The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 25

Si 1 WAS IT WORTH IT? taie aiiey: Moves to Pull Out quaw 0 10 20 MONDAY; 1971 2 I A 'A '( 4 1 VIh i hi tv "'V i RECREATION AREA Main road rr ART SEIDENBAUM leading into Squaw Valley, state recreation area to be placed on sale, winds 1 Judge Thurmond Clarke Dies Manson, My Lai, Morals at 68; Retired From U.S. Be BY WILLIAM ENDICOTT Tlm Staff Wrltr SQUAW VALLEY Eight "miles north of Lake Tahoe, a sign points down a narrow road to Squaw Valley, where men and women from 30 nations competed in the 1960 Winter Olympics. The sign is almost obliterated by a huge mound of dirty snow. At the entrance of an access road to the valley, six flagpoles poke but flags, torn and tattered from whipping in the wind, fly on only four of them. I An Olympic torch has long-since burned out.

And the question, 11 years later, persists: Was it worth it? On April 23, the state will accept bids for the sale of its holdings in Squaw Valley, and state officials publicly hope the sale will end the long and sometimes bitter controversy over the expenditure of public funds here. Privately, they doubt that it will. Even if a buyer is found, it is unlikely, they say, the state wilt recover all its losses. Promises Fade Despite early promises that the Olympics would largely pay their own way and that Squaw Valley would become a popular and profitable year-round park, no such thing occurred. An estimated $17 million in state funds has been poured into development of the valley, and contracts with concessionaires still are losing money for the state at the rate of approximately $300,000 a year.

Although the Olympics were considered an artistic and athletic success, Squaw Valley's recent history has been bedeviled by problems-hints of contract irregularities, mismanagement, fiscal drains. And various state reports concede that state operations in the valley do little more than subsidize private operations namely, the concessionaires, Alexander C. Cushing and William A. Newsom. Cushing's Squaw Valley Development Co.

operates state-owned ski lifts; Newsom's Squaw Valley Improvement Corp. operates a hotel, restaurant and other state-owned fa-? cilities. State income is derived from a complicated formula based on the two concessionaires' gross receipts, but it has never come close to offsetting operating costs. Right now, Cushing is $86,196 in arrears in his payments to the state even though his company showed gross receipts on its state contract of more than $2 million during the last fiscal year. Misdemeanor Charge Additionally, Cushing is charged in a criminal misdemeanor complaint by the Placer County district atto-ney with allegedly operating a defective chair lift.

The charge stems from an accident on the lift during last year were more than $1 million, owes the state $37,178. Newsom, whose gross receipts were more than $1 million, owes the state $37,178. Interestingly, it was Cushing who first conceived the idea of attracting the Olympics to Squaw Valley. And it is he, say critics, who has been the chief beneficiary. Certainly, they say, it has not been California taxpayers.

Shortly after the state assumed responsibility for the valley, it was designated a "state recreation area" to differentiate it from a state park, to which it bears little resemblance. In fact, Legislative Analyst A. Alan Post said in a report for the Legislature not long ago that the state's operation at Squaw Valley "provides no significant direct recreation service to the public." Instead, said Post, "we are providing, at substantial state cost, certain utility, parking, fire protection, management services and control of the public, the benefits of which are Ij I ft 1 't through snow-covered mountains. Times photo by Don Coimier i Judge Thurmond Clarke the 14th Amendment. He was upheld by the State Supreme Court.

On the federal bench, he was subject to some criticism by fellow jurists and others for what they believed were lenient sentences. But; Judge Clarke vigorously de-v fended his' which he described as.J'fair" rather than lenient. Shortly after becoming a Municipal Court judge, he visited -San Quentin Prison and Death Row. "I feel I gained a more humane feeling toward those convicts than I have had I not made the visit," he said later. He said that on the bench he believed he had "sincerely tried to temper justice with mercy" ever since his visit to prison.

A native of Santa Paula, he was a graduate of Los: 'Angeles High School. He attended Stanford University and took his law degree from In his high school and college years, he distinguished himself as an outstanding athlete. He held 440-yard dash championships for the city, Southern California and the state. He was a member of Zeta Tsi and Phi Delta Phi fraternities. Please Turn to Page 5, Col.

