The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 37

METROPOLITAN NEVS EDITORIALS fi-ll 1 ii VOL LXXXII cc THURSDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 21, 1963 Timet Mirror Squara, Lot Angelai, Calif. 90053 MAditon 5-2343 Angry Yorly Shuts Off r- il CP it imiaiK rn tr fe-rrs 1 issvuyyoyiiiB Orders Vice Squat A I Irked by Television Man's Questions About- Copter Use By Erwin Baker Unit Chief Among 4 Shifted i i LUCKY PILOT Gene Butler looks over wreckag of his three-place helicopter which crashed on Signal Hill while making an approach to Long Beach Municipal Airport. Machine clipped on oil derrick but missed a storage tank. BY THE WAY i Democrats Offer Campaisn Theme BY BILL HENRY WIFE WEEPS IN COURT Mrs. James Craig weept as she talks to attorneys James Tenner, left, and Howard F.

Potter after judge freed her actor hus-bond on his promise to take alcoholism treatments. Times photo wirepnoi Pilot Unhurt in Signal Hill Copter Crash A three-place Bell helicop ter was demolished during an attempted emergency landing in Signal Hill oil field Wednesday, but the pilot escaped with only a skinned hand. Gene Butler, 37, Santa Barbara, was approaching Long Beach Municipal Airport when the helicopter engine failed at AM it. altitude. Butler tried to make a crash landing with the rotors slowing his descent, but one blade 6truck an oil derrick, causing the helicop ter to flip and crash into the ground.

Investigators said Butler was saved from death or serious injury by a safety belt which held him in the seat as the helicopter broke up. SAFE DRIVER RATES UPHELD BY STATE Insurance Commissioner Replies to Judge Who Feared Arbitrary Fixing of Premiums State Insurance Commissioner Stafford R. Grady on Mayor Samuel W. Yorty angrily ended his weekly news conference Wednes day in a row with a questioner over use of a city helicopter. The controversy quickly spread to the City Council Yorty abruptly called off questions after a television newsman persisted in asking him for details of a luncheon ast week with Superior Judge Evelle Younger and others at Hillcrest Country Cluh.

The telecaster implied that! politics was the primary reason for the meeting since Younger has indicated he will be a candidate for dis trict attorney. And he raised the ques Uon as to whether it was proper for the mayor to use a Fire Department copter to transport him to the club from City Hall. Called Petty Criticizing the questioning as "petty," the mayor de fended his action, maintain ing that city business was involved in the discussions, as well as other matters. "As far as I am concerned. it was a public relations matter for the city," Yorty declared.

When the questioner ze roed in on the "political" business again, Yorty retort ed: "You draw a very fine line because the city of Los Angeles may be interested in the mayor knowing all of the candidates for district attorney so I'll know the district attorney when he is there. I have to deal with that office all the time and with the judges some of the time." Returning to the attack, Please Turn to Pg. 3, Col. 1 identified as president of Riviera and the affiliated firms from 1960 until last Sept. 17, when he resigned, Robert Wmings, 1109 Navar ro West Covina, and Stanley Myers, 7813 Green-bush Van Nuys, identi fied as.

vice presidents of Riviera and the three affili ated firms; David R. Glick man, 9465 Wilshire identified as secretary-trea surer of Riviera until he resigned last Sept. 21 and as a lormer vice president of the three affiliated firms and George T. Demnsev. 4701 Almidor Woodland Hills.

Dempsey Identified Dempsey was identified in the licensing complaint as doing business as Dempsey Pools, a licensed swimming pool, masonry and cement contractor, and as the "re sponsible managing officer" of Riviera and the three affiliated firms from Nov. 9, 1962, to July 13, 1963. The complaint listed five instances in May and June in which Riviera contracted with homeowners to furnish Please Turn to Pg. 12, Col. 1 Wednesday defended the so-called safe driver rating plan employed by many concerns selling auto insurance Firms Investigated for Failure to Finish Pools 160 Jobs Not Completed, Liens Filed Against Homeowners, Complaint Says Major shifts of administrative vice squad officeri were ordered by Police Chief William Parker Wednesday following a month-long investigation of ita operations.

Four officers were transferred, including the unit' commander. Insp. John Kinsling, who conducted the investigation, said some of the officeri were guilty of "not passing on information to the rest of the department that they should have." "Sometimes, when you work in administrative vice too long," he said, "you don't see anything wrong with certain things." He would not elaborate. Denies Reports Kinsling denied reports that vice squad officers had irregular connections with underworld interests. If the investigation had turned up evidence of protected vice, he "these officers would hav been suspended rather than transferred." Captain Shifted Capt.

Charles Stanley, commander of administrative vice for 11 years, was shifted to the business office night watch. Sgt. Ira B. Dole also on the squad 11 years, was transferred to the Foothill Division. Two patrolmen.

Charles II. Holmes with 9Vi years administrative vice duty, and Albert A. Murphy. with iVi years, were trans ferred to West Valley and 77th St. Divisions, respec-' tively.

