Texas A&M profs use shells
Knicks to pick Ewing No. 1
only certainty in NBA draft
— Page 5
The Battalion
ip
Serving the University community
Vol. 79 No. 159 USPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, June 18, 1985
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Associated Press
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■ BEIRUT, Lebanon — Shiite mili
tia leader Nabih Berri said Monday
that the more than 30 American hi
jack hostages had been taken off
their plane secretly and hidden in
Beirut so they would not be hurt in a
rescue attempt.
■ Airport officials said later they be
lieved the hostages were still aboard
the plane, but a senior Reagan ad
ministration official said Monday
evening the administration believes
all the hostages except the crew have
[ been moved from the plane and dis
persed around Beirut.
■ The hijackers commandeered the
■WA ilight Friday, demanding that
llsrael free hundreds of Shiite Mos-
Ijenis captured during its withdrawal
^ M Bom southern Lebanon and that
I Hpain release two Shiites held there.
*B The U.S. State Department said
Monday it believed a total of 43 peo-
I pie were still held hostage, including
a group reportedly taxen off the
plane during an earlier stop in Bei
rut. During that stop early Saturday,
me hijackers killed one American,
who was identified Monday as Rob
ert Stethem, a 23-year-old Navy
frogman.
| The British Broadcasting Corp.
quoted Berri as saying that if Israel
did not free the prisoners, he would
live the hijackers, who have identi-
|ied themselves as Shiites, full con-
Irol of the hostages.
Beirut’s Christian-controlled
Voice of Lebanon radio said the hos
tages were distributed in groups of
three or four in strongholds of Ber-
iri’s Shiite militia Amal.
Just before midnight, the hijack-
rs acknowledged that the captain
Remained at the controls of the Boe-
ng 727. But the controller earlier
aid he had no communication with
the plane’s captain, John L. Tes-
jtrake, during the exchanges with the
hijackers.
, | A hijacker called the control tower
^HQvBfor food at 8 p.m. — “only for those
rM^/Bwho are fasting, the others later” —
which apparently meant the hijack
ers, observing the Moslem holy
month of Ramadan by going without
food during the day. He would not
say how many “others” were aboard.
In Washington, a State Depart
ment official said the United States
has “no reason to doubt” that the
hostages have been taken away.
A spokesman said the department
believes 43 people were being held
— 42 Americans, including a dual
national, and a Greek national — but
|, €rs lijngii! the figures could not be confirmed.
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ending the hijack and freeing the
Americans.
White House spokesman Larry
Speakes said at the White House that
President Reagan’s national security
adviser, Robert G. McFarlane, tele
phoned Berri early Monday and told
him he “has in his hands the ability
to end the hijacking.”
Two young gunmen took control
of the jet soon after it left Athens,
Greece, and released hostages dur
ing stops in Beirut and Algiers, Al
geria.
Israeli officials have indicated a
willingness to free the Shiite prison
ers in response to a public request
from Washington, but the Reagan
administration says Israel must
make the decision. Spain has refused
to release the two men it holds. The
U.S. position is that it will not nego
tiate with terrorists.
Israel also refuses to deal with ter
rorists, and apparently feels a public
U.S. request would avoid the im
pression that it had violated the pol
icy.
An airport official who is a mem
ber of Bern’s Shiite militia Amal said
he served lunch to the hostages on.
the plane Monday afternoon, long
after the time Berri said they were
transferred to a hiding place. He
spoke on condition of anonymity.
“I took 40 chicken lunches,” the
official said. “They (the hostages)
washed their hands and began eat
ing. They were all there.”
Several other airport officials,
who also declined to be identified,
said no hostages left the plane after
the release Sunday night of Ameri
can Robert Peel Sr., 58, who was
taken to a west Beirut hospital and
then flown to Cyprus.
Before Peel’s release, TWA offi
cials had said there were at least 31
hostages and crewmembers still on
the plane.
Berri said the hostages were being
held in west Beirut, the Moslem sec
tor of the war-torn capital, in which
the airport is located, but would not
be more specific.
