Banner Graphic, Volume 13, Number 111, Greencastle, Putnam County, 17 January 1983 — Page 2

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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, January 17,1983

Congressional passage seen

Harmony for Social Security plan?

By DAVID SHRIBMAN c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON Congressional leaders predicted on Sunday that Congress would approve the basic elements of a presidential commission's bipartisan proposal to restore the Social Security system to financial health. This would be done primarily by increasing taxes and delaying cost-of-living benefits to retirees. “The fact that the commission has reached near unanimity on a broad set of recommendations bodes well for a relatively harmonious agreement in Congress,” said Rep. Jim Wright, D-Texas, and House majority leader. Meanwhile, Sen. Robert J. Dole, RKan., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he was "very optimistic” that the legislation necessary to shore up the system would be completed by May. The National Commission on Social Security Reform, which completed its proposal late Saturday night, has recommended increasing payroll taxes, delaying cost-of-living increases for retirees, making some old-age benefits subject to federal income tax, and bringing federal workers and employees under the umbrella of Social Security for the first time. The $169 billion plan has been endorsed by President Reagan and by Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., D-Mass., the two principals in the months-long struggle to shore up Social Security. The national commission has estimated that deficits for the ailing system, a legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Banner-Graphic "It Waves For All" USPS 142-020) Consolidation of The Daily Banner Established 1850 The Herald The Daily 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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might approach S2OO billion by the end of the decade unless action is taken. Both Wright and Dole cautioned, however, that many legislative snags remained. Opposition already has surfaced from conservative Republicans, lobbyists for federal workers and groups representing older people and business interests. Speaking on the NBC news program “Meet the Press”, Dole said that he expected the issue to be resolved swiftly and added: “I see nothing but cooperation all the way around, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be opposition to what the commission recommends.” Conservative Republicans already have indicated their opposition to increased payroll taxes and to a provision taxing half of Social Security benefits for single retirees with ad-

Cars plunge into drainage ditch

Ohio bridge collapse fatal to five

ANTWERP, Ohio (AP) - Four cars drove off a collapsed bridge one after another, toppling into a dry drainage ditch with a sound “just like dynamite” and leaving five people dead and four others injured, authorities said. The cars were left stacked on top of each other where they crashed about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, while state and federal officials continued their investigation, the Ohio Highway Patrol said. “We believe the cars iust went through the bridge, one by

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one, on top of each other,” said Jerry Flaugh, 42, Paulding County Chief Sheriff’s deputy. Gertrude Rister, whose house is about 50 yards from the county bridge, said she heard the cars topple off within a few minutes of each other and also heard cries for help. “Every time one went in, it sounded like a big blast, just like dynamite,” she said. Mrs. Rister, 70, said she lives alone and that an unidentified passerby stopped and called police. “I was getting ready to call

justed gross incomes, outside of old-age benefits, of $20,000, and for couples whose income exceeds $25,000. Other major elements of the commission’s report include: —An increase in the payroll tax for individuals, now at 6.7 percent on the first $35,700 of wages, to 7 percent on Jan. 1, 1984. Plans to increase payroll taxes to 7.05 percent in 1985 and 7.15 percent in 1986 would not change, but the commission added an increase to 7.51 percent in 1988. The payroll tax would reach 7.65 percent, as scheduled, in 1990. Similar tax rates for all of those years would also apply to employers. The commission also added a one-year refundable tax credit in 1984 for employees. —A delay in increases in cost-of-living benefits for old-age pensioners for six months

and a woman came to my door,” Mrs. Rister said. “She was driving by and she wanted to call, so I let her do the calling. She said she had seen that the bridge was out and got out of her car and heard people screaming and calling for help.” The bridge, about three miles east of Antwerp near the OhioIndiana border, was on County Road 180, a generally straight, black-topped, two-lane road. Antwerp is about 60 miles southwest of Toledo Highway Patrolman Daniel

Walesa to try again?

