The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, November 20, 1975, Image 1

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Battalion
Vol. 69 No. 47
College Station, Texas
Thursday, Nov. 20, 1975
Franco’s death signals
start of power struggle
Reagan opens campaign
with challenge to Ford
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Republican Ronald Re
tail announced his candidacy for the White
ouse today, challenging President Ford and a
i'ashington “buddy system’’ he blamed for
lajor national woes.
“I believe my candidacy will be healthy for
le nation and my party,” the conservative Ca-
fomian and former actor said as he began the
ctive phase of his effort to wrest the White
louse from a Republican President.
Ford aides and allies contend the Reagan ch-
Uenge could divide the GOP and thus help the
)emocrats in the end.
Reagan keynoted his personal campaign with
slap at the Washington establishment. While
le didn’t say so directly, he clearly included
''ord.
The former two-term governor of California
idled off his complaints: high rates of inflation,
inemployment and interest; big government he
ailed coercive, meddlesome and ineffective; a
liminished U.S. defense posture; detente with
he Soviet Union, which he said is too one-
lided.
In my opinion, the root of these problems
ies right there — in Washington, D.C.,” Re
gan said in a prepared declaration of candidacy.
Our nation’s capital has become the seat of a
buddy’ system that functions for its own benefit
- increasingly insensitive to the needs of the
American worker who supports it with his taxes.
"Today it is difficult to find leaders who are
independent of the forces that have brought us
our problems — the Congress, the bureaucracy,
the lobbyists, big business and big labor,” Re
agan said.
“If America is to survive and go forward this
must change,” he said. “It will only change
when the American people vote for a leadership
that listens to them, relies on them and seeks to
return government to them. We need a go
vernment that is confident not of what it can do
but of what the people can do.”
Reagan cited his years as governor of Ca
lifornia as evidences that he can manage go
vernment more efficiently. “We found that fiscal
responsibility is possible, that the welfare rolls
can come down, that social problems can be met
below the federal level,” Reagan said.
Reagan, an activist liberal Democrat in his
early Hollywood days, is making his second bid
for the Republican presidential nomination. The
first, at the GOP convention in 1968, was brief
and futile against the commanding strength of
Richard M. Nixon.
But Reagan was the only GOP rival who wo
rried Nixon in that campaign, testament to the
clout of conservatives in a GOP National Co
nvention.
This time Reagan, now 64, has had a campaign
committee at work for five months, and his in
sistence that he had not made up his mind about
Campus
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MARILYN HORNE, one of opera's greatest
sopranos, will perform Thursday at 8 p.m. in the
Rudder Auditorium. Her performance will in
clude arrangements of “Bei Dir!” by Seidl and
“Beau Soir” by Bourget. Admission for A&M
Students will be $5, $4.50, and $3.70; General
Public admission will be $6.75, $5.70, and
$4.60. Tickets available in the Rudder Box Of
fice.
«
“DESTROY ALL MONSTERS,” part of the
Cepheid Variable, will be. shown Thursday at 8
and 10 p.m. in Room 701 in Rudder Tower.
Admission will he 50 cents.
THE PRESIDENTS of the largest humane
societies in the country will speak Friday at 9 in
Room 701, Rudder Tower, to the Second Annual
Animal Control Personnel Development Pr
ogram. Speaking will be Joseph Q. Betzendorfer
Jr., president of die American Humane Associa
tion at Denver, Colo., and John Hoyt, president
of the Humane Society of die United States,
Washington, D.C. The program is sponsored by
the Center for Urban ft-ograms at TAMU.
EMPLOYES of the K-Mart store in College
Station will host a Christinas party Dec. 7 for
residents of the Brenham State School.
THE AGGIE BAND, Ross Volunteers, Fish
Drill Team and Company W-l will participate in
the 1975 Holiday Parade Saturday morning
down Texas Avenue from University Drive to
Post Office Street. The parade steps off at 10
Texas
THE STATE JUDICIAL QUALIFICA
TIONS COMMISSION resumed its inquiry
today in Corpus Christi behind closed doors into
charges of official misconduct against suspended
District Court Judge O. P. Carrillo. The Texas
Senate recessed the Carrillo impeachment trial
until Jan. 5 to give the qualifications commis
sion, headed by Judge James Meyers of Austin,
time to conduct its inquiry.
National
LT. GEN. JAMES R. ALLEN, su
perintendent of the Air Force Academy, pr
edicted in San Antonio yesterday, that the U.S.
