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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 25, 1980)
i Y mm POSES /AAa/Y QUESTION, BUT the MOST IrtpoRTAA/y] Viewpoint PEIA/G. .. The Battalion Texas A&M University Wednesday June 25, 1980 Supreme Court and Carter: ke a scene Chance to appoint a justice would help campaign work” atmospl |hop where th fsets for a com Thebanginf on wood, and by DAVID S. BRODER WASHINGTON — Jimmy Carter has the reputation among his aides and admirers of being a “lucky” politician, but in one respect, at least. Lady Luck has turned her back on this President. He is the first occupant of the White House since Andrew Johnson, more than a cen tury ago, not to place anyone on the Supreme Court. Johnson succeeded the assassinated Abra ham Lincoln only 41 days into Lincoln’s second term, but left office without putting anyone on the high court. The Senate, angry at Johnson over Reconstruction policies, voted to reduce the size of the court by attrition from ten mem bers to seven, and took no action on Johnson’s one nominee in 1866. as a chance to name someone to the Supreme Court. None of those involved in this game of make- believe claims to know what Carter would do with such a vacancy, although First Lady Rosalynn Carter is on record as saying her hus band covets the opportunity to be the first Pres ident to place a woman on the court. Since they are free to let their imaginations roam, they can fantasize about the effect on the coming campaign if Carter, for example, picked ex-Rep. Barbara Jordan for the high court — a black, a woman, a liberal and a Texan, all in one talented, eloquent person. Carter has gone 41 months without a vacan cy, and some of his leading associates are now convinced that he, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, will have to win a second term if he is to have the privilege most Presidents enjoy of putting their personal stamp in the summit of the judicial branch. Suppose, they say, there were another vacancy and Carter could reach into the judici ary and elevate someone he had named to a lower court, someone like Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Abner J. Mivka — a Jewish ex congressman from the key state of Illinois, with impeccable liberal credentials and close politic al ties to organized labor. WHO IS THOSE THAT BEHI/VD FOSTER GRA/VTS ?? Even if a vacancy were to occur in the next four months, precedents and parliamentary procedures would permit Senate Republicans to delay confirmation of a Carter appointee un til the presidential contest is decided. Nonetheless, among Carter’s political advis ers, there is an almost poignant yearning for just such an opportunity. Nothing else except the sudden release of the hostages in Iran would be so helpful to Carter’s re-election, they believe. As they talk, it sounds suspiciously like pat ronage politics raised to the level of the Sup reme Court. There are lawyers in the White House who believe that Carter would feel con strained to make a much more traditional choice — thus thwarting those eager for an “affirmative-action appointment. “He might easily alienate more people than he would please,” one adviser cautioned, “particularly if he failed to appoint a woman. But in Carter’s peculiar political position, tin* opportunity for a Supreme Court appointment would go much beyond patronage to the holism of what is at stake in this electi making the kind of choice that a Ronald could hardly be imagined making —al Jordan appointment, for example- could dramatically remind the dissident! constituencies of the Democratic party whatever their misgivings about certain policies, they do have a stake in his re-elf Lacking such an opportunity, the Presi can only assert that 'more women, hi, Hispanics have been appointed to judgeships during my administration thm ing all previous administrations in The statistics are there: 39 blacks, 12 Hispanics. But they are not so impress} a single Supreme Court appointment those categories might be. Presidents can do no more than hope opportunity to knock, in the formofam ger from the court; any faint hintofpres! a justice to retire could produce a Noting that five of the nine sittingjudgej past age 70 (Chief Justice Warren E. and Associate Justices William]. Brennaj Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blacknuit Lewis F. Powell, Jr.), one of Carter’s aides observed, “Somebody’s going tobj chance to appoint a majority pretty som That is a fact that some voters willrem in the polling place. But it is not motivator that a flesh-and-blood Supi Court appointment might be — ormiglii been, had one come Carter’s way. (c) 1980, The Washington Post Comi wet paint crea large, garage-' The crew o( ists—its id iroduce the 1: areate myster The work i [believe,” am real credit. Leslie Rhoi the cast of [You Know I ling,” said m< niversity an “There’s nc rho do have lorer said. iart or worki Bob Wencl in Thursday consistt ley built tl several times milt to be ui Ginger Le mvironment theater arts r ihe is on the rat not in th She calls 1: iwis said, rork in eithe Senator