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Viewpoint
The Battalion Monday
Texas A&M University August 29, 1977
Taking it easy
Life with 29,500 sardines
They’re back.
Welcomed with open arms by merchants, with
determination by local police, with resignation by
residents, but ignored by no one.
The Aggies are back.
Today, something over 29,500 students are try
ing to begin another memorable year of learning
experience at Texas A&M University. Thousands
of professors, staff members and assorted Univer
sity employes are trying to survive the first
onslaught of that learning experience.
Let s face it. Texas A&M has become one aw
fully big, awfully crowded university.
We’ve enjoyed the fruits of super fast growth
“firsts” and “bests” and “most” to satisfy the
bragginest Aggie anywhere. We have arrived.
But to most students this morning it probably
look like all of humanity had arrived, on his shut
tle bus or in his parking place or ahead of him in
line, just five minutes before he did.
The books he needs are sold out, his choices for
parking are Snook and Hearne, meals seem to
tally insufficient to replace the energy necessary
to obtain them. There are just too many people.
That’s the way Texas A&M is and will remain
and there’s nothing we can do to change that.
But we can do something about the way we
cope with the crowds that have become a way of
life here. We can’t make the problems go away,
but we can make them easier to bear. We can
r-e-l-a-x.
One of the most common farewells you proba
bly hear today is “Take it easy. ” But how often do
we take it easy?
When you’re waiting in line, or stuck in traffic
that doesn’t seem to be moving at all, or cursing
those blankety-blank pedestrians that keep get
ting in the way, do you ever wonder why you’re
in such a hurry? Is saving a minute worth giving
yourself high blood pressure or running down
some bicyclist?
For better or worse, in sickness and in health,
we’re stuck with each other. So let’s make the
best of it. And take it easy.
Losing a good man
Far too often, a good man is appreciated only when he’s leaving. This is
unfortunately the case with Dr. Richard E. Wainerdi.
Dr. Wainerdi is a creator. He takes ideas, or dreams, and turns them into
programs and buildings and people doing jobs that truly seem out of a
dream.
His “creations” at Texas A&M include many of the major new programs
that have been developed at this University in recent years. He has either
engineered or helped establish the College of Medicine, which opens this
fall; the Center for Energy and Mineral Resources; the Center for Trace
Characterization; the Nuclear Science Center; the Cyclotron Institute; the
biomedical engineering program; and construction of the Olin Teague Re
search Center.
His rise at Texas A&M was meteoric. He became a full professor of chemi
cal engineering at 28, the youngest full professor ever at Texas A&M. He
became assistant vice-president for academic affairs in 1971 and then as
sociate vice-president for academic affairs in 1974.
Dr. Wainerdi announced last week that he is resigning that associate
vice-presidency Sept. 1 to take “an extraordinary opportunity” with a Hous
ton engineering firm.
It seems a shame that we appreciate the contributions of a man like Dr.
Wainerdi only when he’s leaving. Good men are too hard to find these days.
L.R.L.
L. R. L
Jimmy’s buddies an endangered
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — Washington can be
a two-faced town, and Bert Lance, who
has enjoyed more than his share of its cor
diality, is now experiencing some of its
capacity for cruelty.
No stranger can imagine how desperate
the embattled budget director is for relief
from the continued controversy over his
private finances. But a measure of that de
speration can be gained by the pitiable ea
gerness with which Lance embraced as
“very favorable” a report on his banking
practices by the Comptroller of the Cur
rency. That report was in most respects
embarrassing, and in some, downright
damning. Lance swallowed his pride and
accepted the judgment of no proven crim
inality as if it were an accolade, so eager
was he to put the issue to rest.
But that hope has already been shat
tered in a wave of critical press comment.
Further congressional hearings and official
investigations are certain.
As always in matters of this sort, the
man in the middle is in part the source of
his own predicament and in part the
victim of circumstance. Lance’s over
drafts, his many failures to file required
reports, his generosity with the company
plane, his willingness to throw business to
banks that gave him personal loans — all
bespeak the entrepreneur who had trou
ble making the distinction in his own mind
between his private affairs and his official
responsibilities.
But Lance has been ill served by some
who thought they were helping him. With
characteristic eagerness, Jimmy Carter re
cruited him for his administration at a time
when Lance’s personal finances were any
thing but in order.
People in the Comptroller’s office con
veniently failed to send some of the Lance
records to the Senate committee holding
confirmation hearings. The corrimlft^©^!
whisked him through on a bipartisan wave
of goodwill, despite the fact that staff
members tried to alert some of the
senators to the problems that were all to
visible in Lance’s own financial disclosure
statement.
