The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 1

jyL 205, No. 160 1974, Globe Newspaper Co. SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 1974 50 CENTS Post office slows service and overcharges public $1 billion a year This includes theoretically slow-moving fourth-class parcel post and commercially oriented, "junk" mail and second-class newspapers and magazines. A transcript of a high-level meeting of postal officials in 1969, when the new policy for first-class mail was begun, shows a decision was made to no longer strive for overnight mail delivery and to keep this a secret from Congress and the public. This policy was begun when the mail' was still being run by the US Post Office Department and it was continued after the Postal Service took over in 1970..

The transcript shows that Frank J. Nunlist, then an assistant postmaster general, told regional postal officials: "Now if we announce that we are going to do this (lower overnight standards) there are 700,000 guys (postal workers) that are going to run to their congressmen and say, 'You can't have a postal These guys are not going to serve the American people. "So," Nunlist continued, "we have got to be a little tight about this, and you can't even say to your MAIL, Page 7 during the night for sorting during the dayj The policy, which delays mail by a full day, was put into effect largely to avoid paying extra salaries for night work. But the total cost of extra night salaries is about 1 percent of the postal budget, and the new policy has saved only a fraction of this cost. While the Postal Service saves night salary by allowing sacks of first-class mail to pile up in post offices throughout the country, it continues to pay the extra salary' for sorting non-priority mail carrying less postage than first-class letters.

Ronald Kessler Washington Post WASHINGTON The new US Postal Service is deliberately slowing delivery of first-class mail and dyercharging first-class mail users by an apparent $1 billion a year while undercharging commercial mail users, a Washington Post investigation has found. Delivery of first class mail the Mass used by most Americans for letters has been slowed by a Postal Service policy of putting aside mail arriving from out of town Guard drops 1 A v. yl More modern but is the service better? (Globe photo) Nuclear series in Pacific this summer will he last France abandons atmospheric tests rv I defense program is sufficiently advanced to permit France to pass on to the stage of underground tests as soon as the test series foreseen for this summer is He said the upcoming series would be conducted, "as previously, in conditions of total safety," and stressed that a United Nations scientific commission, which investigated last year's tests confirmed the absence of dangerous fallout in any populated area in the Pacific. Giscard d' Estaing did not indicate the number or strength of the planned atmospheric tests, but said they would be kept to "an essential minimum." have indicated that an operational hydrogen bomb is expected to be dropped from a plane for the first time by France. Its last hydrogen bomb test was conducted on the ground in 1971.

It had a force of one megaton. Subsequent explosions in 1972 and 1973 were of lesser force, and were presumably tests of a trigger for the hydrogen bomb. The International Court at the Hague called on France in June 1973 to suspend the atmospheric tests. The government of the late President Georges Pompidou ignored the injunction. Associated Press PARIS President Valery Gis-card d'Estaing announced yesterday that the next series of French nuclear tests in the Pacific will be the last conducted in the atmosphere.

At the same time, the Defense Ministry warned all shipping to stay clear of the "nuclear security zone" around the French-held Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific from Tuesday until further notice. The French president said all nuclear weapons tests after the next series would be carried out underground. The French have held tests every Bummer since 1966 at Mururoa, 1000 miles southeast of Tahiti, despite growing international protest. For the past three years, France has been preparing an underground test site at Fangataufa Atoll, 50 miles to the south. During his successful election campaign last month, Giscard d'Estaing promised to maintain and develop France's independent nuclear deterrent, one of the cherished dreams of the late Gen.

Charles de Gaulle. Explaining the switch in French policy, Giscard d'Estaing said: "The development of the French nuclear tit TV-- fc; It 4, Erica Lewis, 8, and Amanda Lewis, "disembark" from a Regency phaeton 2 lit 1 vi AC ii i sentences against four By Paul Langner and Al Larkin Globe Staff The Massachusetts National Guard yesterday dropped the sentences against four men who had been ordered to spend 25 days in the Middlesex County House of Correction for failure to attend Guard drills. The surprise move came in the waka of harsh criticism from Middlesex County Sheriff John J. Buckley and widespread press coverage ot the stiff sentences, a punishment Buckley said has been used only rarely aince World War II. Guard spokesmen gave no explanation of why the sentences were dropped.

'J Officials at the county jail said they were told of the Guard's decision at 9 a.m. and immediately informed! all four men, advising them that they would no longer be considered prisoners after they signed the required release papers. The men had been furloughed from jail on Buckley's orders about midnight Friday, when the sheriff learned that they were at the jail. The four were identified as Richard Fiorentino, 22, of 144 Vernon st, Everett; James Nicholson, 22, of 11 Newbridge Woburn; Keamon NATIONAL GUARD, Page 11 INSIDE- How the war was cmlrd I Henry Kissinger set the stage for a Vietnam truce during a secret visit with Leonid Brezhnev in 1972. The secret diplomacy is reconstructed by Tad Szulc, Page A-l.

