The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 318

6 Part II July 17. 1080 Cob Anflelefi (SUmco Democrats, Labor Pushing for Gilliam's Confirmation By NANCY SKELTON and PAUL NUSSBAUM TlnmlliMwrlUri San Diego County Democratic leaders have joined the push for confirmation of Superior Court Judge Earl B. Gilliam, the San Diego jurist whose appointment to the federal bench has been hanging fire for more than a year. The Democrats are expected to be joined soon by the San Dlego-Im-perlal Counties Labor Council in urging Gilliam's approval. Last week, six San Diego area officials including two county supervisors, two city councilmen, a member of the San Diego school board and a trustee of the San Diego Community College District sent a letter to President Carter seeking his assistance in winning confirmation for the federal district court appointment he made last Dec.

6. Gil-Ham was nominated by Sen. Alan Cranston on May 22, 1979. The full county Democratic Central Committee minus one signed a letter Monday endorsing Gilliam's appointment and urging "that our (California) federal delegation push for the confirmation of this outstanding judicial person by the U.S. Senate." The letter was delivered to Cranston.

Metzger Not Invited The only non-signed from the Central Committee was new member Tom Metzger. According to the committee official Sarah Lowery, Metzger was not asked to join in the Gilliam action as a way of underscoring the party's chagrin that Metzger, a Ku Klux Klan member, has a seat on the county Democratic panel by virtue of his primary win in the 43rd Congressional District election. Wednesday evening, members of the Jimmy Carter Democratic Club met to sign postcards urging Gilliam's appointment, which were scheduled to be forwarded to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The judge's name has been held up by committee Republicans, who are seeking an investigation into unspecified allegations against the San Dlegan. Labor council Secretary-Treasurer Joe Francis said Wednesday that the alliance of area labor unions will endorse a resolution at its July 23 meeting calling on the Judiciary Committee to approve Gilliam.

Labor Support Seen "We supported him for Superior Court judge and I don't expect any difficulty in adopting this resolution," Francis said Wednesday. A July 9 letter to Carter from the city and county officials said Gilliam's appointment "has been delayed much too long; therefore, we urge an immediate confirmation of this appointment." That letter was signed by Supervisors Jim Bates and Lucille Moore; Councilmen Leon Williams and Mike Gotch; San Diego Community College trustee Charles Reid, and San Diego school board member Robert Filner. REMEMBERING THE HORRORS Wayne, Ellis and Raymond Armstrong recall horrors they suffered when confined to mental institutions in San Diego as children. They, along with another brother, are suing the state for $1 .3 million for what they suffered. Tl LAWSUIT REVEALS HORRORS OF CONFINEMENT Now the state and the county are trying to piece together the Armstrongs' history, too, for use in court.

Following the 40-year-old trail isn't easy, though. Ruth Lipps, who ran the school and has left such vivid memories with the brothers, reportedly is dead, and old records provide only a sketchy history. She is listed in 1938 and 1939 city directories as the director of a Hillcrest School in San Diego, and in the early 1950s, she ran a school for the disabled in Los Angeles known as Sunny Crest School. That school collected some notoriety in 1954 when parents of students collected $23,800 in a settlement of suits that claimed three boys had been beaten and otherwise mistreated. School Long Gone The old address of Ruth Lipps' school for mentally retarded children in Chula Vista, 950 3rd is now the home of Southwood House, a mental health facility not related to its predecessor.

As the brothers tell it. the se quence of events that put them in San Diego's Lynn Schenk Backed as Lt. Governor Candidate Physical and mental abuse of the youngsters began Continued from First Page what is described in the interview also is recounted in the lawsuit. Today, Ellis Armstrong is 47, residing in Anaheim and managing an auto parts store. Living with his wife and her children from a previous marriage, Armstrong has pushed much of the past out of his life, though not out of mind.

He found his way out of asylums through the Army, fighting in Korea, where he was wounded and decorated. Two of his brothers, though, took a different path away from the county and state homes: jail. Between then, Raymond and Wayne Armstrong have spent more than 30 years behind bars for everything from juvenile delinquency to bank robbery. Search Launched And in the end, it was Raymond's jail time that started him on a search through state and county records to find out what had happened to his brothers. "I was angry at the world," Raymond Armstrong says now, sitting in his brother's Anaheim home.

"I finally started looking inward instead of outward and decided to trace my background and find out why I had acted the way I had until I was 32." Raymond now has a collection of files and papers more than a foot thick, the result of his scouring records from San Diego to New York. He keeps the files at home in Whittier, where he works as a maintenance man for a large instrument-manufacturing firm. Raymond, the youngest of the Armstrong brothers, tracked down Wayne in Attica Prison in New York, in his quest for the family's background, and the fragmented Armstrong clan has been pulled together largely through Raymond's efforts. Using the Freedom of Information Act and an enduring persistence, he collected records in Sonoma, San Diego, Los Angeles andSanQuentin. Abnormal Attitudes "I always considered the state to be our parents, since they raised us," Raymond, 45, says.

