  UV-to-visual spectra of eight young star clusters in the merger remnant and
protoelliptical galaxy NGC 7252, obtained with the Blanco 4-m telescope on
Cerro Tololo, are presented. These clusters lie at projected distances of 3-15
kpc from the center and move with a velocity dispersion of 140+/-35 km/s in the
line of sight. Seven of the clusters show strong Balmer absorption lines in
their spectra [EW(H-beta)= 6-13 Angstrom], while the eighth lies in a giant HII
region and shows no detectable absorption features.
  Based on comparisons with model-cluster spectra by Bruzual & Charlot (1996)
and Bressan, Chiosi, & Tantalo (1996), six of the absorption-line clusters have
ages in the range of 400-600 Myr, indicating that they formed early on during
the recent merger. These clusters are globular clusters as judged by their
small effective radii and ages corresponding to ~100 core crossing times. The
one emission-line object is <10 Myr old and may be a nascent globular cluster
or an OB association.
  The mean metallicities measured for three clusters are solar to within
+/-0.15 dex, suggesting that the merger of two likely Sc galaxies in NGC 7252
formed a globular-cluster system with a bimodal metallicity distribution. Since
NGC 7252 itself shows the characteristics of a 0.5-1 Gyr old protoelliptical,
its second-generation solar-metallicity globulars provide direct evidence that
giant ellipticals with bimodal globular-cluster systems can form through major
mergers of gas-rich disk galaxies.
