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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 14, 1980)
Battalion Serving the Texas A&M University community Thursday, August 14, 1980 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 Dem platform rift healed United Press International NEW YORK — Jimmy Carter accepted the platform so strongly affected by Ed ward Kennedy. In return, Kennedy accepted Carter and promised to fight with him against Ronald Reagan this fall. The nine months of their often bitter political feud came to an end Thursday night with Carter saying he would “proudly run on” the Democratic platform. Kennedy sent delegates to the Democratic National Convention the word he would work with Carter against Reagan. Although there were still some disagree ments, the two men endorsed a platform containing the principles both say they be lieve in — equal rights for women and minorities, full employment, energy inde pendence, national health care. It took intense negotiations and some concessions from both sides to arrive at their last-minute show of unity. Carter, who had been rigid in insisting on his views in earlier platform meetings, gave a bit more this week to get Kennedy’s support for the fight against Reagan. He bowed to Kennedy on several key economic planks in the statement of party goals, although the Massachusetts senator agreed not to press to get a commitment to the use of wage and price controls and with drew platform challenges to the oil decon trol and the MX missile system. “I enthusiastically endorse these ideals, which were so eloquently put forth by Senator Kennedy last evening,” Carter said in his six-page statement to the convention about his views on the platform. He said there were “a few cases where I differ” with the platform that bears Ken nedy’s mark. But, he added, “I give you my enthusias tic support for the thrust and ideals ex pressed in the platform you have adopted. ” After Carter’s statement, there was some grumbling from Kennedy staffers that Car ter had not backed the $12 billion jobs program endorsed by the convention or the commitment to give jobs a higher priority than fighting inflation. But after Carter was renominated early today, Kennedy sent word that he would work with him for a Democratic victory in November. Presidential adviser Stuart Eizenstat said Carter and Kennedy talked by tele phone Wednesday while Carter’s letter was in the drafting stages. But he said “this was not a negotiation . We informed them (Kennedy aides) of the language we were looking at, we talked to a variety of outside groups, and we kept them informed of what the language looked like. They did not propose to discuss speci fic language changes.” Carter couched his disagreements in glowing words of support for the principles expressed in the platform. The only plank he bluntly disagreed with was a statement pushed through by women’s groups in favor of Medicaid funding of abortions. Kennedy withdrew a proposal opposing accelerated development of the MX mobile missile system and calling for alternatives after the convention voted down another plank that more strongly opposed the weapons system. Texas gets glory despite Nelson Don 't drop! Juggling enthusiast Vic Granquist tries his hand with three balls, on the mall in front of the Academic Building. Granquist, a senior microbiology major from Houston, is one of the founders of the recently organized IcxaS A&M Jugglers Association. Photo by Jettie Steen United Press International NEW YORK — Texas Democrats grab bed their moment of glory at the party’s national convention early today, casting the deciding votes that handed President Car ter renomination to a second term and igniting a boisterous demonstration of cheering, chanting and sign waving. With Texan Willie Nelson singing a ver sion of the national anthem missing several. lines and with some of the words rear ranged, and Sylvia Rodriguez of San Anto nio leading the pledge of allegiance, it seemed appropriate that Texas’ 108 votes for Carter would push his total over the 1,666 needed for nomination. “ Here we go over the top, ” former Attor ney General John L. Hill said as he pre pared to announce the Texas vote. “The state that was the cornerstone of the Car ter-Mondale victory in 1976 casts two votes for Rep. Kent Hance, three votes uncom mitted, 38 votes for Sen. Edward Kennedy and 108 votes for President Carter.” The delegation — and the entire conven tion floor — broke into an instantaneous celebration when the vote was announced. One Texan in a big cowboy had waved a six-foot state flag, and others waved their hats in the air and hoisted green and white Carter-Mondale posters. There had been continuing rumors throughout the long Wednesday conven tion session that the Kennedy delegates from Texas might walk out of the conven tion if Carter’s commentary on the party platform did not satisfy them. But the delegates all stayed and voted for Kennedy. “There were 400,000 Texans that voted for Senator Kennedy (in the Texas prim ary). We owed it to them,” said Richard Solo of Dallas. The Kennedy supporters used a rule adopted Monday as a reason for resisting pleas to vote for Carter in a gesture of unity. That rule, insisted upon by Carter, binds delegates to vote on the first ballot for the candidate they were elected to support, unless they are released in writing. “John Hill asked if we couldn’t work something out so we could vote for Carter and be unified, and I told him I’d love to, but the rule was binding us, and until the senator gave us something in writing we wepe going to vote for him,” Solo said. The Texas vote that grabbed the spot light early today was in sharp contrast to the first roll call of the convention Monday, when the delegation passed five times be fore finally announcing its vote on the rules Other increases may follow Phone rates to go up in October by DEBBIE NELSON Battalion Staff Starting Oct. 1, it’s going to cost more to ave a telephone, even if you never dial a ;umber. The increase means monthly service harges for a Bryan-College Station resi- lent with a plain black GTE telephone