)ff-campus effort. Bonfire schedule coordinated
IGHT!
By GRETCHEN GARRETT
V.
Battalion Reporter
Rules and procedures for working on
E Sfire this year were explained at the
Jjfire organizational meeting of Off-
an.pus Aggies (OCA) Monday night.
Bonfire supervisors said off-campus stu
nts interested in helping with Bonfire
an sign up at the OCA cubicle in the Stu-
lent Programs Office and at all bus stops on
ampus.
Sid Bouse, a junior supervisor, said the
cutting area for lumber will be the same
place as last year — the Texas Municipal
Power Authority (TMPA) area on Highway
30 near Carlos. Equipment, Bouse said,
will be lent by businesses and individuals in
the Bryan/College Station area.
Students who work on Bonfire should be
prepared to spend a lot of time and effort on
it, organizers said. Work shifts will be from
5 a.m. to 11 p.m. until ‘Push’ starts; then
work at the stack will continue all day and
night until Bonfire is lit.
A schedule of dates has been set up to
organize working goals:
area will be marked off'.
Oct. 12 — The Bonfire cutting area will
be marked off.
Oct. 14 — Safety inspectors working on
Bonfire will look at the cutting area.
Oct. 17 — The center pole will be
brought in from the cutting area.
Oct. 20-21 — This will be a cutting time
at which everyone signed up is required to
work.
Oct. 27-28 — Civilian students will cut
while the Corps goes to Houston for a
Corps Trip before the A&M-Rice game.
Nov. 1 — The center pole will go up.
Nov. 4 and 11-12 — This is a required
cutting date for everyone signed up.
Nov. 18 — Push starts.
Nov. 21 — Push is over until after
Thanksgiving holidays.
Nov. 25 —- Push starts again and con
tinues until Bonfire is lit.
No alcoholic beverages will be allowed
on or near the working sites. Bonfire
supervisors stressed, and anyone even sus
pected of drinking will be told to leave the
work area permanently. Strict enforcement
of this is essential, a senior supervisor said,
because these students are representing
Texas A&M University while working on
land owned by TMPA, and while operating
equipment in the stacking area.
“We haven’t had many accidents in the
past,” he said, “and we don’t plan on having
any this year. If students don’t obey this
rule, the University will be required to
close down the working area and not permit
a Bonfire to be built.”
Women will not be allowed to work with
the men cutting and stacking wood, or
ganizers said.
The Battalion
David Halberstam, one of the most highly regarded political
writers in America today, showed his audience many ex
pressions as he spoke at Rudder Theater Wednesday eve-
Thursday, October 11, 1979
College Station, Texas
ning. His speech, “The Political and Social Power of the
Media,” was presented by MSC Great Issues. Halberstam’s
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
writer says the media create politicians
By DARREL LUCKEMEYER
Battalion Reporter
Ui. ccii Today’s politicians are being groomed to
% bok and act appealing to the public
iLh. rflifhrough media exposure, political writer
S<1S J David Halberstam said Wednesday night.
,9? have an electronic president who is
1 * ftttei at creating images than running the
: ct69 <COuntr y>" Halberstam said in his speech,
|esented by MSC Great Issues.
Candidates are creations of media or
people who know the media,’ he said.
Politicians today run for office through a
[party apparatus instead of the primary sys
tem, Halberstam said.
I With the 1980 presidential elections ap-
6?
proaching, Halberstam said all candidates
must be media figures.
Halberstam, author of the best selling
book “The Powers That Be” which de
scribes the rise to power of the American
press, said the power rise began with the
Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960.
Kennedy ran through the media instead
of the party system, he said.
“People began to gather around televi
sion sets in their own homes watching polit
ical programs,” Halberstam said. Politi
cians want to get into these homes, he said.
Halberstam said the rise of electronic
media has brought about:
— a more powerful president,
— a more powerful media,
— a volatile society,
— confusion between events and pseudo
events which are hard to prove,
— a rise in the expectations of the society
faster than the government can satisfy
them, and
— a difference of style and substance.
President Jimmy Carter became strong
in his bid for election by his ability to use
the media, Halberstam said.
“Television inflates a president, then de
stroys him,” he said. “We live increasingly
in a presidential society so whenever any
thing goes wrong, blame it on the presi
dent.” Everytime a president is seen on
television, he becomes less of a mystery
and is taken for granted, Halberstam said.
