kent i:
The Battalion
Vol. 71 No. 163
8 Pages
Thursday, June 15, 1978
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Inside Thursday
• Personal Counseling Service
available for students with prob
lems — p. 4.
• Pari-mutuel vote official — p.
5.
• Nicklaus reminisces 1960
Open — p. 8.
2 outsi
ates.
ry IVell
An. I
estimony begins in Hill’s battle
o represent public interests
United Press International
AUSTIN — As state attorney general,
tenia! John Hill normally would be defending
— Blexas Department of Water Resources
fieldafficourt. But this time Hill and the agency
ayediffion opposite sides.
n the J The 3rd Court of Civil Appeals Wed-
ametlMday began hearing testimony in Hill’s
naire Bluest to overturn two lower court deci-
ilayinsHis and rule that he has the authority to
ay the present public interests in disputes he
langenffi could cost consumers $50 million in
dtoaiiflbctricity bills and jeopardize the purity
ed SUlfthe drinking water for 1 million San An-
irces, Fnio residents.
d plaefc'They flat acted in an illegal manner, ”
ly selet® said of the Water Rights Commission
lackaalpid Water Quality Board, which have
fieldetilffe been consolidated into the Depart-
®it of Water Resources. “If the attorney
d 37 hi
t seasu
general cannot protect the public interest
against such illegality, then who can?”
Attorney James Wilson, hired to repre
sent the water department, said as attor
ney general, Hill’s first responsibility is to
the state.
“In Texas the attorney general does not
represent the public’s interest, he’s not
the people’s lawyer,” Wilson said. “The
attorney general is the lawyer for the state
of Texas. As attorney general he is obli
gated to represent these agencies.”
Critics also have said Hill is trying to
dictate the policy of the Department of
Water Resources.
Hill had said the Water Rights Commis
sion approved a contract requiring Hous
ton Lighting and Power Co. to pay the
Lower Colorado River Authority for water
to cool generators at the South Texas Nu
clear Project, a joint venture of Houston,
Austin and San Antonio utilities.
“The order will unnecessarily cost the
consumers an additional $50 million in
utility payments and will set a precedent
that will allow river authorities throughout
Texas to overstep their legal bounds and
illegally traffic in state waters which be
long to the people,” Hill said.
In the other case. Hill said the Water
Quality Board’s changes in pollution con
trol rules for the Edwards Aquifer signifi
cantly lessened protection of the under
ground reservoir that supplied San An
tonio’s drinking water.
“It weakened the state’s ability to con
trol pollution of this priceless body of
drinking water — on which water 1 million
Texans depend,” Hill said.
Wilson said Hill was ignoring directives
of the Texas Constitution and overstep
ping his authority in trying “to pursue evil
wherever he sees it.”
James Nance, attorney for Houston
Lighting & Power Co., and Wilson dis
puted Hill’s contention that he has author
ity to protect the public under common
law, precedents set by early kings and
counsels of England.
“If the king’s counsel had wanted to sue
the king, I think he would have got his
head cut off,” Nance said. “The attorney
general should be tossed out (of court) on
his ear.”
“The king in Texas is not the people,”
Wilson said. “The king in Texas is the state
of Texas and that includes state agencies.”
The attorney general’s job is to defend
actions of state agencies, not take them to
court, Wilson argued.
it was
carter invokes confidentiality right;
refuses to discuss poverty project
, said
•act.
e you!
1,” said
) relaii
lad it’s
t to con
United Press International
seasomlpASHINGTON — President Carter
in a niltp e ^ nes day invoked the right of presiden-
on, hiifl confidentiality in refusing to talk about
runs. Ew' ce was given to end funding for a
on a ssiexas poverty project,
t to be
; a bas
Carter, in response to a question at a
news conference, defended his claim of
executive privilege in refusing to make
public nine White House memos concern
ing a South Texas anti-poverty group.
Carter used a claim — often expressed
by the Nixon White House during the
Watergate scandal — that the documents
belong to the president and he may not be
compelled to surrender them.
In the Texas case. Carter said, problems
with the Zavala County Economic De
velopment Corp. program were brought
to White House attention by Texas Gov.
Dolph Briscoe, who has feuded with the
anti-poverty group over use of federal
funds to train Mexican-American migrant
workers.
