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II
The Battalion
Serving the University community
Vol. 76 No. 54 USPS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, November 15, 1982
^Brezhnev is buried; U.S. is warned
United Press International
MOSCOW — President Leonid
I Brezhnev was buried today in a
Bolemn Red Square funeral that drew
presidents, premiers and princes to
lonor the man who ruled the world’s
Jiost powerful communist nation for
18 years.
Brezhnev’s successor, Communist
Party chief Yuri Andropov, eulogized
Jiim as a “true son of the party” who
built up the nation’s economy and
[ military power.
Brezhnev’s black coffin was lo
wered into a grave in a tiny cemetery
reserved for the most revered Soviet
statesmen behind the Lenin
Mausoleum.
Worked stopped around the coun
try for five minutes as bells pealed
and factory whistles blared, followed
by a moment of silence.
Brezhnev’s coffin was drawn
across the soldier-lined empty square,
on a gun carriage. The coffin was
escorted by a military honor guard
and followed by grieving family mem
bers and party officials.
Speaking over Brezhnev’s open
casket atop Lenin’s tomb, Andropov
delivered the eulogy to the man who
presided over the largest military
buildup in Soviet history and watched
detente with the West crumble in his
later years.
“In a complicated international
situation, where imperialism is
pushing the world to the path of con
frontation, our party and our govern
ment will do their best to struggle to
preserve the interests of our people to
rebuff any of those who want war,
and to strengthen our defense
might,” Andropov said.
Defense Minister Dmitry Usitnov
echoed Andropov’s clear warning to
the West, saying Brezhnev, a marshal
of the Soviet Union, always showed a
“fatherly concern” for the Soviet
army and navy.
As they spoke, foreign delegates
watched from gray stone benches on
either side of the marble tomb.
Among them were Polish leader Gen.
Wqjciech Jaruzelski, Cuban leader
Fidel Castro and Palestinian guerrilla
chief Yasser Arafat.
Vice President George Bush and
Secretary of State George Schultz
headed the U.S. delegation at today’s
70-minute ceremony, along with
more than 100 other foreign digni
taries.
Bush and Shultz were expected to
meet with Andropov at a Kremlin re
ception after the rites.
The funeral began at the House of
Unions, where Brezhnev’s body hand
lain for three days on a bier covered
with flowers.
An honor guard, carrying
bayonetted rifles and goosestepping
to the strain’s of Chopin’s funeral
march, accompanied Brezhnev’s cof
fin at the head of procession of offic
ers bearing a huge portrait of the
dead leader.
Foreign students leave
home, come to A&M
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Pillow precaution prevents pain
Staff photo by Irene Mees
Sophomores Tara Coker, left, and Nancy
York prepare for the inevitable with a
pillow and crash-helmet Sunday afternoon.
Tara is a psychology major from Houston,
and Nancy is a finance major from
Lancaster.
Italy’s prime minister resigns
after battle over finance bill
United Press International
ROME— President Sandro Pertini
iccepted the resignation of Prime
Minister Giovanni Spadolini today,
bringing an end to Italy’s 42nd gov
ernment since World War II.
Spadolini allowed Pertini to watch
Italy’s World champion soccer team
lay Czechoslovakia on television, be
fore going to the presidential palace
to tender his resignation for the
second time this week.
When the 57-year-old Republican
government chief submitted his res
ignation to the 86-year-old Socialist
resident Thursday, Pertini rejected
it and told Spadolini to take the issue
before Parliament.
Spadolini offered his resignation
after he failed to successfully mediate
between the Socialists and the Christ
ian Democrats over a pending finance
bill, which Spadolini considered the
cornerstone of his government
program.
Spadolini went before the legisla
tive body and, after two days of de
bate and a Cabinet meeting today, he
issued a statement saying he had con
cluded that his Cabinet’s decision
“cannot be changed or modified.”
As is customary, the president
asked Spadolini to keep his govern
ment in a caretaker capacity while the
president conducted consultations to
form a new government. Pertini was
expected to start the consultations at 9
a.m. today.
