KSG Seeks Distance from Paper

Controversial paper on “Israel Lobby” will not display KSG logo or series

by Paras D. Bhayani
THE HARVARD CRIMSON

The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) removed its logo from a controversial paper published last week by Academic Dean Stephen M. Walt and the University of Chicago’s John J. Mearsheimer. A disclaimer stating that the views expressed belong only to the authors was also made more prominent on the working paper’s cover.

In their paper, Walt and Mearsheimer argued that the “Israel Lobby,” composed of active supporters of Israel, has seized control of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East and made it reflect Israel’s interests more than those of the U.S. Since its publication in the London Review of Books last Thursday, the authors have drawn heated criticism from many academics, including Harvard’s Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz and longtime Harvard lecturer Martin Peretz, who is also the editor-in-chief of The New Republic.

According to a statement released yesterday by KSG Dean David T. Ellwood ’75, the paper’s logo was removed after some news agencies “were mistakenly reporting the paper as a ‘Harvard study’ written by ‘two Harvard researchers.’”

Usually, papers like Walt and Mearsheimer’s, which is part of the faculty working paper series and available on the KSG’s website, display the school’s logo, the series name, and a standard disclaimer stating that the views expressed may not reflect those of the KSG or Harvard.

The removal of the logo and series name was supported by Walt, the KSG said in the statement.

The authors also strengthened the wording of the disclaimer that appeared on the cover of their study, writing that “as academic institutions, Harvard University and the University of Chicago do not take positions on the scholarship of individual faculty, and this article should not be interpreted or portrayed as reflecting the official position of either institution.”

According to their assistants, both authors were travelling yesterday and unavailable for comment.

Yesterday’s issue of The New York Sun reported that an “observer” familiar with Harvard said that the University had received calls from “pro-Israel donors” concerned about the KSG paper. One of the calls, the source told The Sun, was from Robert Belfer, a former Enron director who endowed Walt’s professorship when he donated $7.5 million to the Kennedy School’s Center for Science and International Affairs in 1997.

“Since the furor, Bob Belfer has called expressing his deep concerns and asked that Stephen not use his professorship title in publicity related to the article,” the source told The Sun.

Belfer did not respond to a request to comment yesterday.

Oil companies seek cleaner fuel through gas alternative.

By Thomas Catan
FINANCIAL TIMES

A novel way to create an ultra-clean fuel for cars that uses natural gas instead of oil is on the verge of rapid growth, analysts say, driven by soaring oil prices and a thirst for alternative fuels.

Oil companies are investing billions of dollars in the nascent technology, called "gas-to-liquids" or GTL, which can be used to produce quality diesel and a range of other products normally derived from crude.

The process was developed in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa but in a few weeks will be tested on a commercial scale for the first time when the largest plant opens in Qatar.

The Oryx GTL plant, a joint venture between South Africa's Sasol and Qatar Petroleum, is being watched closely by competitors and investors looking for the next big thing in energy.

Frank Harris, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, the Scotland-based international oil consultancy, said: "For a variety of reasons, it would appear that the GTL industry is at an inflection point. If Oryx is successful, combined with some of the other projects in the works and this new paradigm for the oil price, it could be a huge catalyst for GTL." Wood Mackenzie believes the next 10 years will see more than Dollars 40bn (Pounds 22.7bn) invested in GTL plants - with the majority going to the tiny Arab emirate of Qatar. It envisages about 600,000 barrels a day of GTL products being manufactured by 2015.

Alan Gelder, GTL analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said: "This would be a niche compared to the demand for oil products, but we would expect that there could be rapid growth thereafter."

Other consultancies, such as Cambridge Energy Re-search Associates, see 1m b/d by 2015 of GTL production. The potential market is huge. Japan reportedly wants one-fifth of its transport fuel to come from GTL or biofuels by 2030.

Carmakers are also interested. Royal Dutch Shell is working with Toyota, Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler to create vehicles that run on pure GTL diesel, which combines high power with extremely low emissions.

