TDC may have to release
about 140 women inmates
— Page 3
White: Justice Department
is trying to 'chill' voter turnout
— Page 5
Texas A&M football old, new
gets microscope treatment
— Page 6
The Battalion
Photo by GREG BAILEY
Hollywood Squares?
Construction workers prepare a side of the Physics building for
it’s windows. Work began on the new facility in March 1984 and is
scheduled to be completed around the middle of January 1986.
College Station, Texas
Thursday July 25, 1985
White House says response
against terrorism will vary
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Reagan
administration said Wednesday its
response to terrorists and govern
ments that support them “will be
proportionate to the losses in
curred,” but it gave no indication it is
contemplating any imminent action
to avenge recent attacks on Ameri
cans in El Salvador and elsewhere.
In yet another warning similar to
those issued in the wake of terrorist
incidents in the Middle East and
Central America, presidential
spokesman Larry Speakes said, “The
United States will not tolerate terror
ist actions against our citizens. We
will be prepared to take steps.
“We have outlined in firm tones
our policy on attacking terrorist cen
ters or those responsible for terrorist
attacks,” Speakes told reporters at a
White House briefing. “That policy
remains. The governments responsi
ble understand that. We will take ap
propriate action.
“The level of our response,” he
added, “will be proportionate to the
losses incurred. Those that perpe
trate such incidents, or governments
that support state-sponsored terror
ism, are on notice.”
Asked if his use of the term “pro
portionate response” indicates the
United States would avenge “an eye
for an eye, a life for a life,” Speakes
said, “We’ll make those judgments at
the time.”
Asked when the United States
might act, he replied, “Wait and
see.”
The administration has been
warning of its intention to retaliate
against terrorism since President
Reagan took office in January 1981,
when he pledged “swift and effective
retribution” against those who vio
late international standards of be
havior.
Similar “notices” to terrorists have
been posted in the wake of the re
cent hijacking of TWA Flight 847
and the murder of one of its passen-
ers, the sidewalk cafe murders in
an Salvador and a rash of terrorist
bombings that followed around the
world.
Speakes refused to respond di
rectly to a New York Times report
that the administration considered
attacking a Nicaraguan training base
in retaliation for the murder of six
Americans in El Salvador last
month. But its publication prompted
him to issue the latest warning.
In a report similar to others pub
lished earlier elsewhere, the Times
J juoted unidentified State and De-
ense Department officials as saying
a plan was discussed at senior levels
in the White House to launch an air
strike against a Nicaraguan base
where American officials believed
one or more of the gunmen were
trained.
Union head won't be prosecuted
Justice Department drops suit
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Justice
Department, against the wishes of its
field prosecutors and Labor Depart
ment union investigators, has de
cided not to seek the indictment of
Teamsters president Jackie Presser,
government sources say.
Terry Eastland, the top spokes
man for Attorney General Edwin
Meese III, refused to confirm or
deny that the department had de
cided against asking a grand jury in
Cleveland to indict Presser in con
nection with the panel’s investigation
of an alleged “ghost payroll” scheme
at Teamster Local 507 there.
But federal law enforcement
sources, who agreed to discuss the
politically sensitive case involving
President Reagan’s lone major union
supporter only on the grounds they
remain unidentified, said prosecu
tors in the field had been told there
would be no attempt to indict
Presser.
About six months ago, the Justice
Department’s field prosecutors had
recommended to officials in Wash
ington that Presser’s indictment be into
sought.
Presser, 58, who continues as sec
retary-treasurer of his hometown
Cleveland local as well as president
of the 1.8 million-member interna
tional labor union, said Wednesday:
“Thank God that it’s over. I’m happy
with the outcome.”
A senior department official,
allegations that people were
paid for no-show jobs at the union
local.
Presser had steadfastly
that he was guilty of any
doing.
