'White believed in settling things with gun'

By William F. Miller

The man accused of killing San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk yesterday was described as "a man with a violent temper, who paraded his male macho image," by a former Clevelander and member of the slain mayor's cabinet.

Richard Sklar, an official in the water and sewage department and coordinator of a $1 billion sewage treatment project, said the accused man, Dan White, 32, fulfilled his image by resorting to a gun because he was not given back his former city supervisor's job.

"White was a former Marine,

fireman and cop, and believed in settling things with a gun,” Sklar said. “Milk, an avowed homosexual, stood for everything that White hated," Sklar said. Milk was shotshortly after the mayor was gunned down.

Choking with grief during the telephone interview from San Francisco's City Hall, Sklar said: "Two of the dearest friends I have ever had are now dead."

Sklar, who managed the 1972 presidential campaign of Sen. George S. McGovern, D-S.D., in Ohio, said he was out of the building during the shootings but rushed back as soon as he heard the news.

Sklar said he saw White's irrational temper several times.

"He would scream at some 50year-old lady who happened to drop the ball," in softball games between the city administration and the legislators, Sklar said.

He said there was no connection between the City Hall murders and the suicides and murders triggered by the Rev. Jim Jones in Guyana. Moscone had appointed Jones director of the public housing authority several years ago, before Jones went into the South American jungles.

Sklar described Moscone as a "decent human being, who would

walk around an ant on the street rather than step on it and kill something."

Sklar said one of the reasons he left Cleveland and sought a public service job was because of Sen. Robert Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles.

"I felt I had to get involved again

All that energy up there

Sunshine

WASHINGTON (AP) energy falling on the 48 contiguous states in a single day equals four times the energy in the quantity of oil Americans use in an entire year, the National Geographic Society says.

after that slaying," he said. "I never forget how it affected by son, Erick, when he was 11 years old. He was so upset. Now he is 16. And my daughter, Pamela, who is now 9, is going through it all over again with someone she was very close to.”

Sklar met Moscone in 1972, when they worked together on McGovern's primary campaign in California.

Sklar worked on Moscone's mayoral campaign in 1975. In Ohio, he also worked on the campaigns of Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum, D-O., former Mayor Carl B. Stokes and Arnold R. Pinkney, former board of education president.

Richard Sklar