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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 1985)
Former ISA president factor in generating club interest — Page 6 Aggies' offense possesses SWC's No. 2, No. 5 rushers — Page 12 Texas ASM m m M • The Battalion Vol.82 No. 29 USPS 045360 14 pages College Station, Texas Thursday, October 17,1985 Israelis release tape of FLO conversation Associated Press A man Israel said was PLO official Mohammed Abbas speaking to the Achilla Lauro’s hijackers told them in tapes of radio conversations re leased Wednesday to explain “our objective” to the cruise ship’s passen gers and not to harm them. Israel said the conversation oc curred Oct. 9, the day after Ameri can passenger Leon Klinghoffer was shot twice and thrown overboard off the coast of Syria. Abbas was with the four hijackers on the Egyptian airliner U.S. Navy jets forced down last Friday at a NATO base in Sicily. The United States and Israel ac cused him of directing the piracy and the Reagan administration de manded that he be held, but Italy let him go and its splintered coalition government may collapse as a result. The liner ended its odyssey of ter ror Wednesday, steaming into its home port of Genoa, Italy, and Leon Klinghoffer’s body was flown to Rome for an autopsy. Genoa prosecutors charged two more Palestinians in Klinghoffer’s death, bringing the number of de fendants to seven. Maj. Gen. Ehud Barak, chief of Is raeli military intelligence, played a tape recording on Israel television of a conversation in Arabic that he said was conducted Oct. 9 between Abbas and the pirates who had grabbed the Achille Lauro two days earlier off Port Said, Egypt. In a transcript, translated and re leased by the Israeli army, Abbas was quoted as urging the hijackers to treat the passengers well and “tell them our objective was not to take Beat The Hell Outta Baylor! Photo by JAIME LOPEZ Tuesday night the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band marched to Cain Hall with a crowd of non-regs and cadets to hold a “pull-out” yell practice. Join ing with the crowd are members of the football team. Regular yell practice for this weekend’s game in Waco will be held tonight at the Grove at 7 p.m. and Friday night at the Waco Convention Center on Washington Avenue near the Hilton. control of the ship." The army’s transcript quoted Ab bas as telling a hijacker called Majed: “Listen to me well. First of all, the passengers should be treated very well. In addition, you must apologize to them and the ship’s crew and to the captain, and tell them our objec tive was not to take control of the ship. Tell them what your main ob jective is.... Can you hear me well?” Barak said Abbas, appointed by Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat to negotiate the hijackers’ surrender and the release of the ship and more than 500 peo ple aboard, was at Egypt’s Port Said ship-to-shore radio station when the conversation took place. The hijackers, Israeli officials and Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Front have said the initial plan was for a terror attack when the ship reached the Israeli port of Ashdod. Italian prosecution sources quoted the Palestinians, who claim to be PLF members, as saying they de cided to seize the ship after a waiter saw them with weapons. Gennaro Calabrese De Feo, chief prosecutor in Genoa, said all seven Palestinians accused in the hijacking had been charged with kidnapping and murder in Klinghoffer’s death. The American’s body drifted to shore Monday near the Syrian port of Tartus Reports from the captain and oth ers on the Achille Lauro said the Pal estinian pirates shot the 69-year-old New Yorker, who was confined to a wheelchair, when the ship was off See Israelis page 14 Suspension of civil rights may increase support for Contras Associated Press MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Oppo sition leaders said Wednesday the suspension of civil rights will inten sify the war-like atmosphere in this leftist-ruled nation and may encour age support for U.S.-backed rebels. President Daniel Ortega an nounced Tuesday night that free ex pression, public assembly and the right to strike had been suspended because of “brutal aggression” by the United States and “its internal allies” against the Sandinista regime. His decree subjects Nicaraguans to inspection of mail and search and seizure without warrant. Authorities have no obligation to release infor mation about those arrested. News media must submit their material to the Interior Ministry’s di rector of communications before publication or broadcast. Similar rules have not affected foreign jour nalists in the past, but the scope of the current decree was not clear im mediately. La Prensa, the main opposition newspaper, had been required pre viously to submit material dealing with “military affairs and the na tion’s economic relations.” Ortega said in a speech broadcast nationally: “In response to the ter rorist politics of the United States . . . internal pawns of imperialism sup ported by some political parties, news media outlets and religious in stitutions have redoubled their ac tions to sabotage the defense forces of our nation. “It is a fundamental condition for the lifting of these exceptional mea sures that the imperialist aggression against Nicaragua be effectively stopped.” In Washington, White House spokesman Larry Speakes called Or tega’s action “a clear example of the Sandinistas tightening their control of their country by violating basic freedoms and refusing to tolerate dissent” that re fleets “growing disil lusionment with the Sandinista re gime by large parts of the popula tion and the Sandinistas’ fear of their own people.” “These individuals have trampled on civil liberties as very few countries have done in the past,” he said Wednesday. The United States backs Nicara guan rebels, known as Contras, who operate from bases in Honduras and southern Nicaragua. The Sandinistas overthrew right ist President Anastasio Somoza in July 1979 and suspended most rignts and constitutional guarantees when they declared a state of emer gency in March 1982. Ortega’s government lifted the suspension in most cases shortly be fore national elections last Novem ber, when hundreds of foreign jour nalists and observers were in Nicaragua. Erick Ramirez, head of the Social Christian Party of Nicaragua, said Wednesday that the government ac tion “polarizes even