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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.