post says. Guilty conscience? Cheney was secretary of defense then. The LAT fronts a similar story, but its sources are apparently not quite as good, as it only mentions the “Go Slightly Bigger” option. The NYT has even less. The Post and NYT front the death of Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations. The NYT has a rarity—a scoop in an obituary. George W. Bush asked Kirkpatrick to go to Geneva for him in 2003, according to a former aide, Alan Gerson. “The secret mission, previously undisclosed, was to head off a diplomatic uprising against the imminent war against Iraq. Arab ministers wanted to condemn it as an act of aggression. ‘The marching orders we received were to argue that pre-emptive war is legitimate,’ Mr. Gerson said. ‘She said: “No one will buy it. If that’s the position, count me out.” ‘ “ The Journal fronts a good, heavily reported analysis piece on a growing alliance between leftists and Islamists, in particular Hezbollah. What do they have in common? They both hate America. Exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky seems to have some role in the polonium poisoning of a spy in London last month, the Post reports on the front page. However, that connection is not made explicit—the bulk of the article is devoted to Berezovsky’s feud with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom both Berezovsky and the poisonee, Alexander Litvinenko, blamed for the killing. But other than noting that “Kremlin supporters” (hardly impartial sources) say that Berezovsky wanted to “smear Russia’s reputation by engineering a spectacular murder,” the paper offers no evidence of a connection. Does the Post know something they can’t tell us yet? The NYT stuffs its own update on polonium-gate, a profile of a colorful Italian character who shared the famous sushi with Litvinenko. But—the papers really can’t get enough of this story —investigators now believe Litvinenko was poisoned not at the sushi restaurant but at a hotel bar, the LAT notes. The Taliban are gaining ground in Afghanistan and government control is now “tenuous” over 20 percent of Afghan territory, the LAT reports on the front page. The paper says the next three to six months will be decisive. Poaching is on the rise in the west, according to a front-page NYT story, fueled by an underground big-game scene. “It’s big antlers and big egos,” says one Montana wildlife official. High schools in the South are starting to install luxury boxes in their football stadiums, the WSJ reports. Rental costs up to $4,000 a year. Turn the other cheek? No, thanks. Hundreds of Iraqis are applying for the job of Saddam Hussein’s hangman, the NYT reports on the front page. “They have sent messages through cabinet officials and their assistants, and by way of government guards and clerical workers,” the Times reports. “One of the hardest tasks will be to determine who gets to be the hangman because so many people want revenge for the loss of their loved ones,” one government official told the paper. Joshua Kucera is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. 4:41 PM – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove

  Jeane Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s Forceful Envoy, Dies December 8, 2006     Joel Landau/Associated Press Jeane J. Kirkpatrick representing the U.S. at the United Nations Security Council in 1984. December 9, 2006 Jeane Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s Forceful Envoy, Dies By TIM WEINER Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the Reagan administration’s first United Nations ambassador and a beacon of neoconservative thought who helped guide American military, diplomatic and covert action from 1981 to 1985, died Thursday at her home in Bethesda, Md. She was 80. Her death was announced yesterday by the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, where she was a senior fellow. The cause was congestive heart failure, said her personal assistant, Tammy Jagyur. Ms. Kirkpatrick was the first American woman to serve as United Nations ambassador. She was the only woman, and the only Democrat, in President Ronald Reagan‘s National Security Council. No woman had ever been so close to the center of presidential power without actually residing in the White House. “When she put her feet under the desk of the Oval Office, the president listened,” said William P. Clark Jr., Mr. Reagan’s national security adviser during 1982 and 1983. “And he usually agreed with her.” President Reagan brought her into his innermost foreign policy circle, the National Security Planning Group. There she weighed the risks and rewards of clandestine warfare in Central America, covert operations against Libya, the disastrous deployment of American marines in Lebanon, the invasion of Grenada and support for rebel forces in Afghanistan. Her public diplomacy made her a national political figure. She was a star performer at the 1984 Republican national convention, deriding the Democrats as the “blame America first” party. She changed her political affiliation after leaving the Reagan administration and thought hard about seeking the Republican nomination for president. “So many people talked to me about it so much that they finally persuaded me to consider it,” she said in October 1987. But she decided against it, fearing she would split the conservative vote and help elect Vice President George H. W. Bush. Though he won, she thought him too moderate to inherit the Reagan legacy. Fifteen years later, in March 2003, President Bush recalled Ambassador Kirkpatrick to active duty and sent her to Geneva, said Alan Gerson, who had served as her general counsel at the United Nations. The secret mission, previously undisclosed, was to head off a diplomatic uprising against the imminent war against Iraq. Arab ministers wanted to condemn it as an act of aggression. “The marching orders we received were to argue that pre-emptive war is legitimate,” Mr. Gerson said. “She said: ‘No one will buy it. If that’s the position, count me out.’ ” Instead, she argued that the attack was justified by Saddam Hussein‘s violations of United Nations resolutions dating from the 1991 war against Iraq. The foreign ministers found her position convincing and their resolve against the war faded, Mr. Gerson said. Ms. Kirkpatrick was a political science professor with no diplomatic experience when she arrived at the United Nations in February 1981. Her mission was to wage rhetorical warfare against Moscow and its allies. She sought to restore the international standing of the United States after its defeat in Vietnam and the captivity of Americans in Iran. Her high-profile performance at the United Nations made her President Reagan’s favorite envoy. “You’re taking off that big sign that we used to wear that said, ‘Kick Me,’ ” the president told her. He admired her strong diplomatic stands and her undiplomatic language. In a letter to 40 third world ambassadors in October 1981, for example, she accused them of spreading “base lies” and making “malicious attacks upon the good name of the United States.” When nations opposed American foreign policy, she sent their voting records to Congress. The threat was tacit but clear: to stand against the United States meant to risk losing its foreign aid. Her deputy at the United Nations, Kenneth L. Adelman, said she enjoyed such close combat. “We were like Davy Crockett at the Alamo,” he said. Said She Hated U.N. Job She professed to detest the United Nations. She compared it to “death and taxes.” But she endured it for four years. At the United Nations, she defended Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the American invasion of Grenada in 1983. She argued for El Salvador’s right-wing junta and against Nicaragua’s left-wing ruling council, the Sandinistas. In private, she supported American efforts to sustain the contras, the rebel group that tried to overthrow the Sandinistas with help from the Central Intelligence Agency. She was a crucial participant in a March 1981 National Security Planning Group meeting that produced a $19 million covert action plan to make the contras a fighting force. She was part of a national security team that was often at war with itself. Her relationship with Mr. Reagan’s first secretary of state, the four-star general Alexander M. Haig Jr., “started off bad and got worse over time,” Mr. Adelman said in an oral history of the Reagan years. She had something Mr. Haig found that he lacked: the president’s ear. Ms. Kirkpatrick first entered Mr. Reagan’s inner circle on the strength of a 10,000-word article she published in the neoconservative magazine Commentary in November 1979. The article, “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” drew a bright line between right-wing pro-American governments and left-wing anti-American ones. “Traditional authoritarian governments,” she argued, “are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies.” She said it was an historic mistake for the United States to have shied away from dictators like the Somozas in Nicaragua and the Shah of Iran. If they served American interests, she asserted, they were defensible. Mr. Reagan read the article closely. Richard V. Allen, who later became the first of his six national security advisers, introduced him to Ms. Kirkpatrick. They met at a February 1980 dinner party given by George F. Will, the syndicated columnist. She recalled that she wondered aloud how she, a Democrat all her life, could join his team. Mr. Reagan confided, “I was a Democrat once, you know.” He won her over. After his election a year later, Ms. Kirkpatrick became the United Nations ambassador and “Dictatorships and Double Standards” became an important part of the foreign policy of the United States. At the United Nations, Ms. Kirkpatrick was the target of barbs and backstabbing. Sometimes she was aware of the source, sometimes not. She knew she was “a kind of special target for the Soviets — disinformation target,” she said at a 2003 foreign policy roundtable convened by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. In 1982, the K.G.B. forged a letter to discredit her and fobbed it off on the Washington correspondent for The New Statesman, a leftist British weekly, which reprinted it. The phony letter was a note of “best regards and gratitude” from the intelligence chief of the apartheid South African government. “But I felt there was as much disinformation aimed at me from inside our own government, frankly, as from the Soviet Union,” Ms. Kirkpatrick said. “That’s a shocking thing to say, but it is no exaggeration.” Role as Adviser Blocked In 1983, Ms. Kirkpatrick was a strong candidate to become President Reagan’s third national security adviser. She had support from the director of central intelligence, William J. Casey, and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. But her new boss, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, opposed her. “I respected her intelligence, but she was not well suited to the job,” Mr. Shultz wrote. “Her strength was in her capacity for passionate advocacy,” and the post, he added, demanded a “dispassionate broker.” Ms. Kirkpatrick was at the June 1984 National Security Planning Group meeting that began the secret initiative that later became known as the Iran-contra affair. Congress