In a final speech to parliament Fri
day, Spadolini spelled out the rift be
tween ministers in his cabinet that he
said left him no chance of repairing
his 5-party coalition.
After Spadolini spoke, the cham
ber began its debate on whether he
should resign because of a rift be
tween the Socialists and the Christian
Democrats — the two key parties in
his five-party coalition — over a cru
cial finance bill.
by Kim Schmidt
Battalion Reporter
Rajesh Patel, like most Texas A&M
students, came here to get an educa
tion and improve his chances of get
ting a good job.
He chose a major that will enable
him to earn a high salary and a uni
versity that is well-known and re
spected.
But unlike many of his fellow stu
dents, Patel is thousands of miles
from his homeland dealing with a cul
ture that is vastly different from his
own.
Patel is an international student.
A junior petroleum engineering
major, Patel, 26, is originally from In
dia. He’s one of a growing number of
international students at Texas A&M.
The University has 2,182 interna
tionals enrolled — an increase of
almost 650 students since 1980.'
That increase is proportional to the
enrollment increases of the Universi
ty as a whole, but it is significant be
cause a growing number of foreign
students will require expanded ser
vices and programs to accommodate
their needs, Assistant Director of
Admissions Jean Ringer said.
National authorities have sug
gested that international students’
needs will be met more efficiently if
universities keep the number of inter
national students at about 5 percent
of total enrollment. Texas A&M fits
this standard, but does not follow the
guideline strictly, Ringer said.
“We will take as many international
students as are eligible for admis
sion,” she said.
More than 100 countries are repre
sented by the University’s interna
tional students. Taiwan has the
largest number of international stu
dents with 204 enrolled this year and
Mexico follows with 203 students.
Overall, Latin American countries
account for the largest percentage of
international enrollment.
Foreign students come to the Un
ited States primarily to obtain an edu
cation that they may not have been
able to receive in their own countries,
Ringer said.
staff photo by John Ryan
Dayan Adhihetty, a graduate student in agricultural
economics from Sri Lanka, Michael Kendall, a junior
business major from Dallas, Wahid Slieman a senior
mechanical engineering major from Palestine, Dalia
Sayed, an agricultural economics major from Egypt and
Amer Ben-Ali, a pre-med major from Libya sit in the
International Students Association booth in the Student
Programs Office.
Political unrest in some countries
has led to the closing of universities
and has created an atmosphere so un
favorable that students seek refuge
and education abroad, she said.
Other students are forced to go
abroad because their own countries
are not fully developed and do not
have sufficient high-quality universi
ties, Ringer said.
Whatever their reasons for com
ing, most students agree that the
higher quality education they will re
ceive in the United States gives them
an edge in the competitive job mar
kets of their home countries.
Texas universities rank third
among the states chosen by interan-
tional students, with 23,415 interna
tional students in 1981. California has
52,289 students and New York
26,059 students.
Texas’ favorable climate and its
proximity to Latin America make it a
popular choice for international stu
dents.
And the reasons many of those stu
dents choose Texas A&M are varied.
Tina Watkins, international stu
dent advisor, said: “I had one student
tell me that he chose to come here
because he didn’t know there was
another university except Texas
A&M.”
The University may welcome the
reputation of being the only universi
ty in Texas, but most students choose
Texas A&M for its academics, Wat
kins said.
Many students especially are
attracted to the University because of
its reputation in such areas of study as
engineering, business and agriculture
— the areas most chosen by interna
tional students.
International students usually do
well in these subjects because the
courses involved in these fields are
math-oriented, she said. These stu
dents, who may have trouble with En
glish, are able to understand these
courses more easily than others be
cause they use symbols and equations
rather than readings and lectures.
But those students’ high school
backgrounds also may help them in
See STUDENTS, page 8
Science is for dreamers, Bockris says
by Robert McGlohon
Battalion Staff
Dr. John Bockris — electrochemist,
director of the Texas A&M Hyd
rogen Research Team and director-
designate of the Texas A&M Hyd
rogen Research Center — calls him
self a dreamer.
In fact, Bockris says, dreaming is a
prime prerequisite of research.
