Banner Graphic, Volume 13, Number 101, Greencastle, Putnam County, 5 January 1983 — Page 2

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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, January 5,1983

In Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, the snow isn't quite as high as an elephant's eye, but it is piling up on the ground. Kristen and Steven Smith prove that by munching on some of the snowy leftovers from a weekend storm that dumped up to six inches in some areas of Norman. But you relax, snow fearers, the storm fizzled out and most of the ? white stuff soon melted, c (AP Wirephoto).

X-cars' brake hazards reported

By DAVID BURNHAM c. 1983 N.Y. Times WASHINGTON Tens of thousands of 1980 General Motors X-cars now on the road have a hazardous tendency to lock their rear brakes, two government tests indicate. Hundreds of car owners have complained, and General Motors and federal safety officials have known about the hazardous condition for more than three years. However, only a fraction of the cars have been recalled to be repaired at company expense. Company and government officials say that the njodest recall was all that was necessary. Spokesmen for General Motors and the National highway Traffic Safety Administration would not comment specifically on the brake matter because aspects of that problem are now in court and under investigation. But Raymond A. Peck Jr., the director of the safety administration, did defend the agency’s performance. | However, government test results and other documents suggest that a far more extensive recall iOay have been needed. < Moreover, the test results show that the adjustment made to the cars that Were recalled may npt have been an effective solution to the problem of lacking brakes, which can throw a vehicle into a 4

; Banner-Graphic ! "It Waves For All” USPS 142-020) Consolidation ot •*- The Daily Banner Established 1850 The Herald The Oaily Graphic Established 1883 Telephone 653-5151 Published daily except Sundays and holidays by LuMar Newspapers, Inc. at 100 North Jackson St., Greencastle, Indiana 46135. Entered in the Post Office at Greencastle, Indiana, as 2nd class mail matter under Act of March 7,1878. Subscription Rates Per Week, by carrier 'I.OO Per Month, by motor route *4.55 Mail Subscription Rates R.R. in Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months '13.80 '14.15 >17.25 6 Months '27.60 '28.30 '34.50 1 Year ‘55.20 ‘56.60 '69.00 Mail subscriptions payable in advance . . . not accepted in town and where motor route service is available. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper.

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dangerous spin. X-car models after 1980 show considerable improvement, one government test indicates. Scores of the complaints about X-car brakes involve accidents. Two brake-related crashes, in which a man was killed and a woman was paralyzed, have led to damage suits against General Motors. In July 1981 the company recalled a limited number of the 1980 X-cars, which are marketed as the Chevrolet Citation. Pontiac Phoenix, Oldsmobile Omega and Buick Skylark. But a consumer group has filed a petition asking the government to order a recall of all of them, an expensive proposition for General Motors, and has charged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration with being more concerned with GM's profits than with public safety. The developing awareness of a problem with Xcar brakes, and the actions and reactions of the agency and the company, are told in a series of government documents and consumer complaints that illustrate the complex process of regulating a giant industry. GM introduced the mid-size, front-wheel-drive Xcars with great fanfare in April 1979 and made 1,146,642 ot them for the 1980 model year.

Hoosier collector has 10,000 old postcards DEEDSVILLE, Ind. (AP) Harry Van Dalsen collects art on a very small scale. In the last three years, Van Dalsen has scanned hundreds, maybe thousands of collections at auctions and shows, looking for Clapsaddles, Dwigs and O'Neills that pre-date 1916. Van Dalsen, a railroad worker, collects postcards. “I’ve got about ... I don’t know ... maybe 10,000 to 12,000 (cards),” Van Dalsen said recently in an interview at his home in Deedsville, about 15 miles north of Peru in Miami County. “But that's not very many,’’ he added quickly. The goal of Van Dalsen’s quest are cards pre-dating 1916 by artists Ellen H. Clapsaddle, Clare Victoria Dwiggins. Rose O'Neill and others. Those artists and their contemporaries were not recognized worldwide, nor are they now. The top price a postcard will bring its owner is just about SIOO.

