The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, December 14, 1983, Image 1

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United Press International
outsiana electrocuted killer
rt Wayne Williams early
nesday, just hours after the Sup-
je Court stayed the execution of a
irgia convict scheduled to die later
he day.
j|j Georgia officials prepared to ex-
a second Georgia Death Row
: Thursday.
iVilliams, 31, convicted of murder-
agrocery clerk during a robbery,
put to death in the state’s electric
shortly after 1 a.m. GST at the
cprison in Angola. He had visited
aniily members hours earlier,
rison officials described him as
it and hopeful but not confident
life would be spared.
iVilliams was electrocuted about an
rafter the Supreme Court denied
[juest for a stay. He was the 10th
i, and the second black, to be ex
ited since the court lifted its ban of
death penalty in 1976.
ust a few hours before Williams
,the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to
le a stay of execution for Alpha
O’Daniel Stephens. The court
lered Stephens’ death date delayed
until the full 11th U.S. circuit Court of
Appeals can hear another Georgia
death case with a bearing on his.
The American Givil Liberties Un
ion said the prospect of three execu
tions in two days would make the Un
ited States look like “one of the
world’s great executioners.”
In the Stephens case, Justice Lewis
Powell wrote a 9-page dissent to the
ruling and was joined by Chief Justice
Warren Burger and Justices William
Rehnquist and Sandra Day
O’Connor.
Stephens, who was rejected in his
bid for a last-minute stay by the Geor
gia Board of Pardons and Paroles,
had been scheduled for execution at 7
a.m. GST this morning at the state
prison.
His attorneys had argued racial dis
crimination by an all-white jury re
sulted in his death sentence for
abducting and killing a Macon man in
1974.
The U.S. District Court in Baton
Rouge rejected Williams’ request fora
stay and less than two hours later Gov.
Dave Treen also refused to stop his
execution.
The Board of Pardons and Paroles
refused to intervene for John Eldon
Smith, clearing the way for him to die
Thursday in the state’s electric chair.
Both Georgia inmates were under a
“death watch” in special cells — near
the electric chair — and under con
stant supervision.
Smith, 53, who said his wife talked
him into taking an Italian name and
killing a Macon, Ga., couple in 1974 so
he could become a “Mafia hit man,” is
scheduled to be executed Thursday at
7 a.m. GST.
Williams, the divorced father of
four, admitted killing 67-year-old
security guard Willie Kelly during a
1979 grocery store robbery in Baton
Rouge. But he insisted his borrowed
sawed-off shotgun went off acciden
tally because it lacked a firing pin.
“We are now witnessing the re
sumption of executions on a substan
tial scale and this country, at the rate
at which we are presently going, is
going to become one of the world’s
great executioners,” said Henry
Schwarzschild, director of the
ACLU’s campaign against capital
punishment.
hips shelling Syrians
U.S. retaliating fire
the toss it
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ir 29. Di
ames U
■ in tin:
I United Press International
.U-yarf! | EIR uT —U.S.6th Fleet warships
uothftf j jjj e j r 5_j nc h g U ns Tuesday to
an j'P Jnd anti-aircraft batteries that
i to kid j) on American planes flying re-
inaissance missions over the Sy-
etedJh n-controlled mountains of
js-gmj anon.
Is for tin shortly a f't e r the naval barrage,
it kansai ners i n the hills opened fire with
urthpla? || ei .y some 0 f it falling near the
U-yards denceof U.S. ambassador Regin-
tor 411) Bartholomew in the Beirut suburb
a* ilo"? hue.
■No casualties were reported and
reconnaissance planes returned
ly to the carrier LISS Independ-
the Newl
af San
of Clettli
hree qiif
: 4,000 dll
s the secoi
triesH
fampate
game of
The naval barrage came in re-
nseto missile and anti-aircraft fire
Wo U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat jets and
rked the second time American
:es have retaliated for such anti-
raft fire. American jets hit Syrian
positions in Lebanon Dec. 4, but two
U.S. planes were downed by anti
aircraft fire.
State television in the Syrian capital
of Damascus said one Syrian military
vehicle was hit by the gunfire but did
not mention casualties.
The battleship USS New Jersey
went on alert to fire its nine mammoth
16-inch guns hut did not take part in
the naval fire, officials said.
