he Battalion
1V0I. 74 No. 124
10 Pages
Serving the Texas A&M University community
Tuesday, March 31, 1981
College Station, Texas
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
The Weather
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Tomorrow
High
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79
Low
47 Low
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Chance of rain.
none Chance of rain. . . .
ft Reagan recuperating after surgery
United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Reagan, joking even as he
vas compWSlj
as tackled on 4
nl ! 1 '; was wheeled to the operating table with a bullet in his chest,
1 1 iurvived two hours of surgery “with flying colors” and was
' recuperating today from a young gunman’s fusillade that also
■ Hely wounded his press secretary and two lawmen,
econd half, ill hi fact, Reagan was doing so well after his operation that
cameouta lectors said he might be able to resume presidential decision-
ipo for the pak> n & from his hospital bed today.
Air Force
the rest of I
wl series re
'f Armv.
passes anili! J () hn Warnock Hinckley Jr., the 25-year-old son of a weal
thy Evergreen, Colo, oilman, was seized after six shots were
Bred from a .22-caliber “Saturday Night Special” at the presi-
lent and his party. The shooting took place on the sidewalk
xitside a Washington hotel where Reagan had finished a
^Bch just before 1:30 p.m. Monday.
ihe husky, blond college dropout has a history ofpsychiat-
was heldasffcproblems. Hinckley, who has been wandering around the
lege Station country for the past several months, was taken into custody by
eceivd Be; (he 1 BI and charged with attempting to assassinate the presi-
was re(]ui: lent and assaulting a federal agent. There were no immediate
i thejaycei indications that he had any accomplices,
or handicappdBJlinckley has spent most of his life in Texas and was
ip ^Bribed by acquaintances there as a quiet, friendly young
/ who became a loner in college. The leader of a neo-Nazi
eroup in Chicago, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America,
d ■Bribed Hinckley as an ex-member who was expelled be-
|§hBe “he wanted to shoot people and blow things up.”
Hinckley appeared briefly in court Monday night, was
jetied bond and was ordered to appear at a preliminary
bearing Thursday.
I Ihe administration Reagan put together only 70 days ago
uloijf'd ranks quickly. As Vice President George Bush jetted
back from a Texas speaking swing, Cabinet members
lathered in the White House situation room, conferring with
i lie airborne vice president and with Reagan aides at the
^Bital.
^m^jJpVV'hite House spokesman Larry Speakes said while Reagan
under anesthesia and recovering from the operation.
Bush was ready to assume “command authority” under an
'arrangement” between the president and himself.
CETS / Although Secretary of State Alexander Haig told White
A&M budget
reviewed
By LIZ NEWLIN
Battalion Stall
AUSTIN — Before all the excitement here Monday, the
m \ louse Appropriations Committee heard Texas A&M’s final
I % equest for money for the session.
■ two "h° ur morning meeting finished budget hearings
I brthe statewide system. Now legislators must “mark-up the
g ippropriations bill before it can be submitted to the House
rtnflffl® 00 ' an< ^ ^e same thing must happen in the Senate.
UIICII*' t e p p r esnal, chairman of the Appropriations Com-
|fB ce an( J Bryan’s representative, agreed with Texas A&M
, V Afficial; that Monday’s hearing was smoother than the one last
1 ‘ ' reek. During that hearing some legislators warned Texas
[NG \&M about developing an arrogant attitude and flaunting its
Hlth and power.
.Most of those legislators weren’t present during Monday’s
learing.
Rfresnal said final decisions will come soon, probably early
ivere detff' liext wee ^> on dm money amounts.
lav niglil'Im ver ^ t ^* n ^ S a tentative right now,” he said. “We’re
‘,, | going to have to make some real hard decisions soon. ”
’ ,lve '» Hie said the state’s recommended budget is about $500
er they W million over projected income. Texas law prohibits spending
ies \orlop' mop: than is available.
on, Jafflf QPresnal said one possibility — which he said he hasn’t
-k Drufl'ljfcussed with anyone yet — is tying some of the new re-
, Kid), Jlii quested programs to a tuition increase that the Legislature is
, | ie ] ( j ||){ considering. Under that plan, the program would be funded if
|i lAdl - more tu *fr° n money is available, but scratched it if is not. He
said other programs had been tentatively funded that way.
^Although Texas A&M officials were pleased with Monday’s
„■ i ^reception, a hearing set today marks the formal beginning of
anothe r battle in the Legislature — one that could significant
ly change Texas A&M’s funding.
House Committee on Constitutional Amendments is
0 scheduled to hear testimony on seven different proposals to
change distribution of the Permanent University Fund and its
prolits, the Available University Fund.
Hhep. Hamp Atkinson, D-New Boston and a member of the
committee, said he expects all the proposals to be referred to a
subcommittee. That action would probably delay considera
tion of the widely differing bills, which range from a proposal
tf ereate a new tax for university construction to dividing up
the PUF among more schools. The PUF is a $1.2 billion-plus
’ smens endowment based on oil-rich land in West Texas; returns
he region, |. 0Jn investments of the fund are split between the University
o is 4th of Texas System and Texas A&M.
