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Viewpoint The Battalion Wednesday Texas A&M University August 2, 1978 Smoke dope? Not my . BY DONALD E. MULLENS United Press International Asking a state governor if he knows of iny pot smokers or cocaine sniffers on his taff is like asking him if he has stopped >eating his wife. In state after state, the mere mention of i&rcotics triggers the “who, us?” syn- Irome — complete with the viewing- vith-alarm at such goings on, followed by he pointing-with-pride that they don’t jxist. Booze is still the king catalyst of socializ ing, according to a UPI survey of state Capitols on narcotics use. ANY POT SMOKING seems to he well iway from official duties. Cocaine? Not a trace. Most governors’ staffs are loaded with men and women in their twenties and mid-thirties, many of them liberals on so- Commentary cial issues. If any of them smoke pot or sniff cocaine they weren’t crazy enough to commit professional suicide by admitting it. In Illinois, an aide to Gov. James R. Thompson said she knew of no drug use, but, “of course, I don’t doubt individuals, just as in all walks of life, try some drugs, especially pot — haven’t you? And from Oregon, where nobody on Gov. Bob Strand’s staff even smokes ciga rettes, came the comment: “Cdcaine is either too expensive or too chic for people in the boonies. The survey was generated by the recent resignation of Dr. Peter Bourne, Presi dent Carter’s adviser on drug abuse, after he wrote a prescription for a powerful sedative using a phony name for the pa tient. He later said he knew of White House staff members who had smoked marijuana and sniffed cocaine. STATE LEADERS INSISTED that President Carter s problems are his alone. and that no one on their staffs has ever been caught, arrested or prosecuted for drug use. Some officials greeted the questions with humor or incredulity. Said Nevada Gov. Mike O’Callaghan: “H ow do you react to something that isn’t happening? It might be an Eastern dis ease. Commented one of O’Callaghan’s staff members: “All we do is — and drink. Jim Gilchrist, press secretary for Ten nessee Gov. Ray Blanton, said, “This is just not a marijuana and cocaine crowd and like they say in the song ‘Okie from Mus kogee:’ White lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all.” In Pennsylvania, Gov. Milton Shapp s legislative secretary, William B. McLaughlin, was offended at such a ques tion. “I think the governor’s executive staff would be willing to participate in a survey on marijuana use if UPI management and its employees participated in the same survey and published the results of both polls,” he said. The reaction generally was that anyone caught faced immediate dismissal. “IF STATE EMPLOYEES have to be told to quit breaking the law they shouldn’t be working for the state, said an aide to Nebraska Gov. J. James Exon. However, in Washington State, Gov. Dixy Lee Ray said if she caught any of her staff using drugs “I would certainly require that they go immediately for. treatment and I woidd suspend them. Even in Madison, Wis., where there is only a maximum fine of $25 for possession of small amounts of marijuana, none of Gov. Martin J. Schreiber’s staff has been singled out as a user. In Kentucky, Gov. Julian Carroll’s press secretary Gary Auxier said he didn’t know of any instances of usage, but added: “That s not saying unequivocally it does or doesn’t happen, Imt I don’t know. Nobody has ever been busted on the governor’s staff. In California, where Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. denied ever using marijuana after the issue came up during his guber natorial campaign, the answer was the same: no knowledge of such activity. MANY STATE GOVERNORS and their staffs keep their public image so straight-laced as to be almost Victorian. For example, Florida Gov. Reubin Askew has been described as a non drinking, non-smoking man whose idea of a good time is drinking apple juice at a church social. Texas Gov. Dolph Briscoe doesn't serve liquor at public receptions and New York Gov. Hugh Carey doesn’t like his staff to smoke cigarettes. Asked about marijuana and cocaine, an aide to Wyoming Gov. Ed Herschler commented: “Hell, he doesn’t even know what it is. Some replies to the smoking and sniffing survey: — Utah: “The governor’s office is clean. although we do have a coffee maker and a coke machine — maybe you better make that a pop machine. — Iowa: "Most of the people on the governor’s staff don t even drink. — Ohio: “The governor doesn’t even to lerate his staffdrinking while on duty. — Indiana: “All the pupils of our eyes are the right size. -— Hawaii: “We re squeaky clean. — Missouri: "The governor’s people are the straightest arrows this side of Robin Hood’s quiver. — Virginia: "Hell, no! And in Georgia, Gov. George Busbee, who succeeded Jimmy Carter in 1975, said, "I don’t know of any, holdovers or new