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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 1985)
Texas A&M Living Historians relive Civil War skirmishes — Page 3 No. 19 Ags travel to Houston for last road trip of the season — Page 10 Texas A&M 2 deluxe kGGIE lDERS? to you and four ners — for just ONFIRE'85, ISC (9a.m. • 2 mmons(5p.m. v. 11 • Nov. 15. Battalion Serving the Gniversity community Vol. 81 No. 52 (JSPS 075360 12 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, November 13,1985' .S. offers to exchange scientists with Soviets EATRES rat Show Only hUSt AIM Nitl TiMiUly S«nior ClUtmt Anylin Mon.-Frl. 7:35/9:35 Resents ,, vri/xF :45/9:55 ilii i-Fri 7:20/9:22 Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Reagan idministration has proposed an open laboratory” arrangement for he United States and the Soviet Union to exchange scientists and ouble-check eacn other’s “Star Vars” research, a senior administra- ion official said Tuesday. But the Soviet Union, so far, has refused to go along with any agreement that permits researcn nto Star Wars technology, the offi- ial said, even though tne United itates believes such research is Senate OKs rl Y P' Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. The official indicated the open laboratory proposal would be part of an understanding that could clear the way for a comprehensive new arms control agreement that also would include sharp reductions in strategic offensive nuclear weapons. The official said he still is hopeful that arms control guidelines can be worked out for the summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva. Rea gan leaves for the summit on Satur day. The official said the proposed guidelines are being discussed through the American ambassador in Moscow, Arthur Hartman, and the Soviet ambassador in Washing ton, Anatoly Dobrynin. Another official said Tuesday that it is a Soviet refusal to agree that the United States can engage in research into missile defense technology that is blocking a potential compromise that could lead to guidelines at the summit. “I think there is some real poten tial to cut a deal if they say they can live with laboratory research,” said the official, who specializes in arms control issues anct who insisted on not being identified. “I think it is clearly an ‘anything goes’ summit,” he said. “Anything can happen at the summit with re gard to arms control. Publicly we are not going to say it because an ‘any thing goes’ situation means it could go badly, too.” He said that when Secretary of State George P. Shultz and other U.S. officials went to Moscow last week, they found the Soviets unwil ling to follow up on previous indica tions they would agree to the re search. The senior official said in a brief ing at the White House that the So viet Union is calling “for a complete ban on everything having to do with space based systems as they define them, including a ban on research directed toward such systems.” An agreement to curb component testing is regarded as the key to the understanding. This would ban test ing of major components of a missile defense system outside the labo ratory. Without component testing, actual development and deployment of a missile shield would be a long way off. Such an understanding would be linked to a Soviet agreement for ma jor reductions in strategic offensive weapons. Details of the agreements, if there are to be agreements, would be worked out at the arms control talks that resume in Geneva in Jan uary. i-rn rzu/win? ii ■■ SB dunking age amendment NIGHT"/STING ':4O/9:40 ‘ »T— JAGGED ' “EDGE 7:30/9:45 ’ jn.-Frl. 20/9:20 Associated Press Mon. ScfiulmtnS current l.O.’* Mon. Tv* W* 'sss&rr~L MANOR east 111 T , - Cjk Mil Sm. a J<*. WMdMilFW 1 joAb -Natty’Gam I WASHINGTON — The Senate In Tuesday adopted an amendment 'Designed to keep the Texas drinking Ige at 21 after 1988, when it would fcxpire under current state law. I According to Texas law, the Irinking age would go down to 19 bn Sept. 30, 1988, when a federal paw penalizing states with drinking ges under 21 expires. In addition, the Texas law says the rinking age would revert to 19 if i^Khe federal law is repealed or over- vlittM turned in court. The amendment sponsored by liens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.I., and John Danforth, R-Mo., would make Ixermanent the sanctions included in last year’s highway authorization bill. 1 The sanctions cut federal highway funds to low-drinking-age states by 5 /percent in fiscal year 1987 and 10 percent in fiscal 1988. f The amendment would cut fed eral highway funds by 10 percent ■ each year after 1988 that a state has a drinking age under 21, Hilton said. f The Lautenberg-Danforth amendment was attached to the bud get reconciliation