Another department spokesman said that the basic, mission of administrative vice "is to gather information and submit it, rather than to compete with the vice squads in the different patrol "The tendency," he "when you keep men on administrative vice too long is that they get too competitive with other squads." Administration Function Each patrol division has its own vice squad, whose work is supplemented and co-ordinated by administrative vice, he said. Kinsling said he had ho knowledge of reports that investigators from the Inter nal Revenue Service also were checking vice squad personnel. "This thing has been blown up into a he said. "Sure, vice officeri are places every day where people shouldn't be. That's their job." Capt.

Harry A. Nelsoru Hollywood Division m- mander, succeeds Capt Please Turn to Pg. 12, CoL of destroying any semblanci of balance, however dynamic, in our urban transportation. It is the Imminent loss of alternatives that constitutes the real crisis in community transportation, he added. "The crisis of disappearing, urban transportation alternatives has its social its economic and its technological aspects.

All are aggravated by the increasing urbanization of the United States and its rapid growth in population," the official Baidt William D. McBwen, senior design engineer for ths Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, and B. It. Stokes, general manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, addressed later sessions of tint conference. James Craig Timet phot Craig Gives Up, Promises to Enter Hospital Film actor Jame3 Craig, 51, sought on a bench warrant for failing to attend a divorce hearing, surrendered voluntarily Wednes-: day and pleaded successfully for his release.

Earlier Superior' Judge Roger Alton Pfaff directed that he be taken to General Hospital to determine whe ther he might endanger himself or his wife, Jane, 21), because of excessive use of alcohol. But the actor and his attorneys, James Tenner and Maurice Harwick, told the judge he has arranged for treatment at UCLA Me dical Center. Craig was ordered re leased until the Dec. 19 domestic relations hearing, Wife in Court Mrs. Craig, who appeared in court with her lawyer, Howard F.

Potter, accuses Craig of disobeying an order barring him from her home, 12755 Oxnard North Hollywood. She charged that last Oct. 15 he cut a chain on her door, beat her and destroyed much of her clothing. Mrs. Craig has said she still loved her husband and did not want a divorce.

She is trying to help him back toi a normal life, she added. But Craig said he intended to file a cross-suit for divorce. The actor said he had not appeared in court the previous day because Mrs. Craig would not let him get his clothing out of her house. They were married last March 17.

Phone Union Bars Further Bargaining The Communications Workers of America will attempt no further negotia tions in the '33-day strike General Telephone the union announced Wednesday. i The company is guilty of not bargaining in good faith by refusing to meet unless assured the union would change its position, Louis B. Knecht, director of CWA District 9, charged. Robert Wellman, a compa ny spokesman, said General's final offer" of a 3.5 wage increase was made Oct. 18.

industry spokesman who interpreted this as "general reluctance to engage in an all-out price war." Dan Lundberg, whose Lundberg Surveys Inc. runs surveys on petroleum prices, said the spotty price cutting appeared in Long Beach, Alhambra, Covina, Azusa and in Bellflower with pri ces being cut as much as 6 cents a gallon. Sancie Ann Back in Hall; Father Angry Sancie Ann Moreland, 3, was quietly discharged from Childrens Hospital Wednesday night and returned to McLaren Hall, a place immediately branded by her father as "a prison when it comes to a child that needs love." The' child, center of a bitter custody battle, was taken from the hospital by juvenile authorities at 6 p.m., a half-hour after Robert J. Moreland, 30, left her side. The move caught Moreiana by surprise.

"I left believing she would remain there at least overnight," Moreland said when informed by The Times of the "She was beginning to feel secure in the Please Turn to Pg. 2, Col. 1 If the developments of the past few days can be taken as an accurate guide, the 1964 Kennedy Presidential campaign is beginning to take shape. Better get out your crying towels, folks, it's going to be a big pitch for sympathy. Three rather good sources were heard from recently: (1) Presidential Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, (2) Presidential aide and speech-writer Ted Sorensen, and (3) John F.

Kennedy himself. There were tears in all three voices. Now don't get me wrong. President Kennedy is no cry-baby. Quite the contrary.

He's the toughest sort of in-fight er. His tears are not for himself. He will shed big salty ones for the unemployed, for the aged and infirm, for the school dropouts, in the hope of convincing these people there are millions of them that if they are out of work, or old, or sick, or for some reason didn't stay in school, it is the fault of the Republicans. He made all of this rather plain in the course of his recent speech to the AFL-CIO convention in New York City. He can be counted upon to cut up the Republicans with his highly effective blend of humor and sarcasm.

He will, however, be on the defensive. That's the fate of the incumbents in politics and he must thus reverse the position he held when he could attack and it was up to Dick Nixon to defend the Eisenhower administration in 1960. The President is not a defense-minded politician and he can be expected to charge that he would have cured everybody's troubles during his first term if it had not been for the Republicans. He'll leave most of the tear-shedding to others who will campaign for him, and apparently they're getting in practice already. The President's own tough campaigning will, no doubt, cause some wailing in the ranks of the Republicans.

