Viewpoint
Nem
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Wednesday
July 19, 1978
Top of the
State
Transsexual sues Air Fom
SCO
Nixon’s folly
Richard Nixon s first major public speaking appearance since his resignation
from the presidency in disgrace left us with only sadness. It would be folly, we
believe, for Nixon to misread the reaction from that hand-picked, select crowd
that turned out to hear him speak at Hyden, Ky.
The American people have not forgotten that on the whole he debased the
presidency as no president before him. There is no chance that Nixon will ever
be accepted in the role of an elder statesman, whose counsel and advice are
eagerly sought on national and world issues.
That carefully-selected crowd of 4,000 whooping, foot-stomping Nixon
hard-core followers in the mountains of Kentucky last Sunday certainly is not
representative of the vast majority of Americans who have not forgotten this
country’s long night that was experienced during the ordeal of Watergate.
Wheeling (W.Va.) News-Register
ress i
ogy.
ropoli
A transsexual civil service worker at Kelly Air Force Basejsity,
Antonio is suing for $50,000, claiming officials will not allow ogy a
dress as a female during working hours. Dorothy Parker, wk;s.
tified himself as a transsexual, said physicians and psychologies of
University of Health Science Center had instructed him todft.ippor
woman in preparation for a sex change operation in the center am in ri
der dsyphoria program. Air Force officials prohibited Partinves
wearing female attire <m grounds that tins mode of dressie pm
appearance would contribute to a nonproductive or disrupt nd ho
environment.” ;re ag
Nation
HUD falls short
;re s
t, no
aid 1)
•ofe.ss
s stuc
es t (
Guessing what’s on Carter’s mind
In a self-examining report, the Department of Housing and aiic
Development in Washington said it has faih^d in its respons fno y e
provide housing and communits development assistance to r a,1<
areas. The new report, issued hy HUD’s Task Foret* on R 1 ' 5
Non Metropolitan concluded that rural \mrrica, *jf ru » v
gently needing housing and development aid. was not gettingi°Ty eai
assistance from HUD that it shoulu. ” ie x
tore a
Rape law unconstitutional
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — A most disquieting
description of the way in which foreign pol
icy is made in the Carter administration
was given last week, not by one of the Pres
ident’s external critics, but by a Carter
political appointee whose work gives him
first-hand knowledge of the process.
The official in question was talking to a
group of reporters under ground rules that
prevent any of us from using his name. He
was asked a question about the instructions
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance had been
given for his Geneva meeting with Russian
Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on the
strategic-arms limitation treaty.
“WE DON’T KNOW,” he said. That was
surprising, because the discussion was tak
ing place at mid-day last Monday and
Vance was scheduled to leave early the next
morning for talks on the most important
issue in U.S.-Soviet relations.
The explanation, the official said, was
that the President’s special coordination
committee on arms control, a part of the
National Security Council apparatus, had
met the previous week (without the Presi
dent, who was vacationing at Camp David)
and had sent him alternative policy op
tions. But the papers had not reached the
President until the weekend, and on
Monday his reply was still being awaited.
While the specific circumstances of this
situation were unique, the officials said,
there were four general characteristics of
the Carter presidency that made it any
thing but unusual for senior officers to be
unaware, on the eve of major negotiations,
of what the Chief Exeeiiti\.'y wantedlclonu.- ...
approaching that exercised in the past by a
George Marshall, a Dean Acheson, a John
Foster Dulles or a Henry Kissinger.
Rather, authority has been divided
among Vance, national security adviser
Zbigniew Brzezihski and Secretary of De
fense Harold Brown, with U.N. ambas
sador Andrew Young, arms control
negotiator Paul Warnke, trade negotiator
Robert Strauss and Secretary of the Treas
ury W. Michael Blumenthal having a major
voice on some of the international issues as
well.
Vance has been asserting himself lately,
the official said, but he has not been able to
pull together the authority that Carter de
liberately subdivided.
— SECOND, CARTER’S APPROACH
to decision-making has tended to inhibit
these officials from doing much politicking
among themselves to build support for a
particular decision. The inhibitions are
weakening, the offical said approvingly,
but most of its 18 months in office, the
administration’s senior foreign policy offi
cials have been reluctant to lobby, each
other, or to use the techniques of
backscratching and persuasion needed to
push the President in a particular policy
direction. The Carter administration has
been as non-political internally as it has in
its external dealings with Congress, the
interest groups and other external power-
centers.
