The Herald-News from Passaic, New Jersey • 14

The Herald-News U.S. antitrust victory THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1972 By WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY Jr. NOT very many people troubled to examine the arrangements finally entered into between ITT and the Nixon adminis- tration, and agreed to by the courts. The leeenrl Tax threat from Washington H- i.

was as follows: that an innocent and ible official in the Justice department moved against ITT in connec- tion with three projected I deals two acquisitions THERE'S a development in Washington which plays into the hands of the pro-income tax dreamers in Trenton. Citizens here vould be wise to let their U.S. senators know in no uncertain terms how they feel about it 'X- and one merger (with The Hartford Fire Insur-, ance Company). That officials of ITT thereupon William Buckley ilttf ''far cry that we were being cheated of our fair share of the federal bonanza because we were not meeting our civic responsibilities as someone in Washington had decided we should; the way out, we would be told, would be to adopt a state come tax. This would be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

New Jersey's trouble is not that it has no income tax. An income tax would merely make tit easier for the money grabbers in Trenton to get feathers from the goose with a minimum of squawking. Secretary Shultz, in another part of his testimony, described the government's problem in terms which should be clear enough for even Gov. Cahill. Here is what he said: The people of this nation have been telling us that they doubt government's capacity to meet their public service needs; they think government costs too much; they feel unable to influence the course of events that government takes.

Nothing could be plainer than that. Fable of greedy serf who rejected reward Reader says he would have taken the 1 0 G's; other recent letters elected. Now these men are in office, and seem to have not only reneged on their promises but are now denying the very existence of any problem with relation to drug dependency in our community. How in the name of all that is holy can of- Currently the Senate Finance Committee is conducting hearings on the federal revenue sharing proposal put forward by President -Nixon and amended by the House under the canny hand of Rep. Wilbur Mills.

The flaw in the House bill was pointed out to the Senate committee by Secretary of the Treasury Shultz: In the distribution of funds among state governments, the House bill places great emphasis on state income taxes. It has been the position of the administration not to favor particular state tax instruments, but rather to reward overall state and local tax effort. Accordingly we would prefer 1o replace the income tax incentive with a provision closer to the President's original proposal. Imagine the peril to New Jersey if the federal revenue sharing does take the form proposed by the H'ise! There would be a great out- World chess fiasco THE Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky world championship chess match, which chess fanciers considered the sporting event of the decade, seems to have come apart at the seams. Both principals deserve blame, but Fischer more than Spassky.

Fischer's greed for jgrize money may lead to cancellation of the match; instead of a winner's purse of more than $100,000 he will then get nothing- Spassky had one moment of charisma. Somebody asked him, while Fischer's shilly-r shallying was keeping him out of Iceland beyond the scheduled starting time, how he felt about it. "I came to play," said Spassky. It The Herald-News: At the end of the rainbow was found the pot of fool's gold. Heck, anyone who had tried to spend it would have been picked up.

You see, all of the coins were marked. Quickly to the king the serf ran eager to show loyalty and honesty, returning every last piece of the precious metal. Surely one would think that this indeed was a true servant of the land, a man beyond reproach. The king's representative happily went to the man with a handsome reward of two gold coins, unmarked, "I don't think I'll take it today," said the man, sitting in a lawn chair on his back porch. "I won't get any more if I take this," the serf added.

The king's representative, after failing to deliver the coins, said, "I don't know what happens after today." Any similarity between this fairy tale and an actual event is impossible -because no one could ever be that stupids ly greedy or is it greedily stupid oh well, could he? Personally, I'll take the 10 G's. LAWRENCE KREWER Clifton. Taxpayer's plight The Herald-News: The plight of the middle-income, non-union tax-paying worker with dependent children is desperate. He has no organized well-funded pressure group to lobby for him, and spi-raling taxes at all levels take a larger percentage of his income each year. Simple geometric progression tells us 'that within the next 10 years, if the present trend continues, many of us will face family bankruptcy.

In 1971, seven different levels of government took 20 per cent of my annual income in taxes. This does nojt include the hidden taxes gasolineyetc. The governor' is- asking the legislature to enact a proposal that would increase from seven to nine the taxes I pay, and reduce my take-home pay by an additional 3 to 5 per cent. There are some basic historical truths about taxation that the legislature should consider: Once established, a particular tax is rarely rescinded, even when other sources of revenue become available. 2.

Tax rates have a built-in tendency to increase over time -r rarely are they decreased. The federal income tax started 59 years ago at 1 per cent on income up to $20,000. Social Security started 36 years ago at $30 per year. Look at them today and try to visualize what our children will be paying. 3.