Newspaper Editors Are Wicked In a speech; last week which received very little publicity Pierre Salinger, the White House press secre- tary, appealed to the International Labor Press Assn. to support the administration's point of view. He complained that the "commercial press," meaning the daily newspapers, 'buried" the disclosures of Republican stockpile skulduggery while "playing up" the Billie Sol Estes case which involves the administration. Denying charges that the Democratic administration is "managing" the news, he said the real culprits are the newspaper editors. Asserting that the administration has "decided" to publicize charges that companies connected with former cabinet officers of the Eisenhower administration earned windfall profits from questionable stockpiling con-tracts, 1 Salinger said the Democrats will use televi- sion, radio and "other ways" to bring their message to the public.

He appealed to the labor press to assist by reaching "the people who care." The Appeal to the Lady Voters While Salinger was speaking to the labor press in New York, presidential bosom friend Sorenson was talking to the Women's National Democratic Club and describing the President as a "creative, compassionate, courageous man with a sense of history, humility and humor" who dares to champion unpopular causes "because he cares." Mr. Kennedy's "compassionate heart," Sorenson said, "cares about the one million who are both out of school and out of work about the victims of thalidomide and other untested drugs about the about the retired worker who has no health insurance about the migrant worker who has no medicaid services." He called on the ladies to do more than admire the President's courage to support him on difficult issues he risks his name and fame, we cannot cower in a corner," said Sorenson. in California. In a letter to Pasadena Municipal Judge Joseph Sprankle Grady said a thorough study" by th Department of Insurance showed the rating plan to be "sound" and not "unfairly discriminatory." The letter was in reply to request by Judge Spran kle, chairman of the Muni cipal Court Judges for a clarification of insurance rate-fixing procedures. Fears Capricious Action The judge said he was dis turbed by, frequent statements of motorists appear ing in court and judges "in dicating an arbitrary and capricious fixing of rates or premiums by automobile in surance companies." He said he could understand careless drivers and repeated violators having to pay high premiums, but he said the impression had been left that persons guilty of minor violations also were being penalized by high rates.

System Developed Grady said it is true certain firms use a point sys tem for setting rates. He said a study made by the California Department of Motor Vehicles "showed a definite relationship be tween the number of convic tions for moving traffic violations and the number of accidents in which a driver is involved." Based on thia study, he added, the insurance firms have developed their rate- fixing plan. But, he added, except for "violations relating to braites (which certainly are related to the hazard involved), convictions for violations relating to lights or other equipment do not result in any points being charged against a driver." Judge Sprankle had said many motorists had expressed a fear that a tail-light's being out or a similar minor violation "would result in an increase of premiums of $50 or more." i Loss of City Services Laid to Suburbs' Lure State authorities Wednes day began a double-barreled investigation of Riviera Pools, and three affili ated swimming pool firms for alleged failure to com plete more than 160 pools in the San Fernando Valley and Covma areas. Revocation or suspension of the contracting licenses of Riviera and its officials was asked in a complaint filed with the Contractors' State License Board by its investigator, James Proctor. At the same time, Chief Dep.

Atty. Gen. Charles O'Brien and Chief Dept. Dist Atty. Manley J.

Bowler announced they have subpoenaed Riviera's books and records as part of a joint investigation of complaints from homeowners that Ri viera failed to make good on its contracts. Contractor Liens O'Brien said complaints indicated Riviera failed to pay its subcontractors, resulting in the filing of contractors' liens against more than 160 San Fernando Valley residents who ordered and paid for pools. Filing of the liens has forced some homeowners to pay up to twice the amount of their original $3,300 contracts, O'Brien said. Riviera's offices at 8740 Remmet Canoga Park, also was the headquarters of the affiliated companies listed as Empire Pools, Pools ide Equipment Co. and Riviera Star Pools.

O'Brien said the offices are now closed. Officers of the firms could not be reached- for comment. Named in the licensing complaint were Morris Becker, 3541 Caribeth Encino, 300 SERVICE STATIONS CUT GASOLINE PRICES Suburbia's residents want the enjoymen't3 of their neighborhoods and the servi ces of a great urban area, too, a transportation expert said here Wednesday. John C. Kohl, assistant administrator for transportation of the Housing and Home Finance was the keynote speaker at the "Crises in Community Trans portation" Institute spon sored by Los Angeles State College at the Pasadena Civil Defense Center.

Cities are threatened, he said, with the loss of diverse forms of mass traiisit streetcar, bus, taxi, rapid transit and commuter railroad for virtual depen dence upon only one, the private automobile. we are in grave danger Gasoline prices skittered around erratically Wednesday in wha appeared to be a half-hearted price war. About-300 of the 6,500 service stations in the Los Angeles area dropped their prices some to as little as 23.9 cents a gallon. But some turned around and started boosting their prices right back up, said an A A.