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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 22, 1979)
f he Battalion .72 No. 186 pages Wednesday, August 22, 1979 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 Weather Partly cloudy with widely scattered showers. High in the mid 90’s and low tonight mid 70’s. Winds will be South Southeast at 5-10 m.p.h. 30% chance of rain today and 20% for tonight. 'n period irogram, y for the Jo Princt Mgfl t almost all icouting trnholt Sms ent to pay j oice. ness prioi the club Ti e, had toi s'ormantoC noney to p signed him? i 1973. I could Kl ae scouts mi ion the way ! Ires did, Frol never come them, ing S25 > 0(t' in the op) ion. There ;s around •th every one. to be rs general s as the iians, A’ a scout and cant as a group, dubs, 1 e rare gem x important Ion of any a » scouts he ;rs, and ok :s so is heal in fourth little chancel log of last a eels he ta* bs’ fan livinc such playen Hartnett, m Hack,! Paflce, andd Ires’ young ack, theP* i U.S. veterans promise political involvement Vnited Pros loternatioaal NEW ORLEANS — The Veterans of Foreign Wars, with a membership of al most 2 million, Tuesday demonstrated their discontent with President Carter by ending an 80-year tradition of remaining neutral in politics and promising to finan cially support candidates they prefer. Cooper Holt, executive director of the VFW office in Washington, predicted the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans soon would join the VFW in forming political action committees to make contributions to candidates for Con gress and the presidency. “When you people come to Washington with your delegation, you can’t even find your congressman,” Holt told about 4,000 delegates attending the VFW national convention. “I’m sick and tired of sitting in hallways to see a man who doesn’t care about veterans." Holt said one reason the committee is needed is the increasing number of con gressmen who have never been in the mili tary. The delegates, who jammed the River- gate Convention Center for the debate, shouted overwhelmingly to approve the formation of the political committee. The vote clearly exceeded the two-thirds majority needed. “The question is not whether the VFW should become involved in politics,” said national vice commander Howard E. Van- der Clute. "We have been in politics for years. What we should do is simply put our money where our mouth is.’ National VFW commander Eric Sandstrom last week said the VFW’s dis gust with the Carter administration would prompt the group to abandon its non partisan policy. "It’s just about time our organization realized that whe have enemies in Wash ington,” he said Tuesday. Sands trom added, however, that he be lieved the committee “has the possibility to be dangerous, if it isn’t handled prop erly.” One delegate who questioned the need for the committee was John Waslik, com mander of the Ohio delegation. “I am deeply concerned that the im pression has been left that all we have to do is form a political action committee and get everyone out of office who votes against us,” Waslik said. Investigators address college JFK investigation "shoddy’ Aggies in the making Sporting a “Howdy” button and beginning to take on the spirtiual attributes of a true Aggie, incoming freshman Nancy Fully from Dallas raises her arms in exclamation at a yell practice Tuesday morning by the Rudder Fountain. Fully is participating along with 1200 other new students in the annual Fish Camp, a four-day orientation program where freshmen are taught Aggie Traditions and get a chance to meet others. Shortly after the yell prac tice the students and counselors boarded buses to head for the Lakeview Methodist Camp in Pales tine, Texas where the program is being held this year. Battalion photo by Clay Coclcrill United Press International WATERVILLE, Maine — Two inves tigators for the House Select Committee on Assasinations clashed Tuesday on con flicting theories into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But both investigators, addressing a conference on forensic sciences at Colby College, spoke about the “shoddy” au topsy and investigation which followed the November 1963 shooting. Dr. Michael M. Baden, chief medical examiner of New York City, and Dr. Cyril Wecht, director of the Institute of Foren sic Sciences at Duquense University School of Law in Pittsburgh, were among the nine pathologists who took part in the House assasinations investigation but reached different conclusions. Wecht, who was the first to determine that several pieces of evidence, including parts of the president’s brain tissue, had been lost in Hie shuffle by federal agen cies, said he was convinced there were two gunmen involved in the assassination and he was sure there were three bullets in volved . “There