The Pentagon said at least two sur
face-to-air missiles and a hail of anti
aircraft fire were directed at the F-14s
about 7 miles north of Hammana, a
village 13 miles east of Beirut.
“The aircraft completed their mis
sion and returned safely to the Inde
pendence,” the Pentagon said.
The Pentagon said the return fire
by the two ships was in keeping with
U.S.policy to retaliate for attacks
against U.S. reconnaissance planes.
Earlier in the day, a French soldier
was killed by small arms fire while his
unit in the French contingent of the
multi-national peacekeeping forces
was patrolling in Moslem West Beirut.
A French spokesman said the troops
returned fire.
In Damascus, thousands of resi
dents marched through the streets in
a rally protesting the new U.S.-Israeli
strategic military cooperation agree
ment.
A group known as the Islamic Holy
War claimed responsibility for the car
bomb which blew up the U.S. Embas
sy in Kuwait in which four people
died.
“If they (the Americans) attack us,
our Arab people will not confine the
conflict to the battlefront (in Lebanon
and Syria) but will widen the confron
tation front to engulf all Arab terri
tories” the Syrian official said. “We
will not surrender to American impe
rialism. ”
)
eople get peace prize,
Tiolice harass Walesa
■pC United Press International
J iWARSAW — Lech Walesa marked
I second anniversary of martial law
jesday by donating his Nobel Peace
itenutiMil ize to the Polish people. Police
proposcil 1 rassed Walesa, his wife and a priest
ball di e!! d detained them as they drove
e Univei-' me from the ceremony,
gotherdi The Rev. Henryk Jankowski, a
i practiceise friend of the Walesas, said he,
lid Mondwlesa and Walesa’s wife were body-
irmation*'
.thefacii 1
Itched and along with the couple’s
son detained for two hours as police
repeatedly stopped them for identity
checks.
“They wanted to humiliate us,”
Jankowski said.
Walesa, the former Solidarity un
ion leader, was held in an internment
camp for 11 months following the
Dec. 13, 1981, martial law crackdown.
He marked the anniversary Tuesday
in a solemn ceremony at the 14th cen
tury Jasna Gora monastery in Czes
tochowa.
The monastery is the site of the
Icon of the Black Madonna — Po
land’s holiest Catholic shrine.
Walesa, who won this year’s Nobel
Peace Prize for his role in founding
Solidarity, the Communist bloc’s first
independent trade union, dedicated
his award to the “whole nation” in a
prayer service before the altar of the
icon.
See POLAND page 13
Serving the University community
Wednesday, December 14, 1983
Is this your car?
Officer Bobby Clay of the College Station evening. No one was injured when the car,
Police Department inspects this Datsun after parked across from Campus Theater along
it was hit by a runaway trailer Tuesday University Drive, was hit,
Panel wants legal age
for drinking set at 21
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A presidential
commission Tuesday recommended a
ban on teenage drinking and prop
osed mandatory license suspensions,
plus jail terms, for drunken drivers to
stop the slaughter on the nation’s
highways.
“We must focus on bringing about
changes in society’s attitude of tolera
tion toward drunkenness and drunk
driving,” the Presidential Commis
sion on Drunk Driving said in a re
port.
The panel said states should set the
legal drinking age at 21 — erasing a
checkerboard of conflicting statutes
— and proposed a mandatory 90-day
license suspension for the first convic
tion of drunken driving, plus either
two days in jail or 100 hours of com
munity service work.
Subsequent convictions should
mean definite, longer jail terms, it
said.
“The law must have some bite if we
are to deter drinking and driving,”
the commission said in a report to
President Reagan. “Mandatory jail
sentences or directed work and
license suspensions should effectively
deter driving under the influence.”
Reagan, who set up the panel in
April 1982, noted 250,000 Americans
have been killed during the past 10
years because of drunken driving.
“Drunk driving is a national
menace, a national tragedy and a na
tional disgrace,” he said in a statement
at a White House ceremony receiving
the panel’s recommendation.
John Volpe, former transportation
secretary and head of the special
panel, said, “If we hope to reduce the
number of alcohol-related highway
tragedies, we must make it socially un
acceptable to drive after drinking,
which is one of our major objectives.”
Reagan, as he awarded Volpe the
Presidential Gitizen’s Medal, said,
“Every accident we prevent will keep
all Americans from suffering and give
our nation a merrier Christmas.”
