Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1984-12-18

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76th Year No. 81 Good Morning! It's Tuesday, December 18, 1984 2 Sections 14 Pages 25 Cents
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I A diploma for dad
H Bonita Johnson, a 40- year- o- ld cancer victim, gets a kiss from
S her father upon receiving her college diploma as her family
g and Bill Stacy, left, president of Southeast Missouri State
UPlTalaphoto
University, look on. Twenty- on- e years ago Johnson promised
her father she would finish college if she could get married.
" This is for my dad," the mother of three from Dexter said
I Council delays installing parking meters
S By Pat Le
H Mlasourtan staff writer
5 Columbia City Council members
5 Monday night struck a compromise
B with residents in the University area
W about to be metered for parking. 3 The council agreed to a plan from g the city staff to delay until July 1985
M the installation of five- ho- ur parking
meters along University Avenue and
m- - Hitt Street The installation of the
II meters has alarmed residents of that
W neighborhood
m Although it also dealt with the Hu--
H len Lake waterfowl problem and a
6 new city- coun- ty investigator, the
5 council sailed through the remainder
Eg of an agenda that was dominated by
n new bills. The meeting lasted just
H over an hour.
jg In addition to giving affected resi
dents tune to adjust to the parking
change, the compromise move will
allow the city tune to study the possi-bility
of a parking permit program
for residents who could be forced out
of their convenient spaces
The council voted m October to
line the two streets with the meters,
and a public outcry stopped installa-tion
several weeks ago Qty officials
responded with a report that sug-gested
the delay. They also sug-gested
consideration of a parking- perm- it
program with the apartment
dwellers who would be affected.
But Mayor John Westlund made it
known he was not optimistic about
such a permit system. " I don't think
a permit program is feasible," he
said.
Second Ward Councilman Don
Mosby agreed, saying such a pro
gram with residents along Hitt
Street and University Avenue would
prompt other groups to demand the
same.
Council members also expressed
concern over what they saw as a
sudden flurry of towings along Lo-cust,
Fourth, Fifth, Ash and Hitt
streets Public Works Director Ray
Beck said 13 vehicles were towed
from ( he area several days ago.
Beds said that not only were seve-ral
of the cars abandoned or unable
to be started, but officials allowed
some owners to move their cars be-fore
being towed
The council also faced other re-ports
that were billed as no less im-portant,
including the Hulen Lake
duck and geese problem. As prom-ised
at the Dec. 3 meeting, the coun-cil
was given a briefing on the issue
of migratory waterfowl in the Lake- sho- re
subdivision of west Columbia
and the complaints of accumulated
droppings on docks, beaches and pa-tios.
At least one area resident was pro-voked
enough by the nuisance to
shoot a family of Canadian geese
that roosted in the area. Though the
killing of the pair of adult geese was
approved by the federal govern-ment,
the apparent killing of the
pair's offspring wasn't.
Geese are federally protected and
a special permit is needed if they are
to be killed. The use of firearms in
the city also is prohibited, but the
city will not press charges.
Fourth Ward Councilman Pat Bar-nes
moved for an ordinance to be
See COUNCIL, Page 8A
I Prime falls to W3A percent at leading bank
W NEW YORK ( UPI) Manufactur- -
B era Hanover Trust, the nation's S fourth largest bank, Monday cut its
m prime lending rate to 10 percent
H from the prevailing 11V percent, ef--
M fecUve today.
M It was the first time the prime rate
m has been below 11 percent since Au--
gust 1983, when it rose from 10 per--
cent to 11 percent. Most analysts ex- -
ggf pect additional reductions going into
M 1935.
MHT's move came m response to a
sharp drop in the cost of overnight
money, including a surprising move
below 8 percent on the federal funds,
a prune source of bank money.
" It appears that we've bad anoth-er
Fed easing action," said David M
Jones, economist at Aubrey G. Lan- sto- n
& Co. " This should have a very
major impact in terms of pressure
on banks to cut their prune, and we
should see even further reductions
going into 1985."
Since September, this would be the
third major move by the Fed to ease,
which has taken the cost of bank
money down by 3-- 3 percentage
points
Philip Braverman, economist at
Bnggs Schaedle & Co., noted feat
banks have " very significantly cut
their deposit rates. With the funds
rate down into a new low area and
deposit rates down, banks can re
duce their own lending rates and still
improve their profit margins "
Braverman also said the magni-tude
of the drop in the federal funds
rate " suggest that a full percentage
point reduction in the Fed's discount
rate is a distinct possibility."
The discount rate is 8t percent.
Braverman noted that it would take
more than a one- ha- lf point cut to
bring it in line with the current level
of the fed funds.