had cut off funds for the contras. Mr. Casey wanted to obtain money from foreign countries in defiance of the ban. Ms. Kirkpatrick was in favor. “We should make the maximum effort to find the money,” she said. Mr. Shultz was opposed. “It is an impeachable offense,” he said. President Reagan warned that if the story leaked, “we’ll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House.” Secret Arms Sales Exposed Over the next two years, millions skimmed from secret arms sales to Iran went to the contras. The story did leak, as Mr. Reagan feared, and his administration was shaken by Congressional investigations and criminal charges. Robert C. McFarlane, who had won the national security slot over Ms. Kirkpatrick, pleaded guilty to misinforming Congress. Mr. McFarlane said he should have stood up against the secret initiative to support the contras. But “if I’d done that,” he said, “Bill Casey, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Cap Weinberger would have said I was some kind of commie.” By then Ms. Kirkpatrick had left the government. She stuck to a vow to leave the United Nations at the end of Mr. Reagan’s first term and resigned in April 1985. She was succeeded by Vernon A. Walters, a former deputy director of central intelligence. The next year, as the Iran-contra story began unfolding, Mr. Casey urged the president to make her secretary of state, but Mr. Reagan rejected the idea. Ms. Kirkpatrick spent the rest of her career commenting on policy instead of making it. She remained among the most highly regarded members of the Republican establishment, and her voice remained one of the strongest echoes of the Reagan era. Jeane Duane Jordan was born on Nov. 19, 1926, in Duncan, Okla., about 160 miles northwest of Dallas, the daughter of Welcher F. and Leona Jordan. Her father was an oil wildcatter who moved from town to town searching for a gusher that he never hit. She attended Stephens College in Missouri for two years, then moved to New York, where she earned a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in 1948 and a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1950. She went to Washington as a research analyst at the Intelligence and Research Bureau of the State Department, where she met her future husband, Evron Kirkpatrick. Fifteen years her senior, he was a veteran of the wartime Office of Strategic Services, and he soon became the head of the American Political Science Association. They married in 1955 and had three sons — Douglas Jordan, John Evron and Stuart Alan. Douglas died earlier this year. The other sons and five grandchildren survive her. Mr. Kirkpatrick died in 1995. In 1967, before completing her doctoral dissertation, she was appointed associate professor at Georgetown University. The next year, she earned a doctorate in political science at Columbia University. Georgetown made her a full professor in 1973 and gave her the endowed Leavey Chair five years later. Ms. Kirkpatrick supported Jimmy Carter in 1976 and came close to being chosen for an ambassadorship in his administration. But she had become deeply disenchanted with her party. Swept In With 50 Others She joined the vanguard of the neoconservative movement, the Committee on the Present Danger, which warned throughout the late 1970s of a disastrous downturn in every aspect of American strength, from nuclear warheads to national image. When Mr. Reagan came to office in 1981, 51 of the committee’s members won positions of significant power in his administration. Power, Ms. Kirkpatrick said in a 1996 interview, is based not merely on guns or money but on the strength of personal conviction. “We were concerned about the weakening of Western will,” she said. “We advocated rebuilding Western strength, and we did that with Ronald Reagan, if I may say so.”   Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

  Billions Later, Plan to Remake the Coast Guard Fleet Stumbles Nicole LaCour Young for The New York Times NATIONAL SECURITY CUTTER The first ship was christened in November. Despite the ship’s high cost, it may be prone to premature hull cracking. Overall Documents Early Deepwater Mission Statement From 1995 Current Mission Plan A program “to modernize and replace the Coast Guard’s aging ships and aircraft” Inspector General Report on Deepwater August 2006 An Advertising Campaign From Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin 123-Foot Patrol Boat The Flawed Patrol Boat Program A Report to Congress The Fast Response Cutter Description of the Ship From a Coast Guard Report to Congress Status Report of the Troubled Program From the Government Accountability Office The National Security Cutter Description of the Ship From a Coast Guard Report to Congress National Security Cutter Structural Design Deficiencies A memo from the Chief Engineer of the Coast Guard in 2004 Coast Guard Defense of Cutter Choices A memo from Coast Guard Headquarters Multimedia Graphic Some Deepwater Projects Enlarge This Image Vincent Laforet for The New York Times PATROL BOATS Converted at a cost of $12 million each, these boats, which have been taken out of service, sustained hull breaches and shaft alignment problems that the Coast Guard tried to repair in Key West, Fla. December 9, 2006 Failure to Navigate Billions Later, Plan to Remake the Coast Guard Fleet Stumbles By ERIC LIPTON WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — Four years after the Coast Guard began an effort to replace nearly its entire fleet of ships, planes and helicopters, the modernization program heralded as a model of government innovation is foundering. The initial venture — converting rusting 110-foot patrol boats, the