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.