With the world's third largest gas reserves and a stable leadership, Qatar is expected to attract about 70 per cent of the investment in the sector and aspires to be "the GTL capital of the world". Shell and ExxonMobil plan to build plants in Qatar.

Nigeria, Colombia, Algeria, Egypt, Australia, Trinidad and Iran are all either building or considering GTL projects.

Soviets Behind Pope's Shooting, Italy Panel Says

Lawmakers conclude John Paul II's stance against communism made him a target.

By Tracy Wilkinson

ROME It has persisted as one of the most mysterious cases of
international intrigue in recent times: Who shot the pope?

A committee of Italy's Parliament investigating the 1981 attempt to
assassinate John Paul II released its conclusion Thursday
that "beyond any reasonable doubt" the Soviet Union ordered the
attack that seriously wounded the pope as he greeted crowds in St.
Peter's Square.

The Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, was long ago condemned in the
shooting and served 19 years in jail. But for whom he worked has
never been definitely established. His own confessions have been all
over the map; he has variously implicated the Soviets, the Bulgarians
and others.

Rumors about the intellectual authors of the attack have circulated
for years, but pinning it directly and formally on the Soviet Union
would be a first.

Sen. Paolo Guzzanti, president of the parliamentary committee, told
reporters that the Soviet military intelligence agency, the
GRU, "took the initiative to eliminate" the pope. According to
Italian media, the report says the Soviets had decided that John
Paul, a fervent anti-communist, had become dangerous in his outspoken
support for the Solidarity protest movement in his native Poland.
Solidarity's activities eventually helped precipitate the fall of
communism there in 1989.

In those Cold War years of intrigue and deception, the shooting of
the pope was tangled in a web of secret agents, proxy gunmen and the
life-or-death struggle over who would dominate the world.

Committee staff members said the report was based on evidence
presented at a host of Italian trials through the years connected
with the shooting, including one that probed the Turkish mafia and
another the purported involvement of the Bulgarian secret service.

In addition, France's noted anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis
Bruguiere, reportedly shared evidence with the Italians that sprang
from the prosecution of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, alias Carlos the
Jackal, the notorious terrorist held in France since his capture in
Africa in 1994.

The committee also used new technology to reexamine a photograph that
the report concludes shows Sergei Antonov, a Bulgarian airline
executive, in St. Peter's Square near Agca at the time of the
shooting. The man in the photograph has a heavy mustache and is
wearing glasses, as though in disguise.

Antonov was one of several Bulgarians put on trial in 1986 for
allegedly orchestrating the shooting; he and the others were
acquitted. Placing him at the scene would bolster claims that the
Bulgarian secret service hired Agca and that it was working at the
behest of the Soviets, the Italians contend. It has long been
theorized that the Bulgarians were acting as agents for the Soviets
in a murder plot against the pope.

Reacting to the new Italian report, officials in Moscow and Sofia,
the Bulgarian capital, issued strong denials. Boris Labusov,
spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, successor to
the Soviet-era KGB, said the accusation was "completely absurd,"
according to a dispatch from the Interfax news agency quoted by
Associated Press.

Italy's findings constitute an important addition to the historical
record. But it seemed unlikely that the report would have any effect
on investigations closed long ago.

The committee's report must be approved by the full Parliament next
week.

If that happens, it would constitute the first time an official body
has placed blame for the assassination attempt on the Soviets.

However, a minority report by opposition members of Parliament is
expected to be released at the same time that may disagree with some
of Guzzanti's findings. Other participants in the probe believed that
the information they gathered was less conclusive than Guzzanti
indicated, a source on the committee said. Among other things, the
committee interviewed prosecutors and judges from earlier cases.

"All the judges that we heard from left more questions than
certainties," said Nicola Biondo, a committee staff researcher.

Guzzanti, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing
Forza Italia (Go, Italy) party, said he launched the new
investigation after John Paul's last book before his death spoke of
the assassination attempt and his conviction that someone beyond Agca
had "masterminded and commissioned" the attack.