“The governor of Texas had complained
earlier about the way the funds were man
aged,” he said. He said an “investigation”
by Community Services Administrator
Grace Olivarez determined the funds
should be cut back or terminated.
The group, which originally held a $1.5
million grant for two years, sued Ms.
Olivarez in federal court in Washington
and sought the presidential memos.
“We are prepared to go to court and
have the full information revealed to the
court and let the court decide whether this
(program) should be administered or not,”
said Carter.
But as for the memos. Carter said: “I
think as a general rule — when I have a
wide range of advice coming to me follow
ing the complaint of a mayor or a gover
nor, when some of the complaints are
based on heresay or allegations or per
sonalities or specific criticisms of the qual
ifications of administering officials — it
would not be appropriate to reveal all
those memos to the public.”
Carter said there would be “a tight re
luctance on the part of my subordinates to
give me free advice” if they knew that the
information would be later made public.
“This is something that’s been honored
for generations in our government,” he
said, adding “those kind of confidential
memoranda” have to be “frank, open and
free expresssions, or even contradictory
Breaking from duty
Jeanne Lambrecht of Lockport, N.Y., a 19-year-old junior at Texas
A&M University, takes a break from cadet deck duties to enjoy the open
sea. Lambrecht, along with 250 cadets and faculty members from the
Texas Maritime Academy are aboard the Texas A&M training ship TS
Texas Clipper, which is headed toward the Caribbean and South
America.
IRE!!
orderinj
niture
ingsss
3S &
ivv rrt
comet>)
'Now just a little hole right here
Bear attack victim airlifted to Utah
hospital, search for bear continues
INITIO
ET
Mari
tillS
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yci#.
College Station workmen cut and weld heavy
metal plates and massive iron rods which will help
strengthen the concrete base of a 45-foot tower , one
of several the city is erecting to support high-
voltage electrical lines along University Drive.
Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr.
Texas scientific balloon agency
launches ‘UFO’ weather devices
United Press International
PALESTINE — Some of those
unidentified flying objects Ameri
cans see in the night are launched at
the National Scientific Balloon
Facility on the edge of the East
Texas piney woods.
Ralph Harju, spokesman for the
agency operated by 43 universities
and the National Science Founda
tion, said NSBF is not widely
known, but reporters sometimes
call to ask if a local UFO sighting
could be a balloon.
“We have gotten calls from radio
stations as far away as North
Carolina,” Harju said.
Balloons, he said, can be confused
with UFOs because of unusual
visibility, occasional rapid move
ment and their transluscent, unin
flated shape at altitudes lower than
the usual 140,000 feet.
“If you see one at sunrise or sun
set, you can see it a long way away.
We had one over Jackson, Miss.,
and you could see it from here, just
before termination (of the flight),”
Harju said.
“A person can look at it and it
doesn’t seem to be moving at all.
Then they take their eyes off it and
it’s gone.”
The balloon facility, which oc
cupies a few acres on the edge of the
Palestine airport, was opened in
1963 and through 1977 had
launched more than 1,200 balloons
for 35 universities, 23 research
agencies and 33 foreign nations.
Director Alfred Shipley said the
remote location was chosen because
of little air traffic, climate and a cen
tral U.S. location allowing full use of
east-west stratospheric winds that
often blow balloons along as fast as
airplanes.
NSBF spends about $1 million
annually launching, monitoring and
retrieving balloons researching such
areas as atmospherics and as
trophysics. Currently popular are
the effect of aerosols and jet
exhausts on the ozone layer.
“I think we’ve had 180 Ph.D. dis
sertations written,” said operations
director Bob Kubara. “That’s re
warding.”
Some launchings occur at remote
sites like Australia. Most are at
Palestine, near sunrise or sunset.
The slow inflation, release and as
cent — a graceful lofting into the sky
— can be as arresting as a rocket
launch.
But launch, which has to occur
according to a flight plan filed with
the Federal Aviation Administra
tion, is just the beginning.
Then there’s monitoring at Pales
tine and remote centers in Tus
caloosa, Ala., (if its winter, when
stratospheric winds blow east) or
Pecos, Texas, (if its summer, when
the winds blow west). A chase plane
follows in the air.
At termination, when the scien
tific package parachutes down and
the balloon automatically deflates,
the NSBF “roadrunners” go into ac
tion.