“I think it is terribly important Ur
have pools during the day where one
can sit and sort of say ‘Um’,” Bockris
said.
“That’s very, very vital. You have
to use what I call the ‘as if’ pose. You
have to say, ‘well it’s ... as if.’ You have
to just dream on away.”
Sometimes ideas will come to a sci
entist just like “switching on a light,”
Bockris said, if he’ll just allow himself
to dream.
“You have to be a little crazy,” he
said. “I would like to stress that. You
have to be a little irrational. A purely
rational scientist is a rotten scientist.
Purely rational people will never get
anywhere because new science is on
the border line of the irrational.”
Quantum mechanics is one of the
tvierdest theories ever to come along,
Dr. John Bokris
Bockris said. Yet it was an idea that
altered the shape of modern science.
“It was realized in 1923 or ’24 that
along with every particle, there was an
associated wave,” Bockris said. “What
a strange idea! What an eerie idea!
What a creepy idea! But it is the cen
ter of modern physics.
“Idea-getting is a great art. You get
ideas by nothing else than fantasy. In
fact, there is often little difference be
tween science fiction and original sci
ence.”
Bockris is head of a research team
whose discpvery was called science fic
tion. The research team announced
in early October that it had found a
more efficient method of extracting
hydrogen from water. Although
some scientists criticized the way the
discovery was announced, the discov
ery led to speculations of hydrogen-
based economies and a pollution-free
society.
“Many scientific ideas were science
fiction at first,” Bockris said. “They
aren’t science when they’re ideas. You
make them science by your research
work.
“I have concepts there which ex
tend far past the engineering and eco
nomics of it. Because I think that we
could see a world ... in which all coun
tries are connected up by hydrogen-
containing pipelines.”
A hydrogen-based economy is in
evitable; the only question is one of
time, Bockris said.
“If cheap hydrogen existed, there
is actually no doubt that everybody
would go to it and use it and that it
would be a much better fuel than any
thing else,” he said. “I don’t think any
one could dispute that.
“If I leave out time, then I can
make the following statements with
confidence: we are bound to run out
of fossil fuels ... and at the time we run
out of fossil fuels — which, of course,
will be a gradual process indicated by
rising prices — then there are essen
tially only two large sources which
we’ll be able to use. These are the
atomic source and the solar source.”
But those sources produce energy
by heat, which is difficult to store and
transfer, Bockris said.
That problem is overcome by using
the heat to produce electricity. But
electricity is hard to transfer efficient
ly and is expensive to store, he said.
“Universally admitted, the best
storage and transfer medium is
hyrogen,” Bockris said. “You must
not involve carbon. Because if you in
volve carbon, you end up with carbon
dioxide. And carbon dioxide is the
great no-no of tomorrow.
“That great no-no comes about be
cause of the effect on the atmosphere
of the carbon dioxide. Carbon diox
ide in the atmosphere, which is now
0.3 to 0.4 percent, as it mounts up to
past 0.5 and 0.6 percent, will make the
climate warmer. At first that might
seem to be good but it won’t be good
when it melts the polar ice and the
seas rise and flooding of the coastal
regions begins.
“We must stop carbon dioxide
from increasing in the atmosphere.
And we know of no way to do that
whilst we use fossil fuel.”
Bockris said he hopes to see the
spread of hydrogen gas lines around
2010 or 2020.
“I see hydrogen pipelines spread
ing just as we have natural gas pipe
lines now,” Bockris said. “I think we’ll
have all this hydrogen being pushed
all over the country from atomic
plants and also from solar plants.”
He said he hopes solar power will
be the predominate power source.
“My own hope is that it will be more
from solar plants than atomic plants,”
Bockris said. “I’m not one of those
individuals who is dead scared of nuc
lear energy. I do think they (atomic
plants) are not too good.
inside
Around town 4
Classified 8
Local . 3
National 7
Opinions 2
Sports 9
State 5
What’s up 6
forecast
Today’s Forecast: Clear skies to
day with cool temperatures, warm
ing slightly on Tuesday. High in
the upper 50s, with tonight’s low in
the mid-30s. Winds from the the
northeast at 10-15 mph.