Where the 49ers went Harvard's Class of 1949 is "mostly affluent and politically conservative. But there are "surprises, such as the graduate who now lives in a Georgia commune, as the class con-ducts its 25th reunion this week. Story, Page 8. That Cornfeld will flo Bernie Cornfeld. the bache-- lor playboy fresh out of a Swiss jail, plans a spate of lawsuits to protect investors In his mutual fund empire.

Story, Page 62. mil 5 (foreground), tion of old carriages at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, during an auc- Story, other photos, Page 29. (Photo by John Blanding) Dickey-Lincoln advances after a decade of talk Rodino panel to push on while Nixon goes away tot V. By David Nyhan Globe Washington Bureau WASHINGTON him well." "We wish That is the sendoff given by Rep. Teter W.

Rodino to President Nixon, who leaves tomorrow for Austria en route to a week in the Mideast. While Mr. Nixon is conducting statesmanship abroad, the congressman from Newark will be conducting impeachment hearings at home. House Speaker Carl Albert (D-Ok.) and Majority Leader Thomas P. O'Neill Jr.

(D-Mass.) reportedly had advised Rodino it would look bad for his House Judiciary Committee to appear to be undercutting the President during his tours of the By Martin F. Nolan Globe Washington Bureau WASHINGTON After a decade of oratory and acrimony, New England's first major Federal power project inched closer to reality last week, as the House of Representatives for the first time took favorable action on the Dickey-Lincoln dam. The House defeated byi 210-186 vote an attempt by Rep. Silvio O. Conte (R-Mass.) to delete an study from the public works appropriation bill later passed by the House.

The proposed dam on the St. John River, which separates Maine from Canada, has been for a decade the subject of fierce lobbying ef- Mideast and, later this summer, of the Soviet Union. The impeachment inquiry, however, will hold three more days of closed sessions this week to review evidence. The committee must "consider the business that we have," Rodino told newsmen Thursday when asked if he would curtail the probe while the President is abroad. COMMITTEE, Page 20 The weather Mostly sunny today, highs near 80.

Fair tonight, lows in the 60s. Partly cloudy tomorrow, highs in the 80s. Full report on Page 87 show resistance Legislature which could mki such suburban involvement mandatory. The suburban school superintendents and school committee chairmen who were interviewed by Globe reporters also indicated: A voluntary system would be much more palatable than a mandatory system. SURVEY, Page 31 Last spring's floods along the St.

John River turned some nortliern Maint people toward support of but environmentalists remain stiff opponents. Story, Page 2. forts, unusual intradelegation squabbling among New England congressmen, and fond hopes of consumers burdened with some of the highest electrical bills in the nation. The study may be just another layer of paper in the vast pile of research devoted to the economics and environmental aspects of the project, first conceived in the 1930s. Franklin D.

Roosevelt conceived of a project to harness the massive Gov. Francis W. Sargent gave a boost to the concept of metropolitan education with his recently announced voluntary plan to end racial isolation in Boston and Springfield schools. At the same time, an increasing number of educators and political leaders are backing proposals to involve the suburbs in the city's school problems. The federally funded Metropolitan Planning Project (MPP), which is due to expire June 30, has just City school integration pressure grows to involve suburbs REP- SILVIO CONTE "a lot of gall" Bay of Fundy tides at Tassamaquod-dy, near his summer home on Cam-pobello.

The dam was to provide hydroelectric power to assist peak times in Boston, more than 400 miles to the south. DICKEY-LINCOLN, Page 16 plan won a 90-day reprieve to complete reports and proposed legislation that would significantly expand cooperative programs between schools in Boston and Springfield and their respective suburbs. While the main thrust of the MPP proposals is the elimination of racial isolation, the final report also is expected to address the need to adjust social and economic inequities among white children as well as minorities throughout the state. METRO, Tage 30 Stale moving toward metropolitan But suburbs Any court-ordered plan to end racial isolation in Boston's schools by integrating suburban school systems would meet stiff opposition in the affluent suburbs surrounding Boston, according to a survey last week of education leaders from 18 communities in the Boston area. Such a court order could result from cases now pending in Federal courts concerning four cities in the nation, but primarily a case involving Detroit.

There are also actions being taken in the Massachusetts Tht efforts to balance Boston fhhhr schools racially is the subject rf this special (ihhe status report. It rorrrs nhat is UappenUui at legislative and judicial levels and reflects vines of suburban legislators on any court ridings that might lead to txtenskr involvement of suburban Boston schools in achieving racial balance. The report on legislative nd lepal dn-elopmenls ten bv Globe education editor Muriel Cohen. Tht survey story was done by tnein-hcr of The (Hope's Suburban Team: Pfjawin Taylor. Sick King.

Robert JRp.enthal and Mary Thornton. Massachusetts is moving toward a new desegregation precedent with the growing commitment at several points to city-suburb school programs. The state Legislature pioneered1 the desegregation movement with adoption of a Racial Imbalance Law in 1965, and even though the law is yet to be successfully implemented the Legislature is now considering replacing it with courses and a variety of programs that would encourage students and teachers to cross city and town lines. id emk9 XL A4i t..