1 g is deterflg'Texas A&M, though, is thought to have an advantage in the
f points * battle since several leaders of the House and Senate are
which coS'Aggies and Aggie-supporters, including Speaker of the House
of prize” 1 Bill Clayton.
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Oscars postponed
due to shooting
•y J
vid w*
United Press International
■ HOLLYWOOD — The producer of the 53rd Academy
■wards is confident most of the star-studded guests invited to
the show will “pull together” and attend tonight’s gala, de
layed one day by the shooting of President Reagan.
■ Still pending is a White House decision on whether a
Videotape Reagan recorded in Washington several weeks ago
fyill be used as part of the ABC-TV broadcast. Network and
government officials were expected to confer on the matter
today.
I Setting aside the tradition of “the show must go on, ” the
Rcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced four
flours after Reagan was shot that the awards show Monday
flight was being postponed “in deference to the tragedy in
Washington. ”
I The decision affected an estimated 300 million television
Mewers in 66 nations and some 2,900 guests invited to the gala
at the Los Angeles Music Center.
I The ceremony was rescheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. PST
■0 p.m. EST), the show’s producer, Norman Jewison, said.
More on Reagan assassination attempt...
More stories on the attempted assassination of Presi
dent Ronald Reagan:
UPI reporter Dean Reynolds provides an eyewitness
account of the assassination attempt on page 7.
Battalion staffer Liz Newlin was in Austin Monday.
Her report on the state Capitol’s reaction to the shooting
appears on page 2.
The Texas Legislature held a prayer service for
Reagan Monday; see page 8.
Battalion staffer Terry Duran interviewed students
and administrators for their reactions to the Reagan
shooting; his story is on page 3.
The man accused of shooting Reagan has been arrested
before; see page 8.
John W. Hinckley’s classmates remember him as a
loner; see page 7.
The pistol used to shoot Reagan was purchased in a
Dallas pawn shop; story on page 8.
House reporters at one point “I am in control,” the spokes
man said later Haig had been “coordinating” the situation and
that the command authority — which he described as “milit
ary” — would have passed to Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger after Bush.
After the president came out of surgery, Bush, back in the
White House, appeared before reporters to declare, “I can
assure this nation and a watching world that this nation is
functioning fully and normally.”
Speakes said Bush would sit in for Reagan at scheduled
Cabinet and other meetings today at the White House, but
was not assuming the constitutional role of acting president.
Far more seriously wounded than the president were
James Brady, 40, Reagan’s popular press secretary, Secret
U.S. Rep. Bill Archer, D-Houston, talks with re
porters in Austin Monday. Archer was flying with
JM
Staff photo by Liz Newlin
Vice President George Bush when word of the
attempt on President Reagan’s life reached Bush.
Archer recounts mood
on board Air Force II
By LIZ NEWLIN
Battalion Staff
AUSTIN — Flying on Air Force II, U.S. Rep. Bill
Archer paid little attention to the vice president as tapes of
President Reagan’s shooting replayed on the color televi
sion in the plane.
“I’ll have to say honestly that I was watching the televi
sion more than I was watching the vice president,” the
Houston Republican said Monday afternoon. “Maybe be
cause this is a semi-historic moment I should’ve been
paying more attention to what the vice president looked
like.”
Archer, though, was more interested in learning what
had happened in Washington, and the network feed to the
plane had accuate information. The plane, originally de
signed by then-President Lyndon Johnson, has a sophisi-
cated communications system. Alexander Haig, the sec
retary of state, first told Vice President George Bush that
the president hadn’t been hurt.
Bush had just finished a speech in Fort Worth and was
flying to Austin.
“It was 20 minutes to 2,” Archer recalled, “and we were
airborne for maybe 10 minutes when a Secret Service man
told us there’d been an attempt on the president’s life and
two service men were down. That was the original report, ”
Archer said during an interview after a Capitol prayer
service.
“It was very fragmentary, but the report was the presi
dent was unharmed and Bush was concerned about the
attempt but pleased the president hadn’t been touched.
There was no information available to the vice president or
any of us on the plane. The fact that the president had been
shot came much later in the trip.”
About 10 minutes before landing in Austin, they learned
the president had been hit.
“After it became apparent the president had been shot
the decision was made in the air to touch down in Austin
and refuel and go immediately back to Washington,
D.C.,” said Archer, who’dmade the whole trip with Bush.
The vice president did not leave the plane during the 40
minutes it was in Austin. Gov. and Mrs. Bill Clements and
Secretary of State George Strake boarded the plane, and
Clements later reported on that meeting to the Legisla
ture.
Before the news, Archer said the vice president was in a
good mood.
After the news, the mood on the plane changed consid
erably.
“People were mainly subdued. And I would say maybe
that’s a good term to describe the vice president too.”
Although he could talk to Haig by phone, the vice
president stayed in the main cabin of the airplane, where
the 18-inch color television was.
Bush’s first reaction was worry. Archer said.