shouldn't be Global population problems becoming unmanageable If you are jof 18 and 2( now that 1 Vhat you i hat, a coup Today Show Carter’s go-between The aspiration bomb keeps tickini I year-olds But there jrim lookin) ling and say were there s [the proud, t by STEVE GERSTEL United Press International WASHINGTON — No one was more mysti fied than Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. to find himself aboard a jetliner headed for Germany. No one except, perhaps, Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and, presumably, Jimmy Car ter, the president of the United States. Why had the 37-year-old, two-term Demo crat from Delaware been summoned to Bonn by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt? Nor is summoned too strong a word. The West Germans had been insistent that Biden meet with Schmidt. Twice, Biden begged off because he had previous commitments that could not be broken. The West Germans then asked Biden to sug gest two alternative days, which he did and presumed the flirtation was over. But Biden was wrong. The Germans tele phoned him in his Capitol office on a Tuesday and told him the appointment with Schmidt was the following day. The trip was arranged in such a hurry that Biden, who commutes to Washington from his home in Delaware, had to get his son a train to bring him a clean shirt and shaving gear. Biden himself is not sure why he was selected and why Schmidt was so insistent. The Delaware senator has some good creden tials. As chairman of the Senate’s European subcommittee, he knows almost all of the lead ers in the area. He even claims to have engaged in a “shouting match with Schmidt in his past. Biden feels that one of the reasons Schmidt wanted to meet with him is to send a message to the Senate stressing the importance the Ger man chancellor places on SALT II — the strate gic arms limitation treaty with the Russians that was shelved when the Soviets invaded Afgha nistan. That may well have been an influencing fac tor. Yet, the Schmidt-Biden talks, which lasted about an hour and a half, ranged over many more matters that only indirectly affect the Senate. In fact, Biden’s written report to Muskie — presumably relayed to Carter — has in it a complaint that “communications between the United States and Germany seem to be through distorted press releases.” If true, that is an ominous complaint. Although it is known that Carter and Schmidt have a poor rapport, a total breakdown in com munications between two of the key leaders in the Western alliance poses a danger. The main message that Biden brought back was that Schmidt, when he goes to the Soviet Union at the end of the month, is not going to break with the allies on Afghanistan or nuclear disarmament in Europe. As Schmidt put it — in English to Biden — the United States can “de pend on the bloody Germans.” That’s welcome news for the administration. What is disquieting is that Schmidt felt forced to relay the message through a U.S. senator hastily summoned to Bonn. by R.M. SORGE United Press International UNITED NATIONS — World fertility will decline in the next decade. But United Nations experts say global population problems will be come even more unmanageable in coming de cades. The reason: the poorest people still prop agate at an annual rate of more than two per cent, and that means a scary expansion of mass poverty. The present world population of roughly 4.5 billion will increase by another 2 billion in the next two decades, according to the latest esti mate by Rafael M. Salas, Executive Director of the U.N. Fund for Population Activities, the world’s largest venture in the population field. “Over 90 percent of this increase will occur in the less developed countries, and their popula tion alone by the year 2000 would be nearly twice the population the world had in 1950,” he estimates. “By the year 2000, nearly 80 percent of the world population would be living in the less developed countries.” In his latest report, “The State of World Population 1980,” Salas, a Filipino, also warns against another new danger from human over breeding, the “aspiration bomb. He cautions against future upheaval stemming from the fact that the new masses of the poor will not accept permanent subsistence. “While the so-called population bomb may have been defused,” he notes in the report, “the aspiration bomb has not. Every one of the 125 million babies born each year is a bundle of aspirations and the drive to fulfill these will become the most dynamic and unpredictable force in world affairs in the years ahead. “And the explosion of aspirations in the last two decades and the next two is likely to be come a tremendous problem in its impact on limited resources, fragile ecosystems, on strug gle against mass poverty and on the world’s political, economic and social fabric. The danger is compounded by an irreversible movement of populations into the cities, parti cularly in developing countries. “There were only six cities with populations of 5 million and over in 1950 and the bined population was only 47 million, points out. “This has already