THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1999 5-G OURCENTURY 1987

ATA GLANCE

‘The ’ joins Browns’ heartbreakers Again the Browns won the Central Division Again they won their first playoff game. They Demjanjuk PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTOS beat the New York Jets, 38-21, with running for 122 yards and Treblinka death throwing three touchdown passes. camp survivor Again the Browns were one game from the Josef Czarny weeps . Again and the goes on trial while giving Broncos stood in the way. At halftime in , the Broncos led, 21-3. But with testimony at the Kosar throwing touchdown passes to Reggie trial of accused Langhorne, Byner and , the Nazi war criminal score stood at 31-31 in the fourth quarter. John Demjanjuk. As he had on “” a year earlier, El- in Jerusalem way took the Broncos 75 yards for a 38-31 lead. But this time, 5:14 was left on the clock. Kosar staged his own drive. With 1:12 to play, the Browns had second and 5 from the Denver By Fred McGunagle 8-yard line. On a trap play, Byner burst through the line and appeared about to score. The whole nation of Israel was Somehow, the Broncos’ Jeremiah Castile transfixed. reached out and stripped the ball from him. Television and radio carried the The Broncos recovered. They ran the clock trial live. “Bus drivers, as is the cus- down to 8 seconds, then took an intentional tom here, turn up their radios so rid- safety. ers can listen to the proceedings,” Final score: 38-33. “The Fumble” went down The Plain Dealer reported. “The trial in history with “the Drive” and “Red Right can be heard by radio in shops and 88.” cafes downtown and even above the Friday morning racket at Mahane Ye- • huda street market.” The Cavaliers had a new general manager, In Cleveland, the interest was nearly as intense, especially among Wayne Embry, and a new coach, Lenny Wil- Jews and Ukrainian-Americans. John kens. For the first time, blacks occupied the Demjanjuk, a retired auto worker top two positions in a major-league sports from Seven Hills, was on trial for franchise. “crimes against humanity” — the They also had a draft in which they picked first person to face that charge in Is- Brad Daugherty, Ron Harper and Johnny rael since Adolf Eichmann in 1961. Newman, and traded a draft choice for Mark In the courtroom, Holocaust survi- Price. Waiting in the wings was John “Hot Rod vors wept as witnesses described the Williams,” whom they had drafted a year horrors of Treblinka, Sobibor and earlier. He had to wait until he was cleared of other concentration camps. They charges of fixing games in college. watched as witness after witness They young Cavs won only 31 games and identified Demjanjuk, even after 43 missed the playoffs, but the rookies developed years, as the sadistic “Ivan the Terri- steadily. The future looked bright. ble” who sent Jews to the gas cham- bers and whose skull-cracking brutal- • ity stood out even among his The new owners of the Indians, Richard colleagues. and David Jacobs, named Peter Bavasi gen- A survivor of Treblinka told the eral manager. The Indians had won 24 more court he wanted to look Demjanjuk in games in 1986 than in 1985 and a Sports Illus- the eyes so he could be sure he was In the Jerusalem courtroom: John Demjanjuk, top left, and lawyer Mark O’Connor, bottom right. trated cover story picked them to win the 1987 Ivan. He did, then told the judges, “I American League pennant. wanted him to remember me!” As usual, the hopes were dashed. The Tribe On another occasion, a spectator subject to deportation. own memories of the won 61 games, only one more than in 1985, and stood up and shouted at Demjanjuk in Government lawyers maintained Holocaust — watched finished seventh. Lead-off hitter Brett Butler a mixture of Yiddish and Ukrainian, that, contrary to his account, he was intently. So did batted .311 and stole 47 bases and pitcher Neal “Be ashamed of yourself, you mur- really a guard in Nazi death camps. Ukrainian-Americans. Heaton won 17 games. But Bavasi feuded with derer!” He was removed from the They produced a Nazi ID card with a “By the time they finish courtroom. picture experts identified as a young sportswriters and with the fans, whom he with us, the Ukrainians At one point, Demjanjuk called out Demjanjuk. The card had been are going to be looked at irked by closing the Stadium bleachers. At- to a witness, “You liar.” His lead law- turned over by the Soviets. Demjan- tendance fell by 400,000. as barbarians,” pro- yer, Mark O’Connor, asked