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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 2, 1985)
New microcomputer center Supreme Court ruling upholds Browns ready to take Kosar aiding departmental users separation of church, state in NFL supplemental draft — Page 4 — Page 5 — Page 7 Battalion Serving the University community Vol. 79 No. 167 CISPS 045360 8 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, July 2, 1985 Officials say U.S. may strike at terrorists Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Reagan administration hinted Monday the United States will strike against ter- jrorist training camps or support bases in the Middle East, saying the Beirut hostage crisis had created widespread support in America “for more firmness in dealing with ter rorism.” Meanwhile, the United States ini tiated “legal action and diplomatic ' steps” to close Beirut airport to in ternational travel, declaring the goal was to put it “off-limits” to terrorists. As the 39 Treed American hos tages were pronounced in good mental and physical health after checkups in Wiesbaden, West Ger many, the administration signaled it was weighing steps to underscore U.S. determination to combat ter- orism in the wake of the hijacking jfTWA night 847. Robert C. McFarlane, national se curity adviser to President Reagan, laid there are “two or three strategic bcations in the Middle East” that night be targets of U.S. action. He lid not pinpoint any sites. McFarlane, in an interview with |he Independent Network News, as asked if it was possible to “surgi- ally retaliate” against those respon sible for the hijacking, and whether [he United States must retaliate in rderto maintain credibility. “Well, I think that’s true,” McFar- •janesaid. “And I think the focus of it the purpose of it — has to be not |o conduct a random act of ven- leance, but instead, to focus our lower on dealing with the root sources of terrorism .. . .” I White House spokesman Larry ©peakes declined to elaborate on icFarlane’s suggestion of a strike igainst terrorist camps. However, the spokesman said the possibility of closing the Beirut air port “was discussed again this morn ing” when Reagan met for an hour with top national security advisers to review the outcome of the hijacking and U.S. efforts against terrorism. The airport was where hijackers Hew the TWA flight and held pas sengers and crew members hostage. It is under the control of the Amal militia, whose leader, Lebanese Jus tice Minister Nabih Berri, played a key role in negotiations over their release. At the lime Lebanon’s civil war started 10 years ago, the airport was a major hub, served by about 30 air lines. Today, only Lebanon’s na tional airline provides regular serv ice there. Administration officials said it was not feasible to retaliate against the radical Moslem faction known as Hezbollah — the group that held four of the hostages separate from the others — because they live in ur ban areas and any attack would kill innocent people. The president raised the prospect of U.S. action against terrorists dur ing a five-minute television speech Sunday afternoon as the freed hos tages were flying from Damascus, Syria, to Wiesbaden. “Terrorists, be on notice,” said Reagan. “We will fight back against you in Lebanon and elsewhere. We will fight back against your cowardly attacks on American citizens and property.” McFarlane, in his interview with INN, said, “I think . . . what has emerged from this experience in the United States has been a very wide spread popular support for more firmness in dealing with terrorism.” He said that until now, such senti ment “has been missing.” Gay Parade Gay Student Services President Marco Roberts, right, carries the ban ner proclaiming the GSS’ new marching band during the parade that marked the closing of Gay Pride Week ’85 in Houston Sunday. ANTHONY S. CASPER . The band, comprised of GSS members, played the Texas A&M fight song as well as other A&M songs on their kazoos. The group received the Best Marching Band award for their efforts. Former captives in West Germany Hostages enjoying freedom Overpricing to cost Exxon over $2 billion Associated Press WASHINGTON — Exxon, the world’s largest corporation, was ordered Monday to pay more than $2 billion for overpricing crude oil during the energy-short 1970s. A special federal court, hand ling alleged violations when oil was under now-expired federal price controls, held Exxon Corp. liable for $895.5 million in over charges from 1975 until 1981 for crude oil from its Hawkins Field in east Texas — plus interest. Both government lawyers and attorneys for Exxon said they be lieve the judgment is the largest , ever against a single defendant. “I’ve never heard of a larger one,” said Larry P. Ellsworth, deputy chief counsel for the En ergy Department’s Economic Regulatory Administration and the chief government attorney in the case. The three-judge panel of the Temporary Emergency U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with the Reagan administration that it is impossible to trace the Exxon overcharges to ultimate consum ers who were harmed by the over pricing. Therefore, it ordered Exxon to pay the amount to a special ac count in the Treasury, from which it will be disbursed to the 50 states for energy conservation programs. Though Exxon’s overcharges totaled $895.5 million, interest on that amount is building at a rate of $500,000 a day will bring the total to more than $2 billion. Ex xon estimated in its latest annual report that accrued interest alone, as of the end of 1984, to taled $1 billion. Associated Press WIESBADEN, West Germany — Thirty-nine Americans spent Mon day with their loved ones, safe at the end of a terrible voyage that began as a routine flight home and turned into a horror of beating and killing on a captive jetliner. They embraced their families, caught up on the news from home and went shopping, just like other f >eople. Gone were the guns, the ear, the vermin-infested hovels in which they had spent most of their time since Shiite Moslem extremists hijacked the TWA jet on June 14 be tween Athens and Rome. The hostages arrived here shortly after dawn after a trip overland from Beirut to Damascus, Syria, and an all-night flight in a U.S. military plane to Frankfurt, 24 miles east of here. Vice President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, led the welcoming crowd. Robert Brown, 42, of Stow, Mass., told reporters the hijackers beat and kicked some of the passengers while the Boeing 727 flew back and forth from Beirut to Algiers, eventually releasing most of the 153 