The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 1

Baseball talks resume I Win free groceries In Sports: Trying to save the start of the regular season. Page 1-D. The Inquirer is giving away shopping sprees. Page 8-E. mm Jtarote Vol.

321, No. 66 Thirty-Five Cents Ci (21 5) 665-1234 for hofnxtttvsry fltH Wednesday, March 7, 1990 1990. Philadalphia Newspapers Inc. ffckkl Post of ice delivers a plan to charge for a letter and the only significant source of revenue is postage. He said the new rates, which would bring in revenues estimated at $7.2 billion next year, are necessary to overcome a deficit that will reach $1.4 billion by the end of this fiscal year on Sept.

30. "I think that most fair people realize that postal costs go up and that rates must go up to cover them," he said. Frank also said he hoped not to ask for another increase for at least five years, even though labor contracts with the four largest unions cent faster than the rate of inflation between April 1988, the date of the last increase, and January 1991, if the increases proposed yesterday are approved, according to Postal Service figures. Opponents of the proposed rates called for an organization that can oversee the U.S. Postal Service to guarantee efficient operations.

The Postal Service's rising costs are the result of "two years of waste and mismanagement," said Gene A. Del Polito, executive director of the Third Class Mail Association, which ruary. Consumer groups and trade associations immediately vowed to fight the increases and criticized the Postal Service as poorly managed and inefficient. Postmaster General Anthony M. Frank acknowledged yesterday that the rate increase is "too much, too soon" after a 13.6 percent increase in 1988.

But he said the increases are necessary because the Postal Service is required by law to break even, costs have gone up 19 percent since 1988, represents advertising mailers. "The past few years have been an example of what a lack of accounta-. bility can mean," he said. "They have no incentive to minimize their cost, so some sort of oversight committee needs to be formed to act as a watchdog." Del Polito also predicted that many small companies will be put out of business by the new rates. Tracey Schreft of the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce called the planned increase "unreasonable and unjusti-(See STAMP on 8-A) expire this year. The increased costs are attributed to a 1987 contract settlement that officials said might have been too generous, as well as two years of congressionally mandated contributions to the U.S. Treasury to reduce the federal deficit and rising costs for health-care benefits. The Postal Service was converted to a quasi-public corporation by Congress in 1971 and its federal subsidy eliminated. Since then, the system's costs and its rates have soared.

Postal rates will have risen 46 per till oviets gain it to own ngl 'businesses 1 -it" By Lara Wozniak Inquirer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON U.S. postal officials yesterday proposed increasing the price of a first-class stamp from 25 to 30 cents and raising the cost of mailing magazines, advertisements and packages by an average of 19 percent. The new rates, which would cost the typical household about $10 extra a year, will be reviewed for possible changes during the next 10 months by the Postal Rate Commission. They would take effect in Feb Pleading the needs of children Advocates urge more Pa. help By Martha Woodall Inquirer Stall Writer A spectrum of city officials and children's advocates appealed yesterday to state legislators to provide more money for abused and neglected children.

Two City Council members also repeated the city's threat to give responsibility for protecting children to the state if it continued to under-fund its share of the costs. "How is it that Philadelphia is behind every other city in the Boston-Washington corridor when it comes to receiving per capita state aid?" asked Reinaldo Galindo, president of the Children, Youth and Family Council of the Delaware Valley. "Why does Pennsylvania spend only $13 for each resident under age 18 to protect children from abuse and neglect when the national average is $22?" Galindo was among 16 representatives of private agencies, children's advocates, officials from the Department of Human Services, City Council members and Family Court State Government Commission Task Force on Services to Children and Youth. The. state Senate established the panel in April to examine whether the laws that created the child-welfare system in the mid-1970s should be overhauled as a result of drugs, homelessness and teen pregnancy.

During the five-hour hearing in a courtroom across from City Hall, so- nai agcuijr utuwiaia aiuicu a gloomy portrait of growing numbers of children in peril and the spiraling costs of trying to help them and their fragmented families. DHS Commissioner Joan M. Reeves noted that reports of suspected child abuse and neglect had doubled between 1982 and 1988. Now, she said, between 60 and 80 percent of the reports are related to substance abuse particularly crack. Reeves noted that the portion of her agency's budget for child-welfare services had ballooned from $46.5 million and a staff of 249 a decade ago to $117 million and 809 staff members this fiscal year.

"Our projections for the future in terms of the demand and costs of child-welfare services are truly star-(See CHILDREN on 18-A) Weather Index i Former welterweight contender Gypsy Joe Harris, who was born in Camden and reared in North Philadelphia, has died at 44. Sports, Page 1-D. Mostly sunny today and tomorrow. High today 40. High tomorrow 45.

overnight 18. Full weather report, Page 9-E. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 27.25 points to close at 2,676.80. Business, Page 8-D. National International Section Metropolitan Section Magazine Section portsBusiness Section Food Section The Arts S-C Editorials 16-A Business 8-0 Newsmakers 2-C Classified 16-P Horoscope 1Q-E By Fen Montaigne Inquirer Stall Writer MOSCOW In a halting but important step toward a market economy, the Soviet legislature yesterday overwhelmingly approved a law that allows limited forms of private ownership of businesses and property.

The law represents a significant break from 73 years of rigid centralized control over the economy, and is a crucial part of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's economic reform program. Deputy Premier Leonid Abal-kin, one of Gorbachev's top economic advisers, said earlier that the law had "colossal importance." Under the law, individuals and groups of workers will be allowed to own business and farming operations, to share in the profits from those businesses, and to buy and sell stock in such enterprises. Until now, individuals have been able to own clothes, personal items, cars, apartments or houses. They have been able to farm small plots of leased land and, under Gorbachev, to run small cooperative businesses.

