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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 1980)
m Ket in 'lEj ■“ Sla ''«s| -1NASHCS The Batt/Vlion Vol. 73 No. 96 24 Pages in 2 Sections Thursday, February 7, 1980 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 mbro’s women J heir own meetini ’eliseuni at IJ J-‘ r Participants Southern, Ar| sand Texas Cl ''est Texas Inviin ' last Saturday,lj ; econd to TClj d- Texas AWt ‘ a minimumoll Je injury. The e Saturdays Kay Mann, idy Mahle. turday willhe '<) cents for stn^ and younger, get in on all-ij Senators pass night exam bill By MERIL EDWARDS Campus Staff The Texas A&M University student sen ate Wednesday followed up its introduc tion of a night exam awareness bill from the last meeting, voted to request membership in the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce and discussed the student ser vice fee allocation. John Calhoun, vice president for acade mic affairs, led the senate in passing his night exam awareness bill. The bill sug gests a notation be used in the class sche dule booklet to let students know exams are scheduled at night before registering for class. The senate is interested in representing students on the city level as well as on campus, Cheryl Swanzy, vice president for external affairs, said. The senate will re quest membership in the Chamber of Commerce. George Black, vice president for finance, said his committee will be in student ser vice fee allocation hearings this week and would present a recommendation to the senate for approval later. The finance com mittee will recommend how the University should distribute next year’s student ser vice fee allocations. In other action, Jim Barolak reported the ideas of his basketball ticket distribution committee. He said that since the new sys tem took effect, he has received complaints on the long lines as well as encouragement. Barolak said his committee talked with associate athletic director Wally Groff and presented two main considerations to him. “The first is the Plan A, Plan B plan that divides the basketball season into two por tions, as evenly as possible,” Barolak said. “This would give students the option of going to half the games. Many schools use this system. The University of Michigan uses it effectively and the students like it.” The second plan involves a ticket distri bution on a seniority basis, Barolak said. “This could be done by class or hours,” he said. “But Groff suggested we go by seniority on the basis of attendance to past basketball games. Anyway, there are all sorts of possibilities to look at. But some thing we need to remember that Groff stressed is that if we’re going to change the system, we need to get on it now in order for it to go into effect next season.” Another topic of discussion was the re cent Texas A&M ambulance controversy. Mary Elizabeth Herring, external affairs committee member, said the story that ran in The Battalion on Feb. 4 was inaccurate and biased. The story dealt with the College Station city ordinance that prohibits the Texas A&M health center ambulance from servic ing off-campus students who are College Station residents. “I felt the story was definitely slanted against the city,” Herring said. “There was no bias or objectivity in reporting the facts. The story made the University and the city look like adversaries. It upset some city council members. “We had been working successfully with the city to solve this problem and the story set us back some. Both parties (TAMU and College Station) are interested in giving the best service. I don’t think the city is trying to discriminate, and the University is trying to give the students what they paid for. Anyway, we ll continue to try and work something out.” Rep. explains part in ‘Arab Scam’ m working Sys- lives you ,tie _10" Table shine, 16'/ 2 The band didn't play on A College Station fireman drags out wiring for musical instruments dam aged during a fire in the kitchen of the Texas Grubstake restaurant Wednesday. The instruments belong to a local band, which was rehears ing when the fire broke out just before the restaurant’s usual opening SCONA Annual conference time. The fire burned through the roof above the kitchen, but damage to the rest of the building was confined to smoke and water damage. The restaurant is located in the University Square shopping center on South College Road in College Station. Sta(T photo by Lee Roy Leschper . celebrates anniversary By CAROL HANCOCK Campus Staff A quarter of a decade ago, Herbert “Bud” Ward, then vice-president of the Texas A&M University Memorial Student Center, had an idea to formulate a national affairs conference on campus for students, faculty and government officials. The result of Ward’s efforts, the Student Conference on National Affairs, is still going strong and about to celebrate its sil ver anniversary. SCONA has a history of prominent names and inviting topics. SCONA has grown and changed every year, but the basic structure and purpose has remained fairly constant. Texas A&M’s SCONA is somewhat of a model of West Point’s SCUSA, the Student Conference on United States Affairs. Ward attended SCUSA in 1954 and returned to study the feasibility of a similar conference at Texas A&M. SCONA began in December of the fol lowing year. On a budget of $12,000, the three-and-a- haff day affair included two main speakers and a five-member panel