Questions about a brake problem were soon raised. In October 1979, for example, a columnist for the magazine Car and Driver wrote that the Xmodel brakes “locked prematurely.” According to two agency officials who requested that they not be quoted by name, the NHTSA testing facility at East Liberty, Ohio, checked the brakes of the 1980 Citation in mid-1981. The test showed a serious braking problem, the officials said. Peck, the head of the agency, said the findings could not be disclosed because the investigation was still open. When the government initiates a defect investigation, it usually alerts the public at large about its concern. In this instance, it did not. Peck acknowledges that such decisions are usually announced with a press release. But he says that in this situation “we properly did exactly what we should have and no press release was called for.” For the 47,000 cars GM did recall, a “proportioner valve that allowed 41 percent of the master cylinder pressure to work on the rear brakes was replaced with a 27 percent proportioner. That “Design Two" valve put more of the braking effort on the front wheels, which in an X-car are the powered wheels that pull the car down the road as well as steer it and bear the weight of the engine and transmission.

Defense is GOP question

Reagan asked for 'clear direction'

c. 1983 N.Y. Times WASHINGTON - A group of 31 Republican congressmen who voted against President Reagan’s proposed MX missile program have written to the president urging him to provide “some clear direction on defense priorities." They contended that the vote in the last Congress to delete S9BB million to produce the nuclear missile “reflects the concern of many members of Congress that there seems to be no priority within the administration on spending for major weapons programs.” The letter, drafted by Rep. Willis D. Gradison of Ohio, appeared to be the most insistent plea yet that has come from a Congress evincing an increasing distaste for the continuing large increases in

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military spending proposed by the president. While many Democrats have assailed the president’s military spending proposals, more and more Republicans have begun to assert that the administration has sought to spend money on defense without a coherent strategy or program. “We are deeply concerned that our military capability and credibility may in fact be in jeopardy unless some clear direction on defense priorities is provided to the Congress by the administration,” the Republicans’ letter said. Congressional officials said writers of the letter, which was presented to the White House just before the holidays, hoped to influence decisions on the 1983 military budget still before

Reagan pressured to stem red ink

WASHINGTON (AP) President Reagan is under growing pressure from his own economic advisers and his best friends in Congress to seek tax increases, defense cuts or both to avoid “terrifying” deficits that could reach S3OO billion by 1988. But by all accounts, Reagan was staying his budget course Tuesday despite private warnings from administration officials that he could be courting economic disaster. The president remains “firm on not reducing defense spending and firm on not increasing taxes,” said his spokesman. Larry Speakes. Earlier Tuesday, the president’s closest friend in Congress, Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., left a meeting with Reagan describing the budget estimates for the next five years as “terrifying.” “The deficit numbers that we’re looking at now are huge and probably intolerable,” said Laxalt, chairman of Reagan’s 1980 campaign and now general chairman of the Republican Party. Laxalt said Reagan is “very close to being in concrete” in his refusal to trim Pentagonspending. Meanwhile, administration officials put out the word Tuesday that all of Reagan’s senior economic advisers including Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan, budget director David A. Stockman and chief White House economist Martin S. Feldstein favor a combination of tax increases and military cuts to reduce the deficits. Otherwise, according to internal administration estimates, the deficit will swell from a record S2OO billion in fiscal 1984 to S3OO billion four years later. Shultz, a treasury secretary and budget

Congress and particularly the drafting of the 1984 budget on which important decisions remain to be made within the administration. That budget was scheduled to be sent to Congress later this month. Administration officials said that a White house reply to the letter was being drafted. The Republicans said they shared the president’s belief in a strong defense but remarked that “with increased unemployment. high interest rates and inflation plaguing our economy, it is difficult to support an across-the-board defense ‘wish list’ for weapons programs.” “It is our concern that without a sense of priority on what the administration believes are the most essential defense items, the Congress is

