The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Viewpoint
Tuesday
September 5, 1978
Beware the Brezhnev Doctrine
Even by the standards of the 20th century, a terrible crime was committed
10 years ago this week when Soviet and Warsaw Pact armies invaded
Czechoslovakia to stamp out “communism with a human face.”
On the surface the crushing of reformist communism has been successful.
The liberal Alexander Dubcek was replaced by pro-Moscow Gustav Husak.
No more heresy is heard about civil and political rights. The country is
cowed, docile and apathetic, an ideal vassal state.
Nevertheless Russia has paid a heavy price for restraining Prague in an
ideological straitjacket. Romania and Yugoslavia, fearful of being next, are
ready to fight for their independence. A nervous China moved to achieve a
new relationship with the United States.
The worst setback was in Western Europe, where the legend of democra
tic communism was accepted before August 1968. Now ex-communist intel
lectuals form the-core of the ‘new philosophers” who argue pursuasively that
repression and dictatorship are an integral part of Marxism.
The ideological justification for the rape of Prague was the Brezhnev Doc
trine. Stripped of its prevarications, it states grimly that once a government
becomes commmunist, it must remain so and Moscow reserves the right to
intervene if there is any backsliding.
These days communist parties — “reformed” and “democratic ones, of
course — are striving to enter governments in France, Italy, Spain and
Portugal. They pledge to play according to the rules and to yield power if the
voters so decide.
The peoples of those nations would do well well to reflect on the fate of
Dubcek’s regime. The Brezhnev Doctrine isn’t dead; it’s only sleeping.
Scripps-Howard Newspapers
Lots of new faces at Governors Club
By ARNOLD SAWISLAK
United Press International
WASHINGTON — At the end of the
recent National Governors Association
conference, chairman William Milliken of
Michigan intoned a long list of names —
members of the NGA who were attending
their last meeting.
There are 24 states that limit governors
to two terms, five that forbid governors to
seek a second consecutive term. With the
governors whose tenure is expiring, plus
primary defeats and personal decisions to
seek other oflice or just pack it in, 14 cur
rent governors will not be on hand when
the association meets again.
THAT DOES NOT include incumbents
who will be retired by the voters in
November, so it is entirely possible that 20
or more of 50 NGA members will be
freshmen at the next national meeting.
That may be another reason that the na
tion’s governors as a group have had prob
lems exercising the political clout that
their status and numbers seemingly
should provide.
It is the conventional political wisdom
that members of the Senate have had an
advantage in presidential selection be
cause of their access to the national media.
That certainly is a factor, but the con
tinuity that a couple of six-year Senate
terms provide also helps establish a politi
cian's image.
For the governors, there is also a prob
lem of consensus. Collectively, they rep
resent the same constituency as the presi
dent, but the trick is to get the governors
to do something collectively.
It is true that in recent years the NGA
has been able to mobilize an effective gov
ernors’ bloc to fight for specific legislation
such as revenue sharing and welfare re
form to help states.
BUT IN ADDITION to the basic
liberal-conservative philosophical split of
American politics, the governors, as
should be expected, remain a bastion of
states’ rights sentiment.
That means that many of them are sus
picious of any federal solution to domestic
problems, which often makes it difficult
for them to unite on any single alternative.
When the governors speak on national is
sues, they frequently seem to be saying no
more than “leave us alone.”
To some, that seems to be a pity be
cause it has been the states that have
provided the United States with some of
its most creative government. In the first
part of this century' it was unemployment
compensation and public service regula
tion; more recently it has been
environmental and consumer protection,
and criminal justice reform.
HOWEVER, IT MAY BE public
realization that good government can be
found in the state capitals as well as in
Washington that has, after several decades
of obscurity, propelled governors into the
front ranks of presidential contention.
The problem obviously is whether an
executive whose perspectives were
formed in state government can apply
those ideas and skills successfully to na
tional government. We are testing that
proposition now.
Doctor claims cure for baby cravings
By DALE SINGER
United Press International
ST. LOUIS — A pediatrician thinks he
knows how to counter the curious condi
tion known as pica in which children feel
compelled to eat abnormal items.
TODDLERS WILL PUT almost any
thing in their mouths — wood, dirt,
magazines, even garbage or dirty diapers.
But some children seem to have a craving
for biauu re-things.
