\zreclc
lome
vice Sunday af-
248 men and
10 died in the
lander is one of
:i sadness for all
lost their lives,
• their families,"
, a town coun-
narks prepared
service, said he
d by the warm
r's residents.
were headed
mpliell after six
in an interna-
ng force.
nows
ition
to make a point,
that they do."
raid said some pi-
I that their anger,
the effects of de-
tied from the ero-
lienefits as a result
competition and
the union-busting
carriers formed or
r deregulation.
ming back every-
, maintenance and
[erry Thompson,!
1 captain for East-
a common indict-
nent coming up is
viation-oriented or
I, just looking at the
ev don’t know the
of cutting back on
d that has caused
e system."
a ss, a New Jersey-
for a major carrier,
■ the effects of cost-
s in his own com-
ii never forced to
m't like,” he said,“l
tion to nurse planes
em somewhere else,
costly to keep main-
• top level. If a com
ine a cost, it's eco-
ive to do that."
r.
URS
j Build-
i for the
ows:
ber 31
/
sed OQ'
■1.
ie facili'
normal
Congressional negotiators
approve new spending bill
— Page 6
San Antonio learns to live
without Gervin's shooting
— Page 7
SAIM AtMTOMIQ
■H i
©
MM m Texas A&M * m m •
The Battalion
Vol. 82 No. 75 (JSPS 045360 8 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, December 17,1985
ipfelUfes
DC-8 crash
Investigator says take off was OK
I
mm
m m
mm
Remotely Amusing
MaHfjMtaaa&ttfrai I
Photo by GREG BAILEY
Flying his remole control helicopter is the way blood said that he and a few other model heli-
Texas A&M professor Dave Youngblood decides copter enthusiasts meet every other Sunday in the
to take advantage of a pleasant afternoon. Young- Bryan High School parking lot to fly their models.
Associated Press
GANDER, Newfoundland — The
plane that crashed last week, killing
256 U.S. soldiers and crew, was
going fast enough to take off, but
suddenly lost speed and veered to
the right before hitting the ground,
investigators said Monday.
Peter Boag, investigator-in-charge
for the Canadian Aviation Safety
Board, said the initial analysis of a
damaged flight data recorder has
determined the airspeed and mag
netic headings for the plane’s 100
seconds, beginning when it lined up
on the runway for takeoff.
The Arrow Air DC-8, carrying
248 soldiers of the 101st Airborne
Division home from the Middle East
for Christmas, hit 190 mph, then
“began to decrease and continued to
decrease” until it smashed into a hill
side and exploded a half-mile south
of the runway’s end, Boag said.
“At about the same time, the
heading began to alter to the right,”
he said, eventually putting the air
craft 20 degrees off course.
He said the 190 mph speed
should have been enough to put the
DC-8 airborne, given its load.
The new information gleaned
from the flight recorder does not go
far in determining what caused the
crash, Boag said.
Boag refused to speculate on such
possible causes as engine failure, ice
on the wings or pilot error.
Meanwhile, ABC News on Sunday
night played a tape recording from
one of the victims, Spec. 4 Jeff S.
Kee of Pensacola, Fla., that com
plained about the aircraft.
Kee, in a tape sent from Egypt to
his fiancee, Tracy Walker of
Hopkinsville, Ky., said, “I just hope
the plane gets back all right, ’cause . .
the plane we fly on is really bad.”
In Fort Campbell, Ky., the widow
of an officer killed in the crash said
her husband spoke of his fear of the
plane during his last call to her.
“He told me, Tm going to survive
the Sinai but I’m not going to survive
.The trip home on the plane,”* said
Chrisdne Manion, widow of Capt.
Edward J. Manion.
She said her husband told her he
heard the plane “was all screwed up
and having many problems.”
Safety board specialists will dis
mantle the four engines and exam
ine other parts of the plane being
shipped to a laboratory in Ottawa.
The first 20 bodies were flown
Monday afternoon to Dover (Del.)
Air Force Base for autopsies and in
vestigations with the remainder fol
lowing by Wednesday.
Reagan mourns loss of 248
Associated Press
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Presi
dent Reagan on Monday mourned
the loss of 248 “Screaming Eagles”
from the Army’s 101st Airborne Di
vision, calling the soldiers who died
in a plane crash not just warriors but
peacemakers and idealists.
In a flag-draped hangar at the air
field where their loved ones had
waited to welcome them home four
days before, Reagan told about 600
mourners,“We cannot fully share
the depth of your sadness, but we
pray that the special power of this
season will make its way into your
sad hearts and remind you of some
old joys.”
