ilad,
it can
>isa.
The Battalion
Vol. 72 No.
10 Pages
158
Wednesday, June 13, 1979
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Weather
Fair skies through Thursday with
sunny days. High will be 87 and a
low of 67. Winds will be Easterly at
5-10 m.p.h.
UTS.)
Carter proposes first
(phase of health plan
United Press International
■ WASHINGTON — President Carter
Tuesday formally proposed the first phase
ol his national health plan — to shield
||yery American from the costs of major
■Iness, to provide free prenatal and infant
Kre, and to reform programs for the poor,
disabled and elderly.
■ The price tag is $23 to $25 billion. No
Bicreases in the payroll taxes would be re-
Huired under the Carter plan, according to
Hi outline prepared by the administration.
iThe effective date is 1983.
■ In all, 56 million people would receive
■rotection they do not now have against
I major illnesses.
■ There are two main features of the
Phase One plan.
I —Healthcare: a new $18.2 billion um
brella federal insurance program con-
Hlidating Medicaid — for the poor — and
IjMedicare — for the elderly — into a single
st uctgre to produce better efficiency and
||educe fraud, abuse and waste. General
revenues would pay for this part. It
i would cover the near poor, small and
high-risk businesses and others not cov
ered.
—The Employer Guarantee: a $6.1 bil
lion provision that builds on current group
coverage by private insurers, requiring
employers to provide minimum cata
strophic coverage to all 156 million full
time workers and their families; coverage
that starts after the first $2,500 in annual
out-of-pocket expenses.
For all pregnant women, prenatal care
would be provided through Healthcare or
private plans, as would infant services for
at least the first year of a child’s life.
Inflexible, publicly set doctor fees —
based on average Medicare fees in a given
area — would be established for elderly or
poor participants in Healthcare. Advisory
schedules would be set up for physician
reimbursemrivate plans.
Employers would have to pay at least 75
percent of any premiums; employees no
more than 25 percent.
Coverage for all 24 million persons on
Medicare would be improved, permitting,
in one case, the aged and disabled an un
limited number of fully subsidized hospital
days after the first day’s payment.
States would share some of the Health-
Care cost for low-income eligibles, but
would be given about $2 billion in fiscal
relief initially.
Private insurers would administer the
Employer Guarantee, while the govern
ment would handle Healthcare, making
full use of private companies as carriers
and claim handlers on a competitive bid
basis.
An outline of the legislation emphasized
the substance of the first phase proposed
Tuesday, suggesting that to implement a
comprehensive universal plan would re
quire little more than an expansion,
through new legislation, of the initial step.
The outline also included a comparison
between the Carter plan and a more ex
pensive, one-shot plan offered by Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Kennedy es
timated the cost of his plan would be $40
billion in private and federal money. The
White House estimate of the Kennedy
plan’s cost came to nearly $64 billion.
Valley Information Center
aids newcomers, residents
ir, cuff
By ROY BRAGG
Battalion Staff
■ Driving down Main Street of a new
town, it is impossible to learn anything
■bout the town itself.
I Without a referral agency or a visitors
Bureau, it would take days to figure out
pins
10
Issential facts about population, housing,
or historical background of the city.
In the past few years, College Station
nd Bryan have grown at a tremendous
fate — mainly because of the explosion in
enrollment at Texas A&M University. As
iis the case with any college town, the
Bopulation is transient and constantly
■hanging.
.. B Throughout the year, and especially
during the weeks before, during and after
a semester change at Texas A&M, hun-
reds of new families move to the Bryan-
ftollege Station area.
When they arrive, they want to know
the background of the town.
Last year, the Bryan and College Sta
tion city councils created the Information
and Hospitality Center of Brazos Valley, a
non-profit cooperative venture funded by
the cities of Bryan and College Station.
The center provides maps, historical in
formation and the names of housing locat
ing services.
The center has a 10-member board of
directors consisting of members of each
city council, one member of the county
commissioners and members from the
chamber of commerce and the business
community.
The center is funded by the 4 percent
hotel tax levied by both cities, said Anne
R. Bell, who with Mary Brannen works at
the center.
The hotel tax funds, as outlined by state
law, may be used for a limited number of
expenditures.
The funds pay for such items as histori
cal preservation and endowments to the
Truckers surround gas pumps
protest high diesel fuel prices
United Press International
OZONA — A group of independent
truckers conducting a rolling blockade of
truck stops along Interstate 10 from Texas
to California Tuesday surrounded the die
sel pumps of the Circle Bar Truck Corral
for three hours, claiming higher fuel prices
fwere “a ripoff by big oil companies.