— Third, there has been a similar inhibi
tion on carrying any internal arguments to
the point of bureaucratic bloodletting, the
official said. There are as many policy dis
agreements within this administration as is
normal, but Carter inhibits full-scale per
sonal or bureaucratic war. The advantage is
that there is less personal venom inside the
Carter administration than is usual.
law u
neons
litutiouul hex'll
inst* it pn
But on the other hand, he said, since no
unde
r 14 b
ut not women
who hav
one ever feels the deep cuts of defeat in the
prose
■cutor
said his office*
would a|
battle for the President’s mind, there is
Doi 1
H*cau>
;t* young girls
need mo
never any real certainty among those who
law F
’riday
in dismissing
three coi
prevail about how final any particular pol
cited
a fedt
•ral appeals co
urt rulinj
icy victory may prove to be.
violated th
e equal protec
■tion clan
\ Honolulu circuit court judge has ruled Hawaii’s statute
inishes men who have sexw
f e sex with Iniys under 14. A
ppeal the decision hy Judge
>re protection. Doi
tints against Franklin S
g that a similar New Hi
jse of the Constitution
Dn a
oticec
t fo
re-b<
itk 4
— First, unlike most of his predecessors,
back to Harry Truman, Carter has not
clearly designated a single center for
foreign policy decision-making outside the
Oval Office. There is no one with authority
YOU’RE IN SALT TOO?.
SAYI5NTWAC0INGPENCE.
MR.5HCHARWW!
— Fourth and finally, this official said.
Carter, unlike most other politicians, feels
no great need to “harmonize” all his policy
ideas and puts no great stock in consis
tency. Rather, he is quite comfortable in
holding simultaneously to strongly conflict
ing notions and in allowing others to see
that he changes his mind about which ideas
to make predominant at any given mo
ment.
This is, the official said, linked to Carter’s
habit of looking on foreign policy, not from
the perspective of a diplomat seeking to
mediate intractable and long-term interna
tional rivalries, but rather from the
viewpoint of an engineer seeking through
experiment to find the right solution which
will dispose of the problem.
AS A RESULT of this rather unusual
way of making policy. Carter frequently
leaves even his most senior advisors uncer
tain until the last moment where he is going
to come down on a question. Not surpris
ingly, the official said, when the word does-
come down from the President, there is
often a last-minute scramble to adjust plans
to his command, or to persuade him to alter
the just-completed decision.
There has been abundant evidence
available to reporters and other outside of
Carter’s handling major domestic issues..—
from energy policy to urbu.u policy — in.
this fashion. To hear, from the lips of one of
his own foreign policy officials, that the
most sensitive international issues are
handled in much the same way is, to put it
mildly, unsettling.
(c) 1978, The Washington Post Company
U.S. playing 'shell game’ with missiles
By ROBERT KAYLOR
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Perplexed Pentagon
planners, puzzled over how to deal with a
force of 6,000 Soviet missile warheads in
the 1980s, have devised several schemes,
including a “shell game,” to hide U.S.
strategic weapons from the Russians.
The “shell game” approach includes hid
ing each U.S. intercontinental missile in
one of as many as 20 holes in the ground,
and a plan to move the ICBMs on tracks in
13-mile underground tunnels. But some of
the plans could hit snags during Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks. Others that seem
acceptable under SALT may not work.
Such questions caused President Carter
last year to put off deciding how to
counter-act the growing accuracy and
numbers of Soviet warheads. By 1982 they
will threaten U.S. Minuteman ICBMs,
even in their blast-resistant underground
silos. The Soviets are expected to have
around 6,000 warheads in the mid-1980s.
A decision is now set for October, but
defense sources say a final choice still may
not be possible then.
Military
U.S. military planners say diere’s little
likelihood such nuclear weapons as
nuclear-armed ICBMs with their power to
wreak unimaginable destruction would
ever be used. Their very existence is sup
posed to be a deterrent to war, but to do
that the warheads themselves must be able
to survive an attack without warning.
