In the Public Interest

The great New York Times photographer, George Tames, took the picture that captured the event. There was Charles Brown, chairman of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T), with his hand patronizingly on the shoulder of President Reagan’s antitrust chief, William Baxter, who wore a Cheshire cat smile. The occasion was the joint announcement at…

The Reagan administration now wants you to pay more to find out what the Reagan government is doing to you. Higher prices for government publications are being added to the government’s greater secrecy to exclude citizens from knowing about critical decisions. Starting on Jan. 25, the Federal Communications Commission will refer you to a list…

For an insurance company president, he was most articulate. Perhaps it is because he had an important finding to communicate as he held a news conference in Washington earlier this month. Robert F. McDermott, president of a large automobile insurer, the United Services Automobile Association in San Antonio, was releasing a report on car safety…

There is a wholly unheralded builder of American democracy who invites a special New Year’s salute. I am referring to the woman homemaker who sees an injustice done to her children or community and mobilizes the citizenry to do something about it. Example: In the late Seventies two young mothers found their infants harmed by…

Sometimes countries pick up good ideas from one another. In this holiday time of giving it is appropriate to look at the Charitable institution known as “semi­postals,” while h have flourished for decades in many European countries. Semi-postal started in Holland, Belgium and Switzerland before World War I. They are colorfully designed postage stamps bearing…

It was a race between the oil-natural gas lobby and an aroused public opinion. The people lost. But not by much and because the Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives would not allow a few more days for more Americans to learn that their gas bills would be going up in order to pay…

John O’Toole is a leading and urbane New York advertising executive who has just written a book titled “The Trouble with Advertising…” The title comes from his recurring experience with people coming up to him at social gatherings and saying, “The trouble with advertising…” The content of the book is replete with a defense of…

Suppose a group of very rich financiers came to your community and made this offer to your city council: “We the financiers will build a fuel plant on condition that when the foundations for the plant have been completed, the future consumers of the fuel will start paying for the costs of constructing the plant.…

Sen. Robert Stafford (R-Vt.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) do NOT want Americans to breathe more poisonous air. On the other side, Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors, is pressuring members of Congress to severely cripple the Clean Air Act of 1970. The outcome of this momentous struggle in Congress will depend entirely on how…

Mike Westfall is looking ahead and what he sees coming everywhere are robots. As a member of United Auto Workers Local 598 in Chesaning, Mich., Westfall knows what the auto companies are planning to do-replace tens of thousands of autoworkers with microelectronic automation. After years of forecasting, the robots are now coming fast. GM Cadillac’s…