Air Force may see its first female military pilots
in the near future. On a recruiting trip for the
first women cadets at the academy, he said that
the academy will probably train women as non
combat pilots eventually, “perhaps by the time
the first class graduated.”
candidacy didn’t fool the politicians.
At the Ford campaign committee and at the
White House there were early signals of an ef
fort to counter the Reagan threat.
One of the first political moves the Ford team
made was to sign up leading figures in the Ca
lifornia GOP, many of them old Reagan allies,
apparently in hopes that would dissuade the ch
allenger.
On the road. Ford stressed his own conservat
ive credentials. He put in a heavy schedule of
Republican fund-raising appearances.
Indeed, it was opposition of conservatives,
who could be mobilized only by Reagan, that led
Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller to rule
himself off" a 1976 Ford ticket, to end what he
called party squabbling.
The squabbling didn’t end. Reagan’s ca
ndidacy, and Ford’s early moves to counter it,
drew complaints from Rpublican liberals.
Reagan, who left office Jan. 6 after eight years
as governor of California, has been traveling
much of the time since, preaching conservatism,
criticizing the Washington establishment — in
cluding Ford — and covering 34 states.
SG accepts
new members
By DON ILOFF
Battalion Staff Writer
Scott Greggson and Richard Gunselman were
approved to fill two vacant Senate seats, at the
Student Senate meeting last night.
Scott Greggson is now the Davis-Gary, Mos
es, Moore senator. Richard Gunselman was ac
cepted by the Senate as off-campus graduate st
udent representative.
Four other bills were also voted on and ac
cepted by the Senate.
The first was the MasterCharge Resolution.
This resolution was designed to help students to
establish credit ratings. The Republic National
Bank, of Dallas, will work with the University to
help seniors and graduate students receive Ma
sterCharge cards.
Second on the agenda was the Expansion of a
“491” Program. This program would allow ac
ademic credit to be earned for “pure research.”
Another bill passed was the Off-Campus In
ternship Program, which would give students
the opportunity to gain academic credit while
working in jobs related directly with their major
course of study.
The Double Major bill was also passed by the
senate. The Double Major Program is not to be
confused with the double-degree program.
Under the Double Major Program a student
would recieve only one degree with two majors,
not two separate degrees. Also, a student is not
required to take any extra hours beyond the re
quirements for one degree.
Three bills will be considered at the next se
nate meeting, Dec. 2.
The Centennial Fair Support Bill was the first
to be considered. An organized all-night student
celebration is to be held in the Spring of 1976 in
the MSC. The Senate voted to lend its full su
pport to the organizers of the fair and are now
obligated to provide the $15 fee requested from
all the organizations participating. This $15 will
be used for publicity and the use of a booth.
The Student Publications Board Re
commendation was also considered. If passed it
would cause students to remain manditory su
bscribers to The Battalion through their student
services fees. It would also place five students on
the Student Publications Board. Currently, st
udents are a minority on the board.
The Senate will consider the Senate By-laws
Resolution at the next meeting, also. If it passes,
the Senate will approve the needed additions
and corrections to the By-laws.
Associated Press
MADRID, Spain — Spain today began 30
days of national mourning for Generalissimo Fr
ancisco Franco, Western Europe’s last surviving
dictator, whp died early today after a month
long battle for life.
Heads of other West European governments
expressed the hope that the death of the man
who had ruled Spain with an iron hand for 36
years would mean the rebirth of democracy in
his country. But his reactionary supporters were
already gearing up for a determined fight against
the advocates of a new and liberal Spain.
The government announced that Franco
would be given a state funeral on Sunday and
that the successor he designated. Prince Juan
Carlos de Borbon, would be installed on Sa
turday as Spain’s first king in 44 years.
The 37-year-old prince, who has been acting
chief of state since Oct. 30, is a grandson of King
Alfonso XIII and was educated and trained
under Franco’s supervision from the age of 11.
The dictator designated him his successor in
1969, but many Spaniards expect him to try to
move the political system toward democracy.
Juan Carlos will take the name King Juan Ca
rlos I since his father, Don Juan, the Count of
Barcelona, has refused to renounce his own
prior claim to the throne.
Franco’s 26-man medical team in a final bu
lletin said the generalissimo’s condition de
teriorated throughout the night until he suffered
“irreversible heart arrest” at 5:25 a.m. Informed
sources said his only child, his daughter Ca
rmen, was at his side with four of his gr
andchildren.
Franco’s wife of 52 years had returned home,
exhausted by her long death watch.