bill by voice vote uesday. “Texas is the principal problem addressed by the legislation,” said Danforth press secretary Steve Hil ton said, adding that the measure “is regarded in the Senate as non-con- troversial legislation.” Hilton said he did not know of any other states that had drinking pges designed to change, as Texas’ 'does. Earlier this year, the Texas Legis lature decided to raise the state’s drinking age from 19 to 21 next year because of the threatened cut in fed eral highway funds. But the legislature included a pro- Brsion in the bill saying the age ^vvould revert to 19 if the federal Sanctions were repealed, overturned py a court or expired, said Texas Al coholic Beverage Commission spokesman Joe Darnall. neAAentmW*' MISS ro SEE CTOR. you dont r e ’re open till 8 p.m the week high qual- :are. DintmentS' waiting. :ool yo^ r i waiting e to Care >lus^ ALCEHTER est Parkway 1683 Aggie Twelfth Kid Two-year-old Jamie Thacker of Houston sits out side of Kyle Field Monday disappointed because Photo by STEPHANIE ESPINOSA he was told he could not play football with the Ag gie football team. Walker brother gets life sentences for role in spy ring Associated Press NORFOLK, Va. — Arthur J. Walker, a retired Navy officer con victed of supplying secrets to a So viet spy ring run by his brother, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday by a judge who refused to “treat this as a slap-on-the-wrist case.” Walker, a 51-year-old retired Navy lieutenant commander, told U.S. District Judge J. Calvin Clarke Jr. that he wishecf to “apologize to all the citizens of this country fxir what I did.” “I dishonored myself. I dev astated my family. Nobody could be any sorrier,” he said. Clarke then sentenced Walker, of Virginia Beach, to the maximum of three life terms and four 10-year terms on seven counts of espionage, with the sentences to run concur rently. Walker, who was also fined $250,000, will be eligible for parole in 10 years. Walker’s wife Rita, the only wit ness at the sentencing hearing, testi fied that he became suicidal while he was spying and had an affair with his brother’s wife in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His brother, John A. Walker Jr., 48, a retired Navy chief warrant offi cer, and John Walker’s son, Navy seaman Michael L. Walker, 22, pleaded guilty to espionage Oct. 28. In exchange for his cooperation with authorities, John Walker is to receive a life sentence and his son is to serve 25 years. Arthur Walker’s attorneys argued that his role in the spy ring was less significant than his brother’s or nephew’s, but Clarke disagreed. “Arthur Walker was an older brother and an officer and had been entrusted by his government with far greater responsibility than either John Walker or Michael Walker,” the judge said. “I can’t treat this as a slap-on-the-wrist case. The evidence is all to the contrary.” ~ Defense attorneys, who had tried unsuccessfully to get a plea bargain for Arthur Walker, said they were stunned by the sentence and would appeal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. “The message that’s gone out from this is ... if you’re going to do it, do it big and don’t try to help be cause you can make them deal with you,” said Samuel W. Meekins, one of two defense attorneys. Arthur Walker described his role to FBI agents shortly after his broth er’s arrest May 20, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Tommy E. Miller said the government believed he has con cealed the extent of his involvement. Clarke convicted Walker Aug. 9 on charges that he gave his brother copies of classified Navy documents from his defense contractor em ployer, VSE Corp. of Chesapeake, in 1981 and 1982. Although Walker said that his es pionage ended in 1982, Miller said John Walker told FBI agents he met with his brother last May 17 and dis cussed getting more information from him on Navy ship readiness. Mental health Clinic offers psychological services for students, members of community Teacher of the Year an A&M grad By CYNTHIA GAY Staff Writer The Texas Teacher of the Year for 1985 is an Aggie, and on Dec. 5 Ihe’ll give a Texas A&M audience a Besson on her blue ribbon teaching philosophy. Meliane Morgan teaches math and computer literacy at Landrum Junior High in the Spring Branch chool district iri the Houston area. Pier classes are filled with minority tudents from divorced or single- arent households, she said. They ave no computer at home, she dded, and have parents that spend most of their time on the job. “I really feel needed,” Morgan said. Morgan meets these challenges with her philosophy of “Caring, Sharing, Daring,” also the title of her paper deemed the best in the state by the Texas Education Agency, and worthy of honoring her as one of