is no question it was a political conspiracy. The execution of a president, a coup d’etat, the overthrough of a govern ment. That’s what it’s all about, he said. But Baden disagreed with the three bul let theory. He said it was entirely possible that just two bullets could have killed the president and injured then Texas Gov. John Connally. He said the so-called “magic bullet,” which allegedly struck Kennedy from the back, through his chest, into Connally’s back and out, finally hitting his wrist and then lodging in his leg, “had to have hit something before striking Connally.” He said the bullet was travelling “end over end” when it hit Connally, indicating it had struck Kennedy first, the only object in its path. The second bullet was the one which struck Kennedy in the head. As Wecht concluded his speech and headed toward the door, Dr. Joseph C. Rupp, chief medical examiner of Nueces County, Corpus Christi, Texas, began a screaming match. Wecht had refused to explain where the third bullet came from — the so-called grassy knoll theory which alleges a second gunman was situated ahead of the motorcade, or behind a fence on a grassy knoll. Both Wechs and Baden discussed the “shoddy handling” of the investigation. They said Texas state law ad been broken by taking the body from the Dallas hospi- tal without authorization to the Bethesda Naval Hospital. They agreed the autopsy was done “very poorly and in a haphazard manner.” Wecht said emphatically that it was “a classic example of tailoring of evidence to make it match pre-drawn conclusions that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin and acted alone.” Navigators get overview of oilslick ind burning Ixtoc I well from the air after the 1 /er wanted United Press International r0C l-l ®0ARD THE ORION — The Navy S ° n "in '® r ' on A ew 240 mph through endless a stop * overcast skies above a colorless icre. j fu, — until a broad, copperbrown or spread across the horizon. t Coast Guard oceanographer Larry Han- -« A ] ls * retc h e d forward in the cockpit, $ « iited downward and quickly assessed 1 ifeature 900 feet below as the oil-water ntered ItBre scientists call mousse. He spoke en Buck) ® headset, tndolphsi^ 5,” he said. elivered I "ark 5,” navigator Miles Cannon re- ith a sintk td from the windowless belly of the jfl ce gy it l*arine-chaser. “Time is 15:06 Zulu )r ]\,' ew Y« a.m.). Position is 19 degrees, 15 edinthc* ■tes north, 96 degrees 2 minutes out by * Hannon spoke again: “It’s 30-40 percent mousse, three miles by as far as we can see.” Cannon and co-navigator Doug Sher man made notes on their maps and charts. Hannon noted his observation on a list of “marks” that started with No. 1 and ex ceeded 40 by the end of the 10-hour flight. “That is a major feature,” Hannon said amazed. “That is a river, a river of mousse. These are the biggest concentrations of mousse I’ve ever seen.” It was Hannon’s seventh flight from Corpus Christi as an observer searching for oil from the blown-out Ixtoc I well in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche. But it was his first flight to the source, deep in the southeast comer of the bay 500 miles from Texas and at Mark 5, still 30 minutes 6, went being i Gossage ryan. Consol raise ix rates for 1980 ht tin 1 nd’ By ROY BRAGG Battalion Staff H* city of Bryan and the A&M Con- kkted school district raised their tax fcr the coming year, but at the same lowered taxes for the average •eowner. Ike Bryan City Council voted Friday to *ase the tax rate 10 cents. The increase 1<*nts less than the increase requested City Manager Ernest Clark. «e increase sets the tax rate at 72 cents 1100 valuation. Qirk had requested the increase to • bind the $37.5 million 1979-80 lae A&M Consolidated Board ofTrus- 'xrted Monday night to adopt a tax of SI.29 per $100 valuation, an in- « of 3 cents over last year’s tax rate. Ike Consolidated tax rate increase will to fund a $5,942,910 budget for ! coming year. Mi tax rates are applied to an 80 per- tuessment of the market value of a lecent tax relief legislation madated by " ttate creates various exemptions for y*ytv>. All taxpayers are eligible for 109 in homestead exemptions and tax payers over 65 are eligible for an additional $5,000 in old age exemptions. In addition, A&M Consolidated tax payers over 65 are eligible for $10,000 more in exemptions. For Consolidated taxpayers 65 or older, a home with a market value of $50,000 would have an adjusted value of $30,000 ($50,000 - $20,000). Its assessed value would be $24,000 and taxes would total $309.60. For Bryan taxpayers over 65, the same $50,000 home would have an adjusted value of $40,000. With an assessed value of $32,000, taxes on the home would total $230.40. Last year, without the state-ordered exemptions, taxes for Consolidated tax payers over 65 