Oklahoma City Times (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 87, No. 5, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 26, 1976 Page: 1 of 64
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: The Oklahoma City Times and was provided to The Gateway to Oklahoma History by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
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I
Ford, Reagan, Goldwater
among party ‘comedians5
Republicans
are
says so
44 lawmakers
sue
L
* tr
to bar postal cuts
Hr
Chinese pay tab
Kennedy shortly after It waa polM frwusthe water on
for Nixon dinner
two friends
the night?
m
Western sources familiar with Pe-
CHAPP
Still uo rain
in forecast
weatheR
Seduction
statute
City prison location
WhOT’S INSID0
to be fixed by April
c
«
■
Bystanders examine the Oldsmobile driven by Sm.
FTC opens
Blue Shield
The 51 votes in favor of the bill
were the minimum needed to send
the measure to the Senate.
15<t
Final homo
LQT0ST STOCKS
fl
f
B
is
14
14
32
35-13
20
35
13
23--'5
21
31
21
Rep. Tom Bamberger, D-Oklaho-
ma City, author of the measure, said
it is needed to stop "harassment, ex-
tortion and blackmail."
He said he knows of several in-
stances in which Oklahoma City cou-
ples have conspired to seduce other
married people, and then threatened
them with lawsuits
But Rep. Ross Duckett, D-Mus-
tang, argued against the measure,
-w
health care costs for all Americans.
Blue Shield now provides physi-
cian-care insurance for 40 per cent
of the nation's population and pays
out over S3 billion annually in doc-
tor's fees, the FTC said.
The FTC said today its non-public
investigation will encompass all of
the 71 Blue Shield plans across the
nation as well as the National Asso-
ciation of Blue Shield Plans.
Blue Shield officials said they
would cooperate with the FTC inves-
tigation. They also said the investi-
gation was not evidence of any ille-
gality and they defended physician
involvement with Blue Shield.
FTC officials gave no details of the
planned investigation, except to say
they would study control of Blue
Shield by physicians and its impact
on competition and delivery of
health-care services to all Ameri-
cans.
But it was learned that the agency
is concerned, among other things,
with the fact that the plan's large
share of the physician-care business
allegedly gives Blue Shield a major
voice in determining the prevailing
fees charged by physicians in any
given community.
Chappaquiddick. The shirUess man on right is the
diver who rec overed the body of Mary Jo Kopectme.
February will continue its warm,
dry performance practically to the
end, the Oklahoma weatherman said
today.
Highs in the sunny 70s should pre-
vail through Saturday, before a
sharp cool spell arrives to mark the
Leap Year 29th day Sunday and
March's debut Monday.
Highs in the 40s are predicted both
days, and a slide to the 20s is expect-
ed statewide Monday morning.
No moisture is foreseen, which
means February will be as blank as
January in that department. Oklaho-
ma's 1976 rainfall today stood a flat
two inches below the 2.33 inches con-
sidered normal to date.
Oklahoma's corrections depart-
ment must select a prison site for
the Oklahoma City area by April in
order to have construction under
way by the fall, Ned Benton, correc-
tions director, said today.
Benton told
investigation
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Fed-
eral Trade Commission is investigat-
ing the huge Blue Shield insurance
system to determine if physician
control of the 72-million member
program stifles competition and con-
tributes to the dramatic increase in king prices estimated the banquet,
given Wednesday night at the Great
Hall of the People for 300 guests,
would have cost between $3,000 and
$5,000.
A Chinese official, asked to com-
ment on who paid for the dinner,
said, "I don't know the answers to
Action Line
Amusements
Bridge
Business News
Classified Section
Comics
Deaths
Our Tinies
Sports
TV Log
Vital Statistics
Women's News
52 PAGES
VOL. LXXXVII, NO. 5
264.617
Evening-Morning Daily
4 Paid Circulation
Average for January
your questions. If I am a man's
guest for dinner why should I find
out who paid for it or how much ft
cost?”
board
members that his staff Ta prepared
to push forward for the selection of a
site for the 400-inmate correction fa-
cilities in the Oklahoma City area.
Under questioning, he indicated
the site must be selected by April so
e
t
QKLAHOMACITY TIMES
CooMnh CopynQht, 1V76. Th. OWohomo Putting Co.
