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U.S. military strike at Libya
discussed during A&M forum
— Page 3
Clements predicting victory
over White in governor's race
— Page 5
College hoop's top player
forgoes senior year for pros
— Page 9
HHHMMHBHHHnMMHHBnMHMSMMBMEMMraHBnHHnMnMHHMHUHMI
The Battalion
Serving the University community
<u.lik V o1 - 83 No. 148 CISPS 075360 10 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, May 6, 1986
o all 11 " 1 '
i.m. unn
Seniors to
zAiograduate
lograph] *
on weekend
at 7 pm
. SilxHii S,9()() seniors have applied
6'30dh’ or graduation, and ilie registrar’s
' rffire is in the process of checking
be applications to see how many of
aattmi {H e seniors will receive diplomas at
tor (0Of Bollie White Catliseum Friday and
iatirday.
. Don Carter, associate registrar,
' K some of the applicants haven’t
: H the requirements for gradua-
ft H and won’t receive their degrees.
Hhe Corps Commandant’s office
>ays 82 graduating cadets will be
Btmissioned Saturday by the
utmost i 'Vrjny, 19 by the Air Force and 14 by
res as tht the Navy and Marines. Commission-
i facub nawill be at 1:30 p.m. in G. Rollie
voices Wllite Coliseum. Tne first round of
llyhand) finhl review will be at 3:25 p.m. and
il goven thesecond round will be at 5:25 p.m.
ig finger an [he Simpson Drill Field,
ast vein. ’' r
o the firs: : H* r ' Gordon Eaton, A&M’s pro-
^hn j y vosj and vice president for academic
ernance i ^r rs ’ vv ’** speak at the graduation
imoner :er F mon y Friday afternoon, and Dr.
^Wnk E. Vandiver, president of
, ( \&M, will speak at the Friday eve-
.‘ |nnii ! ling and Saturday morning ceremo-
"Eithe:
ties
aid
we fa
nalism,
and unite®"
he schedule for graduation cere
monies is:
jw Friday at 2 p.m. — all graduate
students and undergraduates in the
(colleges of agriculture, architecture
and education.
i
iids
I®
H Friday at 7:30 p.m. — under
graduates in the colleges of engi
(leering and geosciences.
■ Saturday at 9 a.m. — under
graduates in the colleges of business
iberal arts, science and veterinary
medicine.
—NASA officials: Short circuit
may have shut down rocket
)dd Bryan
»Ordonez
a Smelley
ry Smalley
Terri Riha
irnardZee
inch Ward
I Porchard
ony Moore
teve Wolfe
Won®
Brad Ha l!
Joel Tolart
like Clayvft
J. L. Baggez
im Thomsen
Jim Basses
IaPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)
JAn electrical shevrt circuit may
|e prematurely shut down a Delta
ejeet’s main engines on liftoff,
orcing launch managers to order its
’ :struction, two top NASA officials
id Monday.
Bill Russell and Lawrence J. Ross
d a news conference they did not
w the origin of what Russell said
re two “large amplitude spikes,”
ower surges, during Saturday’s
ted launch, but that they could
rule out sabotage as one of the
ibilities.
Ross, the head of a newly named
VISA investigative panel into the
atest launch disaster, said all three
remaining Delta launches this year
would be postponed until after the
investigation was complete.
He also said he was “pretty sure” a
May 22 launch of an Atlas-Centaur
rocket carrying a military surveil
lance satellite would be delayed.
Russell, head of the space agency’s
Delta project, called the detection of
the electrical malfunction in a data
analysis of the accident “quite a sig
nificant find . . . that could be quite
cogent to the problem.”
He said the origin of the power
surges were “apparently internally
induced.”
But he cautioned that “you don’t
jump to conclusions” about where
the electrical spikes came from or
whether they were the cause of the
engine shutdown.
Ross said, “It’s the first thing that
leaps up from the data,” but em
phasized that the investigation
would be a broad one.
In response to questions about
possible sabotage, such as a radioed
command from an external source,
Russell said that was unlikely, but
added that, “We have not totally
ruled out sabotage.”
Ross said, however, “There is ab
solutely no indication that the range
See Rocket, page 8
Summit allies outline
anti-terrorism steps
TOKYO (AP) — The United
States’ major Western allies, de
nouncing “blatant and cynical” gov
ernment use of terrorism, outlined
on Monday several steps giving the
Reagan administration the condem
nation of Libya it sought, but with
out endorsing the U.S. bombing raid
or an oil boycott.
French Foreign Minister Jean-
Bernard Raimond, for example, said
France stood by its policy of not al
lowing U.S. warplanes to fly over its
' territory en route to military strikes
f against Libya, and neither Italy nor
West Germany, two large importers
of Libyan oil, would go along with a
boycott.
Still, Secretary of State George P.
