Star-Gazette from Elmira, New York • 49

Worldl Aratis Mace Booms As UoSo Triples Sales WE SELL cent of the world's known oil reserves. Iran, which seems ambitious to dominate the Persian Gulf region, ranks as the United States' premier cash customer. Its orders for more than $2 billion worth of fighter planes, helicopters, tanks and ordnance represented about half of all U.S. arms sales in fiscal 1973. On top of this, Pentagon officials anticipate another $1 billion in sales to Iran in the new fiscal year.

Pentagon officials insist that the State 'Department, which has final say, will Perspective 1 1 Sunday Telegram For lhc Twin Ticrs Elmira.N.Y., July 29, 1973 Page IE ickey Mouse Called Key To Comic Figure Collection probably as replacements for worn out or damaged gear. Over-all, intelligence specialists guess that Russia sold about $700 million in arms last year throughout the Third World nations, including India which Russia supported against Pakistan in the Struggle over Bangladesh. Giant Communist China is still a pygmy in the world arms trade, limiting itself to about $75 million last year. Most of this went to Pakistan and for a low-key duel with Russia for favor among African countries, where a few planes and guns carry a lot of weight. West European countries seem to guard their arms sales figures about as closely as do the Communists, but U.S.

experts believe the French, British and others have more than $2 billion in Third World orders on the books, still to be delivered. Apart from oil and international power politics, there are strong economic impulses behind the arms sales drive by the United States and other Western nations. Clements, the Pentagon's civilian second in command, argues that military equipment sales abroad exert a "constantly increasing favorable impact on the national economy." In other words, as Clements sees it, such foreign sales can keep U.S. defense industries healthy at a time when American military orders are sagging after the Vietnam war. Furthermore, boosters claim that the high cost of certain aircraft and weapons for the U.S.

armed services can be reduced by selling large numbers of them to other nations. They also contend that the money taken in from overseas arms customers helps ease this country's chronic balance-of-payments problem. American analysts say some of these same forces are working to stimulate European industrial nations to race for weapons business abroad. Now weapons are just shiny toys to boost military egos. Everybody's prices are going up because of inflation, as well as the increased complexity of modern weapons that the more affluent Third World countries are demanding these days.

In this case at least, the devaluation of the dollar may help by making American armaments more competitive in the world market But Pentagon officials complain the United States is hobbled competitively, particularly in Latin America, because of restrictions that Congress has imposed on credit terms this country can offer. Besides the French and the Russians, the British have been scoring sales successes in Latin American with frigates and warplanes, the Italians with artillery and planes, the Canadians with aircraft they make, ironically, under U.S. license. The Dutch and the Swedes have also sold warships there. Congressional critics say Latin American and other Third World nations should spend their money on social and economic works to better their people, that new weapons are Just shiny toys to boost military egos.

Advocates of a strong U.S. selling effort in Latin America counter that governments there are going to spend on weapons anyway, even if they cannot get them from this country; that an unfettered American operation actually would exert a moderating influence by convincing the Latins that they should buy cheaper, simpler equipment, such as the U.S. F5 International supersonic fighter, instead of expensive and sophisticated gear like the Mirage. President Nixon apparently has been persuaded. Last month, he gave permission for sale of U.S.

F5s to Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. Encouraged by the trend in ad-' ministration thinking, Pentagon officials are tentatively planning a $200 million sales program in Latin America in the year ahead, about double the current level. But standing in the way of an aggressive U.S. arms sales counterattack in Latin-America is a congressional edict, which, in effect, limits total U.S. military aid grants and sales there to about $150 million a year.

In Congress' present mood, it appears more likely to tighten curbs than to relax them. By AUDREY MORSE Gannett News Service BEACON, N.Y. A collector of comic character "icons," who says he's amassed the largest assemblage ever, believes the images of Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop, Donald Duck and other Walt Disney figures "are like a religious order in a certain way parallel to Greek gods." Mel Birnkrant, creative director for the toy company Colorforms, believes in the Invalidity ot comic cnaracier images, tie's collected the likenesses of cartoon By FRED S. HOFFMAN WASHINGTON (AP) Led by the United States, the world's industrial rations are scrambling to peddle more and more arms in a competition sharpened by the oil shortage, international power politics and economic problems. U.S.

arms sales have tripled, to $4.5 billion a year, since the Nixon administration reversed the nation's course in 1970 and began pushing the products of American defense plants in. overseas' markets. Those sales are due to jump another $900 million in the fiscal year that began July 1. This disturbs some influential members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who want to put a brake on the trend. As one Senate source put it, "The committee basic feeling is that the United States should do what it can to tamp down the arms race, not heat it up." Pentagon officials reply that U.S.

restraint in the late 1960s did not discourage arms buying, but sent the buyers to other countries eager to fill their orders. If other arms dealing countries are worried about being labeled "merchants of death," they don't show it. Russia is estimated to export military gear, including supplies for its East European allies, at a rate of about $2 billion a year. One U.S. expert said, "The Soviets will sell anywhere they can," with political influence the motive.