The truckers, using eight truck tractors,
previously conducted peaceful three-hour
protests at truck stops at Brookshire (near
Houston), outside of San Antonio and at
Junction
“We want three things: lower fuel
prices, proof of the fuel crisis and an in
crease (in freight rates),” said Ray
Sprayberry, 38, an independent trucker
from Nacogdoches. “We don’t believe the
fuel shortage is real; it’s just a ripoff by the
oil companies.”
Sprayberry said the price of diesel fuel
had increased 30 cents the past 30 days
while freight rates have stayed at the same
level.
“We’re not making any money. I’m av
eraging about a dollar an hour.”
arts. Another of the sanctioned outlays,
Bell said, is for the promotion of local
tourism through methods such as the In
formation and Hospitality Center.
Bell said the city of Bryan gave more
actual capital, but College Station donated
the building, the land it is on and the
maintennance of the building.
Bell said the people the center serves
are not strictly tourists.
“We serve the local residents and the
local scene and we serve the traveling pub
lic,” Bell said of the center’s functions.
More than 75 percent of the phone calls
received by the center are from local resi
dents, she added.
Of the 1,000 people who have come to
the center, only 250 have been from out-
of-town.
The center was funded for an initial
two-year period and will be re-evaluated
at the end of the two-year period to see if
the need warrants.
“I’ve been pleased with the results,’
Bell said. “When I started in August,
there was no building, no paneling, no
shelves, no anything.”
Bell said the number of tourists coming
to the center has steadily increased daily.
One reasons for the increase, Bell said,
could be the five road signs being put up
on roads leading to Bryan, she said.
The pamphlets carried by the center
pertain to real estate, entertainment and
historical sights in the area.
“We aren’t allowed to carry individual
advertising pamphlets,” she said adding
the center is not allowed to promote any
particular business.
The center, located in a two-room build
ing on S. Texas Avenue near the College
Station Police Department, is open
Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to
5:30 p.m.
By the light of the silvery moon
Lights blazing into each night, workers
“catch a few rays” of moonlight on the addi
tion to A&M’s Kyle Field. Construction work
ers are putting in two 10-hour shifts a day to
catch up on lost work days due to the recent
rainy weather. Battalion photo by Jeff Sanders
15,000 refugees flee Managua;
capital hit by heaviest fighting
United Press International
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Some 15,000
refugees streamed out of embattled Man
agua seeking refuge from the heaviest
fighting yet in the capital between San-
dinista rebels and Anastasio Somoza’s na
tional guardsmen.
About 60 U.S. citizens trying to leave
the city came under sniper fire as they
vainly awaited evacuation at the U.S. Em
bassy compound near one of the combat
zones. No casualties were reported.
For the first time, the air force of Presi
;s $1'
ow-flying man cranks across Channel
United Press International
CAP GRIS NEZ, France — A California bicyclist Tuesday made the first manpo-
wered flight across the English Channel, pumping his fragile, pedal-driven plane
from the gray and green cliffs of England to a French beach in just under three hours.
Bryan Allen, 26, will collect a $200,000 prize for his historic flight in the Gossamer
Albatross, a featherweight aircraft that looks like a cross between a glider and a
bicycle with wings.
“We made it!” Allen shouted as he floated the plastic and polysterene contraption
into this sandy, crescent-shaped beach 15 miles south of Calais to the cheers of more
than 300 well-wishers and reporters who raced to greet him.
Punching his way out of the thin plastic covering around the 8-foot cabin, he
gulped a bottle of champagne and elatedly told onlookers, “I feel marvelous. ”
The only hitch in the 171-minute flight came when one of the 48-foot wings
snapped off on landing, apparently due to a combination of wind and the crush of
people rushing forward to touch the plane.
Allen, a thin, bespectacled professional cyclist, looked slightly unsteady as he took
his first steps on French sand.
He said his worst moments came midway in the 22-mile crossing when “some
pretty radical turbulence” hit the 55-pound craft.
“All I could do then was just pour on the power,” he grinned, shyly flexing his
cramped legs.
Allen, dressed only in shorts, a small life jacket and running shoes, said he drank
two quarts of water during the crossing and ran out of water about 20 minutes before
landing.
The flight was a long time in coming.
