Moving my Blog entries about my Father W.L. Helmantoler to FamilySearch.org Family Tree

Helmantoler Explains Wage/ Price Commission

Corpus Christi Times | Corpus Christi, Texas | Friday, December 31, 1971 | Page 2

It’s a World Nobody Understands
By NAN ROBERTSON The New York Tlttm News Servlce

WASHINGTON — The first frame of the cartoon strip posted on the door of the Price Commission’s information office shows a young man talking to his wife. The two age through the next five panels, until, at the end, both are in an advanced stage of wrinkled decrepitude. The wife, now a crone, speaks:
“Thanks, dear, for taking time to explain all the ramifications of Nixon’s economic package.”

A reporter races away down the hall, calling back to Willis (Bill) Helmantoler, the commission’s information chief: “Tell me if I write anything wrong.” Helmantoler, former Air Force colonel with impressive credentials as a public relations man, grins and shrugs. “How will I know?” he replies.

This jaunty, it’s-Greek-to-us-too attitude pervades the brave and bewildering new work of the Price Commission and Pay Board, Washington’s two just-invented economic power structures. Both recently moved into a still unfinished building at 2000 M Street. The framed occupants’ diredctory in (lie lobby is blank. Workmen are ripping open crates containing new desks. Uniformed armed guards stop all comers before they reach the elevators, ask them who they’re going to see, make them sign in and pin on a visitor’s badge.
The tight security, it is explained, is to foil anyone who might wish to sneak upstairs and rifle the files of confidential material that industry and labor have amassed for the two panels on wages and prices.

Meantime, men reluctant to give their names leaf through 50 stacks of directives that blanket a long table near the entrance. The decisions affect corporate giants s”ch as Westinghouse Electric and segments of the economy as humble as the Salvation Army — which, it turns out, pays most of its officers below the minimum wage level and so is exempt from the guidelines. A Pay Board release points out that the requested Salvation Army salary increase is now authorized, “although formal approval was not actually required.”

Chairman George II. Boldt praises two Ohio carpenters’ unions in another release for displaying “patriotic self-re-straint” by rejecting a scheduled pay. raise of more than 5.5 per cent. A visitor gazes over the lobby table
and says grumpily: “We’ve decided llial: the only companies profiting from this whole deal are the ones that make paper.” He identifies himself as an assistant vice president of a “worldwide company of $440 million making machinery and chemical products.”

A lawyer whose clients include huge utilities on the West Coast says: “I try to get by here every day — we’re greatly affected by what happens here.” At the top of the eight-story building is the Pay Board, which occupies one floor. The Price Commission, almost three times bigger with 450 employes borrowed from about 30 government agencies, spreads out over the three floors immediately below.

Helmantoler explained that the price panel “is managing the whole economy. It’s a much more complex and voluminous job. The Pay Board is just wages. We’ve got 1,500 companies in ‘tier one’ alone, each making more than $100 million a year in total revenues.”

The Price Commission meets all day Mondays and Tuesdays in a stark, windowless room on the seventh floor. Wednesday mornings there is a news conference at ‘the Treasury Department, with reporters trying to hack their way through the thickets of the new control systems. Only the chairman, C. Grayson Jackson Jr., is living in Washington. The other six members fly in for the weekly sessions. The Pay Board meets on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and does not hold regular news conferences. Only four of its 15 members live in the capital.

The atmosphere of confusion was typified in the response to one telephone call from a man inquiring about the meaning of a Pay Board regulation just published in the Federal Register. “What’s the Federal Register?” asked the young secretary at the Pay Board. (The Federal Register is the daily journal of executive branch actions and policies, parallel to the Congressionsal Record. Publication in the register makes them official.)

