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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 1985)
Bill Hinds riONJlNJO FOR ? PROM 1\\z ^EUMKj. Ag volleyball team gets NCAA Tournament bid Page? A&M student finds work in The Jackie Sherrill Show — Page 9 mmm HBH Texas A&M VI A The Battalion Serving the University community ids left in the fits iver Luck, maM utive start font; oon, didn't geitlt near until Kinaol TS-0 with a 3-fflj Vol 81 No. GSPS 0453110 12 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, December 3, 1985 kicked a 2w? istem's first pe I up with rum lolk on a despt chdownon theb uck heaved thek idlin' four Bene $9 million is stolen from bank in France D-yard line. | Associated Press 'd a 26-vard mH^^LOMBES, France — An armed ad to28-beari\ kangof about 10 men kidnapped two butEsiasonp Brinks employees from their homes, -j, with hisvt f <)l i' <et l them to open the company’s . .. im , P , |y. Badquarlers Monday and looted an estimated $9.4 million f rom safes and Hong boxes, police said. I vantage of anotiiE|| It was one of the largest thefts in ok up with Rod*|frauce in tfie last decade, police said ird pass play. Ik hurt toss, fakedp red to the end rot* on Houston’s afl ion scrambled ai ■iver Eddie Him /one for a 19-jJ and a f2-13 lead iOang members, armed with rifles and handguns, broke into the em ployees’ homes, tied up members of their families and took the employees to Brinks headquarters in this north- west Paris suburb, police reported. ■Some gunmen remained with the families during the robbery and police said the robbers communi- cated with each other by radio and loi -1 lor JiH' a | S(i mon jt ore( i police calls. After the ception. Luckc® r J bbeI . y was completed, the ern- rasses for I9H ployees and their families were re- ■oski relieved ninu 1 | easet | er - |i Investigators speculated that the , first employee seized may not have ichored the Btu; been ab ( e to 0 p en the Brinks office with i 1 yards on so t he robbers kidnapped a ' accounted ioj second employee, lies and 85 yards*Mp ()bce sai( j gang members overpo wered two guards and two employees atthe Brinks headquarters when they entered the office early in the f’V morning. % pThe robbers opened strong boxes H lind safes and took cash and checks H which police estimated had a value of H 72 million francs, the equivalent of $9.4 million. || When four other security guards arrived for work at about 5 a.m. they were held at gunpoint while gang members finished looting the office. ■ The gang escaped before dawn in a stolen van, leaving the guards, the employees and their families un harmed . ■ Neither police nor officials of Brinks would provide f urther details. ■ A Brinks spokesman did say, however, that it was only the second robbery of the firm in the last six years. imald's ■$ ' EVERY NC (Y HOURS for the Read G. Rollie White ay break are as Cotton Crazy Photo by HIEN DUNG Texas A&M McClellen, C and Ronny former students (left to right) Laura harlie Tyler, Phil Tyler, Kathy Smith Harris caught the cotton bug. The alumni purchased Cotton Bowl T-shirts this weekend. Ver returned to office after acquittal Associated Press MANILA, Philippines — Presi dent Ferdinand E. Marcos reinstated Fabian E. Ver as armed forces chief Monday, hours after a court declared the general, 24 other soldiers and a civilian innocent of murder in the murder of opposition leader Benig- no Aquino. In their 90-page decision, the three civilian judges accepted a ver sion Marcos gave a day after Aquino was killed Aug. 21, 1983, while step- Q off a commercial airliner that ight him home from voluntary exile in the United States — that the assassin was Rolando Galman. Galman, a purported communist, was immediately killed by soldiers af ter Aquino was shot. Ver, an old friend and confidant of the president, was on leave of absence pending the court verdict. Marcos was preparing to sign a law setting a special presidential election for Feb’. 7 that may be a contest be tween him and Aquino’s widow, Corazon. Aquino called a news con ference for today, and supporters ex pect her to accept the opposition’s nomination. The president’s foes had predicted the acquittal, but there had been rumors some defendants might be found guilty of negligence, a minor offense. Aquino said the verdict did not matter because Marcos was her “No. 1 suspect” in the death of her hus band, who was Marcos’ main political foe. Opposition leader Salvador Laurel called the acquittal “madness.” Roman Gatholic Cardinal Jaime L. Sin, the nation’s most prominent reli gious leader, said the verdict “could K ush our country to the brink of vio- :nce and despair.” With its finding, the court rejected a year of investigation by a fact- finding board, which concluded that the killing was a military conspiracy. Small but noisy demonstrations against the verdict occurred outside the courtroom and in a street leading to the presidential palace. Marcos said in a statement that he hoped See Phillipine’s,page 12 Israel: Apology ends U.S. relations threat 'er 21-31 Moft 10 AM-10 PM jilding willbi member 31 am anuary 2, thelfr esume their hours. WANTED lent interested ii'j i Outdoor