The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 21, 1979, Image 1

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    Wr
V
V'4
he Battalion
|ol, 72 No. 101
.Pages
Wednesday, February 21, 1979
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Wee-hour action
The A&M Consolidated
School Board ended a marathon
executive session Tuesday morn
ing, missing The Battalion’s
deadline. Today’s story on page
5 details the surprising results.
ardi Gras axed;
dice pickets joyful
United Press International
|nEW ORLEANS — The parades of
lardi Gras that annually draw a million
lurists and $250 million worth of income
| the city were abruptly canceled Tues-
iy because striking police refused to
[ndle massive security problems of the
ucous weeklong celebration.
The surprising cancellations, by leaders
i carnival parades, effectively ended
li Gras 1979 in the city. However, at
ast one of the carnival organizations,
town as “krewes,' vowed to parade in
suburbs and indications were
iveral others would follow.
Texas A&M University’s Ross Volun-
ersand the Fish Drill Team make annual
Igrimages to New Orleans to march in
ardi Gras parades. Ross Volunteer
ompany Commander Glen Sliva said,
it now, we re undecided as to what
ere going to do. ”
Lloyd Walker, Fish Drill Team Com-
ander, said, “We’re still going. As long
we’ve got a place to stay and a meet to
j to, we 1 be going. The FDT is
scheduled to compete in a drill competi
tion Friday at Tulane University.
More than 1,300 police officers walked
off their jobs for the second time in two
weeks last Friday. Since then, marathon
negotiations have failed to bring an end to
the sti ike although a federal arbitrator said
Tuesday night progress has been made.
“The pace is picking up and tensions are
being relieved,” said Ansel Garrett. I
think we had an excellent meeting and I
asked both parties to return (Wednes
day).”
However, Garrett said moments later
he was unaware of the decision by the 18
krewes to cancel their parades. He refused
comment on whether the move would
harm or help negotiations.
Cancellation of the parades — including
Rex, the King of Carnival — came after
officers of the 18 groups met and an
nounced they would not be held as pawns
in the struggle between the city and the
Teamster-affiliated police group.
“We’re not going to let Mardi Gras be
held hostage by the Teamsters,” the offi-
ihoto by Cbjt
ated Tigen
io.
hinese planes
hit inside Vietnam
United Press International
» ». BANGKOK, Thailand — Chinese
I Kilt rplanes struck deep inside Vietnam
esday but Peking’s ground forces held
lir positions 6 miles across the border,
Hendrict diligence sources said,
the Alai ^ n ese troops near the Russian border
II have Ft nt on combat alert in anticipation of
iss with Hi iS '^ e reprisals by Hanoi’s Soviet ally,
j. Trinity* iChinese civilians in at least two border
Fown, Cia« asw ere either relocated or evacuated,
like Davids Ianese news reports from Peking said,
s has been fhe Chinese invasion, which began
recent ye® lll( ^ a y> came in retaliation for Vietnam’s
Texas march through Cambodia.
Texas Frii :tnam ese troops Tuesday were reported
na Saturdf drawing from key areas of Cambodia
i at 1:30p cause °f rearguard fighting from Cam-
dian loyalists.
Both China and Vietnam indicated fight-
! was continuing, but their accounts
ind tni H sketchy.
the German news agency reported
A skeet* Im Peking that Chinese troops were
thdrawing, but the Chinese Foreign
e in the tri
il Skeet
in Dente
he trap Jp
rf
Universil!
rrsity al»
Intf
utu
hstry denied the report, and the official
v China News Atrencv issued a one-
mstr
lw China News Agency issued a one-
ragraph dispatch saying: “Frontier
ces of the Chinese People’s Liberatfo'n
^yin Kwangsi and Yunnan are continu-
to hit back at Vietnamese aggressor
Kips.”
Hanoi claimed its militia forces and ir
regular units had hit the Chinese bard,
wiping out 5,000 soldiers in three days of
fighting and forcing them to regroup.
Intelligence sources in Bangkok said
Chinese bombing and strafing attacks —
which earlier were limited to the
mountainous border region —- had now
been extended well into the Vietnamese
interior.
They said the targets of the strikes ap
peared to be Vietnamese anti-aircraft
missile positions between the border and
the capital of Hanoi.
The Chinese have about 700 warplanes
in the area, outnumbering the Vietnamese
nearly 10 to 1. But intelligence analysts
say Vietnam’s modern missile defense sys
tem and more advanced aircraft even the
odds substantially.