Col. Helmantoler Speaks to Scott AFB in 1952

Alton Evening Telegraph | Alton, Illinois | Tuesday, September 09, 1952

VART Mean Rigors, Risk Involved in Testing Jets

Lf. Col. Wini« Helmantoler. public Information officer at Eglin Field. Fla. Air Force proving grounds, Monday night at Civic Memorial Airport, addressed the 9W9fh Volunteer Air Force Reserves squadron. Helmantoler’s home Is In Wood River.
Col. Helmantoler told squadron member* of some of the exciting experiments carried on at his home base in effort to further the war effort. It is their Job to test new jet airplanes of all makes, suggesting improvements or adjustments after they have been tested for actual combat performance. Equipment of all kinds comes under the scrutiny of Eglln Field for their approval or rejection. But the most interesting phase of the work Is with the aircraft.
In spite of the hazardous work. Eglin Field has had an exceptional safety record, with few losses. An experimental mistake at Eglln may not only cost a life, but thousands—even millons of dollars in equipment. Theirs is a serious business, and only the best men in electronics, radar, and aviation can be used. The newer jets, like the all-weather ship the FXW), our newest, requires a real technician to fly It. You can’t be “Just a pilot” any more in any of our aircraft, Col. Helmantoler said.

Col. Helmantoler gave some vivid accounts of experiences encountered by some of the men employed to keep the U. S. Air Force up to date, and ahead of the enemy. He mentioned that at 45,000 feet above the earth, one has a gray outlook, as it is almost twilight in appearance even in the daytime. Consequently, you get only one “pass” at an enemy plane, because after that (in a jet) you couldn’t find him again.

Eglin Field is totally in an air war, as they have a deadly game going on with Strategic Air Command, which come* In at intervals to “bomb” the base. It is the job of Eglin Field men to get jets in the air, once the enemy has been spotted on radar, and shoot down the bombers before they can get over the Field for a bomb run. These men feel th seriousnesss of the situation constantly, because most of them have families living on th base, who would nave been bombed out had one of the raids been successful . . . and sometimes they are.
There are 13.000 people on Eglln Field, Helmantoler said, and the over all area of their “work shop”
is 500 square miles of Government owned land.

After a question and answer period that kept the Squadron at Civic Memorial far into the night, Maj. Ben Moore, squadron commanding
officer, expressed appreciation for the moat enlightening talk of the year, and closed the meeting.

Mike Helmantoler’s First News Event

Alton Evening Telegraph | Alton, Illinois | Thursday, August 12, 1948

Mrs. Willis L. Helmantoler and baby have been visiting at the home of her husband’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Helmantoler of 550 George street, for the past two weeks. Mrs. Helmanloler left Sunday for Potosi, Mo., where she will visit her parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Casey, and will then join her husband in Boston, Mass.

Myda Martin Helmantoler’s Obituary

Alton Telegraph | Alton, Illinois | Sunday, September 02, 1990
Myda Helmantoler
WOOD RIVER Myda M. Helmantoler. 88. died fit 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 1, 1990. at VIP Manor in Wood River. She had worked in a secretarial service at the Corps of Engineers in St. Louis and had also operated the Wood River Beauty Shop in the 1940s. Born in Trigg County, Ky.,she was the daughter of (he late Marcus and Gertrude i Lucas) Martin. She married Willis Eli Helmantoleron April 24, 1920, in Hopkinsville, Ky., and he died on Dec. 26, 1971.

Surviving are a daughter. Leatha Jorgensen of Springdale.Ark.; two sons, Wayne Helmantoler of Lafayette,Calif., and Willis L. Helmantoler of Springfield, Va.; seven grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren;and a sister, Goebel Randolph of Edwardsville. A twin sister, Hyda Stagner,preceded her in death.

Visitation is from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday at Marks Mortuary in Wood River, where services are at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The Rev.Dennis Armstrong will officiate. Burial is in Woodland Hill Cemetery in Wood River. Memorials may be made to the First Christian Church of Wood River, where she was a
member since 1920.

Brickey Helmantoler’s Obituary

Alton Evening Telegraph | Alton, Illinois | Monday, June 12, 1967
Helmantoler
Former Wood River resident, Brickey Helmantoler, died Sunday, following major surgery.
Mrs. Helmantoler was the wife of Col. W. L. Helmantoler, Chief of Air Force Public Relations,
with headquarters at Hickman Air Force Base in Honolulu.
She had visited the Alton area last March when she returned for the funeral of her father William H. Casey of Potosi, Mo.
In addition to her husband she is survived by her mother Mrs. Casey; a son Mike, and a daughter Lynn both at home. Area relatives include a sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Willis Helmantoler of Wood River.

