perm filename MICRO.AP[1,LMM]3 blob
sn#445376 filedate 1979-06-01 generic text, type T, neo UTF8
n481 0527 09 Apr 79
BC-Sked 1stadd 04-09
FOOD PACKAGE
UNDATED (Stroud - Sun-Times - BUTCHER) - Skirt steaks are a good
buy because they are lean. However, they are tough. Beat them
with a mallet and they become tender. (550) - a401 FNSPM
UNDATED (Newman - Sun-Times - BOOKS) - Most books about vegetable
cooking are written by vegetarians and give off a rather
medicinal aura. However, Robert Ackert
s book on vegetables just
plain glamorizes them. (800) - a402 FNSPM
UNDATED (Szathmary - Sun-Times - CHEF) - Cauliflower, with its
subtle but distinctive flavor, can be a bountfiul highlight at the
dinner table. Try my oven-baked cauliflower, for example.
(900) - ar03 FNSPM
UNDATED (Sun-Times - MINUTES) d When you are in a hurry canned
convenience items like salmon can make life a lot easier.
(300) - a404 FNSPM
UNDATED (Berland - Sun-Times - THIN) - The truth about the
fad fructose sugar diet is that it adds extra calories to your
meals with no beneficial side effects. (800) - a405 FNSPM
UNDATED (Marsh - Sun-Times - MALE) - If you love those hearty,
filling breakfasts but are afraid to indulge because of the
high calorie count, I have the solution. Have breakfast for dinner.
(800) - a406 FNSPM
UNDATED (Strube - Sun-Times - FRESH) - With ideas such as this
yam-banana casserole the sweet potato is on its way to becoming
a year-around vegetable, instead of just a holiday favorite.
(550) - a407 FNSPM
UNDATED (Bergland - Sun-Times - LAMB) - ''Out like a lion, in
like a lamb'' describes the convenience of microwave cooking vs.
cooking lamb the conventional way. (900) - a408 FNSPM
UNDATED (Upton - Sun-Times - FADS) - Food fashion - what
food is ''in'' and what food is ''out'' - can change as quickly
as the menus at New York's chic restaurants. How do you prevent
a public food faux pas? Read this story. (1,050) - a409, a410 FSNPM
hb (more) 04-09
cd
...
(End missing.)
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n034 0905 09 Apr 79
BC-SOUTHERN
By PAMELA G. HOLLIE
c.1979 N.Y. Times News Service
BURLINGAME, Calif. - In C. Gus Grant's office at the Southern
Pacific Communications Co. hangs a large cartoon showing him
attempting to slay the giant Ma Bell.
''The Bell strategy was to kill us, and our strategy was to fight
back,'' said Grant, whose company is one of just two survivors among
19 onetime challengers of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.
The 60-year-old president of the Southern Pacific Co. subsidiary
expects a profit this year, the unit's first.
The battles are not over. In its latest move, SPC has filed suit
charging AT&T with violating federal antitrust laws by restraining
trade and by attempting to monopolize communications services.
Most of the suits involving the two have had similar language, and
so far, SPC has been largely successful in its attempts to get a
bigger foothold in the AT&T domain. The trend seems to be in favor of
increased competition, and congressional efforts to overhaul federal
communications law are expected to encourage a more open industry.
Grant expects to see his feisty company, which lost $11 million in
1977 and $2 million in 1978, capture up to 3 percent of AT&T's
long-distance market by 1984. Although that may sound like a modest
share, the total market is expected to be $23 billion in five years.
That would mean revenues for SPC of 10 times its 1978 sales of $50
million.
Southern Pacific Communications, as a specialized common carrier,
provides coast-to-coast private-line communication services for
business, institutional and governmental customers via microwave,
cable and satellite facilities.
SPC offers three separate services: SPRINT for voice transmission,
SPEEDFAX for facsimile service and DATADILE for data transmission. In
addition, a long-term agreement reached with Hitachi Ltd. in February
put SPC in the hardware distribution business, selling terminals
through which an SPC customer can transmit written material over
telephone lines at a rate of less than a minute a page.
Typically, the system is used by businesses for long-distance calls.
A client picks up the standard AT&T phone in, say, Los Angeles, and
is linked into 5he SPC network - a series of line-of-sight receivers
and transmitters placed 30 miles apart - which winds up at a receiver
atop the Empire State Building. From there it is routed through
regular AT&T lines like any other local call.
The SPC system can also help companies control their telephone costs
by providing call records, which AT&T does not do. According to
Grant, such a service to a large New York bank disclosed that 30
percent of all the calls on the network were to Off-Track Betting.
''That number was taken off the network,'' Grant said.
''If we can save General Electric, with its $50 million phone bill
just 10 percent, that's $5 million a year,'' Grant said. ''That's the
kind of service that has caused the business to grow in recent
months.''
For six years, SPC and other companies have been fighting with AT&T
over a share of the lucrative $14 billion private business
communications market. Until the late 1960s - a 1968 Federal
Communications Commission decision allowed the attachment of private
terminal devices to telephone lines - private telephone line
companies were unable to gain access to the market.
The FCC ruling hardly cooled the battle. When competitors entered
the long-distance market, Ma Bell dropped its rates to private users
by 43 percent. SPC undercut the industry giant by 10 percent.''That's
known as a courageous strategy,'' Grant said.
Of the 19 companies that tried to get into the business five years
ago, only the MCI Telecommunications Corp. and SPC remain. The
International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. just entered the
competition this year.
ny-0409 1202est
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n035 0912 09 Apr 79
BC-SOUTHERN Addatend
NYT BURLINGAME: this year.
(ADD FOR CLIENTS DESIRING A LONGER STORY)
Southern Pacific Communications represents a bold diversification
for the Southern Pacific Co., the railroad-based transportation
company with $2.3 billion in sales for 1978, about $4 billion in
fixed assets, 3.8 million acres of Western lands and a majority of
the freight business in the West. The parent has also ventured into
trucking, real estate, pipelines and, most recently, title insurance.
''When the Bell people come around calling us a pipsqueak, I haul
out the charter,'' Grant said. The company's business charter, dated
1862, certifies Southern Pacific as a railroading and communications
company. (AT&T was not incorporated until 1885.)
When SPC was formed in 1970, the communicaions network was built
along the track linking major California cities and the Southwest. At
first, SPC planned only to become a regional carrier. But when Grant,
who had been at Teledyne, General Electric and Ampex, joined the
company in 1973, he found that plan shortsighted. ''Customers don't
like to break their service halfway,'' he said. ''They want
coast-to-coast. After all, 20 percent of all business calls originate
in New York,'' he said. ''Without New York on the network we couldn't
grow.''