Although the doctors’ bulletin gave the causes
of death as heart failure, they listed nine ai
lments from which Franco was suffering in his
final illness. They were Parkinson’s disease,
which he had for several years; coronary disease,
acute digestive ulcers with massive repeated
hemorrhaging, bacterial peritonitis, acute renal
kidney failure, thrombophlebitis, bilateral br
onchial pneumonia, endotoxic shock and heart
arrest.
The 5-foot-3-ineh generalissimo died just two
weeks before his 83rd birthday.
He had been ill since Oct. 17 and had suffered
repeated heart attacks, had undergone three
major abdominal operations and for days had
been kept alive by massive blood transfusions, a
respirator, an artificial kidney machine and
other mechanical devices as well as his own in
domitable will to live.
The government said Franco’s body would be
taken today from La Paz Hospital where he died
to the chapel of the Pardo Palace, his residence
north of Madrid. It will be brought to the Na
tional Palace in downtown Madrid Friday Morn
ing to lie in state from 8 a.m. Friday to 7 a.m.
Sunday “so all who want to can pay their final
homage before the body,” the government said.
A requiem mass will be celebrated on Sunday
in the Plaza de Oriente, in front of the National
Palace, and then the body will be taken for bur
ial in the Valley of the Fallen, the vast un
derground cathedral which Franco had built into
a mountainside 35 miles north of Madrid as a
monument to the dead of the Spanish Civil War.
The funeral is certain to bring out a massive
demonstration by the political right, a show of
strength to warn Juan Carlos against the liberal
reforms which many expect him to initiate.
The right’s drive against political change has
already begun. Conservative leaders are making
speeches demanding that the authoritarian sy
stem established by Franco remain unchanged.
The police are arresting scores of opponents of
the regime. Leftist leaders claim the civilians of
the right have been armed. Ultra-rightist Bias
Pinar tells his audiences to be ready to battle the
Communists in the streets.
The centrists and leftists are keeping quiet
about their plans. But if democratic reforms are
not forthcoming, strikes and terrorist attacks are
likely. Already the illegal opposition parties
have announced that they oppose the restoration
of the monarchy and called for the return of the
republic which Franco destroyed in the 1936-39
Civil War.
Sources close to Juan Carlos have reported
that he believes the regime must give some sa
tisfaction to the leftists despite the threat of the
Franco diehards. As a first step he has been re
ported planning an amnesty for some of the po
litical prisoners.
In the years he waited in Franco’s shadow, the
prince made occasional pronouncements which
indicated to his critics his allegiance to the au
thoritarian system but indicated to others that
he would work for democratization of the re
gime.
A number of Spaniards and foreign observers
believe that Juan Carlos does not have the pe
rsonal strength or following among the public to
push through political reforms even if he wants
to.
The man he succeeds as chief of state, Fr
ancisco Paulino Hermedogildo Tedulo Franco y
Bahomonde, was born to a naval family but en
tered the army and became a brigadier general
at 34. Serving in North Africa in 1936, he took
command of the military uprising against the
Republican government when the general lead
ing it was killed in a plane crash.
In a rehearsal for World War II, Hitler and
Mussolini backed his rebellion with troops and
planes, while the Soviet Union supported the
Republicans, but the Nazi-Fascist support was
decisive. Victory for the forces of fascism came
on March 28, 1939 when Franco led his troops
into Madrid.
During the world war that followed. Franco
supported his Axis allies in various ways but his
only contribution to the fighting forces was one
division he sent to the fighting front.
In the immediate postwar years, he was an
outcast to the democracies. But as the fear of
Soviet Communism grew in the United States,
his militant anti-Communism changed Wa
shington’s attitude and the Eisenhower ad
ministration welcomed him as a friend and ally.
From 1953 to 1963 the United States poured
more than $1.5 billion in economic assistance
and half a billion in military help into Spain.
Economic progress brought some relaxation of
repression, but the Civil War’s horrors were still
fresh in too many memories for the anti-Franco
opposition to attract widespread support.
Senate committee to propose
punishment for federal plots
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A Senate intelligence
committee report will propose that any future
government plots to kill foreign leaders be pu
nishable under domestic murder laws, but the
panel is fighting a Ford administration drive to
suppress or censor the rest of its assassination
findings.
White House lobbyists and CIA Director Wi
lliam E. Colby sought Wednesday to persuade
key senators that publication of specific names
and events would expose the men involved to
revenge and would damage U.S. intelligence
operations.
