Page 2A THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1976
Cartoon by MacNelly
Nuclear power: Fifth Horseman
By EDWARD P. MORGAN
It is fashionable but futile to argue
that we never should have split the
atom. The pressures of World War II
forced the genie out of the bottle and
now we have not only fission which
gave us the atomic bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but we
have fusion which has enabled five
powers plus India to make hydrogen
bombs and the club is getting less
exclusive all the time.
On top of this we have a prolifera
tion of nuclear reactors for the osten
sible purpose of generating electric
energy but with such devastatingly
attractive by-products as radioactive
waste, which nobody so far has found
a way to dispose of safely, and
surpluses of plutonium, the vital in
gredient for making the bomb and
thus making it at least potentially
available not only to some tyrannical
power but to a terrorist as well.
downstoivn
Tim Downs
IF 100 ARE UAmNGTO
REGISTER, PLEftSE
PLACE VOUR ORANGE
card on top of tour
ORTA CARD..,
NOD FOLD THEM \Nl HALF,
AND TEAR THEt^
Partially douin
THE LEFTSIDE.
9
FOLD THIS UNDER.
TAKETHE REGAINING
OPPOSITE CORNERS,
AND PULL OUTUARD.
YOU NOW HAVE A
LITTLE BIRD THAT
FLAPS ITS UINGS.m
I
There is no use blaming ourselves
for uncorking the bottle. It was
thought — mistakenly as it turned
out — that Hitler was far ahead in
researching the bomb and nobody
doubted that if he got it first he
would use it widely. So he would
have won World War II while
wounding the planet, perhaps fat
ally, at the same time.
The problem history and science
now pose is how to control what, not
God, but we have wrought. Confer
ences are proliferating trying to re
think the problem through. The
June referendum in California may
be repeated in at least half a dozen
other states on the issue of limiting
nuclear power.
One useful study has recently
been released by that useful re
search outfit in Washington,
Worldwatch Institute. Called “Nu
clear Power: The Fifth Horseman”,
it was written by Denis Hayes, now
an institute senior fellow, an en
vironmentalist and former director
of the Illinois State Energy Office.
Industrial powers, he says, are al
ready hesitating to expand nuclear
sources of energy because they can
get stuck with an uncompromising
and unending commitment to a
power source that “cannot brook
natural disasters or serious mechani
cal failures, human mistakes or
willful malevolence. It demands an
unprecedented vigilance of our so
cial institutions, and demands it for a
quarter million years” —- meaning
the span radioactivity would still be
dangerous.
International agreements are in ill
repute but if the superpowers would
set the pace with arms reduction arid
better safeguards on nuclear energy
use, then the world may have time to
pursue substitutes for the atom,
whose boon threatens to become a
cataclysmic boom.
Morgan is a correspondent for In the Public
Interest, a press service of the Fund for Peace.
A choice eteak
cooked to your likin'
barbo
Choice, heavy grain-fed beef,
cooked to order. Served with baked potato
(or a roastin’ ear) and Texas toast Make your own
salad from the salad bar.
Filet: 4.50 / Ribeye: 5.50 / Chopped Steak: 2.95
The Conlee boys are already well known for their
barbecue. Their steaks might make ’em famous.
3C m-B-QUE
Open 11 to 9:00 every day except Monday
across the tracks/nearly downtown Bryan
Che Battalion
Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or Represented nationally by National Educational Advertising Servic-
of the ivriter of the article and are not necessariltj those of the es > Inc-, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.
university administration or the Board of Regents. The Battal- Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester; $33.25 per school year;
ion is a non-profit, self supporting enterprise operated by stu- $35.00 per full year. Ail subscriptions subject to 5% sales tax. Advertis-
dents as a university and community newspaper. Editorial i n g rates furnished on request. Address: The Battalion, Room 217,
policy is determined by the editor. Services Building, College Station, Texas 77843.
Rights of reproduction of all matter herein are reserved.
Second-Class postage paid at College Station, Texas.
LETTERS POLICY ' ~ T kt ju
Editor Jerry Needham
letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and are Managing Editor Richard Chamberlain
subject to being cut to that length or less if longer. The editorial Photography Director Kevin Venner
staff reserves the right to edit such letters and does not guaran- Reporters Sandy Russo, Lee Roy Leschper
tee to publish any letter. Each letter must be signed, show the
address of the writer and list a telephone number for verifica- Members of the Student Publications Board are: Bob G. Rogers,
tion. Chairman, Or. Gary Halter, Dr. John P. Hanna, Dr. Clinton A. Phillips,
... , , . ,, ~.t,. „ Roger Miller, Tom Dawsey, Jerri Ward, Joe Arredondo
Address correspondence to Listen Up, The Battalion, Room Director of Student Publications: Gael L. Cooper
217 Services Building, College Station. Texas 77843. Assistant to the Director: W. Scott Sherman
Ford needs Reagan supporters’ help
KANSAS CITY — Lyndia Miller
had just heard her candidate, Ronald
Reagan, talk to the Missouri delega
tion at last week’s Republican Na
tional Convention. It was the morn
ing of the presidential balloting. And
it was all over, as both she and Re
agan knew.