So far there have been no reports of air
craft losses by either side.
Radio Hanoi, monitored in Bangkok,
claimed its border force put 1,500 Chinese
soldiers out of action in stepped up fight
ing Monday. It reported 3,500 killed or
wounded in the first two days of fighting.
The Chinese, who are hypersensitive to
the threat of a Soviet attack on their north
ern border, have put troops on combat
alert in the region, Japan’s Kyodo news
agency reported from Peking.
cials said in their statement.
Bourbon Street tavern owners, who
cater to the tourist industry, were stunned
by the decision.
“It’s going to cost us more money than I
even care to estimate,” said “Little” Eddie
D’Lair, a barker at a Bourbon Street strip
joint. “The tourists are leary. Many of
them have told me they came down for a
week or two weeks, but they are leaving
early. They are just scared to stay.”
Dennis Corcoran, a tourist from
Rockville, Ill., said he and his group in
tended to stay. He said they would attend
the regularly scheduled parades in the
suburbs and hoped more New Orleans
parades would shift to the suburbs.
“We are to the point that we are going
to have to rent a car and go out to the
suburbs to see parades,” Corcoran said.
“It’s the first time we’ve come down here
and this is the first year they’ve canceled
Mardi Gras. Parades were one of the rea
sons we came down — to enjoy Mardi
Gras.”
Striking police officers, marching the
picket lines in a steady rain, showed little
remorse at the decision to cancel Mardi
Gras.
“We didn’t cancel Mardi Gras,” said one
officer who refused to give his name. “The
krewes canceled Mardi Gras. We’ll go
back to work tomorrow if they want us to. ”
Another officer outside police headquar
ters across town smiled when he heard the
news.
“You’re talking to the wrong people if
you think we have any sympathies,” he
said. “They could have avoided all this if
they had given us what we wanted.”
Although state police and National
Guardsmen had been brought in as substi
tutes for police, Mayor Ernest Morial said
he could not allow the parades to take to
the streets. He said the troopers and
guardsmen were unprepared for the spe
cial problems of Mardi Gras.
Morial had canceled 10 parades on a
day-by-day basis since the walkout began
last Friday, but the leaders of the remain
ing 18 organizations said a more definite
decision needed to be made.
“Nothing but harm can come to the
spirit of New Orleans Mardi Gras through
the day-by-day suspense of these cancella
tions,” the 18 carnival groups said in their
joint statement.
“It is wrong to use Mardi Gras as
blackmail in this dispute. The same proce
dure can be used each year and we’re not
going to let our organizations be used as
puppets in such a plan. ”
The Chamber of Commerce filed suit
Tuesday to prevent Morial from submit
ting to binding arbitration, one of the
union’s demands for a contract settlement,
but a state judge refused to issue a tempo
rary restraining order.
Sunset fishin
Rick Thompson, a Texas A&M University
graduate, is joining many other anxious hass
fishermen in pursuit of the wily bass as the hass
spring spawning season gets into full swing in the
coming weeks.
Battalion photo by Larry Parker
Academic Council lowers
GPR needed for business
By DIANE BLAKE
Battalion Staff
Although there is a national push to stif
fen standards in business administration
colleges, Texas A&M University last week
lowered those requirements.
The Academic Council changed transfer
requirements from a 2.5 grade point ratio
to a 2.0 GPR.
Also lowered were SAT score require
ments for entering freshmen, to match the
requirements to the rest of the University.
The change was made to bring the col
lege of business administration into line
with the rest of the University, said Dr.
C. D. Stolle, assistant dean of the business
administration college.
“Our college was somewhat alone in
having higher SAT and transfer require
ments,” he said.
The assistant dean said that 10 years ago
don’t like the word lobbyist,’ liaison says
A&M has good buddies in state legislature
By LIZ NEWLIN
Battalion Staff
At first, the small blackboard in his of-
:e seems unusual — out of place for a top
llv ersity administrator. Most executives
se aesk calendars and embossed leather
ite books.
...(■L Cherry uses those too, but the
irtur# ree n, wood-frame blackboard is for THE
lily iflt^ ates ' Tbit’s when representatives of the
Mas A&M University System will appear
wore the state Legislature to ask for
Wney.