will ilup $2.25, from the present $7.50 a nonth to the new $9.75 per month. Rates ire an added 50 cents to $2.50 higher for per types of phones. (Other increases could be approved as loon as February, providing the phone »mpany’s service record improves. Rate increases are divided into ten cate- fies, depending on the number of tele- Ines that can he reached without long- listance charges. The Bryan-College Sta- ion area is about in the middle, with a Inge of $8.75 to $12.25. I Increases will be implemented after the Public Utilities Commission- Aug. 5 granted General Telephone Company of the Southwest a $31 million increase in annual revenues, but penalized them $4 million for poor service. The Commission will also start an investigation Feb. 1 to determine if GTSW is meeting the Com mission’s service standards. This case marked the first time the PUC had penalized a utility company in this manner. GTSW officials termed the penal ty “extremely harsh.” If GTSW’s service if found adequately improved, the $4 million penalty could be lifted and rates raised again. The PUC would still decide when an increase would go into effect. If GTSW does not comply with PUC service recommendations, its CCN (Certi ficate of Convenience and Necessity) could be revoked and given to another utility company, said Kathy Heald of the PUC’s public information office said. She added. “I would imagine they would take steps to comply.” A CCN obligates a company to serve all the customers in an area and prohibits another company from infringing on its ter ritory, Heald said. But for the CCN to be revoked, another company must have “existing facilities that would be able to take on the general com pany,” Heald said. Gaye Manning, GTSW service office su pervisor for 33 towns in the Bryan-College Station area, said the increase was “not what we had hoped for — we were kind of disappointed.” Manning said GTSW is planning steps to get its service “up to par.” Though not fully formulated, Manning said there are plans for: 1) adding service in areas with no telephone facilities, 2) up grading facilities in some rural areas from 8-party lines to 4-party lines and 3) balanc ing service banks to permit faster dialing service. In balancing, perhaps one bank of ten phones all belong to heavy phone users. These customers would be interspersed into banks which have low telephone use. Allen King, attorney for the PUC, has been quoted as saying that in his three-year association with the commission, he has received “a barrage of complaints from the over 260 communities of GTSW customers about poor service. GTSW blames inflation, population growth, coastal flooding, hurricanes &nd se vere ice storms for its poor service Record, although the PUC did not see these causes as a basis for dismissing the $4 million pen alty. Manning said population in Bryan- College Station and many other GTSW areas has grown “at least twice as much as predictions had indicated, putting a load on the telephone facilities. e Raft Allen survivors say they’re alive because they didn’t panic United Press International ■ALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Four men who ode out part of Hurricane Allen on a rub er raft because their 48-foot sailboat broke art and sank said Wednesday they sur ged because they did not panic. “We were all scared to death and all hcemed for one another, but we didn’t The Weather Yesterday High . . 94 Low . . 77 Humidity . 68% Rain 0.0 inches Today High .. .98 Low . ..78 Humidity . 60% Chance of rain 20% panic,” said Mike Munroe, 34, recalling the 42 terrifying hours that he and three companions were tossed around by 20-25 foot waves while sharks butted their raft beneath the wind-whipped waters. “It’s a miracle any of us lived, let alone all four of us. ” They were sailing in the Caribbean when Hurricane Allen splintered their boat, the Island Princess. They said they weren’t as worried about drowning as dying of thirst. “We knew the sharks would get us if we lost the raft,” said Munroe, recuperating from the ordeal at his family farm near Tal lahassee. Munroe, Barry Gittelman, 39, Robert Harvey, 47, and Matthew (Doc) St. Claire, 36, operate a charter boat company in Key West. They left Marathon July 27 to sail the boat to Belize for work on its mahogany interior before delivering it to St. Peters burg buyer Lee Metcalfe. “We had left Haiti behind and were ab out halfway between Cuba and Jamaica when we heard there was a tropical storm,” Munroe said. “But our radio (WWV short wave weather station) said it was going to pass south of Jamaica and had been down graded. We got some faulty information.” As the winds built up and wave started sweeping over the vessel, the men tried to put in at Port Antonio on the Northeast coast of Jamaica. “We saw we couldn’t make it. We’d be dashed to death on the rocks. Our best chance seemed to be to get back in deep water,” Munroe said. “The waves were 25 to 30 feet high and the wind kept blowing. “At 10 a.m. last Tuesday (Aug. 5), the front edge of the depression hit us and we were in it for 16 hours. The sails were rip ped off. We were on the bare poles and still going 90 miles an hour. Before daylight Wednesday, he said, the 60,000 pound boat lost the fight. “It was picked up out of the water like a straw,” he said. “Stuff was flying every where. It sunk in five minutes. It was scary watching it go down and parts of it kept coming at us, following us, like it wanted to take us down with it.” St. Claire, an ex-special forces medic with service in Vietnam, suffered two cracked ribs. He must have been hit by flying debris from the boat, but he doesn’t remember it. When the boat broke up, Munroe was clipped to the life raft and pulled beneath the seas. “Doc clipped the line and I pop ped up. Harvey got tangled in the rigging and had to cut himself loose. He floated (question on the sixth call. Only one state was slower in tabulating its vote than Texas on that issue. Carter picked up four votes from uncom mitted Texas delegates, and one delegate did not vote at all. Hance, a first term con gressman from Texas who is a favorite of leaders in the American