people. Carter or Busbee people, that are using drugs. Commented a veteran statehouse re porter: “When Carter was governor, we never knew Jody (Powell) or Hamilton (Jordan) to use anything you couldn’t spit down the front of somebody s shirt. Texas klan is alive and well By K. MACK SISK United Press International SAN ANTONIO — It wasn’t widely known that Gene West was a member of the Ku Klux Klan when he tried to get elected to the Texas Railroad Commission and the state legislature. But since his latest defeat at the polls, in the May Democratic primary in State House District 57-H, West has come out of the closet and announced that he had been a klansman for nine years and cur rently is the Texas kleagle of the Invisible Knights of the KKK. West said the Invisible Knights have gone public, so to speak, and will confine their actions to legal means, mainly by exercising rights of assembly and free speech. “As long as I am the kleagle, the Klan will not burn any crosses or tar and feather anybody,” West said, while maintaining that there still are some folks around who need to be tarred and feathered — and hanged for that matter. West said Texas klansmen in recent months have gone to Tupelo, Miss., for a rally to counter a black protest about al leged police brutality, met this month in Decatur, Ga., and were in Midland last week as “observers” in an investigation of the death of Larry Lozano, who Mexican-American groups contend was killed by police in violation of his civil rights. The Invisible Knights, West said, is the largest of three klan groups and is not af filiated with another KKK outfit headquar tered in Vidor. ' \\ l «Sure,l/e , J Modernized! “Nah,” West replied when asked if it were widely known that he was a klansman when he ran for the Democratic nomina tion in Rep. Don Cartwright’s district. “We were trying to keep everything quiet until we got situated, then we could come out public. We met in private at Denham Springs, La., and all the officers of the organization voted to go public. “It has changed a little bit. They don’t get out there and tar and feather them anymore — which, by God, some of them needs it, you know what I mean? I’d like to see the old hanging tree come back down here at the courthouse. Asked how many San Antonio klansmen there are. West said, “1 d never tell you that,” but he claims the Invisible Knights number more than two million na tionwide. He said the KKK was a vigilante group in the old days and did not limit its disci pline to blacks. It tarred and feathered white people when they did not live up to the klan s expectations, he said. “The klan has turned its cheek a little bit. They’re not after these Negroes or anything like that like they used to be, he said. “They’re going after these politicians. I mean they’re not ‘going after them. They’re watching them to see what kind of bills are being drawn up and which ones are not being drawn up — whether it s going to hurt the white people or not. West said his klan movement was a “backlash on this discrimination thing, and his group was “highly fed up with this police brutality thing” and “all you hear is minorities, minorities, minorities. Another big gripe of the klansmen, he said, was interracial marriage. “There’s a bunch of Negroes right here in town that calls their selves the Deacons,” West said. “They don’t believe in it (intermarriage) either. I can get out here and say I don’t like a Negro and that makes me a racist. But a damn Mexican- American, Mexican or Negro can get out here and say honkeys, this, that and the other; that they’re going to kill the hon keys. Doesn’t that make them a racist? “I ain’t ashamed of letting nobody know I belong to the klan.” GOP waiting to pick Carter’s bones By ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International WASHINGTON — The leaders of the Republican Party met last month in the Star Wars setting of Detroit’s Renaissance Center to look into the future. For a lot of them, it looked good. With the Democratic president’s opin ion poll approval ratings way down; with the Democratic-controlled Congress un able or unwilling to march in step with anyone; with lots of campaign money com ing in for what looks like an attractive crop Washington Window of Republican candidates this fall; and with pundits talking about the public turning toward the right, the GOP elders would seem to have reason for at least cautious optimism. Republicans traditionally are hard- headed folk, and very few of them are pre dicting a top to bottom return to power for the GOP soon. National chairman Bill Brock, for example, has a six-year plan to achieve majority status and openly con cedes that 1978 is not likely to be a big year for the GOP in Senate contests. At the same time, some flamboyant talk was heard during the meetings in Detroit. For example, Lynn Lowe, the Arkansas Republican chairman and the long-odds GOP