Ve said many times that we all work
r a n institution that goes broke every
3 Of
year,” said Cherry, secretary to the Board
of Regents and legislative liaison.
On Aug. 31, the end of the fiscal year,
the budget also ends. The next day, the
Legislature’s appropriations fund all state
agencies, including universities and col
leges.
The agencies prosper or perish, finally,
by the decisions of 31 senators, 150 repre
sentatives, a lieutenant governor and a
governor. So the lawmakers are worth the
attention.
Cherry says he educates the legislators
— doesn’t lobby them — just like other
state university liaisons do.
an
use
Cherry is legislative liaison for Texas A&M University ^
ls scheduled to meet with the external affairs committee of stu ^" t g h
^nment at 4 p.m. Friday in Room 502, Rudder Tower, to ? x P“" n ,
Permanent University Fund and Texas A&M’s involvement m the 66th
k^gislature.
Battalion photo by Lynn Blanco
“I don’t like the word ‘lobbyist,’” he
said, smiling behind his desk in the Sys
tems Building. “I never want to appear as
a lobbyist. I never want them (legislators)
to see me as a lobbyist.”
But ask anybody else — senator,
bureaucrat or journalist — and since the
sixties Robert C. Cherry has been iden
tified as an effective lobbyist for Texas
A&M. Most are quick to add that “lob
byist” is not a dirty word; they see lob
byists as information brokers who also try
to ensure favorable treatment of their
agency. The lobbyists’ methods vary.
Bo Byers, a long-time Austin observer
and reporter for the Houston Chronicle,
says “an awful lot of politicking” goes on.
Sam Kinch of the Dallas Morning News
says that almost all the state universities of
“decent” size employ lobbyists.
The list of state universities with liaisons
includes The University of Texas, The
University of Houston, Texas Tech Uni
versity, Southwest Texas State University
and East Texas State University.
The lobbyists wine and dine the legis
lators, Kinch says, and they coordinate the
testimony of univeristy representatives be
fore government committees.
Cherry says he occasionally takes a legis
lator out to lunch. If they’re talking and it’s
mealtime and they eat, he tries to pick up
the tab.
His expenses run about $1,000 during
the January-May session, he said.
This year an assistant, Cliff Laywell, will
help Cherry. This is Laywell’s first session
with the Texas A&M System, but he was
legislative liaison for the Texas Farm
Bureau a few years. Now he’s on leave
from the Agricultural Extension Service.
Texas A&M does not maintain an office in
Austin as some universities do.
Ramon Dasch, an attorney in the Secre
tary of State’s Office, says the universities’
legislative liaisons are not required to reg
ister as official lobbyists because they’re
part of the executive branch. Records
show that none of the major state universi
ties’ lobbyists is registered.
Even though the lobbyists are part of
the system, they are not allowed to spend
state funds to influence the Legislature.
Another attorney, Bob Heath in the state
Attorney General’s Office, cites the Texas
Appropriations Act, which states that offi
cials can’t use tax dollars to influence elec
tions or legislation. Legislators inter
viewed said the information provided by
university lobbyists is helpful in making
their decisions.
Heath noted that the University of
Texas in Austin invites all the legislators to
an annual luncheon fiananced by an
anonymous Texas-Ex.
“It’s all handled privately,” Heath says.
Texas A&M has hosted — but not paid
for — banquets in the past, Cherry says.
Like UT, alumni helped. This year,
though, the banquet has been dropped
because the legislators already have more
dinner invitations than they can accept.
They would feel obligated to come —
the wrong response. Cherry said.
One avenue still open, though, is
through local chapters of the Association of
Former Students. Richard “Buck”
Weirus, executive director of Former Stu
dents, says his organization will continue
to host appreciation dinners for local legis
lators. The dinners are a way to say thanks
and let the legislator know who the local
Aggies are, Weirus says — but not to
lobby.
“Next to scholarships, it’s the most im
portant thing we do, ” Weirus said.
The right atmosphere for lobbying is the
appearance of infomality, it seems.
One man who studied Austin and the
University of Texas as a student and jour
nalist notes that much lobbying is informal
— regents talking to legislators, having
parties for legislators, and alumni contact.
And then there are the more formal hear
ings. Texas A&M will appear before at
least five committees before the appropri
ations bill becomes law.
“I’ve never known of anything like brib
ery,” recalls Ronnie Dugger, now pub
lisher of the Texas Observer. “It’s just a
buddy system.”
