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GRIFFIN
Aid is on way
to Guatemala
Some work threatens
to damage the mind
WASHINGTON (UPI) — Morton Corn says the day may
come — but it still is far, far off — when the government
tries to regulate work conditions for the person whose job
is so tedious, so numbing that it threatens to damage the
mind.
Corn said there is no question the mental health of
workers can be affected by the assembly line’s demand
that one short unchallenging task be performed over and
over, eight hours a day, for a lifetime.
But the government has not even started to look into
whether or how to promulgate rules to relieve workplace
tedium.
Corn is the man in charge of such matters. An expert in
industrial hygiene and a former professor of occupational
health at the University of Pittsburgh, he took office in
December as assistant secretary of labor in charge of the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
He is that rare creature, a scientist in government.
His own working conditions, he conceded in an
interview, leave something to be desired. He sometimes
finds himself working in an overcoat.
His huge, high ceilinged office, with one wall of glass, is
in a new Labor Department building. The heat goes off at
day’s end, and Corn has been working from 8 a.m. to 10
p.m. — until the cold drives him home with a briefcase
containing another hour’s work.
“I keep deluding myself that it will taper off,” he says.
He flies home to Pittsburgh weekends to rejoin his teacher
wife, Jacqueline, and two children.
His department, with 1,300 inspectors, lays down and
enforces job safety and health standards for 60 million
workers and five million employers. Mining and
transportation and certain other industries are covered by
other agencies, but OSHA regulates all others who employ
more than one worker.
Corn’s work involves such matters as how much
asbestos dust to permit in the air of a factory — or how
much noise, or heat. Such decisions have enormous
economic consequences.
Com was asked if OSHA could regulate mindnumbing
work, too. He looked up the law’s madate: “to assure so
far as possible every working man and woman in the
nation safe and healthful working conditions ...”
He said, yes, “but that’s virgin territory. We don’t know
how to approach it. We’re so busy trying to get on top of so
many situations where we do know how to improve. I
could not as a regulator get into an area where so little is
known.”
He said more research — from the universities, and
from abroad — is required. The governments of Sweden
and Germany, he said, are regulating the mental aspects
of work. Autoworkers in Sweden, for example, rotate jobs
to relieve boredom. Some tests show productivity rises as
a result.
Com remembers his reaction when he bought Studs
Terkel’s “Working,” a book of taped interviews with
workers talking about their jobs.
“I came out of it absolutely amazed,” he said. “Maybe
20 per cent of them liked their jobs. The psychological
thing comes through, the terrible frustration, the
repetitiveness.”
But for now, he says, “that’s something OSHA doesn’t
have anything to do with. That’s a Pandora’s box.”
Plenty of clues, no evidence
in explosion at N.Y. airport
NEW YORK (UPI) - There
are scores of clues but almost
no hard evidence to lead
authorities to the person or
persons who planted a bomb
which killed 11 persons at
LaGuardia Airport Dec. 29.
The blast also injured more
than 70. Yet the 500 city police,
bomb and arson experts and
FBI agents initially assigned to
the case have been unable to
find a motive.
Even a 150,000 reward offered
Patty spectators selling places in line for S2O
SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -
Spectators trying to get into the
Patricia Hearst trial are selling their
places in line for as much as S2O,
sources say.
Those who don’t pay take their
chances in the unusually young lineup
of persons who try each morning, each
afternoon, each recess, to squeeze into
the courtroom to see the fragile looking
21-year-old heiress.
They may see her take the stand
today to make her first public
statement on events following her 1974
by the Air Transport Associa
tion for information leading to
the conviction of the bombers
failed to attract any legitimate
tips.
“All we can really say at this
point is that the investigation is
continuing,” said FBI Agent
DonWaford. “Specific informa
tion is being reviewed, but very
little of it has been released.”
Fragments of the bomb,
which was concealed in a
locker, were shipped to a
kidnaping, says one of her attorneys, Al
Johnson.
What is it that makes the curiosity
seekers wait in line to study Miss
Hearst?
“I think every mother on the face of
the earth sympathizes with the
Hearsts,” said Rosalie McFarland of
nearby San Rafael. “Everyone feels,
‘How would I feel if it were my child?’
Personally, I would be heartbroken.”
“I’d feel the same if it were some coal
miner’s daughter or Randolph
ATLANTA (UPI) - A mili
tary transport plane was
scheduled to depart today from
Dobbins Air Force to carry
some 40 tons of telephone
equipment to Guatelama to
help restore communications to
that earthquake-devastated
Central American nation.
A spokesman for the Agency
for International Development
in Washington said the airlift of
American Telephone and Tele
graph Co. equipment got
underway Sunday at Travis Air
Force Base in California.
A five-ton, trailer-mounted
engine was loaded onto the CSA
plane there. It will provide
emergency back-up power for
the Guatemala Telephone Co.,
the spokesman said.
