Loose Lips Capable Of Sinking
More Than Ships, Eco May Find

WASHINGTON — New Mexico's entire congressional delegation is demanding the firing of the executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation after he repeated a story about a reference to former U.S. Secretary of Interior Manuel Lujan Jr. as a ``damned chili-eater.''

Amos Eno told the story about Lujan, who also is a former New Mexico congressman, at an Oct. 6 foundation banquet he attended to honor an employee with the Chuck Yeager Award, named after the former military test pilot who once was a member of the foundation's board.

Eno said Yeager often quarreled with Lujan during his term as a foundation board member and that at one point Yeager went to then-President Bush and told him, in reference to Lujan, ``Mr. President, get that damned chili-eater off the foundation's back.''

Days after Eno's remarks, the foundation board placed him on unpaid administrative leave and commissioned an independent investigation of his conduct. The board is to decide Dec. 1 whether to fire Eno.

After reading a column in The Washington Post this week about the remark, Sen. Pete Domenici and Reps. Joe Skeen and Heather Wilson — all Republicans — wrote to foundation chairwoman Maggie Bryant, urging her to fire Eno.

``To deliberately reference Mr. Lujan as a `damned chili-eater,' whether this reference was repeated by Mr. Eno or originated by another individual, is a disgrace to the foundation and its reputation as an organization that seeks to protect cultural and natural resources,'' the letter said.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Tom Udall, both Democrats, wrote a separate letter to Bryant on Wednesday, likewise urging the foundation board to fire Eno.

``Even though Mr. Eno may have been recounting what someone else had said years earlier, the remark was highly offensive to everyone who knows and respects Mr. Lujan and, indeed, to the entire Hispanic community,'' Bingaman and Udall wrote.

A telephone listing could not immediately be found for Yeager.

Lujan, reached at home Wednesday, said he didn't ask for congressional intervention but welcomes it nonetheless. He said he hopes Eno is fired.

``I think it's really ignorant to say something like that,'' Lujan said. ``It doesn't offend me; I do eat chili, I suppose. But in the context that it's meant, it's derogatory, and that would be for anyone, Hispanic or otherwise.''

Lujan also said he doesn't believe Yeager made the remark and that Eno was ``covering up his tracks'' by attributing the remark to Yeager.

The foundation's board, in a statement Monday, said it ``deeply regrets the carelessness and insensitive remarks which were made.''