Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 1985)
1 B-CS clinics giving alternatives to emergency medical care — Page 3 -’-i* ' Ag cagers' Prairie View win just what doctor ordered — Page 7 rk City 16*21 cun li 15*20 1 —fTexasA&MQ The Battalion Vol. 82 No. 72 GSPS 075360 10 pages College Station, Texas Thursday, December 12,1985 U.S. president orders more polygraphs Associated Press WASHINGTON — In the wake of spy scandals, President Reagan has ordered that lie detector tests be given to government employees, ranging all the way up to Cabinet secretaries, with access to highly se cret information. Even as the president’s action — taken Nov. 1 but kept secret — was disclosed Wednesday, Secretary of State George P. Shultz was described as being opposed to using lie detec tors, whose reliability has been ques tioned and are viewed by some as an invasion of privacy. Would Shultz submit to a lie de tector test? “I can’t answer,” said State Department spokesman Charles Redman. “I don’t know.” “As a matter of principle, he is against the idea,” said a State De partment official who declined to be identified. The official said Shultz — now traveling in Europe — has held that view for a long time, and op poses the use of lie detectors not only on himself but on others. White House spokesman Larry Speakes said he did not know how many people would be required to take the tests, but the Los Angeles Times, which first revealed Reagan’s decision, said that up to 10,000 peo ple could be affected, including 4,000 people at the State Depart ment. Rep. Don Edwards, D-Calif., de nounced Reagan’s “sudden secret order” as “contrary to the cautious approach to polygraph tests that ev erybody else has taken in both houses of Congress and at the De partment of Defense.” Speakes said the tests “will be ap plied to a selective number of offi cials who have highest levels of ac cess to classified information, especially communications security and other compartmentalized infor mation.” Compartmentalization is a proce- See Reagan, page 9 sarrings. U.S. House Republicans sidetrack tax reform bill Associated Press leavy Weight .. Heavy Weighty WASHINGTON — A rebellious House sidetracked far-reaching tax overhaul legislation Wednesday — tope Chain ,,,.(1 possibly dooming it for the year — t$895....... while t h e Senate marched toward i°950. C . h *. n . ‘W passage of a novel bill designed to ^.wipe out the nation’s $200 billion deficits by 1991. ■ The 223-202 vote to bottle up the most sweeping change in the tax laws in a lifetime was sparked by Re publicans in defiance of President Reagan's wishes. Both parties were left scrambling for political advan tage. Republican leaders insisted the stunning vote was not a defeat for the president, but Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. said that GOP lawmakers “turned their backs on the man who had —-'brought them victory and pride ... Today, with glee in their faces, Re publican congressmen voted to hu- lie* ttiliate the man who had led them to he USA victory.” OUR CO* 11 ' DS PRICE 5,400.00 ^ 3,495.00 3,375.00 3,295.00 2,075.00 Defeat of reform bill saves A&M pension plan OR CHRISTMAS je is a registered i State of Texasto n Bonds. ••k»d.M day luarantM on monda sold. ud« layaway itirtga) By JENS B. KOEPKE Senior Staff Writer The defeat of the House tax bill Wednesday has saved a Texas A&M faculty retirement plan from the brink of elimination, but the possi bility of further tax reform efforts still may put the pension program in jeopardy. As expected, the House first re jected a Republican alternative, but in a surprise move, House members defeated the committee proposal by a 223-202 vote. The committee proposal would have added a non-discrimination clause to the tax code section that governs the Optional Retirement Program, which covers many Texas A&M University System faculty and administrators. The clause would make the ORP illegal because the program is available only to state university faculty and professional staff and not to other state employ ees, System officials said. Jaan Laane, A&M faculty senate speaker, said that he was pleased with the House vote and that the Senate would try to stop any further l pe feet the ORP. “Everybody (committee members) is being bombarded from all sides, and we just hope that we can make enough of a dent that somebody will come up and say ‘Hey, there are fac ulty in Texas that are going to get a raw deal if we pass this,’ ” Laane said. Further action on a reform bill this session is unlikely and can hap pen only if a representative intro duces a tax bill on the House floor and it is referred to the Ways and Means Committee, said Michael Lytle, special assistant to the A&M chancellor for federal relations. He said tax reform will be reborn only if