candidate for governor, told the na tional executive committee he expects to win. And if that wasn’t enough to rattle the teacups, Brock himself said it was entirely possible for Art Fletcher to win the mayor’s seat in Washington, D.C. Brave talk for public consumption is cheap in underdog politics, but there is a professionalism at the national committee level that usually cuts down wishful windjamming. So it is worth notice that the two contests Lowe and Brock were talking about would involve upsets so breath-taking as to suggest the Republi cans have discovered the political equiva lent of nuclear weaponry. Brock apparently does believe that. He thinks the tax cut issue is going to be the Republican atomic bomb. After what he concedes was quite a job of selling orthodox GOP economists on the idea of deficit financing, Brock has put all of the GOP’s 1978 campaign chips on the Kemp-Roth and Steiger tax reduction schemes. Both would keep a lot of money in taxpayers’ — for which read voters’ — pockets, and Brock believes that will be the key to GOP resurgence this fall. There is in all this a potential catch, de scribed at the Detroit meeting by Califor nia GOP chairman Mike Montgomery and state Senate Republican leader Paul Priolo. Reporting on the Proposition 13 phenomenon in their state, both men said the danger all Republicans should guard against in tax cut politics is Democrats stealing the issue. That, they said, is what Democratic Gov. Edmund Brown Jf. is trying and apparently having some success with in California. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened. It wasn’t many years ago that Republicans thought they had the issue to ride to victory in law and order. By DICK WEST United Press International WASHINGTON — The flap over whose likeness should adorn the proposed new dollar coin has tended to obscure a more vital question, namely: Will it play in Peoria? Sad to say, the Treasury Department’s recent record in currency design does not inspire confidence in that regard. There was, to cite one notable flop, the new Eisenhower metal dollar. That coin, in terms of circulation, has been a real tur key. Then someone decided the country needed a new $2 bill. Which, if possible, has been an even bigger bomb than the Eisenhower dollar. Now someone has decided that what we actually needed was a new dollar coin that would be less bulky than the cartwheel. A lawnmower wheel, you might call it. Or maybe a skateboard wheel. Anyway, it would be only slighter larger than a quarter and, as proposed by the Treasury Department, would have had Miss Liberty on one side and an eagle on the other. But at Senate hearings this week it ap peared sentiment had shifted to the design After a period of panic, a number of Dem ocrats realized that they did not have to concede the issue to the opposition, and in the memorable phrase of one observer “pinned on the sheriffs badge for the duration of the campaign. favored by women’s groups — i.e., supplanting Miss Liberty with the stern visage of Susan B. Anthony, the well- known suffragette. What was not apparent at the hearing was any assuring evidence that the coin would gain wide public acceptance either way. Which surely is the crucial point. After two straight duds, the Treasury can ill afford to lay another egg. One problem may be that coin de signers are much too “heads oriented. The Lighter Side After all, when you flip a coin there’s a 50 percent chance it will come up “tails. Yet that side of the coin customarily gets short shrift. If “heads of the new coin is to be dedi cated to one of the pioneers of women’s equality, I say this would be a fitting time to give “tails” equal prominence. How about a coin with Ms. Anthony’s face on one side and the famed World War II pinup of Betty Grable on the other? That would make it popular with male chauvinists as well as women’s libbers, thus avoiding the risk of another fiasco. Heads, tails on new coins Top of the News Campus Art show to open “Eleven Artists, an art show in the MSC galley features the paint ings and sculptures of 11 Texas artists. The exhibit is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through August 26. 