Col.Helmantoler’s 1st Legion of Merit

San Antonio Express and News | San Antonio, Texas | Sunday, August 09, 1959

An Information Chief Named Col. Willis L. Helmantoler, chief U.S. information officer in Japan
for the past two years, is the new information chief for the Air Training Command at San Antonio.
He leaves Tokyo Sunday for his new assignment. Helmantoler, a decorated I.J.S. combat pilot in (he war against Japan, has won the Legion of Merit for a successful new campaign to make friends with the Japanese people.

Lt. Gen. Robert W. Burns, top U.S. commander in Japan, has announced Helmantoler got one of America’s highest peacetime decorations for “outstanding service to the United States” as Chief U.S. Information officer in Japan the past 2’/4 years.

A personal friend of scores of Japanese newspapermen, Helmantoler was one of the first Americans in Japan to shift emphasis in military public relations along the lines of President Eisenhower’s people-to-people program. He first became acquainted, with the Japanese press by taking a planeload of-editors on a, tour of the United States in 1956, and was one of the few high Americans to visit Japanese newsmen in their offices and homes.

Japanese friends nicknamed him “Hachiman Taro,” after an llth century Japanese model warrior whose name resembles the Japanese pronunciation of Helmantoler. One of the Illinois Cclonel’s little known but ‘most influential roles was as the officer responsible for the Far East network, the U.S. operated English language radio network for Americans in Japan.

Myda’s Back Ailment

Alton Evening Telegraph | Alton, Illinois | Wednesday, October 18, 1939

Here for Weekend
WOOD RIVER — Willis Lyndell Helmantoler has returned to school at the University of Illinois fater
visiting his mother and sister of 94 Eckhard avenue. Mrs. Helmantoler has been bedfast since Saturday,
suffering from a severe back ailment. She has been unable to work where sheis employed at the International
Shoe Company since Friday. Mrs. Helmantoler has had similar attacks for the past five years.

Bill and Mary’s Wedding Anouncement

Alton Evening Telegraph | Alton, Illinois | Tuesday, November 17, 1970 | Page 8
To Wed Area Man
Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Harold Strader of Richmond,Va., announce the engagement of their daughter, Mary Elizabeth, to Willis Lydell Helmantoler, son of Mr. and Mrs. Willis Eli Helmantoler of 620 N. First St., Wood River. Miss Strader is a graduate of The College of William and Mary in Virginia where she was affiliated with Alpha Chi Omega sorority. Mr. Helmantoler attended the University of Illinois and received his bachelor of science and master of science degrees from Boston University. He is currently the director of public relations for American Airlines in Washington, D.C. A December wedding is planned.

Wayne Helmantolers Obituary

Alton Telegraph | Alton, Illinois | Thursday, August 12, 1999 | Page 5
Wayne Helmantoler
LAFAYETTE, Calif. – Wayne E. Helmantoler, 88, died Friday, Aug. 6, 1999, at Sunrise Assisted Living in Walnut Creek, Calif.
A former Wood River resident, he worked at Shell Oil Co. in Wood River until 1966 and retired in 1970 from the
company in Martinez, Calif., after 38 years of service. He later worked at Mount Diablo School District for eight years.
Born in New Columbia, he graduated from East Alton-Wood River High School in 1929.
His wife of 66 years, Adeline Kasten Helmantoler, survives. Also surviving are a son, Damon Helmantoler of Concord,
Calif.; three grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; a brother, Willis Helmantoler of Springfield, Va.; and a sister,
Leatha Jorgenson of Springdale, Ark.
Memorials may be sent to St.Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, where he was a member, 1601 Mary Drive, Pleasant
Hill, CA 94523, or Alzheimer’s Association, Greater San Francisco Bay Area, 251 Lafayette Circle, Suite 350,
Lafayette, CA 94549. Oakmont Crematory and Cemetery of Lafayette was in charge of arrangements.