But the eastward thrust had problems. The railroad did not own
property east of Texas, sites were hard to find and environmental and
regulatory approvals for the line-of-sight towers took about three
years to complete. ''Even after the property was cleared, it took one
year to connect Phoenix to Dallas,'' Grant said. ''I began to think I
was going to be too old to enjoy the system at the rate we were
going.''
So SPC sank $200 million into acquisitions of existing lines and
permits to link California to New York. In 1974, SPC acquired the
Voice Data assets of United Video in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas and
purchased the permits of Video Microwave Inc., which connected New
York to Boston via Albany. That same year, the company acquired the
Transportation Microwave Corp., connecting Philadelphia to Buffalo
via New York City.
And in 1976, SPC purchased $53 million of the Data Transmission Co.
assets for $4.9 million in an auction. Those assets brought Chicago,
Houston, St. Louis and Kansas City into the system. This year, SPC
will spend $50 million to connect even more cities. By the end of the
year, SPC expects to link 72 cities, making it the nation's largest
specialized common carrier.
Like a railroad, the network does not begin to pay until the last
mile of track is laid. But in the last year, growth has been
phenomenal, so fast, in fact, that the annual report, mailed to
shareholders last week, underestimated the number of SPC customers by
10,000. ''A year ago we had 1,000 customers. Now we have about
24,000,'' Grant said. ''By the end of the year we expect to have more
than 30,000 customers.''
ny-0409 1209est
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n005 0559 17 Apr 79
BC-MISSILE 1stadd
NYT NEW YORK: treating illness.
Because liposomes could be put into the lungs by spray, and would
tend to accumulate in the liver if put into the bloodstream,
liposomes have been considered for treatment of cancers that have
spread to those two vital organs.
Scientists in many research groups have put at least 50 different
therapeutic drugs into liposomes in the hope of using them to deliver
the dose exclusively where it was needed. In some cases, the
liposomes appear to have reached the target but have evidently not
released the drug in a useful way.
The new method, which combines the use of liposomes with
hyperthermia, may help solve the important delivery problem. In the
animal experiments, the region of the tumor is warmed by microwave
radiation to about 107 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature not quite
high enough to kill cells, but just high enough to change the fatty
material of the liposome from crystalline to liquid form.
The microscopic capsules, each laden with a cargo of the anticancer
drug methotrexate, are injected into the laboratory animal's
bloodstream at a point from which normal blood flow will carry them
directly to the heated area.
Because of the heat and the action of blood plasma on the liposomes
at high temperature, the capsules disintegrate and release the drug
in the immediate area of the tumor.
In the most recent research, it was found that the drug entered the
cancer cells and reached the intended intracellular targets in the
same way it does in conventional cancer treatment.
So far, the scientists have used only small doses of the drug - too
small for therapeutic effect - seeking to prove first that it gets
into the cancer cells and interferes with their internal machinery in
the expected way. The drug evidently does so in high concentration.
After first testing the method ''in vitro'' (in the test tube), the
scientists turned to experiments on mice in which transplanted
cancers were growing.
The drug release was almost total and occurred within seconds. The
results suggest that heavy doses of anticancer drugs could be used to
attack a localized cancer without serious toxic effects elsewhere.
Research on using drug-laden liposomes against leishmaniasis, one of
the world's major health problems, has been conducted at the Walter
Reed Institute for Medical Research in Washington and at research
centers in Britain.
In this disease, there is no need to use heat to release the drug
from the capsules. The parasites that cause the disease infest
scavenger cells in the liver that help rid the blood of foreign
matter, and these cells also engulf and digest liposomes. By this
action, early experiments show, the cells liberate the drugs that
kill the parasites.
This suggests that highly toxic drugs can be carried through the
circulation without doing much harm and only produce their killing
effects when they reach the parasites that are the desired targets. A
roughly similar strategy is being considered for use against malaria,
another of the world's most widespread and devastating public health
problems.
ny-0417 0857est
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n024 0817 17 Apr 79
BC-SCIENCE WATCH 1stadd
NYT UNDATED: or cooling.
Conventional heat pumps use gases that are liquefied by compression,
cooled by a circulating gas or fluid, then allowed to evaporate,
causing chilling. Brown said the transfer of heat from a compressed
gas results in much more energy loss than the transfer of heat from
gadolinium by removal of a magnetic field.
''Our magnetic heat pump is analogous to the Stirling-cycle hot air
engine,'' Brown said, ''in which the same air is shifted back and
forth in a closed system, expanded by heating in one part of the
system and contracted by cooling in another.''
He said a number of American and foreign steel manufacturers, who
use large quantitites of oxygen extracted from air liquefied at low
temperature, have shown interest in the magnetic heat pump.
New Meteorological Tool
A government researcher has devised what he believes to be the most
accurate present method of determining how much moisture is in the
atmosphere at a given point. The device, which employs satellite
signals, may have a variety of meteorological uses, according to the
researcher, Jack B. Snider of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration laboratories in Boulder, Colo.
Snider uses two instruments in making his measurements: a
ground-based antenna, which monitors a continuous signal from a
COMSTAR 3 satellite on a wavelength sensitive to water, and a
microwave radiometer, which measures the temperature of the sky
between the antenna and the satellite.
By correlating the strength of the satellite signal with the
temperature readings, it is possible to determine the amount of water
in a cloud or in the sky along a line between the ground station and
the satellite, Mr. Snider said. The method also can detect water
vapor and ice crystals in the air.
The weather agency said such information could be useful in weather
forecasting, in detecting conditions that could cause icing on
aircraft wings, and in selecting clouds for seeding.
ny-0417 1114est
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n134 2030 20 Apr 79
BC-EDUC-TECHNOLOGY Adv22 2takes
(FOR RELEASE: SUN. APRIL 22)
By MALCOLM BROWNE
c. 1979 N.Y. Times News Service
NEW YORK - SWOMETHING WENT BADLY WRONG LAST MONTH AT THE NUCLEAR
ELECTRICITY+GENERATING PLANT AT Three Mile Island near Harrisburg,
Pa. No one was injured or killed, but before technicians brought the
malfunctioning reactor under control, central Pennsylvania had
sukfered severe economic loss, and millions of Americans had begun to
wonder who, if anyone, was to be trusted in the debate over the
safety of nuclear energy.
The incident drove home another fear to professional scientists:
that most Americans, including many government leaders, politicians
and news-gatherers, lacked the basic scientific insight to make
intelligent assessments of what was actually happening. ''The
American educational system failed us at Three Mile Island,''
lamented one,, ''and we'd better try to learn something before the
next crisis.''