the House considers it a top priority. “If tax reform revives next session with the same treatment for the pen sion section, we hope that our lobby ing has informed our legislators enough . . . that maybe Mr. Archer and Mr. Pickle (Texas congressman on the committee) would be willing to protect the ORP in the pension language,” he said. Democrats met privately to see if an overnight resurrection of the tax bill would be possible, but O’Neill’s statement said that was up to Rea gan. “If the president really cares about tax reform, then he will de liver the votes,” the speaker de clared. “Otherwise, Dec. 11 will be remembered as the date that Ronald Reagan became a ‘lame duck’ on the floor of the House.” At the White House, the president appealed for continued support. “We do not believe that after all our good-faith efforts on both sides of the aisle, that our work should be lost for lack of a handful of votes,” he said. In contrast to the tax overhaul legislation, the landmark bill de signed to forefe a balanced budget easily survived a Senate test vote, 68- 21. Final approval was expected later in the day, and House leaders said they might stay in session long enough to approve the compromise. The measure is attached to a bill needed urgently to raise the nation’s debt limit above $2 trillion. Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole told reporters there was “still a glimmer” that Congress could close up shop by the end of the week, al though Reagan was holding out veto threats for any spending or farm measure that he deemed too costly. The blueprint for a balanced bud get would trigger automatic spend ing cuts in defense and domestic programs if Congress did not meet pre-designated deficit reduction tar gets for each of the next five years. cktail rings,diamond id stud earrings. !AIT! oairmenandwillbe n one day. Somerepai' 5 rou wait. (Repairs wHIa i store only). and silver chains i *f ChrtstMi PnMtlH ^ V, litter tor print ti bs |Nt^ to (tap by iWw it w Money being solicited for trip to Cotton Bowl Iry set with Opals, i,Si/ ColHjsSUtr. Mon.-Tliim” Frt,W^J Mtl 11 * in Dealers. »*T1 Aid By KAREN KROESCHE Reporter K A local radio station has been soliciting donations from its lis teners to help finance the Texas Aggie Band’s trip to the Cotton Bowl. But the money raised will not actually have any bearing on whether or not the band makes the trip, says Wally Groff, asso ciate director for finance in the Athletic Department. 1' “They’re not doing any promo tion to send the band to the Cot ton Bowl,” he says. “The band is going to the Cotton Bowl.” KTAW and its sister station WTAW have placed donation cans in Bryan-College Station businesses and their own business offices to collect money for the band’s trip, according to their ra dio announcements. ■ “92K needs your help to send the Aggie Band to the Cotton Bowl,” the announcement says, “. .. Be a part of the Aggie tradition and help send the band to the Cotton Bowl.” # Mary ‘Mike’ Hatcher, opera tions director for KTAW and : WTAW, says about 60 cans are located at local businesses for do nations. And some money has been received through the mail at the station. She says she does not know how much money has been • raised in the cans or through the mail. p Groff says that while there is no question concerning the cer tainty of the band’s trip, the money raised by the station will actually be used to help the Ath letic Department finance the trip. “The more that they raise,” he says, “the less out of our pockets.” The Athletic Department al ready has $25,000 budgeted for the trip, according to Groff, which he estimates will cost be tween $30,000 to $35,000. Groff says the department planned to raise the additional $5,000 to $10,000 through dona tions from season ticketholders. But he suggested to the radio station that they participate in the band effort after their original promotion, which solicited “12 cents for the 12th Man.” The radio stations originally asked for donations to send the 12th Man Kickoff Team to the the Cotton Bowl, without consult ing with the Athletic Department first, Groff says. He says the department has been planning all along to take the walk-on players to the New Year’s Day game and needs no additional funds for that pur pose. Hatcher says the Twelfth Man promotions began the minute that the final score was an nounced at the Nov. 28 football game between Texas A&M and the University of Texas. Groff says that as of last Satur day, season ticketholders had ? iven $9,062 to help pay the 5,000-$ 10,000 not budgeted for the band trip. Potential success of station up in air B-CS to get low-power television Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on low-power tele vision. By JENS KOEPKE Senior Staff Writer The first low-power television sta tion in Bryan-College Station will be gin operation in spring 1986, but the potential for its success is still up in the air. John Reilly, executive director of Global Village Broadcasting, said his company plans to begin airing an LPTV station on Channel 12 in three to five months. The company is currently working with the Fed eral Aviation Administration to move a proposed tower site, Reilly says, and then it will begin looking for a building site. The Federal Communications Commission awarded Global Village a construction permit <?