Week of July 1, 1988

More than 180 Western protesters scrambled over the Berlin Wall to the east to

escape police in scenes unprecedented since the barrier was erected in 1961.

The USS Vincennes mistakes a

commercial Iranian airliner for a

warplane and shoots it down over the

Persian Gulf. 290 passengers and crew

die. The Vincennes had been battling

with several Iranian gunboats and

believed the jetliner was an attacking

Iranian F-14 fighter. It fired two surface-

to-air missiles at the airliner.

“This is a

terrible human tragedy. We deeply

regret any loss of life,” said the President in a statement.

Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci announces that the Pentagon was

suspended all payments on nine Navy contracts worth $1 billion that may have

been tainted by bribes and fraud.

U.S. Atty. Gen Edwin Meese II announces he will resign at the end of July or in

early August. He says he’s leaving with his name clean.

More than a year after a key deputy refused to do so,

“profound apology” to former NASA administrator James

Beggs for the Justice Department’s attempt to prosecute

him on fraud charges.

President Reagan criticized Democratic presidential

candidate Michael s. Dukakis as an “out-and-out liberal

governor who has raised taxes and favors abortion. “The

American people understand what liberalism means and

don’t like it, so our opponents plan to go to the voters

incognito and they’re putting on political trench coats and

sunglasses.

Mikhail Gorbachev determined that his reform program will not be weakened by

conservatives, intervenes forcefully in the debate at a special Communist Party

conference to press for the radical reorganization of the Soviet Union’s political

system.

Week of July 1, 1988

At least 166 people were killed or missing and fared dead in an explosion aboard

a U.S. owned offshore oil rig that sent men frantically leaping 200 feet into the

North Sea.

arraigned on charges of driving under the influence of

alcohol after her car hit a chain link fence along a Cape

Cod beach road.

The Federal Home Loan Bank Board doubles its

estimate of the cost of rescuing the savings and loan

industry to $42.5 billion through 1994 because of the

margin of 12 Texas thrifts.

Saturday night on TBS - Opryland Celebrates 20 Years

of American Music.

from Ohio who became the Nazi propaganda

broadcaster known as “Axis Sally” during World War II. She was 87. She was

convicted in 1949 of treason for making Nazi radio broadcasts and served 12

years of a 10-to-30 year prison sentence. During her trial,

Gillars testified she had fallen in love with an officer in the

German Foreign service and he persuaded her to make the

broadcasts. In tears, she swore she loved her country and

would never intentionally betray it. When she was released in

1961, she moved to Columbus (Ohio) and taught music at a

kindergarten run by the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus.

Sports -

Passing - National League umpire Lee Weyer of a major heart attack. He was

51.

Entertainment news -

MTM Entertainment Inc is sold

to Television South PLC a

British production firm for

around $300 million.

Announcement was made by

Mary Tyler Moore.

Week of July 1, 1988

Television news -

Don’t miss Walt Disney World’s Fourth of July Spectacular (see ad).

Monday night television -

CBS - Blue Skies, Newhart, Designing Women, Magnum, P.I.

NBC - ALF, Hogan Family, Movie, Tonight Show, David Letterman

ABC - Baseball

PBS - A Capitol Fourth 1988

HBO - Boxing (Tyson-Spinks)

A&E - Our Century - (see ad)

NBC Movie - “Bates Motel” with Bud Cort, Jason

Bateman.

At the movies -

Coming to America

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Big

Bull Durham

Crocodile Dundee II

The Great Outdoors