The children apparently were trying to retrieve a small "child-like pickaxe" at the bottom of the sloped pit when the dirt wall collapsed on them before 6 p.m.
The genesis of Mr. Bush's monomania about using arms control to eliminate chemical weapons has been documented in numerous Center for Security Policy papers, notably "Bush's Myopia on Chemical Weapons Keeps Him From Seeing the Handwriting on the Arms Control Wall, " (No. 91-P 37, 13 May 1991).
After work hours, downtown Midland empties out at 10 p.m. one recent night not a single pedestrian walked on Wall Street, the business district's main artery.