The Billings Gazette from Billings, Montana • 6

IU1 In irsom wirt iweaflrocoiy, with assaulting one civilian and the premeditated murder of 102 others at My Lai, but his court-martial, being held at Ft. McPherson, is in recess until Sept. 8. Henderson's trial is in recess until Tuesday. However, a special hearing to determine whether Barker ever made a complete report on the operation will resume Friday.

The hearing has run concurrently with the trial, but without the jury present. FT. MEADE, Md. (AP) no time were civilians gathered together and killed by Charlie Company," Col. Oran K.

Henderson wrote his commanding general five weeks after the My Lai massacre. The first public quotation from Henderson's April 24, 1968, report was read Wednesday at a court-martial where the former brigade commander faces charges of trying to conceal "the intentional infliction of death or injury upon 1968, search and destroy operation. Lt. William L. Calley Jr.

was convicted of killing at least 22 civilians. Of the four officers mentioned in Henderson's letter only Calhoun and Capt. Ernest Medina Charlie Company's commander are living. Lt. Col.

Frank A. Barker, the Task Force commander and Capt. Earl R. Michaels, who commanded another infantry company, died in a helicopter crash three months after My Lai. Medina has been charged prove," and nothing further was read from the letter.

In its investigation of the My Lai incident, a House subcommittee said the Henderson report briefly described the action, reported that 20 non-combatants were killed "and concluded that their deaths resulted when they were inad-, vertently caught in preparatory fire and cross fires." Numerous witnesses have testified at previous My Lai trials that Charlie Company received no return fire in the March 16, signed at Ft. Monroe, Va. "I don't recall any questions about possible misconduct in the operation." Maj. Carroll J. Tichenor, the prosecutor, asked, "Do you feel you would presently recall if you were questioned by Col.

Henderson if people were gathered together and shot by Charlie Company." Again Calhoun said he wasn't questioned. Defense attorney Henry D. Rothblatt objected that Tichenor was trying through questions "to suggest what he can't Henderson, in the 1 '2-page report to Maj. Gen. Samuel W.

Koster, who commanded the Americal Division, said he arrived at the conclusion after interviewing four officers. But on the witness stand one of the four, Maj. Charles C. Calhoun, the operations officer of Task Force Barker, said he had never been questioned by Henderson about the atrocities. "I possibly could have been queried by Col.

Henderson concerning the conduct of the operation," said Calhoun, now as Annexafon of ffie Heights: 1 pum or rocc? I By ROGER CLAWSON Gazette Staff Writer One of the biggest little non-cities in Montana lives in fear on the edge of Billings. The community is Billings Heights and the fear is a para-noiac dread that it will be swallowed whole by the noisey, 8 high-tax city to the west Billings. Periodically, a politician at city hall slams his fist on the table and calls for the annexation of the Heights Immediately, battle 1 With such great new campus fashions, you might not expect us to have great lines are drawn and the resi- dents of the unincorporated community to the east dig in to resist. Someday perhaps city hall's dream will be real-ized. It is then that the city may discover it has swal- lowed a rock.

THE HEIGHTS near-1 ly one third as large as Bil-lings in area has a popula- tion greater than Big OO.l: values, too. But we aay. ber, Hardin and Forsyth combined. There are more people (5,500) in the Heights than in Lau- rel. The city hall rationale for annexation is "Add more population and property to the city, and you increase the tax base.

A broader tax base means more cash in city coffers and a healthier city." What this country needs is a good s50 suit. The blazer's back. Teamed with pleats. And Penney priced. '20 ANALYSIS 1 i Here it is.

The Trio Suit. Long point collar shirt, 2 button cuffs. Dacron 9 polyestercotton prints. 5.98 Double breasted look in herringbone tweed of woolpolyester cottonviscose rayon bonded with acetate. Burgundy or navy.

