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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 1979)
getmyi sre have HE BaTTAOON SI Vol. 72 No. 97 5re «e(| ' e valuai,| ittingu J gl' said | ■n'tliai Panola | 18 Pages 2 Sections Thursday, February 15, 1979 College Station, Texas News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 arter gets warm greeting espite Mexican oil issue i a United Press International liEXICO CITY — President Carter ar- d in Mexico City Wednesday for a -je-day summit conference with Presi lt Jose Lopez Portillo on such delicate les as Mexican oil and gas supplies and j illegal emigration of Mexicans to the jited States. farter received a warmer welcome than lected from a nation that has expressed bicion and hostility in recent years over JAdministraton’s Latin American | c j es _ and the obvious U.S. effort to ; Mexican oil to replace that lost in Ivhite House aides disclosed that Carter lost postponed the trip at the last min- ] because of new crises in Tehran and bul, Afghanistan, but decided at the last lute to continue with the visit. Hore than 4,000 persons turned out at dado Benito Jaurez International ort, many of them children sitting in a rporary bleacher like spectators at a jeball game and waving pompons in the ;onal colors, shaking maracas in a well- irsed welcome. ter, the ninth U.S. President to visit Mexico, was greeted with the traditional 21-gun salute and the national anthems. Lopez Portillo, waiting for Carter to de scend the steps from Air Force One, told Carter he would like to continue the dialogue he started with the president two years ago. “It was my pleasure to be the first foreign head of state to visit your country during your administration,” Lopez Por tillo said. “Now you are reciprocating this visit. Thus we continue with the possibil ity of the dialogue that was started at that time. “At that time we said and we say so once again that it is good for neighbors to be friends,” the Mexican president said. “It is my conviction, sir, that from my personal contact a good friendship was started. This friendship is now being renewed. “Very objectively, Mr. President, there are few countries in the world that have so much to talk about, so many matters, as we do. In Mexico you will find there is enormous interest in this visit and results that it will bring with it. Mexico finds its relations with the United States of the ut most importance.” A White House official said Carter con sidered delaying his departure after learn ing that U.S. envoy Adolf Dubs had been kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Af- ganistan and that Ambassador William Sul livan and 70 embassy personnel were taken hostage by leftist guerrillas in Iran. When the hostages were freed this morning in Tehran, Carter decided to go ahead with the trip, official said. Mexican officials put out advance word the president and Mrs. Carter would be accorded a “cordial” welcome — but not the tremendous outpouring recently wit nessed during the visit of Pope Tohn Paul II. For the past several days Carter has been taking a diplomatic beating in news stories emanating from Mexico City. White House aides say the president has a “tough job ahead of him there,” adding, there has “been a certain amount of posi tioning” by Mexican leaders in advance of the visit. “He is going there on a rather delicate mission in which he will need to walk a careful line between two conflicting at titudes” manifested by Mexican officials, an aide said. One attitude, he said, “is the desire to work with us and to have a partnership. To them that inevitably means ‘junior part ner,’ and the other attitude is for complete independence. ” Carter’s visit coincides with a bleak out look for a continuing supply of Iranian oil for Americans, which has added a dramatic dimension to negotiations over the vast new resources of Mexican oil. But White House aides are telling re porters, “Mexican oil is not an alternative to Iranian oil” and Carter is “a statesman, not a merchant.” To underscore the fact Carter will not be negotiating to buy oil, aides noted that neither Energy Secretary James Schlesinger nor any other experts in the field would accompany the president. Carter, who has been polishing his Spanish, had a full schedule for the visit including talks with Lopez Portillo, lunch eons, dinners, attendance at the Ballet Folklorico, a visit to a village near Cuer navaca, and an address to a joint session of the Mexican'Chamber of Deputies. arking problem wo level garage or outside lots are possible answers By DIANE BLAKE Battalion Staff Last semester, construction projects [bled up parking places at the rate of 122 spaces a month while enroll- at Texas A&M