GDANSK, Poland (AP) - Lech Walesa knelt in prayer today outside the main gate of the Lenin Shipyard and said he would appeal to the courts to get back his electrician’s job inside the sprawling factory where Solidarity was born. Walesa, who was turned away from the shipyard gates last Friday when he first tried to report for work, said Sunday that he would go back today to try to get his job back. Instead, he chose another tack. “I have changed my plans,” he told reporters at a news conference at the former Gdansk headquarters of the outlawed Solidarity labor union. “I am waiting for an answer to my letter on resuming work at the shipyard,” he said, referring to a protest he sent the shipyard management after he was rebuffed Friday. “If I am not reinstated at the shipyard, I will go to the courts to settle the problem of my em-

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to Jan. 1, 1984, but accompanying the change with a liberalization of Supplementary Security Income to compensate the elderly poor for their loss of expected income. All future cost-of-living increases would be effective on Jan. 1 of succeeding years. —Making half of Social Security benefits subject to federal income taxes for those whose adjusted gross income outside of Social Security is $20,000 for individuals, or $25,000 for couples. —Bringing all newly-hired federal workers and non-profit employees into the system and prohibiting state and local government employers from withdrawing from Social Security. —Making the self-emplovment tax, now 9.35 percent, equal to the combination of employer and employee taxes, now 13.4 percent. The burden of that adjustment would be blunted because the employer share of the taxes would be tax-deductible. —Requiring the Treasury to pay the old age trust fund $lB billion for Social Security credits now owed to military personnel. —Adjusting a number of gender-based Social Security distinctions affecting survivors and divorced spouses. —Eliminating the so-called “windfall” that federal retirees enjoy when they enter the private sector and become eligible for Social Security benefits. —Providing incentives for later retirement by gradually increasing annual delayed retirement credits.

Hardeman said the 30-foot bridge may have crumbled before the cars drove onto it. “It’s speculation right now,” he said. “But they believe that it had collapsed and the cars drove into it.” All four cars toppled within a span of about 15 minutes, dropping about 20 feet, Flaugh said Three of the cars were headed east and one west, and emergency crews had to use crowbars to pry open doors and windows to free the injured. A 10-foot asphalt section dangled above the cars and of-

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LECH WALESA Changes his plans

ployment,” he said. Leaving the news conference, Walesa drove to a monument outside the shipyard gates and knelt briefly in prayer. The towering steel crosses that make up the monument are a memorial to scores of workers killed there in a clash with

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ficials feared it too would drop. The deaths were caused by head and internal injuries. Flaugh said. There was no water in the 10-foot-wide ravine, known locally as Zuber Ditch. During periods of high water, the ditch drains into the Maumee River, about a mile to the south. A 55 mph speed limit was posted on the road and there were no skid marks leading into the ravine. Flaugh said. Although there was about an inch of snow on the ground, the road was dry.

authorities in 1970. The memorial was erected in 1980. under an agreement between the government and the fledgling Solidarity movement. “I will always be faithful to those crosses,” Walesa said. “I was and I remain a unionist.” On Sunday, Walesa accused authorities of using “special tactics” and erecting “administrative obstacles” to stop him from returning to the shipyards, which were militarized under the year of martial law that saw his labor union outlawed. He claimed Pclish law is “unequivocal” on his right to go back to the shipyard, but said management told him he first needed to prove he was not employed elsewhere in the last two years and also had to produce a statement on Solidarity finances. Walesa was released last November after 11 months' martial law internment.

Proposal would exempt some roads fromss-mphspeed limit

By MICHAEL F. CONLAN New house News Service WASHINGTON - the federal government will examine a proposal that would exempt some roads from the national 55-mph speed limit, which has been credited with saving thousands of lives and billions of gallons of fuel since its imposition nine years ago. The Transportation Department will review a plan that now is being developed by California officials, according to Raymond A. Peck Jr., director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Under the proposal as currently envisioned, a state would apply to the federal government for permission to raise the speed limit selectively on certain sections of highway or for certain types or traffic or, perhaps, at certain times of day. A state would make its case based on accident statistics and design specifications of the highway.

