ARMY PROBES HATE IN THE RANKS

In the wake of the murder of a black couple, allegedly by two white soldiers, in North Carolina last week, Army Secretary Togo West announced that the Army will conduct an investigation to determine how extensively troops are involved with hate groups. "I don't know what the Army will find when a few hundred reporters weren't able to find anything," says Defense correspondent Mark Thompson. "My feeling, after watching the military for many years, is that this isn't very widespread at all. But with about 1.5 million people on active duty in the military, even if one percent were involved that's about 15,000 people, which is not a small group." Thompson notes that the House Armed Services Committee, then chaired by Rep. Ron Dellums of California, conducted a similar investigation in 1994 and found that racist attitudes did exist, but they were not prevalent. "The Dellums inquiry found anxiety on both sides of the racial divide," says Thompson. "Some blacks felt they were being kept down, and some whites felt that promotions were going to minorities. I expect the same kind of findings with this report."