Nude models being used
Central Texas cities trying
Mustang's football fate
in environmental design class
to find solutions to water woes
rests on NCAA decision
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The Battalion
Vol. 80 No. 182 QSPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday July 31, 1985
Vandiver
to speak at
graduation
By BRIAN PEARSON
Stuff Writer
Texas A&M President Frank Van
diver will speak at graduation cere
monies on Aug. 17. The ceremonies
will begin at 9 a.m. in G. Rollie White
Coliseum.
Also, graduating members of the
Corps of Cadets at the ceremony,
who will be going into the Army,
Navy, Air Force or Marines, will be
commissioned as second lieutenants
by Lt. Gen Ormond Simpson, vice
president for student services. It will
be Simpson’s last ceremony to com
mission cadets because he is retiring
® on Aug. 31.
Simpson said about 21 cadets will
be commissioned.
Associate Registrar Don Carter
■ said a list of graduation candidates,
T both those who are cleared and not
■ cleared for graduation, will be
I posted in front of Heaton Hall at 8
I a.m. on Aug. 15. He said students
I must clear all academic problems by
15 p.m. on Aug. 15 if they expect to
I graduate.
“We go to the printing center that
I evening and if they’re not in the pro-
| gram, they don’t graduate,” Carter
1 said.
He said students owing money to
1 various University departments will
1 still be able to graduate, although
1 their transcripts will be blocked.
He said students who come in to
I clear academic problems after Aug.
I 15, even if it’s Friday (Aug. 16), will
I be ’S.O.L (Sorry, Out of Luck).”
Carter said 1,557 have applied for
■ graduation, and about 100 are ex-
| pected to pull out at the last minute.
- Photo by TONY S. CASPER
Jumping For Joy
Texas A&M women’s volleyball coach Terry Condon (center)
watches Amy Hamlin (left) and Kelly Bollman execute a blocking
drill in G. Rollie White Coliseum during the A&M Volleyball
Camp. The camp is being held from July 29 until August 1.
White allots money
for Corpus homeport
Associated Press
AUSTIN — Gov. Mark White
signed a proclamation Tuesday al
lowing $25 million in state money to
be spent for the Navy homeport to
built at Corpus Christi.
Undecided, however, is how Gal
veston will come up with the $8 mil
lion it needs to land the “consolation
prize” offered by the Navy when it
picked Corpus Christi as the main
site.
A Houston lawmaker on hand
when White signed the proclamation
in private said some of the $25 mil
lion might be shifted to Galveston.
“We’re working on that right
now,” Rep. Ashley Smith said.
But a White aide said there’s little
chance Galveston would get any of
the $25 million.
The Navy, after looking at several
Gulf Coast cities in a few states, re
cently picked Corpus Christi as the
homeport for the U.S.S. Wisconsin
and its support fleet. Houston-Gal-
veston also sought the port, but got
what Smith called a “consolation
prize” — Five Navy ships.
Galveston must come up with $8
million by Aug. 1 or the Navy might
look elsewhere. The island city
doesn’t have the money and is al
ready near its taxing limit. Galveston
has a 9.8 percent unemployment
rate and needs the 450jobs the ships
would bring, according to Mayor Jan
Coggeshall.
Smith hopes the state’s $25 mil
lion can be split. Corpus Christi’s
share will be used for dock construc
tion, channel dredging and installa
tion of electric lines. Texas lawmak
ers approved the money this year as
art of the state’s pitch for the
omeport.
The proclamation signed by
White certifies that the homeport
would mean much for the state
economy.
Only Corpus Christi is mentioned
in the proclamation, but Smith said
Galveston needs some of the money.
U.S., Japan, Soviet Union
will establish radio link
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The United
States and Japan have agreed with
the Soviet Union to establish a radio
link to better monitor commercial
aircraft crossing the North Pacific,
lessening the likelihood of a plane
straying into Soviet air space, offi
cials announced Tuesday.
The measure, aimed at prevent
ing a recurrence of the incident in
September 1983 when a Korean Air
Lines jumbo jet with 269 people
aboard penetrated Soviet airspace
and was shot down, was tentatively
agreed to Monday in Tokyo, the of
ficials said.
Transportation Secretary Eliza
beth Dole, who announced the
agreement, called it “an encouraging
step toward enhancement of the
safety of civil air traffic in the North
Pacific region.”