"Our attitudes were so abnormal we'd never been out in society, and when we did get out, we got into trouble. The state raised us improperly, and then punished us for the way we turned out." cutting limbs, and a bunch of us kids were standing around watching him. He kept yelling at us to get out of the way then he fell out and broke his neck. We ran in the house and told Mrs. Lipps' daughter Mrs.

Lipps was down in Mexico picking up food and when Mrs. Lipps got home, he was already in the morgue. "That's when the punishment started. She picked out certain of us kids and said it was our fault. She said we shook him out of the tree.

"Day by day, it got worse. She had this big paddle with holes in it that she called her shillelagh, and in the morning, she'd line up about seven of us and whack us five or six times. She said that was to make sure we were good that day." 'Defectives' Sterilized The punishments did not have the desired effect, and in 1945, Wayne and Ellis were taken in handcuffs to Sonoma State Home. And it was there that the Armstrong brothers, along with many other "defective" children, were sterilized. the school.

Sterilizations at Sonoma were "done as a part of a program to eliminate mental deficiency, epilepsy and certain other types of behavior waywardness and other vague terms," according to Dr. Donald Dean, medical director at Sonoma State Hospital. He said the sterilizations were stopped at least by 1951 or 1952. But that was long after Ellis and Wayne had their operations operations that were performed without the authorization of any parent or guardian other than the state. "They told us they were going to do an operation, but they didn't tell us what it was," Ellis recalls.

Law Disregarded Ellis didn't know it at the time, but his sterilization and that of his brother Wayne had been in the works for some time. According to patient records at Sonoma, obtained by The Times from the Armstrongs, the doctors at Sonoma decided on Aug. 8, 1945 to recommend "sterilization when he reaches the proper age and devel- Long One Schenk joined the Brown Administration as deputy business and transportation secretary in April, 1978, and has been active in Brown's political campaigns. The current business and transportation secretary, Alan L. Stein, has announced he is leaving the post in the fall.

Hospital Seminar to Focus on Reduction, Control of Weight OCEANSIDE A one-day seminar on weight control and reduction techniques will be conducted from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday at Tri-City Hospital. "The workshop is designed to assist the participant in understanding the dynamics involved in weight control, such as choosing food wisely, balancing exercise with food intake, behavior modification techniques and health risks said Merle Deason, education coordinator. The seminar is offered for continuing education credit for nurses in meeting license requirements, but the public also is invited to enroll.

soon after they arrived at county and state facilities for the retarded started with a tragedy of errors in Depression-ridden San Diego in 1935. Their mother died in June, 1935 apparently from tuberculosis and in December, the five Armstrong brothers (one, Richard, is now dead) were taken into protective custody by the county on allegations that the boys had been abandoned by their father. When the senior Armstrong returned home from work, he was told the boys had been placed in San Diego County Hospital. Eventually, because there wasn't enough room in local orphanages, Ellis, Elmer and Wayne were put in the Ruth Lipps School. Raymond was put in a private Catholic orphanage.

Abuse Soon Began Life in the school initially was pleasant, Ellis says now. But the beginning of the physical and mental abuse began soon after they arrived, when Mrs. Lipps' husband was killed in a fall from a tree. "He was up in a eucalyptus tree. Lynn Schenk the 35-year-old San Diego lawyer reportedly to be named state secretary of business and transportation soon also is being mentioned as a possible lieutenant governor candidate in 1984, one local Democratic activist said Wednesday.

M. Larry Lawrence, a Coronado hotelman and onetime Southern California Democratic chairman, said he has "mentioned Lynn Schenk's name" to two or three potential gubernatorial candidates and that the reaction "has been positive." Lawrence said the "time has come for a woman as lieutenant governor, or even at the top of the ticket," and that while he does not intend to make a "Schenk for lieutenant governor" crusade "an avocation, if the opportunity comes up, I'll mention her name again." "She is good material for statewide office," Lawrence said. Schenk now deputy secretary of business and transportation, and said by sources close to Gov. Jerry Brown to be the governor's choice to head that agency is a former attorney for San Diego Gas Electric Co. and a co-founder of the San Diego Women's Bank, now known as the California Coastal Bank.

SASS0N Summer MON. 8AT. DISCOVER you'll opment" for both Wayne and Ellis. The recommendation was made despite the doctors' finding that the boys had been improperly committed as "defective and psychopathic delinquents." "However, since it is so difficult to get cases back to court for further disposition, and too, since Pacific Colony (another state facility) always hesitates in taking anyone with an IQ above 69 as a mentally deficient person, we will be getting in further difficulty in trying to place him in one of our other institutions," the doctors' 1945 record says. "Therefore we decided to retain this individual and treat as a mentally deficient person, from a practical point of view, disregarding commitment under 7050 (the law describing 'defective or psychopathic delinquents')." Legacy of Grim Years The legacy of the Armstrongs' years in state and county institutions does not end with the sterilizations and Ellis' stutter.