In today's highly technological society every American is faced with
decisions that require scientific judgments - from personal decisions
about the use of saccharin or birth-control pills to social policy on
recombinant DNA, aerosol spray cans or the Concorde.
Many scientists fear that, if anything, the ordinary American is
becoming less equipped than ever to make rational decisions on such
issues. Their fears are essentially twofold.
First, they fear, most people do not have the scientific knowledge
necessary to weigh the ''risks'' that are part of most such
decisions. A housewife, for example, generally has no knowledge of
the nature of the microwave radiation in her oven, much less whether
or not it may be dangerous. A wage earner without special knowledge
has difficulty knowing just how great a threat to his privacy is
posed by computerized record-keeping.
''The human race has never had such bountiful technological benefits
as today. But there has also never been a time when the technological
risks were greater,'' a nuclear physicist said. ''It is impossible to
weigh benefits against risks without knowledge, and in a democratic
society, that means knowledge for everyone, not just the experts.''
The problem was dramatically illustrated at Three Mile Island. An
entire population seemed for a few days to be floundering in a sea of
unanswered questions and anxieties, and in an effort to resolve the
problem, newspapers, radio and television sometimes made
misapprehensions even worse. One news agency described the material
inside the core of the reactor as ''brooding hellfire,'' a phrase one
scientist privately described as ''pandering to panic.''
Many scientists say that such groping for answers was not necessary.
''You don't need to be a Ph.D. physicist to understand the
implications of that accident and to make your own judgments about
published or broadcast news reports,'' said one government scientist
who asked not to be identified. ''A knowledge of the simple gas laws
of Charles, Boyle and Henry would be enough to impart the right
instincts about that well-publicized bubble in the reactor that
caused so much trouble. With knowledge of the inverse-square rule,
anyone could make an informed guess about how distance from the plant
decreases exposure to potential radiation from it. Rudimentary
knowledge of the structure of the atom, of elements and isotopes, and
of the nature of radioactivity would also help.''
(MORE)
ny-0420 2328est
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n072 1521 28 Apr 79
BC-ARMS 1stadd
NYT LOS ANGELES: satellite system.
The question whether the United States can adequately verify Soviet
compliance with the strategic arms agreement has become one of the
most controversial issues in the debate over the projected treaty.
Carter has repeatedly given assurances that the United States has the
ability to do so.
The recent loss of two CIA stations in Iran that monitored Soviet
missile tests during the initial phases of their launchings has
aroused concern among some senators, who have said it is not certain
that the United States could detect any Soviet cheating on an
agreement.
Concern over the lost Iranian stations has been aggravated by the
disclosure last year that a Central Intelligence employee, William
Kampiles, sold a technical manual about an agency
photo-reconnaissance satellite system called Keyhole to a KGB agent
in Greece.
What the transcripts of the debriefings by the CIA and FBI show and
what has not been made public is that Soviet agents probably had some
information about the Keyhole system more than a year before the
arrest of Kampiles and that the Russians had obtained significant
information about other satellites from the two Californians.
At their trials, Boyce testified that he had been coerced into
spying by Lee, a boyhood friend who was a heroin addict, and Lee said
that Boyce had told him they were working for the CIA to give wrong
information to the Russians.
From April 1975 to December 1976, shortly before they were arrested,
the two men acknowledged selling documents to Soviet agents in Mexico
and in Vienna, for which they received more than $80,000.
Boyce worked as a $140-a-week clerk in a communications vault
transmitting coded messages between the TRW plant and the CIA
headquarters in Langley, Va., and other stations.
At their trials, Justice Department prosecutors alleged that the men
had sold thousands of classified documents to the Russians, but the
only document referred to during the trial was a study involving the
Pyramider, the aborted project intended to relay secret messages from
American spies in hostile foreign countries to the agency's
headquarters at Langley.
What was not disclosed, except in the debriefing transcripts, was
that through the two men the Russians obtained copies of documents
giving technical specifications, operating characteristics and other
details of Rhyolite and Argus satellites over a long period.
Positioned in a stationary orbit about 22,000 miles over Asia,
Rhyolite satellites contain a network of antennas that can intercept
telemetry signals from Soviet missiles as they arc into space and
deliver dummy payloads in Eastern Siberia or in the Pacific Ocean.
The system can also monitor Chinese missile tests.
The satellites also have a number of other functions, including the
ability to eavesdrop on Soviet and Chinese telephonic and radio
microwave communications.
ny-0428 1819est
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n031 1045 29 Apr 79
BC-SOLAR Addatend
NYT NEW YORK: the country.
(ADD FOR CLIENTS DESIRING A LONGER STORY)
Moreover, solar manufacturers are developing systems that provide
air conditioning in the summer as well as heat in the winter. The
year-round saving in fuel and electricity would allow such dual
systems to pay for themselves that much faster.
Solar manufacturers say systems designed to heat domestic water are
rapidly displacing water heaters run by electricity, simply because
these systems do operate all year. And proponents assert that if the
cost of running a solar energy system were weighed against the cost
of generating electricity from a new power plant - that is, against a
utility's actual expansion costs instead of the lower, embedded costs
now used to set rates - solar energy would prevail much more often.
Utilities would then have to build fewer power stations, they say,
avoiding what is almost invariably a costly and disruptive process.
Even fewer power stations might be needed if one of the many proven
devices for converting sunlight into electricity became economical
for everyday use.
Sunlight can be converted into electricity directly with
''photovoltaic'' cells, the electronic chips that provide power on
spacecraft, for example, and on some offshore oil platforms. The
conversion can also be done indirectly, with collectors concentrating
and focusing the sunlight on a tank full of liquid, boiling it off to
spin a turbine and generate power.
Researchers are investigating both concepts. But there is sharp
disagreement over the approach society should adopt if and when such
solar power becomes viable. Some say tomorrow's solar electric
systems should be grouped in central power stations, mirroring the
present electricity system.
''The most exciting prospect in solar is direct conversion to
electricity,'' said Dana Moran, assistant to the director of the
Solar Energy Research Institute, a national laboratory set up nearly
two years ago in Golden, Colo., to coordinate the government's solar
research and development program. ''And it seems to me that in the
long run centralized solar power has a lot of advantages.''
Others, however, think that would burden 21st century technology
with 19th-century trappings. They say that if solar cells were
scattered where the power is needed - on the nation's rooftops -
consumers would eventually save the high cost of distribution. The
lines used to deliver electricity now account for a staggering 70
percent of the utility industry's total capital investment.
