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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 1977)
The Battalion Texas A&M University Tuesday September 13, 1977 Carter reducing local redtape By DAVID S. BRODER There was something different about the meeting of the nation’s governors here last week. For the first time in the third- of-a-century since the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, they met with the knowledge that one of their own—a former governor—was in the White House. Eight months is not enough time to judge what impact Jimmy Carter is going to have on tin* course of federal-state rela tions. But the presentation that Cabinet and White House officials made here, and an interview with his assistant for inter governmental relations. Jack H. Watson, Jr., give the best available clues. In essence, the Carter approach now looks like this: There is a serious attack on the red-tape problems that infuriate local officials in their dealings with Washington. There has been no real decentralization of decision-making within the federal gov ernment. And there is a big question mark about any shift of power, responsibility or re sources from Washington to the state capitols and city halls. When he was a participant in these con ferences, no one was more scathing in his criticism of the Washington bureaucracy than Jimmy Carter. While he skipped this meeting himself, to the displeasure of some of his former colleagues. Carter sent enough administration big shots to salve most of the governors’ egos. In honor of the meeting, the President issued a directive to the departments back in Washington on his strategy for “cutting federal red tape for state and local grant recipients. Those grants amount to $72 billion a year—financing one-quarter of total state and local budgets. The web of regulations that surrounds most of them is a source of enormous complaint. The changes ordered by Carter in Washington, and described by Watson to the governors here, are serious in their intent and significant in their potential impact. They are not the stuff of great drama, but they can make life a bit easier for those who have to deal with “the Feds. Watson says, for example, that in the past the Labor Department has required up to 75 copies of some grant applications. Some environmental impact statements have been so bulky they arrived in cartons or crates, not envelopes. Carter ordered that, from now on, no more than the original and two copies of any required report be filed with Wash ington. He is requiring that when a check goes out from Washington, it indicate the pur pose for which it is to be used. That sounds sensible, but apparently in the past, state and local officials often have had to guess how Washington meant the money to be spent. There are about three dozen such spe cific changes, large and small, in Carter’s order, and they are welcome to state offi cials. Before he went off to be ambassador to Mexico, Wisconsin Gov. Patrick J. Lucey (Dem.) compiled a report for the National Governors’ Conference docu menting what he called “federal roadblocks to effective state action. Car ter’s order is directed at removing many of those roadblocks. But if Carter gets points for hacking away at red tape, it is clear that he is backtracking on the Nixon-Ford effort to decentralize decision-making inside the federal bureaucracy. The Republicans tried to strengthen the regional offices of the big departments and to coordinate their efforts in the field through ten fed eral regional councils. By most estimates, the regional councils were far from a success, largely because most of them were weak in their leader ship and staffing. Two months ago, Watson gave Carter a proposal for putting muscle into those councils by giving each of the ten a presidentially appointed chairman. But Carter put the suggestion on ice. In stead, he has encouraged the departments to downgrade the decision-making author ity of their regional directors, with the al most inevitable result that power will be hoarded inside the Washington bureau cracy. Even more important than these struc tural decisions is the question of what Car ter will do about sharing power and re sponsibility with the state and local gov ernments. There, the signals so far are mainly negative. The big breakthrough for decentraliza tion in the Republican years was general revenue-sharing. Carter was one of the few governors critical of that initiative, and said during his 1976 campaign that he wanted to cut out the states as beneficiaries of revenue-sharing. Hi s own big initiatives—the energy program and the welfare program— involve a massive expansion of the role of the national government in what have been state and local decisions. Neither program makes much room for states’ rights or state responsibilities. So, while the governors are grateful for the struggle against red tape, they are re serving judgments on the other aspects of Carter’s stewardship of federal-state rela tions. First amendment still working By ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International WASHINGTON — Emanuel Celler, who had occasion to use it many times dur ing nearly 50 years in the House, had a favorite rejoinder for those who taunted him for changing his mind on an issue. “Consistency is like a stagnant pool, the Disraeli of Flatbush would intone. “It breeds vipers in the mind.” Abraham Ribicoff, who operates in the. loftier precincts of the Senate,' may not feel the need to explain himself when he does a turnabout. But the senator from Connecticut might well have recalled Manny Celler’s response when he went to Washington Window the White House to recommend to Presi dent Carter that Bert Lance resign. Prior to his descent from Capitol Hill to pass judgment on the embattled budget director, RibicofFs last word on the subject had been a ringing declaration of Lance’s innocence and a bitter attack on the press for smearing good public servants. The senator from Connecticut, like most politicians, can speak with feeling about the glories of the First Amendment. But it doesn’t take much for any of them to switch to outraged denunciation when the media starts getting nosy about the affairs of public