All the schemes now being considered
would do that by using “mobile” or move-
able bases for missiles. In Pentagon jargon
it’s called MAP, for “multiple aim point.”
The aim is to keep Soviet spy satellites
from finding exactly where the U.S.
ICBMs are, so the Soviets would have to
use all 6,000 warheads in an attack with no
assurance of success. Gen. Lew Allen, Air
Force chief of staff, calls it “designing a
great sponge to catch all these warheads.”
The tunnel plan appeared workable
under SALT and was the Pentagon’s No. 1
choice until tests raised doubts whether it
would give enough protection. It also could
be costly, running as high as $30 billion.
Extra holes or “silos ’ in the ground are
now the favorite plan. They would not have
the heavy protection of Minuteman silos
and the cost would be perhaps $20 billion
or less. Advocates say if the Soviets built
still more warheads it would be fairly cheap
to add a few more holes and thus keep the
safety factor.
But this scheme has SALT problems
since every hole could serve as a missile
launcher. U.S. sources say Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance sounded the Russians
out on it last week in the Geneva SALT
talks.
There would have to be a means of verify
ing that extra missiles weren’t being
sneaked in. Allen says this is possible hy
periodically opening up “X” number of
holes to show there’s been no cheating. But
if the Russians built a similar system, they
might not be so cooperative.
At least two other schemes are under
consideration. One recently offered by De
fense Secretary Harold Brown’s Defense
Science Board, would put missiles on spe
cial truck-type launchers that would either
keep moving on regular highways or on
special road systems. But high costs could
knock this plan out of the running.
Slouch
by Jim Earle
Outlaw skivvies
>> it jsseryt smahted L<soro»Dee.
TU'ffcfiSSj 0OT IT'S COOLGZ
rzon) ,,t
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court
having ended its 1977-78 session with such
a flourish (by handing down a decision on
the “seven dirty words” case), many citi
zens are wondering what the justices could
possibly do for an encore.
Well, there’s nothing definite on this
yet, but it’s quite likely that by the time the
court meets again next fall it will have on
the docket a case involving seven dirty
T-shirts.
Although the older media still are more
pervasive, T-shirts are moving rapidly into
the front ranks of communications. I know
I ve spent more time this summer watching
T-shirts than I have watching television,
and I suspect I’m not far from average.
Without making any indivious compari
sons, I would say that both pictorially and
verbally T-shirts come close to the cultural
level of summer television fare.
It is, however, an unfortunate fact that
much of the material seen on T-shirts is
X-rated — or at the least calls for parental
guidance.
I feel certain even before a test case
arises that the Supreme Court will rule that
T-shirts are protected by the First
Amendment. Nevertheless, certain factors
make one wonder whether this newest
form of mass communication shouldn’t be
subject to some type of regulation.
For one thing, dirty T-shirts are worn
indiscriminately and thus appear in public
places at times when children may be
watching.
It may be argued, of course, that the
nasty-minded owners of lewdly inscribed
skivvies have a right to express their sexual
proclivities, peculiarities and perversions
freely and openly.
It also may be argued, however, that
other citizens have a right not to be exposed
to their vulgar affirmations.
Just as freedom of information is a right
to be cherished, equally precious is the
right of freedom ^rom information.
If people insist on flaunting what should
be private details about their sordid habits,
I shall insist with equal vigor that such data
The Tighter Side
not be dumped on me.
There are some things about strangers
that I desire not to know, and I shall defend
to the death my right not to know them.
The best approach might be that taken
by the anti-smoking lobby.
Just as we now have smoke-free areas on
airplanes and certain other public places,
some government agency could establish
smut-free zones where dirty T-shirts would
be prohibited. Surely the Supreme Court
would uphold such a limited restriction.
For if the constitutional guarantee of free
speech doesn’t include the right to shout
“Fire!” in a crowded theater, neither does
it sanction bawdy bosom banter across the
front of a crowded T-shirt.