Although a growing cadre of energy thinkers has embraced this point
of view, the government is trying to cover all the bases and is
moving ahead with plans to build a central solar power demonstration
plant at Barstow, Calif. The Barstow plant will convert sunlight to
electricity indirectly.
Advocates of decentralized solar power believe the best hope lies
not with indirect conversion but with photo cells, and they cringe
when researchers propose that these, too, be used in central power
stations. One scheme calls for satellites the size of football fields
converting solar energy in space and beaming it down by microwaves.
Says Commoner of such schemes: ''It's entirely possible to be in
favor of solar and be stupid at the same time.''
Whether or not they are used in centralized systems, however,
photovoltaic cells must first get cheaper, and the government is
working toward that end. Of the $100 million or so that will go to
the Solar Energy Research Institute this year, more than a fourth
will be for photovoltaics. Most of the effort is aimed at reducing
the cost of making silicon-type cells by more than 95 percent in six
years, to 50 cents per peak watt of capacity.
''Right now, there is not enormous optimism that we'll achieve that
goal,'' said the institute's Moran. ''But maybe we'll reach $1, and
even at $2, a lot of applications start to look promising.''
ny-0429 1343edt
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a216 1220 01 May 79
AM-GSA Probe, Bjt,780
By GWEN FLORIO
Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE (AP) - Televisions. Radios. Automobile tires. Airplane
tickets, and $300 suits.
Not much individually, but prosecutors say they were received in
exchange for help in bilking the General Services Administration and
that they add up to a multimillion-dollar case of fraud in the federal
government - not just here, but in cities across the country.
So far, federal grand juries in Baltimore alone have indicted 36
persons. Nationwide, there have been 74 indictments and informations
returned, resulting in 53 guilty pleas and 14 trial convictions. Four
persons have yet to enter pleas and the others are awaiting trial.
And prosecutors here say there is no end in sight.
''We will go on until it's over,'' said Daniel Clements, the
assistant U.S. attorney here in charge of the cases. ''This is just
one phase of it. There are other areas being looked into by us
(federal officials in Baltimore). More indictments can be expected.''
The investigations of the federal government's giant housekeeping
agency began in June 1977, after allegations were made that GSA
employees had been bribed with millions of dollars from contractors
working on federal buildings, Clements said.
In addition to the probe here, grand jury investigations are under
way in Washington, New York, Boston and Newark, N.J.
Broken down by GSA regions, 49 indictments or informations have been
returned in the Baltimore-Philadelphia-Washington region, three in
the Boston area, two in New York, three in Atlanta, six in Fort Worth,
three in Denver and one each in San Francisco and Seattle.
Informations, like indictments, are legal accusations, but a grand
jury does not have to be involved in producing them.
The Baltimore indictments charged that GSA employees received cash,
television sets, trips, microwave ovens, radios, tires, suits and
other goods from firms that sold supplies to GSA stores.
In return, the indictments said, the employees - most of them
managers and assistant managers - would acknowledge receipt of
supplies that had not been delivered, and would approve GSA payment
for those supplies to the firms involved.
So far, at least, the rate of prosecutors' success has been high. Of
36 persons indicted here, 27 have entered guilty pleas after
negotiations with prosecutors, and four have been convicted in jury
trials. There have been no acquittals yet; the remaining five
defendants are awaiting trial, with that of William H. Anderson, a GSA
store manager from Washington, scheduled to begin Thursday.
Most of those entering guilty pleas did so to one count of
conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, Clements said. Those who
chose to plead innocent were tried on additional charges, including
bribery and filing false claims against the government.
''Nationally, the percentage of people that go to jail in
white-collar cases of these types is 23 percent. We're doing
substantially better,'' he said.
Asked why the conviction rate was so high, Clements said: ''I can
only say that we recommended in part of our argument in each case that
government employees who violate the public trust should be
incarcerated.'' Of those convicted, prison has been recommended in
every case, he said, and 20 persons already have received sentences.
Probation was given in only one case, to a person who was not a GSA
employee and who was scheduled for open-heart surgery, Clements said.
Clements said sentences generally range from three to 13 months for
managers and from 20 days to 90 days for assistant managers, but
four-year sentences were given to two store managers who picked trial
rather than pleading guilty.
The Justice Department plans to sue some convicted GSA employees to
recover some of the money, said Mark Sheehan, a department spokesman.
But he added that each case would be considered individually.
Clements said he could not estimate the cost of the GSA scandal.
''We never put a dollar figure on it,'' he said, but adds that
exposing the scandal has paid off. ''Although it may have been
expensive, the real impact appears to be what the GSA is doing to
clean itself up . . . What's happening at the agency more than
compensates for all it's costing us.''
Still, the internal GSA investigation has been slowed by leadership
changes and delays in appointing and confirming an inspector general.
Special counsel Vincent Alto left in October, succeeded by Irwin
Borowski, the choice of then-GSA chief Jay Solomon for the newly
created post of inspector general. But President Carter rejected
Borowski in favor of Justice Department official Kurt Muellenberg, and
he was confirmed for the post just two weeks ago.
Unlike the general counsel, the inspector general has subpoena
power, a tool GSA investigators say is crucial to an effective probe.
The GSA investigators don't seek indictments directly, but do refer
evidence to the Justice Department for possible grand jury review.
ap-ny-05-01 1521EDT
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a102 0801 04 May 79
PM-Business Mirror, Adv 07,640
Adv 07
For Release PMs Mon May 7
By JOHN CUNNIFF
AP Business Analyst
NEW YORK (AP) - In the kitchens of the great food companies, where
they dwell on technology and convenience, they are contemplating an
anomaly, that the foods of the future might be those of the past.
Take pasta, which begins with grain and water. Every civilization
has developed some form of it from local grains. It's been going on
for more than 5,000 years. And now pasta is being rediscovered.
So are the basic ethnic foods of the Mexicans and Orientals. All
have basic grain-based carbohydrates. They utilize meat, but they
aren't dependent on it. They aren't, as the technologists say,
meat-intensive.
They are relatively inexpensive too, which adds to their appeal.
Pasta, for example, costs much less than beef, a fact well known to
shoppers. Every time beef prices go up, pasta consumption does too.
The people at the Pillsbury Company, whose future depends on how you
visualize your future, were musing about the changes a few days ago.
''When you go from a primitive society to an advanced society you
get more meat consumption,'' said Malcom McNiven, vice president,
marketing services. And sugar and fats too. Evolution seems to
progress that way.
''But now,'' McNiven observed, ''the trend has tipped.'' He brought
out his charts; in developed nations, they showed, sugar and fat
usage were high but falling. Grains, chicken, fish, vegetables were
rising.
