The Battalion
Vol. 73 No. 129 Tuesday, April 1, 1980 USPS 045 360
8 Pages College Station, Texas Phone 845-2611
Campus polls are open today
Students can vote in campus elections until 6 p. m. today.
Polls are located in the Memorial Student Center, Sbisa
Dining Hall, the Commons Area, the Corps Guard Room,
the Kleberg Center, the Veterinarian center and Zachry
Engineering Center. Only an I.D. card is needed in order
to vote.
vapavik denies
mblic access
o senate records
By ANDY WILLIAMS
Staff Writer
Two Student Government executives
onday denied a request for the record of a
ised session of a student senate meeting.
The request was made in the form of a
ter from Battalion editor Roy Bragg to
udent Body President Ronnie Kapavik.
Bragg cited the Texas Open Records Law
asking for information concerning last
ednesday’s senate meeting. During a
ised session that night, several senators
ve said, the group voted to allocate
000 to Texas A&M University’s
men’s athletics program.
Tve read through it and consulted legal
inion, and I don’t feel that we are subject
the Open Records Law, " Kapavik said.
Kapavik said that he does not consider
e senate a governmental body. Because
this, he said, it isn’t required to follow
e Open Records Law.
One section of the law defines a gov-
nmental body as “the part, section, or
portion of every organization, corporation,
commission, committee, institution, or
agency which is supported in whole or in
part by public funds, or which expends
public funds.”
Paul Bettencourt, the senate’s vice presi
dent for rules and regulations, agreed with
Kapavik.
Bettencourt and Kapavik both declined
to answer questions about what happened
during the closed session.
“Anything we did in closed session is just
that—in closed session, ” Bettencourt said.
Other senators have said that during the
closed session, the senate allocated funds to
the women’s athletic program.
They said the money will come from the
student service account, which is usually
generated by a $33.50 fee charged of all
students. Some senators said they were
told in closed session that the $100,000 will
be transferred into the account from profits
of the Texas A&M Bookstore.
ran tells America
o stop hostile acts
United Press International
Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr
d today the Revolutionary Council
uld take custody of the American hos
es until the parliament decides their
i, if the United States agrees to refrain
m aggressive statements and acts against
n.
President Carter is scheduled to reply to
n’s latest statement sometime today.
Earlier, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
;hed hopes the hostages would be trans-
red, saying only the parliament can de-
ethe Americans’ fate because President
rter “is following the wrong path.” But
ni-Sadr’s statement appeared to be a
npromise.
The U.S. must declare publicly that
y will not attack Iran, that they are not
ispiring against us, and that they will not
dertake any further actions against us,”
ni-Sadr was quoted by Western news
)orts. as saying.”
“Then,” he added, “we will transfer the
stages from the U.S. Embassy to the
volutionary Council.”
Bani-Sadr, as reported by Tehran Radio,
d the government would maintain cus-
ly of the hostages until the not-yet-
med parliament makes “the proper deci-
m” about their fate.
The parliament is not expected to con-
ne for at least two months and govern-
Jnt control of the hostages, while not
aranteeing early release, would place
em in a position where their condition
uld be monitored.
President Carter is set to announce
tough new retaliatory measures — short of
military action — against Iran unless the
militants turn over the 50 American hos
tages to the Bani-Sadr government.
Press secretary Jody Powell told repor
ters Monday Carter “will make an approp
riate statement to the American people”
today. But he made it clear Carter was
delaying his announcement in hopes Presi
dent Abolhassan Bani-Sadr may announce
a breakthrough in the marathan hostage
crisis.
Sources indicated Carter had planned to
announce his stringent new moves against
Iran Monday, but decided to hold off for 24
hours after receiving reports the Iranian
government may gain custody of the cap
tives.
Powell noted reports the Revolutionary
Council has been meeting for two days on
the question of the transfer of the hostages.
Government acquisition of the Americans
would be viewed as a “positive step,” an
administration official said.
Carter postponed a scheduled speech
before the AFL-CIO construction union to
meet Monday with his chief diplomatic,
military and intelligence advisers to discuss
steps aimed at tightening the economic and
political screws on Iran, including perhaps
closing the Iranian Embassy in Washing
ton.
