University Daily Kansan / Thursday, March 9, 1989
Nation/World
7
Eastern's next stop may be courthouse
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Burdred with billions of dollars in debt and crippled by a walkout, Eastern Airlines' next destination appears to be bankruptcy court, analysts and lawyers said yesterday.
But experts said Frank Lorenzo, chairman of Eastern's parent, Texas Air Corp., would have a tougher time breaking union contracts, imposing lower wages and keeping the airline alive then he did when he reorganized Continental Airlines under fed bankruptcy law beginning in 1983.
A more likely scenario if Eastern filed for protection from creditors under federal bankruptcy law would require the older carrier and a sale of its assets.
The possibility Eastern would be sold re-emerged yesterday when Trans World Airlines Chairman Carl Icahn said Eastern unions asked him to resume talks begun last year about acquiring the airline carrier.
Icahn said he would be willing to do so if Eastern permitted the talks. The union had no immediate comment.
Wall Street analysts estimate that Eastern is losing $2 million to $7 million daily during the walkout by corporate officials dents. The strike began Saturday.
Eastern said Tuesday that it couldn't survive if its 3,600 pilots, who are honoring a machinist's strike, didn't return to work. The airline also said it was considering bankruptcy protection.
Miami-based Eastern is rapidly spending the $402 million in cash it had on hand at the beginning of the year, most of which was prepaid for tickets and used to fund迎迎 competition or pay to competitors who honor Eastern tickets.
Eastern has a $70 million debt payment; due at the end of March and expenses for aircraft leases, airport gates, other overhead and salaries for the 1,500 workers who remain on the job.
There is also $2.5 billion in debt Texas Air inherited when it bought Eastern for about $115 million in 1966. The number of debt are about $2.5 million a month.
After Lorenzo put Continental into bankruptcy reorganization in 1983, he restructured the airline. The number of employees to 4,000 from 12,500.
Partly because of that, Congress amended federal law in 1984 to require bankrupt companies to negotiate with unions and prove economic necessity for abrogating their contracts.
Eastern Airlines
**Owner:** Texas Air Corp.
**Headquarters:** Miami
**Employees:** 31,200
**Fleet:** 250 airliners
**Number of cities served:** 118
**Number of daily flights:** 1,040
**Number of daily passengers:** 100,000
**On strike:** 8,500 members of International Association of Machinists; many of 3,500 pilots and 5,900 flight attendants are honoring picket lines
Strike Issues: Airline is seeking $150 million in wage and benefits concessions from the machinists union; the union has asked for $50 million in raises
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
Knight-Ridder Tribune News/ RICK TUMA
Black relations worrying GOP
The Associated Press
Howard students' protests prompt political concern
WASHINGTON — Republican party chairman Lee Atwater was portrayed yesterday as a victim of the political symbolism of Willie Horton, the black convict whom Atwater turned into an important issue against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign.
Atwater resigned Tuesday night from the board of predominantly black Howard University after student demonstrations led to a building to protest his appointment.
However, there also was a view that President George Bush has a very positive image among blacks. He spoke of that of his party or its chairman.
The vehementity of the student reaction against Alwater raised questions about how successful the new GOP chairman would be in achieving his goal of attracting black voters to the Republican Party.
"The Republican Party as a whole has a pretty big image problem among black analysts Linda F. Hill and Jerry Lewis," Center for Political Studies, an ind
pendent group that focuses on the black community.
"It is viewed as either not interested in the problems of blacks or actually opposed to the advancement of blacks," she said.
"Bush has had a pretty long history with some black leadership," Williams said. "People are willing to see Bush as a moderate."
The president was flying to New
ork on Thursday to be keynote
speaker at a United Negro College
band banquet.
Since becoming chairman of the Republican National Committee early this year, Atwater, a South Carolina native who was Bush's camper, has met with scores of black leaders he has traveled around the country.
He attended a commemorative service in Atlanta on the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. An accomplished rhythm and blues guitarist, Atwater also has received widespread publicity performing with such black musicians as B. B. King.
Not all blacks endorsed the action of the Howard students.
the part of the students."
Keyes also disputed the contention that the Horton ads were racist.
"When I look at Willie Horton, I see a criminal," he said. "I don't see a black person."
Horton was a convicted murderer who raped a Maryland woman while on a weekend furough from prison in Massachusetts. The Bush campaign used ads featuring the Horton case toDemocrat Democrat as soft on crime
Many Democrats, including Jesse Jackson, protested during the campaign that the Horton ads were racist.
"The signals that were sent in the Willie Horton ad were not so much for burlongs but about race inciting tears in white people and creating very painful feelings among African Americans," Jackson said yesterday.
British to expel Iranians; they cite security reasons
In his letter of resignation, the GOP chairman said he wanted to help the school, but "continuing the investment is not good for ment any longer defends that goal."
"Today's events at Howard demonstrate the possibility that someone could be injured in the protest," he said. "That I could not accept. I would never forgive myself if someone was hurt."
The Associated Press
The government also warned Britons to get out of Lebanon.
LONDON — Britain announced yesterday that it would expel about 30 Iranians on security grounds because of Iran's death threat against novelist Salman Rushdie.