discussion. The speakers included the former ambassador to Thailand, Maj. Gen. Wil liam Donovan, former Secretary of State George McGhee and other prominent men in government and academic circles. More than 100 student delegates from approximately 45 colleges and universities throughout the United States and Mexico attended the first conference. Eight of the delegates were from Texas A&M. SCONA’s first decade brought a number of well-known politicians, diplomats, intel lectuals and businessmen to Texas. In 1956, Lyndon B. Johnson, a U.S. senator at the time, was a major speaker at the conference. The following year, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey and Maj. Gen. John P. Daley gave their views on world affairs. Before the first decade was over, SCO NA had attracted such figures as Lt. Gov. William Hobby, U.S. Congressman Olin “Tiger ” Teague and Maj. Gen. Charles B. Westover. In the past ten years, Texas A&M has been visited by Senators Birch Bayh, Wal ter Mondale and John Tower, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Gov. Bill Cle ments, economist Milton Friedman, Con gressmen Morris Udall and Bob Krueger, geologist Michel T. Halbouty and col umnist Lynn Ashby. Teague and two other men, John Lind sey and J. Wayne Stark, have been in strumental in keeping SCONA going. Teague, through fiis influential position in Congress and his space program con tacts, has been helpful in obtaining promin ent speakers for the SCONA committee. Teague is a 1932 graduate of Texas A&M. Lindsey, a 1944 graduate and member of many civic groups and education commit tees, has contributed to all areas of the conference. Soviet official calls boycott ‘crude’ United Press International MEXICO CITY — A Soviet Olympics official branded the Carter administration’s call for a boycott of the Moscow games a “crude” violation of the Olympic charter that could backfire in the face of its propo nents. “The idea of a boycott is condemned by the international Olympic movement,” Valery Smirnoff, a member of the Moscow Olympics Organizing Committee, said during a news conference Wednesday. “The rules of the Olympic movement prohibit countries from not participating for religious, political, economic or social reasons,” he said. “I repudiate totally the idea,” he said. Smirnoff, also a vice president of the In ternational Olympic Committee, branded the Carter boycott proposal a “very crude violation” of the Olympic spirit and said it could backfire in the administration’s face. Quoting Clause 23 of the IOC charter, Smirnoff said the IOC had “final authority on all questions, including matters of disci pline” against member nations. After the lengthy news conference, Smirnoff left for Lake Placid, N.Y., site of the IOC meetings which begin Friday. The Russian said he was in Mexico City to arrange discount airfares for athletes from 60 poor countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America so they can attend the Mos«- cow games. The Soviet airline Aeroflot has budgeted $2.8 million for the special flights and will offer discounts of either 50 or 100 percent, depending on the athletes’ needs, Smirnoff said. After two days of meetings in Mexico City, the Association of National Olympic Committees executive committee Tuesday adopted a resolution urging members to “resist and avoid external influences” to boycott the games. The ANOC, an umbrella organization whose primary role is to foment the Olym pic movement among its 141 member na tions, has no binding authority over the IOC, although some of its members belong to it. The IOC will act on Feb. 10 on a U.S. Olympic committee proposal to move, can cel or postpone the Moscow games. Stark, director for the MSC for the pa 30 years, took an active role in SCONA creation. The class of ’39 Aggie has sup ported and participated in all past SCONAs. SCONA has grown during the 25 years of its existence. Contributions from former students, businessmen and corporations finance the SCONA conferences. The budget for SCO NA 25, however, is four times that of the first conference. The number of student delegates has in creased to almost 200, round table sessions have grown from four to eight and the num ber of main speakers has increased to six. The number of schools invited now totals more than 80, and Canadian college stu dents and U.S. high school students have joined the roster. While the earlier conferences concen trated mainly on foreign policy, later SCO NA topics branched out to include interna tional affairs and anything from the space age to student responsibilities in the ’70s. The first few conferences had various topics to fit each speaker. In 1961, the sub ject was narrowed down to one topic. Another change was made in 1970 — the conference was moved to February. While SCONA has continued to grow in many aspects, some elements have re mained constant over the years. The conference is still a three-and-a-half day affair, and social activities are inters persed throughout it. SCONA 25 activities include a home-cooked meal, a perform ance by the Texas A&M Singing Cadets, a night of country-western dancing, a Corps of Cadets review and a barbeque. The acti vities are intended to show the delegates the varied lifestyles of their peers. The intent of SCONA has also stayed the same. SCONA aims to stimulate interest in current issues and create an awareness to deal with the matters in a broder