workhorses of the Coast Guard, into more versatile 123-foot cutters — has been canceled after hull cracks and engine failures made the first eight boats unseaworthy. Plans to build a new class of 147-foot ships with an innovative hull have been halted after the design was found to be flawed. And the first completed new ship — a $564 million behemoth christened last month — has structural weaknesses that some Coast Guard engineers believe may threaten its safety and limit its life span, unless costly repairs are made. The problems have helped swell the costs of the fleet-building program to a projected $24 billion, from $17 billion, and delayed the arrival of any new ships or aircraft. That has compromised the Coast Guard’s ability to fulfill its mission, which greatly expanded after the 2001 attacks to include guarding the nation’s shores against terrorists. The service has been forced to cut back on patrols and, at times, ignore tips from other federal agencies about drug smugglers. The difficulties will only grow more acute in the next few years as old boats fail and replacements are not ready. Adm. Thad W. Allen, who took over as Coast Guard commandant in May, acknowledged that the program had been troubled and said that he had begun to address the problems. “You will see changes shortly in the Coast Guard in our acquisition organization,” Admiral Allen said. “It will be significantly different than we have done in the past.” The modernization effort was a bold experiment, called Deepwater, to build the equivalent of a modest navy — 91 new ships, 124 small boats, 195 new or rebuilt helicopters and planes and 49 unmanned aerial vehicles. Instead of doing it piecemeal, the Coast Guard decided to package everything, in hopes that the fleet would be better integrated and its multibillion price would command attention from a Congress and White House traditionally more focused on other military branches. And instead of managing the project itself, the Coast Guard hired Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, two of the nation’s largest military contractors, to plan, supervise and deliver the new vessels and helicopters. Many retired Coast Guard officials, former company executives and government auditors fault that privatization model, saying it allowed the contractors at times to put their interests ahead of the Guard’s. “This is the fleecing of America,” said Anthony D’Armiento, a systems engineer who has worked for Northrop and the Coast Guard on the project. “It is the worst contract arrangement I’ve seen in all my 20 plus years in naval engineering.” Insufficient oversight by the Coast Guard resulted in the service buying some equipment it did not want and ignoring repeated warnings from its own engineers that the boats and ships were poorly designed and perhaps unsafe, the agency acknowledged. The Deepwater program’s few Congressional skeptics were outmatched by lawmakers who became enthusiastic supporters, mobilized by an aggressive lobbying campaign financed by Lockheed and Northrop. And the contractors failed to fulfill their obligation to make sure the government got the best price, frequently steering work to their subsidiaries or business partners instead of competitors, according to government auditors and people affiliated with the program. Even some of the smaller Deepwater projects raise questions about management. The radios placed in small, open boats were not waterproof and immediately shorted out, for example. Electronics equipment costing millions of dollars is still being installed in the new cutter, even though it will be ripped out because the Coast Guard does not want it. An order of eight small, inflatable boats cost an extra half-million dollars because the purchase passed through four layers of contractors. For the Department of Homeland Security, which took over responsibility for the Coast Guard in 2003, Deepwater joins its already long list of troubled programs, including its airport checkpoint measures, its biodefense efforts and its widely condemned handling of the response to Hurricane Katrina. The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general has warned that the department cannot repeat this experience as it begins a $7 billion plan to tighten the border. The department is taking a similar management approach with that plan, relying on the Boeing Corporation to develop, supervise and execute the strategy. Spokesmen for Northrop and Lockheed, and the partnership they formed to run Deepwater, declined repeated requests for interviews, saying they would leave it to the Coast Guard to discuss the project. The companies also declined to respond to written questions. Admiral Allen said the Coast Guard engineers and procurement staff team would now play a much larger role in overseeing the project in an effort to rein in its private sector partners, adding that the mistakes made were unacceptable. “Our people are demoralized by it, they don’t deserve it, and it really impedes our ability to execute our mission,” he said. Early Warnings On a clear, calm morning in Key West, Fla., one day last month — perfect weather for running drugs and migrants — six of the eight converted Coast Guard patrol boats were broken down or out of service. Their crews had little to do but shine the ships’ already gleaming bells and clean its guns. The Deepwater plan called for transforming the 110-foot boats into larger, more versatile cutters with rebuilt hulls, new communications and surveillance gear and a 13-foot extension to make room for a small boat launch ramp. Even before the refurbishing began in 2003, though, Coast Guard engineers expressed doubts that the