After the 15-minute service, the
president and his wife, Nancy, fol
lowed by division commander Maj.
Gen. Burton D. Patrick and his wife,
walked through the crowd for nearly
an hour, shaking hands and hugging
families in their grief.
There were old men wiping tears
from their cheeks, weeping widows
and children who stood on their
See Reagan mourns, page 8
Relatives offered solace
Associated Press
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Presi
dent Reagan offered solace to a
mourning fiancee and Nancy Rea
gan dabbed her eyes as dozens of
families grieved Monday at a memo
rial service for the 248 soldiers killed
when their jetliner crashed.
For nearly an hour, the president
slowly walked the aisles in a hangar
at Fort Campbell, consoling 300 rel
atives and friends of the dead.
A small girl dressed in a bright
red coat and black patent leather
shoes clutched a teddy bear as she
stared at the television cameras fo
cusing on her wide-eyed gaze. When
Reagan approached, she leaned
back and began to wail.
Reagan, surrounded by soldiers
holding multicolored unit flags,
stood before a nearly 40-foot-high
banner portraying the symbol of the
“Screaming Eagle” division, and of
fered his condolences.
“You do not grieve alone,” he
said. “We grieve as a nation, to
gether, as together we say goodbye
to those who died in the service of
their country.”
See Reagan offers, page 8
Kidnapping suspect arrested in College Station
Associated Press
COPPELL — A Houston area woman
was arrested in College Station Monday in
connection with the abduction of a 3-
month-old Coppell infant who disappeared
a month ago after being left with a new
baby sitter, police said.
Susan Oglesby Miller, 39, of Seabrook
was charged in a kidnapping warrant and
police sought a $100,000 bond in the ab
duction of the baby, who was found Friday
in Tampa, Fla., police Sgt. Mark Leonard
said.
Earlier in Tampa, Jennifer Sutton
beamed as she cuddled her baby and de
scribed her reunion with the blue-eyed in
fant.
“I was kind of afraid to pick her up at
first,” Sutton, 20, told reporters at an air
port news conference before heading
home. “I just looked at her, then I turned
her over and it was her. It was a big shock.
She had grown so much.
Mallory Elizabeth Sutton was discovered
missing from the Sutton duplex on Nov. 13.
Sutton said she never checked references
provided by the sitter. She said the friendly,
well-groomed woman in her late 30s or
early 40s answered a classified newspaper
ad for a governess, claimed she had six chil
dren of her own and “knew how to handle
the baby.”
Through a tip to the National Center for
Missing and Abused Children, FBI agents
and police in Texas tracked the baby to a
Tampa home Friday night.
Coppell Police Chief Tom Griffin specu
lated “there’s always the money factor —
_ somebody wanting to sell a baby or some
one who always wanted a baby and could
not have one.”
Griffin said the sitter gave her name as
Bernice “Bernie” Kelley. A telephone num
ber she provided turned out to be that of an
answering service in Houston.
Leonard said detectives Ted Hayes and
Mike Gonce had gone to Houston seeking a
suspect and were told that she was in Sea-
brook, southeast of Houston. Then they
learned that the suspect was in the College
Station area and notified police there. She
was arrested early Monday and held for the
detectives, who picked her up and returned
to Coppell about 4:30 p.m., Leonard said.
FBI agent Woody Specht said the tipster
became suspicious when a woman left
Houston for a trip to Dallas and returned
“with a baby whose sudden presence she
was unable to reasonably explain to friends
and relatives.”
Sutton said she was in the fourth day of a
new job doing office work in a dating serv
ice when her baby was abducted.
Atom bomb
Documents: Eisenhower's
staff envisioned weapon's use
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President
Eisenhower’s military planners
envisioned the use of atomic
weapons in 1955 to help stop an
anticipated communist invasion
of South Vietnam, according to
government documents pub
lished Monday.
“Use of atomic weapons should
result in a considerable reduction
in friendly casualties and in more
rapid cessation of hostilities,” the
Joint Chiefs-of Staff concluded in
a Sept. 9, 1955, study commis
sioned by the National Security
Council.
“No prohibitions should be im
posed on the use of atomic weap
ons, or on other military opera
tions, to the extent of precluding
effective military reaction as the
situation develops,” the study
said.
“If atomic weapons were not
used, greater forces than the U.S.
would be justified in providing
would therefore be needed.”
The Joint Chiefs memo, newly
declassified, was published Mon
day by the State Department in
the latest volume of its “Foreign
Relations of the United States” se
ries.