None of this has turned out to Lance’s
benefit. Rather, it has helped to prolong
his personal ordeal. That same boomerang
effect is predictably the consequence of
the President’s dramatic descent from
Camp David last week to embrace the
budget director on national television and
declare, “Bert, I’m proud of you. ”
At that moment, the Lance affair be
came the Carter affair, and took on vastly
y
'larger dimsmsipns. To understand why, it
is helpful to contrast the President’s re
sponse to this case with his handling of the
Sorensen affair.
Theodore Sorensen, Carter’s first choice
to head the Central Intelligence Agency,
came under criticism for various actions he
had taken as a private citizen: his draft
classification, his deposition in the
Ellsberg case, his tax deduction on a gift of
historical papers.
Like Lance, Sorensen was charged with
no illegality. But when serious questions
were raised about whether his pattern of
behavior matched the standards Carter
had set for his administration, the Presi
dent stepped back from his appointee and
allowed him to withdraw.
species?
Not so with Lance, and one must ask
why. No one can doubt that Jimmy Carter
is smart enough to know that the public-
record of Lance’s financial transactions
conflicts with the standard of disinterested
behavior which Carter has proclaimed as
his own moral code. This is, after all, the
same man who said he would fire the FBI
director for accepting a window valance
made in the FBI carpentry shop!
But Carter is reluctant to fire Lance, or
allow him to withdraw as Sorensen did.
Lance is a friend — one of the very few
men his own age with whom Jimmy Carter
feels at ease. Walking together, relaxing
;liter tennis, eating lunch off trays, Lance
is that precious thing — a political con
temporary with whom this President can
talk openly and frankly, unburden himself,
share the decisions he must make.
Whatever he has been with other
people, Lance has been unselfish without
fail in his dealings with Carter, and the
President has come to depend on him. But
that dependency, now dramatized in the
Lance affair, is of fateful consequence for
Carter. He has shown his enemies where
he is vulnerable.
He has a limitless supply of energy and
ideas, a plentitude of principles, but very
few friends on whom he can lean. That
dependence could be Jimmy Carter’s
Achilles’ heel, especially since some of
those friends -— like Charles Kirbo, the
Atlanta lawyer, and Patrick Caddell, the
political pollster — are even now engaged
in the tricky maneuver of trying to keep
their prosperous private businesses sepa
rate from their role as presidential con
sultants.
To borrow the Comptroller’s phrase and
apply it, not to Lance but to Carter, it is
“unsafe and unsound” for a President to
find himself in such a position.
1977, The Washington Post Company
Germans fighting unemployment ‘flexitime’
By HEINZ MURMANN
International Writers Service
BONN, WEST GERMANY — Ger
mans are supposed to be stiff, disciplined,
industrious and addicted to rigid
schedules. But despite this image. West
Germany is currently experimenting with
new ways to make working hours more
tractable.
One system, known as “flexitime,” is
designed to allow employes to adapt their
arrival and departure hours to their par
ticular needs or tastes. The system is being
copied elsewhere in Europe as well as in
the United States.
Meanwhile, studies are going on to de
termine whether the work week, which
runs 40 hours over five days, can somehow
be shortened to accomodate economic and
social changes in West Germany.
There are difficulties in these ideas. But
the fact that innovations have been intro
duced or are being contemplated indicates
that traditional concepts of work have to
be reformed to contemporary conditions.
As “flexitime” now functions here, em
ployes can show up at their places of work
at any time between seven and nine
o’clock in the morning, and leave after
completing eight hours of work.
About four million men and women, or
roughly 16 per cent of the labor force, op
erate under this arrangement. It has two
main advantages.
It helps to ease commuting during the
morning and evening rush hours, which
have become horrible in the major cities.
And elastic hours permit workers to fulfill
other duties. A mother, for example, can
see her children off to school before going
to her job, and a father can quit his office
early in order to shop for dinner.
The “flexitime” scheme was conceived
in 1965 by Christel Kaemmerer, a woman
economist, as a device to alleviate the
labor shortage that then existed by bring
ing mothers into the work force.
It was pioneered by Messerschmitt-
Boelkow-Blohm, the aviation giant, as a
method of decongesting traffic. Other
companies copied it. Some found, as a re
sult, a drop in absenteeism and a rise in
productivity.
The notion has since been taken up in
other European countries, such as Britain,
France, Switzerland and Sweden, and also
by several American firms, like Bristol-
Myers, Exxon and the Metropolitan Life-
Insurance Company.
Successful as it is, “flexitime” does not
solve the problems of families in which a
working couple must assure the full care of
their children. This problem has inspired
the idea of a husband and wife each work
ing half-time, so that one can be at home
while the other is on the job.
A case in point is that of a young couple
in the city of Hannover. They are both
judges. She goes to court in the morning:
and he in the afternoon, and they take
turns caring for their baby daughter. They
each work for half-pay, which of course
adds up to the equivalent of a fulltime sal
ary for one.