In the less developed countries the situation was the opposite. The
charts showed sugar and fat consumption, though low, were growing.
People were moving more heavily into meat and away from pasta.
''Most developed countries might be becoming more like the less
developed,'' said McNiven. They are turning back to basics, although
they are seeking the basics in more convenient, easily prepared form.
This, of course, presents a challenge to the food concerns, who are
perceived as on the frontiers, always cooking up new ideas to test on
a feckless public, always seeking new ways to make an old-fashioned
buck.
This is the turf of Dave Ehlin, vice president, business
development. Quickly he seeks to dispel the notion that food companies
dictate what the public eats. The opposite, he says; the public gets
what it wants.
''You can't sell the consumer what he doesn't want,'' he declares.
He and McNiven recall how consumers rejected fabricated foods,
sometimes called analogs. ''You don't see soyburgers today,'' McNiven
states.
In fact, they said, no research being done today at their company
supports analogs, even though - while not trying to jam them down
throats - some companies spent millions promoting the substitutes.
The future, they said, belongs to the consumer; the companies that
suppllies him with food must react to consumer tastes. ''We're
spending more time bringing convenience and naturalness together,''
said Ehlin.
''In the early 1980s,'' he continued, ''we'll be involved with
improved nutrition - taking things out that peple don't like and
putting in things that might have been lost in processing.''
Packaging is expected to change too as families become smaller.
Fifty percent of households now have only 1 or 2 members; by 1985,
demographers expect the percentage to reach 60. Apartments, kitchens,
pantries will tend to be smaller. And dining patterns will change.
''There is already a decline in the family meal,'' said McNiven.
''And a decline in the elements that make up a meal.'' People seek
quick, easy, available, tasty items. ''If they want a big meal they go
out.''
To adjust, food concerns are developing the modular meal, made up of
items easily combined to meet individual tastes and the dining times
of family members. The microwave oven will speed them on their way.
All this, remember, because moderns are in the process of moving
toward a more advanced society. Or is it the other way around? We are,
you'll recall, returning to the basics as well. That's we're we
began.
End Adv Pms Mon, May 7
ap-ny-05-04 1059EDT
**********
a289 1813 04 May 79
AM-Radiation,240
MOSCOW (AP) - Microwave radiation beamed at the U.S. Embassy by the
Soviets has been reduced to an extraordinary low level, authoritative
sources said Friday.
The Soviet action was seen by some observers as a step to improve
the atmosphere between the two countries before their leaders meet at
a summit soon to sign a new strategic arms limitation agreement. The
United States repeatedly protested the radiation.
The sources said electronic checks showed that since February a
Soviet transmitter situated south of the embassy was operating less
than 10 hours a week.
This figure compares with 40 hours a week when the site south of the
embassy was running in tandem with another site in a 10-story
building directly across Tchaikovsky Street from the embassy.
The building was hit by a spectacular blaze in January that reduced
the transmitter site - a small, shack-like structure on the roof - to
a charred ruin. It has not been put back in operation, the sources
said.
Thet said readings on unscreened windows ranged from 0.03 to 0.025
microwatts per square centimeter. The upper floors of the embassy
where offices are located have metal screens designed to block
microwave radiation.
The specific purpose of the beams has never been disclosed. U.S.
officials have theorized they could be intended either to jam American
electronic intelligence-gathering equipment or to trigger Soviet
surveillance devices planted within the embassy.
ap-ny-05-04 2113EDT
**********
n038 0937 09 May 79
BC-TV TONIGHT 2takes
(FOR THURSDAY)
(The N.Y. Times Special Feature material: for use by special
arrangement only.)
By BERNIE HARRISON
c. 1979 Washington Star Syndicate
WASHINGTON - After watching one new dumb sitcom after another, and
there's another Thursday night called ''Hizzoner,'' (NBC at 8), you
can't fault the thesis of ''The Chevy Chase National Humor Test''
special (NBC at 9). Somebody out there ought to be trying to find out
what makes people laugh.
But if you're giggling already, to the idea of Chevy and his gaggle
of guests, taking a Humor Survival Test, or visiting a scientific
research center where rats are studied to find out why people laugh,
or the prospect of taking multiple choice humor tests, you're way
ahead.
The treatment is labored; the result largely and consistently
unfunny, despite rewarding moments - Marty Mull, as a ''professional
comedian,'' trying to define humor with the aid of admirers, for
example.
You can make up your own multiple choce test of what's missing: like
(a) surprise (b) invention (c) sound skit construction (d) laughs or
(e) all four. I check all four.
Along the way, you'll find Pam Dawber in a love scene with Chevy,
after which he's dropped into the National Humor Forest, and Uncle
Miltie as a celebrity loan officer at a bank.
The Pilot
''Hizzoner'' (NBC at 8). David Huddleston is no lightweight. He's
big, likable, and adept at delivering his lines, but we've got one
funny mayor already - Teddy Paul, of ''Carter Country'' and here's
David, running a midwestern city he loves, and as a widower, trying
to bring up two children he loves, the daughter, an active civil
rights attorney, the son, an eternal truth-seeker who belongs to a
Wilderness Cult. The mayor's cup is inclined to runneth over,
predictably. That's Kathy Cronkite, the apple of Walter's eye, as
daughter Annie, and she's the problem Thursday night.
The Documentary Beat
''Nova'' (Public TV at 8). Another look at one theory of the
Universe's beginnings - and those faint, but ever-present microwave
signals in space, the most distant signals detected by man. Was there
a big bang? Guest, physicist Philip Morrison, of MIT.
(MORE)
ny-0509 1237edt
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n637 0350 16 May 79
BC-Cost 05-16
Attention: Home, feature, editors. The following Homelife Feature
is a sidebar to the ''Payback'' story.
(c) 1979 Chicago Sun-Times
These appliance energy costs are based on 4.9 cents per kilowatt
hour (1,000 watts of electricity for one hour) and 27 cents per
therm (one therm of natural gas when burned will produce 100,000
BTU's of heat energy). Rates will vary considerably depending
upon region, energy supplier and season.
X X X
Air conditioner, central, 36,000 BTUs per hour (EER 7), 24.5
cents per hour.
Air conditioner, room, 12,000 BTUs per hour, (EER 8), 7.5 cents
per hour.
Coffeemaker, electric, 1 cent per brew.
clothes dryer, electric 14.5 cents per load.
Clothes dryer, gas with electric ignition, 6 cents per load.
Dishwasher, normal cycle, 5 cents per load.
Hot water for dishwater: by electrical heat, 14.5 cents per
load, by gas heat 4.5 cents per load.
