The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 19, 1985, Image 1

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    Handicapped
Problems on campus
Pages
Black Awareness
Hansen praises King
Page 3
The Battalion
Vol. 80 No. 99 CISPS 045360 12 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, February 19, 1985
.king
unpit
have
n,"hes
TDC: High
security cells
necessary
nd To
T
m\t
I
E\’ER1
VC
out k
This is
Associated Press
■AUSTIN — The troubled Texas
prisons need more maximum secu
rity cells, the director ol the Depart
ment of Corrections told lawmakers
Monday. .
■“Texas is under the misunder
standing that the whole system is
maximum security,” Ray Procunier
told a House subcommittee.
■TDC needs maximum security
units for 4 percent to 7 percent of
the approximately 33,000 inmates,
he said.
■What passes for maximum secu
rity now is inadequate, Procunier
said. He wants units so secure prison
officials “could issue hacksaw
blades” to inmates because they still
couldn’t cut their way out.
■‘Texas has way too many dormi
tories (for inmates) already,” he said.
“Texas should never build another
dormitory.”
■ The director said TDC has imple
mented an inmate classification sys
tem aimed at “trying to keep the
lightweights with the lightweights
and the toughies with the toughies.”
The “troublemakers” now are in
eight prison units.
■‘‘That results in some places that
are very difficult to run,” lye said, ac
knowledging the violence in the pris
ons in recent months.
H“We are having the minimum
amount of violence we could possi
bly have under the circumstances,”
he said.
■The subcommittee of the House
Law Enforcement Committee will
begin reviewing 1 DC’s requested
bad get later this week. No numbers
will be available until state officials
are briefed Tuesday on a consul
tant’s study of the prison system.
■Texas’ prisons are operating un
der a federal judge's 1980 reform
order that calls for sweepitrg
changes. Several issues are still being
contested, and a special master is
monitoring compliance ^ with the
judge’s order.
■While some state prison systems
have been under court supervision
for as long as 20 years, TDC lawyer
Steve Martin told the subcommittee
Texas could be out from under the
special master in 18 months.
■ Martin offered that prediction af-
tei Rep. Dick Burnett, D-San An-
gplo, said, “We still do not see the
light at the end of the tunnel.”
■But the T DC lawyer also cau
tioned failure to comply with the
court order could lead to “increased
monitoring” or federal court take-
o|er of the state prisons.
■ The major problem — and ex
pense ; — in enacting reforms is re
placing inmate-guards, known as
building tenders, who used to keep
order behind the walls, Martin said.
■ “The system was highly effective
in the sense you were able to attain a
high level of control,” he said. “You
like that in a prison system. You like
itleven bettet if you can do it consti-
tutionally.”
■ The building tender system was
abused, said Martin. “There were
very violent acts perpetrated by
building tenders with the adminis
tration’s knowledge,” he said.
■The violence resulted in “severe
injuries," hut no deaths, Martin said.
Mog
tf. gw® I
ile.
Correction
A Monday article in I he Bat-
fcalion incorrectly reported a
ptatemeni made by Michael
jBachtman, the Student Senate's
pason with the College Station
[City Council.
The article stated that Hacht-
iman said three places on the
Icoundi will open on April 6. hut
|none of the incumbents will run.
pfowever, Hachtman did not say
[none of the incumbents will run
only that he heard they would
[not,
None of the incumbents have
[announced yet whether they will
I run again or not.
1 The Battalion regrets the er-
Levin pleads
with terrorists
to free others
Don't Laugh!
Photo by WAYNE L. GRABEIN
Before giving blood Monday morning, Jesse
Jackson, a range science graduate student
from Abilene, has his temperature checked
as a health precaution. The Aggie Blood
Drive, which ends Thursday, has a goal of
3,000 units of blood.
Cuadra gets one year’s
probation for tampering
Associated Press
Former cadet Gabriel Cuadra was
given one year’s probation for de
evidence that police sought
in their investigation of the hazing
death last year of Bruce Dean Good
rich.
Brazos County Court-at-Law
Judge Carolyn Ruffino announced
the sentence Monday for Gabriel
Cuadra, 21, of Key Biscayne, Fla.
Cuadra, who now attends Miami-
Dade Community College in Flor
ida, was convicted last month of tam
pering with evidence and fined
$500.
If Cuadra completes the proba
tion, the fine will be dismissed.
Hazing charges against him still are
pending.
The charges stemmed from the
investigation into the death of Good
rich, a 20-year-old transfer student
from Webster, N.Y., who died of
heat stroke after a pre-dawn exercise
session last August.
