After reading a wire service report on the Agnew resignation, a reporter at the Tribune-Review named Jude Dippold said, quite presciently, "One down and one to go." Of course, the "one to go" was President Richard Nixon, then embroiled in the Watergate scandal.

Word quickly got back to Scaife, who had purchased the paper four years earlier, and who had donated $1 million to Nixon's 1972 campaign against George McGovern. Two days later, Dippold was fired. The Columbia Journalism Review declared that the reason was that "his political views didn't mesh with editorial policy."

BOGOTA - A US company has recruited 25 retired Colombian police and army officers to provide security for oil infrastructure in Iraq, according to the newspaper El Tiempo.

"On Friday, 16 Colombians will leave for Iraq with one-year contracts, renewable for six months," the source said. "In addition to the salary of 7,000 dollars, vacations in Europe every three months and life insurance were offered," he said.

A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.

The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma."

The Hill reports on a "sophisticated, multipronged plan" to support whomever George Bush nominates to the Supreme Court, after the expected resignation of ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The plan includes "pre-emptive" press releases, "to deflect liberal efforts to define the nominee," and public statements and floor speeches by Senate Republicans. Conservative groups are also involved; the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary "would handle grassroots work," and the Federalist Society "would provide substantive arguments for use in Senate and media debates."  The "business community" is expected "to fund the communications campaign." On the other side, "People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice are preparing a multimillion-dollar effort to publicize the [nominee's] record."

The apparent downsizing of the Kim cult of personality has led to speculation that changes may be taking place in the power structure of the tightly controlled communist country.

North Korea wants urgently to restart six-party talks on its nuclear programs but is still demanding of its certain conditions be met, a top U.N. official told South Korea's Yonhap news agency on Thursday.