5 to 13. Men's Dept. MAIN FLOOR But it would stretch the imagination of any cost accoun- tant to find a profit in adding the Heights to Billings The bulk of the area is not subdivided. Homes have been built on half-acre, two-acre, and 10-acre plots. Sj The population although substantial is spread thin, Fire protection would require several new stations.

gi Unlike the flat farmground west of Billings, where crops of suburban homes spring up in orderly rows, Heights terrain is uneven. i Providing sewer service would cost the city more than it 8 would realize in taxes for many, many years. PROOF, perhaps, that annexation of the Heights would be no bargain is the community's refusal to incorporate even though incorporation would end the threat of annexa- tion by Billings. The costs of such a move, say Heights property owners, would be prohibitive. $1 But the dream of conquering the Heights lingers at city hall where Mayor Willard Fraser once remarked: "They're there because we're here." Heights' forces have destroyed the old adage: "You can't $: fight city hall." The attempt to drag the Heights kicking and screaming into Billings' city limits has failed.

The city has reached out along old Highway 10, but only the willing have been captured. A motel complex needing city water was annexed. The city bounds were stretched to include a truck stop that was drowning in its own sewer. Only those in dire need of the city consent to annexation. HEIGHTS residents have pooled cash and energy to fight liberalization of Montana's annexation statutes in Helena.

'Western' styling with flap pockets and belted jacket. 100 cotton corduroy that stays crisp looking. Rugged shades of camel or brown. Money from the Heights poured into Billings during the last city election to support candidates who might be less ag-. gressive in the local annexation war.

'4 The Heights though ruled by no governmental body of its own represents a political force of no small moment in Yellowstone County. 1 The annex-the-Heights fixation of the local politicians is perhaps a hangover of the days when it appeared certain Bil- lings was bound to grow eastward. Grandiose plans for suburban enterprises lined the high- Regulars, 34-44. Longs, 37-44. Matching and contrasting flare leg slacks.

1 kWll SPECIAL PURCHASE! url io98 Men's sweater of 100 virgin lambs wool. Machine washable. Placket front and collar. In bright new fashion shades. way.

Today, the rural havens are yet undeveloped. A huge supermarket with boarded-up windows symbolizes a com-munity with a great future all of it in the past. As late as the late 1960s expensive out-of-state planners were advising Billings officials to prepare for the eastward boom. BUT THE subdivides already had seen the light and were buying com and beet ground west of the city to build their new neighborhoods. The development of the Heights as a densely settled ur- jj ban area had major drawbacks that soon became apparent.

At the fairgrounds the Rims both north and south constrict the valley to form a natural barrier to the vital links needed to attach an eastern appendage to the city proper. The city's heavy industry mostly located between Bil- lings and the Heights spews the lion's share of the local air pollution into the prevailing winds that carry it down the val- ley. Billings like nearly every American city now ap- pears bound to grow upwind, uphill and upriver. But meanwhile, a large community lives in the semi-ur- i ban, semi-rural environment of the Heights. Ladies' 100 Acrylic or polyester knit sweaters, mock turtle and full tur-tleneck styles.

White, black, red, navy and ivory. Sizes S-M-L. Sizes S-M-L-XL MAIN FLOOR Special buy. 30" Footlockers. Feature sheet steel covering, wood sides, removable molded tray.

si MAIN FLOOR 988 (X 88 SECOND FLOOR 15 OTHER STYLES IN FOOTLOCKERS PRICED Other Sweater Styles 8.98 to 18.98 THE HEIGHTS has become the "halfway house" for the local rural-to-urban migration. Heights people are not city people; they resist "citifica-tion." They are the former farmers who have taken jobs in the city but refuse to live there. They are people who are horrified by the prospect of having a neighbor's house 10 feet from their bedroom window. They raise large gardens, chickens, pip and horses. Many would like to move not to the city, but 40 miles further out.

Many believe Billings is "no place to raise children." They see the city as a jungle, its children delinquent, its schools riddled with drug pushers. Above all, they are not a part of Billings nor are they ready to become part of the city. The city may someday annex the Heights. It also may drill a tunnel through the rims. Our money says the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the tunnel will come first.

JCPenney The values are here every day. DOWNTOWN BILLINGS il Charge It! Shop On Thursday and Friday 9:15 a.m. until 9 p.m. Saturday 9: 15 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.

Ride The Elevator To All Floors.