more the situa tion in Nicaragua, ends the few guarantees the Nicaraguan people have, increases the tension and justi fies the increase of the counter-revo lution.” Justice Minister Rodrigo Reyes in sisted that the decree “preserves the intrinsic rights of the people, such as the right to life and physical integ rity.” Ortega did not mention specific military action by the Contras that may have prompted the suspension of rights. Proposition 2 A&M, UT systems using PUF to improve programs By JENS B. KOEPKE Staff Writer Although Texas A&M and the University of Texas have not felt a profound change because of Propo sition 2, the other schools in their systems are using the new stable source of money to improve their academic programs and building fa cilities. The passage of Proposition 2 in November 1984 restructured the function of the Permanent Univer sity Fund, the primary source of construction revenue for the A&M and UT systems. The PUF is an endowment of oil- rich land, a percentage of which is used as collateral for construction bonds for the two systems. Interest earned from the investment of the PUF makes up the Available Univer sity Fund, which is projected to be over $194 miWion in The \JT system receives two-thirds of the AUF while the A&M system gets one-third. Proposition 2 gave three more in stitutions in the A&M system and nine more schools in the UT system access to PUF bonds and provided a special $6 million appropriation to Prairie View A&M University from the UT portion of the AUF for the next 10 years. “I think it’s allowed us to lay out a development plan with some assur ance of steady funding and it’s al lowed us to have a plan that will not only make up for many years of un derfunding, but give us an opportu nity to pursue the excellence that we all want,” says Dr. Percy Pierre, pres ident of Prairie View. The $6 million appropriation from the UT portion of the AUF will he spent to improve academic sup port facilities such as the library and the computer center and to hire ad ditional faculty, Pierre says. In addition, Prairie View will re ceive $6 million for the next two years from the A&M portion of the AUF, he says. This money goes to fa cility expenditures — to catch up on the backlog of needed renovations of old buildings on the Prairie View campus. Tne Texas A&M System Board of Regents has approved construction of a new $16 million library, a $2.5 million intramural complex and a $3.6 million renovation of the old gym, Pierre says. The board has also set aside $3.5 million for general campus development such as up- See System page 14 Senate staff report says military Joint Chiefs of Staff is obsolete Associated Press WASHINGTON — The military Joint Chiefs of Staff have become obsolete, unable to give effective ad vice, and should be abolished be cause they pose an obstacle to effec tive joint operations by the military services, a Senate staff report said Wednesday. The report, the product of two and a half years of work by the bi partisan staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recommends that the joint chiefs be replaced with ajoint Military Advisory Council. It would be composed of five four-star officers, each of whom would be on his last tour of service, in order to “create a source of truly independent military advice, uninhi bited by service responsibilities and pressures.” The ranking officers of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force would continue to head their serv ices but would lose their role as di rect military advisers. At present, the report said, the chiefs wear two hats, as military ad visers and service heads, and conse quently are not able to do either job well. Identifying 34 problem areas, the report makes 91 specific recommen dations for change, many aimed at improving the effectiveness of mili tary operations involving more than one service. The report was unveiled at a com mittee hearing in which most mem bers agreed change has become es sential. But debate flared over how radi cal that change should be. “There will be those who say the system ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” said Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz. “However, it is broke and we need to fix it,” said Goldwater, who is re tiring at the end of his present term. “If we don’t, our military effective ness will be seriously impaired. If we have to fight tomorrow, these prob lems will cause Americans to die un necessarily. Even worse, they may cause us to lose the fight.” Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a for mer secretary of the Navy, dis agreed. He said some of the pro posed remedies would subject the armed forces and the Pentagon to “open heart surgery.” And he said Gold water’s charac teristic outspoken candor may un dermine morale and cause more damage. Brazos County grand jury indicts 36 on drug charges By BRIAN PEARSON Staff Writer Police officers from six depart ments went after 36 suspects Wednesday night in an effort to curb illegal drug trafficking in Brazos County. Officers from the narcotics di vision of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Panola and Bra zos counties’ sheriffs depart ments and the College Station, Bryan and Palestine police de partments participated in the sweep. The crackdown was the result of a four-month undercover in vestigation by the departments involved. The 36 indictments were handed down Wednesday at special session of the Brazos County grand jury. The grand jury indicted 25 male and 11 female suspects on felony charges. Out of 56 cases stemming from the investigation, 25 were for delivery of cocaine, 16 for delivery of methampheta- mines and 15 for delivery of mar ijuana. Sgt. Rick Stewart of the Texas DPS said the $20,813 investiga tion was different from normal police work in the area because the officers struck at the “middle man,” who is part of the second ary level of drug trafficking. “What we did basically was we removed ourselves from the street-level, small dealer to the second level (the street dealer’s supplier),” Stewart said. He said the middleman sup plies from eight to 10 street-level dealers. “By taking him (middleman) off the street, hopefully we’ll stop the other eight to ten people in volved because their supply will See see 4-month, page 14 Photo by GREG BAILEY Bryan reserve police officer Don Folterman leads Artis Haines and another unidentified suspect to be booked on drug charges.