Cuadra testified he ripped up and
disposed of an exercise schedule
outling the regimen that Goodrich
took part in the day he died. Cuadra
said he had heard police wanted the
schedule.
Associated Press
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE,
Md. — Declaring himself “a born-
again American,” journalist Jeremy
Levin returned Monday to the
United States and appealed to the Is
lamic terrorists who still hold four
other Americans to “let my brothers
go”
After 11 months in solitary con
finement in eastern Lebanon where
he “literally sat in darkness and deep
gloom ... in irons and misery,” the
52-year-old television reporter
emerged into crisp noon sunlight
from a gleaming blue-and-white C-
135 jet provided by the White
House.
About 100 family members,
friends and State Department offi
cials cheered as he smiled broadly
and w r alked down the red-carpeted
steps waving a small American flag
in his right hand and hugging his
wife, Lucille, in his left.
“Boy, 1 missed you,” he told the
well-wishers, his voice heaving with
emotion. “Now, I’m home, free at
last. . . God has been good to me.”
Levin, who was Cable News Net
work’s Beirut bureau chief when he
was kidnapped March 7, was wel
comed by Acting Secretary of State
Kenneth Dam, standing in for the
vacationing George Shultz. Dam said
Levin’s “long and cruel captivity has
aroused the nation’s indignation and -
sympathy and your courageous es
cape to freedom has won our admi
ration..”
But his return heightens the na
tion’s awareness of the four other
Americans “still held hostage by ter
rorists in Lebanon,” Dam said. “We
will continue to make every effort to
obtain their freedom as soon as pos
sible. They should know they are not
forgotten.”
Americans missing and presumed
kidnapped in Lebanon include: Wil
liam Buckley, a political officer at
the U.S. Embassy; the Rev. Benja
min Weir, a Presbyterian minister;
Peter Kilburn, a librarian at the
American University of Beirut; and
the Rev. Lawrence Jenco, a Roman
Catholic priest who worked at a re
lief agency in Beirut.
The Islamic Holy War, a shadowy
group made up of fundamentalist
Shiite Moslems loyal to Iran’s Aya
tollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has said
it was holding the four Americans.
Levin, who may have been held in
the same house with the other four,
appealed to the kidnappers: “Let my
brothers go. Let your brothers go. In
the name of our common lord, God
and Allah, please let them go.”'
Levin thanked President Reagan
“for all his help in getting me back
home;” Syrian President Hafez As
sad, “who has taken a personal inter
est in this present hostage crisis;”
and “many officials whom you and I
may never know (who) worked long,
hard and anonymously to rescue
He also thanked the Syrian Army
patrol that found him, shortly after
he got away, “hiding in sheer terror”
under a truck. Although he was
dirty, shoeless and without identifi
cation papers, he was treated
“gently, kindly and courteously” by
those soldiers, he said.
MSC Council announces new president
By CATHIE ANDERSON
Staff Writer
The Memorial Student Center
Council announced the 1985-86
president and two of the council’s
executive vice president positions
during its meeting Monday night.
The group also approved the
1985-86 budget and discussed the
importance of the Rumours facility
to students at Texas A&M. Rumours
has been looked at as a possible site
for a computer resource center.
Denis Davis, a senior agriculture
economics major from Houston, be
came the second woman in the
MSC’s 30-year history to be selected
president of the council. She is cur
rently council executive vice presi
dent for marketing and personnel.
Davis will take over the presidency
from Pat Wood April 20.
“She is definitely an asset to this
University,” Wood said. “Her artic
ulateness, her sensitivity to others
and her ability to plan for the future
are a few of her many strong
points.”
“The MSC will need all of her
many talents to face a challenging
future. We’ll be fortunate to have a
gal like Denis in the driver’s seat;
she’s got the ‘right stuff.’ ”
David Klosterboer became Davis’
executive vice president for pro
grams and Robert Hawkins received
the position of executive vice presi
dent for administration. The posi
tion of executive vice president for
marketing and personnel has not
been filled.
Davis said she was confident of
Hawkins’ and Klosterboer’s abilities
since both men have been active
council members.
Davis, a third generation Aggie,
said the MSC is working at its very
best when the council acts as a facili
tator of the Memorial Student Cen
ter’s three goals. These goals are
providing an enjoyable facility and
quality service, providing campus
wide programming that enriches the
community, and developing the
skills of students who partiepate in
the MSC.
Also the council heard a recom
mendation from the building opera
tions committee, which was given by
Mike Brunner, vice president for
operations. The recommendation
concerned the possible establish
ment of a microcomputer acquisition
program in the MSC, which would
. allow students, faculty and adminis-
The proposal was tabled because
council members thought that an
other facility might be found to
house the acquisition program.