The memo concluded that
30,000 to 60,000 U.S. troops,
backed by sea and air forces,
would be needed to help the
South Vietnamese army of Prime
Minister Ngo Dinh Diem repel a
communist invasion from North
Vietnam.
The use of atomic weaponry
was also discussed the following
year, at an NSC meeting at which
Eisenhower suggested the de
ployment of short-range Nike
missiles equipped with small
atomic warheads, according to
the declassified minutes.
During the meeting, Eisen
hower “wondered whether we
could not send some Nikes to
Southeast Asia equipped with
small atomic warheads,” the min
utes said.
Historian Ronald H. Spector,
who wrote the official Army his
tory of the period, said discussing
the use of atomic weapons was a
common “bureaucratic exercise”
during the Eisenhower years by
military planners who saw them
as a way to minimize the use of
troops.
Company trying to bypass law
Texaco files federal suit
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Texaco Inc. has
filed a federal court suit seeking to
block enforcement of a Texas law
that would require it to post a $12
billion bond before appealing the re
cord damage award won by Pennzoil
Co.
A lawyer for Pennzoil contended
Monday that the lawsuit was “an act
of desperation,” saying the nation’s
third largest oil company was at
tempting to buy time while trying to
find ways of avoiding having to pay
the judgment, which totals $11.1 bil
lion with interest.
In documents filed Friday with
the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York, Tex
aco said that if it is forced to post a
bond of $ 12 billion — an amount ap
proaching the company’s $13.5 bil
lion net worth — the expense would
“destroy Texaco as a going con
cern.”
Thus, because Texaco would be
financially unable to defend itself, its
constitutional right to due process
and equal protection under the law
would be violated, the company
maintained.
Irv. V. Terrell, an attorney with
the Houston law firm of Baker 8c
Bolts, which represents Pennzoil,
scoffed at the argument.
“We think we’re going to win, be
cause the Texaco bond statute is
constitutional,” he said. “Texaco has
taken action in a federal situation
out of desperation.
“This is just a delaying action to
prevent Pennzoil from collecting. . ..
They’re delaying because they hope
that the longer they hold out, some-
“We think we’re going to
win, because the Texaco
bond statute is constitu
tional. Texaco has taken
action in a federal situa
tion out of desperation.
Pennzoil attorney Irv Ter
rel
thing will happen — because what’s
happened so far is not so good,” he
added.
In Houston, Pennzoil spokesman
Tom Powell said his company would
file a reponse to the suit within 20
days.
Texaco’s stock fell $1.12‘/2 a share
to $28.62‘/a in composite New York
Stock Exchange trading.
In the lawsuit, Texaco also asked
the federal court to keep Pennzoil
from claiming any Texaco assets
while Texaco appeals the judgment.
Last month, a Houston jury ruled
that Texaco had wrongly interfered
with a merger agreement between
Pennzoil and Getty Oil Co. and then
acquired Getty itself. The jury
awarded Pennzoil $10.53 billion in
damages.
Texas State Judge Solomon Cas-
seb Jr. affirmed the award last week,
added $600 million in interest, and
said more interest would accumulate
at the rate of 10 percent annually.
Casseb also temporarily waived
the requirement that Texaco post
the $12 billion after the two compa
nies agreed that Texaco could con
tinue operating for up to 90 days
without paying the bond. Texaco
also agreed not to file for reorgani
zation under Chapter 11 of the U.S.
Bankruptcy Code, while Pennzoil
agreed not to attach any liens to
Texaco property.
In a statement released Monday at
Texaco’s headquarters in White
Plains, N.Y., the company stressed
that the lawsuit was not an attempt
to interfere with the “Texas State
District Court in Houston, or any
Texas official or the Texas judicial
-proceeding.”
Reputed crime
bosses shot
in New York
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Paul Castel
lano, reputed head of the nation’s
most powerful Mafia family, and
another organized crime figure
were shot to death Monday eve
ning as they emerged from a lim
ousine in midtown Manhattan,
police said.
Castellano, 73, had been on
trial on federal racketeering con
spiracy charges in running a car-
theft ring that was alleged to have_
killed five people who threatened
to expose its operations.
Castellano, was “head of the
largest and most powerful orga
nized crime family in the nation,”
the Gambino family, according to
Edward McDonald, head of the
federal Organized Crime Task
Force.
In 1980, Newsday quoted a
federal law enforcement source
as saying Castellano was “the boss
in name only. He was Gambino’s
brother-in-law, a moneymaker a
diplomat, but he doesn’t call the
shots that count. The man that
does is Dellacroce. He’s got the
firepower, the army of enforcers
that keeps the family in line.”