And now the middle-aged career
woman, a supervisor of educational
relations at Southwestern Bell, was
reminiscing about the golden mo
ment, two months earlier, when she
and her fellow-conservatives had
upset the top leadership of the Mis
souri GOP and won 18 of the 19 at-
large delegates for Reagan at the
state convention in Springfield.
There had been a breakfast of the
Reagan supporters that morning,
she recalled, and it concluded with a
benediction from their floor man
ager who said the nomination and
election of Ronald Reagan was
necessary “for the survival of our
country.”
David S.
B voder
Understandably, she preferred
Reagan’s conservative ideology to
Mr. Ford’s middle-road Repub
licanism; Reagan has been her can
didate for President since 1967. But,
interestingly, she says the main dif
ference between the two, in her
view, is that Reagan had “electabil-
ity,” and Mr. Ford does not. “I’ll do
what I can’’ for the President, she
says, “but I just don’t see how he can
“I felt,” said delegate Miller, with
no embarrassment, “like I was going
forth on a holy crusade. We had the
dedication,” she said.
“That’s why we won. The delegate
who is for Reagan is for Reagan. The
delegate who is for (President) Ford
is just the normal kind of Republican
Party person going along with the
power structure.”
Could she now transfer that dedi
cation to the election of Mr. Ford?
she was asked. “No way,” she said.
“I’ll support the whole Republican
ticket, and we ll do the routine,
mechanical work of the campaign.
But there’s no way it can be the
same.”
Lydia Miller’s comment defines
the most immediate problem facing
the President as he begins his uphill
race against Jimmy Carter: enlisting
the enthusiasm, and not the mere
acquiescence, of the fervent few who
do most of the work in the minority
Republican Party.
She is a particularly important
symbol of the Ford problem, for on
the day before the President’s nomi
nation, she was elected chairman of
the Jackson County (Kansas City)
Republican Committee. Miller
upset a pro-Ford incumbent, using
the same organization of enthusiastic
volunteers who had labored with her
in the Reagan cause.
Western states vital to Mr. Ford’s
chances, the party organization on
which he now depends is in the
hands of people who supported his
opponent.
A few of them, plainly, will sit on
their hands. But most, like Miller,
will give their support to the
nominee, either out of a sense of
party loyalty or because they be
lieve, as she says, that “Jimmy Car
ter would be a disaster.”
But if that support is to he more
than “routine and mechanical,” if it
is to reach the level of effort required
for a minority-party candidate to
win, Mr. Ford will have to show the
Lydia Millers of the Republican
Party something more than he has
shown so far.
It will not be easy, because, Miller
says, the workhorses of the Republi
can Party tend to “pick the people
and causes for which we work.”
Her description of Mr. Ford is a
classic of damning with faint praise:
“He’s an honest, decent man, but
he simply does not have leadership
qualities. His oral commiii
skills are not good. Hesanj
bent, but he’s an appointed!
bent. Had it not beenfortle!
Watergate, Mr. Ford wonldl
have been President. Hef
been very happy to spend tlJ
his life representing thef
Grand Rapids.”
Turning Lydia Miller i
partisan will not be easy I
Ford. But without her andlf
in Republican organizationsij
the country, he probath ]
hope to remain President.
(c) 1976, The Washington
Like so many others of her age,
Miller came to politics in the early
1960’s as “a follower of Barry Gold-
water.” She was “deflated badly” by
his defeat in 1964, but stayed active
in the GOP, becoming a ward com-
mitteewoman.
She worked for conservative can
didates in Missouri, most of them
also losers, organized against the
Equal Rights Amendment, helped
with the Women’s Anti-Crime
Crusade and is active in a local group
opposing any tax increase of any
kind.
KNOWLEDGE IS YOUR
BEST PROTECTION
Our Intelligent approach to large diamonds is applied toe
our smallest diamonds.
To
Carl Bussells
~iamond Room
3731 E. 29th 846-4708
Town & Country Center
MEMBER AMERICAN GEM SOCIETY
That kind of upheaval happened
all across the country this spring and
summer, as a direct by-product of
the former California governor’s
challenge to the President.
In Texas, California, and many of
the smaller border, Midwestern and
Are . your health insurance
premiums too high? Interested
in low-Cost coverage? For an
appointment call Jess
Burditt III or Phil Gibson
CLU, 822-1550.
GABE & WALKER’S
846-41
One Mile West of West Bypass on FM 60
DINE-IN, ORDERS TO GO,
OR EAT OUT ON “THE SLU”
Featuring: BEEF PORK
RIBS LINKS IHOSSOI2C
Tuesday-Saturday 11:00-9:00
Sunday 11:00-8:00
Closed Monday
CATERING SERVICE
• Plates • Sandwiches
• Beer • Cold Drinks
• Butcher Paper Spreads
to your Order
★
/
Univ. Dr.
FM. 60
A&M
1 ^
1 CO
Parei
udder
Veteri
New