This approach has been especially
applauded by women who want to share
the role of breadwinner without disregard
ing their children. But the Hannover
example is too unique to be applied
widely.
The Minister of Interior, who believes
that the federal bureaucracy is inflated,
has proposed that civil servants work half
time and perform other jobs for the rest of
the day. Another senior government offi
cial has actually put this idea into practice
by hiring part-time speechwriters.
The notion of cutting down the working
hours of bureaucrats has aroused opposi
tion, however, both from their profes
sional associations and from local govern
ments. Their opposition is based on costs.
They argue that while salaries of offi
cials, schoolteachers and other public em
ployes can be halved, it is not so easy to
reduce their health insurance, family al
lowances and pensions, which are guaran
teed by law. In addition, they contend,
the civil service cannot run efficiently at a
two-shift cadence.
(■ • summer s en
Readers,
With this issue the 1977 sum
mer staff bids you farewell. Be
ginning with totnorrow’s Battal
ion Editor Jamie Aithen and his
fall staff take over.
The 64-page newspaper in
your hands is the result of six
weeks of intensive work. We hope
you enjoy it.
It’s been a good summer. Let’s
see what the fall brings.
\ L. R. L.y
Top of the
News
Campus
Student aide positions open
Thirty positions for Student Government executive assistants are
now open. For information and applications phone 845-3051 or come
by the Student Government office, 216C MSC. Interviews will be
held Aug. 29-Sept. 2 by appointment only.
State
Labor Day deaths predicted
The Texas Department of Public Safety yDPS) says it fears traffic
accidents during the Labor Day weekend will claim 44 lives. Fifty
persons were killed in traffic accidents during the 1976 Labor Day
weekend. The number of traffic deaths this year are running 5 to 6
per cent higher than during the same period in 1976, the DPS said.
“Holiday drivers seem to be exercising more restraint this year, how
ever, and we hope this trend continues,” a DPS spokesman said.
Nation
Governors to discuss policies
The annual Southern Governor’s Conference begins in San An
tonio Monday with Gov. Dolph Briscoe acting as chairman. The
southern governors generally agree that President Carter has per
formed well in his first seven months as president, hut they are I
expected to present resolutions to suggest Carter change his stand on|
energy and the Panama Canal. Deregulation of natural gas and oppos l
ition to any reduction in U.S. control of the Panama Canal are items I
to be discussed during the session.
Military union voted down
The Senate Armed Services Committee has unanimously approved
legislation that would prohibit members of the armed forces from
joining a union and would also forbid labor organizations from trying
to recruit military personnel. The committee cited experiences in
unionized European armies as evidence military readiness might be
impaired by the unions. The action came in a previously unpubheized
session on Aug. 18, after Congress had started its summer recess.
Vance trip ‘major step'
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was greeted Saturday after his
“highly successful” trip to China by President (garter. Carter said the
trip was a major step forward in normalizing relations with the Peking
government. Vance said the objectives were deliberately limited and
exploratory, but very successful.
Miners contract talks to begin
Officials of the mine workers union and the coal industry will meet
in Pittsburgh Tuesday to prepare for negot iations on a new contract to
replace a three-year agreement that expires Dec. 6. A Bituminous
Coal Operators Association spokesman said the contract talks
wouldn t take up the key issue of benefit cuts — the cause of a
two-month-old wildcat walkout.
New York s finances kept secret
Federal investigators have discovered New York City officials mis
led the public for years about the city’s true financial condition.
Sources said the city s financial records were based on two systemso(
accounting — an accrual basis for income and a cash basis for ex
penses. The mixed system misled the public about the true sizeofthe
city’s debt.
World
Travel unaffected by strike
Air traffic out of Britain seemed undisturbed this weekend despiti
a four-day assistant air trafic controller strike which began Frida
Major airlines said they cancelled 30 to 40 per cent of their flight
but an official at London’s Heathrow Airport said, “We seem to be
operating more smoothly now that the assistants have gone on strike
than we did during their work slow-down. The assistants are striking
for a pay hike* approved in 1975 but never granted because the gov
eminent said it infringed its pay policy.
Embassy fire threatens security
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow was damaged by a fire that broke out
Friday and Soviet firemen tried to enter the top-secret military at
tache s office. U.S. security agents refused to allow the Soviets
enter the secret quarters on the top floor of the embassy. Ambassador
Malcolm Toon said he saw no reason to suspect “a sinister Soviet
backdrop” to the fire and blamed the 18-hour blaze on an “electrical
fault.”
Quebec goes French
The Parti Quebecois government of Quebec took its first formal
step toward creating an independent French state out of mainly
English-speaking Canada. A hotly contested bill was voted into law
which made Quebec officially unilingually French-speaking. During
the debate on the legislation, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said the
federal government would not rule on whether the bill contravened
the constitution until after it was passed into law.
The Battalion
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