Shultz said the statement adopted at
the economic summit sends Libyan
leader Moammar Khadafy a blunt
message: “You’ve had it, pal; you’re
isolated.”
The leaders of the United States,
Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Italy
and West Germany only dabbled in
trade, currency and other financial
issues during the second day of the
summit as concern about surging
terrorism and nuclear safety contin
ued to dominate conversation.
The anti-terrorism statement,
adopted unanimously by the seven
summit partners, would make it
harder for those accused of terrorist
activity — including diplomats — to
cross borders.
It also would ban the export of
arms to terrorist states, advocate
closing or limiting diplomatic mis
sions of nations that support terror
ism and impose tighter immigration
and visa requirements.
The statement expands upon
measures adopted earlier by the 12-
nation European Community, some
times called the Common Market.
Among measures not included in
that earlier gesture are improved ex
tradition procredures for bringing
terrorists to trial and denying entry
into a country of anyone even sus
pected of terrorism, according to
U.S. officials.
And, while the measure does not
specifically mention the use of force,
U.S. officials said it doesn’t preclude
that either.
But by far the most important vic
tory for the Reagan administration
was the inclusion in the draft of a
section stating that the sanctions
would apply “particularly” to Libya.
An earlier draft of the proposal did
not name Khadafy’s country.
U.S. sources, declining to be
named publicly, said British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher led the
move to toughen the draft as the
summit. partners returned to the
Akasaka Palace for talks.
But the Reagan administration
did not get all it wanted.
Raimond told a news conference
that “the policy of France has not
changed” with respect to the over
flights, insisting that “France has
been neither anti-American or pro-
Libyan.”
The French government refused
to allow U.S. F-l 11 jet fighters based
in Britain to fly over French terri
tory for the air raid on Libya — a de
cision that brought severe criticism
from both Reagan and Shultz.
Raimond said, “Obviously Libya is
not the only country that spreads
terrorism, but the terrorist acts that
have been the most calculated, car
ried out with the most inspiration,
were carried out by Libya.”
But he also said that France and
its West European partners were re
luctant to take specific steps against
Khadafy’s regime. “It was the Amer-
See Summit, page 8
Countries agree
to major revision
of fiscal policies
TOKYO (AP) — The world’s
seven largest industrialized de
mocracies on Tuesday embraced
the first major revision in interna
tional monetary policy in 13
years, agreeing to use a system of
economic checks and balances to
help stabilize currency exchange
rates.
The new system would estab
lish a mechanism designed to
keep the value of the U.S. dollar
and other major currencies from
wild fluctuations or at least from
falling or climbing too far or too
fast with respect to one other.
Such currency swings have
caused havoc for farmers and
other exporters and have been a
factor in last year’s $150 billion
U.S. trade deficit.
The plan, expected to be an
nounced by the Tokyo summit
Wednesday, was formulated by
U.S. Treasury Secretry James A.
Baker III.
It is the first change in the ex
change rate system since the old
fixed-rate system was abandoned
in 1973 in favor of the current
“floating” exchange rate system,
in which the values of various
currencies move up and down
according to market pressures.
A senior Reagan administra
tion official, who spoke only on
the condition of anonymity,
called the new plan one of “man
aged float,” a cross between the
current system and a reimposi
tion of some government controls
over currencies.
The plan, which was widely cir
culated among delegations to the
Tokyo gathering even in advance
of its release, calls for constant
surveillance by the summit pow
ers of each other’s economies and
of exchange rate relationships be
tween the U.S. dollar, the British
pound, the West German mark,
the Japanese yen and the French
franc.
The remaining two summit na
tions — Canada and Italy —
would be given limited mem
bership in this so-called Group of
Five for the purpose of coordi
nating overall monetary and eco
nomic policy among all seven
summit members.
In monetary parlance, the new
group will be known as the Group
of Seven, monetary officials said.
Each summit nation would
provide the others with a set of
economic forecasts and expecta
tions. When actual performance
missed the mark on any of these
economic indicators by a wide
margin, the group would meet to
coordinate monetary strategy.
U.S. officials have said the pro
posal builds on the kind of coor
dinated multi-nation intervention
in currency markets by the Group
of Five that helped bring the dol
lar more in line over the past few
months with other market cur
rencies.
A Japanese official, who spoke
only on the condition of anonym
ity, said that the impact of the
new policy-coordination mech
anism will probably have little im
mediate effect on trade. But he
said from the medium and long-
range standpoint, the system will
serve to stabilize major curren
cies.
mpia
Pravda gives account
of Chernobyl disaster
■ MOSCOW (AP) — The Com-
! munist Party newspaper Pravda
said Tuesday that an explosion
ripped apart the building that
housed Chernobyl’s No. 4 nuclear
■actor and the resulting fire shot
flames nearly 100 feet into the air.
