i
Battalion
[Vol. 75 No. 10
14 Pages
Serving the Texas A&M University community
Monday, September 14, 1981
College Station, Texas
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
The Weather
Today
Tomorrow
High
92
High
.. .90
Low
72
Low. .
.. .73
Chance of rain. .
.... 30%
Chance of rain
. 50%
iaig accuses Soviets
if biological warfare
1
United Press International
I0NN, West Germany — Secretary
Jtate Alexander Haig countered a
live protest against U.S. military
:ies by accusing the Soviet Union of
ng deadly biological warfare against
onents in Laos, Cambodia and
janistan.
chose encircled Berlin, within
(tof the wall dividing the city, to say
day that the United States now has
of the Soviet Union used lethal tox-
urncane
[arvey
tronger
United Press International
1IAMI — Hurricane Harvey, with
ph winds and still strengthening,
ed northwest today on an apparent
e between Bermuda and the Un-
States, but forecasters said the
at to land was not over,
jate Sunday night, Harvey was cen-
id about 575 miles south-southeast
ermtida, moving northwest at 12
. Forecasters said the 1981 season’s
jith hurricane could intensify during
next 24 hours.
ational Hurricane Center forecas-
I Miles Lawrence said Harvey
■eared to be headed on a course in
■ Atlantic between the United States
nd Bermuda, lessening the threat to
id mainland.
■ If it stays on the course it is on now
orjthree days, it won’t hit the United
Jtes, ”he said. “But it is unlikely for a
iujiicane to remain on the same exact
rse for three days and this one is no
:eption.
In a general fashion, Harvey is fol-
ingEmily, Floyd and Cert. They all
ed into the north Atlantic without
jting real close to the United States. ”
lurricane forecasters also were
ching two other tropical weather
s.
was an area of disturbed weather
he Atlantic about 700 miles east of
Windward Islands, in the same gen-
[1 place where other 1981 storms have
^eloped.
It is not developing at the present
e,” Lawrence said, “but it is in the
(le place — the tropical Atlantic —
it the storms we’ve been tracking
te generally originated. It is a little
[further south from the others and we
i t know if we will see anything from
s one or not. ”
^awrence said the second area of dis
hed weather was moving across Cen-
1 America Sunday night.
‘We can’t be sure of anything at this
int,” he said. “It could cross Central
lerica and end up in the Pacific. It
ild go into the Atlantic or there could
nothing left of it.”
ins in the three countries in violation of
international law.
As Haig spoke, 50,000 jeering Young
Socialists, Communists, pacifists and
squatters marched through the city car
rying banners, some wearing masks and
skeleton-like suits.
“It’s not the Americans were
against,” said a demonstrator. “It’s their
nuclear arms policy.”
Police used water cannons and tear
gas to repel about 1,000 demonstrators
attempting to block a City Hall cere
mony. Police arrested 128 people and
60 officers were injured.
The militant protesters burned an
American flag, hurled stones and smoke
bombs, looted stores and set fires in the
street.
“We won’t let ourselves be defended
to death,” read a placard carried by de
monstrators. Another said “Mr. Haig,
there is nothing more important than
peace.”
“Even when we disagree with what
you say,” Haig said to the demonstra
tors, kept away by an estimated 7,000
police, “we are prepared to defend to
the death your right to say it.”
Moscow called the charge of biologic
al warfare “a monstrous, slanderous
statement” that is “unfounded and
false. ” The Kremlin countered that the
United States used chemical warfare in
Vietnam, supplied Afghan rebels with
chemical grenades and provided
U.S.made chemical bombs in El Sal
vador.
Haig promised more information
from Washington today but said it had
been verified that toxins — lethal che
micals created from fungi — have been
isolated in Southeast Asia.
He implied the Soviets were the
source of the toxins, which are forbid
den under international law, and said
the United States is notifying the Un
ited Nations.
Europeans, especially West Ger
mans, have shown increasing unease
over the Reagan administration’s milit
ary policies and what they view as a slow
start to talks to control the arms race.
Reagan modifies
defense budget
United Press International
WASHINGTON — President
Reagan is gearing up for another cost
cutting campaign — one that includes
cuts in defense, but not nearly as big as
earlier contemplated.
During the next three years, Reagan
— trying to get back on track to his goal
of a balanced budget by 1984 — wants to
slash another $77 billion from domestic
programs and a comparatively small $13
billion from defense.
