County IN BRIEF : LOS ANGELES : Direct Phone Link to Armenia to Begin

Armenia will become the first Soviet republic to have international direct-dial telephone service today when AT&T; officials make a three-way conference call connecting the republic, Los Angeles and New York. John Berndt, president of AT&T; International Communications Services, will make the official first call from New York to Robert Avoyan, a telecommunications official in Yerevan, at 6:30 a.m. PDT. Armenian Minister of Culture Berj Zeytountsian, who will be at the AT&T; office in downtown Los Angeles, then will make the first official remarks, symbolically linking the 300,000 Armenian-Americans in the Los Angeles area with their homeland.