>r an LPTV station in Bryan-College Station in early 1985, about three years after it had applied. Reilly says Global Vil lage has applied in more than 50 dif ferent markets and has been awarded construction permits for LPTV stations in Oroville, Calif.; Madison, Wis.; and East Hampton, NY. None of the stations is on the air, but the Oroville LPTV station is scheduled to begin broadcasting in a month, he says. The FCC established LPTVs in 1980 to promote more minority ownerships and to spawn more di versity of local programming. LPTV stations have limited power require ments but face less stringent controls on programming than full-power “Before we go on the air, we will do a fairly in-depth study, an ascertainment of the market, and try to tailor our programming to what we discover. ” — John Reilly, executive director of Global Village Broadcasting. television stations. Construction per mits for each market are awarded through a random weighted lottery and applicants have one year to build a facility. The FCC may then grant a license. Global Village has a broadcast background, Reilly says, with a 12- year history of production work, most notably with several docu mentaries that have appeared on the Public Broadcasting System. “At one point we realized that our expertise in production would lend itself very well to the area of running a TV station, so we applied for LPTV licenses,” Reilly says. The company is conducting a sur vey of the B-CS market to determine programming demand, he says. “Before w>e go on the air, we will do a fairly in-depth study, an ascer tainment of the market, and try to tailor our programming to what we discover,” he says. Because preliminary ascertain ments have shown that the market has a large percentage of younger viewers, the station may use a music video format for part of the day, Reilly says. The programming also will include a strong local news and public affairs component and a mix of film packages and documentaries that usually are not available to view ers. The LPTV station will run from two to eight hours of original pro gramming a day, depending on whether it moves to a music video format. Reilly adds that owning four stations saves the company money because it can buy or produce pro gramming for more than one mar ket at a time. Reilly says Global Village hopes to establish an intern relationship with Texas A&M’s communications de partment. He says he envisions a program in which students could work at the station, while at the same time receive class credit. All four of the company’s stations have colleges nearby, he adds. A&M communications professor Don Tomlinson says the University is very interested in setting up an in ternship program with Global Vil lage and that it could be an excellent opportunity for students to get broadcast experience. Dr. Melvin Chastain, director of educational broadcast services at A&M, agrees. “If they’ve got the same standards in station operations and equipment purchase specifications as they do in some of their production work, it ought to be pretty good stuff,” he says. Using student workers can cut a station’s costs significantly, he adds. “It’s certainly less expensive to staff a lot of yoy|r production and promotion activities with part-time students, rather that spend more for an equivalent number of full-time workers,” Chastain says. Reilly says the company plans to spend about $500,000 to buy equip ment and to build a station. The sta tion will generate revenue through advertising sales and hopes to begin making a profit 18 months after going on the air. “We really think that a station that appeals just to Bryan-College Station is going to work,” he says. “We be lieve there are a lot of advertisers who would advertise on television that never have, if they were given better rates. This is the basis for any LPTV station.” Ulmana McMullen, operations manager at KBTX (Channel 3), says, “They will have to attract viewers in order to sustain advertising. There is no question that if this station were able to deliver viewers to their adver tising, that there would be those who find this attractive because the rates would be less.” McMullen says, however, that . Channel 3 will not be affected signif- See LPTV, page 9