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The Battalion
Vol. 74 No. 61
10 Pages
Serving the Texas A&M University community
Monday, November 24, 1980
College Station, Texas
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
Yesterday
The Weather
Today
High
61 High
62
Low
49
Low
42
Rain
... 0.0 inches
Chance of rain . .
. . slight
* R
r C
Juake kills more than 400
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United Press International
BALVANO, Italy — Black-shawled women wailed in
e streets today near a medieval church that collapsed
ito its congregation under the force of southern Italy’s
pt earthquake this century. The quake killed more
in 400 people and injured more than 800 others,
lie entire village is in ruins, ” said Don Salvatore Pag-
ta, 61, the priest of the church of Santa Maria Assunta,
b left his church Sunday as the quake rumbled through
[vanoon its path of destruction through southern Italy.
‘t tremor cut gas mains, left city streets in flames,
lapsed nine-story buildings and even triggered two
ion riots.
lalf my church collapsed and there are still people
iped in there,” he sobbed. “I don’t know why us.
pse people have enough trouble as it is. It’s a poor
age.”
|e Interior Ministry in Rome said reports received from
iedisaster region showed about 440 dead and more than
injured in the quake, which struck at 7:30 p.m. (1:30
. EST) Sunday with a force between 6.5 and 6.8 on the
n-ended Richter scale.
ainistry official said more than 120 were killed in the
|vano area, Naples, another 80 in and around Naples,
ut another 100 in the Amalfi Coast resort area between
rento and Salerno, and 100 more near the town of
lllino in the central mountains. Other deaths were
reported from isolated mountain villages in the region.
Rescue workers in Balvano, 75 miles east of Naples,
speculated the death toll could easily top 600 by the time
they finished sifting through the rubble in the region
bounded by Naples on the east coast of Italy and Potenza,
86 miles inland.
The quake was the strongest recorded in the region since
a 1908 earthquake killed more than 75,000 people at
Messina, Sicily.
But worst hit was Balvano, the mountain village of 2,600
residents, where more than 100 persons were reported
killed, many of them in the collapse of a 600-year-old
church during evening vespers services.
Tremors hit the region throughout the night, one at 4
a.m. (11 p.m. Sunday EST), shaking automobiles in the
streets of the village and forcing rescue workers to safety
in open squares.
Sunday evening’s quake was felt by residents as far south
as Sicily and as far north as Trieste near the Yugoslav
frontier, and was measured by scientists in geophysical
observatories as far away as the United States.
Apartment buildings as high as nine stories collapsed in
the Naples area. The quake triggered a riot among in
mates in the Poggiareale men’s prison and women’s de
tention center at Naples and police using tear gas had to
be called in to restore order.
In Balvano, the priest, Don Salvator Pagliuca, said: “The
center of town is no longer recognizable. ”
The gray-haired cleric, his black, floor-length vestments
torn and covered with dust, sobbed as he told how he
walked out of the church, turned around and saw the roof
collapse on about 300 of his most faithful parishioners.
Rescue workers, including a battalion of Italian Army
infantrymen, picked through the collapsed stone walls of
the medieval buildings in search of bodies by the harsh
glare of gasoline generator-powered arc lights.
As bodies were pulled from the wreckage and carried to a
nearby square, piled up and covered with white sheets in
the village, black-clad women, most of them in their 60s
and 70s, wailed in the streets for their missing relatives,
peasants who grew olives in the nearby rocky hillsides.
“I want to die, I want to die, ” a woman in her 80s moaned.
Small children ran through the narrow alleyways crying,
their faces caked with dirt and blood.
The scene was repeated in scores of towns and villages
from Naples to Salerno at the southern end of the Amalfi
Coast resort area.
The quake hit as Italians were finishing their evening
meal and settling down in front of the television set to
watch the nightly news programs.
Air controllers at Leonardo Da Vinci international airport
near Rome, feeling the jolts sharply atop their 260-foot
control tower, abandoned their posts and closed down the
facility for 40 minutes before resuming work.
exam who escaped fire feel lucky"
United Press International
pome of the Texans lucky enough to have
aped the MGM Grand Hotel fire be-
|e it was just that — luck — which saved
jp from an inferno they say the huge
|tel’s management did nothing to warn
Ists about.
k 'e and Lindy Ivy were on the 21st floor
ie Las Vegas hotel when the fire broke
Friday morning and had to fight for
|ath for three hours while trapped insid^
smoke-filled rooom.
[here was no warning of the fire, no
pn, no safety instructions, not even dia-
§ms of fire exits anywhere,” said Mrs.
“And that’s such a large hotel, you can
|Iy go in the wrong direction.
|s. Ivy said she and her husband believe
hotel officials made a decision not to warn
guests about the fire because of a higher
concern for corporate profits than the safety
of guests.