All other economic activity except the black market has been government-controlled. The law passed yesterday will, for the first time, give workers a chance to band together, purchase or lease businesses and attempt to run them on a profitable basis. It could provide a badly needed boost to the economy by introducing the cornerstone of capitalism: the desire to turn a profit. "This is only way to be freed from the totalitarian dictatorship of the state, and to provide economic freedom," said Yuri Scherbak, a legislator of the Supreme Soviet. The property law, and the law.

allowing the leasing of land that was passed last week, stop well short, however, of the American kind of relatively unfettered capitalism. Neither law allows individuals or groups to own land outright, or to mortgage or transfer land. flight breaking show of speed to the place where it is destined to go into a museum. For, magnificent as it is, the SR-71 is also obsolete. Victimized by budget cuts, the belief that the Cold War is over and competition from spy satellites, the SR-71 was officially retired by the Air Force in January.

Of the 20 surviving SR-71s, most were placed in mothballs or assigned to museums around the country. One No. 17972 was offered to the (See PLANE on 4-A) United Press International A BURNING BARGE throws off a thick barge, carrying 4.2 million gallons of cloud of black smoke in the Arthur Kill fuel oil, was ripped by explosions and waterway in New York Harbor. The fire yesterday. Story on Page 18-A.

And the property law passed yesterday prohibits the "exploitation of one man by another" and "the alienation of the worker from the means of production," meaning an individual may not hire workers and profit from their labor another crucial element of capitalism. Under the new law, all workers must theoretically share in the work and profits. A debate broke out yesterday between deputies who wanted the exploitation clause included and those who considered it outdated Marxist-(See SOVIET UNION on 12-A) Kohl relents, says Polish land is safe By Marc Fisher Washington Post BONN, West Germany West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, responding to a growing tide of criticism, reversed himself yesterday and agreed unconditionally that a united Germany would not try to reclaim the land it was forced to cede to Poland after World War II. The reversal seemed designed to prevent a rift with Kohl's political allies at home and to allay the fears of some European nations that a united Germany would bully its smaller neighbors. Kohl had been saying for weeks that only a reunified Germany and not West Germany alone could formally agree to recognize the current Polish-German borders.

Last week, he had also sought to link the border issue to concessions he wanted from Poland. He had demanded that Poland agree to drop any claims for war reparations from a united Germany and that it guarantee the rights of ethnic Germans living in Poland. But yesterday, Kohl said he would ask the West German parliament to declare unconditionally as soon as possible that a reunited Germany would sign a treaty recognizing that what was once part of Germany's easternmost provinces was now permanently part of Poland. The about-face came just one day after Kohl had said it would be "criminally negligent" for him to back down from his refusal to affirm Poland's postwar borders. Kohl had also warned on Monday that if West Germany did not stand fast on the borders issue, a united Germany could also face demands for compensation from as many as 50 (See KOHL on 12-A) The PhitaMofcia Inquirer VERNON LOEB to Hong Kong, he tells friends.

A bittersweet, and fancy, dash of old No. 17972, it was not bad at all. When the long, dark SR-71 spy plane swooped out of the overcast at Washington Dulles International Airport here yesterday, it arrived triumphant, yet unwanted. Making two majestic passes over the airport, the jet's engines shot two torches of fire as it climbed away for its final approach on its last flight ever. Said to be the fleetest and most elusive airplane in the world, it was flown from California in the record- it Blasting through a radar "gate" 60,000 feet above sleeping Los Angeles, the jet left a wake of faint thunder as it streaked across the continent at thrice the speed of sound and hurtled through a final radar gate near Salisbury, Md.

Elapsed time for the 2,404.05 miles from coast to coast: 68 minutes and 17 seconds, a mark that shattered by 2V2 hours the old transcontinental airspeed record. Average speed: 2,112.52 m.p.h. Not bad for an aging airplane ending an era in aviation. For the final to Vietnam, wonders why The police whisked them to the airport. The airplane was waiting.

Tuoy's family and 44 other Vietnamese refugees were forced back to their homeland, the first time that had happened since the Vietnamese exodus to Hong Kong began more than a decade ago. Tuoy, 33, sat huddled with his family one recent morning in the cabin of his father's fishing boat, still wondering why the Hong Kong authorities chose to make an example of him. His children sat around him in overcoats, their noses running and their knees bobbing to keep warm in the raw Haiphong winter. Tuoy's wife, Le Thi Su. 32, served (See VIETNAMESE on 14-A) By Michael E.

Ruane Inquirer Statl Writer CHANTILLY, Va. Just before dawn yesterday, in the frigid temperatures of the stratosphere, an eerie-looking black aircraft took a running start off the Pacific Coast, belched green flame from its engines and flung itself inland. With skunks painted on its tailfins, the craft shot through the atmosphere faster than a rifle bullet, its titanium fuselage expanding slightly from the 550-degree temperatures generated by air friction. Forced back a boat family By Vernon Loeb Inquirer Stall Writer HAIPHONG, Vietnam The trip to Hong Kong took 10 days on the high seas and cost Le Van Tuoy his simple wooden fishing boat. The trip back to Haiphong took an hour on an airplane and cost Tuoy his dreams.

Tuoy sees no justice in it. The Hong Kong police came pounding on his door early one morning in December, rousing Tuoy, his wife and their five children from bed. "It was inhumane," Tuoy said during a recent interview. "All my children cried. The police were very well-armed with clubs and shields and tear gas." There was no use protesting.

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