“His response was of immediate considerable concern
although the report that we got did not lead us to believe
that it was that serious, that the president had fairly walked
into the hospital and that the president did not even know
that he’d been shot,” Archer said.
“But the vice president was extremely concerned. He
and president Reagan have an excellent personal relation
ship, they’ve become very personal friends. He was terr
ibly concerned about the president’s condition, not just as
president but as another human being, as a friend.”
Bush didn’t mention taking over the president’s duties,
Archer said, but did talk about security.
“He (Bush) did say that people have been critical of the
Secret Service sometimes for the over-precautions they
seem to take, and he said that now we know that perhaps
even more needs to be done.”
Archer praised the Secret Service and agreed with
Bush.
“It does seem to me that when the president appears in
public that it’s going to be necessary to keep people who’ve
not been securely checked a farther distance from the
president,” the representative said, “because whoever
shot him got 10 to 15 feet within the president, and anyone
could have under the circumstances without any kind of
security check. ”
Service agent Timothy J. McCarthy, 32, and Metropolitan
policeman Thomas K. Delahanty, 45.
Brady was shot in the head and underwent brain surgery at
George Washington University hospital, about four blocks
from the White House, at the same time doctors were operat
ing on Reagan. His condition was extremely critical.
McCarthy, shot in the back, and Delahanty, wounded in
the neck, both were reported in serious condition.
Dr. Dennis O’Leary of the Georgetown University hospit
al said the president, though 70 years old, walked from his car
into the hospital emergency room and came through the
“relatively simple” operation for removal of the small caliber
bullet “with flying colors. ”
Reagan told his wife Nancy, who rushed to the hospital
from the White House, “Honey, I forgot to duck;” asked
concerned aides, “Who’s minding the store?” and joshed with
doctors, saying, “I hope you are all Republicans” before the
surgery began.
Reagan, the fifth president to be shot since Abraham
Lincoln was assassinated in Washington after the end of the
Civil War, had just finished a speech before 4,000 delegates to
a building trades union convention and was almost in his
armored limousine outside the Washington Hilton hotel
when the shooting began.
Emerging from the big hotel in a light rain on a mild spring
afternoon, Reagan was waving to onlookers when the gun
man, lurking behind a group of reporters and photographers
next to a stone wall, began firing a small black handgun.
Pandemonium followed, as Reagan’s guards whipped out
pistols and automatic weapons. Brady and the agent fell
quickly, the press secretary’s head lying in a pool of blood.
Agents and uniformed officers including Delahanty leaped on
the assailant, burying him in bodies. The agent closest to
Reagan wrapped one arm around the president’s waist and
with the other shoved him, doubled over, into the presiden
tial limousine.
The big black car roared off to the hospital about a mile
away, and although onlookers noted that Reagan’s smile had
(See ‘Reagan’ page 5)
Contender:
No comment
on A&M job
One of the candidates under consideration for the pres
idency of Texas A&M University had no comment Monday
afternoon regarding his candidacy.
“I don’t make any comments about anyone’s (presidential)
searches,” Dr. Steven B. Sample said in a telephone inter
view from his office in Lincoln, Neb. Sample is executive vice
president for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska.
Sample’s name, along with those of Dr. Arthur Hansen,
president of Purdue University, and Dr. James D. McComas,
president of Mississppi State University, recently surfaced
from among the candidates under consideration for the presi
dent’s position.
The fourth person known to be under consideration is Dr.
JackE. Freeman, senior vice chancellor for administration at
the University of Pittsburgh.
Sample visited the Texas A&M campus last week, speaking
to University officials about the position. He has his bache
lor’s, master’s and doctorate in electrical engineering.
The University president’s position opened when the
Board of Regents fired Dr. Jarvis Miller in July. Dr. Charles
Samson has been acting president since then.
Board Chairman H.R. “Bum” Bright has said a new presi
dent will be selected by September at the latest.
Supplement
leaves out
Ward I names
Six candidates for off-campus Ward I student senator were
inadvertently left out of Monday ’s election supplement to The
Battalion.
In addition to those listed, Mike Meyer, Dale Collins,
Chris Cleveland, Robert Licon, Chris Duncan and Stephen
Geistweidt are also vying for the Ward I seat.
Polling places for spring student body elections will be
open from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. today and Wednesday.
The five primary polling places will be set up outside the
Memorial Student Center, Sbisa Dining Hall, the Commons,
the Guard Room and Sterling C. Evans Library.
Fourth name is
added for Taps
The name of a fourth Texas A&M University student has
been added to the list for the Silver Taps ceremony April 7.
In the traditional ceremony, students honor classmates
who have died.
Tulio Ruben Pena, 19, a freshman from Laredo, died
March 25 from injuries he received in an automobile accident
Feb. 28. Pena had been in a coma in a Houston hospital since
the incident. He was a general studies major.
Three other Texas A&M students were killed during the
spring holidays in separate traffic accidents. They were Glenn
W. Mitchell Jr., a freshman from Austin; Bob L. Boyles Jr., a
sophomore from Crosby; and Don Lee M unsell, a freshman
from Andrews.