Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 3

iV I Today's Chuckle The sexes may be equal, but did you ever hear of a housewife going into retirement? THE SECOND FRONT PAGE Page 3, Section A Monday, January 24, 1977 4 1 i rd I BRUISING RITE Bank Robber: State Investigator Michigan National Fumes at State for Photo Incident had notified you and requested pictures of your facilities," Francis wrote. "We did consider this possibility; however, in light of the nature of the investigation we made the decision to obtain the photographs as we did." Francis went on to cite past instances where "we have run into trouble in attempts to obtain information from your bank on a direct basis." Last week, Francis said Walworth and the bank were "making a mountain out of a molehill" with regard to the security incident and appar- Please turn to Page 4A, Col. costly to the bank. Francis, who said the investigation pertains to Michigan National's branch banking and advertising practices, e-sponded with his own letter Dec. 22.

He accepted full responsibility for the incident but refused to apologize. "You have suggested in your letter that the costly problem and the anxious time we caused your employes could have been avoided if we rapher through license plates on his car, and discovered he was a state employe on assignment from the Financial Institution Bureau of the Commerce Department. "It was dumber than hell for them to do something like that a I told them so," the bank's senior vice-president in Lansing, William M. a 1-worth, said last week. The repercussions, evidently fueled by long-standing differences between Michigan Na GM Saginaw Star U-M Wrestler.

Sidelined By Initiation into Fraternity UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN wrestling coach Bill Johannesen was more than a little upset when one of his stars, sophomore Amos Goodlow of Flint, missed two big meets recently after a fraternity initiation rite. Johannesen thinks Goodlow, a Phi Eta Psi, got beaten up by his fraternity brothers. Goodlow says he may have taken a few licks but it was nothing to worry about. He admits that he did have to check into the U-M infirmary overnight because of blood in his urine after the initiation. U-M officials say their hands are tied: As long as everyone involved was happy with the ceremony, there isn't anything they can do about the fraternity's initiation techniques.

The Postal Service in Action JAMES DEFRANCIS, an assistant to Sen. Robert Griffin, had his car damaged when a post office truck slid on some ice and hit his car. The truck driver left, a note saying that the post office would be sending Defrancis the necessary documents. When Defrancis called after not receiving the documents, he was told that papers had been lost in the mail. A Surplus of Hot Air EARL BRUSH, general manager of the Lansing Board of Water and Light, told the Michigan Air Quality Control Commission last week that, in effect, if air quality regulations for the utility's downtown generating plant weren't relaxed, it would have to cut off steam to some of its clients.

That included one of the company's biggest customers, the state Capitol. It didn't faze Dr. Maurice Reizen, a member of the commission. Said Reizen, "That's OK, they generate their own steam." No Place Is Safe A WORKER AT Chrysler's Huber Avenue Foundry lost $23 in a holdup Thursday. The worker was in a bathroom stall when a gunman opened the door, poked a gun in, and took the worker's money.

The gunman wasn't apprehended. Carter Plans UAW Speech PRESIDENT CARTER has tentatively accepted an invitation to speak at the UAW convention in Los Angeles, which opens May 15. Carter is planning trips to various points in the nation, including junkets aimed at what one staffer called "opening diplomatic relations wth the West Coast," which went big for Gerald Ford last November. Plant tional and state banking officials, are still being felt. Just last week, Michigan National's board of directors wrote a letter to Gov.

Milliken strongly protesting the incident and demanding to know details of the state investigation that triggered it. There has been no response to the letter. EARLIER, however, there" was an acerbic exchange of correspondence between Walworth and the state's banking Free commissioner, i a d' J. Francis. Walworth's letter dated Dec.

17 was first. In it. he said he was "indignant" over the picture-taking incident and said it raised questions about "either the motives or intelligence of the people in your department." Walworth also said that security precautions taken "in anticipation of an attempted robbery" had caused bank personnel anxiety and were Press Photo by HUGH GRANNUM Back to Work Workers at General Motors Saginaw steering gear plant were scheduled to be back on the job Monday following the ratification Sunday of a new local contract. UAW Local 699 struck the plant Thursday after negotiators failed to reach an agreement on contract terms before the 11 a.m. deadline.

A GM spokesman said the strike'of the plant, which manufactures steering gears, drive shafts and other parts, could have affected other operations had it continued. 1 BY HUGH McDIARMID Lansing Bureau Chief LANSING Officials of the Michigan National Bank here went on a special security alert last month and tipped off the FBI on a would-be bank robber. They came up with thetate banking commissioner i n-stead. The incident was triggered by a mysterious photographer who was seen taking pictures of various branch buildings belonging to Michigan National in the Lansing area early in December. The FBI traced the photog- Treatment Of Seivage Nearly Cut hi Freeze BY HUGH McDIARMID Lansing Bureau Chlel LANSING a officials came close to ordering a major cutback in sewage treatment last week including elimination of a major treatment step at the huge Detroit plant to help ease Michigan's electrical emergency.

