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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 1984)
Star Trek creator speaks to Aggies Seepage? Aggies fall to SMU in OX, 60-58 I Mahre twins take gold and silver ® s • The Battalion Serving the University community Vol 78 Mo. 98 GSRS 0453110 10 pages College Station, Texas Monday, February 20, 1984 $CONA ends despite speak er’s dilemma Speaker By ROBIN BLACK Staff Writer jAfter three days of breakfasts, undies, brunches, receptions, feeches, group discussions and late- licht parties, everyone involved in any way with the 29th Student Con- febnce on National Affairs greeted he final day of the event with con- liciing emotions. iAfter a year of hard work and planning, I have mixed feelings about the conference,” SCON A 29 chairman Alan Hill said in a speech aifthe awards brunch Saturday. ■Tm happy with the way things went and I feel good about the con ference,” he said, “but at the same time I’m kind of sad that it’s over.” ■Those feelings seemed to be felt by ulsi about everyone at the brunch, as jople wandered around, many in ears, bidding farewell to new friends ami hugging co-workers. ■“1 can’t believe it’s over,” tearful Hospitality Vice Chairman Shannon Yetis said. ilhere were many people involved inSCONA 29, too. Twenty-eight ex ecutives in charge of everything from operations to finance, about 80 gen- pil committee members, faculty ad- feors, sponsors, and many more be hind-the-scenes people that remain anonymous made the SVa-day con ference possible. But, as Hill told everyone at the irunch, the conference would not iave been possible without the 140- dus delegates. JThe delegates, coming from across T;exas and the rest of the North American continent, were the ones who stimulated discussion on what the speakers had to say. They were the ones who were chosen by their SCONA speaker Arthur Miller talks with delegates respective colleges for the leadership abilities they had demonstrated in the past and for their potential as fu ture leaders. Besides their role as the real “thin kers” at the conference, the dele gates, who came from places such as California, Iowa, New York, Canada, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador, appeared to be having quite a good time at the conference. Many of the Canadian delegates arrived in town a day or two early for the conference, and wasted no time in acquainting themselves with the campus. Shelley Paulson, a delegate from Canada, found Texas A&M to be a great tourist trap. • “I’ve already bought two Aggie t- shirts, a mug and some stickers,” she said, decked out in maroon and white at the post-conference party Saturday night. And the speakers seemed to be having a good time, too. Harvard law professor Arthur Miller, who delivered an address Thursday on media and privacy and was in the area for the first lime, walked into the pre-speech press conference with a Texas A&M mug, and later that day had visited the Cow Hop, Charlie’s and the Dixie Chicken before leaving College Sta tion. Warning sent to guerrillas Israeli warplanes hit targets in Lebanon United Press International EIRUT — Israeli warplanes struck ilinday in an area overrun by Druze loslem rebels last week in an appar- nt warning not to let Palestinian ;ueirillas approach Israeli-occupied south Lebanon. ■The Israeli strikes also hit alleged ’alestinian headquarters in the untains east of the towns of amdoun and Hamana, which have n pounded repeatedly, most re- tly nine days earlier. Israeli officials said the planes earned in from the sea to hit a Iding taken over by “terrorists” in ame on the outskirts of Damour, coastal town 11 miles south of Jirut that was taken by the Druze rom the Lebanese army on Wednes- JPI reporters found the target was a sawmill. There was no military equipment at the site and the only confirmed casualties were one Ban gladeshi employee killed and seven Bangladeshis injured. Lebanese officials said surface-to- air missiles were fired at the Israeli planes but Israel said all planes re turned safely to base. The Israeli attack followed warn ings by the Israeli government to the Druze not to allow Palestinians through their new conquests toward the Israeli troops holding south Leb anon. The attack followed days of Israeli patrols north of their occupation zone in south Lebanon along the coast that also seemed a warning to the Druze. The Israeli airstrike and contin ued artillery exchanges between the Druze and the remnants of the Leb anese army came as the Italian con tingent of the multinational force be gan its withdrawal from Beirut. The first Italian convoy moved out of their west Beirut headquarters at dawn, crossing the “green line” that divides the capital into religious en claves, and loaded an Italian ship docked in east Beirut. After a night of savage fighting along the “green line,” the guns went silent for the Italians, although one soldier was later hit by a stray bullet at the port. While in Beirut, the Italian peace keepers had two soldiers killed and less than 30 wounded. The Ameri cans lost 265 troops in Lebanon and the French lost 77 soldiers. The Brit ish did not have casualties. An Israeli military source said Sunday’s attack was “purely against terrorist activity from the building” and was not carried out to support U.S.