I have nothing to lose. My life is over.
United Press International
ATLANTA — Bank robbery suspect Thomas Michael Hannan, frustrated
by his failure to force the release of his jailed homosexual lover by hijacking
a jetliner and holding 15 persons hostage, shot himself to death late Thurs
day night as his lawyer pleaded with him to surrender.
“You’re playing games with me,” he had warned authorities earlier over a
radio hookup from the Frontier Airlines plane parked on a taxiway at
Hartsfield International Airport, the nation’s second busiest air terminal.
“If you’re playing games with me, I have nothing to lose. My life is over,”
said the 29-year-old suspect.
Police and an FBI SWAT team were poised to rush the airliner if neces
sary. Officials stood ready with the $3 million demanded by Hannan as
additional bargaining power.
Heeding the pleas of his buddy, George David Stewart, 29, who was
taken to the airport, Hannan had released the remaining 11 passengers
unharmed more than 13 hours after he commandeered the plane in Grand
Island, Neb. Nineteen other passengers, mostly women and children, had
been let off the plane during a refueling stop at Kansas City.
But Hannan, of Grand Island, Ga., kept the pilot and copilot on board
while his lawyer J. Roger Thompson tried to talk him into surrendering for
about half an hour.
Thompson said Hannan paced back and forth in the plane’s aisle, a
sawed-off shotgun cradled in his arms, and “never let me get within 10 feet
of him.”
He said Hannan complained that “he only saw two alternatives — a
substantial term in prison or to take his life. ”
Finally, Hannan decided to end the drama. He shot himself in the chest
with the shotgun he had used to hijack the Boeing 737.
Thompson was representing Hannan and Stewart, who were charged
with the robbery of a National Bank of Georgia branch last Sept. 3. Hannan
had been released on bond but Stewart was unable to make bond and
remained in the Fulton County jail in Atlanta.
Police in Mobile, Ala., said Stewart had been arrested on a downtown
Mobile street in 1973 carrying a concealed weapon under a Nazi uniform.
Mobile police Sgt. James Gill said a police intelligence report indicated
Plannan and Stewart had met in Berkeley, Calif., in 1976, and the two men
had traveled around the country together. Gill said Stewart said “both
admitted to having homosexual relations.”
Stewart was flown to the Atlanta airport by helicopter Thursday night to
plead with Hannan to surrender.
“Go ahead and surrender, there’s nothing else to do. It’s going to be a
bloody business if you don’t,” Stewart told Hannan over the radio hookup.
“It’s very impressive. It’s loyal. You’ve accomplished what you can accom
plish as a man. At this point, think of yourself.
Earlier, Hannan’s father, W.T. Hannan, who was flown to Atlanta from
Grand Island along with Mrs. Hannan, begged his son to give up.
“Mike, your mother and I both think you ought to hand over your gun.
Walk out of there and call it quits. Won’t you do that for us?
There was no response.
Panelists discuss different
national health care systems
The biggest wheel on campus
If it’s got two wheels it’s a bike, right? Not so says Soren Petersen who
ndes this contraption to class very carefully. He calls it a “boneshaker.
Soren is a freshman zoology major from Dallas.
By KARIN KNAPP
National health care systems must decide
now how future systems will maintain
quality health care in the face of rising
costs, said panelists representing three al
ternatives to health care systems Thurs
day.
In a panel discussion on “Systems of
Health Care,” Dr. John E. Freeman,
Major General Paul W. Myers and Dr. L.
B. Jackson Jr. presented the British, mili
tary and American approaches, respec
tively, to health care. The discussion was
sponsored by Great Issues.
Freeman, a former member of the
British medical system, described some of
the problems encountered in the British
system of socialized medicine. In this sys
tem, acute and chronic health care is
provided free for all citizens and the gov
ernment subsidizes all hospital mainte
nance and construction.