The president also secretly discussed
with Democratic and Republican congres
sional leaders the punitive sanctions be is
contemplating. The leaders told reporters
aftewards Carter had set today as the dead
line for action in the hostage drama.
His kind of place
Photo by Janice Mooney
Skelter, a french fry-eating parrot, perches on
the shoulder of owner Jim Hayes, a junior marketing
major from San Antonio. Tropical birds, like Sket-
ter, are becoming popular pets for college students.
Carter praises track star
United Press International
TUCSON, Ariz. — The White House
and sports figures from throughout the
country paid tribute to the late Jesse
Owens, the black track star whose achieve
ments at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin humi
liated Adolf Hitler.
Owens, who won four gold medals at the
Berlin Games, died Monday of cancer. He
was 66.
Hitler hoped the 1936 games would be a
showcase for Nazism and his white-
supremacy philosophy. But Owens’ feats
spurred the Fuhrer to stalk out of the
awards ceremony in disgust.
“Perhaps no athlete better symbolized
Whatever happened
to Fay Wray? She’s Gne
United Press International
HOLLYWOOD — She forever will
be remembered as the screaming
blonde in the hairy clutches of an amor
ous 50-foot gorilla, although she starred
in more than 70 other movies without so
much as a monkey in the cast.
She is, of course, Fay Wray and the
enormous ape was her lovelorn suitor in
one of the first great monster films,
"King Kong.”
Fay, now on the sunset side of 70, is
resigned to the fact that among her
many famous leading men, none is bet
ter remembered than Kong swatting
away airplanes atop the Empire State
Building.
And Fay worked with some well-
known leading men — Ronald Colman,
Warner Baxter, William Powell, Jack
Holt, Clive Brooks, Wallace Beery, Nils
Asther, Spencer Tracy, Claude Rains
and Gary Cooper.
Her first leading man in features was
Erich Von Stroheim in “The Wedding
March ”,a 1928 silent, which he also
wrote and directed. Emil Jannings, the
first winner of an Oscar for best actor,
played her love interest in “The Street
of Sin” not long after.
Most of Fay’s leading men have long
since gone to that big soundstage in the
sky, including Stan Laurel with whom
she costarred in silent Hal Roach two-
reelers in the mid-’20s before Laurel
teamed up with Oliver Hardy.
Fay’s newest leading man is Henry
Fonda, with whom she will be seen
April 30 in the two-hour CBS-TV movie
“Gideon’s Trumpet” for the Hallmark
Hall of Fame. The drama marks Fay’s
TV movie debut and her first role in
some 15 years.
“It’s also the first time I’ve ever seen
myself on screen as a tacky, dowdy old
lady. It takes some getting used to.”
Fay, the wife of neurosurgeon San
ford Rothenberg, is anything but dow
dy. She is a bright, handsome woman
with enormous zest for life, a keen sense
of humor and not driven to make a
career comeback.
She decided to appear in “Gideon’s
Trumpet” because she advocates the
film’s message. It is taken from a true
story of a man who overturned a Sup
reme Court ruling involving an ac
cused’s right to legal counsel.
Her son-in-law, David Rintels, wrote
and produced the film and talked her
into playing the role of Fonda’s land
lady.
“I didn’t feel a bit rusty after all these
years,” Fay said. “The atmosphere on
the set was good and everyone made me
feel at ease. The prop man gave me a
fresh rose every morning and Fonda was
a delight to work with.
“My only problem was having to look
tacky. I’d always played beautiful
women on film, mostly romantic leads.
And this role is a far cry from glamor.
“I wore a hat with a broad brim so my
hair wouldn’t look short and chic. It’s
the first time I’ve ever played an un
attractive character. ”
Fay blossomed at a time of legendary
leading ladies. There were scores of
beautiful actresses who could act as
well.
During her lengthy career Fay was
under contract to Universal, Para
mount, Columbia and RKO studios, in
addition to Roach.
Fay abandoned her acting career for a
decade after her marriage to famed
screenwriter Robert Riskin, her second
husband, in 1942. She was widowed in
1955 and turned to writing herself.