In November 1983, Allen Fried
man, Presser’s uncle, was sentenced
in the case to three years in prison
on a conviction of embezzling
denied
wrong-
“You’ll have to ask the Justice Department why” Presser
won't be prosecuted. — an unidentified Labor Depart
ment source, who was dissatisfied that Teamsters presi
dent Jackie Presser was not being prosecuted.
without confirming that the case had
been dropped, did say Wednesday
that Attorney General Edwin Meese
III, who had close ties to Presser
during his years as a key White
House aide to President Reagan,
had taken himself out of any deci
sion-making in the case.
For nearly three years, the grand
jury in Cleveland had been looking
$165,000 in salaries from Local 507.
Ray Maria, deputy inspector gen
eral at the Labor Department who
supervises that agency’s Office of
Labor Racketeering, said, “The De
partment of Labor has no investiga
tion pending at this time.”
He declined to go beyond that
statement.
But a law enforcement source said
the only scenario in which the Labor
Department would have no probe
pending against Presser would be
one in which the Justice Department
had decided against asking for his
indictment.
The Labor Department’s racke
teering office shares responsibility
with the Justice Department for in
vestigating union corruption.
Investigators with the Cleveland
office of the Labor Department unit
had been involved in the investiga
tion of Local 507 from the outset.
But a department source said the
agency’s role is now over and that its
investigators “will not spend 10 sec
onds on this case.”
This source, expressing anger
over the decision, said “you’ll have to
ask the Justice Department why”
Presser will not be prosecuted.
David Margolis, a highly regarded
Justice Department career attorney
who heads the criminal division’s or
ganized crime section and supervises
the strike forces around the country,
said Wednesday:
Construction on schedule for Clayton Williams, Jr. Center
<
By BRIAN PEARSON
Stuf f Writer
Construction on a proposed $7
jmillion building, which will benefit
tudents, faculty and former stu-
ents is on schedule, an Association
jof Former Students representative
said Wednesday.
Randy Matson, executive director
of the association, said the 59,000-
square-foot Clayton Williams Jr.
Center is still expected to be com
pleted in September 1986.
“It will be a very functional build
ing not only for former students —
but for faculty, staff and students to
use,” Matson said.
Located at the corner of Jersey
Street and Houston Street, the cen
ter will be the office for the 35-mem
ber staff of the former students’ as
sociation. Matson said there are
about 120,000 former students.
The proposed center is marked in
the 1984-85 Campus Directory’s
map of the University campus.
Matson said the building will pro
vide a meeting place after games,
and rooms can be reserved for grad
uation ceremonies and other Uni
versity activities.
“We’ll have the capability of hav
ing banquets, receptions and those
types of things for former students
and people on campus,” Matson
said.
Matson said the semicircular-
shaped center will be designed to
represent the beliefs that Texas
A&M stands for.
“We wanted something that rep
resents the strength and tradition
that the association and A&M has, so
the building committee felt like the
semicircular-shaped building with
Roman architecture and big col
umns would exemplify that,” Mat-
son said. “The white marble will
make it very attractive.”
Sections of the aerobics track and
the flying disc golf course have been
altered because of the five-acre con
struction site.
He said current alternate routes
of the track, which loop around the
Floral Test Gardens, have been es
tablished to keep joggers from run
ning on adjacent streets, but “90 per
cent” still insist on running along
Jersey Street.
“It’s crazy, but that’s what they
want to do,” he said.
An improved version of the aero
bics track is expected to he com
pleted by Aug. 5, Matson said. He
said some sections of the track will be
temporary until the building is fin
ished.
“I think the track will be better
than the old one once it’s finished,”
he said.
Matson said the location for the
center was chosen so that it would be
close to the Memorial Student Cen
ter and Kyle Field.
“It was by far the best location on
campus,” he said.
Matson said the money for the
center was donated by former stu
dents.
When the employees of the asso
ciation move into their new building,
the association’s current offices in
the MSC will be used by the Texas
A&M Development Foundation, he
said.
Some Texas teachers
ready for March tests
White House
President's lobbyist climbing adminstrotive ladder
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Suddenly
lie seems to be the third most
powerful man in the White
House. But outside Washington,
few even recognize his name.
W. Dennis Thomas was a
White House lobbyist who had
worked at the Treasury Depart
ment when Donald T. Regan
headed that agency.