“Drunk driving isn’t a bad habit to
be excused. It’s a crime and it should
be stopped,” Reagan said.
In a key decision, the commission
concluded the states — not the federal
government — must be responsible
for setting a uniform drinking age.
Nineteen states already have set 21 as
a minimum drinking age for all alco
holic beverages and 26 states prohibit
selling hard liquor to those under 21.
“States should immediately adopt
21 years as the minimum legal pur
chasing and public possession age for
alcoholic beverages,” the report said.
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{&M scientist named as U.S. delegate
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by Michelle Powe
Battalion Staff
A member of Texas A&M’s facul
ty has been selected to represent the
United States in a multi-national
conference in Stockholm, Sweden
beginning in January.
Dr. Lynn Hansen, an associate
research scientist with the Center
for Strategic Technology, has been
named the deputy head for the
American delegation in Stockholm,
under James Goodby. Goodby is a
former American ambassador to
Finland and the former number two
man of the START negotiations.
The United States, Canada and
every European nation except Alba
nia will participate in the Confer
ence on Confidence — and Security
— uilding Measures and Disarma
ment in Europe.
Hansen says the January confer
ence will be the only negotiation
going on because the Soviets have
indefinately suspended arms talks
by either walking out of or refusing
to set resumption dates for all other
negotiations.
Hansen says the conference will
deal only with confidence and secur
ity building measures, some of
which suggest that countries notify
each other about military manuev-
ers involving more than 25,000 sol
diers and invite each other to
observe such military manuevers.
The results of the conference will
be evaluated in a follow-up meeting
in Vienna in 1986. If approved, a
second conference will deal with dis
armament in Europe.
“Most of the European nations
are enthusiatic, if not optimistic, ab
out having another negotiating
forum in which East can talk to
West,” Hansen said. “Stockholm will
be the only one where all of Europe
talks.”
But, Hansen said, because the
Soviets will come into the confer
ence having suffered a political de
feat over the deployment of Amer
ican missiles in Europe, they will
want “to do some very radical kinds
of things to neutralize the defeat
they’ve suffered.”
He said the Soviets will make
proposals which on the surface will
be appealing to Western European
publics, and will propose measures
they have proposed in the past.
Hansen said the Soviets will prob
ably promise to never be the first to
use nuclear weapons and will prom
ise to never use nuclear weapons
against countries which do not have
nuclear weapons on their territory.
They also will propose a non
aggression treaty between East and
West, he said.
By proposing measures favorable
to Western Europeans, Hansen said,
the Soviets will try to “drive and
separate the United States from
Western Europe. And they will try
to turn the nuclear defeat, in terms
of the deployment of missiles, into a
further wedge to drive between the
U.S. and its allies.”
Hansen said that by refusing to
name a date to resume arms talks
with the United States the Soviets
hope “to put pressure upon the Un
ited States through the allies to con
tinue negotiations — on Soviet
terms.”
“They’ve said already that they
would not go back to the negotia
tions in Geneva until we return to
the situation that existed before the
deployment of missiles,” Hansen
said. “It will never end up that way.
The United States will not withdraw
any missiles it has put in Europe.”
See STOCKHOLM page 13
In today’s Battalion:
• U.S. Rep. Phil Gramm visits
Bryan/College Station and discusses
the economy with residents. See
story page 3.
• If you live in a dorm, you need to
check out by 6 p.m. Friday. If you’re
staying, you need to contact the
Housing Office. See story page 3.
• Shuttle buses will run on a limited
schedule Thursday and Friday. See
story page 3.
• Child abuse often goes unnoticed
or unreported, even in Bryan/Col
lege Station. See story page 12.
• An aviation panel says the crew of
the Soviet-downed Korean Air
Lines jet was blameless. See story
page 13.
• A&M faculty and staff offer tips on
holiday plants, turkeys, gifts for the
elderly and driving home after par
ties. See page 14.
Battalion schedule
Today is the final edition of The
Battalion for the fall semester. The
paper will be published Jan. 11, the
first day of delayed registration and
drop/adds. Daily publication re
sumes Jan. 16, the first class day for
the spring semester 1984.
The Battalion staff wishes you a
safe trip home, a merry Christmas
and happy, healthy New Year.