perspec tive. Both Ward and John Jenkins, the chair man of SCONA 1, will be here next week to celebrate the silver anniversary. United Press International WASHINGTON — Rep. Richard Kelly, R-Fla., implicated in the “Arab scam” brib ery scandal, says he took $25,000 from undercover FBI agents because he was conducting his own investigation of what he thought were shady characters. Kelly, one of eight members of Congress implicated in the bribery scandal, is the first public official to admit he accepted cash from undercover agents posing as rep resentatives of a fictitious Arab sheik seek ing help with immigration and business problems. Kelly said in an interview with NBC-TV Wednesday night he locked the $25,000 in the glove compartment of his car and then used some of it for lunch money. On Sun day, the day after the FBI operation was revealed publicly, he turned over all but $174 of the money to the FBI. Kelly, 55, said he was investigating what he believed to be shady characters when he went to a posh Washington house with a man named “Gino” to discuss his possible assistance in immigration matters. The man pulled the money out of a drawer and offered it to Kelly, he said. “I would have preferred not to have taken the money but I also did not want the investigation to die there because I didn’t know anything more then,” Kelly said. “I put it in the pockets of my clothing. ” Sources said hidden FBI cameras filmed that scene — and similar ones allegedly involving other congressmen — on videotape. “I felt that I was simply being comprom ised at this time,” Kelly said. “What was going on in that room about the immigra tion and all was just some sort of game. Kelly is the only Republican among the congressmen implicated in the scandal. As a circuit court judge, he was impeached by the Florida House of Representatives in 1963 for “judicial tyranny,” but the state Senate dismissed tbe pharges. Also Wednesday, Deputy Attorney Gen eral Philip Heymann urged Congress to hold off investigating the scandal for f hree to six months. “However fine the cooks may be, one too many may spoil this broth,” Heymann said. But both the Senate and House ethics committees decided to start their own in vestigations and go as far as they can in developing independent evidence. The House probe will look into the seven House members implicated: Kelly, Reps. John Murphy, D-N.Y., Frank Thompson, D-N.J., John Jenrette, D-S.C., and Raymond Lederer, Michael Myers and John Murtha, all D-Pa. The Senate inquiry will focus on Sen. Harrison Williams, D-N.J., in the “Arab scam, " as well as possible misconduct by Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev., whose name surfaced in a separate FBI bribery investigation involving trucking deregula tion legislation. Penitentiary sends cons to other jails United Press International SANTA FE, N.M. — Stripped of their baseball bats and other weapons, more potential troublemakers from the New Mexico State Penitentiary were headed to day for correctional institutions around the country, while black prisoners were housed separately to quell their fears of racial violence. Prison officials said they expected today to release a final tabulation and accounting of the institution’s 1,134-inmate population and confirmed that any men not on that list would be presumed dead. The official death toll has remained steady at 33 for the past two days, with 89 inmates and guards injured in the 36hour bloodbath and inferno that left 75 percent of the 25-year-old prison in ruins and caused at least $45 million in damages, the most expensive prison uprising ever in the country. The prison population figures have fluc tuated since authorities regained control Sunday afternoon, beginning at 1,136, jumping to 1,156 and dropping to 1,134 on Wednesday. Warden Jerry Griffin said guard captains on duty the night of the insurrection told him a total of 1,134 in mates were recorded during last Friday’s evening count. Horror stories from inmates who said the prison gymnasium had been used as a tor ture chamber for scores of inmates before being set ablaze apparently were false, offi cials said. Only three bodies were nulled from the gym when the fire that burned for nearly three days finally began to cool down. Rodriguez reiterated previous state ments by other officials that no inmates escaped in the midst of the break. He said officers were able quickly to secure the perimeter of the institution. Jim Baca, a spokesman for the governor, watched through binoculars from the pris on command post Wednesday as guards shook down inmates being kept on a base ball field behind the prison. T saw baseball bats and all kinds of stuff falling out from under their coats and pants,” he said. Prison officials complied with a request by black inmates to keep them separated from other prisoners because of fears of racial violence. Baca said some of the black inmates would be housed in the annex that formerly housed women prisoners and a few would be transferred to other state prisons. But corrections officials said the con cealed weapons notwithstanding, there was an air of calm at the prison Wednesday —- something that was not present even before the riot. District Attorney Eloy Martinez said charges to be filed in the uprising, once crimes can be matched to specific inmates, would include murder, kidnapping, cri minal sexual offenses, intent to incite riot and vandalism.