Graduated taxation (based on some bureaucrat's judgment of my ability to pay) is as much a means of imposing state socialism as it is a source of revenue. 4. The programs that are established andor expanded to spend the tax money 1 an unquenchable thirst over time. Thus ever more money and new revenue sources are needed by government. You need look no further than New York City for living proof.

THOMAS R. EBERSOLE Butler. Drugs in Lyndhurst The Herald-News: As a resident of Lyndhurst for many years, and as a person who has been intimately involved in narcotic rehabilitation since 1959 at the Mount Carmel Guild Narcotic Rehabilitation Center, Newark, I am deeply concerned with my town and what seems to be an ever-increasing epidemic of narcotic addiction or dependency among its young people. Prior to election time, candidates from ACTION approached me to explain what they would do regarding this problem if uvicuB vi aujf ui uie uieurupui- itan area take such an attitude is beyond comprehension. Whom are they trying to impress? Perhaps, like the ostrich, it is more expedient to stick one's head in the sand than to meet a problem head on and resolve it.

It is my opinion that our town desperately needs an information and referral center where citizens may go for direction; a program of rehabilitation for those seeking competent aid with their problem, and more important an honest attitude on the part of some of our elected officials, Mrs. MARY J. LETCHFORD Lyndhurst. Diabetic lecture series The Herald-News: We should like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to The Herald-News for the excellent publicity given for our lecture series at the Diabetic Instruction Center, Passaic General Hospital. Our attendance was the highest we have ever experienced, a total of 51, which is a good indication of the vital need of this service to the community.

We feel the excellent attendance was primarily due to the cooperation between the hospital and The Herald-News. Without this publicity, Passaic General would have been unable to alert the public of its service. Again, many thanks for your cooperation. ARCHIE HANDLER, M.D. DANTE H.

LIBERTI, M.D. Cochairmen Diabetic Instruction Center Passaic. would have been better if he had stuck to that. One really can't blame him, however, for storming off in a huff after Fischer, sleeping off the effects of his belated flight, sent a second to represent him at the drawing for first move. One has to feel sympathy with Channel 13's expert commentators, there having as yet been "no game on which to comment They are fast running out of trivia about the two players' personal eccentricities and eating habits to fill up the time.

It would be refreshing if common sense prevailed and the two geniuses sat down and got on with it On the record, though, there's no reason to hope for it took to political, maneuvering. That secret deals were made, involving on the one hand government permissiveness, and on the other hand ITT largesse to GOP causes; whereupon the government suddenly abandoned its objection to the all-important merger, which was thereupon concluded. None of which would have got public notice except that the indiscretions of an ITT lobbyist fell into the hands of Jack Anderson, who passed them along, obligingly, into history. Along comes a remarkable analysis of what actually happened under the law. It is by Mrs.

Elenor Fox, of the firm of Simpson, Thacher Bartlett in New York, and is published in the Conference Board Record, an organ of TCB, formerly known as the National Industrial Conference Board. It is her learned and dispassionate conclusion that if anyone troubles to look into the matter he will discover that the government won quite extraordinary victories in the cases in question. Victories that easily transcend the language of the anti-monopoly laws. She concludes, in the bloodless guage of the lawyer, "There is no bona fide basis for a challenge to the merits of the ITT judgments. Those judgments are fair.

Indeed, they are exemplary; and they may be precedential in limiting by consent the growth of large diversified firms." WHAT happened was the government attempted, in effect, to persuade the courts to rule on what they call "aggre- gate concentration theory." The government had specific complaints, to be sure. It alleged that in the acquisitions, as in the merger with Hartford, ITT stood to diminish competition by a variety of means. For one, "reciprocity." This is the word given to business done between companies commonly owned. For another, the government asked the courts to hold that ITT, if it wasn't actually acquiring firms which were dominant in the market, was acquiring firms which threatened, in combination with ITT, to dominate the market, or to dominate it in certain parts of the country. And finally, the economic graph which shows that there are more and more conglomerates, that the 200 largest firms in America have command of 58.7 per cent pf the market in America, by contrast with 48.1 per cent in 1948: from which growth the reasonable assumptions are to be drawn.

Ho the district courts flatly turned down the government. They ruled that the government had not made a factual case, tailored to the prohibitions of the Clayton Act, and declined to accept arguments based only on theory. The ITT case did not go to trial, but a preliminary injunction against the merger was denied by the court upon reading the government's brief. There it stood in the summer of 1971, when suddenly the company and the government got together and hammered out three consent decrees, which the courts looked over, and promulgated. THE remarkable thing about these consent decrees, says Mrs.