The plane arrived at Dobbins
in suburban Atlanta Sunday
night and crews were loading
emergency microwaves, radio
equipment, power generators,
hand sets and other hardware
and trucks aboard.
Five Southern Bell Co.
technicians will board at
Dobbins to accompany the
shipment, scheduled to arrive
in Guatemala City at noon
Monday.
The equipment will help
restore phone service between
Guatemala City and several
communities 20 to 30 miles
away, the AID spokesman said.
Telephone officials say limit
ed long distance circuits still
are in working order in
Guatemala, but most foreign
lines and the bulk of domestic
service has been knocked out
by the series of earthquakes
that started Wednesday.
Authorities placed the official
death toll at 7,377 Sunday after
the third series of shocks struck
the nation. Property damage is
put at several billion dollars.
Maria Teresa Fraser, the
Guatelaman consul in Atlanta,
said volunteers are working
here collecting donations of
food, doting and medical
supplies to aid earthquake
victims.
“We are asking for donations
of clothing, particularly for
children, food in cans, not in
glass jars, medical supplies,
first aid supplies, plasma,
blankets, pots and pans, Cole
man lanterns, flashlighs with
batteries — that type of goods,”
Mrs. Fraser said.
She said all donations except
medicine can be deposited at
any fire station in Atlanta and
DeKalb County and at any
major Cobb County firehouse.
laboratory in Piscataway, N.J.
for analysis. Authorities first
hoped markings or prints on
the device might provide a
clue.
“They found traces of plas
tics, TNT, just about everything
on the stuff they looked at,”
said a member of the New
York City bomb squad. “I’m
not sure what they think they
are finding. Nobody knows, and
that’s what makes it hardest.”
Co. Callan
accused
in killings
By United Press International
A mysterious “Col. Callan,”
described as a former Greek
terrorist who “gets a kick out
of killing,” has been accused of
ordering a mass execution of
mutinous British mercenaries
in Angola and of slaying eight
prisoners of war with his own
pistol.
In other developments, the
Soviet-backed faction in Angola
claimed major new battlefield
victories and South African
newspapers accused the gov
ernment of misleading the
public about the country’s
military role in the Angolan
civil war.
NBC reported from Zaire
Sunday that 14 British merce
naries serving with pro-Western
forces in northern Angola were
executed on the orders of a
Greek commander because
they refused to fight.
It said the commander forced
British soldiers to carry out the
order by turning machine guns
on them.
Soldiers from the area
described the mercenary leader
as a “homicidal maniac,” NBC
said.
British newspapers identified
him as a “Col. Callan.”
One mercenary who managed
to leave Angola said in London
he had seen “Callan” kill eight
captured soldiers of the Soviet
backed Popular Movement for
the Liberation of Angola.
“It was done by Col. Callan
with his own automatic pistol,”
Tom Chambers, 45, a former
Royal Air Force sergeant, told
the Daily Express. “All the
men were shot straight in the
back of the head.”
According to Chambers, “Cal
lan” is a former Greek
terrorist leader who fought
against the British in Cyprus.
“He just seemed to get a kick
out of killing,” he said.
In London, the Foreign Office
said it had asked its embassy
in Zaire to investigate the
reported killings of the British
mercenaries, but a spokesman
said the incident would be
“particularly difficult ... to
check.”
Music expert defends ‘pop’ music
LOS ANGELES (UPI) — Rock music
is no more decadent than classical
music and is not undermining the youth
of today, says the author of three music
encyclopedias.
“Just as you can prove that rock is
terrible, you can make a case to
indicate that classical music is even
worse,” Irwin Stambler said.
Stambler, 50, is author of the
Encyclopedia of Popular Music;
Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and
Western Music; and the Encyclopedia
of Pop, Rock and Soul.
Hearst’s,” said Mrs. McFarland’s
husband, Harry.
Hearst is president of the San
Francisco Examiner and a son of
legendary newspaper publisher
William Randolph Hearst.
“Patty may not be lilywhite, but the
fact that she started out by being
kidnaped draws my sympathy,” said
McFarland. “I really think she’s a
victim of circumstances.”
That is what Miss Hearst’s chief
lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, contends — that
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Plane
crash
ENCINO, Calif.—A fireman is
engulfed in flames while fellow
firemen run for their lives as
flames spread to fuel following
the crash of a DC6 on a golf
course. Firemen on top of the
plane were attempting to cut
into the cockpit to remove the
bodies of three crewmen who
died in the crash when the flash
fire broke out. The fireman with
the hose was one of two firemen
who were severely burned. At
right a fireman slogs through
foam that was sprayed on the
DC6 that crashed on a golf
course after it developed engine
trouble on takeoff from
Hollywood Burbank airport.