Halberstam said the Pope is another
example of an electronic media public offi
cial. “I suspect that the Pope was selected
through the electronic media because of his
ability to reach people through the use of
media,” he said.
Electronic media has brought changes to
other areas of media reporting, Halberstam
said. “In cities that had seven or eight com
peting newspapers, television has caused
many to die leaving only one or two power
ful papers to rival the government,” he
said. “People are suspicious of power.”
As for the upcoming presidential elec
tions, Halberstam predicts that Sen. Ed
ward Kennedy*will be the heir to the Dem
ocratic nomination. “Kennedy is a classic
media politician,” he said.
On the Republican side, Halberstam
said Ronald Reagan is “very, very far
ahead” but should not forget about John
Connally, whose self-confidence should
not be taken lightly.
Salvadoran partyi calls for overthrow
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FBI charges two
in bombing plot
United Press Internationa]
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The FBI
said Wednesday it arrested two
leaders of the American White Na
tional Party and charged them with
plotting to explode a bomb Wednes- k
day at an elementary school. The
school was attended by one of the
children of U.S. District Court
Judge Robert Duncan, who ordered
the desegregation of the city’s
schools this year.
The FBI identified the men as
John Gerhardt, 26, and his brother,
Edward Gerhardt, 28, both of Co
lumbus.
Joseph Yablonski, special agent in
charge of the Cincinnati Division of
the FBI, personally arrested the
brothers in suburban Westerville.
The Gerhardt brothers were in
dicted early Wednesday by a federal
grand jury and by a Franklin County
grand jury.
The federal indictments charged
them with conspiracy to violate the
civil rights of Columbus school chil
dren, malicious attempt to damage
an institution receiving federal fi
nancial assistance, and obstruction of
justice.
The first two federal counts carries
a maximum sentence each of 10 years
in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The county charges are conspiracy
to commit aggravated arson and at
tempted aggravated arson, each of
which carries a penalty of 5 to 15
years in jail and a $7,500 fine. The
brothers were to be arraigned
Thursday on the federal counts and
Monday on the county charges.
Columbus Police Chief Earl Bur
den said the American White Na
tionalist Party, which is headquar
tered in Columbus, is affiliated with
the White Unity coalition, which he
described as a “racist hate group.”
“We have been aware of the
Gerhardt brothers and the group for
some time,” Burden said. “When we
became aware of the bombing plot
we notified the FBI and they
provided assistance in tins case.”
Burden, Yablonski, County Pros
ecutor George Smith and U.S. At
torney James C. Cissell all refiised to
discuss details of the investigation,
citing fears that pre-trial publicity'
would damage the prosecution.
But Burden did say that “their in
tention was to place a bomb in the
school during school hours today
(Wednesday). ’ Judge Duncan was
not available for comment, but
school officials said Duncan’s daugh
ter was in attendance Wednesday.
“School officials were not notified
of the plot until the arrests were
made,” said Burden. “We did not
want to alarm them and we had the
situation in control.”
Burden said the two men were ar
rested at 10:30 a.m., but he would
not comment on whether they were
on their way to the school or whether
they had a bomb in their possession.
But county officials said “physical
evidence” was found.
Burden said the bomb was “in
tended to do major damage,” but he
would not disclose the type of ex
plosives or the size.
He said Columbus officials were
pleased that the desegregation of the
city’s public schools had gone “with
out incident” tliis fall and said if the
plot had been carried out it “would,
obviously, been a major disaster ft>r
all of us.”
The court-ordered busing plan to
desegregate had been ordered to go
into effect a year ago by Duncan but
had been held up in the courts. The
busing proceeded peacefully this
fall.
Firm threatened into
buying ads
United Press International
FULLERTON, Calif. — At the demand
of Central American terrorists who kidnap
ped two of its executives, a U. S. electronics
firm is financing an expensive newspaper
advertising campaign calling for a leftist
overthrow of the government of El Sal
vador.
Two-page ads costing more than $58,000
appeared Wednesday in the Los Angeles
Times and The New York Times, calling for
“popular insurrection and liberation war”
against the government of the Central
American nation. The ads also will appear
in Central American and European news
papers.
The ads, signed by the Revolutionary
Party of Central American Workers, were
paid for by Beckman Instruments Inc.
The Salvadoran party has claimed re
sponsibility for the Sept. 21 kidnapping of
two Beckman executives, Dennis R.