University was higher i ever. find solutions to the problem of [inking parking lots and increasing ollment, the Texas Transportation In kite will begin a study of alternatives bin the next month. (Right now we re trying to figure out what needs to be studied,” said Dr. brley Wootan, TTI director. “Hopefully can begin the study in two or three |ks.” iVootan said the study should take about lee months to complete. jThere are basically two alternatives to in solving the problem, said Dr. pies E. McCandless, chairman of the Jster planning committee. “We can 1>er build some type of raised parking llity on existing lots, or add peripheral land have some type of people moving pem, such as the bus system, to get stu dents to the center of campus. Or we can have both.” McCandless said that having one raised level was preferred because of traffic con gestion, security and construction time. Also, he said there would be fewer objec tions to walking up and down one level as opposed to three or four. If built, the raised lot would probably be located on either lot 60, across from Bud- der Tower, or on lot 7, behind the Reed McDonald Building. McCandless said it would be at least a year before construction would be started, if a raised lot were approved. Once all the committees and boards approved the building and materials were gathered, the construction itself should take only three or four months, he said. “If we could get it all lined up by next May (1980), we could probably have con struction completed by the fall,” he said. The other alternative, that of building more lots further away from campus, would probably be accepted by students if a quick, dependable moving system were available, McCandless said. Surface parking lots cost about $500 per space, whereas raised lots cost about $3,000 a space. McCandless s^id building a raised lot could mean higher parking sticker fees, but he did not know how much the fees might be hiked. “We want to find out where we can best spend our money,” McCandless said con cerning the alternatives. Buckley: citizens losing will to vote Wf 0. 1 m fiim ‘Take that!’ fiim l':; 1 Turpin, right, of the Texas A&M University Fenc.ng Club .s chal- 'd by spectator Timothy Wagnor. The Fencing Club gave demon tans Wednesday, and they will continue through today in the MSC n S e , offering prizes to those who dare to challenge t e c u eh d ue l Battalion photo by Jeanne Graham By JAMES HAMILTON Battalion Reporter Federal authority is creating a growing sense of “political impotence” in the United States, said former New York Sen. James L. Buckley in a speech Wednesday afternoon. Buckley spoke to about 300 people in Rudder Theater during the opening ses sion of SCONA 24. The conference of about 180 student delegates will continue until Saturday. He said that although the United States is a country run by a government of the people, more and more Americans are be ginning to feel powerless. “Millions of Americans feel they are being overwhelmed by events they can no longer influence and that a resort to the polls is an act of futility,” he said. A major cause of this growing discontent among Americans, Buckley said, is the SCONA 24 wraps up on Saturday The following events are scheduled for the remainder of SCONA 24. Thursday —8:30 a.m. Dr. Murray L. Weiden- baum, former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury, “Effects of Government Regulatory Policies on the American Economy” — 1 p.m. William Cunningham, economist, research department AFL- CIO, “Labor’s Concerns and Issues Within the Economy” —3:30 p.m. Dr. Joseph E. Burns, senior vice president. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “The Inflation- Unemployment problem.” Friday —10 a.m. Dr. Clifton B. Cox, chairman and chief executive. Armour and Com pany, “The Economic Environment in Ag riculture. ’ —2:30 p.m. Dr. Howard E. Sarrows, acting director of the National Office of Cooperative Technlogy, “Industrial Inno vation and Productivity — A Cooperative Technology Approach” Saturday —11 a.m. William P. Hobby Jr., lieutenant governor of the state of Texas, wrap-up speech. Hobby’s speech will be given in Room 224 of the Memorial Student Center. All other speeches will be in Rudder Theater. “accelerating expansion” of federal author ity and, in particular, the federal bureau cracy. “It is manned by insulated and some times imperious officials who wield an enormous influence over virtually every facet of American life,” Buckley said. He said that since these officials are not elected, they are not directly responsible to the people. Civil Service laws, he added, make them immune to discipline from the president or the Congress. “Thus more and more Americans,” Buckley said, “have