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TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
The Battalion
weather
1977
Vol. 70 No. 130
12 Pages
Wednesday, June 29, 1977
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Mostly cloudy this morning, break
ing to partly cloudy this afternoon
and tonight. High today 94, low 75.
Winds today south-southeasterly 8
m.p.h. with gusts to 16 m.p.h.
Winds dropping tonight to 5-8
m.p.h. No rain expected for today
and no change expected for to
morrow.
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Prankster hasnt been found
Garbage can fire cracks ‘can’
A fire in the bathroom of a Texas A&M
University dorm early yesterday morning
produced lots of smoke but only one vic
tim — a cracked toilet.
Pranksters apparently ignited two
paper-filled plastic garbage cans, one atop
the ill-fated toilet, in the 4th floor bath
room of Dorm 8, College Station Fire
Marshall Harry Davis said. Dorm 8, on
the Corps quadrangle, houses about 215
male summer school students, dorm head
pfore the p®
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“It started sometime between 3 and 4
m.,” Castillo said. “I was told about 4
,m. The 4th floor R.A. told me, we went
up and put it out with the fire exstin-
guisher.” The head R.A. of each dorm is
issued a fire exstinguisher for such
emergencies.
A College Station fire truck responded
to the fire. But the R.A.s had extinguished
it before the truck arrived.
The fire blackened the bathroom walls
and ceiling with soot and smoke. The
toilet was cracked by heat from the burn
ing garbage can on it, Davis said. The fire
did not damage anything outside the bath
room. But the entire dorm was filled
with smoke for some time, Castillo said.
Davis said the fire had been reported as
arson.
“Well probably never file charges,”
Davis said. “But we would file if we found
who did it.”
“We have no definite leads yet,” Morris
Maddox, asst. University police chief,
said. University police are investigating
the fire, but arsonists are hard to catch,
Maddox said.
Dorm residents said at least one and
possibly two other fires were started in the
dorm in the last three weeks. Residents
put out those fires without reporting
them.
“We get lots of pranks and I’m sure
that’s what this was intended to be,” Davis
said. “But we re having more and more
practical jokes and they’re getting more
serious. We re going to wind up having
somebody hurt seriously.”
Battalion photo by Bernard Gor
A fire yesterday morning about 4 a.m. destroyed a toilet seat in
Dorm 8. The toilet area on the fourth floor was filled with melted
trash containers and burnt papers.
Presnal says ‘ten worst’ list
meant to discredit speaker
By RUSTY CAWLEY
Battalion Staff
Rep. Bill Presnal says his being placed
on Texas Monthly magazine’s list of the
TO Worst Legislators” is a result of either
misinformation or outright maliciousness.
Presnal, D-Bryan, representative for
Brazos and Robertson counties, was ac
cused in the July issue of Texas Monthly of
losing control of the House appropriations
committee which he chairs. The article
said that because of Presnal’s “abidcation
of responsibility” the committee budgeted
money for unnecessary projects, a practice
known as “pork-barreling.”
Texas Monthly said the bill was over a
half billion dollars higher than the target
amount set by House Speaker Billy
Clayton. It labels the entire half billion as
pork-barrel.
“No one has told me where the pork
barrel is in this bill,” Presnal said Monday.
Presnal said the article should have spo
ken to specific issues rather than deal in
generalitites. He criticized the authors for
suggesting he should have controlled his
committee.
The appropriations chairman no longer
dictates to other committee members
what will be and will not be in the bill,
Presnal said.
“We’re saying ‘no’ in different ways,”
Presnal said. “We’ve opened up the pro
cess to where everyone can have his say.
“I can’t tell a committee member “No,
you can’t propose that, ” Presnal said.
“He’s representing the same number of
people I am and he has the right to say and
do as he wants.”
“Once the bill is on the floor, I don’t try
to get the committee members to defend
it. They’re too independent for that these
days. There is no way an appropriations
bill will go to the floor and remain intact. ”
The oversized bill went to the floor of
the house, where Clayton-Presnal forces
attached an amendment that took all of the
proposals other than the original bill out.
To put their individual projects back
into the budget, each legislator had to
propose an amendment to the amendment
and face approval by a majority of the en
tire house. Most failed, and were bitter.