The preliminary agreement calls
for a special communications net
work linking air traffic control cen
ters in Tokyo and Anchorage,
Alaska, with Soviet air traffic con
trollers in Khabarovsk, U.S.S.R.
The communication line would be
used if civilian airliners flying the
northern Pacific route are in diffi
culty or off course and heading over
restricted Soviet territory, the offi
cials said.
Neither U.S. nor Japanese air tra
ffic controllers are able to track a jet
liner on radar along its entire trip
across the Pacific. But aviation ex-
E erts say Japanese and U.S. control
's in conjunction with Soviet con
trollers could monitor an aircraft the
entire time.
Congressman: War hasn't begun
‘War on Drugs’ takes criticism
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The much-
heralded “War on Drugs” won’t
even begin until the U.S. Customs
Service gets its own air fleet, a con
gressman whose committee oversees
the war told members of the con
gressional Border Caucus on Tues
day.
Rep. Glenn English, D-Okla., said,
“We haven’t been beaten in the War
on Drugs, quite frankly we haven’t
had a War on Drugs.”
English, who is chairman of the
House Government Operations Sub
committee on Government Informa
tion, Justice and Agriculture, sug
gested the naming of a “drug czar”
to coordinate the various federal ef
forts aimed at illegal drugs.
English said despite Reagan ad
ministration support, congressional
initiatives have made the real differ
ence in the War on Drugs.
The cornerstone of the War on
Drugs was to be a 1981 amendment
to the Posse Comitatus Act to allow
military support for civilian drug in
terception efforts.
He said the National Narcotics
Border Interdiction System, which is
headed by Vice President George
Bush, has done little. He cited a Gov
ernment Accounting Office report
that found that NNBIS had “no mis
sion, no staff, no budget and no au
thority.”
Customs estimates that 62 percent
of illegal drugs entering the country
come in by air, English said.
Medicare, Medicaid see 20th birthday
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Medicare
and Medicaid, considered grand
social experiments when they
were signed into law, marked
their 20th birthday Tuesday with
Democrats complaining their
bright promises have been
dimmed by Reagan administra
tion ef forts to cap soaring costs.
At the same time, the adminis
tration said it has strengthened
the programs, which are the cor
nerstones of federal health pol
icy.
“We have a great deal more to
do to ensure what I think is a test
of the society, and that is how it
cares for its senior citizens,” Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.,
who helped push the original bill
through Congress, said at a Capi
tol Hill ceremony.
“We will not be silent until we
guarantee our elderly people the
opportunity to live their golden
years in peace and security, and
free from the fear of devastating
medical bills,” Kennedy said.
He said new eligibility rules im
posed on Medicaid have pushed
thousands of poor people off the
rolls. And he said Medicare leaves
the elderly with the burden of
paying for long-term nursing
care, eye, foot and dental care,
preventive treatment and pre
scription drugs.
The Reagan administration of
ficial who has headed the pro
gram for the past four and a half
years contended, however, that
the administration leaves a valu
able legacy to the nation’s elderly
at the 20-year mark — a program
far broader than the original one,
but with controls that can prevent
it from collapsing of its own fi
nancial weight.
Medicare, a health insurance
program for the elderly, and
Medicaid, the program for the
poor, were goals of President
John F. Kennedy during his time
in the Senate and the White
House and became part of Presi
dent Lyndon Johnson’s blueprint
for a “Great Society.”
Over the years. Congress ex
panded the program to meet new
needs. The disabled were
brought into Medicare in 1972,
and other services were added
later.
Costs escalated accordingly.
Medicare spending grew from $1
billion in its first year to $71 bil
lion — some $8.5 million an hour
— this year, Davis said. Expendi
tures for Medicaid increased an
average of 31 percent a year from
1965 to 1971, and 21 percent a
year from 1972 to 1975.
The spending has made Medi
care and Medicaid the cor
nerstones of the entire medical
industry, accounting for 27 per
cent of all health care expendi
tures in the nation, Davis said.
Shuttle’s problems
due to faulty sensors
Associated Press
SPACE CENTER, Houston —
Faulty sensors, and not an engine
failure, probably caused a rocket
shutdown that threatened to dump
Challenger into the ocean during
launch, NASA said Tuesday.
The problem — in which sensors
indicated fuel pumps were overheat
ing when in fact the pumps were op
erating normally — is not expected
to delay the next shuttle lunch, set
for Aug. 24, the space agency said.