come to feel them selves hemmed in and pushed around by tenured civil servants who seem to be re sponsible to no one.” Buckley said that too many federal agencies today “enjoy the widest latitude in formulating, administering and enforc ing policies that can have a decisive impact on the lives and fortunes of others.” Buckley said that most federal agencies and bureaus are manned by able, hard working and dedicated people. “They often face an impossible task job in trying to make sense out of sweeping congressional directives,” Buckley said. “They often have no choice but to draw up and enforce arbitrary rules. “But the fact is that the net impact of the federal bureaucracy has been to move us away from a system of government by laws to which every citizen has equal access ... towards one in which some men and women are empowered by the govern ment to exercise broad authority over other men and women.” Buckley suggested several reforms that he said would help regulate federal bureaucracies while providing citizens with protection against “bureaucratic ag gression.” “First, we can narrow the scope of bu reaucratic discretion by sharpening the focus of congressional mandates and re quiring that they be strictly interpreted. “Second, we should recognize that a civil servant is as capable of abusing au thority as any other human being.” Thus, Buckley said, an agency should provide more due process to the people they wish to administer to. “Third, we should require government agencies to be as accountable for their ac tions as anyone else in our society.” Buckley said this would enable anyone suf fering a loss as a result of bureaucratic neg ligence or abuse to sue the federal gov ernment for damages. Buckley’s fourth reform idea called for citizens to be reimbursed for court costs in certain cases against agencies. “Citizens are growing tired,” Buckley said, “of being pushed around by so-called public servants who are hell-bent to im pose policies on the public that the public doesn’t want or throw needless roadblocks in the way of productive citizens who are trying to make a living.” A winning pair 1 Wi'' Running for the roses on St. Valentine’s Day, this pair won in a couples’ race sponsored by the IB-" tifeibk. f /*'m ^ Texas A&M University Road- runners Club. See page 4. Takin off During the Sleepytime Story Hour, 2-year-old Wyatt McCormack acts like a rocket, when Bryan children’s librarian Tricia Barber explains that he’ll take off and grow. Bryan Library sponsors the free story hour every Thursday, 7-8 p.m. All children are Welcome. Battalion photo by Lynn Blanco Consol head quits for Leander post Fred Hopson, superintendent of the A&M Consolidated School District, resigned early Wednesday afternoon. The resigna tion becomes effective March 1. Hopson resigned to become superin tendent of the Leander Independent School District, north of Austin, on March 5. He signed a contract with the Leander district Tuesday. When contacted early Wednesday af ternoon, Trustees Elliott Bray, Rodney Hill and board President Bruce Robeck said they were not aware of Hopson’s res ignation. None of the board members was sur prised at Hopson’s decision; they said they knew he was looking for a new job. Robeck said the board would probably appoint an acting superintendent so it would not have to hurry to hire a new one. The superintendent selection screening committee, Robeck says, has “identified” about nine persons from 37 applicants it wants to examine further. The Consolidated school board termi nated Hopson’s original three-year con tract in November citing “disagreements concerning educational policy and policy implementation.” His resignation will not affect the $54,000 he is to receive as a result of his renegotiated Consolidated contract. This contract was to expire on June 30. Hobby decries tax relief plan United Press International AUSTIN — Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby said Wednesday recent increases in the amount of money the state expects to have during the next two years have not changed his mind about the prospects for additional tax relief. “There will be plenty of ways to use it, ” Hobby said. Comptroller Bob Bullock Monday indi cated he expects to up his estimate of the state’s anticipated revenue for the coming biennium by $200 million, from $2.1 bil lion to $2.3 billion. Gov. Bill Clements wants the Legisla ture to reduces taxes $1 billion but Hobby and legislative budget writers say the state cannot afford such cuts in addition to the $1 billion tax relief plan approved last year. Hobby said one of the most critical needs is for additional money for the prison system to pay more guards. Cur rently there are 11 inmates for every guard.