H It was the first detailed Soviet
report on what happened at the
fflkrainian nuclear power plant
Hpril 26. The accident sent an in
visible cloud of radioactivity over
most of Europe.
I The article scheduled for T ues
day’s edition of Pravda was distrib
uted in advance in English by the
official Tass news agency.
H It said the fire “is extremely dif
ficult” to extinguish, since chemi
cals and water cannot be used, but
iqsisted the crisis at the plant was
under control.
M Pravda said residents of the
plant area were evacuated within
four hours after the accident be
gan. It did not say when the acci
dent occurred, but previous re
ports have said the fire began
April 26.
■ Tass said the Pravda article was
written by correspondents from
the newspaper who visited the
plant and its settlement of Pripyat,
w hich once housed 25,000 energy,
construction, chemical industry
and river port w'orkers.
It said Pripyat now is empty,
and “only a specialized radiation
monitoring vehicle appears on the
streets from time to time.”
Pravda said workers, presu
mably wearing protective suits, still
manned the three undamaged re
actors at the plant, which have
been shut dowm but must be mon
itored.
In its dramatic depiction of the
accident, Pravda said at the begin
ning “an explosion destroyed
structural elements of the building
housing the reactor and a fire
broke out.”
Television footage and one
black-and-w hite photograph made
public by the official media have
show n the explosion ripped a wall
and the roof off the reactor build
ing, w hich is separated by a tower
from a “twinned” reactor in an at
tached structure.
Administrators' views of group mixed
Vandiver pushed for senate
Editor's note: In this, the second of a
three-part series on Texas A&M’s
Faculty Senate, A&M administrators
discuss the senate’s role and effec
tiveness.
By Sondra Pickard
Staff Writer
No rule requires Texas A&M to
hhve a Faculty Senate, but the cur
rent University administration,
while not always agreeing with its ac
tions, has been sympathetic toward
the senate.
Because it makes only recommen
dations, not policy, the senate is de
pendent on receptive attitudes from
above. All of its actions, whether
proposals or resolutions, go directly
to the president’s office for appro
val.
When A&M President Frank E.
Vandiver first came to A&M, he said
he found it necessary in an institu
tion of this size and scope to know'
exactly what the faculty wanted.
“When I got here I couldn’t find
out what the faculty’s opinion on
things was,” Vandiver said, “and
most institutions of our interest and
ambition have faculty senates.”
Vandiver was largely responsible
for getting a faculty senate at A&M.
“I’ve always believed the faculty is
the essence of an institution,” he
said. “It is the academic conscience
of a university.”
Vandiver put the issue of core
curriculum to the senate a fev/ years
ago, and he said he thinks the senate
came through in a remarkable way.
“They assumed the role a faculty
should in deciding what an educated
person ought to be,” he said. “I’m
very fond of the senate and I intend
to rely on them constantly in the fu
ture.”
Although not as directly involved
with the senate’s actions, Chancellor
Arthur G. Hansen said the senate
has been off to a good start. But
Hansen said it still will take a while
for the senate’s impact to be felt.
“There has to be a learning curve
in order to see w'hich committees are
most effective and what’s the best
way to help formulate policy, and
that takes time,” Hansen said.
The main problem the senate
faces, he said, is the de elopment of
more efficient methods to make it
more effective, which also is part of
the learning curve.
Hansen agreed with Vandiver
that the most significant step to date
is the formation of a core curriculum
proposal, but he said the senate’s
most important role is to provide a
forum for faculty to discuss prob
lems among themselves.
“That one function by itself is
enough justification for the Faculty
Senate to continue on,” Hansen said.
Further up the hierarchy is the
Board of Regents. So far there has
been little interaction between the
senate and the regents, but Dr. Mur
ray Milford, the senate’s second
speaker, said this is because there’s a
very important difference between
the two: The board makes final deci
sions — the senate doesn’t.
“I think the Board of Regents ini
tially had some considerable reserva
tions about the formation of the Fac-
ulty Senate,” Milford said.
“However, the vibes I’ve received, at
least in the past year, have been very
positive.”
Milford said that because A&M is
a system of strong traditions, any
kind of change causes concern. He
said some members of the board
may have seen the Faculty Senate as
an attempt by the faculty to make a
power grab.
Although the senate is an advisory
body, Milford said it has just as
much interest as the Board of Re
gents in seeing that the University
becomes the premier institution it
wants to be.
Dr. Jaan Laane, current senate
speaker, said any collaboration be
tween the the two groups is not part
of official procedures.
“In past history it has been rare
for the Board of Regents to interact
with anybody except the top admin
istration,” Laane said. “The direct
contact is with the chancellor’s office
and sometimes the president and
vice presidents.
“Sometimes we read about each
See Senate, page 8