-backed Lebanese President Amin Gemayel. The Israelis invaded Lebanon in June 1982 to rid it of Palestinian guerrillas and have occupied south ern Lebanon ever since. There have been recent unconfirmed reports that Palestinian gunmen had re turned to southern Lebanon. Outside Beirut, Druze and Chris tian Phalange radio reported artil lery exchanges at the last army posi tion in the mountains, the village of Souk El Gharb, which is only 3 miles from the presidential palace. Both sides reported the other hit ting population centers in the region of the main battle, with the Druze re porting attacks on mountain villages and the Phalange describing shelling on suburbs of Christian east Beirut. With Gemayel beset by a series of rebel victories, the government said Foreign Minister Elie Salem and presidential security adviser Wadie Haddad both left for talks in Wash ington. Druze radio said the raids by the Israeli warplanes both in the moun tains and along the coast “caused material damage but no casualties ex cept some civilians in Nameh.” Huge stores of wood in the sawmill were burning out of control an hour after the raid. A seriously wounded Bangladeshi man staggered out of the burning mill. “Thirteen of us live in the factory. I worked there for two years. There were no Palestinians,” he said • misses plane By ROBIN BLACK Staff Writer The 29th Student Conference on National Affairs almost didn’t end. It almost didn’t end because Ar- naud de Borchgrave, scheduled to end the conference with a closing ad dress, was nowhere to be found until Saturday morning. De Borchgrave, former chief for eign correspondent for Newsweek magazine, was supposed to arrive in College Station Friday night and de liver the closing address at the con ference Saturday morning. Byt, proving that even famous people are human, too, he missed his flight from Houston and wound up driving into town early Saturday morning. The SCONA executives didn’t know this however, and feared they weren’t going to have a closing ad dress. Their worst fears luckily were not realized, because he was found Sat urday morning sitting in the press conference room in the Memorial Student Center. De Borchgrave, told the audience in Rudder Theater that George Or well was being optimistic in his book “1984” when he warned of the disin formation that could be fed to the public. Using the KGB as his example, De Borchgrave said the American media are being manipulated to use propa ganda. He said the information division of the KGB gives false information to the press about everything in gen eral, but one specific subject for which misinformation is provided is Soviet leaders. Propaganda about the political stands and even personalities of lead ers from Stalin to Andropov to Cher nenko is turned out by the KGB to the press to try and change America’s image of them. “This sort of thing goes on, and there’s no way to stop it,” he said, “but what I feel is most alarming is the omission of information that might change views; information that is withheld by the opinion-mold- ers who don’t want a change. “What Orwell never anticipated in “1984” was that what he warned of would come true in a society where people are free to think and act.” De Borchgrave charged that the propaganda reports are an effort by the communists to destroy the Amer ican democracy. “Soviet disinformation officers are trained experts in over-simplified propaganda statements designed to distort western views,” he said. He said that the media should avoid using the slogan terms cranked out by the KGB. “When they do this,” he said, “the media become a very powerful in strument of illusion.” oviets ready to start relations ith Reagan’s administration In Today’s Battalion United Press International MOSCOW — The Soviet Union aid Sunday it is prepared to start mproving relations with the Jnited States if the Reagan admin- stration will negotiate on the basis )f“equality and equal security.” The message, carried by the ommunist Party newspaper Yavda in an editorial devoid of the tarsh language of most recent So- det statements, came six days after he selection of Konstantin Cher- tenko as the new Soviet leader. “The Soviet Union is most defi- litely in favor of agreeing on large- icale measures for strengthening rust,” the editorial said. The editorial said the Soviet posi- ron was outlined by Chernenko luring a meeting last Tuesday with fice President George Bush, who vas in Moscow for the funeral of Resident Yuri Andropov. Andro- »vdied Feb. 9. “The general secretary made the “The general secretary made the point that So- viet-American relations should be based on equal ity and equal security, on mutual consideration for legitimate interests of the other side. ” point that Soviet-American rela tions should be based on equality and equal security, on mutual con sideration for legitimate interests of the other side,” Pravda said. “If the American side were to show a practical willingness to abide by these principles, this would make it possible to start normaliz ing relations between the two coun tries,” it said. Absent from the editorial was Andropov’s demand the United States show a “readiness” to remove nuclear-tipped Pershing-2 and cruise missiles from Europe before the Soviet Union agrees to resume Geneva talks on limiting medium- range nuclear weapons. Andropov’s demand was printed in Pravda on Nov. 25, two days af ter the Soviets walked out of the talks and about a week before the initial deployment of Pershing-2 and cruise missiles in West Ger many and Britain. A Western diplomat said the omission of references to Andro pov’s demand “was no accident.” “It sounds like they are ap proaching the question of relations on a broader scale than just missiles in Europe,” he said. Bush last week said it was too early to predict if his meeting with Chernenko would lead to a re sumption of the Geneva negotia tions. He characterized the spirit of the half-hour session as “excellent.” Pravda repeated two steps first outlined by Andropov for improv ing the chances for a renewed dia logue with the United States. “If, for instance, the United States were to obligate itself, as the Soviet Union has done, not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, this would have a substantial influ ence on the world climate,” Pravda said. Or, it said, “An international agreement not to use armed force at all would also make for a sizeable measure of trust.” Both proposals have been re jected in the past by the United States as unenforceable declara tions issued mainly for their propa ganda value. Local * Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, journeyed . ^ to Aggieiand and talked about his famed series. See story page 7. , Y ( ij “ SCONA speakers give their views on the exclusion of the media in the Grenada invasion. See # The Aggies settle for &rd place in meet held over the State <• s T ^ J T-j ♦ The Texas Coalition of Black Democrats voted to support Jesse Jackson over Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election. • Texas police officers say they’re protesting off-duty jobs by issuing less tickets. See story page 8.