Anticipating criticism, Reagan said
Sunday the Pentagon has been treated
like a “poor relative” in the past and now
needs a relatively bigger portion of the
federal financial pie.
Today, Reagan planned to confer pri
vately at the White House with 19 con
servative Democrats who helped him
last summer in pushing the first phase of
his budget and tax cuts through Con
gress.
Those spending cuts did not touch
defense.
In a fence-mending gesture, he also
invited House Speaker Thomas O’Neill,
D-Mass., to have lunch with him at the
White House, along with House Re
publican leader Bob Michel of Illinois.
The size of the proposed defense cuts
are less than half that earlier discussed
by White House aides and were seen as
a victory for Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger, who squared off with
budget director David Stockman over
the possibility of bigger cuts.
On his return to the White House
Sunday from a weekend at Camp
David, Reagan said the military cuts
represent 15 percent of the overall re
duction he needs to hold the line on a
$42.5 billion budget deficit in fiscal
1982.
On the another front, Reagan said he
hopes senators “will not get their feet in
concrete” in opposing his proposed $8.5
billion arms package sale to Saudia
Arabia.
He said that sale, which would in
clude five sophisticated AWACS sur
veillance planes, would enhance U.S.
security and will be “a great help to the
security of Israel. ”
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin, during his visit to Washington
last week, told Reagan he opposed the
sale and urged senators to vote against
it. Begin maintains the planes would
allow Saudi Arabia to steal its military
secrets and endanger Israeli security.
Speaking of defense spending,
Reagan told reporters, “The $2 billion
(for 1982) is all that we can ask.”
“When you stop to think,” Reagan
said, “We’ve been cutting a budget that
has been overgrown ... and extravagant
over the years, while in the same years,
defense has been a poor relative and we
have not been keeping pace.”
Reagan did not pinpoint where the
$13 billion in military cuts will be made,
but it is expected they will be achieved
by slowing the pace of armed forces ex
pansion and the stockpiling of an arsenal
abroad.
Touch-up work
Staff photo by Brian Tate
With the aid of a crane, Virgil Hartfield and
Leroy Cody are busy applying a fresh coat of
paint to A&M President Frank Vandivers’ new
home. With the recent re-occupation of the
President’s house on campus, it has received
some extra attention from Physical Plant
personnel. Job foreman Bill Barnett said in
addition to the paint job, the home is scheduled
to have the rear wing remodeled and the patio
enclosed.
Off-campus Aggies elections
100 presidencies to be filled
Off-campus Aggies are looking for stu
dents to fill presidential positions on
apartment and trailer-park councils. In
terested day students can file for candi
dacy today through Friday.
About 100 apartment and trailer park
ed students prepare to deal with ethics
By TIM FOARDE
Battalion Reporter
has been more than 2,300 years
:e the Greek Hippocrates comman-
■ physicians to practice their “... art
® 'iprightness and honor. ...” But as
ijtdkal technology advances, doctors
defaced with increased moral responsi
bility and more puzzling ethical issues.
■It will be John McDermott’s job to
I ■pare medical students at Texas A&M
■iversity to deal with these ethical
Kstions.
■McDermott, former head of the De-
Btment of Philosophy at Texas A&M,
is [now responsible for the medical
■vanities program in the College of
■dicine.
■ McDermott assumed the position
■pt t, and is teaching freshman clas
ses in medical humanities, sociology,
Miies and discussions on the relation
ship of medicine to public policy and
-technology. Texas A&M is one of a
wing number of medical schools re
tiring such courses in ethics.
I The nation at-large has become in-
jjpteasingly concerned with the ethical
iaml humanistic concerns of the practice
ej medicine,” McDermott said. “The
jColIege of Medicine at Texas A&M
nts to insure that its students are
lined in the medical humanities.”
Medical humanities is a discipline
concerns itself with the complex
Bftivities of physicians in their relation
ships to patients, ethical values and the
c foss-currents of social and political
'fclues, McDermott said.
With the increase in medical capabi-
ies from scientific and technological
ifogress, today doctors must deal with
stch complex questions as abortion,
dfolonging the life of terminally ill pa-
ifents and the use of bioengineering in
Srietics.
B At some time in their careers,
John McDermott
McDermott said, doctors will have to
make decisions involving ethical and
moral questions, and this makes prepa
ration in ethics imperative.
“It is now possible to keep old people
alive and assure the survival of infants
who previously would have died. Doc
tors can detect infant disease and defor
mity before birth. People have access to
life-sustaining equipment that is very
expensive and hard to come by, creating
competition for its use,” McDermott
said. “All these things create new ethic
al problems for physicians.”