people aboafd. WtJWlf held in Beirut Associated Press ^Wasmimcton of seven Americans still held in Lebanon said Monday they felt let down became the kidnap vic tims had not been freed along with the TWA hostages. And they expressed fear that talk of U.S. retaliation could bring harm to the captives. y,-lA y " “l am depressed,” said Carol Weir, wife of hostage Rev, Benja min Weir, “I don't believe theyVe. made the same effort for my hus band and the others, I feel like the administration bad a perfect opportunity to seek the release of the forgotten seven, and 1 feel like they missed that opportu nity.’' ; Peggy Say, whose brother, Terty Anderson, was kidnapped in Beirut on Match lb, said she is planning to go to Syria as soon as President Hafez Assad “or some one very close to him agrees to see me. ” “It’s obvious to me by this dme that my government's not going to help me, so perhaps President Assad will,” she said in an inter view on Cable News Network. “I am praying to God President As sad will make time for me.” Anderson’s Father, Glenn, ap pearing on ABC-TV’s “Good See Hostage, page 4 They also beat and killed Robert Dean Stethem, 23, a U.S. Navy petty officer from Waldorf, Md., and threw his body from the plane dur ing a stop in Beirut.The director of the U.S. Air Force Hospital here de clared said all 39 Americans were “excellent physical and mental con dition” despite their ordeal. • Scores of relatives flew to West Germany during the day. Some of the hostages avoided questions on the advice of U.S. officials con cerned about the fate of seven Americans who have been kidnap ped in Lebanon since March 1984 and still are missing. Most of the former hostages used a bank of free telephones to chat with relatives back home. Many didn’t go to bed, despite the long journey that will resume later this week with the last leg home. Several were taken by bus to the local PX to buy new clothes. “I’m wearing a pajama shirt and the same pants I’ve had on for two weeks,” Arthur Toga, 33, of St. Louis told reporters. Asked about Shiite leader Nabih Berri and others who helped nego tiate the release, Toga said: “When a man brings you food every day you learn to like him.” The extremisi Shiite hijackers are believed to be members of the fun damentalist group Hezbollah (Party of God). They turned all the hos tages except Brown and three others over to Bern’s Shiite militia Amal af ter they were taken off the plane June 17. A hearty American-style breakfast began the day for the former hos tages, with the added German touch of Rhine wine. Monday ended with a festive dinner. High court denies retarded special protection ' till r T- 11. I ■ ..nw ii m 11. ■ ■ ■ m , , v-c ^ . .. w 1 ^(=> 1 lAr^m C Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Su preme Court on Monday refused to Jive mentally retarded people the »ame special legal protection blacks and women enjoy against discrimi natory treatment by state and local governments. The court, by a 6-3 vote, reversed a ruling that would have required the nation’s courts to review more stringently any law or government policy that singles out mentally re tarded people for different treat ment. Justice Thurgood Marshall, the court’s only black, led the three dis senters in decrying “segregation and degradation (of the mentally re tarded) . . . that in its virulence and bigotry rivaled and indeed paral leled the worst excesses of Jim Crow.” Marshall, writing for himself and Justices William J. Brennan and Harry A. Blackmun, accused the court of playing down “the lengthy history of purposeful unequal treat ment of the retarded.” But Justice Byron R. White, writ ing for the majority, said “mental re tardation is a characteristic the gov ernment may legitimately take into account in a wide range of deci sions,” laws based on it should be judged more leniently as those based on sex or race. The court was unanimous, how ever, in striking down a Cleburne, Texas, zoning ordinance that re quired group homes for the men tally retarded to get special permits before locating in the same resi dential neighborhoods where apart The Supreme Court struck down a Cleburne, Texas, ordinance requiring group homes for the mentally re tarded to get special permits before locating in the same residential neighborhoods where apartment houses, public schools and nursing homes need none. ment houses, public schools ^ and nursing homes need no permits. White said the Cleburne ordi nance “appears to us to rest on an ir rational prejudice against the men tally retarded.” The decision said the Cleburne ordinance violated the equal-protec tion rights of the mentally retarded people who wanted to live in a group home. In most equal-protection lawsuits, courts look to see if there is a ratio nal reason for the discriminatory treatment. Almost always the chal lenged law or government policy is upheld. But when the challenged law or policy discriminates based on race or national origin, courts traditionally have upheld it only if government can show it has been “precisely tai lored to serve a compelling govern mental interest.” More often than not, laws and government policies studied by under such so-called “strict scrutiny” have been overturned. In 1976, the Supreme Court, cre ated a middle tier of scrutiny for equal-protection cases involving dis crimination based on sex. In those, government must prove the chal lenged law or policy is “substantially related to important governmental objectives.” Equal-protection lawsuits based on sex are more difficult to win than those based on race or national ori gin, but easier than those based on all other “economic and social” clas sifications. In the Cleburne case, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the first court in the nation to rule that laws treating the mentally retarded differently must be judged as those treating the sexes differently. The Supreme Court said Monday that “heightened scrutiny” is not necessary in such cases. White said, “We conclude for sev eral reasons that the court of appeals erred in holding mental retardation a quasi-suspect classification calling for a more exacting standard of judi cial review that is normally accorded economic and social legislation.” White added that mentally re tarded people are not left “entirely unprotected from invidious discrim ination.’ But, he wrote, governments “may not rely on a classification whose relationship to an asserted goal is so attenuated as to render the distinc tion arbitrary or irrational.” The court — all nine justices — found that Cleburne’s zoning ordi nance created such an irrational clas sification.