“If they wanted to, they could have evacu
ated the entire hotel just after the fire broke
out,” she said. “But instead, we think they
were concerned with their money and their
reputation. They thought they probably
could put out the fire quickly, and only a
few people would know about it.”
Mr. and Mrs. Ivy praised firefighters, pa
ramedics and helicopter crews. They de
scribed how they used wet towels to keep
as much smoke as possible out of their room
and covered their faces. They hugged the
floor, breathing increasingly thin air until
firefighters finally broke down their door.
“When I got up to run to the door, I passed
out, and a fireman had to carry me down 21
flights of stairs,” Mrs. Ivy said.
Dr. Ammanulah Khan, a cancer researcher
at the Wadley Institute of Molecular Medi
cine, and his eight-months-pregnant wife
escaped after being awakened by “crack
ling noises” in their fifth floor room.
They inched their way through “horrible,
thick, thick smoke” the length of the hotel
corridor to an emergency exit with 30 other
guests.
“I felt like we might die; I thought about
our two kids,” said Mrs. Khan.
When they finally managed to get outside,
she said, “You have no idea how it felt to
smell the fresh air, knowing, oh my God,
we made it.”
Diana Hanson of Lewisville, Texas, said
she was trapped with four friends for almost
three hours in a 20th floor suite. She cre
dited a light-sleeping friend with saving her
life.
“If Eva (Clifton) hadn’t awakened us, we’d
all be dead now,” said Hanson, 24. “You
can’t wake me up with a bulldozer. There
were no fire alarms — nothing. Believe me,
I won’t stay at a hotel without smoke detec
tors again — I’ll ask about it.”
Delores Mack of Beaumont, Texas, who
went to Las Vegas with her husband Roger
to celebrate their 25th wedding anniver
sary, died when she fell while attempting to
climb down a rope ladder.
In a hurry
Staff photo by Pat O’Malley
eagan says his record
Ihould reassure blacks
United Press International
,0S ANGELES — Speaking to allay the
s of black Americans, Ronald Reagan
s his record as California governor
reassure them of his concern for
:ir needs, and he hopes “to do even bet-
er as president.
AACP President Benjamin Hooks said
urday there was “hysterical fear" among
icks that Reagan’s actions will hurt them
the programs designed to help minor-
is. He urged Reagan to go on television
reassure blacks he cares about them.
Veil,” Reasgan told reporters outside the
1-Air Presbyterian Church Sunday, “I
think my record indicates that — what we
did in California — and I hope to do even
better on the national level. ”
He did not amplify. But when one of
Reagan’s advisers was asked the same ques
tion on ABC-TV’s “Issues and Answers”
Sunday, former HEW Secretary Caspar
Weinberger said, “There is no man who is
more concerned with the welfare and with
the human condition of everybody than
Governor Reagan.”
Weinberger also said despite the new
administration’s drive to cut the budget,
Reagan will not touch social programs that
help people.
Tea-sipping con test
staged for Tuesday
As a kind of pre-University of Texas
game “psycher,” the MSC Recreation
Committee is sponsoring a tea-sipping
contest Tuesday at noon.
The contest, held at Rudder fountain,
will consist of two heats of 10 contestants
each to determine the fastest tea-sipper.
The contestants are required to suck
cinnamon tea from baby bottles. The
first one finished will win a gift package
donated by Prioriteas in Bryan.
Honorary judges of the event are Head
Coach Tom Wilson and Athletic Direc
tor Marvin Tate.
Entries for the competition are still
being taken, but there is a 20-contestant
limit. Students wishing to enter may
sign up in MSC 216. In case of bad
weather the contest will be moved to
the MSC lounge.
Work was in full swing on the bonfire stack during the weekend, and
bonfire workers say it appears much of the heavy work will be completed
long before the Tuesday night burning. From a distance these workers on
the stack resemble a small swarm of ants.
President candidates
total more than 500
Nominations and applications for the pres
idency of Texas A&M University now total
more than 500, the search committee
advising the Texas A&M University Sys
tem Board of Regents was informed Friday.
Clyde H. Wells, chairman of both the
search committee and the board of regents,
said several individuals were nominated
more than once, but the total number of
persons suggested for consideration still
approaches 400.
The 22-member advisory committee,
meeting for its third time since being
appointed in August, spent most of the day
layton makes $4,000 as backers ‘say thanks"
left, speaks with Rep. Bill Presnal at an
barbecue dinner held at Texas Hall of
Staff photo by Jeff Kerber
Fame on Saturday. Clayton, speaker of the Texas
House, is a 1950 graduate of Texas A&M University.
By LIZ NEWLIN
Battalion Staff
Bill Clayton stands to make at least
$4,000 from a barbecue held for him here
over the weekend.
