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Serving the Texas A&M University community
Thursday, December 11,1980
College Station, Texas
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
The Weather
Yesterday
Today
High
60 High
68
Low
28 Low
38
Rain
.. 0.00 inches Chance of rain. . .
abinet picks expected
Reagan to meet with black leaders who opposed him
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United Press International
WASHINGTON — President-elect Ronald Reagan
ises to announce some of his Cabinet appointees
[ay, and sources said they would include New York
broker Donald P. Regan as treasury secretary.
I'ormer Gen. Alexander Haig was reported still in line
come secretary of state in the new administration,
agan also gets another chance today to assure blacks
sensitive to their concerns, meeting this time with a
of black leaders who have long opposed his pres-
tial ambitions.
be president-elect, in Washington for four days to
t with advisers and supporters, kept mum again
nesday, telling reporters only, “I think tomorrow
jrsday) you’ll have some news. ’
Sources close to the transition team said eight
inees would be named at an afternoon news confer-
, including Regan, 61, chairman of Merrill Lynch &
the largest U.S. brokerage firm, as treasury sec-
y.
:gan (pronounced Ree’-gan) has been mentioned only
ntly as a possibility for the post,
laig was not on the list of those to be announced today,
but the former NATO commander and Richard Nixon’s
chief of staff was close to being chosen secretary of state,
sources said. They said Haig met Wednesday night with
three top Reagan advisers.
The sources said the others to be announced were:
— Caspar Weinberger, Nixon’s secretary of health,
education and welfare, to be defense secretary.
— William French Smith of Los Angeles, Reagan’s
personal attorney, to be attorney general.
— Drew Lewis, a Pennsylvania Republican and nation
al GOP official, to be transportation secretary.
— Sen. Richard Schweiker, RPa., to be secretary of
— Sen. Richard Schweiker, R-Pa., to be secretary of
health and human services.
head of a manufacturing firm, to be commerce secretary.
— William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager and
former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commis
sion, to be CIA director.
— Rep. David Stockman, R-Mich., to be director of the
Office of Management and Budget.
The secretaries for housing and urban development,
labor, education, energy, interior, and agriculture plus
the ambassador to the United Nations were to be
announced later.
Reagan has done his best to keep the contenders secret,
using aides to contact them or speaking with them only by
phone.
But the slow selection process, hampered, aides said,
by time-consuming FBI clearances and conflict-of-
interest and ethics-in-government law requirements,
prevented a quick, clean announcement.
Today’s visitors to the president-elect’s temporary
headquarters include the Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Chica
go-based Operation PUSH; the Rev. Joseph Lowery,
head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference;
and Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP,
among others.
Hooks and other black leaders have said the black
community harbors a “hysterical fear” about what Reagan
might do to social programs as president.
The former California governor had his regular intelli
gence briefing slated for this morning, in addition to a
number of meetings. He was not expected to leave his
Blair House headquarters until this evening when he
attends a dinner.
Former FBI chief
to escape charges
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Federal sources say
the Justice Department will move formally
to drop conspiracy charges against L. Pat
rick Gray, freeing him from eight years of
investigations into his 11 months as acting
FBI director.
Prosecutors planned to ask Chief U.S.
District Judge William Bryant at a hearing
today to dismiss the unprecedented, 2 1 /2-
year-old indictment charging Gray with
approving illegal break-ins, the sources
said.
The sources said the government will
advise Bryant the case is too flimsy to take
before a jury. Gray, 63, was in Washington
today and was expected to appear before
the court with members of his family.
Gray’s two former top lieutenants, W.
Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, face sen
tencing Monday for their convictions on
the same civil rights conspiracy charge as
Gray — alleging they approved breakins,
without court warrants, in a hunt for fugi
tive members of the radical Weather
Underground.
Gray was indicted along with Felt and
Miller in April 1978. But his case was se
vered and prosecutors advised the judge
previously the case likely would be drop
ped because of the need to protect nation
al security information Gray’s lawyer said
was vital to the defense.