Although it cannot match United States in output, France has been giving this country a competitive run in Latin America and to some extent in the Persian Gulf area, today's best arms market. 'The Soviets ill sell anywhere they can9 with political influence the motive. Other arms vendors include Britain, Italy, Canada, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Israel, which is developing its own missiles and small arms, is looking for customers abroad and has found at least one, Nationalist China. Even India, long identified with a pacifist philosophy, displayed a readiness to sell tanks, war planes and other weapons from its factories during an international trade fair in New Delhi last fall.

Two industrial heavyweights, West Germany and Japan, have been concentrating on their own military requirements and have refrained from plunging into the world competition on a major scale, although Germany has sold freely to its NATO allies. Both Germany and Japan still are somewhat hesitant about stirring up negative memories of World War II, but U.S. officials are confident they will not hold back much longer. About 80 or" 90 countries, mostly in the developing "Third World" of the Mideast, Latin America, Asia and Africa, are buying weapons, and U.S. experts report demand is rising.

The oil-rich Persian Gulf states were bound to become the prime arms market because, as one analyst said, "They have the money and the desire." But the energy crisis has intensified the maneuverings of oil-short Western nations to gain or cement friendships with Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and a group of small emirates. Along with Iraq, these Persian Gulf states contain about 70 per poses with some of his Mickey Washington, D.C. The centers will work this way: A panel of local auto dealers and consumers will review written complaints from consumers. The panel will then contact the dealer involved an' try to iron out the customer-dealer dispute. The panels "are not arbitration boards" says Mrs.

Knauer. Their recommendations, therefore, will not be binding on either consumer or dealer. The program's planners, however, maintain that "peer pressure" from dealer panelists and public exposure through press coverage will force dealers to respond to legitimate complaints. Experience with similar complaint panels, such as that set up by the major appliance industry, shows them to be an "easy, informal, inexpensive method of of his mouse flock that's been unpacked from endless numbers of cartons, "is that there are so many different images (of MM). But no matter how he's altered, he still retains his identity." Mickey still sells the most toys, and novelty items, says Birnkrant, who collects some of the old articles, such as jewelry worn by adult women during the MMheydey, 1930 tol936." "I saw a cast iron MM bank in a Paris flea market.

It was a very beautiful sculpture and I got very turned on to it," he says. "I am interested in an image that's so strong it's believable. I've tried to get the ones that have; the most potential for coming alive at midnight," says the man who dreams of someday running a modern art museum to house his comic characters. Birnkrant, who has made a large wall clock featuring the flip-flopping MM, says the one mouse item he'd most like to own is the 50-foot baloon flown in the Macy's 'Thanksgiving Day parade. "I would float it over my house," he says.

"I'm putting out a big plea for anybody with mice to write me at Box 254, Beacon. And if there's anything I like better than getting a Mickey Mouse, it's getting a MM that needs fixing." reject specific arms deals unless the country buying the weapons has a valid security requirement and there is assurance the buyer will not use them to threaten its neighbors. But Deputy Secretary of Defense William P. Clements who is more candid than many other officials, acknowledged recently there are other important considerations involved in the proposed sale of up to 30 F4 Phantom jet fighters to Saudi Arabia and perhaps some F4s to Kuwait. "Would we in tact rather do this, maintain the excellent relationships that we have had through the years with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, who are very close to us and with whom we have these ongoing problems of petroleum and energy and regional mutual Or would we rather just in default let the French sell them Mirages?" Clements asked rhetorically, leaving no doubt he favors the F4 sales.

The Kuwait and Saudi Arabian deals are shaping up to about $500 million apiece in cash, perhaps more eventually, for an array of tanks, warplanes, antiaircraft weapons, ships and other materiel. And while the Saudi Arabians are negotiating for U.S.-made planes, they are said to be planning to buy about 30 Jaguar supersonic fighters worth about $120 million from an Anglo-French manufacturing combine. At the same time, the hustling French reportedly have completed their first sale of Mirage jet fighters in the Persian Gulf region with a 28-plane order from the United Arab Emirates. According to U.S. calculations, the French have sold about 450 Mirages to less developed countries.

Despite a general atmosphere of detente between the United States and Russia, the East-West rivalry is very much alive in the Persian Gulf area and. the rest of the Middle East. As a counterweight to U.S.backed Iran, Russia and Communist Czechoslovakia have steadily been building up Iraq, with MIG jet fighters, powerful missile-firing patrol boats and other first-line weapons. this year, the Czechs and Iraqis signed a new $80 million arms pact, U.S. -intelligence sources said.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the United States extends about $300 million a year to Israel, in credit sales of Phantom jets and other U.S. weapons. Obviously, Washington hopes the Persian Gulf Arab states will not hold that against this country and cut off oil, which is another reason for U.S. open handedness in arms sales there. American officials admit frankly they have trouble telling how much of Communist arms shipments to the Middle East and other places are outright gifts and how much involve cash, credit or barter sales.