boats could bear the extra weight the changes would impose. “You could have buckling of the structure of the ship,” Chris Cleary, of the Engineering Logistics Center at the Coast Guard, said he recalls pointing out. But Bollinger Shipyards, a business partner of Northrop and Lockheed, insisted the conversion would succeed. As the work got under way, the Coast Guard provided only limited oversight. It did not fill dozens of its seats on joint management teams set up for the project. And the Coast Guard assigned seven inspectors to monitor the work, compared with 20 on a similar-size job. “In theory, we were going drive a 110-foot cutter up to the pier, drop it off and come back in 34 weeks to pick up a 123-foot cutter,” said Lt. Benjamin Fleming, the Coast Guard’s representative at the shipyard in Lockport, La. “We were putting a lot of trust and faith in our partners.” Michael De Kort, a former Lockheed project manager, said the results quickly became apparent. The VHF radio on the small launch would be exposed to the elements but was not waterproof, Mr. De Kort said. The classified communications equipment had not been properly shielded to protect messages from eavesdropping. Cameras intended to provide 360-degree surveillance had two large blind spots. Mr. De Kort said he had repeatedly warned his Lockheed supervisors of the problems, but was rebuffed. “We have an approved design and we aren’t going to change it,” Mr. De Kort said he was told. He was later laid off from the company. Lockheed officials declined to comment. In September 2004, more serious flaws in the boat conversion program became obvious after the first one, the Matagorda, was launched. As it traveled in relatively heavy seas from Key West to Miami, large cracks appeared in the hull and deck. Giant steel straps that looked like Band-Aids were affixed to the side of the boats, and the vessels were barred from venturing out in rough water. But cracks and bulges continued to scar the Matagorda and other converted ships, followed by a series of mechanical problems. Bollinger, it turned out, had overestimated how much stress the modified boats could handle, a miscalculation it cannot fully explain. “The computer broke for some reason,” said T. R. Hamlin, a senior Bollinger manager. “Whether it was a power surge or something, who knows?” The cursory oversight by the Coast Guard meant the mistake was not caught in time. After spending about $100 million on the first eight boats, the Coast Guard suspended the conversion plan. Last week, Admiral Allen ordered the boats taken out of service, citing concerns about crew safety. Facing a shortage of patrol boats, the contractors and the Coast Guard decided to speed development of a larger ship, the Fast Response Cutter. The hull was to be built from glass-reinforced plastic, known as a composite, something never tried on a large American military ship. While acknowledging that it might cost much more to build the 58 planned cutters with composite hulls instead of steel, Northrop and Lockheed claimed the boats would last longer and require less maintenance, saving money over the long run. Coast Guard engineers again were doubtful that Northrop’s design would work, citing concerns about weight, hull shape and fuel consumption. The Coast Guard also found inconsistencies in the cost data Northrop used to justify the new hull. One former Northrop executive said the company was pushing the plan not because it was in the best interest of the Coast Guard, but because Northrop had just spent $64 million to turn its shipyard in Gulfport, Miss., into the country’s first large-scale composite hull manufacturing plant for military ships. “It was a pure business decision,” said the former executive, who disagreed with the plan and would speak only anonymously for fear of retribution. “And it was the wrong one.” That became clear when a scale model of the Fast Response Cutter was placed in a tank of water — and flunked the test. After three years and $38 million, Northrop Grumman’s plan was suspended. Financial Aid The Coast Guard recognized from the start that it might need help financing a project as big as Deepwater, and that was part of the reason it turned to Lockheed and Northrop. “They have armies of lobbyists, they can help get dollars to get the job done,” explained Jim McEntire, a retired captain who had served as a senior Coast Guard budget official. “The White House and Congress listen to big industrial concerns.” That assistance would prove valuable. Just months after the contract was awarded in June 2002 through a competitive bidding process, the Coast Guard began to study whether the $17 billion Deepwater budget would be inadequate, given additional costs for antiterrorism equipment. In 2005, the service informed Congress that the program would cost $24 billion over 20 years and that the annual allocation would need to double, to $1 billion. By then, though, the patrol boat conversion had been halted. Deepwater’s costs were ballooning, but the Coast Guard was having a hard time explaining exactly how it would spend more money. Government auditors were starting to churn out reports warning of serious management weaknesses. That record disturbed some members of Congress. In May 2005, the House Appropriations Committee slashed the program’s annual budget request nearly in half to register its frustration. At a hearing two months later, Representative Harold Rogers, a Kentucky Republican who oversees the Homeland Security budget, instructed the Coast Guard to fix its problems and restrain costs. “You simply took the most expensive, all-inclusive Cadillac Seville and we’re going to have to, with