The committee’s report on the extent of CIA
involvement in assassination plots and attempts
under four presidents is to be presented to a
secret session of the Senate today. Vice Pr
esident Nelson A. Rockefeller, who headed a
commission which also investigated the alleged
plots but never released its findings, is to pr
eside.
Chairman Frank Church, D-Idaho, said We
dnesday it was unlikely that a majority of the
Senate would vote to keep the report secret
since it had been approved by the committee
without a dissenting vote.
The 400-page report is expected to deal with
allegations of the CIA plots against the lives of
Cuban Premier Fidel Castro, Congolese leader
Patrice Lumumba, South Vietnamese president
Ngo Dinh Diem, Dominican dictator Rafael Tr
ujillo and Gen. Rene Schneider, chief of Chile’s
army. All but Castro met violent deaths.
Church has said the CIA was never directly
responsible for the murder of any foreign leader
but has left open the possibility that the agency
was indirectly involved in successful as
sassinations.
Colby wrote to Armed Services chairman
John Stennis asking him to persuade the Senate
to reject all sections of the report except the
recommendations, or at least to strike all names
mentioned in the report, a Senate source said.
An administration source said a similar message
had been sent to Senate Appropriations ch
airman John McClellan.
Two sources with first-hand knowledge of the
report said its sole recommendation was that le
gislation be enacted to make it a crime subject to
the same penalties as murder to conspire, at
tempt, or engage in assassination.
White House aides circulated among Re
publican senators a 2Vi-page briefing paper
which argued that revelation of the names “will
place those persons and their families in danger,
will have long-range effects on United States in
telligence activities, and appears to violate the
fundamental due process of those individuals.”
The document says nine persons mentioned
in the report “face a real possibility of physical
harm” and each should have a chance “to offer
such evidence as is available to justify deletion of
his name.”
The last-minute lobbying came as Colby held
a rare press conference at CIA headquarters to
appeal for deletion of the names. Church re
jected the appeal, saying the committee decided
to make public only the names of those “in
separably involved in the decisions which in
volved our government in assassination plots
and assassination attempts.”
CS city charter
revisions readied
Bonfire cutting
goes full-time
this weekend
Friday evening, Nov. 21, marks the beginning
of around-the-clock construction of the ’75 Aggie
Bonfire. This weekend Corps and civilian st
udents will be cutting and loading in the Ea-
steiwood Field cutting area, with selected Corps
units working in the Navasota cutting area.
Breakfast will be served at 5 a.m. at Sbisa and
Duncan on Saturday and Sunday.
First stack construction has begun and work
on the second stack will begin with the arrival of
a diesel truck and cherry picker Thursday even
ing. The equipment is again donated this year by
H. B. Zachry, ’22. Voluntary work on the stack
will be needed starting Monday morning.
Events related to Bonfire include a Yell Pr
actice scheduled for 10:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov.
20, at the Bonfire site behind Duncan Hall, and
Elephant Walk for seniors beginning at noon on
Wednesday, Nov. 26, in front of the Academic
Building.
By JACK HODGES
Battalion Staff Writer
Proposals to revise the College Station city
charter are being readied for submission to the
city council.
Revision commission chairman M. L. Cashion
said Thursday night the language of the charter
will be revised for “conciseness and easy un
derstanding. That is one of the reasons why we
didn’t have the revisions ready Nov. 1,” he said.
Councilman Gary Halter, during the Nov. 13
city council meeting, charged that the revision
committee was “stalling and didn’t want to make
any revisions.” A letter from Cashion read dur
ing the Oct. 9 council meeting stated the re
visions would be ready prior to Nov. 1.
“Halter is entitled to his own opinion but we
want the best job done without rushing our
work,” Cashion said.
One of the more important and controversial
issues is how the city councilmen are elected.
Cashion said the committee will submit three
alternatives to the council on how councilmen
could be elected. They will be the ward system
of election, an at-large system, currently used in
College Station, or a combination of both.
If the council approves the recommendations,
they will go before the voters next April during
the city election.
The present at-large system allows voters to
randomly elect councilmen without special re
presentation to a particular area.
Voting by the ward system would divide the
city into special districts with a councilman re
presenting his own district. The wards would be
population and size of the areas. A combination
of the two would have the councilmen elected at
large but assigned to the different wards.
Another proposal to be submitted to the co
uncil, according to Cashion, is to define the au
thority the council has with making emergency
purchases for the city.
In unusual situations the proposed revision
would give the city council more leeway in mak
ing such purchases, Cashion said.