Another Iranian : prison ordeal comes to light j By MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK Nassry, a U.S. citizen and New York businessman, was seized from room 805 in the Tehran Hilton by three armed and masked men. He was blindfolded and interrogated for a day before he was declared guilty of espionage and sabotage and ordered to be shot. His abductors ordered him to write his will, which he did, asking among other things that his papers be given to the Middle East study center at Harvard University. “With magic marker they put a number on my foot,” he recalled recently. “They read a brief statement that they found me guilty. They tied me up on a pole. They opened fire. “They fired from very close range, maybe three meters,” he went on. “I could feel gun powder or the wind of the bullet going past. At first I thought I had been hit. A minute or two later they shouted, ‘Bring that so-and-so here.’ Then they were nice and gave me cigarettes.” So began an ordeal that was to last 966 days, ending last Nov. 6 when, after a two hour trial, Nassry was told he could leave Iran. By that time he had been in seven prisons. Once again he had been put before a firing squad in what turned out again to be a mock execution He was beaten and kept for months in solitary confinement. There are still bruises on his ankles from the metal stirrups from which he was once hung upside down. But now, as the 36-year-old Afghan-born management consultant, whose arrest in his hotel room came four months after the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, described life in Iran’s prisons from the living room of his Greenwich Street apartment, he appeared healthy. He was much thinner. however, than when he was known to Western reporters in Pakistan as a spokesman for and liaison with guerrilla groups fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan government. In unemotional terms he unfolded a macabre panorama of seemingly haphazard executions, taking place regularly in the prison compounds that during his confinement became more and more crowded. He described the torture and killing of prisoners held as religious apostates and he offered a view of Iran’s revolutionary turmoil as seen from the bottom of a toppling social pyramid. Nassry was seized in Tehran on March 11, 1980. as he awaited discussions with Iranian authorities on the plight of Afghan refugees. He said he had made “a colossal error in judgment” by thinking that as a Moslem, a fluent speaker of Persian and an advocate of the Afghan cause he would be secure in Iran’s revolutionary turbulence. Nassry, whose father, Nasrulla Khan, once served King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan as chief of intelligence, had often visited Tehran and in 1979 he met Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the holy city of Qum. A year later he returned as the head of the Islamic and Nationalist Revolutionary Coun* cil of Afghanistan, a group seeking to develop unity between the various guerrilla factions. He admits having had sympathy for the Iranian revolutionaries, though he explained that one reason he had returned to Tehran was to try to tell officials how the com tinuing detention of the U.S. Embassy hostages was hurting efforts to rally support for the Afghans in the non-Islamio West. He also had hoped to raise questions about reports that Soviet tanks were cutting across Khurasan province in Iran to take up positions at the Shindand Air Base in Afghanistan; Finally he had hoped to cross into western Afghanistan to deliver $25,000 to guerrillas to construct clinics. He was shunted to many different places and repeatedly im terrogated about being an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the early stages he was kept by a group called the Joint Committee for Anti-Terrorists. Later he was sent to the large Evin Prison with its judicial complex of courts and execution area. At one point he was kept chained to a table in the middle of an otherwise empty ballroom in a former palace. He spent several months in solitary confinement, at the Komiteh Mushtarak Prison in Tehran and at Lavazon Prison, and at Qizil Hissar, a desert establishment 60 miles from the capital. He was released from Kasser Prison, which was run by the state police and seemed to him the most humane of the institutions. Shortly before he was set free after a two-hour trial last Nov. 6, Nassry counted prisoners belonging to 25 different political factions, five of which supported the revolution. All during his detention there was active political discussion and analysis, with factions maintaining their cohesion despite the constant threat of punishment.

“There are roadways which by any rational stretch of the imagination can accept vehicular travel at speeds in excess of 55," Peck says. In the years since Congress enacted the national speed standard as a conservation measure during the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, more and more motorists with the acquiescence of police and politicians have been ignoring it. Federal law requires that states enforce the speed limit and certify that at least half their motorists comply with it. Peck says he expects to receive a report soon that for the first time, one or two states have failed to meet those requirements. If that is the case, Washington could withhold from offending states up to 5 percent of federal highway safety funding. Peck says such sanctions could lead to a drive in

Congress to overturn the 55mph speed limit entirely. He says he hopes the issue would not come to a vote, noting that as part of the recently enacted 5-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase, Congress directed the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a one-year study of the benefits of the national speed limit. “Anything that causes people to reflect upon and notice fatal accidents ... will produce a drop in fatalities,” Peck says. The speed limit did that, he says, and the current campaign against drunken driving is doing it too. “People’s sense of invulnerability in their cars is being eroded," he says. “It was eroded when the 55 was accepted, because although it was adopted for energy conservation purposes it was sold as a safety measure ... (safety being) at least given equivalent attention.”