How could Kennedy pass
to consider such legislation
the nation's Bicentennial
President Ford and a bunch by
Ronald Reagan and none by Rog-
ers, since he was a Democrat.
"Betty studied modern
dance and >zwas a former foot-
ball player,” Ford recalled in
one anecdote. "She never really
came right out and said I was
a poor dancer; she's much too
kind for that.
"But she did have a rather in-
teresting theory as to why I
On another issue, Nixon refused to
comment on criticism of his trip to
China by other Republicans at home.
Nixon also toured underground
caves today, returning to town "ex-
hausted," the ex-preaident's medical
corpsman said. But Nixon later re-
vived and told a banquet that Kwei-
lin is the world's most beautiful city.
The cavern Nixon toured is called
the Reed Flute Caves, where
Chinese hid from the Japanese dur-
ing World War II. Nixon hiked for
more than a quarter-mile under-
ground, followed by the corpsman
with a resuscitator and a supply of
oxygen.
The corpsman, Robert Dunn, said
he took Nixon's blood pressure four
times and that it rose "within nor-
mal limits" as a result of the under-
ground hike.
"Sir, can you give us any reaction
to the criticism being voiced by Sen.
Barry Goldwater and President
Ford's people?" an American corre-
(See NIXON—Page 2)
Local: Fair and mild through
Friday. Lows tonight mid-40s:
highs Friday mid-70s. Winds light
and variable. (Details, Page 31.)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Forty-four
members of Congress sued the Post-
al Service today, asking for a court
order against closing unprofitable,
small post offices and saying the
agency is carrying out "a massive
assault on the country's small com-
munities.**
The Postal Service says post of-
fices are being closed only in com-
munities where service would not be
reduced.
Rep. Paul Simon, D-lil., leader of
The book is called "Republican
Humor," and It is the brainchild
of Stephen J. Skublk and Hal E.
Short. About 200 pages thick, it
will go on sale for $4.95 beginning
about April 1, and the proceeds
will go to the Republican Nation-
al Committee.
Skubik, who says he is a Re-
publican but "not a hard-backed
one," offered to produce a mon-
ey-making book for the Demo-
crats too but that they didn't ac-
By Jim Young
construction can follow the fall time-
table his department has set.
Benton outlined a five-step pro-
gram for selection of the Oklahoma
City site, with the first step being a
collection and analysts of site recom-
mendations from the public and pub-
lic officials in the area.
He said that letters have already
gone out to civic leaders in the Okla-
homa City area, setting out criteria
for the site and asking for their help
(See PRISON—Page 2)
KWEILIN. China (AP) — Firmer
President Richard M. Nixon tried to
pay for the 10-course banquet he
gave his Chinese hosts but the
Chinese insisted it wasn't necessary,
John V. Brennan, a Nixon aide, said
today.
Rep. Charles Morgan, D-Prague,
asked Duckett, "Do you still feel
your wife is your private personal
property or something?"
"Well," Duckett responded, "I am
one of those who opposed the Equal
Rights Amendment, and I think the
good lord gave me my wife and if
anyone tries to take her away from
me, he ought to be punished."
"It sounds to me like a lot of wom-
en get punished because they marry
someone like that," Bamberger
(See SEDUCE—Page 2)
The agency said that some of
those who voted against additional
appropriations for the Postal Service
last fall are now suing in an attempt
"to hamper us in implementing the
only remaining route available to us
— cutting postal costs."
Six members of the congressional
group appeared at a news confer-
ence to announce the lawsuit. Asked
how they would finance the contin-
ued operation of unprofitable rural
(See SUIT—Page 2)
the group of 41 representatives and
three senators who tiled (he 50-page
lawsuit in U.S. District Court, said
the action is being financed by sev-
eral associations of postmasters.
The Postal Service responded in a
statement: "The congressmen by
joining with the postmaster associa-
tions in effect endorse make-work or
featherbedding, and their actions
can only serve to damage the Postal
Service's efforts to resolve its cur-
rent financial crisis."
cept the offer because they saw
legal problems.
"I'm sure it will sell a mini-
mum of 50,000 copies," said Sku-
bik. "Politics has been such
heavy stuff, depressing occasion-
ally. I decided there was another
side of politics, the fun side. Re-
publicans aren't noted for their
humor."