our limited funds, fit you into something a bit more appropriate,” Mr. Rogers said. “I hope it’s more than a Chevrolet.” To fight back, the Coast Guard and contractors relied on Congressional allies, led by Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, Representative Frank A. LoBiondo, Republican of New Jersey, and Representative Gene Taylor, Democrat of Mississippi. Mr. Taylor and Mr. LoBiondo had formed a group called the Congressional Coast Guard Caucus. It began in the late 1990s with 4 members and today has more than 75. The enthusiasm of the three leaders for the Deepwater project was not simply about meeting the Coast Guard’s needs. Maine is home to Bath Iron Works, a major ship builder that Ms. Snowe said might benefit from increased Deepwater spending. While that was a factor, she said it was not her primary motivation. Ms. Snowe and Mr. LoBiondo, the leaders of the Senate and House panels that oversee the Coast Guard, said they pushed for more spending only after the service’s leaders reassured them during hearings that they were addressing the program’s problems. They both also said they were convinced that the Coast Guard desperately needed Deepwater because its helicopter engines were routinely breaking down and the hulls of old ships were failing. “We don’t want to waste money; we don’t want ineffective programs,” Ms. Snowe said in an interview. “At the same time, we can’t allow the Coast Guard to languish.” Mr. Taylor’s district is home to Northrop Grumman’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., which is building the Coast Guard’s largest ship, and Northrop and its employees are one of his biggest sources of campaign contributions. He worked along with two key Republicans in Mississippi — Senator Trent Lott, whose father was once a pipe fitter at the Pascagoula shipyard, and Senator Thad Cochran, the chairman of the Senate appropriations committee — to win more money. Mr. LoBiondo’s district is home to the Coast Guard’s national training center, and Lockheed Martin built its Deepwater equipment testing center just outside his district. He is also one of the top Congressional recipients of Lockheed contributions. The contractors ran advertisements aimed at lawmakers in Washington publications, delivering ominous messages about the need to stop terrorists before they reach American shores. The Navy League, a nonprofit group partly financed by Lockheed and Northrop, orchestrated telephone calls, letters and visits to lawmakers, reminding them that hundreds of contractors across the country were already working as suppliers on the project. And the Coast Guard got an important boost when it was widely praised for its helicopter rescues after Hurricane Katrina. The lobbying effort paid off. In September 2005, Congress agreed to increase the annual financing for Deepwater to nearly $1 billion. Late Scramble If there was a single ship that could prove to skeptics that the Coast Guard and its contractors could get the job done right, it would be the National Security Cutter, a ship unlike anything the Coast Guard had ever built. Bigger than any existing cutter, it was more like a warship, designed to patrol with Navy vessels. It would carry sophisticated weapons systems, surveillance equipment, a helicopter and two unmanned aerial vehicles, all vital in its effort to intercept boats suspected of carrying terrorists, drug dealers or illegal immigrants. It was designed to monitor 56,000 square miles a day, an area four times as large as that covered by any other Coast Guard ship. Because the ship was so expensive — each was expected to cost about $300 million — the Coast Guard decided to build only 8 to replace its fleet of 12 large cutters. There was just one catch. Even before the cutter began taking form at the Pascagoula shipyard on the Gulf of Mexico, familiar problems cropped up. The Coast Guard’s engineers believed the design proposed by Northrop and Lockheed had serious structural flaws that could result in the hull collapsing or premature cracking of the hull and deck, according to Mr. Cleary and his boss, Rubin Sheinberg, chief of the Coast Guard’s naval architecture branch. When they alerted the contractors and Coast Guard officials, they were largely brushed off, the men said. In March 2004, their supervisor protested, saying the Coast Guard should delay construction. “Significant problems persist with the structural design,” Rear Adm. Erroll M. Brown wrote to the Deepwater project director. “Several of these problems compromise the safety and the viability of the hull, possibly resulting in structural failure and unacceptable hull vibration.” The Coast Guard decided to move ahead anyway, figuring it would be less disruptive to fix any problems later. As the shipbuilding progressed, other Coast Guard officials began to openly complain that some decisions by the contractors appeared to be motivated by a drive to increase profits, not to best serve the Coast Guard. Lockheed, for example, ordered computerized consoles for the ship that it had developed for a Navy aircraft carrier. But they were too big for the cutter, said Jay A. Creech, a retired Coast Guard captain working as a contractor on Deepwater. A consultant hired by the Coast Guard to review Northrop and Lockheed’s purchasing decisions found that of $210 million worth of contracts awarded in 2004, just 30 percent involved a formal competitive process. Northrop in particular was faulted for failing to aggressively seek bids to ensure the best price. Northrop and Lockheed “lack the independence needed to make objective decisions in the best interests of the Coast Guard,” an August 2006 report by the