Computers, taking information
from the sensors, ordered one of
three main engines to shut down
minutes after launch Monday. The
action left Challenger, its seven
crewmen and a cargo of science in
struments in a lower-than-planned
orbit and with a shortage of fuel.
To add to their problems, the as
tronauts discovered Tuesday that a
$60 million pointing device that is a
key element of four experiments was
drifting erratically and was unable to
focus the instruments on specific tar
gets on the sun.
Following standard policy, NA
SA’s announcement Tuesday said
there will not be another launch un
til the Challenger engine problem is
-fully understood.
The NASA confirmed reports
from sources that a study of pres
sures and flow patterns “almost con
clusively” determined that the
launch problems were caused by
temperature sensors giving false in
formation to computers aboard the
$1.2 billion Challenger.
The computers, reading the false
temperature data, ordered Chal
lenger’s engine No. 1 to shutdown 5
minutes, 45 seconds after launch,
while the spacecraft was straining to
reach orbit.
Sensors on another engine also in
dicated an extreme temperature rise
and threatened to cause another en
gine to be turned off. Mission Con
trol quickly told the astronauts to
disable the sensor readings so the re
maining engines would continue to
burn.
Flight director Cleon Lacefield
said that if a second engine had shut
down during critical seconds of
launch, Challenger would have
fallen to Earth.
The astronauts had to burn 4,400
pounds of fuel in the Orbital Ma
neuvering System rocket system,
leaving the spacecraft with about a
third less fuel than planned for the
science mission.
A&M prof says research on animals can benefit people
By MICHAEL CRAWFORD
Senior Staff Writer
During the early morning hours of Dec.
9, 1984, 12 people broke into the City of
Hope National Medical Center in Durante,
Calif. After entering the labs, they broke
into three groups and less than 45 minutes
later they left with more than 100 labo
ratory animals.
That raid was one of about 20 since 1982
carried out by the Animal Liberation Front,
a secret organization dedicated to eliminat
ing the use of animals for experimentation.
Biomedical researchers are concerned that
each twist of the key destroys years of de
tailed research in these “liberations,” while
animal rights’ groups accuse the research
community of extreme cruelty.
Scientists at the City of Hope facility said
they lost more than the dogs, cats, rabbits
and rats. The biggest loss, they said, was the
research into cancer and emphysema.
Texas A&M used more than 31,000 live
animals, from white-tailed deer to ham
sters, in 1984 experiments. A raid on the
University would not only cost research
time, but also research funds that; have be
come scarce during federal budget cuts.
Gary Joiner, director of University Labo
ratory Animal Care, says some research
would be lost because federal agencies
would be reluctant to fund research that
was previously started.
The storm centers around the animal
rights groups’ belief that lower animals, not
just humans, have inalienable rights which
must be respected. Although Joiner says he
understands the sympathies of the groups,
he favors the use of animals.
“I don’t think we have the right to cause
pain or to abuse them,” he says. “But I
think it’s wrong to deny people the benefits
of help simply because we don’t want to
cause pain or discomfort to an animal.”
But the Washington D.C.-based People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals insists
that most researchers use animals as a mat
ter of habit rather than of necessity. Direc
tor Ingrid Newkirk says tapes taken from
labs by the ALF show researchers abusing
unanesthetized animals. In another raid,
Newkirk says, dogs were discovered dying
of suffocation and living in their own waste.
In an interview last week on the Cable
News Network program “Newsmaker Sa
turday,” Robert Krauss, executive director
of the Federation of American Societies for
Experimental Biology, said some labs may
have violated generally accepted standards
of animal care. But those labs are excep
tions and improvements continue to be
made “without the interference of a terror
ist organization breaking into labs.”
Joiner admits that some questionable
practices might have occurred at A&M sev
eral years ago, but he insists University
guidelines and researcher awareness have
eliminated the problem. Still, he says, if the
two or three “crank letters” received an
nually by the University become more se
rious, additional security will be installed.
The alternative method of research men
tioned most often by animal rights groups is
computer modeling of animals’ biological
functions. Using this method, proponents
claim almost 100 percent of animal use
could be eliminated. Critics charge that
computer modeling is too new, too complex
and too expensive to be used practically.
Awareness of the controversy has
prompted lawmakers to examine federal
guidelines for animal care. Current
guidelines require that animals receive ap
propriate veterinary care, that they be used
only in the advancement of science, and
that anesthetic be used if a procedure will
cause pain.
See Animals, page 4