NATION AND WORLD
University Daily Kansan, March 22, 1984
Page 9
Merger creates steel rival
Rv United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department, following an intra-administration squabble, approved a scaled-down merger of the LTV Corp. to republic Steel Corp., yesterday, formulating nation's second-largest steel-maker.
Under the agreement, Republic will sell its carbon-stel plant at Gadsen, Ala., and its specialty steel-making in Massillon, Ohio, within six months.
The resulting merger of the Dallass- based LTV's Jones and Laughlin Steel
Inc. subsidiary, the nation's No. 3 steel manufacturer, and Republic, No. 4, will create LTV Steel Co. The new company will be second in size on it to U.S. Steel.
The agreement was hammered out in marathon negotiations following the department's decision last month to push forward its grounds it would be anti-competitive.
"Our conclusion is that the merger as restructured does not raise any antitrust problems," McGrath told a news conference.
ASSISTANT ATTORNEY General J. Paul McGrath, the administration's chief antitrust enforcer, who has come under heavy criticism for refusing to the original deal, said the revised plan met the government's objections.
He said he was under no pressure to approve the steel deal despite public comments from President Reagan and
Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige. "No pressure (was) put on me to make this deal." McGrath said.
Baldrige had called McGraft's original decision a "world-class mistake", saying the Justice Department ignored the recommendations of imports on the steel industry.
In the wake of McGrath's original decision, two other steel companies, U.S. Steel and National, abandoned plans to merge.
"Since our decision last February, the U.S. Steel-National merger has been abandoned. The restructured merger, in my judgment, no longer poses any threat to competition in the steel industry," MeGrath said.
IN A JOINT statement, LTV Chairman Raymond Hay and Republic Chairman E. Bradley Jones said they were pleased.
Strawberry Fields to be memorial to John Lennon
By United Press International
NEW YORK — Only a few hundred yards from where John Lennon was shot dead in 1980, his widow and two sons yesterday dug shovels into Central Park soil to begin work on Strawberry memorial garden to the former Beatle.
The tear-shaped 2.5-acre garden, named after one of the Beatles' best-known hits, is to be seeded with 25,000 strawberry plants and thousands of other shrubs and flowers donated by local residents. It will be opened to the public next spring.
Singer Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, called the protest a "garden of love." She alternately fought back tears and blew kisses at the groundbreaking, where she met Mayo Kidwana Koch, other top city officials and throngs of well-wishers.
"I you are my family too," she told the crowd of about 300, after introducing Sean, 8, the son she had with Lennon, and Evan, her 12-year-old son by a previous marriage.
The City Council proposed the project three years ago, and Miss Ono offered to donate $500,000 for landscaping, plus another $500,000 to be paid in annual installments over five years for maintenance.
DA has new suspect, clears Geter of robbery
By United Press International
DALLAS — Armed robbery charges against black engineer Lenel Geter were dropped yesterday by a district attorney who said he had been bombarded in the case. He had been bombarded to life in prison for the crime.
Geter, who had charged that his robbery conviction was the result of a racist judicial system, said the decision was a shock. "I wasn't expecting it. It's wonderful," he said.
Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade said the charges against Geter had been dropped. A suspect from the Houston area had been brought to Dallas for questioning. The case did not be tried for the crime, Wade said.
Geter, 26, was convicted in 1982 for the robbery of a fast-food outlet and spent more than a year in jail. He and his attorneys said he was the victim of "shoddy" police work and a racist judicial system.
After national media exposure of his case, Geter was granted a new trial last year. It had been scheduled to begin April 9.
"It's too new. I can't really talk about it yet," Geter said. "But I'm thrilled."
Wade said information had been found in the past 10 days that led police to suspect Mason. He said Mason had been identified in a line-up by witnesses, and he also had been in the Dallas area in August 1982, when the robbery was committed.
Wade said the suspect probably would not be tried in the case because of the previous evidence in the case, and he was tampered with in the case had been tampered with.
George Hairstir, an attorney with the NAACP who led Geter's defense and pushed for a new trial, said he was in charge along the case would be dispassed.
"It it's a surprise. I'm overjoyed. I feel it's a great day, especially for the Dallas criminal justice system. It's justified."
The district attorney's office joined a defense request for a new trial last December after an interview with Geter was televised on "60 Minutes." the CBS news magazine. From that story and media coverage, we can see how the job at E-Systems close to the time the robbery was committed.
Other witnesses at the restaurant, who did not testify in Geter's trial, also said that he was not the person who committed the robbery.
FCC delays multi-line phone fee
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission yesterday postponed for 10 weeks a telephone call to businesses that have more than one phone line.
The fee — a $6 monthly charge for each telephone line a business has — had been scheduled to take effect on April 3. The money would go to local telephone companies in return for a bet between local and long distance lines.
"The FCC wanted to more completely examine the tariff issues, a concern that has been ignored."
The FCC said in a statement that because the access charges would have a broad impact on the telecommunications industry as well as the user public," it would try to ensure that "the tariffs are generally reasonable and workable before they are allowed to take effect."
The panel voted in January to delay until June 1985 the $2-a-month access charges planned for residential customers and businesses with only one phone line. That decision was made because of congressional pressure and public objection to rising telephone bills
At the time, the FCC said the access charges for larger businesses — any with more than one phone line — would take effect April 3, but under the latest order those charges will be delayed to June 13.
The commission also said it intended to resolve an emergency petition filed by American Telephone & Telegraph on behalf of the access charges to go into effect.
On Feb. 27, AT&T formally asked the FCC to consider its decision on the access charges and other matters, contending that the decision would have a "devastating" impact on the company's earnings.
AT&T said the independent long distance telephone companies, such as MCI and Sprint, were enjoying an unfair discount on what they pay to AT&T to have access to its lines. AT&T wants the FCC to reduce this discount.
The FCC said it expected to rule on the discount issue next month.
"It's encouraging that the commission intends to deal promptly with our emergency petition," said AT&T spokesman Pic Wagner.
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