Brunner said the committee would
investigate other possiblities and re
port its findings and a recommenda
tion at the next council meeting.
President Frank Vandiver sug
gested the software be sold from the
MSC because the building is easily
accessible and well-used.
Brunner said the building opera
tions committee believed that if a
space in the MSC were to be used,
the most logical space would be the
MSC Bookstore/Rumours area since
the two areas are next door to each
other. But a door would be needed
" to connect the two rooms.
Software could be sold in the
Bookstore, and people could get
help with their systems in the Ru
mours area, Brunner said.
If Rumours is used for the acquisi
tion program, the council could earn
as much as $50,000 per year.
But some members of the council
had a problem in putting a “price
tag” on the value of Rumours; thus
the decision to table the issue and in
vestigate other possibilities.
Jim Reynolds, council secretary-
treasurer and MSC director, said
Rumours is used quite a bit by stu
dents as a place to relax, study and
eat. Students also use the area for
entertainment programs and meet
ings. He said the council would have
to look closely at the amount of use
the area gets.
Haydon adjusting well to new heart
Associated Press
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Doctors said Monday
that Murray Haydon is adjusting so well to his
artificial heart that they have turned up its
speed, taken him off a respirator and expect
soon to have him sipping clear fluids.
Meanwhile doctors painted the bleakest pic
ture yet of William Schroeder’s condition, say
ing the world’s second artificial heart recipient
is “withdrawn” and “discouraged” and may
never leave the hospital unless his strength
and spirits pick up.
“Mr. Hayden’s condition is so good it’s
frightening,” Dr. Allan M. Lansing, chairman
of Humana Heart Institute International, said
at an afternoon briefing. He said the 58-year-
old retired autovyorker “looks extremely
bright,” is attentive to his family and flashed
his doctors a thumbs-up sign.
Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the artifi
cial heart, said he was impressed with the ease
of Haydon’s surgery Sunday, completed in re
cord time of 3 '/i hours.
Haydon, still listed in critical but stable con
dition, was expected to get his first sip of clear
fluids later Monday, Lansing said. During the
day doctors took him of f a respirator, allowing
him to breathe on his own.
The mechanical heart now thumping in
Haydon’s chest was initially set to beat at 50
beats per minute. It was turned up to 60 beats
per minute Sunday and was scheduled to be
turned up again to a near-normal rate of 70
beats per minute late Monday, Lansing said.
The artificial heart had been started slowly
to prevent damage to other organs that might
be caused by a strong, sudden increase in
blood flow following months or years of a
weak blood flow produced by the patient’s dis
eased natural heart.
lave
sharply with the current state of his predeces
sor, Schroeder.
Information about Schroeder’s condition
had been emerging from Humana officials in
fragments, but more details started coming
out after scores of reporters arrived here over
the weekend for Haydon’s artificial heart im
plant.
Lansing said Monday morning that Sch
roeder is withdrawn. “At the present time he
spends most of his time in bed,” he said. “The
quality of life is not good.”
Any patient who, like Schroeder, begins to
lose the will to live “may lose his strength or he
may commit suicide,” said Lansing.“The indi
vidual’s spirit is a very important determinant
of survival.”
But at an afternoon briefing, Lansing said
Schroeder appeared stronger than he had
been for several days and had gotten out of
bed. He said he was more optimistic about
Schroeder’s condition than he had been in the
morning, based on his visit between briefings.
Part of the problem is that efforts to find
the cause of a fever that has nagged Schroeder
for two weeks have failed, Lansing said.
“He has had every known test for infection
that we can think of, and we have found no
sign of infection any place” Lansing said. “If
he does not get stronger and does not get over
the fever, then he will remain discouraged.”
Schroeder, a 53-year-old retired federal
worker from Jasper, Ind., was nearly well
enough to go home when the fever struck
him, doctors said.
“This appeared to be a setback, as though
he might never get out of the hospital,” Lan
sing said. “I am not sure that he will go home.”
Schroeder also is suf fering from anemia, an
abnormally low red blood cell count probably
caused by the artificial heart he received on
Nov. 25, Lansing said.
“He received one pint of blood at the time
of the fever,” partly because doctors were re
moving so much blood for tests, Lansing said,
and has been getting about one pint of blood
every three weeks. Lansing said Saturday that
Dilantin, an anti-seizure drug being given to
Schroeder, appeared to have been responsible
for Schroeder’s fever.
On Monday, however, Lansing said that
Schroedef had been free of Dilantin for about
seven to 10 days, the time it takes for traces of
the drug to be eliminated from the body.