And Texas A&M has very good buddies:
Not only are the powers in both houses
Aggies, but they are from Bryan.
(Please turn to page 5.)
the college experienced a “very, very
great growth” and was having trouble ac
commodating the boom with enough class
rooms and teachers. The standards were
raised to slow down the growth, he said.
But the problem was not solved, Stolle
said, because students began taking busi
ness administration courses — while they
were still registered in other colleges.
“The burden of counseling was on the
assistant and associate deans in other col
leges, and we still had the space and teach
ing load problems.”
He said about 400-500 students will be
affected by the change.
The change will not affect the college’s
accreditation with the American Assembly
of Collegiate Schools of Business, Stolle
said.
“We cleared this with the AACSB. They
understand the difficulties it was creating
in this University.”
Stolle said the AACSB allows colleges to
set their own standards, so long as the
school does not graduate inferior students.
In accrediting a college, the AACSB re
view includes the quality of teaching, per
centage of teachers with doctorates, teach
ing load and course content.
It also recommends a common core of
business subjects and looks at the difficulty
of the program -— whether all students are
making A s or B’s.
“It is also very supportive of the profes
sional school concept,” Stolle said. This
would require students to post a certain
GPR for a year or two before admission to
a college of business administration, simi
lar to programs offered in medicine or law.
Some schools, such as the one at North
Texas State University, have switched to a
five-year program. Stolle said that in the
past six or seven years, semesters have
been getting shorter, and experts say more
information should be included in the
courses.
“Several professional agencies that deal
with business administration think the
five-year program is needed to get the
necessary amount of knowlege,” he said.
Texas A&M’s program will not be
changed until the new dean arrives in July
— if then.
To transfer, a student should first pick
up his folder from the dean of his current
college.
Each student should also sign a change
of curriculum form before going to the
College of Business Administration office.
Iran’s new chief of staff
says Americans needed
to run military equipment
United Press International
TEHRAN — Iran Tuesday executed
four more generals by firing squad and
began a diplomatic campaign to extradite
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. There
were indications Iran would ask U. S. mili
tary advisers and oil experts to return.
In a news briefing, Gen. Mohammed
Vali Qaraney, the new chief of staff, indi
cated hundreds of American military ad
visers eventually would be asked to return
to the country to help manage the $70 bil
lion worth of military equipment pur
chased from the United States.
The equipment includes sophisticated
F14 fighters and he said “we cannot do
without foreigner advisers” to help run
them.
During Khomeini’s rise to supreme
power in Iran, American military advisers
were perhaps the most hated of all foreign
symbols and the ayatollah’s camp re
peatedly asserted these advisers would be
thrown out of the country.
It now appeared, however, the govern
ment was softening its previous statements
and taking a more practical view.
On Monday Prime Minister Mehdi
Bazargan named a lawyer, Hassan Nazih,
to run the oil industry and indicated that
foreign oil workers might be invited back
to Iran. He warned that failure of Iran to
resume full oil production could wreck
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomein s revolution.
The National Front political party de
manded the establishment of both a gov
ernment of national unity and a national
guard to dilute the power of the army and
lessen the chances of a military coup
d’etat.
The Front warned that unless those
measures were undertaken immediately
Iran would face “serious difficulties” from
internal unrest.
The country’s new military leaders fired
another 20 senior Air Force officers and
announced that the current purge and
reorganization of the armed forces was
now 50 percent complete. More than 100
field grade officers have been executed,
fired, demoted or retired.
In a second major move to return Iran to
normalcy, schools reopened for the first
time in many weeks. Khomeini Saturday
had ordered 3.5 million striking workers
back to their jobs in his first major effort to
get the country moving again.
Iran’s revolutionary radio announced
the four generals were executed by Islamic
firing squad at 2:40 a. m., less than three
hours after being found guilty in secret
trials of crimes against the people.
Four other senior generals, including
the former head of SAVAK, Gen.
Nematollah Nassiri, were executed Fri
day, bringing to eight the total number of
military figures executed since the new
government took power.
Government sources said moderate
Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was un
aware of both sets of executions until after
the event and was “furious.”
The government also stepped up its ef
forts to try to “corner” the shah and bring
him back to Iran to face trial.
A Foreign Ministry statement said the
government will bring pressure — pre
sumably via its oil exports — on any coun
try offering asylum to the shah, currently
vacationing in Morocco.