But sources have said a key witness’ re
cent decision to change his testimony and
new evidence gathered by Gray’s Balti
more attorney, Alan I. Baron, left the gov
ernment with an emasculated case.
On Thanksgiving Day, sources disclosed
prosecutors were preparing to drop the
case but had yet to decide what grounds to
cite. The sources said Assistant Attorney
General Philip Heymann approved citing
the flimsy evidence.
Felt and Miller face maximum sentences
of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for
approving the nine break-ins — known as
“black bag jobs” among FBI agents. During
their trial, Felt testified that shortly after
Gray succeeded the late J. Edgar Hoover as
acting FBI director in May 1972, he gave
his top aides “general approval” to resume
secret searches to combat terrorism.
But Felt acknowledged he never had
“specific approval” from Gray for the
break-ins, and said Gray did not learn of
them until years later. The Justice Depart
ment previously sought to prosecute Gray
on the theory he gave his generic approval
for unconstitutional searches, without get
ting authority from the attorney general or
the president.
Chief of Protocol to speak
as 1,750 receive diplomas
18-13 or
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J, deoeiidii
ilabil
ided.
DeAndra Beck, a sophomore member of Lambda Sigma, sells Christmas
rees in front of the Commons. The honor society will be selling the small
ress for $4-5 through Friday.
n flies!
Christmas green
Photo by Susan Hopk
Approximately 1,750 students will re
ceive degrees during graduation cere
monies Friday and Saturday.
U. S. Chief of Protocol Abelardo L.
Valdez will present the commencement
address at both ceremonies.
Valdez, a 1965 Texas A&M honor gradu
ate, will address degree candidates from
the Graduate College and the Colleges of
Architecture and Environmental Design,
Engineering, Geosciences, Science and
Veterinary Medicine in ceremonies at 7:30
p.m. Friday in G. Rollie White Coliseum.
The ambassador will also speak to gradu
ates of the Colleges of Agriculture, Busi
ness Administration, Education, Liberal
Arts and Texas A&M University at Galves
ton (Moody College) at 9 a.m. Saturday,
also in G. Rollie White.
Commissioning for graduates entering
military service will take place in a separate
ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in G. Rol
lie White.
The 46 cadets will receive their commis
sions in either the Army, Air Force, Navy
or Marines.
The speaker at the commissioning cere
mony will be U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William
R. Richardson, commander of the Com
bined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas.
Stall photo by Greg Gammon
Ruby Sneed takes a short break to chat with Phil Hannah in the Guar
droom. The custodial worker was reassigned to Dorm 2 through the
efforts of Hannah and about 100 other cadets.
‘Adopted Mom ’
moved to Dorm 2
By MARCY BOYCE
Battalion Stall
What the men in Dorm 2 want,
the men in Dorm 2 get. At least on
one ocassion, anyway.
Squadrons 2, 3, and 5 of the Corps
of Cadets, the residents of Dorm 2,
wanted Ruby back. And after a little
bargaining, some smooth talking and
a petition signed by 100 residents of
the dorm, they got their way.
At the beginning of this semester
Ruby Sneed, a cheerful middle-aged
custodial worker for the University,
was again assigned to work in Dorm
4, where she had been since the
Spring 1978. But the three squad
rons to which she had endeared her
self over that year and a half had been
moved to Dorm 2 ... without Ruby,
much to their displeasure.
Initial attempts by several mem
bers of Squadron 3 to get her trans
ferred to Dorm 2 were unsuccessful.
The supervisor of custodial ser
vices said he really didn’t think it
would be possible to get Ruby trans
ferred, but he agreed to look into it
and noted that she was up for a prom
otion, Squadron 3 Executive Officer
Phil Hannah said.
Meanwhile, Hannah and a few
other members of the squadron cir
culated a petition requesting that
Ruby be moved to their dorm. Later
that week, he submitted the petition
signed by 100 residents of the dorm
to Custodial Services.
