Even a President’s Sister Can Suffer a Few Reversals

--Sunday was a very special day for Nancy Bush Ellis, the President’s sister. What could possibly go wrong on the day she was to hear her brother and French President Francois Mitterrand deliver commencement addresses at Boston University? As she arrived at the campus, police officers directed her to a parking area. Unfortunately, Ellis, of Lincoln, Mass., encountered a roadblock. After stopping to chat with the officers, she shifted into reverse and her car knocked down three of them. “One officer was hit in the knee with the car’s fender; another was hit by the door as it flung open and a third was swept back about 10 feet by the door itself,” Linda Orlando of the Boston police said. The three officers were treated at a hospital and released. Later, Ellis plowed into a police truck that was parked at the roadblock.

--It’s been more than 20 years, but Hugh C. Thompson Jr. still can’t forget the nightmare. Thompson was a 23-year-old Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam on a routine reconnaissance mission when he came upon the aftermath of the slaughter of more than 400 civilians by U.S. soldiers--an episode that later became known as the My Lai massacre. He helped rescue a child from a ditch filled with bodies. Now an oil field copter pilot and part-time real estate agent in Lafayette, La., Thompson had never spoken publicly of the March 16, 1968, incident, but TV producer Michael Bilton persuaded him to discuss it for a PBS “Frontline” special to be aired Tuesday. “(Americans) were supposed to go through and kill off the enemy,” Thompson said. “There’s only one problem: There weren’t any enemy.” Referring to the soldiers led by Lt. William Calley Jr., he said: “They went in with blood in their eyes and shot everything that moved.” Calley was convicted on murder charges in 1971 and served three years at Ft. Benning, Ga.

--It was a crowning achievement for Yulia Sukhanova, who was selected to be Miss U.S.S.R. in her country’s first nationwide beauty pageant. The 5-foot-9 blonde is 17 and hails from Moscow. She plans to pursue a career in advertising. Sukhanova beat out 34 other contestants and was picked by a jury and television viewers.