He said the British are experiencing
basic employee-employer relations con
flict. Doctors work for the government on
a full-time or part-time basis as salaried
state employees. Part-time consultants are
permitted to maintain private practices
also, and were allocated some hospital
beds in national service hospitals for pri
vate patient care. The government, how-
Atheist O’Hair walks out
LES
By JOHNNIE HENDON
, loure in for quite a night,” said Rev.
ob Harrington, and he and atheist leader
adalyn Murray O’Hair kept this promise
■ ursday night in Bryan Civic Au-
orium. O Hair is noted for winning her
; against prayer in public schools and
arrington, of New Orleans, La., calls
mselfthe ‘Chaplain of Bourbon Street. ’
2 J 10 ’! reverend pledged allegiance
p. !? e ** a g after introducing O’Hair, she
r f le . to drag him away in front of a crowd
, a out 1,900. She then proclaimed that
jraudience did not have to say “one na-
lon under God,’ and stormed out of the
oom.
^ dair s manager said that Harrington
wol dd not begin his program
me pledge. O’Hair would not com
ment.
Harrington claimed that he would never
Jj I; Suc H a promise, and called the
mst leader’s leaving a “victory”.
e noted that she night be just re-
^P>ng her forces.
the J formation booklet handed out at
Ti , 0<)r called Harrington’s program a
lsht to the Finish.”
Although the program came to an end
earlier than expected, Harrington an
swered questions from the audience about
O’Hair’s views, and how they contradicted
his.
He called her a “demon-directed dam
sel,” but added that he prayed for her
every night.
In an interview earlier in the evening,
O’Hair said Harrington was colorful, had a
good sense of humor, but that on stage he
was full of “bullshit”.
This is the 33rd such production, and
Harrington said this was the first time
O’Hair had walked out. Thursday’s “Fight
to the Finish” was the first to be held in
Bryan.
O’Hair said she was leaving because it
was her flag, too, and Harrington was in
sulting her patriotism.
O’Hair’s manager, her son, said that he,
O’Hair and her husband had all served in
the armed forces and the right to pledge
allegiance to the flag, also.
O’Hair would not consent to stay, al
though several people followed her, saying
they wanted her there to represent them.
Although the Bryan Civic Auditorium
‘ Harrington.
My entire goal is her con-
Ve rsion”
Madalyn Murray O’Hair. . .
. . . “Christianity is undemo
cratic ”
crowd was mostly favorable to Harrington,
the minister carried on a lively exchange
with a few people who proclaimed them
selves Texas atheists.
He told one woman that “it is time for
you to leave,” and told a young man who
said there were atheists in the audience,
“Up yours, too, son.” This incident was
provoked by a gesture from the young
man, however.
When asked if O’Hair’s walkout was
staged, Harrington exclaimed, “I told you
this hadn’t happened before! You re
porters don’t believe anything!”
Harrington said he challenged O’Hair
because he wants to keep track of what
she’s trying to do, such as having “In God
We Trust” taken oflfU.S. money.
He added that he plans to hire lawyers
to combat her efforts in the courts and
legislature.
O’Hair said earlier she would go to the
Supreme Court if necessary because she
does not want atheist’s tax money used to
print this money.
She is also fighting tax exempt land for
churches, although Harrington claims any
educational institution including O’Hair’s
American Atheist Center in Austin, is
tax-exempt.
After O’Hair left, Harrington devoted
most of his program to questions, most of
which concerned O’Hair.
He said he gears the program against
her because his crusade is not an evan-
galistic one — merely a man representing
religion and a woman representing
atheism.
Harrington said he pays for the build
ings the programs are held in, as well as
his traveling expenses. O’Hair pays her
own traveling expenses, also.
He said donations only pay for about
one-third of these expenses, and the rest
of the money comes from the sale of his
records and books. He said he made $2.6
million from book sales. He also noted that
Larry Flynt, of “Hustler” magazine, do
nated his $150,000 bus.
Channel 3, of Bryan, was taping the de
bate to be shown at 6 p.m. today, but left
when O’Hair walked out.
As she was leaving, O’Hair said she
would be in Galveston tonight for another
debate.
ever, recently removed private beds from
the hospitals. Freeman explained that this
has caused a fear among British doctors
that the government is trying to com
pletely abolish private practice.
“There is now a new determination that
the health profession will maintain its
freedom of choice at all costs against a gov
ernment which autocratically chooses to
disregard the real needs and advice of the
medical profession,” he said.
Socialized medicine in Britain also is
having a resource allocation problem.