the four finalists on the national level. “You’ve got to care about your students, and everything else re volves around that, Morgan said. “When your students know you care about them, they are open to learn. “I want them to develop self confi dence, to feel important, and to set goals for themselves.” The most fulfilling aspect of the teaching award for Morgan has been the students’ excitement and contin uing support, she said. “(The award) is for them,” she said. “It’s just made them proud.” Not only do her students realize the importance of computers, but they also love lighting up the termi nals at all hours of the day, Morgan said. They come before school and at lunch, and pick up problem solv ing skills with more ease than most adults, she said. Morgan should know, for a part of her sharing philosophy includes teaching an adult computer class at the University of Houston and help ing fellow teachers get the hang of these machines. Morgan said that she has some students who are “scared to death” to touch a computer, but enough students are comfortable with them from the start to aid the classroom learning process. Most people aren’t aware that Texas requires all junior high schools to teach computer literacy, she said. Daring to set standards for her See ’85 Texas, page 12 Report says NutraSweet may trigger epilepsy Associated Press r gests that NutraSweet might trigger epilepsy in some susceptible people and recommends that doctors ques tion seizure victims about their con sumption of the popular artificial sweetener. In a letter in the latest issue of the British journal Lancet, Dr. Richard J. Wurtman describes three cases in which people had their first epileptic seizures after drinking large amounts of soft drinks that con tained NutraSweet. Wurtman theorizes that the sweet ener — known generically as aspar tame — lowers levels of cliemicals in the brain that protect against sei zures. In his letter, Wurtman said the three cases “can only suggest an as sociation between aspartame and sei zures.” But he added that they are “compatible with evidence that high aspartame doses may produce neu rochemical changes tnat, in labo ratory animals, are associated with depressed seizure thresholds.” Officials of G.D. Searle & Co., which makes NutraSweet, said Wurtman’s findings were not scien- arent ue to tifically controlled, and the app link could well have been di chance. “We have every confidence in its safety, and our confidence is based on the research,” Dr. John Heybach, Searle’s director of medical and sci entific affairs, said of NutraSweet. “It’s the most extensively researched See Report, page 12 By BRIAN PEARSON Senior Staff Writer The Counseling and Assessment Clinic, one of two psychological serv ices located on the Texas A&M cam pus, offers a broad range of mental nealth services for students and members of the community. Dr. Jan Hughes, the director of the clinic which has been in existence for 10 years, works with all ages from infants to geriatrics. “We’re a comprehensive psycho logical services clinic,” Hughes says. “That means we do everything that you’d expect psychologists to do.” The service is free to A&M stu dents. Other patients, including A&M faculty, must pay up to $60 per hour. The rate is based on the income of the patient. “We can work with any members of the (student’s) family here,” Hughes says. She says if a student has the prob lem and brings in the family, family members will not be charged for the service. Hughes says clinic sessions are handled by a team of at least two members. One team member is a graduate student currently enrolled in the psychology doctoral program in counseling. Another team member is a licensed psychologist who is a faculty member in the Department of Educational Psychology. “Our clinic is a teaching clinic,” Hughes says. “You can thinlt of it as a laboratory of learning counseling skills.” She says the clinic, on the seventh floor of Harrington Tower, offers psychological services for patients with serious mental disorders as well as problems that are not as serious. The services include: • Aptitude assessment. • Individual psychotherapy. • Personality assessment. • Vocational assessment and counseling. • Assessment of learning difficul ties. • Marital and family therapy. • Relationship counseling. • Group therapy. • Growth counseling for specific client problems. • Stress management and life style adjustment counseling. • Intellectual assessment. • Neuropsychological assess ment. Some patients, Hughes says, are treated for problems including neu rosis, psychosis, depression, anxiety, habit disorders and alcohol and drug dependency. Hughes says that last week a stu dent who was suffering from a de pression problem compounded by See Clinic, page 12