Clayton, speaker of the Texas House and a
1950 graduate of Texas A&M University,
was honored at an appreciation dinner
Saturday. Profits will go to Clayton and will
probably be used to pay legal fees. He was
acquitted last month of federal racketeer
ing charges filed after the FBI’s Brilab in
vestigation.
Irene Little, a Texas A&M graduate stu
dent and the chairman of the event, said
she collected about $8,000 herself. The ca
tering, she said, cost about $4,000 for the
1,350 servings ordered. Little said money
for the appreciation dinner was also col
lected by other people and some was sent
to the speaker’s office in Austin.
“The more I dig into it, the better it gets,”
she said Saturday night after counting
money. “I was really thrilled. There were a
lot of people there.”
A plate count by the caterer showed about
1,000 came to the Texas Hall of Fame to
“say thanks” to the speaker.
Although Little, a student, first proposed
the barbecue, few students came. But
Texas A&M was well represented by admi
nistrators, deans and prominent alumni.
Most of the regents, who are meeting today
and Tuesday, also came. Regent H.C. Bell
of Austin said the dinner was intended to
show appreciation for what Clayton has
already done, not try to persuade him to
help Texas A&M in the Legislature.
Bell said Clayton has always helped the
school. The session that opens in January,
however, will be one of the most important
for the Texas A&M University System. At
stake will be Texas A&M’s share of the
Permanent University Fund (PUF), the $2
bilfion endowed fund divided with the Uni
versity of Texas.
Other state universities are expected to
challenge for a share of the fund. In the last
session they lost their assured funding from
state property taxes and must now ask the
Legislature for all their money. They would
prefer to have an independent source of
money like the PUF.
If, as expected, Clayton becomes speaker
of the House for an unprecedented fourth
time, he will be in a powerful position to
influence legislation. Does he think the
PUF will be a sticky issue for the Univer
sity?
“I ain’t gonna let it be,” he said, flashing an
impish smile and hustling off to shake some
more hands.
Earlier during the program, Reagan
Brown, Texas Commissioner of Agricul
ture, said that in the iVz years he watched
the Legislature, nothing intended for Texas
A&M was vetoed. He was among the sever
al state officials, including a dozen or so
legislators, who ate barbecue with the
speaker.
Bill Hobby, Texas lieutenant governor,
praised Clayton as “one of the ablest, most
hard-working legislators” he’s ever seen.
Nobody publicly mentioned the trial or the
charges that Clayton accepted a $5,000
bribe. One organizer of the event did say
that more people were willing to help with
the barbecue after the innocent verdict was
announced.
The barbecue was postponed in October
because Clayton could not attend. He had
to be in Austin on weekends to attend
budget sessions scheduled then since he
was in court during the week.
Little was happy about Clayton’s innocent
verdict, but she said the appreciation din
ner would have been held even if the
speaker had been found guilty.
Saturday was declared “Speaker Bill
Clayton Day” in Bryan-College Station and
Brazos County.
screening material concerning the most vi
able candidates, Wells said.
“We re making excellent progress,” he
said, “and anticipate that the search com
mittee will conclude work in January and
make recommendations to the board of re
gents.”
Wells said the search committee will next
meet Dec. 11.
The search committee was appointed in
August to recommend a slate of candidates
for the University presidency to the Board
of Regents. Dr. Charles Samson has been
acting president.
Klan faction
said dangerous
by Justice Dept.
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A Ku Klux Klan
group that has set up a commando training
camp and whose members say they are
getting ready for a race war is the most
violent of the current Klan factions, reports
the Justice Department.
A department review found Bill Wilkin
son’s Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan, the most dangerous of several
Klan splinter groups because Wilkinson
“really does very much promote violence,”
one law enforcement source said.
“Wilkinson’s group is the much more se
rious and bears watching,” the source said,
adding most of the factions in the white
supremacist organization seem to be oper
ating independently.
Wilkinson’s Invisible Empire has set up a
commando training camp near Cullman,
Ala., where followers carry guns, wear
army fatigues and say they are preparing for
a race war.
The Justice Department review found that
two other klan-related groups — Robert
Shelton’s United Klans of America and for
mer klan wizard David Duke’s new organi
zation, The National Association for the
Advancement of White People — are less
violent.
The study, which will be given to the new
administration for review, was conducted
at the request of Justice Department civil
rights chief Drew S. Days III.
“Resurgence is not a correct way to de
scribe it,” said one official familiar with
results of the review. “There’s not a mas
sive turning toward the Klan. It’s very
much dependent upon the media for its
existence.”
The six-month review was done mainly by
Louis M. Thrasher, former Justice Depart
ment civil rights lawyer.