PEN and the sword: More than 700...

PEN and the sword: More than 700 writers from the U.S. branch of the international PEN literary club--including Arthur Miller, Ray Bradbury, Noam Chomsky and Philip Roth--have urged Argentine President Carlos Menem not to pardon military officers found guilty of human-rights abuses.

PEN petitioned Menem after 80 congressmen protested the possible pardon of seven senior military officials, including two former presidents, serving prison sentences for directing the systematic kidnapping, torture and murder of an estimated 20,000 civilians. The suppression occurred during Argentina’s 1976-83 “Dirty War” against suspected leftists.

Ruling: An Atlanta judge has ruled that civil-rights pioneer Julian Bond must undergo blood tests to settle a paternity dispute. The magistrate told Bond and Deborah Kay Moore that they had 30 days to decide on a laboratory to test their blood and that of Moore’s 1-year-old daughter. Moore says the child is the result of her relationship with Bond, who recently divorced his wife of 28 years.

Ouch! Frank Gifford had this to say of Howard Cosell in Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine: “At this point in his life, Howard should be a revered elder statesman instead of an angry old man. I don’t understand the bitterness that came out of this guy against everyone who supported him and protected him--and I mean protected him--on every given Monday night.”

Tongue-tied: President George Bush continues adding to his reputation for slips of the tongue. Speaking at the AFL-CIO convention in Washington last week, he called the labor organization the “AFL-CIA.” “That was a Freudian slip,” the embarrassed President said. Bush is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.