If the Americans have been taken
from the aircraft, there could be two
separate groups of hostages. TWA
and the White House say up to 12
passengers were removed from the
plane during an earlier stop in Bei
rut.
The senior attendant on Flight
847, Uli Derickson, was among those
released and told reporters in New
York that seven passengers with
“Jewish-sounding names” were es
corted off.
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Drug influx rises
on Texas Border
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. Cus
toms calls it the “Mexican tram
poline,” and it has created a dra
matic increase in the flow of
cocaine across the Texas-Mexico
border, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen said.
According to Customs Service
figures, there were 25 percent
more seizures of the illegal drug
along the Texas-Mexico in 1984
than in 1983 — but the amount
seized increased by 4,800 per
cent.
“They call it the ‘Mexican tra
mpoline’ because of the drugs
coming from South America,
bounced into Mexico and then
into the United States,” Bentsen,
D-Texas, said.
He said U.S. Customs Service
officials now estimate that 30 per
cent of the cocaine smuggled into
the United States comes through
Mexico.
According to Customs Service
figures, Bentsen said, only nine
pounds of cocaine were netted
from 39 seizures on the Texas-
Mexico border in 1983. In 1984,
there were 52 seizures netting
436 pounds of the illegal drug.
The national Figure in 1983
was 52.7 pounds seized along the
U.S.-Mexico border in 209 sei
zures.
In 1984, there were 293 sei
zures netting 2,144 pounds — an
almost 4,000 percent increase in
the amount of the drug seized
from a 70 percent increase in the
number of seizures.
“It is a serious and growing
problem and it’s obvious that
they’ve moved their attention, the
drug smugglers, from Florida,
where we’ve had a real crack
down, over to the Texas-Mexican
border,” Bentsen said.
“We had a small slowdown at
the beginning of this year at the
time that our drug agent down in
Mexico was murdered. Then
again, you had a strict enforce
ment along the border and the
smugglers moved their attention
away from that. But they’ve ob
viously moved back to the Texas-
Mexican border.”
Accused of passing military secrets
2 more indicted in spy case
Associated Press
Federal grand juries in Virginia and California
on Monday indicted Arthur J. Walker, older
brother of the alleged mastermind of a spy ring,
and Jerry A. Whitworth, a retired Navy radio
man and friend of the ringleader, on charges
they conspired to pass military secrets to the Sovi
ets.
Whitworth, 45, was indicted by a grand jury in
San Francisco, about eight hours after another
grand jury in Norfolk, Va., returned a seven-
count indictment saying Arthur Walker passed
classified documents on Navy ship repair to the
Soviet Union.
The Virginia grand jury’s indictment charges
that Walker, 50, a defense contractor employee,
conspired with his brother, John A. Walker Jr.,
and “with diverse other persons both known and
unknown” to give classified information to the
Soviets from about Jan. 1, 1980 to May 20, 1985,
the day John Walker was arrested.
Also charged in the alleged espionage ring are
John Walker’s son, Michael L. Walker, a Navy
seaman, and Whitworth, of Davis, Calif.
Arthur Walker, who has been held without
bond since his arrest May 29 at his Virginia Beach
home, will be arraigned Tuesday in U.S. District
Court in Norfolk.
Conviction on all counts could result in several
life sentences and fines up to $40,000.
Along with one conspiracy count, Arthur
Walker is charged with six other counts stem
ming from two alleged incidents of espionage in
1981 and 1982.
None of the counts involve Arthur Walker’s
years in the Navy. He retired in 1973 as a lieuten
ant commander teaching antisubmarine warfare
tactics and holding a “top secret” clearance.
In three of those counts, the federal grand jury
charged that on Sept. 2, 1981 Arthur Walker
took, possessed and delivered to the Soviet Union
a damage control book for the USS Blue Ridge,
an amphibious command ship based in Yoko
suka, Japan.
Three other counts charge that on April 28,
1982 Walker took, possessed and delivered to the
Soviet Union casualty report messages for am
phibious assault ships.
He got the documents from his employer, VSE
Corp., a Chesapeake, Va., company where Ar
thur Walker worked as an engineer, the indict
ment said.
