Ocean basin study
A&M leads drilling exploration
Page 3
Victory on the road
Ags work overtime against TCU
Page 9
The Battalion
Vol. 80 No. 78 USPS 045360 16 pages
College Station, Texas
Thursday, January 17,1985
ury finds Time guilty
in defamation case
NEW YORK — A federal jury de
cided Wednesday that Time mag
azine defamed Ariel Sharon in a
cover story about the massacre of
Palestinian civilians, then resumed
deliberations to determine whetjiei
the former Israeli defense minister
was libeled.
The finding meant that the jury
had decided in favor of Sharon on
the first of three issues, all of which
must be resolved in Sharon’s favor
for him to win his $50 million libel-
suit.
Just after 11 a.m., the jury of four
women and two men announced in
court that the Feb. 21, 1983, Time
story defamed Sharon because it
meant he “consciously intended"
Christian Lebanese militiamen to
massacre Palestinian civilians in
1982.
“In other words, your answer to
the first question is‘yes’?” asked T.S.
District Court Judge Abraham I).
Sofaer.
“Yes," said jury foreman Richard
Zug.
The jury, which met for 15 hours
— minus meal breaks — over three
class, went back to the jury room im
mediately to deliberate on the re
maining issues of falsity and malice.
\ small smile cracked Sharon’s
face when the ruling was an
nounced. His beaming wife, Liii,
turned to the reporters across the
aisle and winked. One of Sharon’s
ever-present Israeli security guards
also turned and smiled at his boss.
Later, on the courthouse steps,
Sharon said, “I’m pleased that we
jury
glish.
this point. I
agazine is charging that
I not understand plain
that
En
ive
line s managing <
Time continues to belie
■lieves, its story is cot i ect
ory over which Sharon si
reportedly “discussed”
>r the assassination of I
anon's c.hrislian president-elect,
shir Gemayel, with Phalangists
before the Christian militiamet
sacred hundreds of Palestinii
■li-occupied West Beirut.
tor,said,
totally be
The st
said he
venge fi
Isra
dav
Sharon has denied discussing re
venge “with any Lebanese."
file jury decided unanimously,
“by a preponderance of the evi
dence,” that the l ime article, “read
in context,” had defamed Sharon.
Based on that finding, the jury then
decided a key paragraph of the story
meant Sharon “consciously in
tended’ to allow the’ Phalangists to
lake revenge, including killing non-
combatants.
l lie jury did not rule, however,
that the paragraph meant Sharon
“actively encouraged the massacre.
The jury’s ruling Wednesday vyas
the first of three that Sofaer re
quited of them in his lengthy charge
on Monday.
T he jurors, having determined
that Sharon was defamed, must now
decide first whether the article was
false and then rule if T ime knew the
story was false when it was published
and if the magazine did so with “ac
tual malice” or “reckless disregard”
for the truth.
affects local organization
By DAINAH BULLARD
Staff Writer
A 1984 ruling from the Internal
Revenue Service could spell a de
crease in donations to charitable or
ganizations nationwide, including
the Aggie Club.
The ruling, which states gifts to
charitable organizations must be
made without adequate compensa
tion in order to be tax deductable,
could affect organizations ranging
from university athletic clubs to sym
phony orchestras. This would in
clude any organization which of fers
bonuses such as preferred seating to
donors.
With a membership of about
3,500 and annual donations of about
$2 million (which is channeled into
athletic scholarships), the Aggie
Club has a lot riding on the outcome
of the IRS ruling. However, Harry
Green, executive director of the Ag
gie Club, said he believes Aggies will
continue making donations to the
University’s athletic club, even with
out the bonus of a tax deduction.
The Aggie Club offers donors the
option of purchasing (for $104) a
season pass in the preferred seating
area of Kyle Field. Green said the
practice of offering preferred seat
ing to donors is very common
among the nation’s university ath
letic clubs.
Donations to the Aggie C
range from a minimum of $100 t
maximum of $2,500, Green s;
The preferred seating sections
Kyle Field are the center sections on
the second and third de< ks in the
west stadium. As a donor builds up
senority, he or she has the option of
ib
at
buying seats closer to the 50-yard
line, Green said.
The IRS ruling was made after a
taxpayer paid $300 to become a
member of. a university’s athletic
scholarship program, the mem
bership allowed him to buy a space
for home football games in the pre
ferred seating section of the univer
sity’s stadium. The cost of the season
pass in the preferred seating section
was $ 120.
• > cause there were 2,000 people
waiting for a chance to become
members of the athletic club, the
IRS ruled that the option to buy a
season pass in the preferred seating
area was more valuable than the an
nual $300 membership fee. There
fore, no charitable deductions would
be allowed.
Photo by PETER ROCHA
Rainy Day Biker
Wednesday’s rain and cold made getting clists as well as pedestrians. Today’s forcast
around campus an unpleasant task for bicy- calls for more rain.
Hazing in the Corps not a new Aggie tradition
Editors note: liiis is the set oik I
article in a three-part series on the
Texas A&M Corps of Cadets.