Recie’ lent. This individ 1 doing equicnr nd maintenance formation, contac' er at 845-7826, NTS The Men’s londay, De- rs A and B, Jesday, De al the Pen- ay, Decern- •erthy Com- >e held Sun- A in 351 G sses will be 3 at 7 PM in ■T he largest recent theft in France was on Oct. 27 when armed men stole an estimated $13 million worth of paintings from the Marinoitan Museum in Paris. ■ But because the paintings, several of them by Monet, were so well known, it was considered unlikely that the thieves would obtain any thing like their real market value if they tried to sell the art works. Associated Press JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Monday that his government’s apology to Washington ended the threat to relations caused by the arrest of a U.S. Navy analyst accused of spying for Israel. Peres told visiting American Jew ish leaders in a closed meeting that he coordinated the apology in advance with Secretary of State George P. Shultz during a lengthy telephone conversation Sunday morning, Israeli officials said. They said the prime minister re ported that he and Shultz “reached complete agreement and under standing” about the case of Jonathan J. Ppllard, 31, a civilian U.S. Navy counter-intelligence expert arrested Nov. 21 and charged with selling sec ret documents to Israel. Pollard’s wife, Anne Henderson- Pollard, 25, was arrested the day after he was accused of unauthorized pos session of national defense docu ments. “The matter was entirely cleared up,” Peres was quoted as saying by Richard Cohen, a spokesman for the 80-member Conference of Presi dents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which is on a fact finding tour of Israel. Uri Sayir, spokesman for Peres, quoted the prime minister as telling the breakfast meeting that “in the last 24 hours we have clarified many mis understandings between us.” Cohen said Peres called the espion age case “a test of the strength of relations with the United States which we have passed.” Peres told reporters after the meeting that the Pollard case was an isolated incident of “limited and pas sing importance” to U.S.-Israel rela tions. Israel radio said the government may let U.S. Justice Department offi cials question three Israelis suspected of involvement, including Rafael Fytan, who has been identified in U.S. news reports as chief of a clan destine intelligence unit that em ployed Pollard. Fytan is a former anti-terrorism adviser to two prime ministers and See Apology,page 12 Cotton Bowl tickets not for sole yet Stunjent tickets to the 1986 Cot ton Bowl have not been made available, according to an A&M sports information official. As of Monday afternoon, no date had been set for the begin ning of ticket distribution, but Assistant Sports Information Director Alan Cannon expects A&M student tickets to be on sale at G. Rollie White Coliseum within a week. Cannon said Cotton Bowl offi cials are in the process of sending A&M about 8,000 student tickets for the Jan. 1 showdown between the Southwest Conference Cham pion Aggies (9-2) and the Auburn Tigers (8-3) of the Southeastern Conference. Although the method of ticket distribution has yet to be decided, Cannon said that students must have their football coupon books if the lottery/seniority system used during the regular season is used again for Cotton Bowl ticket sales. Cannon said the sports infor mation department will relay any further developments on the availability of Cotton Bowl tickets to The Battalion as soon as pos sible. Recognition Gay student groups no longer rare on Texas campuses By FRANK SMITH Staff Writer At Texas A&M it took nine years for a gay student organiza tion’s request for University rec ognition to be granted. But offi cially recognized gay groups at other Texas campuses are no lon ger the rarity they were when Cay Student Services first filed for rec ognition by A&M in 1976. Some groups receive little or no criticism from students, while other groups are harassed. At least one organization was dis solved because of campus pressure. The adviser of a gay student group at Rice University says stu dents seem to have accepted the organization. Chandler Davidson, a professor of sociology at Rice, says the Gay/Lesbian Student. Group gained university recogni tion five or six years ago without much opposition. GLSG was approved by the uni versity after meeting the school’s criteria for recognition: It got an official sponsor (Davidson) and it was approved by the student assembly. Davidson says the group was nervous at first about meeting on campus, but he says no real prob lems ever surfaced. “There was some fear initially that some people were going to raise hell about it," Davidson says. “But to my knowledge no one ever did.” Davidson, who says he is not gay, says he thinks the organiza tion has been well received. “My perception is that after the initial year or two it came to be accepted as another Rice group,” he says. “I don’t mean to suggest there is no anti-gay sentiment here. “Some students have come in and talked about problems they’ve been facing. But I think the pre sence of the organization on cam pus has added a lot to the accept ance of gays here at Rice.” The leader of a gay student group at Texas Tech University says that the group hasn’t received much response from other mem bers of the student body lately. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t get much feedback from stu dents,” says Robert Obenour, president of Texas Tech’s Student Services for Lesbians/Gays and Friends. “Most of the reason for that, I think, is because this issue is kind of a burnt-out issue. Most of those who wanted their say on the issue had it last semester and be fore.” The T exas Tech group applied for university recognition in July 1984, but recognition was denied. They a appealec of studei to the vice presi- later and filed a lawsuit against the university in December of that year, Obenour says. In April — shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s rul ing that A&M could not deny rec ognition to organizations because of sexual preference — Texas Tech granted recognition to SSLGFl However, SSLCF is continuing to pursue its lawsuit against Tech —just in case the university ever tries to revoke the group’s status as an official campus organization, Obenour says. Obenour says the lawsuit seeks: BU An order declaring Tech’s denial of recognition to SSLCF unconstitutional. BU An order saying Tech must register SSLCF as an official cam pus organization. BU Punitive damages from Tech. Other expenses such as court costs and attorney fees also are being sought. As for the group's relations with the community, Obenour says the concern over AIDS gives SSLCF an opportunity to com municate more with the straight community. “The AIDS issue far and above anything else has insisted that straights understand the lesbian and gay communities,” he says. “I will assure you that our organiza tion now has an excellent oppor tunity to reach people who never wanted us to reach them — people needing information and wanting information.” As for the group’s acceptance by others at Tech, Obenour says the decline in the amount of vocal opposition to the group doesn’t necessarily indicate that any atti tudes have changed. “If the opposition got quiet, I think that means that they’ve just gotten interested in something else,” Obenour says. “I’ve talked to some of them and I know I cer tainly haven’t changed any of their minds.” At the University of Texas at Austin, a gay student organization has had official recognition from the university since the mid ’70s. Alex Bernal, president of UT’s Gay and Lesbian Student Associa tion, says that the group operates as both a social and educational organization. See Gay, page 11 High court will decide Social Security status Associated Press WASHINGTON, D C. — The Supreme Court, in a case that could affect the financial integrity of Social Security, agreed Monday to decide whether state and local governments may withdraw their employees from the pension system. The Justices will review a ruling that invalidated a 1983 law in which Congress sought to project Social Security’s future by barring states and local governments from pulling out. Reagan administration lawyers, in urging reversal, said the ruling by a federal judge in California last May could drain Social Security of more than $3 billion by 1990. The court is expected to announce its decision by July. In other matters Monday, the court: bu Let stand former Marine Robert R. Barwood’s dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of pay for aiding the enemy with a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 14 years. bu Agreed to decide in a Colorado case whether people who write de famatory letters of recommendation may be sued in courts outside their home states. bu Rejected a challenge to the fed eral government’s choice of Texas as one possible site for the nation’s first burial ground of highly radioactive wastes. Sites in Deaf Smith County, Texas, Nevada and Washington have been designated as the three possibi lities. bu Said it will decide in a case en twined with Civil War devastation whether public school students in 23 Mississippi counties are being short changed in spending on education. bu Set aside the death sentence of Ohio inmate Billy Roberts and con victed Georgia murderer William Boyd Tucker, telling lower courts to re-consider whether jurors in both cases were misled when told about their role in deciding whether the men actually would die. In the Social Security case, the jus tices must weigh Congress’ power against the autonomy of the states. State and local governments have been allowed to enroll their em ployees in Social Security since 1950, and local government workers in all 50 states are enrolled today. As of 1983, some 9.4 million of an estimated 13.2 million state and local government employees participated in Social Security. Only five states (Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, Neva da and Ohio) do not have their own employees enrolled in Social Security. Under the 1950 amendment to the Social Security Act, each state was au thorized to withdraw its employees on two years’ notice, and also could do so on behalf of the local govern ments within that state. From 1950 to 1966, however, only See High court,page 12