Fox, is what the government got from ITT, rather than vice versa. ITT seemed to be playing from a situation of great strength, having won striking judicial victories on the first go-around. Then suddenly, as if it had been, the government that won, ITT agreed to do all kinds of things which have the effect of giving life to the meta- 1 physical theories of the government on the matter of aggregate concentration. ITT agreed to limit its growth by domestic acquisition. Unless ITT meanwhile gets rid of Hartford, it may not, except on consent of the government or the court, a) acquire a domestic firm having assets of more than $100 million; or b) acquire a domestic firm that occupies more than 15 per cent of a concentrated market.

"By the consent judgments," Mrs. Fox summarizes, "the government won something more than it could reasonably have expected if it won all three cases on traditional grounds: limitation on ITT's growth by large-firm and leading-firm mergers." Apart from the vindication of the Nixon administration, Mrs. Fox's dry analysis tends to show that large companies in the United States are prepared by the most New 18-year-old adults v. the small society ur (j wiWo I FL fog TUB -if i jQ. TO INvbLVEP their discretion in deciding whether to send criminals under 21 to reformatories or to prisons.

There was one- odd reversal. Pennsylvania officials urged Cahill not to sign the law because they feared Pennsylvania youngsters would drive to New Jersey and drink and would then get into accidents on their way back home. It was the same argument New Jersey officials had used unsuccessfully a fpw years ago in an attempt to get Nw York to raise its drinking age from 18 to 21. Well, the legislature and the governor have acted. Now it's up to the new 18-year-old adults to avoid giving New Jersey cause for regret, i THE bill Gov.

Cahill signed the other day giving 18-year-olds virtually full legal rights should not be allowed to obscure one point: no amount of wand waving in Trenton can make an adult out of anyone. Only time can do it, and sometimes not even that For the record, the new law, effective next Jan. 1, lowers the drinking age from 21 to 18, allows 18-year-olds to sue and be sued, to sign contracts, to marry without parental consent, to attend racetracks, and to apply for civil service jobs, including jobs as policemen and firemen. The law permits persons to attend public schools until they reach the age of 20 and retains the judges' authority to use Vi 7-6 crv -s VteihMyoii Star Svflertj. tne Fritchey says even presidents spill the beans Ellsberg's Pentagon papers vs.

deliberate 'leaking' of state secrets Current quotes from the news Nixon says dealing with Hanoi isn't easy By CLAYTON FRITCHEY WASHINGTON It's difficult for those who are not familiar with the Washington scene to un- derstand or sympathize with the "leaking" off classified government in- formation to the press. 1 alty." Mississippi Gov. Bill Waller commenting on the ruling that the death penalty is unconstitutional. "I couldn't possibly support a convention that would sustain this kind of shabby back-room, dealinn )nce this is seen in its true context, however, the reaction is usually quite different. a That is why the attor- ipvs fnr Tlr Dnnipl Flls.

convincing means to document that they are not profiting from bigness per se: by eschewing, voluntarily, further growth by acquisition. Philippine medal American Legion Magazine Many WW 2 veterans entitled to the Philippine Liberation Ribbon are unaware that a medal is also authorized. The medal is awarded by the Philippine Commonwealth and is not a U.S. decoration Authorized persons desiring to obtain the medal should send a copy of proof of certification along with Social Security number and service number to: The Adjutant General, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo, Quezon City, Philippines. White House.

The present incumbent, for instance, committed one of the most memorable indiscretions of the post war era when, as vice president in 1954, he told a group of newspaper editors (off the record) that the United States was prepared to send armed forces to Indochina yto save the French army. It was the first tip-off that U.S. military action was secretly being considered. Fortunately, it was a leak that had a benign ending. The headlines inspired by Nixon's disclosure so agitated the public and Congress that the plan was quickly disavowed by President Eisenhower although, as we now know, Adm.

Arthur Radford, then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Gen. Paul Ely, representing France, had already agreed on the specifics of the opening U. S. strike. Ellsberg's lawyers could also show that suppression of inside information by the press has hurt rather than helped the country on occasion.

A few days before the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, for instance, the New York Times discovered what was being planned, but, at the request of the government, wa- tered down what otherwise would have been a momentous revelation. Later, President Kennedy ruefully told the New York Times editors that if they had published the full story, the invasion would probably have been called off, and he would have been spared his worst mistake. Oyer the years, the leaks against the government have benefited the public more than the leaks of officialdom to enhance itself. The American people still wouldn't know about the My Lai massacre or the recent unauthorized bombing of North Vietnam if, conscience-stricken soldiers had not defied orders and spilled the beans. THIS has been going on for so many years that, until the publication of the Pentagon papers, it was taken for granted.

