PPV PEELE YB RENAE CES?

WASHINGTON (UPI) — The federal
government says it has spent nearly $2
million improving President Nixon’s
homes in'Florida and California, all of it
relating to ‘“‘security.”

The White House also disclosed that
businessman Robert H. Abplanalp, who
helped the President buy his San Clemen-
te, Calif., retreat, has been getting some
money back in the form of rent associated
with Nixon’s Key Biscayne, Fla., place.

A month ago the White House had
listed $39,000 in federal funds for im-
proving the Western White House at San
Clemente since Nixon bought it in 1969.

Last week, after a further search of
record, it raised this figure to $460,302.

On Thursday, General Services Ad-
 ministration (GSA), the government’s
housekeeping agency, said a still more ex-
tensive audit put the total federal expen-
diture at San Clemente at $703,367 over
four fiscal years beginning July 1, 1969.
This included only the residence there,
not the White House office space.

GSA listed for the first time the federal
expenditure for improvements, equip-
ment, operation and maintenance at the
White House complex at Key Biscayne,
including both residence and office
space— $1,180,522, spread over five fiscal
years beginning July 1, 1968.

Included in the Key Biscayne figure
was $161,463 for renting two houses in the
complex for the Secret Service and White
House communications staff.

The White House said one of these
 houses is owned by Abplanalp and the
other is owned in the name of Edwin H.
Underwood, trustee for the Indiana
National Bank, Indianapolis.

The White House said all of the tax-
payers’ money spent in San Clemente and
Key Biscayne was for security-related im-
provements and that all work was done at
the request of the Secret Service, not the
President.

The GSA data showed items such as
$53,644 in fiscal 1970 for interior security
and communications at San Clemente. It
also included $3,303 in fiscal 1970 for golf
carts for the Secret Service patrol at Key
Biscayne.

Two years later there appears another
item of $5,230 for three Secret Service golf
carts there.
 
JERSEY CITY, N. J., Mareh %.
(P.—Climbing through cold blue
skies more than five and one-half
miles over Jersey and Manhattan
‘today, Miss Ruth Nichols, Rye, N-
Y.. flier, whe holds coast-to-coast
speed marks, set an unofficial al-
titude recard for women.

The altimeter on her speedy
_Lockheed-Vega monoplane showed
nearly 30,054 feet. The sealed
-barograph’ placéd’ inthe plane by
the National Aeronautic associa-
tion immediately was shipped tc
Washingion for examination.
If it shows 28,074 feet, or more,
Miss Nichols will be awarded the
‘record now held by Elino> Smith,
young Long Island flier.

Miss Nichols was informed that
te attain recognition as the rec-
ord holder, she must beat Miss
Smith’s wark by more than 600
feet.

She took off from Jersey City
airport at 12°35 p. M.. and was
aloft 90 minutes. There was &
30-mile wind blowing when she cir-
cled the city, swung cver Manhat-
tan and started the long climb.

“Everything went fine,” she
said. “the engine worked perfect-
ity. I did not suffer any discom-

s

| fort.
| The plane was equipped with 2
'650-horsepower, Supe r-charged,
rine-cylinder air-cooled motor. It
is the same ship in which she set
| east to west and west te east
aes ae ee ee
 