1 CHARLES HILLINGER Tlm SUff Writw ,1 38-Year Jurist Headed, Federal District Here Until Last September BY DICK MAIN -J Tiiiw Wnttr Thurmond Clarke, 68, retired chief U.S. judge of the. Central California district, died Sunday at Good Sama-ritan hospital after a long illnesg. Judge Clarke, a jurist for 38 years, retired from, the. federal bench last sept.

i. After his retirement he divided his time between his. farm in Virginia and home in Corona del Mar. He and his wife, Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke, formerly resided in Pasade- na. He had been in ill health the past -two years but entered the hospital only five weeks ago.

Judge Clarke Was appointed to the federal bench by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Sept. 1, 1955. He was named chief judge on July 1, 1966.,, Last July, he became the first, federal district judge outside of Wash-' ington to administer the oath of of- fice.to a member of the President's Cabinet.1; Ceremony at Sap Clemeftte As President Nixon looked on, the jurist conducted the ceremony" at the Western White House in San swearing into office Labor Secretary James W. Hodgson.

He also administered the oath of office to former Labor Secretary. George P. Shultz as the director of the Office of Management and i- Judge Clarke's judicial career in 1932 when then Gov. James Rolph appointed him to the Municipal Court bench. In 1935, Gov.

Frank Merriam elevated him to the Superior Court. He was elected to the office in 1936, 1942, 1948 and 1954. One of his best known rulings during his Superior Courtcareer was that overturning California's law barring aliens who were ineligible to become citizens from owning land. Judge Clarke said he believed the law was aimed solely at persons of 'Japanese ancestry and that the legislation thus violated the due process and equal protection clause of Times map by Patrick Lynch largely accruing to the state's concessionaires in the form of substantial profits." This, perhaps, is why Squaw Valley differs so drastically from a stata park and why state officials have been so concerned over the costs. State parks generally return only 30 cents fof every dollar in state funds spent, but the recreation benefits to the public are considered profit enough.

The parks are not designed to be money-makers. But Squaw Valley is primarily a concession operation. The state is there only in a peripheral capacity and that, according to Post, is a fundamental point. "Virtually all of the services the public does receive," he said in hi3 report, "are furnished through the operations of the concessionaires. It is literally a state-subsidized private operation." There are even entanglements which find the "concessionaires in competition with each other and, consequently, with the state.

Operates His Own Lifts Cushing, in addition to operating the state-owned ski lifts, operates his own lifts on property he owns in the valley and his holdings are substantial. He also owns lodge and restaurant facilities, which compete with the state facilities operated by Newsom. 1 L- j. 1 i fvuuen Meyer, uepuiy curecior or the State Department of Parks and Recreation, said in-a recent interview that the state has never entered into any comparable concession agreements. "They put too large a financial burden on the state in terms of maintenance and upkeep in exchange for the revenue," he said.

"In most agreements, the concessionaire is required to do many things the state does now at Squaw Valley." But despite what state officials believe are obvious advantages to the concessionaires, the Cushing-New-som relationship with the state over the years often has been rocky. For example, there have been continuing controversies over ski lift safety precautions eight persons were injured when a lift derailed just a few weeks ago and an investigation is under way into charges that equipment is faulty. Filth Charges There have been continuing arguments over revenue due the state. There have been charges that various buildings and areas were not clean, not fit for public use and that restaurant facilities did not. meet health requirements.

Some of the disputes were resolved along the way; others have not been. As an example of the state's own mismanagement, Post said that a few years ago he learned that contracts for electric power to operate compressors at the ice-skating arena were not revised when new and smaller compressors were installed. Please Turn to Back Page, Col. 1 Weight Cheaters Face Crackdown Direct citation of merchants Into Municipal Court for violation of weight and measure ordinances i.i being planned by Los Angeles County officials. After a query by Supervisor Burton W.

Chace, County Counsel John D. Maharg reported a 1969 Penal Code amendment authorizes this procedure. Fines and bail forfeitures, expected to total $140,000 for 5,000 citations a year for storekeepers found using short-weight scales, would be deposited in the county general fund. At present, formal complaints must be sought from the district attorney or city attorneys in a cumbersome process of prosecution. Chief Administrative Officer Arthur G.

Will will ask the Board of Supervisors Tuesday to request municipal judges to collaborate by establishing a uniform bail schedule. The State Judicial Council also must develop an exact citation form to implement the enforcement. for love. The system couldn't abide the question although it has been asked ever since man learned about murder and modesty. 1 I also remember what Konrad Lorenz, the wise man of behaviorism, had say about why men may murder each other: we are the only creature whose weapons did not grow on his body.