The Ellsberg prosecution in its entirety is unique. Although the government is constantly initiating quiet investigations into leaks, the leakers are rarely discovered and even when they are, little or nothing is done about it. Over the years, a kind of informal agreement has developed between the government and the press: the government instinctively overclassifies everything, and the press does its best to "declassify" through discovery and publication. Both sides grumble at the practices of the other, but the arrangement continues because, on the whole, it works. Despite the complaints of the government, it is hard to recall when any leak has seriously affected the security of the United States.

On the other hand, it is easy to find instances where leaks actually served the public interest by aborting Ill-conceived government plans. The government always insists there is a difference between the official disclosure of secret information and "unauthorized" disclosure. All administrations piously justify their leaks on the grounds of advancing policies which are supposedly in the public interest. But the counter leakers may be equally persuaded that the policy is designed more to advance the interests of the administration than the nation, and consequently feel morally justified in disclosing information that will discredit the policy. Obviously, right or wrong, that was and is Ellsberg's frame of mind.

IT should't be difficult for the defendant's attorneys to show that some of the biggest leaks of all have originated in the By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS "I find that making a bargain with them is not easy and you get something from them only when you have something they want to get from you." President Nixon at his news conference connecting U. S. bombing of North Vietnam with negotiations with Communists on release of U.S. prisoners. "As soon as they told me the news, I was running, hollering and shouting, 'I don't have to die'." James Fields III, 26, a convict on Tennessee's death row, after the Su-yreme Court found the death penalty unconstitutional as now imposed.

"I believe we can have better law enforcement with the death pen- The Herald-News 100th Year In the ServiceSof the Public -1872 DOW H. DRUKKER 1963 Richard Drukker, chairman-publisher and chief executive officer; Austin Ct Drukker, president; Richard Drukker vice president and treasurer; Charles A. West, business manager; Arthur G. Mc-Mahon, executive editor; C. Richard Paduch, managing editor; George Homey, night editor.

The Psssale Herald wai established August 3 1872: The Daily News on August 1. 1877. Passaic's two historic dailies were merged at The Herald-News on April 4. 1932. rm ii xt 1 ia mem rf trtm AllIff I wouldn't have any ipart of any convention nominee who would support this." Sen.

George McGovern after the credentials committee of the Democratic National Convention voted to apportion California's 271 delegate votes among all candidates in its primary, instead of winner-take-all, cutting McGovern's votes from the state by more than half. "We will stand by Marty as much as possible, as long as it doesn't jeopardize the rest of the family." Walter McNally after his 28-year-old son Martin was charged with hijacking an airliner. "How appalling it is that medkine and religion consistently have, re-, fused to accept every challenge to dispel the misconceptions or neutralize thj sexual taboos, that represent such a major threat to the quality and stability 6f marriage." Sex researchers William H. Masters and his wife, Dr. Virginia Johnson Masters, predicting that a massive demand for counseling on sex will swamp the medical profession in the two or three years.

oerg, the MIT professor. Clayton and former government' Fritchey employe who is about to be tried for leaking the Pentagon papers to the press, want to call a flock of defense witnesses to explain to the court how commonplace leaking is in the nation's capital, and just how this steady traffic is carried on every day. It ought to be instructive to the public as well as the court. Such expert testimony, coming from top officials of thejoy-e and experienced Washington correspondents who regularly cover the government, would' go a long way to explain the defense contention that Dr. Ellsberg was "singled out for prosecution according to a principle of selection which is invidious, discriminatory and constitutionally impermissible.

In short, the argument is that Ellsberg has done nothing that hundreds; nay, thousands of others haven't done, and indeed, are still doing. The defense has not yet revealed the names of its special witnesses, but it should be no problem to produce prominent Washington figures who can testify that leaking at the highest levels of government goes on all the time, in the Nixon administration as in previous ones, regardless of which party is in power. Unpopular sale National Geographic The Gadsden Purchase, whose 29,640 square miles include part of Arizona and New Mexico, was" ratified in 1854, by a narrow margin because many senators felt the land was not worth $10 million. Opposition to the sale waseven greater in Mexico were Sata- Anna, the victor of the Alamo, was banished as a traitor for agreeing to it. Bureau of Circulations and the Associated Press.

News articles tms newspaper deslg Obted (AP) man not reprinted.