In their lawsuit and in personal interviews, the brothers present a host of other effects. Wayne has a shriveled left leg, crippled after being in a cast for five years during his childhood, and now collects $300 a month from the state in disability payments. Raymond is deaf in his left ear, which he says is the result of beatings administered by his childhood keepers. Richard, the eldest, died at 25, and his brothers still blame his death at least partly on malnutrition at the Ruth Lipps school. Elmer, who now lives in Long Beach and works for North American Rockwell, bears the scars of burns allegedly inflicted at the same place.

The suit filed against the state and county by the Armstrongs' attorney George Comroe, was ordered moved to San Diego County last week from Orange County, Clint Eastwood BRONCO BILLY (pq) John Baliuhi Dan Aykroyd THE BLUES BROTHERS (r) UP THE ACADEMY (r) FRIDAY THE 13TH (r High finance and other news. See the Business section in Sunday's Times. J3I0 Adjacent to ALTERATIONS CN dewen Bkjum mult cluuDod DON JUST OF IN WHILE THRU FRI. 8UN. 12-5 never pay full retail prices again San Onof re Closure May Be solutions that would repair the corroded tubes and avoid replacement of the steam generators, Ottoson said.

Ottoson said the utility company is studying a plan that would permit the corroded tubes to be plugged temporarily until they can be repaired. A removable mechanical plug would be placed in the corroded tubes rather than the standard explosion-type plug that fuses permanently onto the tube, Ottoson said. The mechanical plug could be removed once another tube is slipped like a sleeve inside the 'defective tube, he said. Ottoson said the utility company is still testing tubes for defects to discover how widespread the leakage problem is and how many tubes might have to be plugged. Page said a tube is usually considered defective when it has lost between 50 and 75 of its original MAGNIFICENT SUITS SPORTCOATS 'SLACKS SHIRTS BUY Otlfc AT REGULAR LOW DISCOUNT PRICE GIT 2nd Continued from First Page coming from the nuclear plant's core seeps from corroded tubes inside the steam generator.

The radioactive water, heated at about 600 degrees Fahrenheit, leaks from the defective tubes into a secondary system of nonradioactive water, heated at about 450 degrees Fahrenheit, which is injected into the generator to create steam and drive the plant's turbines, he said. No Significant Hazard The radioactive water does not leak directly into the atmosphere and the situation does not present a significant hazard, he said. However, some of the escaping hot water may be converted into a radioactive gas that might have to be released into the atmosphere if there is a buildup. Page said. No such buildup has been detected so far and there has been no release of radioactive gas, he said.

The problem of the leaking tubes came to light when the plant shut down in April for normal refueling. Some leakage of tubes in the steam generator is normal and allowable, but Edison discovered "an indication of a fairly large number of tubes leaking," Page said. Although there are thousands of tubes carrying radioactive hot water through the steam generator, if sufficient defective tubes require plugging it reduces the energy capacity of the steam generator. Page said. Solutions Studied Plugging the tubes shuts off all hot water flowing through the tubes.

Edison officials are now studying ROBBIE MIDDISHADE COLLEGE HALL BROWNING KING ETIENNE CAR0N FABERGE PAUL RENE KUPPENHEIMER MANHATTAN SOME OF THE HUNDREDS BRAND NAMES VOtTU FIMD OUR STOCK EVERYDAY AT INCREOIBIE DISCOUNT PRICES. THEY LAST! PERFECT PAYMENT RECORD BASED IN SAN DIEGO OVER 13 YEARS EXCELLENT CREDIT HISTORY POA BURGLARY UUTM tW IVIBWi mnmM iMws-McoOMima MBMmmr nwwi THE BOILEAU CORPORATION BROKERS 1347 Broadway, El Cajon 8950 Villa La Jolla Dr. Suite 1170 579-8401 231-0768 452-5610 (Main Office) (La Jolla Office) 1 1 1 nl Ws 'ucosi cane autr IE tun catboiy, IIUUH uacracEoauts Continued from First Page up, Burgreen said, the burglary was given a case number and entered into the felony log on May 12. "This is not an unusual procedure," Burgreen said, and a check of the log shows that the POA burglary was one of several cases that day entered in such a delayed fashion. The incident report made available to the press in May.

however, gave no indication that leaders of the 1.100-member police organization had been questioned and given lie-detector examinations in the case. POA President Jack Pearson, one of those who voluntarily submitted to the polygraph test, has denied that word of the burglary was hushed up during the POA's campaign for the binding arbitration measure. CLAIREM0NT SQUARE SHOPPING CENTER ULAIHfcMUNT MESA BLVD. 272 9643 Leo Ward Marshall: CALL FOR DIRECTIONS THE PREMISES JvnUM jl I Oly Mmy BACH I ol out low picoi. iltotiuoni Gun inlto on II unaltrto clwct II out own twlonng coll.

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