Homeland Security inspector general said. Others say that giving the contractors so much authority was a mistake from the start. “A contractor with a profit motive is never a trusted agent,” said Joe Ryan, a Coast Guard consultant who has helped with the Deepwater project. “They are the vendor, and they are selling you something.” Problems began to accumulate elsewhere. In Texas, a prototype of the unmanned aerial vehicle that was to be placed on the ship’s deck crashed this year. After the crash, the project, by Bell Helicopter, also faced a money crunch and was put on hold, pushing delivery back to at least 2013, six years after the first national security cutter is scheduled for active duty. Without the two aerial vehicles, the cutter’s surveillance range is reduced by more than half. By the time the ship was christened last month, its price had grown to $564 million, nearly twice its original cost. (The average price for the eight ships is expected to be $431 million.) And by then, Coast Guard officials had conceded that the ship had structural flaws. Navy experts had evaluated the ship and confirmed many of the earlier warnings. Admiral Allen said he had been given assurances that the ship was not at risk of a catastrophic hull failure and would not pose a safety threat to its crew. But the Coast Guard has decided to make structural modifications to the vessel and require design changes for the third cutter. Work is too far along to change course on the second cutter. Four years into the Deepwater project, the Coast Guard, according to its original plan, was supposed to have 26 new or rebuilt ships, 12 new planes and 8 unmanned vehicles, but none are available. Now, officials are scrambling to find an off-the-shelf design for a new cutter and make modest repairs to keep their aging patrol boats operable. “We don’t have the ships we need, and we don’t have a way to get them anytime soon,” said Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, who will take over the House Appropriations Committee next month. “It’s inexcusable.” The Coast Guard, which would not disclose the management fees it has paid Northrop and Lockheed, is renegotiating the contract to ensure that the companies honor a commitment to open the work to competition and deliver what they promise. And Admiral Allen and other Coast Guard officials say the Coast Guard’s engineers are being given more power to supervise the work. Admiral Allen is also creating a division to oversee the procurement and maintenance of its ships and airplanes. “That is the main gap that needs to be closed,” he said. The Deepwater experiment, one contracting expert said, underscores the need for the Coast Guard to be a smart buyer, even if it has hired high-priced advice. “The government still needs to be in there so they know what decisions are being made and if the decisions are in their best interest,” said Michele Mackin, an assistant director at the Government Accountability Office. “It is still their money. And they are going to be flying the planes and running the ships.” Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

  Wednesday, December 06, 2006 Ferrari leads on day one at Jerez Felipe Massa F1 > Barcelona November testing, 2006-11-28 (Circuit de Catalunya): Day 1 Ferrari leads on day one at Jerez Racing series   F1 Date 2006-12-06 By Nikki Reynolds – Motorsport.com –> –>Winter testing resumed on December 6th at the Spanish circuit of Jerez and 17 drivers from nine teams at work. Ferrari led the way, Felipe Massa’s best of 1:19.448 two and a half tenths up on team test driver Luca Badoer. They focused on a technical programme of endurance testing, new components and set up. Felipe Massa. Photo by xpb.cc. Best of the rest behind the Ferraris was McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in third, half a second off Badoer. Team tester Pedro de la Rosa was seventh and in the early damp conditions they worked on wets tyres and continued on dries when the track improved. Hamilton also evaluated suspension and de la Rosa front and rear wings. Honda test driver Christian Klien was fourth overall and the team’s second tester James Rossiter was eighth. They mainly concentrated on tyres, wets being the initial work until the conditions got better. Then Klien worked on balance while Rossiter focused on set up. Jenson Button is expected to sit out this test due to cracked ribs but Rubens Barrichello is scheduled to join tomorrow. Toyota had a new test line up on duty, 2007 official third driver Franck Montagny making an early appearance and Young Driver Programme pilot Kohei Hirate having his first F1 test. Montagny, fifth, continued to familiarize himself with his new team while Hirate, 15th, had some cockpit adjustments and the team reported his performance improved steadily. “Kohei had a very good first day I would say, he made no mistakes and he set quite a good lap time which we are quite pleased with,” said chief race and test engineer Dieter Gass. “Frank was back in the car for the first time since September and as expected he did a solid job and set a competitive lap time in the afternoon.” Anthony Davidson was the sole Super Aguri driver present and was a notable sixth on the time sheet, a second off the pace of Massa. The team continued with the tyre programme started at Barcelona last week and commented that “Anthony has continued to integrate well with the team and provide valuable feedback.” Heikki Kovalainen was the lead Renault in ninth and teammate Giancarlo Fisichella was 14th. Kovalainen worked on chassis set up, with a focus on comparing tyre characteristics from last week’s Barcelona test with data from this circuit. It