risento26citi 1980 with a combined population of® lion. Projections indicate that this nunte rise to approximately 60 with an population of nearly 650 million by tlie 2000.” Of these 60 cities, he says, 45willbeio developed countries. Salas quotes estimates of the U.N. Food Agriculture Organization that the nm undernourished people in the less develij ; y en(: act] countries (excluding China and the sect Asian countries) rose from 400 million 71 to 450 million in 1972-74. b, “They constituted about a quarter o( myone whe population of these countries,” he says, prospects for dramatic increases in foodo., appear dim unless significant technoltf lnterestec breakthroughs in high yielding varieties Inen on seeds for a number of crops materialize,! considerable increase in inputs enablesaiis agricultural productivity.” it s Your Turn Dishonest Ags draw readers’ wrath The Battalion U S P S 045 360 MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Dillard Stone City Editor Becky Swanson Sports Editor Richard Oliver News Editor Lynn Blanco Staff Writers. . Uschi Michel-Howell, Debbie Nelson, Cathy Saathoff, Scot K. Meyer, Jon Heidtke Kurt Allen Cartoonist Scott McCullar Photo Editor . . Lee Roy Leschper Jr. Photographer Marsha Hoehn LETTERS POLICY Letters to the Editor should not exceed300 words in length, and are subject to being cut if they are longer. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must also he signed, show the address and phone number of the writer. Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, and are not subject to the same length constraints as letters. Address all inquiries and correspondence to: Editor, The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. EDITORIAL POLICY The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper op erated as a community service to Texas A&M University and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or the author, and do not necessarily repre sent the opinions of Texas A&M University administrators or faculty members, or of the Board of Regents. Questions or comments concerning any editorial matter should be directed to the editor. The Battalion is published Tuesday through Thursday during Texas A&M’s summer school schedule. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester, $33.25 per school year and $35 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald Building, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. United Press International is entitled exclusively to the use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it. Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. Editor: Friday afternoon I was preparing to go home for the weekend. As I approached my car I noticed all four of my hubcaps had “disappeared.” I thought they were plain, simple wheel covers until I found out how much it’s going to cost to replace them. I don’t understand why anyone would want my hubcaps. I just hope whoever took them gets as much money for them as I have to pay for new ones. Fiona McCracken ’82 Behavior ‘shocking’ Editor: This memo is not written in response to last Thursday’s plea from this column for more opinions. Rather, it is written to express my shock at the behavior of a few “Ags” in the old engineering building. Last Thursday the candy machine on the first floor was left unlocked. I found this after I attempted to get a bag of corn chips. After a few vain attempts at this the door swung open. I then took my bag of chips, left my thirty cents in a box in the machine and shut the door. Later I was told about a couple who made this same discovery and proceeded to remove as much merchandise as he and she could carry. The above male opportunist was heard to say, as he removed the thirty cents I placed in the machine, how he wished there was a change purse in the machine since he needed some weekend spending money. Later some secretaries from the same build ing, among others who vandalized what they could, were seen climbing the stairs near this machine with “goods” in both hands. Now I do not try to be a “good-doer” and these sort of actions would not bother me so much if it happened in Boston, New Yort Houston, but they did not. They happened in College Station, on’ A&M campus, folks. This is appalling tot! that “good Ags” could rationalize th behavior, even to the point of taking criminal offense. One cannot rationalizetli 1 is simply theft. I am just sorry that it happened and hope is an isolated case. I would think Aggies"** be more honest than this instance trated. Timothy W, Fu^ Warped by Scott McCullar Slouch lot even a local post ol NBC did e phone, i ere only 1< The Toda debate al itration of 1 ■o college ige group md con arg Texas A& rates of be show, Dr. C The Univ een contac led Adair ai Adair cal liology maj liad to be re He told he: “I was sil 11, with rr to be packe Althougl d had ag within five University spot before the Today : When as to go was a 1 P! by Jim Earl I ve followed your suggestion and have scheduled my study time and class time for a whole week at a time. Now I needs cure for severe depression. ” Ha he t 12:0 7