Persnal said the amendment was writ
ten by his staff under a set of guidelines.
“I didn’t even see the amendment until
it was ready for presentation,” he said.
“Notice the ones who are so critical of
the job we did are the “big spenders,’ the
one whose pet projects were cut out of the
bill." Their statements are contradictory.
They say I lost control, but would they
want a dictator? I don’t think they would,”
Presnal said.
Presnal said the story has two complete
errors in it. One said that he sponsored a
bill to split the Texas Department of Labor
into two departments and the other, that
he sponsored a bill to prohibit a Hearne
bank from moving to Bryan.
These errors had appeared in news
paper accounts during the session, but had
later been retracted.
“If they (Texas Monthly) had checked
with the news staffs who wrote those
stories, they’d know they were false,” Pres
nal said.
The Legislative Budget Board decided
to push the bill to take the regulation of
business away from the Department of
Labor by creating a Department of Busi
ness, he said.
“I don’t think the Department of Labor
can regulate business. There’s an ideologi
cal conflict,” Presnal said.
The commission of the Labor Depart
ment tried to discredit the bill, Presnal
said, by revealing that his brother lobbied
for employment agencies.
The bill failed.
“If you want to kill a bill, you discredit
it. I’ve seen it a thousand times and I’ve
been involved in it a hundred times,” he
said.
Presnal said the bill on the Hearne bank
was the project of Sen. Bill Moore,
D-Bryan.
The only stock Presnal owns is about 40
shares worth about $1,000 in City National
Bank of Bryan he said.
“All I get out of that is a free meal once a
year, ” Presnal said. “Come to think of it, I
haven’t been around to get that for the
past three years.”
The article quotes Presnal as telling a
committee member who wanted to add
money for his favorite college to the
budget, “Why not? Might as well sink the
boat all the way.”
Presnal claims that he was misquoted.
“I anticipated the member was going to
propose additional money and I said to
him ‘I think the boat is loaded enough that
its going to sink,”’ Presnal said.
“I was suggesting he not make the mo
tion, and he didn’t.
Presnal said he believes the article is an
attempt to discredit Speaker of the House
Bill Clayton, who is up for re-election.
“If you could identify these writers, I
think you’d find them to be people who
are out to detract from the House leader
ship,” Presnal said.
Clayton has proven he can do the job,
Presnal said, and there is no valid way to
attack him except through the appropria
tions chairman he appoints.
“It’s an historical trend that if you want
to attack a speaker when you can’t attack
him personally, you attack the man he
chooses as his appropriations chairman,”
Presnal said, “that happens to be me.
“Like they say, ‘If you don’t like the
heat, you better get out of the kitchen.”
Vietnamese abandoning Saigon,
Afros uuitl I _ - „ &
SScommunists plan to let city die
” trt.L I ^
Nixon tapes public property,
but release not expected soon
f a WHAdtl ^
t year,” Vick I
fy for the Stu [ United Press International
ourplayenw 0FAKIM, Israel — Vietnamese who
all-star ga» ed their homeland say that Communist
is it’s thel* uthorities are emptying Saigon of its
1.” VickersS eople and resources — even light bulbs
?d merger we: - and plan to let the city die.
he vmdersfe The city is dying and the Communist
:k left was S ithorities are letting it die,” Dr. Tran
nt by the WH luang Hoa said of Saigon, once the capital
f South Vietnam and now called Ho Chi
any proble* llinh City by the Communists who took
nvitation, ' over in 1975.
cceptitasli i The 33-year-old Hoa was one of 66 Viet-
be full-fledji amese refugees who reached Israel
L, period, unday after being rescued by an Israeli
ated the Wweighter from their sinking fishing boat
lune 10 in the South China Sea. All but 17
are from Saigon.
Israeli authorities settled the refugees
in this small town 14 miles northwest of
Beersheba, the capital of the Negev Des
ert, and housed them in air conditioned
trailers originally bought to accommodate
Jewish immigrants, mostly from the Soviet
Union.
Hoa and other refugees said Communist
authorities have evicted 700,000 Saigon
residents and sent them by force to
country-side “economic zones” to grow
vegetables. Most of the 2 million residents
remaining in the city will be evacuated by
the end of 1978, they said.
