Army Guns Sold To Dealer

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32118, 14 October 1969, Page 17

Army Guns Sold To Dealer

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, October 13. The Senate’s wide-ranging probe into military graft will turn again today to Major-General Carl Turner, the Army’s former Provost Marshal charged with using his position improperly to obtain confiscated guns from civilian police departments, the Associated Press reported.

The Senate Investigations Subcommittee is also scheduled to give testimony from the Chicago police superintendent, James Conlisk, who said last week that the retired general had lied when claimin’’

the guns were knowingly given to him for his personal use. Conlisk had said that Turner told him at the time he wanted the weapons for Army training and museum display and signed receipts saying that they would be destroyed when no longer of use to the service. Turner has already testified that he broke down some of the weapons for parts, destroyed others, sold “the cream of the crop” to a North Carolina gun dealer, pocketed the money and did not mention it in his 1968 income tax return.

Last Thursday, an Australian, June'Skewes, an attractive booking agent who packages shows for the Army’s Club system in Vietnam, told the subcommittee that sergeants who managed the clubs demanded financial cuts and sexual favours from entertainers who were billed in the club’s facilities.

Other witnesses have told of slot machine “skimming” practices in which club managers pocket some of the proceeds from the gambling devices.

Turner’s name has cropped up in this phase of the investigation for allegedly covering up charges against a former sergeant-major of the Army, William Wooldridge, who has been linked with “skimming” and other criminal activities.