Agriculture Move ment, received his two votes from among the uncommitted delegates, three of whom chose to remain uncommitted rather than vote for Carter or Kennedy. Dallas area used for chemical tests United Press International WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army car ried out extensive chemical and biological warfare tests in the Dallas-Fort Worth area between 1959 and 1961 by loosing a simu lant at night from a 1,400-foot television tower, according to official documents made available Wednesday. Some 34 tests were made from the Cedar Hill TV tower south of Dallas and Fort Worth in the spring and summer of 1961, Army documents show. Ground instru ments found the simulant— zinc cadmium sulfide — detectable on the ground as far as 30 miles distant. During 1959-60, according to the docu ments, aerosol clouds of the simulant were disseminated at least 13 times from the tower “over a square, 125 miles to a side with Fort Worth at the northern boundary and Fort Hood near the southern boundary.” The information was obtained by the Church of Scientology, which has been in vestigating what, if any, harmful effects were caused to civilians. The Church has been campaigning against resumption of such experiments or a revival of chemical warfare production. Other previously unrevealed tests were carried out in 1959-60 from TV towers in Fort Wayne, Ind., according to the newly released documents. Previous material obtained by the Church’s research department under Free dom of Information Act requests disclosed chemical and biological tests during the 1950s and 1960s in places ranging from the New York City subway system to the San Francisco Bay area, Winnipeg, Canada, and within 30 miles of the White House. Although the Army has said the zinc cad mium sulfide sumulant was harmless, some experts have asserted it could have ill effects on the aged and very young and persons suffering from respiratory ail ments. “In light of the Department of Defense efforts to resume chemical warfare produc tion as evidenced by their 1981 request for approximately $22 million (for that pur pose) which is now before Congress, a Church spokesman said, “investigative ac tion must be taken not only by the Environ mental Protection Agency but by Congress so that American citizens will never be used again as unwitting targets for chemic al-biological warfare tests.” The Army and CIA, which also carried out similar tests in the 1950s-1960s, have claimed they were only assessing U.S. vul nerability to possible Soviet chemical and biological warfare attacks. Orien ta tion se t for new faculty mem bers away and I grabbed him back. “Ten minutes later, the eye of the hurri cane passed directly over us and everything got calm. Then we were hit by the back side of the winds and I could feel the raft pulling apart. We shredded part of the canopy and bits of line and tied it together. A survival pack on the raft yielded some candy bars and six 10-ounce cans of water. “I started throwing up blood, Munroe said. He swallowed so much salt water and vomited so much he became dehydrated and his buddies insisted on giving him most of the fresh water. “I vomited most of it up. I figured I had 24 hours to live. ” “We even planned what to do if I died. Thursday night, the shipwrecked group spotted an oil tanker. “Doc had flares taped to his life jacket and he set them off, ” Munroe recalls. “All I remember is thinking, dear God, I hope it stops.” The next thing he remembers was com ing to aboard the Norwegian tanker Jastella Friday morning. “The tanker had been de layed by the storm and put off course. It wasn’t even supposed to be there,” he said. Capt. Kai Orseng and his crew treated the seedy survivors like kinfolks, then put them ashore at Cayman Brae. by BECKY SWANSON Battalion StafT New students aren’t the only ones going through orientation at Texas A&M Univer sity this year. “We are having all new faculty come in one week early to attend an exhaustive — and probably exhausting — series of work shops” to acquaint them with the Universi ty, its facilities, policies and procedures, students, traditions and other aspects of the school, Dr. J.M. Prescott, vice president for academic affairs, said. New faculty orientation and welcoming activities have been scheduled for Aug. 25- 29. The focus of the program, Prescott said, was to help new faculty to succeed with students and with research. The orientation will include the tradi tional tour of the campus and a buffet sup per as well as sessions on various University departments, workshops on mic- roteaching, academic advising, research, and educational and social opportunities available for faculty and their families through the University. Sessions will be held from 9 a.m.-noon and from 1:30-4:30 p.m. daily Aug. 25-29 in 701 Rudder. A buffet dinner will be the final event on Friday evening. Tours of the campus will be available Friday afternoon for new faculty, followed by the buffet dinner. The orientation session has become necessary, Prescott said, because the large number of new faculty has made individual orientations impossible. Any new faculty member who has not been contacted by Aug. 15 concerning orientation activities should contact Dr. Garland Bayliss, director of academic ser vices, at 845-3210. Bentsen to speak as 1,500 get degrees Approximately 1,500 students are scheduled to receive degrees during summer commencement cere monies Saturday at Texas A&M Uni versity. U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas will deliver the commence ment address. Among the degrees to be awarded are about 1,100 bachelor’s, 300 mas ter’s and 100 doctoral — the largest summer commencement class in Texas A&M history. The ceremonies begin at 9 a.m. in G. Rollie White Coliseum. Bentsen, a Democrat and the state’s junior United States senator, serves as chairman of the joint House/Senate Economic Committee and also chairs numerous subcom mittees. In addition to the degrees to be awarded, approximately 54 gradu ates will receive officer commissions in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines during the Saturday cere monies.