The Multinational Monitor

December 1988 - VOLUME 9 - NUMBER 12

N A M E S    I N    T H E    N E W S

Alcohol Labels, Part II


IN THIS SPACE two months ago, we discussed the arrogance of alcohol manufacturers and their trade groups during a recent congressional battle over health warning labels for alcoholic beverage containers. In an interesting, related development this month, representatives of the U.S. broadcasting industry demonstrated strikingly similar tendencies over the very same issue. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had invited the industry's principal trade group, the National Association of Broadcasters, to participate in a workshop intended to generate ideas on how to curb drunk driving. With admirable courage, the N.A.B. declined the invitation, issuing an official explanation to the effect that too many of the workshop's scheduled participants are on record in support of restrictions on televised advertising of alcoholic products. Those ads, incidentally, generate over a billion dollars each year for broadcasters.

Redline Fever


A RECENT STUDY by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution concludes that the illegal practice of redlining, refusing to lend in given areas for reasons of race, is alive and well at the nation's savings and loans. This accusation comes on top of the current crisis of corruption and mismanagement which has devastated the savings and loan industry. The Atlanta paper found that blacks applying for home loans are rejected more than twice as often as whites and that in most of the country, high- income blacks are rejected at the same rate as low-income whites. The Journal-Constitution's findings are based on analysis of 10 million home loan applications filed across the country over the last five years. The analysis suggests the following nation-wide rejection rates for loan applicants of all incomes: 11.1 percent, whites; 12.2 percent, Asians; 16.5 percent, American Indians; 18.2 percent, Hispanics; and 23.7 percent, blacks. In the story accompanying the release of these statistics, the paper points to cutbacks in the enforcement of fair-lending laws by Reagan administration regulators as one explanation for the persistence, and even growth, of redlining practices in the 1980s.

Fleeing a Sinking Ship


IN 1987, WHEN E.I. Dupont deNemours and Co. announced that it was giving up its lease on the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons facility in Savannah River, South Carolina, the company promised Energy Department and White House officials, as well as the public, that it was leaving behind a safe, well-maintained weapons plant. In the intervening months, however, reports of just-discovered structural flaws and other hazards at the site have put a serious strain on Dupont's credibility. And now, leaked Dupont memoranda confirm that the company had not just discovered the plant weaknesses but rather had known about them for decades. The memos, obtained by the New York Times, indicate that Dupont conducted extensive research on major problems at the Savannah River site, including cracks in the piping of the primary cooling system, flaws in the emergency cooling system and structural deficiencies that could make the plant vulnerable to earthquakes. Dupont explained its long silence about these threats by saying that, until very recently, the Department of Energy's reporting requirements had not been particularly stringent. Consequently, company officials did not think it necessary to release the information. Westinghouse is scheduled to take over as operator of the Savannah River plant on April 1 but the recent revelations about the magnitude of the problems facing the facility may have spooked Westinghouse executives into reassessing the merits of the project.

Fleeing a Sinking Ship


Reach Out and Bug Someone A FEDERAL GRAND jury is investigating the Cincinnati Bell telephone company on charges that it has routinely engaged in illegal wiretapping of its customers over the last 20 years. The telephone company is also facing a class action suit over the same activities. According to court documents, Bell was part of a secret, illegal arrangement with the local police who were trying to collect information about organized crime and drug- related activities. But eventually, the wiretapping "acquired a life of its own, looking into all 'suspicious' persons and groups such as: Black Power Groups, Student Activist Groups, Citizen Activist Groups ... as well as 'suspicious' members of the general citizenry," the lawsuit alleges. There are also reports that Cincinnati Bell wiretapped for commercially sensitive information, with a view to auctioning off industry secrets to "preferred" Bell customers. General Electric has initiated an investigation into the possibility that its Cincinnati offices lost certain defense contracts to competitor Pratt & Whitney as a result of such activities. The tale of the illegal wiretaps was first exposed by a small, Cincinnati weekly, the Mount Washington Press. A former Bell employee who helped to blow the whistle on the wiretaps says that Cincinnati's principal daily paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, was first approached with the story but refused to run it because they feared potential repercussions from the telephone company.

-Garth Bray