The collection includes contri-
butions from such big-time Re-
and could not have arrived back at
the cottage before 12:15 a.m.
But two of the partygoers, Charles
Tretter and Rosemary "Cricket"
Keough, testified they were on the
road, walking toward the intersec-
tion during that entire time.
Therefore, they should have en-
countered Kennedy, dripping wet,
coming from the opposite direction
on that 20-foot-wide strip of blacktop.
WASHINGTON (A>) _ will
Rogers used to say he wouldn't
run for president no matter how
badly the country needed a co-
median.
He also said he belonged to no
organized political party because
he was a Democrat.
Now the Republicans are
trying in a new book to show
they have a funnybone, too.
The book contains 58 stories by
stirs House oratory
By Wafa Miller
The House voted 51 to 43 today to saying it seems "especially inappro-
abolish the statute which allows for priate" ♦ es ZWINaUam a»»» -L 1 — — Al—_
civil suits for alienation of affection during
or seduction. year.
that of two other partygoers.
. The existence of the conflict was
established when The AP systemati-
cally analyzed the entire record with
time charts.
- Kennedy said that, after his at-
tempt to rescue Mary Jo Kopechne
and a brief rest, he returned to the
cottage, "walking, trotting, jogging,
stumbling** up the road for L2
miles.
• If the car went into the water be-
tween 11:20 and 11:35, as the testi-
mony says, Kennedy could not have
reached the Intersection before 11:55
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Two members of The AP Special Assign-
ment Team spent eight months investigating Sen. Edward M. Ken-
nedy's involvment in the still mysterious Chappaquiddick Island
drowning. This is the fourth story in their five-part report.)
are taken
* 4 I
publicans as Sens. Barry Gold-
water, Robert Dole and Charles
H. Percy, assorted congressmen
and Republican national commit-
tee members.
Ford's bon mots
from his speeches:
"Sen. Humphrey is a dear
friend of mine and I can still re-
member the first time I ever
heard him speak at the Alfalfa
(See JOKES—Page 2)
- -'-I
Neither Kennedy nor the two par-
tygoers mentioned seeing anyone on
foot, although Tretter said he and
his companion had to jump off the
road several times for cars during
the 30- to 40-minute walk.
Kennedy told The AP he passed no
one and conceded it was "unlikely"
he could have missed anyone on
such a narrow road.
When approached for an inter-
view, Tretter, a former Kennedy
aide, ordered a newsman off his
front porch, refusing even to accept
a list of written questions about his
testimony.
Miss Keough, now Rosemary K.
Redmond, a partner in a Boston law
firm, said in a letter she did not
have time to review her testimony in
order to answer the questions given
her by The AP and preferred "to
rest on my testimony as it stands in
the record."
Thus, that conflict remains unre-
solved.
The uncontradicted testimony of
Kennedy and several other party-
goers is that the senator arrived out-
side the cottage about midnight and
summoned Joseph F. Gargan and
Paul A. Markham, friends of Kenne-
dy who were at the party, and that
the three drove off in Gargan's rent-
ed white Valiant.
Kennedy, Gargan and Markham
say they went directly back to the
bridge, where the senator's two
friends jumped from the car,
stripped and dived into the water in
a second vain rescue effort that last-
(See SECOND—Page 2)
By Michael Putael
aad
Richard Py le
EDGARTOWN, Mass. (AP) —
Christopher "Huck" Look Jr., a dep-
uty sheriff at the time of the Chap-
paquiddick incident, has challenged
Edward M. Kennedy's account of the
events that night.
But even assuming Look was
wrong about seeing Kennedy's car
and that Kennedy's timetable was
accurate, another conflict occurs be-
tween the senator's testimony and
funny, too—their joke hook
played center rather than quar-
terback. She said it's one of the
few positions on a football team '
where you don't have to move
your feet." t
From the Reagan collection
comes this: "I always grew up
believing that if you build a bet-
ter mousetrap, the world will
beat a path to your door. Now if
you build a better mousetrap the
government comes along with a
better mouse."
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Bennett, Charles L. Oklahoma City Times (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 87, No. 5, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 26, 1976, newspaper, February 26, 1976; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1797152/m1/1/?q=j+w+gardner: accessed July 8, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.