“They (the Communists) have no plans
to develop Saigon — just to empty it and
take everything to the north,” said Hoa.
“To them Saigon is only a city, whereas
Hanoi is the capital they want to make
bigger and richer.”
“All the modern equipment in hospitals
and office buildings, even the light bulbs,
have been taken out and sent north,” he
said, adding that life in Saigon in 1977 is
much as it was in 1950.
The Saigon-born Hoa said he served as a
surgeon with the South Vietnamese army,
was captured before the war ended and
spent 16 months in a concentration camp.
Hoa said each Saigon family is allocated
only 20 pounds of meat a month, and “all
the good medicines are reserved for those
in the Communist party.”
ourt considers death penalty for rape
UwvXeA Press International
WASHINGTON — The Supreme
ourt may wind up its 1976-77 term by de-
'iding whether the Constitution allows a
nan to be sentenced to death for rape — a
rime in which no life has been taken.
The appeal by Ehrlich Anthony Coker,
in Death Row in Georgia for sexually as-
aulting a 16-year-old girl in 1972, was the
inly major case which the justices have
leard arguments on this term but left un-
lecided. They planned to adjourn today
intil Oct. 3.
The ruling may decide the fate of four
ither men in Georgia besides Coker and
one in Florida who ■were awaiting execu
tion for rape. And it may determine
whether a number of state legislatures add
a rape provision to their capital punish
ment laws.
The issue of whether the death penalty
is “disproportionate” for rape was left un
decided last year when the Supreme
Court ruled that capital punishment for
murder is not prohibited by the Constitu
tion if fairly and evenly administered.
Since the government began keeping
records in 1930, 455 men — 90 per cent of
them blacks — have been executed for rape
in America. Before the Supreme Court
struck down all existing capital punish
ment laws in 1972, 16 states sanctioned
the death penalty for rape.
Today, Georgia is the only state au
thorizing execution for the rape of an adult
woman. Florida, Mississippi and Tennes
see laws allow death for the rape of chil
dren by adults.
United Press International
WASHINGTON — It will be years be
fore Richard Nixon’s presidential tapes
and papers become public, despite the
Supreme Court’s ruling that the govern
ment — not Nixon — may have control of
them.
Federal archivists cannot even begin
sorting the 42 million documents and 880
tapes until Congress passes regulations for
screening them. That could take months.
If Nixon’s lawyers then challenge the
regulations in court, as they are expected
to do, it could be another year or two until
the screening process can begin, said as
sistant archivist Daniel Reed, who is in
charge of presidential libraries.
A 1974 law that was upheld on a 7-2
division yesterday by the Supreme Court
requires the General Services Administra
tion to make public Nixon’s presidential
materials that provide evidence of abuse of
power, he said.
General Services Administration will
return to Nixon those tapes and papers
which are determined to be personal,
however, and will try to protect the pri
vacy of other people who might be embar
rassed by having their conversations made
public.
Once the screening begins, it should be
about three months before the first mate
rials are made public, Reed said. With 100
archivists working on them, it could take
some three years to sort them all.
Meanwhile, the papers remain sealed in
large boxes at GSA’s Federal Records
Center is Suitland, Md. The tapes are in
locked rooms in the Old Executive Office
Building next to the White House.
R. Stan Mortenson, one of Nixon’s
lawyers, said yesterday he was still looking
over the court’s opinion, “trying to go
through and understand it and all of its
ramifications. ” He said “no decisions have
been made” whether the court will be
asked to reconsider its action within the 25
days allowed.
There was no comment from San
Clemente.
Rep. John Brademas, D-Ind., sponsor
of the 1974 law, said yesterday’s ruling as
sured the public “this record of Nixon’s
presidency will not be tampered with.”
He called for “speedy adoption” of the
regulations by Congress. But a House aide
said Congress may simply allow the regu
lations to take effect by failing to act on
them within a period of 90 legislative days.
Congress rejected three previous sets of
proposed regulations submitted by the
Ford administration, but Reed said the
major “bones of contention” now have
been eliminated. Under current recom
mendations, copies of materials being
made public would become available at
111 General Services Administration de
posit areas across the country.
Justice William Brennan announced the
court’s historic 7 to 2 decision from the
bench yesterday, saying Congress could
treat Nixon differently from other presi
dents and seize his White House tapes and
papers.