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likely to make some uninformed and inappropriate budget cutting decisions.” "Mr. President,” the letter said, “this type of ‘knee-jerk’ budget cutting by the Congress must be avoided at all costs. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of knowing which weapons systems are most needed by the Pentagon to preserve the peace and protect our vital interests and those of our allies.” Signers of the letter came from a regional and political cross-section of the Republican Party. The representatives, in addition to Gradison. were: William Green. Hamilton Fish and Raymond McGrath of New York, Marge Roukema and Matthew J. Rinaldo of New Jersey, Stewart B. McKinney of Connecticut, Bill Frenzel of

Fighting persists * on shores of Tripoli

By The Associated Press Syria is building two bases deep inside its territory for advanced Soviet SAM-5 antiaircraft missiles that could seriously threaten Israeli aircraft within Israel’s own airspace, U S. intelligence sources say. In Lebanon, police said 13 people were killed today and 37 others wounded as fighting continued between rival Moslem militias vying for control of the port city of Tripoli. In a separate incident, an Israeli army vehicle was blown up in the Christian-populated town of Hadath, three miles south of Beirut, police said Israeli forces sealed off the area and there was no way to determine whether there were any casualties. Tripoli's half-million residents spent their fifth straight day in basements and bomb shelters, taking refuge from the fighting that police say has killed at least 157 people over the past seven weeks. Pro-Syrian Alawite Moslems and Palestinian-backed Sunnis are battling for control of

director under former President Nixon, was described by a well-placed administration source as being “horrified” by the looming deficits. Because of his economic, experience, Shultz has worked closely with Reagan'seconomic advisers in shaping budget policy. The economic advisers fear the enormous amount of money the government will have to borrow to cover its budget shortfall will drive up interest rates, lead to a new burst of high inflation and throw an already seriously illeconomy into a deeper slump, according to the sources who asked to remain anonymous. Feldstein has called the deficit problem themost serious threat to this country’s economic-well-being. The president has until Jan. 31 to send Congress a budget plan for fiscal 1984, which begins next October. Some administration officials expect him to make key decisions about taxes and defense spending by the end of this week. On Monday, administration officials said the president tentatively approved S3O billion in non-defense spending cuts for fiscal 1984 to hold down the deficit. At the same time, he wants to increase the Pentagon’s budget by S4O billion, from $207.5 billion this year to $247 billion. Reagan pushed hard, but unsuccessfully, in the last Congress for a constitutional amendment designed to force balanced spending. But it appears now that his own budget proposals wouldn’t come close to that goal, even if he should serve a second term. Reagan vowed during his election campaign in 1980 to balance the budget by 1983. That pledge slipped to 1984 early in his presidency But the deficits are expected to climb from $110.7 billion in fiscal 1982 to $lB5 billion.

Minnesota, William Clinger of Pennsylvania. John E. Porter of Illinois. Jim Leach of lowa, Ron Paul of Texas, Cooper Evans of lowa. Also, Joel Pritchard of Washington. Lynn Martin of Illinois, Vin Weber of Minnesota. Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island, George M O’Brien of Illinois. Steven Gunderson of Wisconsin, Lawrence Coughlin and W’illiam F. Goodling of Pennsylvania, Denny Smith of Oregon. Carl Pursell of Michigan, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Lyle Williams of Ohio. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, Olympia Snowe of Maine. Joel Deckard of Indiana, Bob Whittaker of Kansas, and Paul N. McCloskey Jr. of California, who has since left Congress.

Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-, largest city, located 50 miles* north of Beirut. Farouk Mokaddam. a Sunni militia commander, called the fighting a “bloodbath, a massacre committed' piecemeal,'’ according to Lebanon state radio. He also was quoted as saying more than 3,000 people have died in the past month. Food supplies have dwindled in Tripoli and there is no running water in the seaside slum districts of Baal Moshsen. Bab el-Tabbaneh and Kubbeh, where the heaviest fighting was reported. An Israeli army communique Tuesday reporting the discovery of the Syrian missile bases came as Israeli officials expressed new concern about a buildup of Soviet weaponry in Syria dangerous military adversary in the Middle East. Thousands of Israeli and Syrian troops face each other across a cease-fire line in Lebanon. The communique did not say what Israel planned to do about the bases.