At that time the prospect still did
not look promising, Hannah said,
but less than a week after the petition
was submitted, their request was
honored. Ruby was not only transfer
red to Dorm 2, but given a promo
tion and a raise as well.
The “love story” between Sneed
and residents of Dorm 2 began in
Spring 1978, Hannah said.
At that time Squadrons 3 and 5
were living in Dorm 4 and Ruby was
the custodial worker assigned to that
dorm. The next year Squadron 2 was
assigned to the dorm and also got
acquainted with Ruby.
There was something different ab
out Ruby, Hannah said. She wasn’t
like any other custodian ever
assigned to his outfit.
“Ever since I came to A&M we
had had about three or four different
custodial workers and a lot of them
weren’t too friendly. They were just
kind of there,” Hannah said.
“But Ruby learned everybody’s
names and just became more or less a
part of the outfit. Everybody kind of
adopted her,” he said.
And even before it was a Corps
policy, Hannah said, freshmen in the
dorm carried out trash on weekends
so that Ruby wouldn’t have to con
front overflowing containers as she
stepped in the door on Monday
mornings.
“Now everybody is really self-
conscious about how the dorm looks
because nobody wants to put Ruby
out,” he said.
“It was just kind of a great big love
affair between Ruby and three out
fits,” Hannah said.
And at least until next year, this
one ended happily ever after.
\ime rate
aised to
20 percent
Accused man put under strict security
3 205/75R)5f.,
jlus$2,57F.EX*
weded (AHof" 1
15)
United Press International
The prime rate jumped up another
linful” point, and one economist said it
ize$Jo ||ay r go as hig as 25 percent.
Banks almost uniformly Wednesday
:ed the prime lending rate that they
irge their best corporate borrowers to 20
cent, matching the record high reached
: spring.
"Every notch up in the prime means a
per and more prolonged slowdown in
iness activity,” said David M. Jones,
momist for Aubrey G. Lanston & Co. in
few York.
The prime at 20 percent will be “devas-
Sng,” resulting in “strangulation of eco-
bic activity in the first quarter, Jones
id. He added the prime could reach 22
rcent soon.
Wall Street investment counselor A.
ay Shilling predicted the prime will
eak” at 25 percent.
IGold plummeted $30 to $564 an ounce in
few York Wednesday as the 20 percent
I ime rate led sellers to dump metals and
I iy interest-bearing securities. Reaction to
le prime rate increase was also cited for
le Dow Jones industrial average plunging
[ 83 points to a six-month low of 916.21.
P195/75flH
plus $2.33 F.E'7
needed. (AlwF'
14, FRTHO
United Press International
NEW YORK — Mark David Chapman
lived in a rock n’ roll fantasy world and
once angrily denounced John Lennon and
other Beatles members for comparing the
group’s importance to that of Jesus Christ.
Yet he was infatuated with Lennon and
the Beatles.
Lennon’s body was cremated Wednes
day, and his accused killer was placed
under close observation in the prison ward
of Bellevue Hospital. Chapman’s room is
stripped of all furniture save a bed, and
police dressed him in a bullet-proof vest
while transferring him to the ward.
Two days before Lennon was slain, the
25-year-old ex-security guard from Hon
olulu, who is charged with shooting and
killing the rock star, told a New York City
taxi driver that he was the engineer for
Lennon’s new record album.
The cabbie, Mark Snyder, also said
Chapman claimed to have been the en
gineer for the Rolling Stones for 10 years.
During the taxi trip Saturday, Chapman
had Snyder stop twice in the neighborhood
where Lennon lived before his final des
tination in Greenwich Village.
Snyder’s story was one of scores of recol
lections that suggest much of Chapman’s
life was organized around rock music and
an overwhelming obsession with the Bea
tles.
David Moore, a YMCA executive from
Chicago, said he had known Chapman for
six months during 1975, when Chapman
worked at a YMCA resettlement camp for
Vietnamese refugees in Arkansas.