In the past 10*years Dr. Gene H.
Grabau said he has treated nearly three
dozen pica patients and stopped their crav
ings in a month or less with simple doses of
cobalt chloride, which he was given free
by a chemical company.
But despite Grabau’s efforts to
popularize the use of cobalt to cure pica,
the treatment is not well-known. He dis
cussed his experience in a discussion with
local officials on the lead poisoning prob
lem here.
Grabau says cobalt chloride has been
shown safe in other medicines so there
should be no question about its safety in
use against pica. His own experience has
shown its effectiveness, he argues, so no
more testing should be needed.
But he said the medical community has
a tendency to overlook simple solutions
shown to be effective, but not subjected to
the rigorous testing only an expensive
government grant can provide.
T THINK IT’S RIDICULOUS to go to
all the expense for funding,” Grabau said
in an interview during a break from his
busy private practice. “The medication I
use costs nothing. All it takes is time, and
I’m willing to provide that.”
The problem is persuading people to ac
cept his method. Grabau said he may have
to apply for government money he does
not want so the cobalt treatment will win
approval.
Grabau said the compound could help
stop some of the nation’s 80,000 cases of
lead poisoning, many of which occur in
children who eat wood coated with lead-
based paint.
Grabau stumbled onto cobalt’s effec
tiveness in treating pica when he read of
sheep in Wales that ate so much of the
underpinnings of a bam that it collapsed
on them. The abnormal eating habits were
cured, the article said, when cobalt was
added to thtjir- food.,, . t .
A SHORT TIME later, Grabau was
asked to cure a patient’s tendency to gnaw
on wood. Grabau prescribed a medicine
with cobalt, and the pica soon disap
peared.
Grabau said he has cured 34 other cases
the same way — two teaspoons a day for
two to four weeks — with no failures.
“It’s a craving for cobalt. They don’t
recognize it as such, but when the cobalt
level is high enough, the pica stops.”
A check of medical literature showed
that the cobalt treatment was not a tra
ditional remedy for pica.
“They’ve been searching for a cure for
300 years,” Grabau said. “There were all
kinds of studies, but no cure.
Pica often may be merely annoying to
the parent of a child who eats wood, dirt or
other strange materials. Grabau remem
bered one girl “who used to pull her hair
out and eat it. She had a bald Spot the size
of a cup on thp back of hen hqad.”
BUT WHEN PICA leads tolead poison
ing, it may also cause brain damage or
death. The St. Louis area has ranked
among the worst areas in the country in
incidents of lead poisoning.
“Children can get lead poisoning from
eating wood covered with lead-based
paint, from eating slick magazine covers or
from pottery mugs with the lacquer off,”
said Grabau, stressing that cobalt treats
only pica, not lead poisoning itself.
“Lead is in a lot of things.”
More women working, fewer marrying
Census Bureau reports America changing
By PATRICK J. KILLEN
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Putting off marriage
and children longer, today’s women are
gaining an ever-increasing share of Ameri
ca’s jobs and now make up 41 percent of
the total labor force, the Census Bureau
has reported.
Profiling the U.S. population, the
bureau said the labor force topped the 100
million mark for the first time in 1977 with
a gain of nearly 14.7 million workers from
1970 to 1977. Women accounted for 57
percent of that growth and now hold 41
million jobs.
In 1960, the bureau reported, 38 per
cent of all American women were em
ployed, while in 1977, 48 percent of the
Slouch
women had jobs. During the same period
the proportion of men working dropped
from 83 to 80 percent.
The ratio of males to females in the ci
vilian labor force declined from 2-to-l in
1960 to 1.44-to-l in 1977.
The bureau said the number of working
wives continued to increase, rising from
40.5 percent in 1970 to 46.4 percent in
1977.
Young women are delaying marriage
and childbearing longer. About 43 percent
of the women married in the 20-24 age
group in 1977 had not borne children,
compared to 36 percent in 1970 and 24
percent in 1960.
The number of women in their early 20s
who have not married went from 36 to 45
by Jim Earle
“YOUR FIRST JOB IN COLLEGE IS TO ESTABLISH
YOUR PRIORITIES, FISH JETHRO; AND GETTING
YOUR CHRISTMAS CARDS OUT MIGHT BE A LOWER
PRIORITY FOR THE TIME BEING!”
percent between 1970 and 1977.