W’hen Regan took over as
White House chief of staff earlier
this year, Thomas was regarded
by some as a likely candidate for
promotion.
But in May, the 41-year-old
former congressional aide
jumped ship.
He left the relative obscurity of
his job as one of the president’s
men on Capitol Hill to accept a
lucrative partnership in the inter
national accounting firm of
l ouche Ross.
The scuttlebutt was that he
would be making $200,000 a year
plus assorted fringe benefits and
bonuses while handling govern
ment relations for the firm, which
had been looking for someone to
fill that job for nearly two years.
A colleague, Cindy Cipriani,
said that Thomas “was very well
respected in a position of lead
ership and high visibility” at
Touche Ross.
“People work for years and
years to become a partner, and
partners rarely come from the
outside,” she said.
David A. Brody, a longtime
Washington lobbyist, recalled
that he ran into Thomas on the
street shortly after the former
White House aide left govern
ment.
“For once I’ve got time on my
hands,” Brody remembers
Thomas saying.
But the new executive lasted
only 2'4> months in his first-ever
non-government post.
On July 15, the day doctors dis
covered President Reagan had
colon cancer, the White House
press office distributed a routine
personnel announcement to re
porters gathered at Bethesda Na
val Hospital, where Reagan was a
patient.
“The president announced to
day his intention to appoint W.
Dennis Thomas as assistant to the
president,” the statement said.
Most presidential aides have
two titles, one showing rank, the
other describing one’s job.
But Thomas has only one title
— and that one is misleading.
Although he is assistant to the
president, his real function is to
serve as a key aide and adviser to
Chief of Staff Regan, who
brought him back into the White
House at about one-third of what
he reportedly was making at
Touche Ross.
“He’s not deputy chief of staff
yet, but I bet he will be,” said one
White House aide, describing
Thomas’ new role on condition
he not be identified.
Hiring Thomas also consti
tuted an indirect admission that
the staff structure Regan estab
lished last winter just wasn’t
working very well.
The chief of staff, a former
Wall Street executive who
brought several bright young un
derlings with him from Treasury,
found himself inundated by de
tails and no one to whom he
could comfortably delegate au
thority.
Thomas, one official said, is
Regan’s idea of the person he
needs for more pragmatic advice.
And Brody called Thomas “a
bright, capable young pragmatist.
He’s not an ideologue. He’ll bring
valuable insight to that job.”
Associated Press
AUS TIN — No Texas teacher in
his or her “right mind” wants to take
the required competency test but the
Association of Texas Professional
Educators will not challenge the
tests, the group’s president said
Tuesday.
“The test is going to show us there
are good teachers in the state of
Texas.” said Sue McGarvey, a
Hallsville High School teacher. “We
need to stop talking about going to
court, take the tests and get it behind
us.”
The Texas State Teachers Asso
ciation, the state’s largest teacher
group, has threatened to go to court
to challenge the competency test sys
tem. All Texas teachers will take the
test next March. Teachers must pass
the test to remain in the classroom.
The test is a result of HB 72, the
1984 education reform act.
McGarvey said, “No teacher in his
or her right mind wants to take that
test, but it is here. Our association
will obey the law.”
ATPE has 42;000 members, mak
ing it the second largest of the four
major teacher groups in Texas.
“We will support the competency
test although we do not believe that
it is a true evaluation of a teacher’s
teaching ability,” she added. “Stu
dents must abide by no-pass, no-play
and the exit-level test. How can we
give tests to our students when we
ourselves refuse to take them?”
ATPE favors a teacher appraisal
system based on classroom perfor
mance. Teachers who fare poorly on
those evaluations should be required
to take an exam, according to Mc
Garvey.
ATPE will help teachers prepare
both for the Subject matter in the test
and stress caused by such exams.
The group’s leaders met here this
week.
“Teachers need help with the
frustration and emotional pressure
of taking the test,” McGarvey said.
“It’s like an aggravation,” she said
of most teachers reaction to the
exam. “Of course it’s insulting.
“And of course there’s a chance I
would fail the test. I don’t intend to.”