The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, August 14, 1984 - Page 3
McPromotion adds up
to gold for franchise
By ERIC MATTSON
Considering that the United States
won 174 medals in the 1984 Summer
Olympics in Los Angeles, you'd think
McDonald's has lost a fortune on their
"When the U.S. Wins, You Win"
promotion. You'd be dead wrong.
Game cards at McDonald's all over
the country have an Olympic event
listed on them, and if the U.S. won a
medal in that event, the card is
redeemable for afood prize.
The promotion was developed before
the Soviet Union and its allies dropped
out of the Olympics, so marketers
didn't have any idea the U.S. would win
the record amount of medals it did.
BUT EVEN though the 6,500-
franchise company gave out thousands
of free Big Macs, french fries and
Cokes, the increased customer traffic
resulting from the promotion more than
makes up for the prizes, according to
company spokespeople.
"We just had a whole lot more
customers coming in," said Pat Welch,
account supervisor of McDonald's for
P.R. Associates in Detroit. And
although she conceded that the totals
won't be known until the promotion en-
ds on August 31, she said, "We just
know there's been a large amount of
(customer) traffic."
Bob Keyser, director of media
'relations for McDonald's in Chicago,
said "it's succeeded beyond our expec-
tations. Sure, we've given away lots of
prizes," but, he stressed, "Mc-
Donald's does not run out of Big
Macs."
WIRE REPORTS suggested that one Mc-
Donald's had run our of Big Mac buns,
but Keyser said that was only a one-
hour emergency.
Welch agreed with Keyser, saying,
"There's been no supply problem that
I'm aware of."
Welch also said the promotion was a
success "just in terms of heightened in-
terest in the Olympics."
At the McDonald's on Maynard Street,
the customers seemed to echo Welch
and Keyser's sentiments. "I've been
eating free here for weeks," said Levon
Yengoyan of Ann Arbor. Yengoyan
said he gets free game cards just by
asking for them.
Victor Caldwell of Ypsilanti insisted
that "we don't come here just for (the
promotion)," but he admitted that he
had come to McDonald's several times
in the past few days just to redeem his
winning cards.
You ! Associated Press
Sen. Gary Hart fields a question during a Minneapolis news conference
yesterday after a meeting on military preparedness with presidential
candidate Walter Mondale.
Sen. Hatfield admits 'error' in pipeline case
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.)
saying he had made an "error in judgment," joined his wife
yesterday in turning over $55,000 to charity, the same amount
Antoinette Hatfield received from a Greek businessman
whose trans-Africa pipeline the senator promoted.
"My insensitivity to the appearance of impropriety was a
mistake," said Hatfield, now campaigning for re-election to
his fourth term in the Senate.
AT A NEWS conference, Hatfield and his wife denied any
direct connect between Mrs. Hatfield's real estate work on
behalf of Basil Tsakos and the senator's help in supporting
Tsakos' proposal to construct a pipeline from Saudi Arabia
across the Sudan, the Central African Republic, and
Cameroon.
"A public official should conduct himself in a way which
avoids even the appearance of impropriety," Hatfield said,
making his first public explanation of the payments from
Tsakos to Mrs. Hatfield in 1982 and 1983.
"I know that there was nothing unethical or illegal about
my support for the pipeline," he said, but he added: "I have
made an error in judgment."
OTHERS, HATFIELD said, "cannot see into my mind and
have speculated that my support was related to my wife's
fees."
The Justice Department has launched a criminal
investigation into allegations linking the money Mrs.
Hatfield received with the senator's backing of the proposed
$12 billion, privately financed pipeline. The Senate Ethics
Committee is also reviewing the case.
In retrospect, Hatfield said he and his wife should have
discussed the potential for conflict of interest at the time, and
that she should have cut off her business relationship with
Tsakos and accepted no fees.
THERE HAVE been contradictory versions of how much
work Mrs. Hatfield actually did for Tsakos and his wife,
Laura, in helping them find an apartment at the posh
Watergate cooperative complex in Washington, and then to
decorate it.
Two former Tsakos employees told the Ethics Committee,
in sworn testimony Aug. 1, that Hatfield's version of his
wife's work for the Greek is a "total fabrication." The former
employees, Madilyn Manger and Margaret Stocker, said
they went to the panel because they believed Hatfield had not
told the truth in earlier accounts.
But Mrs. Hatfield said yesterday that over a three-year
period, she searched the Washington area for a residence,
visited dozens of properties and helped the Tsakos' son find a
home of his own.
Mrs. Hatfield, who until yesterday had not responded
publicly, said: "Up until now I allowed my husband to
protect me and insulate me. I allowed him to become my
spokesman. I should have spoken by myself."
Hatfield said he still supports the pipeline, which has
recently received approval from the three African
governments involved.
Ann Arbor offers good and bad
Daily photographer Deborah My melancholy may be surprising to Dairy for a mound of ice cream, The
Lewis returned to her Bethesda, you. I've cursed you relentlessly for Earl for a wallet-vacuuming meal, or to
Md. home Saturday after four years your miserable winters, your om- Old Town, Del Rio, or Drake's to look
in Ann Arbor She called yesterday nipresent metermaids, and your up at the pressed-tin ceilings.
blasted one-way streets. I've groaned OK, so your mayor owns a gun shop;
to offer a few parting words to the at the gentrification of the State St. at least your citizens kept the glorious
city: shopping area, the massive outdoor Michigan Theater standing. It
Farewell Ann Arbor. You've been the shopping mall called the Art Fair, and provided some of the most wonderful
only place I've called home since I left the way the upstairs State theaters show experiences of my life. So thank
the Maryland suburb in the slant to the side and make my neck you for the Jam concert of the summer
enlightening autumn of 1980. I was with ache. of 1982, the organ-accompanied presen-
you when Reagan was elected president But you mustn't forget my oft- tation of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a
of the United States, I was with you expressed affection for a great number Nation, the annual 16mm Film
when he was shot outside the very hotel of your assets. Sunday walks along the Festival, and Sippie Wallace's 80th bir-
where I attended a prom in 1978, and I railroad tracks or a romp through the thday party.
wish I could be with you to see his Arb always ended with an appreciative A number of visiting friends have
defeat in November. sigh, as did my visits to the Washtenaw compared you to Berkeley or Boulder,
Hatfield
..,.denies confliet of interest
m emories
but I think the town-gown relationship
you maintain transcends that of the
other college towns. Ann Arbor, you
have no San Francisco (sorry, Detroit)
and you certainly can't boast the 14,000-
foot likes of Vail and Aspen (I
apologize, Mt. Brighton). Yes, Ann Ar-
borites are stuck with you .., and howI
envy them.
But as any budding photojournalist
from the Greater Washington
Metropolitan Area knows, New York
City is the place to go for the exquisite
pain and beckoning ecstacy of
publication.
So I fondly and fearfully bid you
farewell, Ann Arbor, but not good-bye.