(UPI)
McCown reported drunk
while piloting plane
MAYFIELD, Ga. (UPI) -
Federal investigators say Han
cock County anti-poverty leader
John McCown was improperly
licensed as an airplane pilot
and was intoxicated when a
plane he was flying crashed
Jan. 30, killing himself and two
passengers.
Tom Watson, chief National
Transportation Safety Board
investigator of the crash, said
in Miami Saturday tests of
McCown’s blood indicate he
was intoxicated while flying the
plane just prior to his death.
McCown, the 37-year-old di
rector of East Central Commit
tee for Opportunity, was killed
Jan. 30 when the single-engine
Cessna plane nosed-dived into a
wooded area shortly after take
off from an ECCO-owned
airstrip near Mayfield.
A single survivor was pulled
from the wreckage and is now
recovering in an Augusta
He takes issue with “selfappointed
authorities such as the one who stated
rock is as dangerous to youth as
heroin.”
Adam Knieste, a choirmaster in San
Rafael, Calif., said recently he believes
rock music is “more deadly than
heroin.” Another critic, a Southern
preacher, said it was leading to the
moral decay of youth and could be a
main reason for teen-age pregnancies.
“Such statements and others recently
printed in the mass media are
nonsense,” Stambler said. “It’s
possible to put together extraneous
she was brainwashed after her kidnap
ing by the Symbionese Liberation Army
and then forced to take part in the bank
robbery she is charged with.
If Bailey had his way, the trial would
be over in a few weeks. He admits Miss
Hearst took part in the robbery. He
admits she carried a gun.
He says she had to, at gunpoint of the
SLA, which he claims threatened to
shoot her on the spot if she failed in her
duties in the crime.
Bailey wants the prosecution to stop
belaboring what he considers “the
Page 3
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hospital.
Watson said the alcohol
content of a sample of
McCown’s blood registered .198
per cent, according to a report
by the federal pathological
center in Oklahoma City, Okla.
A person can be charged under
Georgia law with driving under
the influence if his or her blood
content contains .10 alcohol.
“We found an expired student
pilot’s certificate in his person
al effects,” Watson said. “It
was dated March 1, 1973. The
Federal Aviation Administra
tion airman’s records branch
doesn’t have any record of any
other airman’s certificate for
the pilot, McCown.”
He said even if McCown’s
license had not expired, there
are “many restrictions on a
student pilot. One of them is
that he’s prohibited from
carrying passengers.”
facts to prove all forms of music are
bad, an obvious absurdity.”
He said that rather than being
degenerative, rock music is “a positive
force.”
“All music has something to
contribute to people,” he said.
Stambler, who learned to appreciate
classical music from his mother, a
graduate of the Juilliard School of
Music, said the same arguments given
to prove the decadence of rock music
can be applied to the classics.
He said Wagner was “violently anti-
Semitic and his operas were paeans to
obvious.” He says she was simply
brainwashed and a hostage.
Prosecutor James Browning, a folksy
Jimmy Stewart type, isn’t taking
Bailey’s bait. He wants to play in his
own ballpark.
Many courtroom veterans think
Browning is out of his league with
Bailey. But methodically, the
prosecutor, overcoming apparent
initial nervousness, has presented
witness after witness to show Miss
Hearst’s part in the holdup.
The spectators look upon the event as
— Griffin Daily News Monday, February 9,1976
CTI
10 years
ROUNDING OUT 10 years
as India’s prime minister,
Indira Gandhi has been in
power longer than the leader
of any other major nation
with the exception of the
Soviet Union's Leonid
Brezhnev.
Commissioner
is seeking
new trial
WAYCROSS, Ga. (UPI) -
Ware County Commissioner
Maitland Popham was sche
duled to appear before Superior
Court Judge Ben Hodges today
in an effort to win a new trial
on theft charges.
Popham was convicted last
October of timber theft and
sentenced to seven years in
prison, but has continued to run
the county government from his
jail cell.
A hearing on a new trial for
Popham was originally set for
Dec. 15, but the unavailability
trial transcripts caused the
date to be chnged to Feb. 6 and
then to Feb. 9.
A spokesman for the court
clerk said the transcripts would
be ready for today’s hearing.
the myth of a super race in many ways.
More than one historian has cited his
work as an influence on such negative
forces as Nazism.”
Stambler said there can be some
physical damage from listening to hard
rock, but added, “You can take
anything to excess.
"I don’t really think someone who
casually goes to a few rock concerts can
really damage their health,” he said,
“but maybe a steady diet (of such loud
amplification) can.”
a tourist attraction and visit it as they
might the Golden Gate Bridge or China
town.
“It’s an interesting way to kill an
afternoon,” said Peter Keegan, 23, a
medical student. “It’s kind of like
television — the news or fiction, it’s all
the same.
“I can go in there in the courtroom
and have fantasies about Patty all
afternoon or dream of being F. Lee
Bailey.
“It’s kinda neat.”