Today she and Dr. Rothenberg live in
a fashionable Century City apartment
with a sweeping view of Los Angeles
and the Pacific Ocean.
“I retired the second time because I
didn’t think TV offered much except a
physical presence,” Fay said. “There’s
no time to do anything but rush from
one set to another. I always looked for
some honest concept in my roles even
though they mainly required me to look
beautiful.
“I never saw the second “King Kong’
picture that Dino De Laurentiis made a
couple of years ago. They sent me the
script and were hoping I might become
associated with it but I refused.
“It seemed to me it was nicer to pre
serve the image of‘King Kong’ as it was
originally presented. I guess the public
feels the same way.”
the human struggle against tyranny, pover
ty and racial bigotry,” President Carter said
in a statement issued by the White House.
“His personal triumphs as a world-class
athlete and record holder were the prelude
to a career devoted to helping others. His
work with young athletes, as an unofficial
ambassador overseas and as a spokesman
for freedom are a rich legacy to his fellow
Americans.”
Don Cohen, founder of the Track and
Field Hall of Fame in Charleston, Va., said
“America has lost a part of Americana, and I
have lost a dear friend. But the legend of
Jesse Owens will live forever.”
Owens had called his battle with cancer
“the biggest fight of my life. ” A pack-a-day
smoker for the past 35 years, he had been
hospitalized off and on for the past 3V2
months for treatment of inoperable lung
cancer at University of Arizona Health Sci
ences Center.
A funeral and burial will take place in
Chicago, said hospital spokesman Hal Mar
shall. The time and location were not
announced.
Ollan Cassell, executive director of the
Athletics Congress, which operates in con
junction with the Amateur Athletic Union,
lauded Owens as a “giant” whose spirit
“lives on in all our hearts.”
Owens, a star of the Berlin games oft^n
cited by supporters of Carter’s Moscow
Olympic boycott, spoke out strongly before
death against such a boycott.
Though the Soviet action in Afghanistan
was wrong, Owens said, “Our athletes
should boycott the perpetrators of such
acts. Not by staying away, but by being
there with the individuals from other coun
tries.
“These aren’t new ideas of mine,” he
added. “They have been ingrained in me
since 1936.”
Owens, once known as “the world’s fas
test human, ” was regarded as the greatest
track-and-field star of his era. At Berlin he
won the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter
dash, the broad jump and ran the leadoff
leg for the winning 400-meter relay team.
New budget sets
‘good example’
United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Carter’s
effort at producing the first balanced
budget in 12 years is supposed to set a good
example for Americans who have had much
the same trouble as the federal government
— overspending income.
Whether Carter’s proposals will survive
the congressional tug-of-war won’t be
known until next fall when the budget is
scheduled for passage.
Nor is there any certainty the American
public will reduce the spending presiden
tial advisers and other economists mis
judged in January, forcing the administra
tion to revise its budget estimates in just six
weeks.
The president’s advisers also revised
their inflation estimates upward Monday,
predicting consumer prices will rise 12.8
percent this year, and 9 percent in 1981. In
January, the administration forecast infla
tion at 10.7 percent this year and 8.7 per
cent next year.
“We are now forecasting a somewhat
milder and somewhat later recession and
somewhat slower recovery in 1981,” said
Charles Schultze, chairman of the govern
ment’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Carter sent Congress his new balanced
budget Monday. He also sent a warning he
would veto any spending bills that would
throw his budget into deficit.
Carter cut $15 billion from his January
budget to give the government a $611.5
billion spending plan and a $500 million
surplus. He eliminated revenue sharing to
the states and anti-recession aid to cities,
put off several social reform programs, cut
funds for highways and 50,000 public ser
vice jobs and reduced the subsidy for the
U.S. Postal Service, which could mean no
more mail on Saturdays.
The new budget actually adds more than
$4 billion for defense, despite proposals to
trim $1.4 billion from the January budget.
Carter also added $500 million to the
budget to help cities badly hurt by the
cutoff in revenue-sharing funds. But the
U.S. Conference of Mayors said, “We find
it hard to accept this as a fair trade-off. ”
Carter delivered his original budget
message Jan. 28, then announced March 14
he would cut $13 billion to $14 billion from
his first plan because inflation rates had
soared higher than expected and raised the
cost of the January budget by $13 billion.