Moore said Chapman played Beatles
music constantly, but that he once de
nounced the group for a comment by Len
non suggesting that the Beatles were more
popular than Jesus Christ.
Lennon discs sold out locally
By JENNIFER AFFLERBACH
Battalion Staff
Local record stores have sold out of John
Lennon’s latest album and experienced in
creased sales of Beatles albums in the after-
math of the former Beatle s shooting death
Monday in New York City.
“We sold out like everybody else in the
state, I’m sure, ” said Buck James, manager
of Budget Tapes and Records. James said
he sold out of Lennon’s recently released
“Double Fantasy” album about an hour af
ter the store opened Tuesday morning.
“I don’t understand it, personally,”
James said. “The new Lennon album has
been one of my slower selling albums.”
He theorized that people are buying the
album because they either think it will be a
collector’s item or fear that not enough
copies have been pressed.
James said he sold out of all other Len
non albums stocked, too.
Hasting’s Books and Records was sold
out of all its Lennon albums 30 minutes
after opening Tuesday, said Manager Pete
Nelson.
He said the crowds “have only died down
because nobody has it (Lennon’s album)
now.”
Eddie Potter, an employee of Music Ex
press, said the store sold out of Lennon
records about noon Tuesday and that other
Beatles records are selling heavier than
usual.
He said a shipment of the “Double Fan
tasy” album should come in Friday and
“will probably go pretty fast.”
Musicland’s manager, Phillip Hinds,
said Tuesday he didn’t think he would sell
out of Lennon records. He had one copy of
Lennon’s “Rock and Roll” album left
Wednesday and said, “Now I think other
wise.
“We’ve had his (Double Fantasy) aloum
sitting on display and it’s just been sitting
there.” Now it is sold out, he said,
Hinds said he definitely thinks the album
will be a collector’s item.
“The guy was very talented,” he said of
Lennon.
A lot of his customers, most of whom
were college students, were angered by
Lennon’s shooting, he said.
“We had one girl in here who just wet the
floor, she was crying so bad,” he said.
Two of the Beatles’ more popular
albums, “Abbey Road” and “White
Album,” had sold out, too, Hinds said, but
he doesn’t think Beatles albums will be
difficult to find.
Soundstation has sold out of Lennon’s
new album along with most of his others, an
employee said, and Beatles sales have also
picked up.
Tip Top Records and Tapes in Bryan sold
out of “Double Fantasy” Wednesday after
noon, said employee Kim Smith.
“We don’t usually sell any of that (rock
music),” she said.
Lennon was shot four times as he step
ped out of afimousine in front of his home
Monday night and died in a police car be
fore reaching a hospital.
Mark David Chapman, 25, was charged
with second-degree murder in Lennon’s
death and was ordered sent to Bellevue
Hospital for 30 days’ observation.
“I can remember him saying, ‘Who the
hell are they to compare themselves to
Jesus?’ He harped on it a little. He thought
they were being arrogant, ” Moore said.
Friends and his attorneys say that Chap
man had been an avid Beatles fan from the
age of 10.
He drifted from job to job and dabbled in
drugs and the Jesus movement in the
Atlanta area, but his committment to Len
non and the Beatles remained unwavering.
He moved to Hawaii in 1977.
He worked as a security guard and when
he quit his job in October, he signed the
name “John Lennon” in an employee log
book.
Chapman purchased a .38-caliber revol
ver four days later and came to New York
City on Saturday. Police say that he check
ed into a YMCA and stalked the rock star
before shooting him outside the Dakota,
the exclusive Manhattan apartment build
ing where Lennon lived.
Chapman’s exact motive for allegedly
killing Lennon remains unclear.
A police officer quoted Chapman as
saying that there was a “big man” and a
“little man’ inside of him. Chapman ex
plained the “little man” killed the idol of a
turbulent generation.