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Serving the University community
Vol. 80 Mo. 63 GSPS 045360 10 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, Movember 28, 1984
Yasser Arafat resigns
as chairman of PLO’s
leading committee
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United Press International
AMMAN, Jordan — Yasser Ar
afat, head of the Palestine Liberation
Organization since it was created 20
years ago, abruptly resigned Tues
day as chairman of the group’s exec
utive committee, a spokesman said.
Arafat submitted his resignation
to the Palestine National Council,
the Palestinians’ parliament-in-exile,
at the end of a two-hour speech,
PLO spokesman Ahmad Abdul Rah
man said.
The reasons for the move were
unclear and Rahman declined to dis
cuss specifics, but he did say Arafat
was responding to pressure put on
his leadership by four Syrian-backed
factions that ousted him from Leb
anon last December in heavy fight
ing.
“If pressure against the Palestin
ian revolution (PLO) would be re
duced through his resignation, he
was willing to submit it,” Rahman
said. Asked if he was referring to
Syria, he said, “yesl”
At the end of each annual Pales
tine National Council, members of
the PLO executive committee nor
mally resign, so a new membership
can be elected, and there is always
the chance that PNC delegates, re
fusing to accept Arafat’s resignation,
will reappoint him chairman.
Arafat, 55, has been chairman of
the PLO, which is seeking a home
land for Palestinians, since its cre
ation in 1964, and he has survived
attempts to oust him.
“Abu Ammar (Arafat’s nom de
guerre) is the property of the Pales
tinian people, and his resignation
should be decided by them,” said
Rahman, a strong Arafat supporter.
Arafat’s speech, during which he
reviewed PLO developments since
the council met last in February
1983, was closed to reporters. Rah
man said it was interrupted at va
rious points by applause and Arafat
supporters called him “the symbol of
the Palestinian revolution and our
leader until victory.”
Rahman said Arafat’s resignation
took many in attendance by “com
plete surprise,” and that 10 mem
bers of the committee immediately
made speeches imploring him to
withdraw it.
In apparent preparation for his
resignation, Arafat took seats in the
third or fourth rows of the meetings
the past two days, instead of his
usual place in the front row.
The current PNC session is being
boycotted by the Syrian-backed re
bels who have been most vocal in de
manding Arafat's ouster.
The PLO’s executive committee
and the central committee each went
into emergency session for dis
cussions after Arafat’s announce
ment, Rahman said.
Rahman said Arafat explained
during his speech his reasons for vis
iting Fgypt last December after the
Syrian-backed PLO rebels drove him
and 400 fighters from the northern
Lebanese port of Tripoli.
Egypt, on the basis of the 1979
Camp David treaty, is the only Arab
nation at peace with Israel, and calls
for Arafat’s resignation intensified
after the bearded guerrilla chief
warmly embraced Egyptian Presi
dent Hosni Mubarak last December.
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A&M tackles problems
facing University today
Elephant walk
photo by DEANSAITO
Senior yell leader Terry Hlavinka climbs up
onto the statue of Sul Ross to begin yells that
kicked-off elephant walk Tuesday af
ternoon.
Money
Campus machines may provide students with change
By DAINAH BULLARD
Staff Writer
Historically, stamps and quarters
Ihave been as scarce as hens’ teeth on
[the Texas A&M campus. However, a
[Student Government project pro-
[posing the installment of five change
[machines on campus soon may alter
that situation — at least as far as
[quarters are concerned.
Hie project is spearheaded by tfie
[Student Government’s student serv
ices committee. Student Services
Vice President Wayne Roberts said
the group has been working on the
project since the beginning of the
| Fall '84 semester.
According to the committee’s
plans, the University will own the
change machines.
The type of machine in each loca
tion will depend on the demand in
the area. The machines will give a
variety of change — including nick
els, dimes and quarters — and some
machines will even change $5 bills,
Roberts said.
The committee conducted a two-
week survey to verify the need for
the change machines, then carefully
calculated appropriate locations for
the machines, he said.
“We proposed some locations, but
the final approval hasn’t come yet,”
Roberts said.
The committee has proposed that
change machines be located in the
Commons, the Corps of Cadets
Guard Room and northside lounges
A-l, A-3 and C-l, Roberts said. In
addition, the committee plans to
publicize the existence of a change
machine in the laundry room east of
Moses Hall, he said.
The committee’s proposals were
submitted at the first of the semester
to Robert Smith, A&M’s assistant
vice president for fiscal affairs and
controller, Roberts said. The future
of the project depends on the
Smith’s decision, Roberts said.
“We should hear (the decision)
any time,” he said. “It looks real
promising.”
Editor’s Note: this is the third in a
three-part series on the futute of Texas
A&M.
By SHAWN BEHLEN
Staff Writer
The Target 2000 Committee has
fulfilled its obligation. It has com
piled a lengthy list of the major
problems facing Texas A&M and
presented it to the Board of Regents
along with an even longer list of rec
ommendations.
During the same period in which
that committee deliberated, Univer
sity President Frank E. Vandiver
proposed the inclusion of Texas
A&M in a network of world universi
ties — institutions working on prob
lems of fundamental importance to
the world.