The justices said Nixon — the only pres
ident ever to resign and the only president
to be pardoned for any crimes committed
in office — was “a legitimate class of one”
under the law.
This was the second blow delivered to
Nixon by the court he did so much to mold
by naming four of the present justices.
The court ruled 8 to 0 in July, 1974, that
Nixon had to provide White House con
versations subpoenaed for the coverup
trial of former presidential aides.
One of those was the so-called “smoking
gun” tape which proved to be the last
straw and forced his resignation.
The court will rule next year whether
those tapes, which already are in the pub
lic domain, may be aired by broadcasters
and mass marketed. Nixon argues that a
U.S. Court of Appeals ruling allowing
them to be commercially distributed
would invade his privacy by placing the
tapes in private hands “to be played at
cocktail parties and in satiric productions.”
GSSO discusses plans
for political involvement
T
>
ByGLENNA WHITLEY
Battalion Campus Editor
A local gay rights group discussed plans
for future political involvement in
Bryan-College Station Monday night at its
Brst public meeting.
Michael Garrett, spokesman for Gay
Student Services (GSS) said previous
meetings were essentially open to anyone,
but the meeting place was not openly an
nounced because of “fear and paranoia”
GSS members felt.
“We’ve gotten over some of our fears,”
Garrett said. The organization wants
everyone interested in human rights to
join, he said.
“You don’t have to be gay to join,” he
said.
Twenty-two people attended the meet
ing. Most were already members in the
GSS.
The group plans to boycott Florida cit
rus products sold by grocery, produce and
fast food stores in Bryan-College Station.
“We feel that Anita Bryant has clouded
the issue with emotionalism and religious
I diatribe,” Garrett said. Bryant is
employed by the Florida Citrus Commis
sion. People in Florida have taken a stand
on the issue as a result of the “no” vote in
Dade County recently, he added. That
vote concerned an anti-discrimination or
dinance involving homosexuals in public
housing.
Garrett said letters will be written to
stores carrying citrus products informing
them of the boycott and urging them to
buy Texas and California products. The
group also plans to send protest letters to
the Florida Citrus Commission.
GSS also organized a committee to
handle political involvement of the group.
The group plans to survey local council-
men and state and national representa
tives on their knowledge, if any, of laws,
ordinances or legislation that discrimi
nates against minority groups. The survey
also asks if the elected official would sup
port anti-discrimination ordinances. The
results will be compiled and possibly pub
lished by the League of Women Voters,
Garrett said.
“Anything beyond that will be on an in
dividual basis,” he said. The members
were all urged to get involved with local
grass roots politics. “We re not trying to
infiltrate,” Garrett said. “We just have to
work within the system.
The next meeting will be held July 11 at
the Unitarian Fellowship Church at 7:30
p.m. For more information, call the Gay
Referral Line at 846-2469.
Battalion photos by Steve Goble
Taking the ‘work’ out of workshop
Over 450 high school journalists from all over Texas have gathered at Texas A&M
this week for the communications department’s annual journalism workshop.
Lecture and work sessions such as the one above on yearbooks haven’t kept all the
fun out of the week-long convention. At right, Charlie Heintschel scores a direct
hit on Kayla Johnson during a shaving cream fight Monday evening after a workshop
barbeque. Charlie and Kayla are from Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena.
Federal appeals court asks for ban on firecrackers
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals
court has told the Consumer Product
Safety Commission to review its ban on
big firecrackers, but the move will have
little effect on next week’s Fourth of July
celebrations.
The commission rules allowed fire
crackers of 130 milligrams last year for the
Bicentennial but this year the legal size
was reduced to 50 mgs — “ladyfinger”
size.
The Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia yesterday questioned that ban
and sent the rules back for further consid
eration. It was not clear what this actually
means to the ban, but one thing is clear:
larger firecrackers won’t be in use for
awhile yet.
The reason, said John Conklin of the
American Pyrotechnic Association, is that
“there are virtually no 130 mg firecrackers
in the country — any that there are would
be a carryover from last year, and that
would not be many.”
He said the court action “will have no
effect on this Fourth of July,” noting that
it takes six months to order and receive
firecrackers from the Orient.