The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 9

WEDNESDAY CLOSING N.Y. STOCKS LARGEST CIRCULATION IN THE WEST, 1,034,329 DAILY, 1,332,875 SUNDAY VOL. XCVII EIGHT PARTS-PART ONE 128 PAGES WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1978 LATE FINAL Copyright 1978 Lot AngeWt Tinws DAILY 15c 'A FISCAL BOMBSHELL' LATE FINAL Inn A 3 lXi State to Pay if oir LATE NEWS-; Bradley Calls for Rent Control $80 Million Windfall Announced Dow Stretches Rally MORRIS THE TV CAT DIES; GRUMPY GOURMET WAS 17 CHICAGO CW-Morris, the finicky cat on 9-Lives television commercials, is dead at the age of 17, the pet food company said today. Morris' veterinarian, Dr. Barbara Stein, said the cat died Friday and was buried in suburban Lombard on the grounds of the home he shared with his handler, Bob Martwick.

She said Morris' death was associated with cardiac complications related to old age. At 17, Morris was the equivalent of a 90-year-old human, she said. Morris was found in 1966 in a Chicago-area humane shelter by an animal handler searching for an orange cat to appear in a television ad. At the age of 7, Morris starred in his first commercial for 9-Lives and for the next 10 years made more than 40 television commercials. In the ads, Morris typified a lazy, indulged feline, peevishly perverse and disdainful of his unseen master.

His sarcastic wit was conveyed by a sneering human voice. A spokesman said Morris' role will be taken over by a cat who has served as an understudy. He, too, will be known as Morris. jfr'i Fram Tlmtt Wlro Sorvkts NEW YORK-The stock market managed another gain today, stretching its recent rally though a fifth session. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials closed up 3.64 at 824.93.

New York Stock Exchange volume was about 26.6 million shares compared with 27.4 million Tuesday. Tables in Financial Section 2 Boys Admit Burying Girl Two neighborhood boys, aged 8 and 5, admitted burying a 3V-year-old South Gate girl face down under a foot of dirt in a construction trench near her home, according to South Gate police, who arrested the boys for attempted murder. Juanita Escalante is reported in critical condition at Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital. She was found by her stepfather, Juan Ruiz, who pulled her out when he saw her hair protruding from an earthen mound.

The boys were not booked by police, and were released to the custody of their parents. Executives Die in Crash KENYON, Minn. (UPI)-A twin-engine Beechcraft 60 carrying executives to a sales meeting caught fire and crashed onto a farm today, killing six people. The victims worked for Rauenhorst, Bellows and Associates of Olivia, Minn. Their identities were withheld pending notification of relatives.

Postal Workers March Post office workers marched outside U.S. Postal Service facilities in Los Angeles and Long Beach today, protesting what they called management "stalling" in negotiations for a new union contract In Washington, thousands of off-duty post office employes marched on the Postal Service's headquarters chanting "No contract, no work." A leader of the Letter Carriers' Union warned that a nationwide postal strike may occur if the negotiations do not produce a new contract by July 20. Phone Strike Spreads NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ifl-Telephone officials reported some minor delays in completing long-distance calls today as a two-day-old wildcat strike spread to include workers in nine states. Pipe Bombs Dismantled Sheriffs bomb squad experts dismantled two booby-trapped pipe bombs which they said ought to have gone off when a 19-year-old Rowland Heights man picked them up outside his home early today.

James Wright said that after he was awakened by noise early this morning, he went outside and found a box with wires attached to it near his garage. He moved it to his front porch and called the sheriffs bomb squad, which evacuated eight homes and dismantled the bombs. Morris the finicky AP Wlrtphoto Terms Increases Outrageous, Backs Rollback, Freeze BY ERWIN BAKER Tlm Stiff WrlMr Los Angeles Mayor Bradley, calling for "dramatic action" to halt "outrageous" rent increases, said today he would support a rent rollback and a moratorium on further rent increases. Bradley, breaking his silence on the controversial issue, made the announcement at a City Hall news conference at which he was flanked by the City Council's two prime movers for a rollback and freeze-Council-men Ernani Bernardi and Joel Wachs. Bernardi introduced a motion Monday urging a rollback of residential rents to the level of June 6-when Proposition 13 was passed and a six-month moratorium on future rent increases.

The proposal is scheduled to be heard in the Council's Governmental Operations Committee Thursday afternoon. Wachs's proposal would require landlords to trim rents from the rates in effect June 1 by 80 of the savings they will realize under the Jarvis property tax limitation amendment. Both proposals would affect renters of single-family homes as well as apartment dwellers. Wachs has said that he could easily support the Bernardi proposal, which appeared to be somewhat stiffer than his own. Bradley also appeared to prefer the Bernardi approach, although he differed with the councilman over the question of whether it could be interpreted as a form of rent control.

Bradley said in his view it was not rent control. "It is simply a moratorium calling for a halt to outrageous rent increases and to give us time to study what appropriate steps are necessary on all implications for additional steps that ought to be put into effect to deal with this very serious problem," he said. Bradley harshly criticized "some landlords" who have boosted their rents "outrageously," and attributed their action to "greed." The mayor recalled that during the Proposition 13 campaign many statements were made that with a reduction of property taxes landlords would pass along those savings to renters. But despite the measure's adoption and "a return to landlords of substantial tax savings, in far too many cases those savings have not been passed on to renters," he said. 'PRESIDENTIAL' IMAGE 78 Carter Portrait: Less Smile, More Age Lines BY JACK McCURDY Timtt Education Wrlttr The state has given the Los Angeles city schools an extra $80 million to fund a major portion of the district's desegregation plan, which is now expected to cost $120 million in 1978-79, it was disclosed today.