Lighting, household, 14 cents per day.
Freezer, frostless, (15 cubic feet), 24.5 cents a day.
Freezer manual defrost (15 cubic feet), 14.5 cents per day.
Frying pan, electric, 2.5 cents per hour.
Microwave oven (5 min.) 1/2 cent per use.
Oven, electric, (self-cleaning) 29.5 cents per clean.
Oven, gas, (self-cleaning), 13.5 cents per clean.
Range, electric, 5 cents per meal.
Range, gas, total usage 2.5 cents per meal, pilot light usage,
(800 BTU per hour) 5.5 cents per day.
Refrigerator, frostless, (16 cubic feet) 24.5 cents per day.
Refrigerator, manual, (10 cubic feet), 10 cents per day.
Toaster (2-slice) 1/2 cent per day.
Toaster-oven, electric portable, 2.5 cents per hour.
TV, black and white, 1/2 cent per hour.
TV, color 1.5 cents per hour.
Washing machine, cold water, 1 cent per load, electricity for
hot water 29.5 cents per load, gas required for hot water, 9
cents per load.
jj 05-16 (Endit CST)
cd
...
(End missing.)
**********
n043 1033 24 May 79
BC-TV TONIGHT Adv27 2takes
(FOR RELEASE SUN. MAY 27)
The N.Y. Times Special Feature material: for use by special
arrangement only
By BERNIE HARRISON
c. 1979 Washington Star Syndicate
WASHINGTON - Forget about the gas crunch, if you can. ABC is at it,
full throttle, on both sides of the Atlantic, with same-day coverage
of the Grand Prix of Monaco, via satellite, on ''Wide World of
Sports'' (at 4:30), to the '500' classic at Indianapolis (at 9),
weather permitting, of course.
For racing buffs, the ABC coverage at Indy includes more cameras
than ever (19), covering the action on the 2 1/2 mile course and in the
pits, but the problem, for producers Chuck Howard and Bob Goodrich,
and their colleagues, hasn't changed. They're racing the clock from
around noon on, when the classic gets under way, in a Time Trial of
their own, editing the 3 1/2 hours of the race (what with yellow flags
and delays) down to two hours for the evening rerun, and integrating
the pit action and interviews, the colorful crowd, and tapes of past
Indy happenings, without losing sight of the main story. Not easy.
The new touch in the coverage this year, a support balloon, so that
handheld cameras in the pits can record the happenings via microwave
and relay the coverage back.
If you're not all choked up by this, there are some dandy
alternatives Sunday night, for which you can thank the hyped-up
network competition during May, a ratings ''sweeps'' month. We'd pick
the real-life dramatization, ''Dummy'' (CBS at 9) - very, very good,
and stunningly performed, but then there's ''The Best Place to Be,''
Part 1 of a two-parter (NBC at 9), a glossy drama whipped up by Ross
Hunter from a Helen Van Slyke best-seller, with a cast led by Donna
Reed, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and Betty White. Picking one won't be easy
either.
The Sunday Press
The headliners: Stuart Eizenstat, key Carter aide, on domestic
affairs and policy, on ''Face the Nation'' (CBS at 11:30); Georgi
Areatov, SALT spokesman for the Soviet Union on ''Issues and
Answers'' (ABC at noon), Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the
subcommittee on energy and power, on ''Meet the Press'' (NBC at
12:30); Dr. Robert Hill (National Urban League) and Richard Hamilton
(Black Veterans) on ''America's Black Forum'' (ABC at 1), and ''Merit
System for Judges'' is the topic on ''Firing Line'' (Public TV at 5).
The magazine beat: ''Sixty Minutes'' (CBS at 7) is all reruns: Mike
Wallace on community anti-crime patrols; Dan Rather on the
handicapped who want to earn a living, and Morley Safer's visit to
the strange and distant Maldive Islands, in the Indian Ocean.
The Movies
''Dummy'' (CBS at 9). LeVar Burton plays the 20-year-old illiterate
deaf mute, charged on circumstantial evidence with the murder of a
prostitute; Paul Sorvino plays his court-appointed lawyer. Ernest
Tidyman wrote the script from his non-fiction book by the same title,
and it's a first-rate one, focusing on the lawyer's efforts to get
through to his client, and establish a relationship of trust, against
the background of frustration - and indifference in the courts during
the five years it took him to get the case to trial. Burton grows in
skill each time out; he's marvelous in this. So is Sorvino. Frank
Perry directed - a pro effort all the way.
(MORE)
ny-0524 1333edt
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a627 2037 24 May 79
AM-Regulators-FDA, Adv 27-2 Takes,760-1,520
$adv 27
For Release Sun May 27
Laserphoto WX1
The New Regulators:
The FDA: The Bad News Agency
Eds: This is another in a periodic series of stories on ''The New
Regulators'' in Washington - who they are, what they are doing
differently and how they are viewed by those they regulate.
By MIKE FEINSILBER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - People used to say, ''Everything I want to do is
illegal, immoral or fattening.''
Now they add, ''Or causes cancer.''
And they don't necessarily smile when they say it.
The world has become more complicated. And people resent it when
they are told that something they've been doing or eating or using for
years is dangerous.
For the last two years, Donald Kennedy, who taught biology at
Stanford University for 20 years, has been the heavy in this situation
- the national medicine man whose tidings are usually bad: ''This
will kill you; that causes cancer; this pill is no cure.''
He runs the Food and Drug Administration. He administers a law
requiring that food be ''safe and wholesome'' and drugs be ''safe and
effective.''
Back in 1938, when the law was passed, no one anticipated what
trouble it would cause.
The country hadn't gone though the cigarette experience, hadn't
learned that a substance enjoyed habitually, almost absent-mindedly,
by millions of people could wind up killing a significant number of
them.
Nor is food the simple what-you-see-is-what-you-eat stuff it was
back when the FDA's pedecessor, the Bureau of Chemistry in the
Agriculture Department, went around inspecting sidewalk pushcarts to
make sure the fruit had been washed.
Now, with a budget of $300 million and a staff of 7,500, the FDA is
deeply involved in the everyday lives of Americans.
It regulates food, drugs, vaccines, cosmetics and devices ranging
from pacemakers to microwave ovens.
It keeps track of what Kennedy calls ''the fruits of the revolution
in synthetic organic chemistry'' - the chemicals that are much more a
part of America's diet than mom's apple pie ever was.
That's no small job. The FDA is still checking out compounds in the
food supply that were being used when the agency was created, and
Kennedy is not entirely sure that a few more of them may not turn out
toxic or cancerous.