the court juk’s lawyers denounced it as a for- tested George Kul- • to excuse the outburst. He said Dem- gery. chytsky, a history pro- George Voinovich, meanwhile, was having janjuk had spent more than a year in Demjanjuk admitted he had lied fessor and vice trouble being both mayor of Cleveland and solitary confinement and it was “eat- about his German service, but president of United candidate for the U.S. Senate. ing at him.” claimed it was to avoid being sent Ukrainian Organiza- Chief among his troubles was a police nar- The circumstances that brought the back to Ukraine, where he was in tions of Cleveland. cotics scandal that kept slipping out from un- 66-year-old Demjanjuk to Jerusalem danger from the Soviets. Ukrainian- The trial dragged on der the rug where it had been swept. In Janu- began in 1940 when, as a 20-year-old Americans demonstrated outside the with intermittent Ukrainian farm worker, he was courthouse, saying they had endured ary, details of Arthur Feckner’s 1986 grand breaks. In August, drafted into the Soviet army. In 1942, their own Holocaust when millions shortly before the de- jury testimony came out. He told of selling his unit was captured by the Ger- starved under Stalin. $560,000 worth of cocaine from a house on fense was to begin, mans. He was sent to a prisoner-of- In 1981, U.S. District Judge Frank Demjanjuk fired O’Con- The Trawniki identification card: John Woodland Ave. He operated, he said, under war camp. Like many Ukrainian pris- Battisti revoked Demjanjuk’s citizen- the protection of narcotics detectives who nor. When he did take Demjanjuk’s defense argued that it was a oners, he was offered a chance to ship, and in 1985 ruled he should be the stand, he appeared Soviet forgery. wanted to set up a record 50-kilogram cocaine serve in a unit fighting against the extradited to Israel. In February arrest. They told him the arrest would help confused and forgetful. hated Russians. 1986, Demjanjuk was flown to Jeru- Demjanjuk’s family their supervisor, Inspector Howard Rudolph, He accepted. He said he later drove salem.A year later, he was finally on become police chief — which it did. visited him in Jerusalem. His daugh- Nishnic, said Demjanjuk had con- a truck and guarded a German gen- trial. Three Cleveland television sta- ter, Irene Nishnic, said the family cluded that two of the three judges Councilman Jeff Johnson, the NAACP and eral. After the war, Demjanjuk tions sent crews. They were joined by the 21st Congressional District Caucus called feared hostility from Israelis. They had already decided he was guilty. worked in Germany as a truck driver television networks from around the had seen an interview with Israeli for a City Council investigation. Voinovich for the U.S. Army motor pool. He world that sent back video for the children on television. “Some of them “My father-in-law says the only in- said the police were conducting an internal in- came to Cleveland in 1952 and got a nightly news. surance he has is that everybody is vestigation and no other probe was necessary. said they want my father to hang,” job at the Brook Park Ford Plant. In Because Israel had decided to use watching this,” Nishnic said. Forbes backed him. 1958, he became a U.S. citizen, stat- the trial to educate young Israelis she said. It turned out that hundreds of thousands of ing on his application that he had about the Holocaust, evidence was in- “It’s sad, the way things are right dollars from the drug arrest was missing. In been a farmer in Poland during the troduced of atrocities in which Ivan now,” she said. “But so be it. What can you do?I have a feeling every- McGunagle is a Cleveland free- July, however, the police internal investiga- war. the Terrible was not involved. Many lance writer. tion ended with no action. The case disap- In 1975, a pro-Soviet newspaper in spectators wept. Some fainted.A tele- thing will work out. It has to. He’s in- peared from public attention — temporarily. New York listed more than 70 sus- phone hot line was set up for Holo- nocent. My father is innocent.” She E-mail: [email protected] Voinovich had better luck downstate. Rep. pected wartime collaborators of caust victims and others for whom began to cry. Bob McEwen withdrew from the Senate race Ukrainian birth. Demjanjuk found the testimony caused emotional Few in Israel thought Demjanjuk in December. That meant Voinovich wouldn’t out he was on the list when he was stress. A psychologist was in the was innocent. Observers predicted he Photo researcher: face opposition in the 1988 Republican pri- called in for questioning in 1976. In courtroom to help those who were would be convicted and hanged. As David G. Jardy mary and could concentrate on Sen. Howard 1977, the Justice Department moved overcome. the year neared an end, his son-in- Metzenbaum. to revoke his citizenship, making him American Jews — many with their law, Ed Plain Dealer Library • After a ruling by federal Judge Ann Al- drich, the Justice Department reopened its antitrust investigation of the closing of the Cleveland Press by its last owner, Joseph Cole. Can chair-swinging incident unseat Forbes? On June 17, the fifth anniversary of the Press’ demise, the department announced it found in- Only one man could threaten dent through 1991. But it would be a natures needed to force a citywide sufficient evidence for criminal charges George Forbes’ ironclad control of symbolic blow that could hasten his vote. Then Johnson denounced against Cole and The Plain Dealer. City Hall — George Forbes. Sud- overthrow. Forbes for blocking a federal grant denly, he did. for a shopping center in Johnson’s • The drive was led by James Bar- Glenville ward. In a fit of anger, Forbes swung a rett, the former safety director. It got Cleveland in the year 2000 will have a liv- At a caucus of black council mem- chair at fellow Councilman Jeff John- little support from the public and able downtown with apartment complexes none from council members. bers that followed, Forbes and John- grouped around new office buildings. Or so son. The public outrage revived a son argued. That’s when Forbes re- said city planners unveiling Civic Vision 2000 move for an anti-Forbes charter But in September, West Side Coun- portedly called Johnson a “mulatto plans. amendment that had seemingly run cilman Dan Brady was angered when punk” and swung a folding metal The planners got a jolt from a Cleveland out of steam. Forbes closed a caucus to reporters in chair at him, but Councilman Tyrone State University population study they had A group called the C-FORCE (Coa- violation of the city’s charter. An- Bolden got in the way. commissioned. It said city population would lition for Reforming Council’s Effi- nouncing it was time “to have 21 C-FORCE quickly collected the sig- continue to drop to 419,000 in 2005. The Voin- councilpersons instead of one,” he ciency) was circulating petitions for a natures it needed. Council set a spe- ovich administration did not release the study, joined the amendment campaign. ballot issue that would limit a council cial election on the proposed charter but a copy leaked. amendment for April 1988. A second bleak report, from Case Western president to two, one-year terms. It Still, by December the petition Reserve University, projected no increase in would allow Forbes to remain presi- drive was well short of the 12,000 sig- — Fred McGunagle Jeff Johnson metropolitan employment by 2005. That con- trasted with projections by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis that the area would add 172,000 jobs in the 1985-2000 period. • LOOKINGATAYEAR Three members of the Regional Transit Au- thority resigned, saying they had been frus- March 19: Television evangelist June 2: President Ronald Reagan Oct. 23: The Senate rejects Rea- Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty trated in their efforts at reform. Cuyahoga Jim Bakker resigns his ministry after names Alan Greenspan chairman of gan’s nomination of Robert H. Bork to agreeing to a reduction in nuclear County commissioners threatened to pull out admitted to an extramarital affair the Federal Reserve. the Supreme Court. weapons arsenals. of the RTA, and take with them the 1 percent with a church secretary. Deaths: Dancer Fred Astaire, CIA Oct. 19: The stock market suffers Nov. 18: A congressional report county sales tax on which the agency de- Director William Casey, film director March 20: The federal government its worst crash ever, as the Dow says Reagan should bear the “ulti- pended. John Huston, author James Baldwin, approves the use of AZT, the first Jones average topples 508 points. The mate responsibility“ for the Iran- actress Rita Hayworth, former Ohio The dispute ended in Cleveland fashion. The contra scandal. \board bought out the contract of General drug designed to help victims of the 22 percent drop in the Dow nearly State University football coach Manager John Terango for $265,000. AIDS virus. doubles the decline of the 1929 crash. Dec. 8: Reagan and Soviet leader Woody Hayes.