The $80 million is specifically earmarked for costs of the desegregation plan approved by Superior Court Judge Paul Egly last February. The money will come to the district as part of the $4.1 billion bailout measure for schools, cities, counties and other local agencies that was approved in Sacramento two weeks ago. "This is something of a bombshell," Julian Nava remarked after he and other members of the Board of Education were told of the windfall. Allocation of the $80 million means the district should have no trouble funding the desegregation plan scheduled to start next September. The money also seriously undercuts antibusing arguments that costs of the plan will financially cripple the district.

In its first budget deliberations since the passing of Proposition 13, the board was told that as a result of the state bailout legislation, the district will be in good financial shape in 1978-79. According to one way of calculating the budget, the district will actually have about $150 million more to spend in 1978-79 than it spent this fiscal year. In any event, the $1.4 billion preliminary budget presented by Supt. William Johnston showed that the district, in effect, will have for the regular 1978-79 school program about the same revenue as budgeted in 1977-78, plus an increase equal to a 7 inflation rise. The $80 million in state aid for desegregation stems from a controversial law passed by the Legislature last year that allowed school districts such as Los Angeles to increase its property tax rate for court-mandated desegregation costs.

But before the school board had a chance to increase the rate (it was authorized to do so without voter ap-. proval) for this purpose, Proposition 13 passed, apparently wiping out the authority. As part of the bailout legislation adopted by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Brown, the state agreed to pay for a number of costs previously funded by local property tax levies. Included among such costs were those from court-mandated desegregation faced by schools.

The pickup of desegregation costs in the bailout bill had gone unnoticed until Johnston announced it today. According to a school official, all the board must do now in order to obtain the $80 million is pass a resolution declaring the money is needed. About $30 million of the $120 million for the plan consists of carryover costs for the district's ongoing voluntary busing program. Another $10 million is proposed to go to racially isolated schools that have a predominately minority population and will not be included in the desegregation plan. FEATURE INDEX ASTROLOGY.

Part 2, Page 2. BOOK REVIEW. View, Page 4. BUSINESS. Part 3, Pages 11-20.

BRIDGE. View, Page 10. CLASSIFIED. Part 5, Pages 1-28. COMICS.

View, Page 15. CROSSWORD. Part 5. Page 28. DEAR ABBY.

Part 2, Page 3. EDITORIALS, COLUMNS. Part 2, Pages 4,5. FILMS. View, Pages 8-13.

METROPOLITAN NEWS. Part 2. MUSIC. View, Page 11. SPORTS.

Part 3, Pages 1-10. STAGE. View, Pages 12, 13. TV-RADIO. View, Pages 14.

16. VITALS, WEATHER. Part 1, Page 24. WOMEN'S. View, Pages 1-7.

WASHINGTON (vP)-The smile is still there. Just less broad. The hair is grayer. And there are pronounced lines of age on the neck and brow. All in all, according to the head of the White House photo staff, President Carter's new official photograph projects a "more presidential" image.

The release of the photograph is part of a White House effort aimed at improving the public perception of the chief executive in the wake of polls showing confusion about the Administration's direction and disapproval of its performance. The color photograph, taken during a seven-minute session by Karl Schumacher, one of the White House photographers, replaces an official portrait released 11 days after Carter became President nearly 18 months ililtflillii if I1 sm fT it I BARS DISCOURAGE SHARKS Carter's 1978 portrait Cagy Swimmer Seeks Cuba U.S. Mark The first portrait showed the President displaying the famous, toothy Carter grin. The new picture is far from stern, but the grin is less pronounced. The President has reduced his display of upper teeth from 10 in the first picture to seven in the second.

Compared with the earlier, more relaxed portrait, the new one is "more official-looking," said Billie Shaddix, chief of the White House photo operation. A new portrait of Rosalynn Carter also was prepared by the White House. Carter's first official portrait was doctored by an artist, but the new picture, which has not been touched up, shows sagging skin, pouches under the eyes, and at least four neck wrinkles. Few such blemishes can be seen in the original picture. 'A MIAMI (UPD Marathon swimmer Walter Poenisch took off on his 90-mile Havana-to-Florida "Swim for peace" with a personal escort assigned by Fidel Castro, Havana radio reported today.

On his 65th birhday Tuesday Poenisch entered a cage to protect him from sharks during the 35-hour swim up the Gulf Stream to the Florida Keys. He was to arrive sometime tonight. The retired cookie baker from Grove City, Ohio, planned to swim at 2 to 2V4 m.p.h. as a boat pulled his 30-by-15-by-15 steel cage through the shark-infested waters. Havana radio, in a broadcast monitored in Miami, said Castro and a group of journalists followed Poenisch for the first few miles of his swim.

Castro, who said he was interested in the swim as a "sporting feat," then ordered another Cuban boat to follow Poenisch at a "prudent distance," the broadcast said. Poenisch, who is rivaled by Diana Nyad for the distinction of making the first swim across the Florida IN THE SWIM Walter Poenisch, 65, seeks Cuba to Florida record. AP Wlrtphoto THE LATEST WEATHER Patchy early morning low clouds along the coast and some high cloudiness over the remainder of the Los Angeles Basin were the main features of this morning's weather. The National Weather Service said temperatures will climb to about 85 today, dropping to 62 tonight Straits, is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest ocean swim 122V4 miles in June, 1976. That feat was billed as a 100-mile bicentennial swim for Poenisch, who first gained fame by pulling multiton ships through the water.

Poenisch received permission from the Cuban government last month and began his swim ahead of Ms. Nyad, 28, a former world champion woman's marathon swimmer from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Ms. Nyad, who has gained national publicity with her own plans, expects to set off on the swim later this month.

Carter's 1977 portrait AP WirophotM I 1.