Coverage Involving Lockheed Seems Amiss

For years I’ve heard stories that The Times had a policy of never mentioning Lockheed unless it was in a derogatory manner--sort of the reverse of “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Balderdash--or was it?

In the Valley section of May 21, there was a story about the “comeback” of the SR-71 for use by NASA. Somehow in 36 column inches, it managed to avoid any mention that the plane was designed and built by Lockheed.

An adjoining story about how the Pentagon was to pay the major portion of a Lockheed cleanup, even though 14 other companies were involved in 95% of the pollution, managed to mention Lockheed eight times in 23 column inches. (There was one mention each of Aerojet General and Boeing.)

Makes one wonder about the old story.

ROSWELL BOTTUM

Van Nuys