After three weeks of waiting out the fickle English weather, and bicycling 40 miles
a day to stay in shape, Allen finally lifted off from a concrete and hardboard ramp built
into the cliffs at Folkestone at 5:51 a.m. (12:51 a.m EDT) Tuesday.
He reportedly veered off course twice — once to avoid a boat — but still managed
to touch down near his original landing point at 8:42 a.m.
Hundreds of reporters, photographers, residents and 130 schoolchildren from the
nearby town of Wissant scrambled over rocks to greet him. An American woman
holding three small French, British and U.S. flags presented him with a huge
bouquet of red, white and blue flowers.
Allen was followed by a small flotilla of boats — including one manned by the
plane’s inventor Paul MacCready — as he bobbed his way across the channel at a
height of about 8 feet above water.
Winds were less than five knots at outset but by the time he reached France, they
appeared to have picked up.
The $200,000 prize for the first successful man-powered crossing was offered by
British businessman Herbert Kremer.
dent Somoza strafed and rocketed guer
rilla held districts in the capital, igniting
fires that enveloped Managua in huge palls
of smoke.
At the height of air raids, residents of
target districts telephoned reporters
screaming for help.
“What savagery!” shouted one woman.
“They are massacaring us. They are going
to destroy the city. We are going to die.”
An estimated 15,000 Managua residents
fled the city where fighting on the third
consecutive day of the insurrection
Monday was the heaviest ever.
“Some people that we’ve seen today
(Monday) had not eaten in four or five
days,” said one Red Cross official of the
refugees. “If this situation goes on for two
or three more weeks I’m sure we ll have
problems.
Gun battles also were reported in the
northern cities of Leon, Chinandega,
Matagalpa and Esteli.
The shooting broke out around the U.S.
Embassy while the Americans were mil
ling around outside the building waiting
for the convoy to the airport, one of the
Americans said.
Government troops on the embassy
grounds opened fire against those firing
outside and everyone ducked and
crouched behind cars.
“We just have a lousy situation here,”
said one American awaiting evacuation.
Efforts to escort the Americans to Las
Mercedes International Airport eight
miles away were foiled by heavy fighting
along the road to the airfield.
American officials said, however, it is
possible the Americans — mostly wives
and children of embassy personnel and
some businessmen — may leave today
aboard a chartered Pan American jet if the
airport road is open.
Though battles in the capital appeared
to have intensified, a military attache from
a Latin American embassy said that the
Sandinistas do not appear to be gaining
ground.
“So far it’s just running battles and I
think the government will soon have com
plete control of the city because they have
better weapons,” the attache said.
The scene of one of the fiercest combats
was reportedly at the major opposition
newspaper La Prensa. Its editor, Xavier
Chamorro, brother of slain publisher
Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, Somoza’s No. 1
political foe, said the newspaper’s building
was destroyed by fire.
Chamorro accused the national guard of
deliberately setting it ablaze, and also said
a rocket from a plane hit the building.
During lulls in the combat, refugees
carrying belongings and waving white flags
moved out of the districts onto the main
roads.
The foreign ministers of Venezuela and
Ecuador arrived in Managua Monday, ap
parently carrying a plan from the members
of the Andean Pact Economic Alliance.
The ministers hope to place pressure on
Somoza to move toward a peacful settle
ment.
Neither Somoza nor the ministers re
vealed what was discussed.
Gunfire also rang out on the south
highway leading to the American Embassy
as troops and guerrillas exchanged shots
over a barricade of bricks.
The embassy spokesman said the flight
ferrying the Americans out of Nicaragua
left at 11 a.m. (EDT).
The embassy would not say where the
Americans were taken but the aircraft
came here from Howard Air Force Base in
the American-controlled Panama Canal
Zone, and military sources said it was
scheduled to return there.
The Americans had tried to leave
Monday through the regular airport but
heavy fighting broke out on the road to the
airfield.
As the Americans left, thousands of ref
ugees also streamed out of embattled
Managua to suburban churches, schools,
homes and farms to escape the escalating
combat.
Record number enroll
A record 10,951 students are enrolled at
Texas A&M University for the first session
summer classes, according to registrar
Robert Lacey.
The total represents an increase of 6.2
percent over last summer’s enrollment.
Lacey said the 10,951 is for the College
Station campus only. Additionally, 371
students are enrolled at Moody College in
Galveston.
All figures reflect enrollment for the
fourth class day, the official summer re
porting period for the Coordinating Board,
Texas College and University System.