The purpose of classes in medical
humanities is not to give students
answers to moral questions, he said, but
to open discussion on these issues and
cause the students to reflect upon the
implications of their decisions.
“We don’t have a whole bag of tricks
that we’re going to teach doctors,”
McDermott said. “These issues are ex
tremely complex and have been made
more complex by the advent of high-
technology.
McDermott, who is still teaching in
the philosophy department part-time as
a distinguished professor, said philo
sophers can help doctors by providing a
different perspective and a richer con
text in which to examine ethical issues.
“One of the tasks of philosophy in
medical humanities is to make sure that
moral and ethical questions are argued
reasonably and that the decisions made
by the individual physicians reflect an
informed decision,” he said.
“It is very important to develop pat
terns of sensitivity, compassion and
concern, to see that medicine is not only
a science, but an art, ” McDermott said.
“What philosophy demands from a per
son is that they sustain their position
with reflection and analysis; this is cru
cial.”
Students in the Texas A&M College
of Medicine will be exposed to strong
philosophical arguments in support of
different points of view through
McDermott’s medical humanities
courses and discussions. “The medical
profession,” McDermott said, “must
have the very best people in every way,
not only skillfully and technically, but
emotionally and morally.
“Philosophy must make a contribu
tion to medicine because it is one of the
most important endeavors in our cul
ture. It touches on all aspects of our life:
politics, economics, society, and our
personal and mental health.”
positions are available, OCA President
Paul Bettencourt said. Ideally, every
apartment complex and trailer park will
elect a president. However, he said,
probably only about 80 presidents will
be elected.
Comparing apartment council presi
dents to presidents of dorms, Betten
court said the officers are responsible
for keeping students in their complexes
informed about OCA and campus activi
ties. They also act as go-betweens for
students and apartment managers, he
said.
Students running for apartment
council president must have a petition
signed by 20 students from their area
and an overall 2.0GPR. Freshmen must
have a 2.0 at midterm.
Petitions, grade waiver forms and
additional information are available in
the off-campus center and the OCA
cublicle in 216 MSC. Completed forms
should be turned in by 5 p.m. Friday.
Students can begin campaigning as
soon as their forms are turned in, Bet
tencourt said. And elections will be held
Sept. 23 and 24 at all shuttle bus stops.
Iran blames insider
with leaders’ deaths
United Press International
Urban guerrillas fought revolutionary
guards in the fifth straight day of blazing
street battles in Tehran amid disclo
sures that the secretary of the Islamic
regime’s security council set the bomb
that killed Iran’s president and prime
minister last month.
The government announced Sunday
that elections would be held Oct. 2 to
replace slain President Mohammed Ali
Rajai and parliamentary deputies assas
sinated recently.
Tehran Radio said 78 members of the
Mojahideen Khalq guerrilla group were
executed during a three-day period en
ding Saturday for armed robbery, assas
sinations and attacks on military cen
ters.
Undeterred, exile sources said fight
ing erupted Sunday in two separate
areas of Tehran as leftist guerrillas
struck for the fifth straight day.
In a Tehran Radio interview, Iran’s
prosecutor-general said the secretary of
the Islamic regime’s security council,
Massoud Kashmiri, detonated the
bomb that destroyed the prime minis
ter’s office Aug. 30, killing Rajai and
Bahonar.
Prosecutor-General Rabbani
Amlashi called Kashmiri “a savage wolf
prepared to destroy in a single explosion
both Rajai and Bahonar” and said other
officials should not be blamed for the
bombing.
Kashmiri, who died in the blast, was
so trusted that he was given a martyr’s
funeral after the bombing, Amlashi
said.
He said Kashmiri worked under cov
er in the prime minister’s office for a
year and was eventually named secret
ary of the prime minister’s security
council, Amlashi said.
No-record
drops end
Tuesday
Tuesday is the last day students may
drop courses without having a record
of their enrollment in the classes. And
after Tuesday, students have until
Oct. 2 to drop courses with no penalty
(Q-drop).
Other dates to keep in mind this
semester include:
Oct. 19 — mid-semester grade re
ports
Nov. 26-29, inclusive — Thank
sgiving holidays
Dec. 11 — last day of fall semester
classes; commencement
Dec. 12 — commencement
Dec. 14 — first day of fall semester
exams
Dec. 18 — last day of fall semester
exams
Spring semester classes will begin
Jan. 18, 1982.