24.6.77

U.S. Uranium Firm’s Failure
Could Cause Foreign Suits

WASHINGTON . Juin 23 (AP) , — Bankruptcy proceedings filed by a federal agency against a key producer of atomic fuel could disrupt nuclear programs in foreign countries and lead to millions of dollars in international jawsuits .

Carter administration officials yesterday that the State and Justice Departments are investigating the failure of the U.S. Nuclear Corp. of Oak Ridge , Tenn. A bankruptcy petition against the firm was filed quietly by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Agency on May 4.

Sources say that Brazil , South Africa and other buyers of the company’s enriched uranium are asking the State Department about the bankruptcy proceeding and are concerned that their major source of a special king of reactor fuel may be cut off. Brazil and South Africa had already made down payments to U.S. Nuclear for future deliveries , the sources say.

ERDA , the corporation’s biggest creditor , filed the bank-ruptcy petition May 4, officiais said . U.S. Nuclear was closed , but its supply of enriched uranium , already processed for export , was stored and sealed , the officials said . Sources say that they believe at least a dozen countries have been dealing through the closed company .

World Implications

Shutdown of U.S. Nuclear complicates the task of agencies that must advise President Carter when he decides whether to approve sales of enriched uranium to foreign countries . Enriched uraniem can be used to bulld nuclear weapons .

Some foreign requests for nuclear fuel have political overtones and friendly countries , already annoyed with delays , may be trate over a new roadblock .

South Africa , whose racial policies have been denounced by the U.S. government , put in a bid more than two years ago for 55 pounds of enriched uranium at a cost of about $500. 000 . The uranium was prepared by U.S. Nuclear , but the sale was not cleared by the Carter administration . It is now entrangled in the bankruptcy case .

South Africa Poses Risk

Brazil , criticized by Mr. Carter for human rights violatins , also had asked to buy a new shipment of uranium from U.S. Nuclear . The United States has been trying to get Brazil to cancel or modify its contact with West Germany for the purchase of its own uranium enrichment and spent uranium fuel reprocessing facilities . These facilities would give Brazil a weapons-making option .

South Africa says its nuclear research program is in danger of disruption because of the previous delays . Another factor is that South Africa has its own uranium reserves and resources , and technology advanced enough to rate the country sa a future nuclear supplier .

" If we were to rebuff South Africa after selling it a reactor and the fuel elements to keep it going since the early 1960 , it would pose the risk of that country going down the road to nuclear weaponry on its own , defying the only world body with a functioning system of control ", an administration official sald .

Dutch Propose
Crackdown on
Moluccan Units

THE HAGUE , June 23 (AP) . --- The government outlined plane yesterday to disband South Moluscan paramilitary formations operating in the Netherlands and to crack down on the illegal posession of arms .

The gouvernment’s proposals were contained in a written report to parliament il days after military force was used to end a 20-day siege by South Moluccan extremists in a hijacked train and a village school .

The propoals will serve as a basis for parliamentary debate tomorrow .

The gouvernment made it clear that it is conserned that more troubble might erupt from within the contry’s 40,000 - membre Moluccan community . It sald that house searches for illegal weapons would to considered if a treat to public security developed .

The government report also focused on groups of Moluccans which operate as special self-defense units within their communities or hold military-style exercises in the Dutch country-aide .

It said that police powers would have to be enforeed within the Moluccan communities rather than left to the vigilante groups , whose membres have been trained in karate and other martial arts . Military - style field exercises by other groups of uniformed South Moluccans could no longer be tolerated , the report added .

ALL TANKED UP — Cleveland plumber Sam Green with 1971 Harley Davidson motorcycle that he bought for $3,400 . Sinee then he’s added a few things : like an AM-FM radio , a tape deck , a four-inch TV sereen , a CB radio, 126 lights , 150 chrome balls , an air horn , a regular horn , a siren and dual exhausts . He calls it ""Super Hog " and has bought another bike which will be "nicer" than this one .

Coast of Each B-1 Is Now Put at $117 Million .

By George C. Wilson

WASHINGTON , June 23 (WP) . ---- A Pentagon estimate withheld from the public in the last days of the Ford administration put the cost of the B-1 bomber ai $112 million a copy instead of the adverttised figure of $93 million , according to a General Accounting Office analysik released yesterday .

Sen. John Culver , D-Jows , said in releasing the Gao summary that other data he has received actually puch the price of the bomber up to $117 million.

The climbing cost estimates of the B-1 occur as President Carter nears his decision on whether to put the bomber ; the most expensive ecombat ever built , into full production .

He said during his election compaign that it would be ""wasteful" to produce the bomber but intely has been showing signes of reversing himself .

Access Denied

Elmer Stants , head of the GAO , which serves as tha congressional cost accountant , wrote Sen. Culver that his agency had been denied secess to the higher Pentagon cost estimates until resently .

The GAO discovered that in addition to the Force cost repport that former Defense Secretary Donald Runmsfeld aocepted - that 244 B-1 bombers could be bought for $22,8 billion -or 393 million esch - there were two independent analyses casting doubls on that estimate .

Mr. Rumsfeld’s own cost review team . Mr. Staats said , considered as "most reasonable" the analysts that argued $22,8 billion was 20 per cent below the most likely cost of developing and building 244 B-1 bombers.

Adding that a 20-per-cent increase , or $4,56 billion , raised the estimate Mr. Rumsfeld publicized to $ 27,36 billion , or $112 a plane , Sen. Culver said that the Ford administration "obviously" put out the lowest figure for fear of jeopardizing "this unnecessary and wasteful program" .

Since Mr. Carter became President , the Pentagon has acknowiedge that the B-1 is likely to coast $1,1,7 millions a copy but has yet to endorse Sen. Culver’s astimate of $117 million a plane .

2 Escape to W.Berlin

BERLIN , June 23 (Reuters) . ----- Two East Germans , Luts Schmidt , 22 , and Michael Marchall , 21, escaped to the West last weekend by swimming across the Wannsee to West Berlin , police said . The swim lasted 2 hours .

Zambia , Angola Plan
Connection Railroad .

LUSAKA . Zambia , June 23 (Reuters) . —Zambia and Angola are planning a road that will connect the British-owned Benguela rairoad to Zambia’s coppermining region , officials said yesterday .

The road will run from the norhwestern town of Mwinijunga into Angola’s Moxico Plovince and meet the Benguela line at the town of Luens formerty called Luso .

Barbados Probe Lays
Air Crash to Bomb.

BRIDGETOWN. Barbados . June 23 (AP) . A judiolal ecommitee probing a Cuban plane crash off Barbaded that the plane crash off Barbados that the plane was destroyed by a bomb Seventy-three passengers and crew membres died in the crach .

The findings were released by Aviation Ministre Bernard St. John in a parllamentary statement . Two Venezuelans , Freddie Lugo and Herman Ricardo - now in jall in Herman Ricardo - now in jall in placing the explosive device on the aircraft in Trinidad .