The plan has drawn sharp criticism from some Michigan environmental spokesmen, one of whom described it as "heresy" and claimed that a top Department of Natural Re-sources official had pulled it "from the seat of his pants." THE OFFICIAL is William furney, director of DNR's environmental protection branch and secretary to the state's Water Quality Commission. He acknowledged last week that procedures and documentation for such actions need strengthening but he said the steps that he took were not arbitrary. "We were responding to a request from the utilities to cut back on non-essentials," ho said. "We notified (sewage) plants in the major cities to cut back to the extent they could on tertiary (the third and final treatment process) and told Detroit to stand by and get ready to pull the plug on secondary treatment." That cutback was never ordered, according to Turney, because the emergency, which had begun early Tuesday, ended shortly after the Detroit plant was put on standby. THE DETROIT Metropoli-t a Wastewater Treatment plant is the second largest in world.

It has tertiary treatment facilities but has huge facilities for both primary and secondary sewage treatment, both of which use large amounts of electricity. Turney did not confer with DNR Director Howard Tanner or with Water Quality Commission members until after the fact, but they subsequently endorsed his actions. Two days later on Thursday Wayne Schmidt, a staff ecologist for the Michigan United Conservation Clubs (MUCC), complained "that to pull such a contingency plan apparently from the seat of his pants amounts to heresy." "Is it the policy of this commission that our first line of reaction to an energy emergency is a cutback on environmental quality a n-dards?" he asked. Several commission members responded angrily. One of them, Stanley Quackenbush, representing the state agriculture director on the commis- Please turn to Page 10A, Col.

1 L.J mi minimi ii iniiiir i ii i i Coin; HOUSE Speaker Bobby Crim predicts that action on high-priority bills is still several week away. Michigan Budget Improves LANSING (AP) Mich-igan's economic outlook appears to be brightening as. Gov. Milliken submits his proposed 1977-78 budget to the Legislature Monday. The budget, for the 12-month fiscal year begininng Oct.

1, is not expected to be- as bare-bones as the one approved for the current year. Spending will not leap forward, however, because Milliken has ruled out a general tax increase, and the economy still is picking up slowly. MILLIKEN IS EXPECTED to propose a general fund spending plan of roughly $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion. The addition of restricted money and federal funds will double that figure. If tradition holds, the Legislature will enact the bulk of Milliken's budget' in a raucous last-day session next summer.

Most of the action when the 79th legislative session begins in earnest this week will be in committee, where major bills on political reform, a "sunset" Please turn to.Page 18A, Col. 1 Mrs. Bennett shows off a post-World War I billboard advertising "The Wandas Sisters." That's Mrs. Bennett, known then as Jenny, on the bottom and her mother, Elizabeth, who posed as her sister, at the top. Memories Are Magic For Former Almost all of the 8,650 work ers voted on the pact Sunday.

It was approved by 92 percent of production workers and 88'4 percent of skilled tradesmen. But both GM and Chrysler were threatened with more strikes this week over local contract issues. In all, more than 100 UAW units had yet to agree on local issues in contract negotiations that began last summer. With ratification of the pact, GM still has 49 of its 143 lcoal bargaining units without local contracts. The company faces a walkout Monday by 7.700 UAW Local 568 workers at its two Chevrolet metal casting plants if a contract is not reached by 11 a.m.

NEARLY 100 salaried workers at the central Operations Office at Chrysler World headquarters in Highland Park have set a strike deadline of Thursday. Chrysler has 54 of 207 units without local pacts. Chrysler was hit last Thursday by a strike of 285 office, clerical and engineering employes at its defense engineering office in Sterling Heights. A walkout last week of 3,100 production workers at Chrysler's Indianapolis, electrical parts division remains unsettled while bargainers for UAW Local 446 and management at the company's foundry in Fosteria. Ohio, averted a strike by 735 workers by extending a proposed strike deadline indefinitely.

Mrs. Bailey Answers Hundreds of Calls To Rent Flat "I was able to get just the right older couple I was looking for," said Mrs. Levy Bailey, Detroit. She received more than 300 calls in response to her Free Press Fast-ACTION Ad for a five room lower flat. It took her less than two weeks to find the right tenants.

Place your Fast-ACTION Ad now! Dial 222-6800 Presidential Strolls Are Dubious Pleasures I WAS OF two minds concerning Jimmy Carter's freewheeling saunter down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, much against the wishes of the Secret Service. It was easy to understand the exuberance that led Carter to want to parade hand in-hand with his Rosalynn in front of so many of the people who helped elect him, certainly the proudest time of his life. And it is also not difficult to comprehend that any free American, especially a politician who needs to feel the' physical presence of the people, must resent the concept that a platoon of two-footed watch dogs, if the. Secret Service will pardon the expression, must be on hand every time a man of the stature of the president of the United States ventures away from the security of the White House. But, sadly, that's the way it is in a world with more than its share of kooks and psychos.

What happened to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. are all too recent and vivid proof of that. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and even Gerald Ford to a lesser extent, gave way from time to time to that necessity to press the flesh. They got away with it, but I truly hope our new president will be a little more cautious. I hope so, but I very much doubt that he will.