Freeman continued. The funds are being
redistributed away from acute care serv
ices, specialist services and centers of
medical excellence and channeled into
rural areas, geriatrics, psychiatry and
other social services, he said.
“Here you have a free health care sys
tem which in fact has turned out tb be a
bottomless pit which no government can
afford,” Freeman said.
He said bureaucratic red tape has
caused an “inertia to change” in the British
system. As an example he cited the 3- to
4-year waiting list for surgery.
“The system was good. The medicine
still is good, but the system is a sad one,”
Freeman said.
Major General Paul W. Myers, com
mander of the Wilford Hall United States
Air Force Medical Center in San Antonio,
Texas, described the military system of
health care as “self contained. ” The mis
sion of the USAF medical service is to
support the combat arm in the field,
Myers said. The medical service accom
plishes this with the only full-time armed
forces health practitioners in the world.
Under this system, Myers said, the
medical service is involved in preventive
medicine, environmental protection, drug
and alcohol abuse programs, physical
evaluations of airmen, aerospace
medicine, an air evacuation system, and
education of all medical technologists in
the Air Force.
“Our share of the Department of De
fense health care budget is a little over $1
billion,” Myers said. This money comes
from federal taxes.
Myers stressed the USAF medical serv
ice is obligated only to care for 580,000
active duty personnel. “Care of eligible
beneficiaries (veterans, retirees and their
dependents) in our system of health care
delivery is a privilege, not a right,” he
said. “It is left up to the discretion of the
local facility commander to decide
whether or not he has the resources to
take care of those people. ”
In the American health care system,
Jackson said, the real concern is cost of
health care. Jackson, who is affiliated with
M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor
Clinic in Houston, said society is to blame
for the cost of medical care, although there
is a common view among Americans that
the “rich American doc” is to blame.
“All of us are to blame,” Jackson said.
“The payer is to blame. Approaching 50
percent of all health care costs — physi
cian’s fees, hospital fees, laboratory fees —
the patient doesn’t pay one penny of those
in direct costs.” He added, however, that
these costs are paid in premiums, taxes
and various withdrawal and withholding;
programs. Jackson said patients never get
reimbursed for office visits, whereas they
would be reimbursed if they were admit
ted into hospitals as patients and charged
for their stay.
“I would like to take the responsibility
to say I am to blame (for the cost of health
care), but I would like to say, don’t blame
me, ” said Jackson. “I am your friend and I
want everything that a (health care) pro
gram can afford for you. ”
The public has a responisibility to keep
medical costs down, Jackson continued.
He said doctors have been asking patients
to quit smoking for years, and if they
would stop, 25 percent of all cancers
would be eliminated and money would be
saved.
Jackson said he believes there is still
magic in the relationship between the pa
tient and doctor. The doctor shovdd be the
patient’s advocate, Jackson said, no matter
what the costs of health care may be.
Congressmen’s wives
testify at hearing
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The wives of Reps.
Kika de la Garza, D-Tex., and John T.
Myers, R-Ind., told House investigators
Thursday a Korean woman tried to give
their husbands cash-filled envelopes in
1975 while they were visiting Seoul.
Testifying at a House ethics committee
hearing on alleged Korean attempts to buy
influence in Congress, the women said the
incidents occurred late the same evening
in August at rooms they had in a posh
Seoul hotel. They said the money was re
turned the next day in each case.
Mrs. de la Garza said the woman who
left the cash for her husband was the wife
of Kim Dong Jo, a former ambassador to
Washington, then serving as Korean
foreign minister and now a presidential as
sistant for foreign affairs. Mrs. Myers said
she didn’t know the woman who came to
her room.
The congressmen were part of a delega
tion of 10 House members touring the Far
East. The episodes described by the two
women suggested the alleged Korean ef
fort to win favor with American lawmakers
was not confined to Capitol Hill.
Eat the hell out of Rice!
Alan Perkins set a record in Thursday’s fourth
annual rice-eating contest, by consuming four and
three fourths cups of Rice Krispies in two minutes.
Each of the 26 contestants was given a cup of milk
to moisten his cereal. Above, pre-med major
Harold Ceuzel, relies on a standared “spoon
shove.” The contest was sponsored by the MSC
Recreation Committee.