I Inquiries rock submarine firm
By Gregory Gordon
m and Art- r- aw Gallagher
18 United Pnwa tnttmatlonal
H WASHINGTON Joseph Pierce
H balked when hi3 bosses at General
1 Dynamics Corp. ordered him in 1973
11 to slosh nearly 1100 million from his
m estimate of costs to build 11 nuclear
HI submarines for the Navy, present
m and former company officials recall.
Wt The 12.5 percent cut amounting
fit to a high- ns- k gamble would have
Bf substantially enhanced General Dy- -
namics' chances of winning the con- if- fv
tract but left it sum hopes of earning
a profit, these officials have told con- i- H
gressional investigators.
l: According to their account,
lip Pierce, general manager of the com- l- li
pany's huge Groton, Conn., ship-- Si
yard, finally succumbed to the pres- i- &
sure and lowered by 600,000 man
Hfc hours per ship his carefully re-- K?
searched bid price.
fH The'St Louis- base- d General Dy-- L
namics edged a competitor for the
m' 769 million contract, fueling its rise
m to become the nation's largest d-ell
ferae contractor with 1983 sales of
$ 7.1 billion. m Company spokesmen flatly deny
M this version of how the company won
m the bid, asserting instead that chair--
HSU
Genera I
o-!- 2f PynaiPLSrface
A turn of Unitvd Pros? Internation-al
reporters has spent months follow-ing
the furor surrounding the nation's
largest defense contractor. General
Dynamics Corp. of St Louis. Today,
in the first of a five- pa- rt series, they
examine how the company's ship-building
division felt Into financial
trouble, Additional stories are on
Page'B
man David Lewis directed a 300,000- ma- n
hour, 5 percent reduction They
say the Navy later shaved another
100,000 man hours per ship.
The conflicting accounts appear to
be at the heart of a sweeping contro-versy
that has enmeshed the compa-ny
in eight investigations, including
a new federal grand jury inquiry in
Hartford, Conn , and jolted the military--
industrial establishment
P. Takis Veliotis, a fugitive ex- comp- any
vice president and general
manager of the General Dynamic
Electric Boat shipbuilding division,
alleges the bid reduction amounted
to a " buy- in- " on the contract to put a
lock on future business for the ship-yard.
He says it set the stage for huge
losses by Electric Boat, cover- up- s
from stockholders by top corporate
officers and an unjustified, $ 750 mil-lion
taxpayer bailout.
Lewis declined to discuss the mat-ter
but has denied wrongdoing. A
company spokesman said Veliotis
did not join the firm until 1973 end is
no authority on the contract bids.
Pierce, who also refused com-ment,
received at least $ 18,000 in
consulting fees after his 1978 retire-ment
which Veliotis alleges was
forced because Pierce protested the
company's concealment of mounting
losses
Veliotis, whose stream of allega-tions
have hit his former employers
like depth charges, alleged from his
self- impos- ed exile in Athens,
Greece, that General Dynamics offi-cials
committed " fraud against the
r
government and fraud against their
shareholders."
His accusations have set off a cor-porate
boardroom drama that
strikes at the sometimes cozy
relationships among the Pentagon,
its contractors and Congress.
Spokesmen for General Dynamics,
which produces the Trident subma-rine
for the Navy, the F- 1- 6 fighter
plane for the Air Force and the M-- l
tank for the Army, categorically
deny all the allegations from Veliotis
and others.
General Dynamics has asserted
the cost overruns on two contracts
for construction of 18 of the " 688" nu-clear
attack submarines were due
mainly to Navy delays and inflation.
Dismissing Veliotis as a dis-gruntled,
desperate ex- emplo- yee
seeking immunity from prosecution,
the company stressed that a 2- y- ear
Justice Department investigation of
its overrun claims ended in 1981
without indictments.
Two Senate subcommittees have
raised questions about the handling
of the first investigation, in which
two prosecutors recommended in-dictments.