Based on interviews with some 53,000
households interviewed monthly, the re
port pulls together assorted population
figures mentioned in earlier surveys. The
survey reported:
An estimated 1,914,000 unmarried
adults of the opposite sex were living to
gether in 1977, an 83 percent increase
since 1970.
The marriage rate went up marginally
from 9.9 per 1,000 in 1976 to 10.1 in 1977,
but was still "below the peak of 11.0 in
1972. The number of marriages in 1977
was 2,176,000, nearly twice the number of
divorces, 1,097,000.
About 38 percent of the first marriages
of women in their late 20s may eventually
end in divorce, the bureau estimated. It
said women in the same group with an in
complete college education had a greater
chance of being divorced — 49 percent,
than those with exactly four years of col
lege — 29 percent.
The average size of an American house
hold has declined from 3.14 persons in
1970 to 2.86 in 1977.
Median or mid-point family income in
1976 (the only figure available,) in constant
dollars, was $14,960, about $500 higher
than in 1970, and was 3 percent higher in
1976 than in 1975.
White families had a median income in
1976 of $15,540, black families $9,240 and
Spanish origin families $10,260. Families
headed by females had a median income of
only $7,210, compared with a husband-
wife family whose median income was
$16,200.
In 1976, about 25 million persons or 12
percent of the population were below the
poverty level, with blacks making up 30
percent and Hispanics 11 percent of the
poor people. The elderly accounted for
another 13 percent.
There were 24.5 million blacks in the
population in March 1977, representing
11.5 percent of the total. Persons of
Spanish origin numbered 11.3 million.
Their total included 6.55 million persons
of Mexican origin, 1.74 million from
Puerto Rico, 680,000 from Cuba, and 2.30
million from Central or South America or
other Spanish locations.
The 1977 birthrate was 15.3 per 1,000
population, up from 14.7 in 1976 and
1975. The death rate edged downward to
“a historic low” of 8.8 per 1,000, compared
with 8.9 in 1976 and 1975.
Letter to the editor
The most sacred tradition
Editor:
We wish to take this time before the
first Silver Taps of the year to inform all the
new Aggies about this most sacred of tra
ditions at Texas A&M.
By definition, Silver Taps is that final
tribute paid to an Aggie who at the time of
his death was enrolled in undergraduate or
graduate classes at Texas A&M. The notice
is posted at the base of the flagpole in front
of the Academic Building.
Essentially, Silver Taps is a memorial
service and should be treated as such. It
begins at 10:30 on a scheduled Tuesday
night after a student passes on. Aggies
gather around the mall in front of the
Academic Building. The Ross Volunteer
firing squad marches to Lawrence Sullivan
Ross’ statue and fires a twenty-one gun sa
lute. This is followed by three renditions
of silver taps played by members of the
Texas Aggie Band.
Common practices associated with
Silver Taps are that lights in buildings
throughout the campus are extinguished
until the following morning and that com
plete silence is maintained out of respect
towards the deceased Aggie. Also, please
do not bring cameras with flash attach
ments or other light sources.
Silver Taps. A memorial, a sobering ex
perience, an honorable way to remember
a fallen comrade.
—Steve Manley, Corps P.R. Officer,
‘79
—Dean C. Murray, Corps P.R.
Sergeant, ‘80
Top of the
Campus
Silver Taps
Silver Taps will be conducted in front of the Academic
tonight at 10:30 in memory of those students whose deaths occ^
since Muster ‘78. Those who will be remembered are: John
Voorhees, who died May 13; David Eugene Bell, who died
Albert Bottehsazan, who died June 2; William Wagner TrottH
died June 3; Robert Gregory Gramling, who died lulv 23 mrl n„ u
Jeff Miller, who died Aug. 27. •‘‘nd Donald
Veterinary profession crowded
“Veterinary medicine seems to be the in’ thing,” said Dr. Geore
Shelton, dean of Texas A&M University's College of Veterinarv
Medicine. He said that veterinary medicine provides a way to
come “the boss, and the profession has prestige. However, the ratio
ofapplicant-to-acceptance into one of the nation's veterinary colleees
averages about five-to-one. The nation’s 22 veterinary colleges
graduate about 1,600 new doctors each year. When the newer col
leges begin graduating their first classes there will be some 2 000
additional new men and women entering the field yearly. There are
some 35,000 veterinarians, of whom some 32,000 are practitioners
The A. D. Little Report predicts that the profession will be over
crowded with some 8,(MX) too many veterinarians hy 1990,
Nation
Gunman wounds five at match
A gunman fired six to 10 shots into a crowd of about 250 spectators at
an Ecorse, Mich, high school soccer match late Sunday. Five penons
were wounded, three critically. Early Monday police arrested an
18-year-old suspect. The suspect, not immediately identified, was
held on charges of assault with intent to commit murder, Lt. John
Williams of the Ecorse Police Department said. Police also were
seeking “at least one other” suspect, identified only as a male, he
said.