McDonald, 37, of Whittier, Calif., and
Fausto Bucheli, 41, of Fullerton.
Gunmen ambushed the Americans as
they drove past a women’s prison on the
outskirts of San Salvador, forced them into
a pickup truck at gunpoint and killed their
Salvadoran driver, Jose Luis Paz Tratara,
when he tried to resist.
Since the victory of the Sandinista
guerilla movement over the Somoza re
gime in neighboring Nicaragua, revolu
tionary violence has increased in El Sal
vador.
“It was demanded we run the ads in the
interests of our people, the implications
being that something would happen to
them if we didn’t,” said company spokes
man Bill Gregory. “The PRTC says the
men are well — ‘and run the ads if you want
to keep them that way. ”
He would not say whether the kidnap
pers had promised to free the executives in
return for the ads, but said, “We expect our
people to be released once the ads have
appeared.”
The ads, in clumsy English poorly trans
lated from Spanish, are illustrated with
three photos of bloody bodies, including
what appears to be a disemboweled young
boy.
The company made no attempt to change
or edit the ad, Gregory said.
“The only instructions we got were to
run it exactly as it was presented.”
The text condemns “bestial sadism” by
the government of El Salvador, and says
the executives were kidnapped as repre
sentatives of “a fundamental enemy of the
Central American revolution, the North
American imperialist.”
The ads will appear in English, Spanish,
or both, in newspapers in Central America,
he said, and in “major cities” in Europe
“with appropriate translations.” He would
not identify the newspapers.
McDonald is the manager of APLAR, a
Beckman subsidiary' in San Salvador that
employs about 500 Salvadorans. Bucheli,
an engineer, was in San Salvador to advise
the subsidiary on a production problem.
Beer-by-the-bucket forbidden
at family-oriented Wurstfest ? 79
United Press International
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas — Beer lov
ers will have to buy their suds by the cup at
Wurstfest ’79 because sponsors of the an
nual festival are banning sales of beer-by-
the-pitcher or bucket.
Wurstfest organizers said they want to
return the Nov. 21 German-style festival to
the family entertainment category and
avoid difficulties experienced in some past
years.
“We have had the problems of too many
people, crowd control, excessive consump
tion of alcohol, ” said Wurstfest Committee
executive secretary Tom Purdum.
“We started this thing out to be a family
affair, and in recent years it seems like the
younger group was becoming dominant,
and their likes and desires were being ca
tered to, rather than the family,” Purdum
said.
In addition to the ban on sales of beer in
hefty pitchers or buckets, Purdum said a $2
charge will be collected for admission to the
Wurstfest grounds.
“This will primarily give us a way to con
trol the flow of people,” he said.
There is an additional $3 charge for ad
mission to the Wursthalle for dancing.
Cullen Davis says he was trying to stall
as he ‘followed McCrory’s lead 9 on tape
United Press Internationa]
FORT WORTH — T. Cullen Davis has
testified he was trying to gain time and
appear cooperative in his tape recorded re
sponses to David McCrory’s statements
about the faked murder of a judge and plans
for hiring hitmen to kill other Davis
enemies.
Davis, on trial a second time on charges
he solicited the murder of his divorce
judge, Joe Eidson, who was not harmed,
said Wednesday he thought he was helping
the FBI by meeting with the tape
recorder-equipped McCrory.
Asked by defense attorney Richard
“Racehorse” Haynes about his Aug. 20,
1978, statement that it would be two days
before he could get the money to hire hit
men for his other enemies, the millionaire
said he was just following McCrory’s lead.
“What I said was trying to stall him. I
thought he was going too fast. I wanted
time to talk with the FBI,” Davis told the
jury.
No hootline
at U of H game
Once again, Kyle Field construc
tion has thrown a monkey wrench
into the workings of an Aggie football
game.
However, this time it’s not the
freshmen who are “sucking it up,”
it’s the seniors: there will be no boot
line after halftime of the Texas
A&M-Houston football game.
Pete Greaves, head yell leader,
said that construction and the neces
sity of seating 8,000 people on the
track would make a bootline impos
sible.
“There’s not going to be enough
room to have it,” he said.
However, he said, there will be a
bootline for the remaining home
games.
“We will have one at SMU, Arkan
sas and Texas,” he said. “This week is
only because of the construction
problems.”
Bootline is a small yell practice for
seniors only, held after halftime to
greet the football players as they re
turn to the field.