As for Harry Reasoner's grumping that nine-year-old Amy should have been in bed rather than yawning while mom and dad made the rounds of the Inaugural festivities, I don't agree. Live it up while you're young is my motto. If Chastity Bono can share the spotlight with Sonny and Cher, why shouldn't Amy have a starring role in the Jimmy and Rosalynn show? As for the presidential dancing, I'd have to say Carter is lucky he holds that office. He and his good wife were naturally given a sizeable chunk of floor room and they needed it, what with the pleasantly old-fashioned waltz step to any tempo with the left arms extended at full length. But enough of this nit-picking.

All hail and good fortune to the chief! THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: We don't stop having fun when we're old; we're old, BY GENE GUIDI Free Prest Staff Writer Back in the 1920s, when Suzy Wandas Bennett was a beautiful young woman in designer gowns, mesmerizing European audiences with performances in famous theaters like the Lido in Paris and the Scala in Berlin, a theater billboard proclaimed her "the lady with the fairy fingers, the Pagan-ini of the cards and the virtuoso of the cigarets." Mrs. Bennett, a world-famous magician, is now a month from her 82nd birthday the appreciative music hall audiences long since silent, the billboards hanging in museums, the elegant gowns'safely tucked away. But her memories of life as the "famous Belgium magicienne" are ever present, tumbling out without prompting as she guides guests through her northeast Detroit home filled with magic treasures. Pointing to a picture of herself in a floor-length, black gown which was taken in Paris in 1938, Mrs. Bennett said "I tried to give the audience a performance filled with beauty and elegance.

This gown in the picture was designed by Chemourd, a top Parisian designer on the Champs Elysees. The dresses I wore were created just for me and cost thousands of dollars. But that's what separates the great magicians from the amateurs the total performance. All tle amateur does is the trick, period." HUNDREDS OF PHOTOGRAPHS cover the walls of Mrs. Bennett's home, signed by such greats as Blackstone and Houdini.

A stage surrounded by theater posters dominates one corner of the basement. Years ago, it was used by visiting magicians who wouid give private performances for fellow masters of the art. "The world has changed so much for magicians," Mrs. Bennett said. "I wouldn't know where to tell a young person interested in magic to start.

The great music halls are gone it's very difficult to get started now. When I was performing, I would work in the same music hall in the same city for weeks at a time. You can't do that now." Born into an acting family Mrs. Bennett was eight years old when she gave her first performance a novelty act which included violin numbers. "You can almost say I was bom on stage," she said.

Her father, Charles Wandas, died "in 1911 and she teamed with her mother and brother as "The Wandas Trio." Please turn to Page 4A, Col. 3 wnen we stop having fun. DICK KELLY was shaving the other morning when he realized that he a being watched closely by his 26-month-old son, Ricky, who was making the same movements as his father with an imaginary razor. Just as he was about finished, Kelly cut himself. Ricky observed the action and the reaction.

Levin Will Leave City Council For First Love Law Practice Next morning as Kelly performed the same chore, Ricky was watching again. But this time he observed firmly: "Ricky not shave today." BILL SCHINDLER, a former Detroit fire commissioner, was among the first t0 respond to David Donovan of Tasmania, Australia who is trying to acquire a collection of license plates representing all the United States. Schindler sent along his DFD 101 plate that signified he was associated with the fire department. The 101 represented his radio code in the years that he served as commissioner. TODAY'S WORST JOKE: Time for a reprise concerning the French Revolution when many noblemen were captured by the rebels.

They tried to force' secrets out of the noblemen, but none would talk. A tribunal ordered them to the guillotine. One count decided at the last minute to squeal, but it was just as the blade was descending. Moral: Don't hatchet your counts before they chicken. BY SUSAN MORSE, DAVE ANDERSON AND ROBERT OSTMANN JR.

Free Prest Staff Writer City Council President Carl Levin is job hunting. Despite the fact that he was the top vote-getter in the last city election and despite the belief of many that he could easily win election as the next mayor, Levin says he is leaving city government to return to his first love the practice of law. And while he still doesn't know exactly what he will be doing next year, the 42-year-old Levin has a few ideas: He has let it be known in the proper circles that he would accept a Carter administration appointment as U.S. attorney in He says he will run for state attorney general if Frank J. Kelley decides to run for the U.S.

Senate next year. He is exploring the possibility of joining a large law firm on the condition that he be allowed to spend at least a fourth of his time handling public-interest law cases. The decision of a top politician one of a well-known family of politicians to leave city government after eight years has puzzled some. Levin's first explanation is that he doesn't want to get stale. "I have never been "In a job this long (eight years), and I want to keep it that way.

I have enjoyed the Council too much to ever let it become just a job. "I feel deeply that people should not become stuck at the public trough. It would be better for everyone if we could go in and out of public, office easily." After being graduated from Harvard Law School in 1959, Levin practiced with the Grossman, Hyman, Grossman firm downtown for five years while maintaining a small practice of his 6vn in a storefront on Twelfth Street Ucarvhcre the riot started in 1967. From 1964 to 1967 he was the general, counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, where he won a landmark open-housing case. For two years after that and before winning a seat on the council he was chief appellate defender for Please turn to Page 10A, Col.

2 Levin's decision to leave city government after eight years has puzzled some. He says he doesn't want to get stale..