By MIKE DAVIS
Reporter
Since the Aug. 30 death of sopho
more cadet Bruce Good rich, hazing
has become a major issue on the
Texas A&M campus. T hough the
death of Goodrich is the onlv re
corded hazing-related death, hazing
at this 108-year-old University is
nothing new.
“Hazing” as defined by University
officials and the state of Texas is
vague. Even as far back as 1908, au
thorities questioned certain Corps
activities that they called hazing. Stu
dents were prompted to strike be
cause of dissatisfaci ion over a propo
siti to remove traditional class
authority such as the cleaning of
dormitory rooms by freshmen, the
assessing of demerits to under
classmen and classmates and the re
quirement that freshmen do pci
sonal services for upperclassmen.
Eighty percent of (he Corps, lead
by the junior class, left the campus.
Many c adets later made appeals Tot
return, but nevertheless, later that
year President Henry H. Harrington
resigned.
By TRENT LEOPOLD
Staff Writer
That next letter to Mom may cost
more than expected wheti the price
of a first-class postage stamp in
creases from its current price of 20
cents to 22 cents Feb. 17.
College Station Postmaster (Tin-
ton L. Matcek said the increase is
necessary to keep up with inc reasing
costs the U.S. Postal Service is incur
ring.
Lie cautioned people to be sure
I fazing at T exas A&M continued
with 27 cadets being dismissed for
hazing in 1913, six suspended for
“brutal treatment” in 1928, and ten
dismissed in 1934.
Another mass movement against
the regulation of hazing occurred in
1947 but failed.
Eighteen cadets were suspended
in 1966, one cadet suspe nded for
"aggravated assault” in 1974 and
eight c adets were dismissed in 1982.
D'spite the history of hazing,
Gen. Ormand R. Simpson, assistant
vice president for student services,
said the situation has improved at
the University.
the required amount of postage is
placed on items when mailing them
after the Feb. 17 deadline.
“Mail put in mailboxes after the
deadline without the correct amount
of postage will either be sent back to
the sender for additional postage or
be sent to its destination with the re
maining postage due,” Matcek said,
“ft will be up to the discretion of in
dividual post offices.
“Mail put in most local boxes on
Feb. 16 after about 4:30 p.m. or 5
p.m. will probably need to have the
“It’s a hell of a lot better right
now,” Simpson, Class of ’36, said.
“My goodness, I don’t think you’d be
in the Corps I was in.”
Simpson said if it were as easy to
get out of th'e Corps of 1932-36 as it
is to get nut today’s Corps “we might
have had 90 percent attrition tie-
cause the Corps of 1932-36 was a
very brutal outfit to be in.”
Simpson said much of the attitude
toward hazing began to change after
World War II.
“Not too long after I left, World
War II started,” he said. “Everything
was torn up then. Nothing really
mattered, and that history of the
correct postage on it since the in
crease goes into effect at 12:01 a.m.,
Feb. 17.”
Matcek said he recently ordered
250,000 two-cent stamps so people
can add them to their 20-cent stamps
to get the proper amount of postage
on their letters.
“The two-cent stamps have been
ordered and clerks now have them
so people can use them in conjunc
tion with the 20-cent stamps they al
ready have, however we don’t have
any of the new 22-cent stamps yet,”
Corps is sort of blank.”
All Corps freshmen were moved
out to Bryan airfield in 1948 because
of hazing. Simpson said moving the
freshmen away from campus
worked because no upperclassmen
lived at the airfield to haze the fresh
men.
“Those freshmen at Bryan air
field didn’t come to campus except
for football games,” he said. “The in
structors went out there. That was a
little college of its own.”
But the movement also had a bad
influence, he said.
“What started then was a very bad
precedent, which has been contin-
he said. “We expect to get them any
day now, but the exact date of their
arrival is uncertain.”
The first 22-cent stamps will be
“D” stamps similar to the “C” stamps
issued when postal rates were last in
creased in November 1981 from 18
to 20 cents, Matcek said.
Matcek said the first commemora
tive stamp probably will be available
in late January or February and fea
tures the musician Jerome Kern.
Matcek expects to receive about
25,000 of these stamps for distribu-
ued,” Simpson said. “That is the
hazing of sophomores.”
The seniors and juniors were fu
rious because there were no fresh
men to haze, he said, so they hazed
sophomores.
“The sophomores then had two
fish years,” Simpson said. “And since
that time a lot of sophomores have
had two fish years.”
Simpson said that when he was a
sophomore nobody bothered him.
“They (juniors and seniors) called
me by my first name and were
friendly,” he said. “I made better
See Corps, page 19
don in the College Station area.
The Board of Governors of the
U.S. Postal service agreed to the
postage price hike late last year. The
nine-member board originally asked
for a three cent increase.
In addition to the two cent in
crease on first-class, non-presorted
letters, postcard postage will in
crease from 13 cents to 14 cents and
second class mail will increase from
4.1 cents per pound to 5.8 cents per
pound.