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.