The Foreign Office said the 150 Britons in Lebanon had been under increased threat from kidnappers since Tuesday, when Iran severed diplomatic relations with Britain and fled of Udikeh's novel, "The Satanic Verses."
Three Britons are among the 15 foreign hostages in Lebanon.
In Beirut, the Revolutionary Justice Organization, which holds two American hostages, said it had completed plans to kill Killushie but would first attack British police to get to him.
Rushdie, a British citizen who was born into a Muslim family, has been in hiding since Feb. 14, when Ayatolil Rubahl Khomeini of Iran sentenced him to death for writing "The Satanic Verses." Rushdie is believed to be under police guard in Britain.
In Washington, an FBI official said zealous Iranian students posed the greatest threat because of the novel to publishers and others in the United
Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey
Howe said Britain would expel the
Iranians because of Khominii's
refusal to rescue the death sentence.
Hove also announced that Britain had ordered the closure of the Iranian consulate in Hong Kong, a move that the staff had two weeks to leave.
Howe did not rule out the possibility of ending all trade with Iran.
Government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that up to 10 Iranians "who are held to be close to the regime" would be held in Iran. There are about 2,400 Iranians in Britain, including 2,400 students.
BENTSEN BACKS TOWER: Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, DTx., announced yesterday that he would vote to confirm former Texas Sen. John Tower as secretary of defense. However, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell said he still he had the votes to defeat the nomination.
Bentsen, the 1988 Democratic vice-presidential candidate, became the third Democratic senator to break party ranks and throw his weight behind the embattled nominee.
"We have seen every imperfection in an essentially good man dragged into the pitless glaze of television lights." Bentsen said he would pay for public service. I will vote for John Fowler's confirmation."
News Briefs
north, who is charged with lying to
FOUND-RAISER TESTFIRES: Oliver North made impassioned pleas about the contras to wealthy contributors who came through later with large checks, a witness said during the North trial yesterday. He described one contribution that exceeded $1 million in stocks.
Congress about his activities on behalf of the contra, also was quoted by the witch doctor who billied the jail and didn't 'care if I have lie to Congress about this'.
The witness, conservative fundraiser Carl R. Channel, testified that North once met nelson Bunker Hunt in Dallas' fancy Petroleum Club and went through a pitch about what North said was a need for $5 million to $6 million for planes, missiles and other aid to keep the rebels going.
North himself did not take the checks, Channell said, and at the end of the meeting with Hunt, North left, saying "something like. You all are going to talk about money, and I can't take any money."
At the time, North was a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps and assigned to the National Security Council in the White House. During the congressional Iran-craonthe hearings two years ago, he testified, "I do not recall ever asking a single, solitary American citizen for money" although "I showed a lot of munitions lists."
NEEDLE EXCHANGE SUPPORTED:
Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan yesterday encouraged communities to establish needle-exchange programs to help stop the spread of the deadly AIDS virus by drug addicts.
Sullivan emphasized that communities, not the federal government, should decide whether to have such programs because some officials oppose the idea under the belief that there are drugs used for addicts drug control.
Much of the opposition to New York City's needle-sharing program is coming from black and Hispanic leaders who say that giving needles to addicts only continues their dependence on drugs and sends the wrong message. They say efforts should be focused on treatment of drug abuse.
But Sullivan, the highest ranking black in the Bush administration, said, "I don't subscribe to the view that it condones drug abuse."
New York's experiment is the only one of its kind in the United States. An estimated 50 percent to 60 percent of the city's 200,000 heroin addicts are thought to be infected with the AIDS virus.
A twin-engine plane leased by the National Park Service approached to within 12 miles of the 20,320-foot peak Tuesday but was driven back by the hurricane-force winds, said John Quinley, a park service spokesman.
MCKINLEY CLIMBERS MISSING:
Specially equipped military helicopters and a medical team waited in Alaska yesterday for wind to abate enough to allow a search for three missing people. A winter ascent of Mount McKinley.
The three men who set out to climb North America's highest peak were last heard from more than a week ago, but efforts to contact them failed.
Army Maj. Sherrel Mock said officials hoped winds would subside enough for the helicopters to reach McKinley's 17,200-foot level to check that aircraft numbers are not in the cave, an aerial search will be conducted, Mock said.
The missing climbers are leader Noboru Yamada, 39; Teruo Saeguia, 31; and Koko Komatsu, 34; all of them. They began their climb Feb. 15.
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PENCE
The Student Senate Elections Committee
is accepting applications for all student senators.
Applications can be
Applications can be picked up in
the Student Senate office 410 Kansas Union 864-3710.
Application deadline is March 22
15th & New York 843-2004
ATTENTION SOPHOMORES Owl Society
The Honor Society of the Junior Class
IS NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
FOR MEMBERSHIP
APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE IN 129 STRONG, SUA OFFICE,
AND ORGANIZATIONS AND ACTIVITIES
ATTENTION ALL STUDENT HEALTH INSURANCE POLICY HOLDERS AND OTHER INTERESTED PERSONS
There will be an open forum concerning student health insurance for the policy year 1989-1990 for your comments and questions.
TIME: 7:00-8:00 p.m. DATE: 3-9-89 PLACE: Alcove D, Kansas Union
Sponsored by the Student Health Advisory Board Funded by the Student Activity Fee