Stapleton protests
Evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton said she laid Ic
speaking engagements in the wakt* of a Newsweek nu
view she claims misquoted her, causing “the most dt
perience of my life.’ Stapleton, the sister of Preside
Denver said the article contained a total of 21 errors, w|
claims she rarely goes to church except to conduct a v
that she (Lilly talks with tarry Flynt. the paralyzed puhl
tier magazine*.
su m i
•reas \
nod ]
'/ears
dually
• Penn
ge th
t pr<
ie Lii
intrys
r thei
•onon
]
Reef prices down
mg
up on
lists b
Natic
iug du
il Cat I
•getable
I P'
Summer shoppers stc
economically add beef to tJ
dropped from June levels, th
Denver said Tuesday. "After ri
of the year, lx*ef prices decreased in late Fun
NCA President Richard McDougal. "Beef prices go
up. And the past lew weeks have been one of th
prices have declined."
d fnA
in me
Ie men
t of the
oci&
» As
first sit *
•irlv lult,
By FI
Battali
It 300
and si
Dod in
id Th
t gove
ga Ph
t ser\
time f'Hg ‘
n wit
House to aid Vet loans
is A£s:
224 ai
to 5 ]
•e tim
ular
I he House wants to make it fai easiei foi Vietnam era \eti'l* a con)
get government backed home loans lie House imanim<>tislj n t col
proved a hill Monday reducing the qualification requirementytuddn
boosting the maximum guarantees for home loans. Veterans Adsl e mi
(ration chief Max Cleland estimated an additional I68.(XX) Yjc hy M
era veterans would he eligible for guaranteed loans if the hill ispis, U
hy the Senate and becomes law.
World
First chess game a draw
The first game in the world chess championship lietweenAm
Karpov of the Soviet Union and challenger Viktor Korchnoi, a 1
sian defector, ended in a draw in Baguio, Phillipines Tiiesda)'
only 18 moves. World champion Karpov offered the* draw andi
chnoi angrily accepted. Karpov apparently was pleased win
draw, and stayed on at the championship site to discuss thep
with Philippine chess officials. But Korchnoi, who had been by*
most outgoing of the two until Tuesday, angrily stalked out<<
hall.
Weizman may have torn poste\
Israeli newspapers reported Tuesday that Defense Minister!
Weizman tore up a peace poster outside the office of Prime Miw
Menachem Begin in Tel Aviv and declared that some people ii
government do not want peace at all. Government sources
Weizman was not quoted correctly hut they did not deny thi
ripped the large, pale blue poster off a wall and shredded it in
presence of a few other ministers and employees.
Cuba suffers combat losses
Cuban forces have suffered as many as 1,4(X) combat deal!
African fighting, the Washington Star reported Tuesday. Quo#
senior U.S. intelligence official, Star reporter Jeremiah O Lear
1,000 Cuban soldiers have been killed in Angola and 400 dif
fighting involving Ethiopia and Somalia. In addition, the Star'
three or four times that many Cubans were wounded or rep 1
missing. If this rate continues, O’Leary reported, one of every ni 1
the 40,000 Cuban troops said to be serving in Africa can expe
become a casualty.
Weather
Partly cloudy and hot today and tomorrow. High today ne
100, low tonight mid-70s. High tomorrow near 100. VW
from the south at 10-15 mph.
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 Regents. The
Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting enterprise oper
ated hy students as a university and community newspaper.
Editorial policy is determined by the editor.
LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor shotdd not exceed 300 words and are
subject to being 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
number for verification.
Address correspondence to Letters to the Editor, The
Battalion, Room 216, Reed McDonald Building, College
Station, Texas 77843.
Represented nationally by National Educational Adver
tising Services, Inc., New York City, Chicago and Los
Angeles.
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 Tuesday
through Thursday.
Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester; $33.25 per
school year; $35.00 per hill year. Advertising rates furnished
on request. Address: The Battalion, W
McDonald Building, College Station, Td*
United Press International is entitled!'
use for reproduction of all news dispatch?
Rights of reproduction of all other matter^
Second-Class postage paid at College St^
MEMBER
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Con^
Editor I
Sports Editor $
News Editor
City Editor
Campus Editor
Photo Editor
Copyeditor
Reporter
Lee I*
Student Publications Board: Bob G. Rtf
Joe Arredondo, Dr. Gary Halter, Dr. Ch^
Dr. Clinton A. Phillips, Rebel Rice. D'rf 1
Publications: Donald C. Johnson.