was Fisichella’s first day of winter work and he began getting used to the Bridgestone tyres. “We lost a lot of running time this morning because it took a long time for the track to dry out properly, and we didn’t see any point in running when the track wasn’t ready,” said Kovalainen. “In spite of that, we did some important tests that help us better understand our conclusions from Barcelona, and that is a good step.” Williams was represented by Nico Rosberg and the German racer was 10th fastest. Red Bull had Mark Webber and tester Michael Ammermuller on duty and they were 11th and 13th respectively. Sister team Toro Rosso had one car on track, Tonio Liuzzi 16th. No information was available from those teams at the time of writing. BMW fielded Robert Kubica and tester Sebastian Vettel. They too tested wet tyres early on and Kubica, 12th fastest, ran the new SSG gearbox, while Vettel, rounding off the times in 17th, used the standard transmission. The team reported a productive day, although Kubica had a minor off in the morning due to an oil leak. Nick Heidfeld is due on track tomorrow. Discuss this article in the Motorsport.com Forums channel: F1

  Searchers find missing dad’s body Searchers find missing dad’s body (12-06) 14:25 PST GRANTS PASS, ORE. — The body of missing San Francisco resident James Kim was found in the southern Oregon mountains today, 11 days after his family’s car became stuck on a side road in the snow and four days after he ventured off to look for help. A helicopter crew located Kim, 35, in a steep canyon known as the Big Windy Creek drainage, within a half a mile of where the creek meets the Rogue River. Searchers had been focusing their efforts in the five-mile canyon for the past several days after following Kim’s tracks there. Josephine County Undersheriff Brian Anderson choked up as he announced the news around 12:30 p.m. at search-and-rescue headquarters in Grants Pass. Anderson spoke again an hour and a half later but offered few details of the recovery, saying authorities were waiting for rescue teams to return. Earlier in the day, authorities said Kim had been leaving clothing and bits of maps in the canyon, apparently as a trail for searchers to track. Searchers had been looking in the canyon since Monday and crews tried to reach him by raft, air and with dogs, but were hampered by foggy weather and rough terrain, Anderson said. “He was motivated — I mean, we were having difficulty in there,” Anderson said. “That was what has so frustrating; we couldn’t seem to get in front of him.” He said an autopsy would determine when Kim died. The discovery marked the end of a saga that was closely watched in San Francisco, where Kim worked at the tech news site Cnet, and around the nation. Kim left his wife and two daughters Saturday morning to look for help, a week after the family became stranded off Bear Camp Road in the mountains between Grants Pass and Gold Beach. His wife, Kati, 30, and daughters Penelope, 4, and 7-month-old Sabine remained with their car and were rescued Monday. During this afternoon’s statements, authorities stressed that the family’s efforts — from renting helicopters to paying for care packages to be dropped in the area — had been key to the search. Anderson called the support “invaluable.” “We want the Kim family to know that we appreciate all of their support — they have been true champions throughout this whole ordeal,” said Oregon State Police Lt. Gregg Hastings. “We just want them to know that our thoughts and our prayers have been with them from day one.” Hastings said that “the commitment by those involved in the search for Kati, for the kids and for James has gone nonstop around the clock. This is obviously extremely tough on those who have had an emotional commitment over the last several days here.” The canyon where James Kim’s body was found was several miles from where the family’s 2005 Saab station wagon became stuck. Authorities had remained upbeat about his prospects for survival, despite temperatures that dipped into the 20s. Rescue crews had dropped 18 care packages in the area earlier today, each including clothing, a wool blanket, gloves, waterproof overalls, flares, a flashlight, a hand-warmer and rations. Each package also had a letter from Kim’s family, authorities said. The packages were paid for by Kim’s father, Spencer Kim, whom Hastings called “a devoted, driven man.” The Kim family left San Francisco on Nov. 18 for a combined vacation and work trip for James Kim. They spent Thanksgiving in Seattle with family, then went to Portland, where they had brunch with a friend Nov. 25. The Kims then left on their way to a stopover in Gold Beach. At 8:30 that night, the family ate dinner in the central Oregon town of Roseburg, where authorities say they intended to take state Highway 42 over to the coast. However, they missed the turnoff, consulted a map and decided to drive the 55 miles down Interstate 5 to Grants Pass. There they turned onto Bear Camp Road, which is lightly traveled even in the summer and often is closed in the winter. It was stormy, and around the 3,000-foot elevation, about 50 miles from their intended destination, James Kim turned off onto a gravel road. He drove about 3 miles and got stuck. The Kims ran the engine of their station wagon to power its heater, and when the gas was gone, they burned the tires. They ate what little food they had, and Kati Kim breastfed her two daughters. Kati Kim was spotted Monday afternoon by a helicopter the family had hired, waving an umbrella to which she had affixed reflective tape. E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.

  • 9:25 pm
  • Leave a comment