Even though Russia and Egypt have become estranged, U.S. intelligence says many Soviet cargo ships still unload military goods in Egyptian ports, Mouse flock. handling disputes," says Mrs. Knauer. Consumer can take unsolved complaints on to formal arbitration or to court.

Planners estimate, though, that 75 per cent of complaints won't go beyond the original "jawboning" of dealers by local panels. Plans for other local centers as well as a national automotive complaint center are in the works. And most major auto manufactuers have voiced their support, Mrs. Knauer says. Are you prepared for the minor medical emergencies that occur on a vacation trip by car? The American Automobile Association suggests that you pack a personalized medical kit along with the standard first aid kit it also recommends.

Among the items AAA thinks you might ''1 characters "consciously, since I was 10 years old." Mickey Mouse holds the key to his fascination with comic figures. "Mickey was the first sound-synchronized movie cartoon," notes Binkrant. "Imagine the impact of it at the time," he says of the Sept. 28, 1928, debut. The toy designer says there's "never been a phenomenon like it since," of the reaction to "an image that could really move to a great beat Mickey Mouse was an adult-oriented thing, like Charlie Chaplin." 1 "A piece of wood fashioned into a character takes on human aspects," says Birnkrant.

"like life form in imitation of humans. The whole world of cartoons is like a religious order in a certain way, parallel to Greek gods. Who's to say they don't exist and those dolls are icons, figures which represent the images?" Birnkrant is more than a little rueful that the Disney people didn't leave the original image alone. "MM is nothing more than a bunch oE geometric shapes. His body is not real.

His ears are not ears, but black circles. His hands are a ball with three cylinders sticking out. His arms are just like rubber hoses." Birnkrant feels that other non-existant images, such as Pinocchio in Italy and Peter Pan in England, are regarded as real by children. "There's some strain in people that they can believe in an image of life," he says. Birnkrant has thousands of comic character items, a collection that includes figures, dolls, books, toys, pins, film strips, clocks and novelty items like a coal shovel with a Mickey Mouse insignia and a metal, link purse with image of MM woven as design.

MM items represent la- Cast-iron Mickey Mouse and personal value, not monetary," he says. "The antique dealers came along and spoiled the fun of collecting. "I'm very, very selective," says Birnkrant of what comic character items he wants. "Most people can't tell the difference between good MM and bad MM. Collectors only want the old.

The newer it gets, the ickier it gets, with a pink face and human-like hands. "The Disney people really destroyed iMM," he says of the character's "transformation" in 1937 when the mouse received eyes that could move from side to side instead of pie-shaped eyes. "Disney shot him (MM) out of the saddle with Snow White. He was always searching for reality and was dedicated to finding and improving, correcting flaws," says Birnkrant. The designer, who insists that Mickey Mouse toys Colorforms products use the "old" MM, says the character was "a collection of the faults of early animation.

They corrected his flaws by getting better at the new film process." But Mickey's image was destroyed in the process of overcoming the early flaws, says Birnkrant, whose childhood "dream to work for the Disney studio was shattered when he saw the "factory-like conditions" at the Hollywood company after high school graduation. "As a personality, MM got diluted. He was rather a naughty little guy and then he became bland and placid. The Disney studio was so oriented to reality, that as time went on, they arrived at a point where they could no longer rationalize the existance of a two-foot tall mouse. He was dropped as a character because he didn't fit." "The fantastic thing about MM," Birnkrant says as he surveys a small part to 7 Cities 1 ciUUUl a uiu ui mo aoociiiuiagc.

"What I'm interested in is not i nostalgia," says Birnkrant, who is annoyed that MM items are now considered valuable and the cost of collecting has skyrocketed. "I saw a great value great artistic Consumer Notes Auto Complaint Mel Birnkrant By MARION MARTIN Gannett News Service WASHINGTON A new remedy for the "number one consumer complaint" a malfunctioning automobile will soon be tested in seven localities across the country. A "high percentage" of the $20-25 billion consumers spend annually on auto maintenance and repairs is unnecessary, a new study says. The proposed "cure" for consumer gripes about unsatisfactory car repairs and built-in defects is an automobile complaint center. The National Automobile Dealers Association, at the urging of presidential consumer adviser Virginia Knauer, is establishing pilot centers in these seven areas: Denver; Cleveland; Orlando, Salt Lake City; Portland, Harrisburg, and want to take along are tweezers, aspirin, antihistamines, an antacid, paregoric and a small pencil-style flashlight for locating splinters or for finding a foreign object in the eye.

It's important, too, to consult your family doctor on possible medical needs, says AAA especially since he can tell you what to leave at home The government is considering stricter regulations of what goes Into that "spicy meatball." The Department of Agriculture has proposed requirements for commercially prepared meatballs that would set a 65 per cent minimum for ground meat content. The meat could contain no more than 30 per cent fat Centers Soon Open in.