While defending that in-quiry,
Stephen Trott, chief of the
See GRAND, Page 8A
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By June Leonard
Mlssourlen staff writer
Thieves with the flair of profes-sionals
removed several cases of ex- Elosi- ves
from a northwestern Colum- l- a
quarry over the weekend,
leaving police puzzled about the in-tended
use of the blasting material
Gary Wnght, area manager of
Qty Quarries at 1505 Parkside
Drive, said a visual security check
Sunday revealed about 350 pounds of
explosives had been stolen between
midnight Saturday and noon Sunday
On Monday, Wright said, " We
think they ( the thieves) knew what
they were doing because it looked
professional "
The thieves used a torch to cut the
heavy padlocks that secured the ex-plosives
bin, Columbia Police Sgt
Mick Covington said
Wnght said the thieves ' were kind
of crazy using a torch around explo-sives
they knew what they were
doing "
The suspects then loaded the ex-plosives
onto a company pickup
truck, which they used for their es-cape
The truck was later found ap-proximately
mile east of the quar-ry,
Covmgton said
The missing explosives, known as
Dupont Tovex 700, are cylindrical m
shape, about 3V4 inches in diameter
by 16 inches long, and are wrapped
with white tape Also missing are
about 150 blasting caps with copper
electrical leads
Covington said the larger explo-sives
will not do much damage un-less
they are exploded within a con-fined
area " It takes quite a bit of
charge to set them off." However, he
said, " Blasting caps are dangerous
because they are set off by an elec-trical
impulse."
Wnght said the blasting caps can
explode if they are dropped, and
warned they could easily remove a
finger or an eye " It all needs to be
handled with care and understand-ing,
or you'll get hurt "
In each of City Quarries' regular
bi- wee- kly explosions, 6,000 to 8,000
pounds of explosives are used to
loosen limestone for constructing
roads and making concrete, Wnght
said The company, which has oper-ated
commercially since 1939, is
owned by Medusa Aggregate Co of
Cleveland It typically stores 40,000
pounds of explosives on site
He called the missing explosives,
" enough to do a lot of damage."
Police are interested in talking to
anyone who might have seen a 1980
gray Ford pickup bearing the com-pany's
Medusa emblem between
midnight Saturday and noon Sunday,
Wnght said
As required by law m any case of a
theft of explosives, local authonties
have notified the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms. That federal
agency will assist local authonties in
solving the crime and recovering the
explosives
Manuel Gonzalez, special agent m
charge for the Kansas City district
of the agency, said, " These explo-sives
have a great shattering pow-er."
He emphasized that any inci-dent
of theft poses a potential threat
to the community and estimated the
amount of explosives taken this
weekend was probably larger than '
many of the incidents reported to his
agency.
Boone County Shenff Charles Fos-ter
said he was not aware of anv
similar incidents in the county.
Uses vary
for stolen
explosives
By June Leonard
Mlssourlen statl writer
The uses for stolen explosives maj
range from something as innocent as
blowing up unwanted tree stumps to
terronst attacks and major crimes
Manuel Gonzalez, special agent in
charge for the Kansas City district
of the federal Bureau of Alcohol. To-bacco
and Firearms, said he has ob-served
distinct usages for stolen ex-plosives
in some areas of the
country
" West Coast motorcycle types
steal to use them against one anoth-er
or for resale," Gonzalez said In-timidation
and criminal uses also
are popular among this group
He recalled a tune in Denver when
militant groups used explosives to
destroy buildings as a way of vent-ing
social objections
Many tunes, the thieves are juve-niles
who stumble onto a hidden stor-age
area and decide to steal the ex-plosives
for something to do,
Gonzalez said
Although the theft of explosives in
his four- sta- te area Missouri,
Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska is un-common,
Gonzalez said, " any one
incident could pose a threat to the
community "
" Our main concern is that, unlike
a bullet that you can aim to a certain
extent, a bomb is very lndisenmi- nant,- "
he said
And in Missoun there are plent of
explosives Gonzalez said the state's
numerous mining operations require
a lot of explosives, resulting in a rel-ativelyhigh
level of thefts
Statistics maintained by the bu-reau
indicate Missouri had 12 report-ed
thefts of explosives in 1982, the
fourth highest in the nation Those
thefts amounted to a loss of 3 275
pounds of explosives
There were six reported thefts in
1983, with only 270 pounds of explo-sives
reported missing That tied the
state for eighth place nationwide in
reports of stolen explosives '
The number of blasting caps stolen
jn Missoun was 2,352 in 1982, com-pared
with 479 the followir g year
In 1982, federal and local authon- -
ties jointly recovered 3,027 pounds of
explosives in 21 separate incidents
within Missoun The following year
212 pounds were recovered in 12 inci-dents
Missoun ranked seventh in the na-tion
for the greatest amount of ex- - j
plosives recovered in 1982, but was ,
not among the top 13 states the next
year. About 50 percent of the explo-sives
stolen nationwide is recovered
by law enforcement officials !
I
i General Dynamics Earnings and Stock Performance I 1
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S300j J I
250 Net Income -- j 1
ir millions sf dsliars 9
200 ' rK 1 fi '
150 Iiiiii'i'iii - H
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-- 501 " I I I I i i i i i -- i
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