''I think there are going to be a few more surprises,'' he says,
''but there is nothing like cigarettes out there.''
It is when the FDA finds a cancer-causing substance in the food
supply that its troubles start.
The agency survived an uproar a few years ago when it banned Red Dye
No. 2, but it had its wrists slapped when it tried, under Kennedy, to
take saccharin away.
Now, because of the economic interests involved, an intense debate
is raging over whether to ban nitrites which are used as coloring and
flavoring agents and preservatives in bacon, hot dogs and other
processed meats.
Eight months have passed since Kennedy told Congress, ''It appears
highly likely that nitrite causes cancer.''
Because of the disruptions that would occur if nitrites are banned,
a painstaking review of the science that went into that conclusion is
under way.
Americans don't want to give up hot dogs. And Americans wanted
non-fattening soft drinks, no matter what cancers saccharin caused in
mice in Canada.
So Congress overruled Kennedy and imposed a year's moratorium on his
intended ban on saccharine.
The moratorium has expired and Congress is being asked to extend it.
FDA opposes an extention, but even if Congress does not continue the
moratorium it will take 15 to 20 months for the FDA to repeat the
scientific steps and the hearing process required befoe a ban can be
put into effect.
Kennedy says he accepts the saccharin morratorium with equanimity
even though he thinks Congress may have responded less to the voice of
an incensed public than to ''a very heavily financed and self-serving
effort by thesoft drink industry to get the public aroused.''
It may be because he is leaving government June 30 - to return to
Stanford as vice president for academic affairs, an offer he says he
couldn't resist - that he can be so philosphical about such setbacks.
Elsewhere in Washington the question of how to respond to a public
that wants protection but decries interference is at the heart of a
debate over the role of the regulator and the future of regulation.
The public mood seems to say, ''Lay off.'' Politicians respond with
much talk about ''deregulation.'' Yet when something like Three Mile
Island or the Love Canal comes along, the question becomes whether
the government had regulated enough and well enough.
Kennedy says that if the balance is constantly being adjusted
between regulation and relaxation, as Congress ''keeps fine tuning our
national policy,'' that is okay with him.
MORE
ap-ny-05-24 2337EDT
**********
n051 1141 29 May 79
DANGER
(Newhouse 004)
Suggested for weekend use
By VICTOR WILSON
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON - Vance Muse is a bearded, bespectacled, gentle writer
who believes he has survived up to now only by stretching caution,
prudence and wariness ot the limit.
He is convinced that everything, EVERYTHING, is out to get you -
even your favorite food, sport, hobby and bed.
Naturally, one trembles at black widow spiders, lightning, Red Dye
No. 2 and terrorists. But how about oleanders, soccer fans, manhood,
umbrellas and CB radios? All can hurt, maim or kill, Muse warns - as
can bacon, retirement, yoga and ballpoint pens.
So he has written ''Don't Buy a Car Made on Monday'' (Times Books,
$8.95), which he subtitles ''An Arbitrary Encyclopedia of Things to
be Afraid of.''
His aim, Muse writes, is to pinpoint both obvious and obscure
dangers, vague rumblings that have bothered you for years, and fears
that make you seem paranoid. He promises to show you it's not to late
to bone up on your founded fears. He guides you away from things you
shouldn't touch, tells you what you shouldn't do and how not to do it.
Whether you wave a white flag with dignified resignation or total
panic, he declares, the important thing is to surrender. Here are
some of Muse's pointed pointers:
- Arguing: Acquiesce, you'll live longer. A murder is committed
every 28 minutes; 62 percent result from arguing.
- Cannibalism: Avoid. The way the food industry is going, it may
make a big comeback.
- Pesticides: We're in a fine fix; here is a solution that's worse
than the problem.
- Credit bureaus: Even a wrong report may mean being unable to
purchase such basics as smoke alarms, microwave and X-ray shields,
gas masks and bomb shelters.
- Digital timepieces: These devices are making obsolete generations
of people who can tell time.
- Some-eating: Beware! Big-city snow contains known human
carcinogens from fossil fuel combustion.
- Fasting: Deprived of regular deliveries, the body feeds on itself.
Only the enormously fat can afford this.
- Florida: Among the state's unpleasant aliens are alligators,
piranhas, poisonous toads, wild cats, disease-carrying snails and
pythons.
- A full moon: Passionate crime peaks with this satellite; it allows
murderers a clearer view of their victims.
- Ice: Tame ice, as in cubes, is a safe, sane, essential element.
Wild ice, as in glaciers, ice sheets and 'bergs - avoid.
- Jogging: At 15,000 bangs per hour, feet suffer fallen arches, torn
ligaments, etc., etc., etc. Joggers also are threatened by concrete
surfaces, wise-acre motorists and territorial dogs.
- MArch: Beware the Ides of March, yes; but also the fortnight
preceding and following.
- Oleanders: Hotmgs pierced on oleander sticks will guarantee that
no one returns from the weenie roast.
- Pay toilets: Jammed doors have entrapped users while other patrons
have tumbled on tile floors.fered contusions trying to
evacuate vending stalls.
- suspenders: Among many reasons not to war them is they give
hand-holds to attackers, propellors and fast-moving trains.
- Umbrellas: Their basic design led to invention oi,jachutes,
which bear their own bad news.
''There are, of course, a few harmless pursuits about,'' Muse
concedes, ''like oatmeal, string-collecting and checkers. But the
inventory of things to avoid, flee and fear is expanding.
''So the least you can do,'' he advises, ''is to develop a knowing
relationship with your animate and inanimate adversaries. How and why
you're endangered as never before is what this book endeavors to
explain.''
JG END WILSON
ny-0529 1441edt
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n999 0703 31 May 79
. . .
a014
r f czczvtuiv
BC-SAFEWAY 2takes
(BizDay)
c. 1979 N.Y. Times News Service
OAKLAND, Calif. - Safeway Stores, the nation's largest retail food
chain, is taking a hard look at its marketing strategy in the wake of
a first-quarter slump that saw sales growth fall below the inflation
rate and earnings slip to 88 cents a share from 97 cents.
''Since the first-quarter earnings are historically the lowest in
the year, a 9-cent decline, although not welcome, was not viewed as a
catastrophe,'' William S. Mitchell, Safeway's chairman, told
shareholders at the company's annual meeting earlier this month.
He continued: ''What was more serious, in my opinion, was the sales
increase of only 7.6 percent. In this respect, we failed to keep pace
with inflation, which as you know has reportedly been running in
excess of 10 percent.''
The outlook is darkened by the fact that the sales slippage came
despite the opening of 111 new stores last year, Mitchell added in an
interview at Safeway headquarters here.