officials. Few politicians seem to recall why the CIA work discovered at A&M By JAMIE AITKEN Battalion Editor In the mid-1950s, when the Red Scare had people identifying “commies” even in their sleep, you would have thought the black-cloak, peaked-hat spy types would surely have been too conspicuous to carry on their devious little schemes. But a few universities around the coun try recently have discovered that our very own CIA was as active as ever, cleverly trading its agents’ tailored shady cloaks for the professorial white lab coat. “Researchers” at 44 American univer sities and colleges played mind-control games with unsuspecting students, sol diers and mental patients during the 1950s. The results of LSD, tranquilizer and hypnosis tests were fed into that elu sive bank of information known as the “CIA files.” Last week the University of Texas re ported CIA involvement in human be havior study at one of the university’s schools during the 1950s and into the 1960s. Mind-altering tests also were con firmed as having been performed at the University of Denver between 19.54 and 1957 under a foundation grant — a CIA front. Suspicious of the CIA’s secret dealings in the university community, we did a lit tle investigation of our own. A school such as A&M in the 50s, primarily military ex- Expose cept for various research scientists and foreign students, would seem ripe for CIA activity. Of course, digging up information on an organization like the CIA is no easy task but a source early in our investigation did give a promising lead: “Yes, there could have been numerous contracts with the CIA in the 1950s. But, there is no obvi ous file such as “CIA — contracts in the 1950s.” Every contract, we learned, is desig nated a specific code label. We had no idea, of course, what code we were looking for, or even if it existed at all. And deep in the University Archives were some 20 boxes of every contract engaged in by the University in the 1950s. But someone in the University’s Office of Research began checking files and promised to call back if anything turned up. We waited. There might possibly be nothing at all. We were optimistic, though, since there had been indications that more than one Texas school had been unknow ingly involved with the CIA in its attempts to learn how many secrets a man would spill under mind manipulation. Hours later the call came. The spokes man at the other end was grave as she said, “Yes, indeed, A&M did have a CIA con tract during the 1950s. We held our breath. “The code number is (RD) NG-2208- TOI.” My God, they were here. “The research was on . . . Foreign Liter ature related to Seismology.” Hello, hello . . . Bill of Rights gave the press the almost unlimited privilege it enjoys in this coun try. The purpose two centuries ago was to protect a press that would not be con strained to criticize a king which in those days of Divine Right meant risking the penalties of sacrilege, not to mention high treason. Today, the First Amendment remains as a license for thpsc whu^yfity-iyul broadcast the news to be the burrs under the na tional saddle. They are free to be the bear ers of bad tidings and the advocates of un popular causes. They are expected to be right, but they are permitted to be wrong. The American press has been nasty to public officials from the birth of the repub lic. It has attacked some good men in the course of smoking out a lot of crooks and scoundrels and exposing their shenani gans. It has been an imperfect process, and those who are involved in it are pain- fully aware of the pitfalls. Therefore, criticism of the press is as important to protect as freedom of the press. When they believe the newspapers and television-radio have gone off the deep end, people like Abraham Ribicoff or Spiro Agnew are free to say so. They don’t have to be right either. There are some in the news business who see such attacks by high officials as efforts to “chill freedom of the press. That can only happen if they let it. To his credit, Ribicoff did not carry his criticism to the conclusion of suggesting that the press be required to be “responsi ble. That invariably means giving some one the power to decide what is proper for the press to say. And those who wrote the First Amend ment knew there was no one, king or senator, who could be trusted with that kind of power. Letters to the editor Students question meaning of yell practice Editor: What is the meaning and significance of midnight yell practice? I would really like to know. I always have believed that it was held so fellow Aggies could meet and sup port the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Football Team. I thought yell practice was for par ticipating in Aggie yells and boosting the spirit for the football game. If my defini tion of midnight yell practice comes half way close to being right, then Friday night was a sad example of this esteemed tradi tion. Sitting behind a group of my friends and me were six students who were so drunk they couldn’t even stand up. They were falling on everyone around them and guzzling beer the entire time. One male student told a freshman friend of mine that if she wouldn’t “uphold Aggie tradition” when the stadium lights were turned off then she wasn’t a true Aggie. When she refused him by saying that she had never even met or seen him before, he told her she was not an Aggie and “just might as well leave here and go home.” How’s that for a first impression of that good ‘ole Aggie spirit? And all of this took place in Kyle Field, representative of all Aggies everywhere. Is what we witnessed at midnight yell practice an example of what Aggie spirit and tradition is becoming? If it is, then we should take a long, hard look at what is happening so that neither Aggie tradition nor Aggie spirit ever becomes meaning less. —Terri Huff “Batt” article about the boy killed by a crocodile. Since we are particularly in terested in environmental protection and in saving endangered species, it seems stupid that this animal was destroyed. As the reptile’s owner stated, the crocodile, “...was only doing what is natural.” Why should an animal be made a scapegoat because of his natural instinct? Why should we try to protect the lives of only