Ella shifts from E. Coast
Hurricane Ella sped through the North Atlantic Monday, its llSinph
winds a threat only to shipping in the Cape Hatteras, N.C. area. The
storm’s forward speed accelerated during the night to 30 mph, but
the National Hurricane Center said its strength should begin to
weaken today. Monday at 6 a.m. EDT, Ella was centered about 430
miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia and moving on a northeasterly
course. The shift away from the East Coast cleared the way for
thousands of Labor Day tourists to take advantage of sunny beaches
and rolling surf.
rhe :
JCai
wrist
m thi
y 'is i
d p<
PAS).
Hi,' 1
B seas
f tatior
ii'ty.
liters
jigim
ropey
L' 0i
lUloU!
Orchi
lael
ilippe
1 he i
Orleans strike under attack
The Orleans Parish school board Monday began taking steps to con
vince teachers to end a three-day strike that has crippled instruction
to 90,000 students in New Orleans. The union said such “strikebreak
ing tactics’ would fail. School superintendent Gene Geisert said he
would release a statement about 9 p.m. outlining what disciplinary'
action the board will take against the strikers. Geisert s plans were
formidated in a closed session with the school board Sunday. He
refused to disclose specifics.
World
Cosmonauts return safely
I wo cosmonauts who made a weeklong visit to the orbiting Salyut 6
space lab returned to a hero’s welcome on Earth Monday, leaving
behind two Soviet spacemen on the verge of a space-endurance rec
ord. Soviet Commander Valery' Bykovsky, 44, and East German cos
monaut Sigmund Jaehn, 41, made a soft-landing Sunday in the Cen
tral Asian republic of Kazakhstan, the Tass news agency said. Tass
said the crew stepped from the capsule, sat down a moment to catch
their breath, then scrawled their signatures in chalk on the side of the
dark, sooty spacecraft.
15,000 drowned in India
More than 15,000 people were feared drowned in flash floods in VVes
Bengal state, and authorities began moving villagers from floo
threatened areas near New Delhi, India, it was reported Monday
The Statesmen newspaper reported hundreds of bodies floating in
the swollen Kangsabati and Silabati rivers. Officials said New De 1
and 25 villages along the Jamuna River, which flows by New Delhi,
were faced with a flood of “unprecedented magnitude and began
moving more than 200,000 people from the area.
Weather
Partly cloudy today, tonight and tomorrow. High in th® rn*
90s and low in the upper 60s. Wind lightly variable. Probability
of rain 20% for today and tomorrow.
The Battalion
LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor should 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 he
signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephone
number for verification.
Address correspondence to Utters to the Editor The
Battalirm. Room 216. Reed McDonald Building. College
Station, Texas 77843.
Represented nationally by National Educational Adver-
tis.ng 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 full year. Advertising rates fur-
nished on request. Address: The Battalion, Room 216,
Reed McDonald Building, College Station, Texas 77843.
United Press International is entitled exclusively to the
use lor reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it.
Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved.
Second-Class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843.
member
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism on ^ ^
Editor Karen R°8 e,!
Managing Editor
Sports Editor | a niie ^
City Editor Net*!
Campus Editor '' ^j|ij a ij!
Assistant Campus Editor . __ B | osSf i
News Editors Car °‘ y
Debbie Parsons
Editorial director Ue Bov ^
Staff Writers
Andr*
Mark Patterson. ' ^
Vaiis ' Scott Pend^ 0 ' 1 '
Petty, Michelle Scucfder,
Marilyn Brown
| Cartoonist
. Doug
Gratis
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