National Affairs: Wyatt at Work

While Congress was talking its budget-cutting best, Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield rode up to Capitol Hill last week like Wyatt Earp moving in on an edgy town board. Before an economy-tortured House Appropriations .Subcommittee Summerfield sat down and made his peremptory demand: a deficiency appropriation of $47 million to carry on until June 30, the end of the fiscal year. Bluntly he threatened to "drastically curtail" post office services unless the committee gave him what he wanted; he invited Congressmen to say "whatever services you would have the American people be denied."

Threats & Heartbreak. The subcommittee turned as purple as...

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