with the same house would have totaled $386.08. For Bryan homeow ners over 65, taxes on the same house would have totaled $248. Earlier in the summer, the CoDege Sta tion city council rolled back the tax rate from 56 cents to 39 cents. The current tax rate for the Bryan school district is 1.325 per $100 valuation. Both also use the 80 percent assessment for property. ahead. The plane was flying east on a line run ning 260 miles due east from Veracruz. It was the first rung of a ladder search in which Navy Lt. Cmdr. Paul Kinneberg and crew cut four east-west rungs 30 miles apart all the way across the bay. The first rung ran 10 miles south of the well. Soon, an odd orange light surrounded by rectangular black profiles materialized in the haze on the north horizon. “That’s it," Kinneberg said, turning his four-engine plane toward the site of Ixtoc I. Fifteen passengers and crew pressed toward the few available windows as the aircraft closed on a 300-foot-wide circle of flame, the mouth of a monster that has spewed 10,000-30,000 barrels daily since June 3. A momentary hush ended with the clicking of camera shutters, then ex pressions of amazement at the 200- yardwide brown surge bubbling under the flames and spreading to five miles wide and disappearing across the northwest horizon. Five strings of buoys leading to two tanker barges — an oil containment sys tem — interrupted the flow from the well, but only briefly. “That’s like taking a thimble and putting under a waterfall and saying Tm going to stop this waterfall, ” Hannon said. Kinneberg returned his plane to the search pattern, looping southeast of the well, then northward and then back west ward along the next eastwest rung 16 miles north of the well. Fifty miles northwest of the blow-ont site, right where Hannon had guessed, the aircraft crossed the brown river again. It had narrowed to one mile across, looped a little further northwestward and then vee red to the southwest. Hannon stiffened his hand, cut an S through the air and said. "It’s probably- going like this." He made more notes. The plane lumbered on to the Mexican coast north of Veracruz, then veered northward and cut two more 300-mile rungs between the mainland and the Yuca tan Peninsula. Hannon found almost continuous sheen, a film lighter than mousse, and varying concentrations of mousse in the western half of the bay up to 100 miles seaward from the coast. But he found nothing di rectly north and east of the well, which encouraged him. "We thought we saw some over by Louisiana the other day, but it looks today like that is not possible.’ He hedged: “This is just one day. This is not a perfect picture. We re just trying to get a general overview." He also admitted that although mousse was fairly easy to spot it was sometimes difficult to distinguish sheen from open ocean. But he said experience helps. Older student^ orientation on Monday An informal re-entry orientation for the 1000 returning students age 25 or over will be held Monday, August 27 in room 601 of Rudder Tower at 6:30 p.m. Toby Rives, student activities adviser in the office of student activities, said the orientation will be held for students that have been away from university life for a number of years. "We re doing this to provide an oppor tunity to meet and discuss experiences in returning to the university setting. We want them to exchange hints in ways to combine academic success and manage school and home responsibilities.” she said. The program, time permitting, will in clude an introduction into services availa ble to the student, a run-down on the reg istration process, hints on budgeting time and money, exercises on How- to avoid and how to deal with stress, an explanation of fees, and a discussion on the parking situa tion. she said Local chamber of commerce informa tion and placement information will also be given. Rives said. Any administration or faculty members interested in in helping with the program are encouraged to attend, she said "By sponsoring this, we hope to encour age re-entry and development of support groups and information networks for these students RattaJ«oa pfeoto hj Clay C -oc-knl Vet students to graduate Friday Commencement exercises for the sum mer session of Texas A&M University took place Saturday in G. Rollie White Col iseum with a record 1.337 students receiv ing degrees Texas Attorney General Mark White gave the commencement address to the graduating students. There were 911 bachelor's degrees. 324 master s degrees, and 102 doctoral de grees given Thirty-five students received commissions in the armed forces. Commencement for the College of Vet- erirwuy Medicine will be held Friday Au gust 24 One hundred thirty-six students will receive Doctor of Veterinary Science degrees The ceremonies will be held m, in Rudder Auditorium.