They are responsible for recovery
of the balloons and packages where
ver they land. Harju remembers
one in West Texas that landed on
the side of a mountain far from the
nearest road.
“I went into Van Horn and we
hired 10 people to climb out there
and haul it out,” he laughed.
“We’ve never had any large dam
age or hurt anyone with any of our
flights. About the worst thing that’s
happened is we’ve tom up some
one’s cotton field with our recovery
vehicles.”
United Press International
YELLOWSTONE PARK, Wyo. — Yel
lowstone Park rangers Wednesday tracked
a sow bear with cubs believed responsible
for the mauling of a Jackson, Wyo., wo
man, a park spokesman said.
Mary Anna Young, 21, was in critical
condition Wednesday after five hours of
surgery at a Salt Lake City hospital. She
was mauled by the bear Tuesday while
hiking in an isolated area of the park. Hos
pital officials said she suffered extensive
head, chest, buttock and abdominal in
juries.
Park rangers later Tuesday closed 35
back country campsites in the area, almost
10 percent of the total remote-area cam-
grounds of the nation’s oldest national
park.
Park spokesman Jordan Burns said ran
gers found the tracks of a sow bear, be
lieved to be a grizzly, along with the tracks
of a undetermined number of cubs.
Rangers, wary of the potential danger of
confrontations with bears, made their way
carefully through the timbered hills Wed
nesday in hopes of spotting the animal.
Burns said it has not been decided what
will be done with the bear if it is found.
Park officials shot and killed a 3-year-old
grizzly last month that “batted” at a park
employee not far from Old Faithful
Geyser. The worker was not injured.
However, assistant park Superinten
dent Ronald N. Wyre said chances were
slim the bear would be found.
“It could be any of 100 grizzlies in the
park,” Wyre said.
Miss Young was found by other hikers
on the Heart Lake Trail Tuesday morning,
about 15 minutes after the attack. She was
taken by helicopter to a park hospital, and
then airlifted to the University of Utah
Medical Center at Salt Lake City Tuesday
night.
Burns said she could identify the bear
only as dark colored and having three
cubs.
Officials note Soviet actions
Russia might lose business
United Press International
WASHINGTON — American officials
believe the latest message from the Krem
lin is that the Soviets are ready to sacrifice
whatever is necessary — including West
ern business deals — in the current Cold
War skirmishing.
The officials consider the arrest of
American businessman F. Jay Crawford
(see related story, page 7) a deliberate act
of Soviet policy directly related to the ar
rest of two Soviet diplomats in the United
States on espionage charges, and to the
American decision to confront Soviet and
Cuban intervention in Africa.
Crawford, Moscow representative of
International Harvester, was forcibly ar
rested as he drove his car in a downtown
area of the city. He later was charged with
violations of Soviet currency laws, a com
plex and rigid series of regulations that are
frequently broken unintentionally by
Westerners.
One U.S. official said, “The Soviets
need the agricultural relationship with the
United States. It could be costly to them if
they scare off the Western business com
munity.”
But, knowing this, the Soviets arrested
Crawford in what U.S. officials consider to
be a calculated retaliation to the American
arrest of two Soviet U.N. employes who
are now being held in New Jersey on the
extraordinarily high bail of $2 million
each.
That, according to Dr. Paul Elio, Soviet
expert with Georgetown University, “was
a violation of the unwritten rules of the
gentleman’s agreement that spies who are
caught are released and expelled without
The decision to arrest the two Russians,
according to U.S. officials, was made at
“high government levels in Washington,”
where the decision also was made to ask
high bail to prevent the two men from
slipping out of the country.
The decision to press the spy case and to
publicly call President Fidel Castro of
Cuba a liar on his claims of non-
involvement in the Zaire invasion, has set
off an internal debate within the adminis
tration.
The hard-liners, represented by Dr.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, believe President
Carter has to make a stand against Soviet
involvement in Africa and anywhere else.
The soft-liners, chiefly the State De
partment working levels, worry about an
inevitable backlash that will hurt the
United States, especially in the strategic
arms limitation talks.
So far, the hard-liners appear to be as
cendant and the SALT negotiations are
continuing. But officials feel that even if
the pushing and shoving should,end now,
the Cold War incidents will leave a resi
due of ill-will that wifi adversely affect the
SALT treaty when it goes to the Senate for
ratification.