Richard Rahn, vice president and chief
economist of the U.S. Chamber of Com
merce, said a “realistic appraisal” of econo
mic conditions would show at least $25 bil
lion would have to be cut to actually ba
lance the budget.
Dynamite
found in
garbage
By NANCY ANDERSEN
City Staff
College Station police evacuated some
Briarwood apartment residents for three
hours Monday after two sticks of dynamite
were found in a trash dumpster.
Joel Webster, a junior geology major,
said he was emptying his trash at around 1
p.m. when he noticed two light red sticks
that said explosives lying on top of the other
trash. He said he immediately called the
police.
The police arrived at about 1:30 and
examined the dynamite that they said
contained 40 percent nitroglycerin. The
police then called in U.S. army bomb
experts from Ft. Hood and began evacuat
ing the area.
Residents said police officers told them
something was wrong outside and asked
them to leave. Officer J. A. Orozco said they
evacutuated buildings within an 85 foot
radius.
Apartment manager Bill Sisson said the
dynamite was a low grade and is usually
used by oil field workers for seismic work.
“We have a lot of oil field workers here and
probably one dumped his pickup out and
the dynamite was in it,” he said. “He prob
ably didn’t know it was there.
Fire Marshall Harry Davis said “if they
exploded, it probably wouldn’t even hurt
the dumpster since the lids were open. It
would just throw trash everywhere.”
However, he said they weren’t sure if the
dumpster contained only two sticks.
The bomb squad, wbo drove the 100
miles from Ft. Hood, arrived at 4 p.m. One
man removed the sticks while the other
jumped in and looked through the trash for
more dynamite. They did not find any; they
placed the sticks in plastic bags and re
moved the labels.
Sisson said he is going to try and trace the
person responsible for the incident through
the labels.
Squad member Nick Jordan said there
was no immediate danger because the
sticks did not have fuses or blasting caps.
He said he would take the dynamite back to
Fort Hood where it would be disposed of.
Residents were allowed to return to their
apartments at 4:30.
In fan t dea ths
up following
nuke disaster
United Press International
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The infant mor
tality rate near Three Mile Island rose dras
tically in the six months following the 1979
nuclear plant accident. Health officials are
investigating to see if there is a possible
connection.
Dr. Donald Reid, deputy secretary of
the state Health Department, released
new infant mortality statistics showing the
increase Monday, but warned the pre
liminary data was inconclusive.
The infant mortality data, compiled by
the department’s Bureau of Vital Statistics,
showed that within 10 miles of the nuclear
plant, 31 infants died within six months of
the accident.
For the same periods of 1977 and 1978,
20 and 14 infant deaths were reported re
spectively in the same area, Reid said.
Within a 5-mile radius of the nuclear
plant, there were seven deaths in the six-
month aftermath of the accident. In the
same periods of 1977 and 1978, three
deaths and one death, respectively, were
reported.
Reid said he was not suggesting there
was any connection between the deaths
and the March 28, 1979, nuclear accident
and could not responsibly “make a defini
tive statement about preliminary evi
dence.”
He said he hoped a review of infant death
statistics — part of the Health Depart
ment’s federally funded investigation of
possible health effects of the Three Mile
Island accident on March 28, 1979 — could
be completed this week.
The review will take into account the
radiation emitted during the nuclear acci
dent. Reid said it was only remotely possi
ble stress in pregnant women contributed
to the increase.
While infant deaths increased, stillborn
deaths declined during the six-month
period after the accident, Reid said. Three
stillbirths were reported in the April-
September period in 1979, compared to
four in 1977 and six in 1978.
Last week, the department announced it
would conduct an investigation into an in
crease in birth defects, specifically
hypothyroidism, which occurred in some
counties near the Three Mile Island plant.
Hypothyroidism, a thyroid disorder that
can lead to mental retardation, can be
caused by the kind of radioactive iodine
that was released during the nuclear acci
dent.
Federal and state health officials have
said they believed the amount of radiation
emitted during the Three Mile Island acci
dent was so miniscule it could not lead to
health disorders. Their assertions have
been disputed by critics of government
radiological health protection standards.