The indictment accuses Walker of photo
graphing the damage control book and a portion
of the casualty report messages at the Virginia
Beach office of John Walker, a private detective.
Arthur Walker then gave the information to his
brother, who was a Soviet agent, the indictment
said.
The damage control book is a repair manual
that all ship personnel must be familiar with, said
Petty Officer Rex Kramer, a spokesman for the
Pacific Fleet Surface Force in San Diego, Calif.
“It does give some detail about some of the sys
tems in the ship that a foreign government might
want to know about,” he said. “I would be wor
ried about it.”
White signs bill tripling college tuition
Associated Press 1 ■' 1
“This session 'we had the option of not raising tu
ition, which would have forced m to cut back in
programs and sen-ices in higher education and
consequently diminish the value of degrees from
Texas institutions, or we could have increased tu
ition. We chose the latter. Gov. Mark White
AUSTIN — A bill that triples col
lege tuition was signed into law over
the weekend by Gov. Mark White.
The bill touched off a demonstra
tion of angry students at the Capitol
2'/2 months ago.
The Legislative Budget Board has
estimated the bill would bring in rev
enue totaling $285.8 million over the
next two years.
Other researchers say that esti
mate could be high, however, be
cause medical, dental and veterinary
tuition increases were scaled back
from the original proposal.
The demonstration of 2,000 stu
dents at the Capitol was directed at
Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, who proposed
tripling tuition, but it was White who
waited until the last day to sign the
proposal.
“This session we had the option of
not raising tuition, which would
have forced us to cut back in pro
grams and services in higher educa
tion and consequently diminish the
value of degrees from Texas institu
tions, or we could have increased tu
ition,” White said. ^AVe chose the lat
ter.
“But in doing so we insisted that
money be set aside for those stu
dents who might not be able other
wise to afford the cost of tuition.”
The increase is the first substan
tial tuition hike since 1957, before
the vast majority of the student dem
onstrators were born.
The measure would raise aca
demic tuition for a Texas resident
from $4 per semester hour this fall
to $12. Tuition would go to $16 per
semester hour in. the fall of 1986 and
would increase by $2 per semester
hour each two years until it reaches
$24 in the fall of 1995.
Tuition for nonresidents, who
now pay $40 per semester hour, also
would triple, to $120 this fall and
would remain at $120 next year. Af
ter that, it would be set at an amount
to cover the actual estimated cost of
a year’s college education, which is
now pegged at $120 per semester
hour.
Resident medical tuition would
climb from $400 per academic year
to $1,219 this fall with subsequent
increases to $5,463 in 1989. Nonresi
dents would pay four times the resi
dent rate, beginning with $4,876 in
1985 and rising to $21,852 in 1989.
The Texas Research League said
the nonresident rate scheduled to
take effect in 1989 is less than half of
the current cost of a medical educa
tion, estimated by the (College)
Coordinating Board at $54,629.
Dental and veterinary school tu
ition would follow the medical
school pattern but at lower rates. For
example, resident dental tuition
would go up from $400 to $900 a
year and veterinary tuition would
rise from $400 to $800 with subse
quent increases.
Law school tuition, which is now
the same as that for general aca
demic courses — $4 per semester
hour —- would jump to $24 in the
fall, and then increase each year by
$12 per semester hour until it
reaches $60 in 1988. Nonresidents
would pay $ 150 per semester hour.
While White claims that Texas will
rank 50th in state tuition levels in
1985, others have placed Texas’ tu
ition and fee charges at 46th among
48 states surveyed.
The new law would eliminate sev
eral tuition exemptions under which
certain nonresidents are charged the
cheaper resident tuition.
The law would require universi
ties to set aside 15 percent of resi
dent tuition and 5 percent of nonre
sident tuition to fund educational
grants and loans but those percent
ages would decline in 1987.
At least 20 percent of the tuition
“set-aside” would be used for an
emergency loan program, with a
maximum interest rate of 5 percent.
The standard repayment period
would be 90 days but that time could
be extended.
Two percent of resident medical
tuition would be set aside to repay
student loans for physicians who
serve with certain designated state
agencies or in economically de
pressed areas of the state.