'flu- show is being sponsored by the MSC Arts Committee and the M(x)dy Gallery in Houston, where the artists normally display their works. State Farmworkers to continue protest Members of the Texas Farmworkers Union, almost midway through a second week of protesting for collective bargaining rights, Tuesday huddled on the steps of the Capitol in Austin to escape the rain hut still vowed to stay until the end of the special session. About 10 of the protesting farmworkers nestled in a corner, reading news papers. The group has staged a vigil since July 24 and has lived solely on water and juices since last Wednesday. Some of the protesters were displaying weary, tilt'd faces but all said they would continue the hunger strike. Crawford questioned American businessman F. Jay Crawford was questioned for five J hours by Soviet authorities about alleged currency violations and ordered to return Wednesday for more questioning at Moscow’s LeFortovo prison. Crawford, 37, of Mobile, Ala., said encountered no direct hostility in the session Monday, although au thorities refused to allow a U.S. Embassy official to sit in on the interrogation. Senate to vote on posts Senators will make crucial decisions today on patronage preroga tives with their votes on Gov. Dolph Briscoe’s controversial appoint ments of two men to powerful state posts. The Senate Nominations Committee in Austin voted Tuesday to forward the appointments of Hugh C. Yantis and Dorsey Hardeman to the full Senate, which is required by the constitution to approve or reject all appointments. Sen. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, has announced in advance he will invoke senatorial courtesy Wednesday to block Yantis’ confirmation to the $38,600-a-year job as chairman of the State Insurance Board. Sky lab astronauts named Veteran scientist-astronaut Owen K. Garriott and rookie Robert A. Parker have been selected for the first Spacelab flight in the early 1980s, a Johnson Space Center spokesman announced Tuesday in Houston. Spacelab is one of the early missions scheduled for the space shuttle. The lab will ride into space in the shuttle’s 60-by-15- foot cargo bay. Garriott flew on the second Skylab mission for 56 days in 1973. Parker has not flown in space but has worked in ground control and communications during Apollo and Skylab missions. Four arrested in skirmish Four men were arrested Tuesday in a skirmish between San Antonio police and 15 supporters of a wildcat garbagemen s strike who were trying to set up tents on the City Hall lawn. Those arrested included Chris Gutierrez, vice president of the San Antonio Refuse Collectors Association, and Mario Cantu, an activist rest aurant owner who grappled with former Mexico President Luis Echeverria during Echeverria s visit to San Antonio two years ago. World Slowdown snarls air traffic Thousands of would-be vacationers Tuesday sprawled on airport floors instead of Mediterranean beaches, hoping for an end to a six- day slowdown by French air traffic controllers that has snarled Euro pean flights. Britain was one of the hardest hit areas, with airports reporting flight delays of up to two days to popular Spanish resorts. Delays of 24 hours were common. Artillery fire renewed Israeli-backed Christian rightist militiamen unleashed fresh artil lery fire early Tuesday to bar the Lebanese army from reaching its headquarters near the southern border with Israel. A Beirut news paper said Israel was behind the militia resistance. An army com munique late Monday had said Israel actually was doing the shelling, but on-scene reports said it was the militias inside Lebanon. Christina Onassis married Christina Onassis Tuesday married an out-of-work Russian in an assembly-line ceremony and left her privileged life behind her to become plain Mrs. Sergei Kauzov, resident of Moscow. She im mediately confronted the frustrations of everyday folk when her hus band had trouble starting the car waiting to take them home. It was the third marriage for Christina, 27, one of the world’s wealthiest women, and the second for Sergei Kauzov, 37. The couple was mar ried in a 10-minute ceremony at a Moscow state wedding palace. Weather Mostly cloudy today and tomorrow with thundershow ers for today and Thursday. High today in the mid-80s and low in the low 70s. High tomorrow in the upper 80s. South wind at 15 mph. Probability of rain today 40% and 50% tomorrow. The Battalion 509 Ui Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the artiele 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 by studeiits as a university and community newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the editor. LETTERS POLICY Letters to the editor should not exceed300 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 frill year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Address: The Battalion, Room 216, McDonald Building, College Station, Texas 77843, I United Press International is entitled exclusively to use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited tdI Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reser^l Second-Class postage paid at College Station, TX T^J Editor Sports Editor . News Editor . City Editor . . . Campus Editor Photo Editor . Copyeditor. . . . Reporter MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Del) by Kr*^ Le< . . . David Bo£ Roy I^eschperl 1 .. Mark'd . . Flavia Kfl* Patb’M^ .... Sadih " Scott PendleH* Doug GraM Student Publications Board: Bob G. Rogers, Chairvt* Joe Arredondo, Dr. Gary Halter, Dr. Charles SIcCiwM Dr. Clinton A. Phillips, Rebel Bice. Director of Slid* 1 Publications: Donald C. Johnson.