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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 1985)
* ■$! ary! i Court like classroom 4 p.m, llilllli Celtics take Game 4 Johnson scores basket al buzzer TW^ &M D *^4-4-*^12 ine Battalion Serving the University community Vol. 79 No. 152 GSPS 045360 10 pages College Station, Texas Thursday, June 6 1985 av . ** t \ SE Governor signs bill to increase state user fees ge Man or Monster? Clarence Griggs, painter for McNeely Painting and Construc tion of Houston, is aimost unidentifiable because of the paint and mask. Griggs is a member oS tbe contract cxe’ws hired for Photo by ANTHONY S. CASPER A&M’s regular summer maintenance program, which in cludes painting about five dorms and over 100 individual rooms each summer. Associated Press AUSTIN — Gov. Mark White signed into law Wednesday increases in state fees that will total $146 mil lion over the next two years and will add to money that the state will gain from increased tuition fees for state colleges. The increases, effective Sept. 1, include hikes in the cost of driver li censes, auto inspections, filing civil law suits, paying for probation costs and getting bond issues reviewed. Also signed into law Wednesday was a bill decreasing the state’s con tribution to the retirement funds for the teachers’ retirement system and the state employees’ retirement sys tem. The two bills, plus the tuition in crease, provided about $700 million toward financing the state spending bill for 1986-87. The fee bill was a compromise be tween the $225 million bill passed by the Senate and the $106 million bill by the House. The increased fees include: • Raising the $5.25 annual auto inspection fee to $7.75 annually for pi Delayed disclosure to protect family ] Ex-wife says she informed on spy ring HtfJ m ith >0 cei the ike >0 ige Associated Press WEST DENNIS, Mass. — A ■ woman who claims she told the FBI ■ that her former husband was part of Wa spy ring that sold Navy secrets to ■ the Soviet Union for nearly 20 years ■ says she delayed turning him in be- ■ cause she wanted to protect her fam- j Barbara Joy Crowley Walker ■ asked, “Why in the name of all that’s |1 holy did I wait so long? “You have the answer. It is be- ■ cause of what’s happening to my ■ family and my children.” Her tip led the FBI to arrest her former husband, and her son and her ex-husband’s brother on espio nage charges. She and her daugh ters have since been hounded, she said. Walker, holding back tears during an interview with The Cape Cod Times, said she and one of her daughters, Laura Walker Snyder, tipped off the FBI. “I did what I believed in,” she said. Information contained in FBI af fidavits, citing two unidentified in formants, was used as the basis for the arrest of her former husband, John A. Walker Jr., and retired Navy radioman Jerry Whitworth of Davis, Calif, on espionage charges. Michael Lance Walker, a 22-year- old yeoman 3rd class aboard the USS Nimitz stationed in Israel, and Arthur J. Walker, 50, also were ar rested and charged with spying. Authorities have said that John Walker, 47, passed classified Navy documents to the Soviets for nearly 20 years. John Walker and his son pleaded innocent Tuesday in Balti more to espionage charges. FBI affidavits say John Walker be gan working for the Soviets in 1968 while a communications watch offi cer for the commander of the Atlan tic submarine fleet. The agency al leges that the family members, with Whitworth, worked to get secret documents from the Navy. Peter Reis, father of Whitworth’s wife, Brenda Leah Reis, said, “We’re just sick of it; we can’t believe it.” He said he had not spoken re cently with his daughter and knew little about Whitworth, “I’ve met him a couple of times but no indication, nothing,” he said. Ms. Reis has refused to talk to re porters. A graduate student in nutrition at the University of California at Davis, she has applied to work as a re searcher on a National Aeronautics and Space Administration project in San Jose, Calif., said Peter Waller, a NASA spokesman at the Ames Re search Center in Mountain View, Calif. “She doesn’t have it,” he said, “and no decision has yet been made.” Congress nearing decision on rebel aid Associated Press WASHINGTON — Congress moved to ward decisions on aid to Nicaraguan rebels Wednesday as President Reagan denounced Nicaragua’s leftist leader as “a little dictator” and declared a previous House refusal to help a “dark day for f reedom.” House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill, D- i Mass., said Reagan’s policies are moving the nation closer to U.S. military intervention in Central America. O’Neill said the administration wants to es calate the Nicaraguan war by increasing the ! rebel force from 15,000 to 35,000 troops. “The administration wants to raise the level of combat and the level of violence,” he told reporters. “It has mapped plans that make a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua as easy as falling off a log. “I have very strong personal feelings. I am fighting to keep American troops out of Nica ragua . . . , I keep seeing it coming down the street.” But Republican leaders in the House and Senate said the visit to Moscow last month by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has given the edge to supporters of competing versions of a new aid plan for the anti-Sandinista guer rillas, known as Contras. O’Neill and other Democrats acknowledge that support for their position against any aid to anti-Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua has been eroded by the Ortega visit after an ear lier House vote denying aid. “It is a close case,” said Rep. Richard A. Ge phardt, D-Mo., chairman of the House Demo cratic Caucus, detailing plans for a series of votes on the issue next Tuesday during con sideration of a supplemental authorization bill. The Senate could act earlier, but the timing was clouded by disagreement over how to pro ceed with a pending defense bill. Reagan, speaking at a political fund-raising rally in Oklahoma City, denounced the House for its earlier refusal to provide aid to the Con tras. “It was a dark day for freedom when, after the Soviet Union spent $500 million to impose communism in Nicaragua, the United States Congress could not support a meager $14 mil lion for freedom fighters in Nicaragua,” Rea gan said. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Larry Speakes dismissed published accounts that ad ministration officials are actively discussing the possibility that U.S. troops might one day be sent to Nicaragua as “foolish”. “The president has no plans to use U.S. mil itary forces in Central America,” Speakes said. “His position hasn’t changed on that.” House Republican leader Robert Michel of Illinois said Tuesday he believes he has shaped a “winning combination” of Republicans and Democrats to adopt a $27 million package of non-military aid to the Contras. Senate GOP leader Robert Dole of Kansas says he has the votes to approve a two-year, $32 million package of non-lethal aid sought by Reagan. Men’s life expectancy increases to 71.1 years Associated Press NEW YORK — Life expec tancy in the United States in creased slightly for men and re mained the same for worrten in 1984, while the infant mortality rate fell to an all-time low, according to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Life expectancy at birth for the total resident population of the country was 74.7 years, un changed from 1983, according to a table to be published in the July-September issue of the company’s quarterly Statistical Bulletin. For males, life expectancy at birth increased by 0.1 years to 71.1 years, a record high. Fe male newborns’ life expectancy remained the same at 78.3 years, the company said. Infant mortality fell to 10.6 f >er 1,000 lives births, down rom 10.9 per 1,000 in 1983. The mortality rate for infants has been on a steady decline since 1962. Defense authorization bill receives Senate approval Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final approval Wednesday night to a recora Pentagon spending bill that includes a provision, urging continued U.S. adherence to the SALT II nuclear arms treaty. The bill was passed by a vote of 92-3. The measure provides $231.8 billion of the Defense Department’s record $302 billion budget for next year, with the rest to be authorized through separate bills on military construction and pay. The last Fight was resolved late Wednesday when the Senate voted 90-5 to attach the SALT II proposal to the bill, providing $240 billion of the Pentagon’s record $302 billion budget next year. The Senate approved the hiring of outside experts to advise legis lators on the technical aspects of the “Star Wars” research program. President Reagan approved the Senate defense Figure, although he had sought a 5.9 percent hike over inflation. The Senate bill will have to be rec onciled with whatever measure passes the Democratic-con trolled older cars with a special $ 15 fee for new cars, good for two years. • Driver’s licenses, good for four years, went from $10 to $16. • Filing a civil suit in a state dis trict court was increased from $25 to $75, with $10 of the new fee going to the county that handles the Filing. Filing fees for child custody cases would remain at $25. • Personalized auto license fees increase from $40 to $75 a year. • Probation fees would increase from $15 a month to not more than $40 month, to cover administration costs of the services. • Permits for fleets of emergency medical vehicles would increase from $500 to a maximum of $2,000. • A new fee of $120 per acre would be charged for surface min ing permits. • Drillers of oil and gas wells would have to pay a special $50 fee to get their permits expedited through bureaucratic red tape. • The Department of Water Re sources would be authorized to charge $2,000 to $50,000 for haz ardous waste disposal permits. House, which is considering freezing Pentagon spending at current levels. The Senate proposal would cut in half Reagan’s overall MX missile program but grant his request for an end to the 16-year-old moratorium on building new nerve gas weapons. The bill also would authorize the Pentagon to buy thousands of planes, ships, missiles, and tanks, but mandate reform in spending that money in an attempt to curb waste ful and fraudulent practices that have prompted a series of investiga tions of major U.S. defense contrac tors. First-day registration ahead of ’84 Summer enrollment By BRIAN PEARSON Staff Writer Enrollment at Texas A&M on the First registration day in creased by 2.62 percent over that of the First registration day last summer, Associate Registrar Don Carter said Tuesday. Carter said the increase over the first registration day last sum mer was not a significant one. “I think with the proposed tu ition increases that will be in ef fect in September, we did have some students who decided to go ahead and go to school this sum mer while the rates were still low,” he said. While last summer’s first regis tration day enrollment was 13,872 students, 14,236 students signed up for classes on the first day of this summer term. The official numbers will not be compiled until the fourth day of classes, but Carter said the fi nal enrollment should be about the same as last summer’s enroll ment of 14,486 students. He said the registration system, which pushed the students through in six hours, ran as “smooth as silk” despite the long lines. “When you’re limited by the time frame and by the space avail able to register these students, then naturally you’re going to have lines,” he said. Students waited in lines, which sometimes hugged three sides of Wofford Cain Pool and stretched down the west side of Kyle Field. Most students did not have to wait long outside under the hot sunny skies because the lines' usually moved at a pace between a constant shuffle to a brisk walk. The entire process took about 45 minutes for students to com plete. Only students who arrived be fore their designated time had to wait a long time to begin the reg istration process, Carter said. He said his office had no com plaints from students. “I did not see any irate stu dents,” he said.