Animals have natural deadly weapons horns, poisons, hooves with natural inhibitions about using those weapons on members of the same species. Men, the inventive creatures, manufactured their weapons with only a learned inhibition about not using them to kill their own kind. Lorenz writes that when we call a human being a beast, we are doing metaphoric injustice to the real beasts. War is just a gross metaphor for murder, as so many young people have been trying to tell us. And the victims are no less human because they don't speak our language, practice our politics or wear body shirts.

I could argue that Rosema-, ry La Bianca was as alien to Susan Atkins as the villagers were to the soldiers. I'm most haunted by the realization that I can't separate kinds of killing any more. National defense seems to be a weak defense indeed for what we're doing in Asia. Justifying killing in the name of protection seems almost as ludicrous as the girls testifying they did it all to save the Manson family. My Lai has taught me that America has its own Eichmanns, however reluctant The Mansons have proved that you can claim to kill in the name of love, which makes both words obscene in certain circumstances.

So much testimony. So many months of courtroom arguments. So much public pain and money and all we learn Is how fragile life is after all, and how lightly it can be taken. I -A Benjamin; pocketknife pants. As he sugar and "Whittlin Now it's "It plains.

"When all you with a Phillips, I'm haunted daily by the trials in Los Angeles and Ft. Benning. By the lieutenant who says he was just following, orders. By the three young women who say they feel no remorse about killing. By military mass murders' that no one wanted to believe had happened.

By mass murders in California that fed a world's appetite for sensationand yet made no sense. I J'ye Jost interest in The 7 horrors of what happened are too The explanations are too pitiful, too inadequate, too non human. I remember looking at parallels whenthe killings occurred and indignant people wrote back to say there is an awesome difference between acts of war and acts of un-provoked savagery. jBut was My Lai. really an act of war or a gratuitous exercise in barbarism? And were the Tate-La Bi-anca killings so much savagery or a loony declaration of war between the family of man and the family of Manson.

I'm told that an Oregon public school teacher was fired this month for assigning his students to decide which was more obscene, the four-letter word for murder killor a crude, four-letter word PART II INDEX TIMES EDITORIALS. Page 6. THE PUBLIC SPEAKS OUT. Tage 7. D.

J. R. BRUCKNER. Page 6. INTERLANDL Page 7.

ROY WILKIXS. Page 7. VITALS, WEATHER, Page 4. CC 2-f '1 .1 I i I I I i CARVtR Benjamin Franklin some of the whimsical Times WHITTLER CUTS UP OLD MEMORIES BY Franklin Phillips III gingerly curled the to carve a baggy fold in the seat of the hunter's fashioned the comical 3-inch figure from a piece of pine, Phillips brushed away a lapful of shavings declared: -v'- i was as common as flies when I was a boy. a dyin' art.

1 started with the first settlers, spread across the I was growin up in Oklahoma and Texas, that's ever seen at country stores benches out front bunch of old boys settin' there whittlin." 73, knows a lot about whittling. He's been at it all his life. His father and grandfather also were whit-tlers. "Never made any money at it. Never wanted to," he explains.

"It's always been just for fun." Retired five years ago, he spends full time whittling figures, farm and western scenes for his three children, 12 grandchildren, six great grandchildren, relatives and friends from one end of the country to the other. At his Newport Beach home, Phillips reminisced about old-time whittlers as he shaped the final wrinkles in the face of his sugar pine hunter. "About all there was to do when -I was a boy was whittle. No radio, television, talkies, tape recorders. "Some would whittle just to pass the time never make anything.

Others would make the same thing over and over again. "I went through that period for a spell. Made hundreds of monkeys out of peach pits for keychains. "There was a rich old guy in Conway, Texas. His name was Bub Harrell.

He was about 70 at the time. I was just a kid. He called me Little One. "He kept buyin' all the land for miles around. I would ask him, 'Bub, why you always buyin' He'd gay: 'All I wants, Little One, is what adjoins me.1 "Seems like by the time he died he owned nearly half of Texag that adjoined him.

"Old Bub set there by the hours whittling. He was one of those who never made anything. Just cuttin away with his knife. Shavings flying every which way. Please Turn to Page 5.

Col. 1 Phillips III closely examines animals he has whittled. photo by Dob Cormier if.