Looking at those two pronounce
ments, many have said the problems
outlined by the Target 2000 commit
tee must be solved first before Van
diver’s concept for the University’s
future can be put into action. And
the task of attacking those problems
has fallen to the Long Range Plan
ning Committee.
Last June, Chancellor Arthur
Hansen set up the Planning Com
mittee, calling for the formulation of
a “comprehensive long range plan
for the period of 1985 to 2000 for
each institution in the Texas A&M
University System; the scope of
which is to encompass physical facili
ties, personnel, programs, and all
functions of each institution and
identify those areas in which we seek
preeminence or excellence.”
The Plannning Committee con
sists of University administrators,
administrative staff members and
faculty. One of those administrators
is Dean of Faculties Clinton Phillips.
“We were asked by the System
people to address all of the Target
2000 proposal and were asked to cat
egorize them as to whether we sup
ported them, whether we were al
ready doing something about them,
whether we felt we couldn’t do any
thing about them at this time or
whether we rejected them,” Phillips
says. “We started off bumbling
around as one always does in these
situations, but we brought in a con
sultant and got some help. I think
we’re doing a pretty good job.”
Phillips, who is chairman of the
program priorities subcommittee,
says the job of ranking the proposals
on a priority basis was a huge task.
“We wefe trying to take an overall
University-targeted view,” he says.
“We looked for foundation blocks
for the whole plan and we tended to
emphasize some basic support areas.
“Some of our highest priorities
were those programs which benefit
across college lines. Then, of course,
we looked at what the various deans
said were the most important pro
grams in their colleges.”
That input from each of the deans
came after the Planning Committee
asked for a list of the programs each
college deemed most important and
worthy of support.
" 1 he programs chosen for sup
port will receive more funding from
different sources,” Phillips says.
“They will receive money from the
Available Fund and will be identified
as an area seeking funds from the
outside. On the other hand, in some
of the programs it may not take
more money. It may just take a ded
ication to do something.”
Phillips says his subcommittee set
up criteria to help the colleges
choose the programs, but he stressed
that the criteria was not highly de
tailed.
“We really tried not to be too spe
cific so we wouldn’t straitjacket the
colleges,” he says. “What I think the
colleges did was look at how they
could build their strengths and they
looked at world and societal needs.”
Once the committee had the input
from the Target 2000 report and the
various colleges, it set to the task at
hand. And Phillips says that when
considering the proposals, funding
was a major consideration.
“That’s where it all came from,”
he says. “There’s a finite amount of
money in the Available Fund each
year. We have been spending an aw
ful lot of it on buildings and when
you spend it on buildings, you don’t
spend it on other things. We had to
ask, ‘Where do we really want to
spend our money?’.”
Phillips’ subcommittee set up five
levels of priority in which they
See PROBLEMS, page 9
Cooke: Convention politics lost drama
Alistair Cooke
By ROBIN BLACK
Senior Staff Writer
The American presidential con
vention system has lost the drama,
suspense and appeal that originally
made it unique, Alistair Cooke, an
observer of the American scene, said
Tuesday night.
Cooke’s speech in Rudder The
ater opened the first night of the
three-day E. L. Miller Lecture Se
ries.
The native of Manchester, En
gland, 76, was described by Univer
sity President Frank E. Vandiver as a
modern Alexis de Tocqueville. Van
diver introduced Cooke to the less-
than-capacity audience.
Cooke worked as a correspondent
in the United States for the British
Broadcasting Company for more
than forty years.
Cooke, almost stereotypically
calm, deliberate and distinguished in
the best British tradition, described
his experiences of relating to his fel
low Europeans the rise in America
of everything from motels to exit
polls to, more recently, the yuppie.
Most of his work was in reporting on
and analyzing the American political
system. Cooke recalled a letter he re
ceived years ago from a frustrated
British reader:
“He told me how he had grown
tired of reading about the American
political system and pointed out to
me that it was difficult enough try
ing to understand the standard
game of chess much less the Ameri
can version where the knights are
called campaign managers, the
pawns move all at once and the bish
ops are not used. That was, of
course, before 1984.”
Cooke desribed the view abroad
of the American presidential con
ventions.
“They see it as something between
a coronation and a circus,” he said.
He traced the development of the
convention system back to the birth
of the political parties.
President George Washington, he
said, considered the parties a mis
chievous association and combina
tion.
“I wonder what he would have
thought of PACs (political action
committees),” he said.
Parties developed and grew in
stride with the country’s population,
he said, until the task of choosing a
presidential candidate became com
plicated. That’s when the caucus sys
tem, which soon led to the conven
tion system, had its beginnings. It
didn’t come in without a fight.
“The intensity of the discussion of
the caucus system and the choosing
of electorates made the abortion is
sue look about as important as the
question ‘Is aspirin really good for
the bloodstream?”’ he said.
The convention system grew and
flourished until the influence of tele-
“T’hat may have dismantled the
system,” he said. “The convention is
no longer the battlefield for the
presidential nomination. It is, in
stead, the surrender ceremony, or
the coronation in the case of the in
cumbent.”