Meanwhile, some of Safeway's competitiors, notably the No. 2 chain,
the Kroger Company, posted sales increases on the order of 15
percent. Safeway's stock has fallen from a 12-month high of $42 a
share to just over $35 a share currently.
As a result of its failure to meet sales expectations, the company
is planning renewed empahsis on price competition as a way of wooing
shoppers back to its stores.
The root of Safeway's problem appears to be a misreading of the
public's reaction to constantly increasing food prices.
Throughout 1978, Safeway - most of whose locations are west of the
Mississippi - concentrated on building bigger stores and selling more
nonfood items, including television sets and microwave ovens, in some
areas. It drew customers by offering a miniature bingo card at the
checkout counters. It was possible to win $100 or more if the right
combination of numbers appeared on the card when a coating that
concealed them was scratched off.
The strategy paid off for most of the year, permitting Safeway to
report an 11.6 percent sales increase. Safeway's 1978 sales reached
$12.5 billion, a company peak.
''You could see their sales bump up every time they hit the game,''
said Thomas W. King of the Alpha Beta Co., whose 299 food stores
compete with Safeway in California and Arizona.
But Safeway was not necessarily seen as the cheapest place to buy
food. Its policy is to match the prices of competitors but, in
general, not to undercut them significantly. And games, as both King
and Safeway executives pointed out, may bring customers in for a
while but may not build a long-term loyalty.
''Safeway continued the game program too long last year and into
this year while the customer was becoming more price-conscious,''
said Robert J. Schweich, a food-chain analyst with Wertheim & Company
in New York. ''As a result, they lost market share.''
(MORE)
ny-0531 1003edt
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a279 1932 01 Jun 79
AM-Embassy Radiation,450
By LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Employees of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow suffered
no health problems that can be traced to low-level radiation used in a
25-year Soviet eavesdropping campaign, the staff of the Senate
Commerce Committee said Friday.
However, the staff also said the State Department was not justified
in failing to tell embassy employees about exposure to the radiation
until 1976, more than two decades after U.S. officials discovered it
in 1953.
''In spite of elements of recognized uncertainty, the weight of the
findings ... supports the conclusion that government employees did
not encounter health hazards traceable to their exposure for various
periods to microwave radiation levels,'' the staff report said.
It said scientific studies between 1976 and 1978 ''indicate that
microwave radiation of the nature, duration and intensity experienced
by Moscow embassy and dependents did not cause health effects
detectable either through blood cell analysis, morbidity analysis or
mortality analysis.''
The study showed the rate of cancer among Moscow embassy employees
was less than among control groups not exposed to microwaves, the
report said. It added that the studies could not prove whether any
specific case of cancer was caused by the radiation, but that ''there
is no known and proven mechanism by which microwave radiation can
cause such a biological effect.''
The discovery that the Soviets were using low-level microwave
radiation to listen in on embassy conversations dates to 1953. But
embassy employees were not told until early 1976 when a decision was
made to install protective screening over the chancery.
The staff report said the medical office of the State Department
believed knowledge of the radiation ''would unnecessarily add another
source of uneasiness or tension to the lives of Moscow embassy
personnel.''
But the staff concluded, ''The employees should have been promptly
told of the situation.''
The report noted that doctors at times withhold information in the
interests of a patient but added, ''This substitution of a
doctor-patient relationship for a employer-employee relationship is
not defensible, regardless of the outcome of the studies'' into
possible health effects of the radiation.
Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev., the committee chairman, said the staff
analysis was undertaken because of concern by members of Congress and
former and present State Department employees assigned to the
embassy.
He noted that the intensity of the radiation was within levels
permissible in the Soviet Union ''and far below the levels considered
acceptable in the United States.''
ap-ny-06-01 2233EDT
**********
a008 2240 01 Jun 79
PM-Washington Briefs,530
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Transportation Department has begun
investigating some Uniroyal steel-belted radial tires for possible
safety defects after receiving consumer complaints and information
from Uniroyal.
The department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said
Friday the probe will focus on the larger size tires in Uniroyal's
PR6 line and all sizes in the PR5 line made in 1975 and 1976. The PR6
tires include sizes HR78 and those with larger JR and LR size
designations.
The safety agency said it opened the inquiry after Uniroyal reported
receiving 538 complaints in 1978, alleging blowouts or other failures
on PR5 and PR6 tires made since 1975. The agency also said it is
aware of at least 30 accidents involving 10 injuries and one death,
allegedly caused by failure of the tires.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Transportation Department is ordering the Ford
Motor Co. to retest for a defect in the fuel systems of 1970-1973
Mavericks and 1971-1973 Mercury Comets.
The department notified the automaker Friday it has ordered a retest
of the suspected defect and cautioned that its action ''should not be
construed as a conclusion that there is no defect in the vehicles.''
Joan Claybrook, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, told Ford in a letter that the Mavericks whose fuel
systems failed during investigative crash testing had previously
undergone major repairs. A Ford spokesman said the company believes
the original finding was ''inappropriate'' and that the withdrawal of
it is ''proper.''
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate committee says U.S. Embassy employees in
Moscow suffered no health problems that can be traced to low-level
radiation aimed at the building in a 25-year Soviet eavesdropping
campaign.
But a Senate Commerce Committee staff report said Friday the State
Department was not justified in failing to tell embassy employees
about exposure to the radiation until 1976, more than two decades
after U.S. officials discovered it in 1953.
The report said scientific studies between 1976 and 1978 ''indicate
that microwave radiation . . . experienced by (the) Moscow embassy
and dependents did not cause health effects detectable either through
blood cell analysis, morbidity analysis or mortality analysis.''
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - New regulations approved by the Interstate
Commerce Commission will allow trucking companies to pass along to
customers increased diesel fuel costs.
The ICC order issued Friday allows carriers to file surcharges to
recover increased fuel costs on 10 working days' notice. That is a
reduction from an earlier ruling which allowed carriers to pass on
higher fuel costs if a 30-day notice was given the ICC.
The ruling said trucking companies must pass on directly to
individual truckers 100 percent of the fuel cost recovered. It
specified that the truckers' employers cannot retain any of the money.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department has proposed regulations to
limit heating and cooling of private, non-residential buildings if
President Carter should declare an energy emergency.
About 5 million buildings would be subject to the requirements of
the proposal announced Friday, but there would be exceptions for
hospitals and other health-care facilities, lodgings, elementary and
nursery schools and day-care centers and buildings with contents
requiring controlled environmental conditions.
ap-ny-06-02 0141EDT
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