endangered species? Any senseless killing should not take place. Do we kill a dog every time he bites a stranger? The guilty in this case is not the crocodile, but the owner for not having enough fencing around the crocodile, and the boy’s family for its lack of supervision. Senseless killing can not be justified whether the victim is animal or human. —Sean Petty glances were cast about at various dates. Ha. But the second joke, I feel, wasn’t much of a joke. In essence it was the story of a man wanting sexual relations with an ani mal, namely a camel. I felt this story was crude, low class and tasteless. I can’t understand how our elected representa tives of Aggie “spirit” could feel that a tacky joke about sexual perversion could be inspirational to the students. True, yell practices are done in fun by students and for the fun of students. But as a student, I feel we deserve better than this. Hey, yell leaders, you need some new writers. —Carla Vanater Slouch by Jim Earle Example of spirit? Killing senseless Editor: This letter is in response to the Sept. 5, Editor: As a transfer student I went to my first “midnight yell practice” last Friday night. I was impressed by two things. First of all, the noise, enthusiasm and pride of “Aggie- land” became a reality for me as I stood (of course) among my 30,000 fellow students. The height of spirit, standards and integ rity proclaimed by Texas A&M is an obvi ous novelty in this present age. My second impression came as a disap pointment. Between some of the cheers and music, one of the yell leaders told a couple of jokes. These jokes were to in spire and motivate, I suppose, the student body for our victory over Kansas. The first story alluded to the activity of a newlywed couple. Need I say more? It was received with laughter all around and a few lustful “WOULD YOU SOMEHOW COMMUNICATE TO YOUR PET THAT HE IS NOT GETTING UNDER THE COVERS WITH ME!” Top of the News t State Proposed FBI chief is healthy U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson, saying he was readyfor Senate hearings to confirm him as the new director of the FBI. checked out of Methodist Hospital in Houston Monday in healthy condition and flew home to Alabama. Texans pay more cigarette tam Texans paid $1.75 million more in cigarette taxes during August, 1977, than during the same month in 1976, the state treasurer reported Monday. The treasurer’s office said it col lected $25,746,730 during the past month. Nation Carter booed in New Jersey President Carter heard his first boos from crowds since be coming president, as he campaigned during the weekend New Jersey for Gov. Byrne, who introduced the state’s fi income tax. /EF IATE Religious credences causes death A couple injured in a truck-motorcycle accident refused to accept blood transfusions because of their Jehovah Witnesses belief’s. They died Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa. VeT World Fetus removed from infant boy Doctors have removed a lifeless fetus from the abdomen of an 11-month-old boy in a three-hour operation in New Delhi, India’s national news agency Samachar says. The agency Sun day quoted Dr. Viswanatha Rao, a pediatric surgeon who per formed the operation, as saying the presence of the four- month-old fetus in the boy was a “freak phenomenon.” Rao said the infant, named Krishana, is in good condition. Mediterranean hit by earthquake A strong earthquake shook parts of the eastern Mediterra nean early Monday, a spokesnan for Uppsala Seimological In stitute in Stockholm, Sweden reported. The quake, which re gistered 6.6 on the open-ended Richter scale, occured at 12:19 a.m., north of the Greek island of Crete. There were no im mediate reports of damage or injury. 96-year-old grows new teeth Francesca Paola Di Blasi s eight surviving children, 55 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren gathered at her home Sunday to celebrate her new teeth. Di Blasi of Palermo, Scicily, has grown four incisor teeth at the age of 96. Weather Mostly cloudy and hot Tuesday with southerly winds 8-14 mpfi 40% chance of rain today, increasing to 60% Wednesday. Increas ing cloudiness and mild tomorrow. High both days upper 80s. Low tonight mid 70s. The Battalion Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the article and are not necessarily those of the University administration or the Board of Re gents. The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting entcrjfrise operated by students as a university and com munity newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the editor. LETTERS POLICY letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and are subject to Iteinp, cut to that length or less if longer. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letters and does not guarantee to publish any letter. Each letter must be signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephone n umber for verifica tio ti. Address correspondence to Letters to the Editor, The Battalion, Room 216, Reed McDonald Building, College Station, Texas 77643. Represented’nationally by National Educational Adver tising Services, Inc., New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per .semester,$31 school year; $35. (X) per full year. Advertising nished on request. Address: The Battalion, Ro^ Reed McDonald Building, College Station, Tms United Press International is entitled exelusivil' use for reproduction of till news dispatches ciiilM Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein rtf' 1 Second-Class postage paid at College Station, TN MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Managing Editor Mary Alice Wotff Editorial Director Loo Roy Lesclp Sports Editin' . . . . ! v-.M News Editors Marie Homcvcr. Carcl Reporters .. Rustv (iwb Speights, Clcnna Whitley. Darivll Linford. Kis Photographer The Battalion is published Monday through Friday from September through May except during exam and holiday periods and the summer, when it is published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Student Publications Board: Boh G. flogm.CWj Joe An edondo; Dr. Gary Halter, Pi - ^ Robert Harvey; Dr. Charles MeCaiulh'^: Rebel Rice. Director of Studnit PnlJr Johnson. Production Cnonlinntdr: II, Phillip. Donald ( Sherman Ec