Turner blames White House
Ex-agent tells of death plots
By LISA JUNOD
Battalion Staff Writer
Political assassination became an instrument
of U.S. foreign policy during the final stages of
the Eisenhower-Nixon administration, former
FBI agent Bill Turner said last night.
Turner said that the Senate Intelligence Co
mmittee is expected to release a report possibly
tomorrow that will describe assassination plots
against Castro. He added that the CIA initiated
attempts to kill Castro after receiving the go-
ahead from the White House.
“I do believe the CIA would not have un
dertaken the assassination of a foreign head of
state without getting the green light from the
executive branch,” Turner said.
Turner spoke to a Great Issues crowd of more
than 1,500 in Rudder Auditorium. The program
was originally scheduled for Rudder Theater,
but was moved when the theater became filled.
The former FBI agent urged the examination
of timing and motive in assassination attempts
and illustrated the importance of both in the
Kennedy, Wallace and King incidents.
“John F. Kennedy was not shot when the polls
l showed his popularity was at a low ebb shortly
after his election. He was shot when he was re
appraising the American commitment in Vi
etnam. John Kennedy was shot when he was
considering dumping Lyndon Johnson as his
vice-presidential running mate,” Turner said.
Turner said that the Warren Commission ig
nored facts surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald’s
connections with the FBI but added that the
commission was boxed in and “had no way of
arriving at the truth.”
Turner indicated that Oswald was associated
with several figures in organized crime who
didn’t want to see Kennedy re-elected in 1964.
He added that the address stamped on pro-
Castro literature Oswald passed out on New Or
leans streets in 1963 was also the headquarters of
the Cuban Revolutionary Council — a CIA-
sponsored organization for ongoing anti-Castro
activities.
Turner showed the Zapruder film, the only
known sequence of the entire Kennedy as
sassination. The film was taken by a spectator
and was immediately purchased by Life Ma
gazine.
The film shows Kennedy being hit by three
bullets in an interval of 5.6 seconds. Turner said
that ballistics experiments conducted by the
Warren Commission proved that even expert
marksmen could not fire so rapidly. He said that
Oswald was a proven poor shot and could not
possibly have fired so rapidly and accurately at a
moving target.
Turner said that the film also clearly shows
Kennedy being knocked backward by a shot, in
dicating it could not have come from behind
him.
“A shot came from the frontal zone. There
were at least two shooters; ergo: conspiracy,”
Turner said.
Turner added that other suspects ap
prehended at the time of the assassination were
released by the Dallas Police Department.
Martin Luther King was killed. Turner said,
“shortly after he became a very vocal critic of the
Vietnam War.” He said that King’s assassin,
James Earl Ray, was a “mean and petty crimin
al” who had a history of “always being caught.”
Turner said that Ray, a fugitive from the law,
would have little fcause for shooting King unless
the benefits were financial.
“I see no indication that a man would have
crossed the street to shoot Martin Luther King
unless there was a large amount of money at
stake,” Turner said.
He added that shortly before the assassination
the CIA had sent Mrs. King an anonymous letter
giving Dr. King a certain amount of time in
which to commit suicide. He also added that the
FBI had a bitter feeling toward Dr. King and
had him under electronic surveillance.
Turner said that he believes Sirhan Sirhan,
the man convicted for the assassination of Robert
F. Kennedy, acted as a robot when he fired the
shot in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen in Los
Angeles. He said that a psychological test in
dicated that Sirhan was susceptible to hypnosis
and more likely had acted in a hypnotic trance at
the time of the shooting.
“I believe that Sirhan was hypno-programmed
and that day was nothing more than a puppet in
the whole thing,” Turner said.
Turner added that all witnesses claimed Si
rhan accosted Sen. Kennedy from the front, but
the fatal shot entered in the rear of his head. He
said that a second party probably fired the fatal
shot.
Turner said that the White House tapes of
May 15, 1972, the day of the Wallace assassina
tion attempt, be subpoenaed by Congress in
order to determine possible implications of pe
ople in the Nixon Administration with Br-
emmer, Wallace’s would-be assassin. He said
that there is evidence that Nixon aide Charles
Colson planted leftwing literature in Bremmer’s
apartment on the night of the Wallace assassina
tion attempt.
“In each case there are enough parallels to
indicate the same criminal agent at work,” Tu
rner said.
I If m T U r n G r Staff photo by G,en Johnson.
William W. Turner discussed political assassination and pre
sented the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination Wed
nesday night in the Rudder Auditorium. He was brought to
the campus by Great Issues.