F —^-TexasA&M —^ - _g M •
The Battalion
2 No. 174 USPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Thursday, July 10, 1986
olvesatbay’
[acuity losses under control
jespite A&M budget cuts
S
By Scott Sutherland
City Editor
By Mary Frances Scott
Senior Stuff Writer
jexas A&M department heads
avithey haven’t seen a severe loss
pculty due to budget cuts, but
Jexas’ economic conditions de-
eriorate further they may not be
ble to hold the wolves at bay.
■exas A&M administrators
eai an all-out assault on faculty
ylchools looking to lure A&M
acuity as the Texas economy
bbs lower and lower and A&M’s
mdget follows the tide.
Dr. Clinton Phillips, Dean of
■acuities, says departments are
Bjng an increase in faculty raid
ittempts as the Texas economy
ippears to worsen,
jfhe vultures do circle,” Phil-
8 says. “And we’ve been among
e vultures in times past, but
iov we’re seeing the other end of
jie spectrum.”
Phillips says tight purse strings
live forced administrators to
tMtch their budgets to match
mbicle offers to prestigious
l&M faculty.
■When a dean says, T’ve just
[bt to have x amount of dollars,’
ptry to find it,” he says. He calls
his money “shark repellent.”
Board of Regents Executive
jeeretary Bill Presnal says, “the
aard is aware of the problem
nd is determined to see that
aiding does not occur.”
Presnal said he cotdd not say
■thing further about what the
Kjard’s action might be. He did
ay that when cases were re-
§wed the board would support
strong committment to main
lining A&M’s teaching excel-
?nce.
But the deans and department
eads must deal with the raiding
i ihe trenches. And although
&M is winning the war the bat
es are becoming more compet-
ive.
ndustrialist killed in terrorist bombing
College of Agriculture Dean
H.O. Kunkel says his department
has lost four associate professors
to raiding universities. Kunkel
said he hopes the salary structure
for his department’s professors
will deter future raiding.
“Right now I’m afraid there is a
lot of wishful thinking that these
other universities will go away
and leave us alone,” he says.
Chemistry department head
Dr. Robert Tribble says he has
lost two good professors this year.
Both teachers, he says, will be dif
ficult to replace.
Replacing teachers may prove
a giant obstacle next spring when
colleges traditionally recruit pro
fessors. For A&M recruiters the
problems next spring will be two
fold — how to get them, and how
to keep them.
Several department heads say
they did most of their hiring be
fore the budget crunch appeared.
Had budget restraints come even
a month earlier the faculty situa
tion might be worse.
Dr. W.D. Turner, mechanical
engineering department head,
says his department hasn’t lost
any professors yet, but they hired
five new professors only a month
before the economy hit bottom.
“If the budget crunch had hap
pened in September or October I
don’t know how successful we
would have been at getting new
people to come here,” he says.
Dr. Walter Haisler, Aerospace
Engineering department head,
blames some of the faculty flight
on wild rumors of budget cuts
and layof fs.
But for neighboring state uni
versities how bad it really is has
become painfully apparent.
Louisiana State University in
Baton Rouge has seen more than
its share of raiding. Officials at
the university report that they
have lost almost 100 faculty and
staff members.
Report urges ‘porn crackdown’
WASHINGTON (AP) — The At
torney General’s Commission on
Pornography, releasing its final re
port Wednesday, issued a call to
arms against what is says is an $8 bil-
lion-a-year porn industry.
Attorney General Edwin Meese,
who appointed the commission’s 11
members more than a year ago, re
ceived the report at a news confer
ence with the panel’s chairman,
Henry Hudson, a U.S. attorney who
first won a reputation as a porn
fighting county prosecutor in Vir
ginia.
“I'm not concerned about any
censorship being fostered by this
document,” Meese said. “I can guar
antee to you that there will be no
censorship ... in violation of the
First Amendment.”
The 2,000-page report links hard
core porn to sex crimes and contains
92 recommendations for federal,
state and local governments to crack
down on pornography in the United
States.
The commission’s estimate of the
size of the porno industry is based
on testimony taken the past year
from a variety of law enforcement
witnesses. The $8 billion includes
revenue from child pornography, vi
deocassettes, adult movie theaters
and adult magazines, excluding
mainstream publications such as
Playboy and Penthouse.
Hudson told the news conference
that over the past decade there has
been a surge in “more violent and
more sexually explicit pornography”
in all forms, from videocassettes to
dirty magazines.
The commission’s single most
controversial action occurred when
its executive director, Alan Sears,
mailed a letter last February to
nearly tw'o dozen convenience and
drug store chains which sell Playboy
and Penthouse, saying the store
chains had been identified in testi
mony given to the panel as distribu
tors of pornography.
More than 8,000 drug and conve
nience stores have stopped selling
adult magazines such as Playboy and
Penthouse since the first of the year.
T he report has been condemned
by civil liberties groups as a move to
ward censorship.
100,000 SA voters
needed to put cap
on city spending
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A strong
voter turnout will be necessary to de-
leat ;t referendum on a proposed
(.ip on city spending, Mayor Henry
( isneros says.
Cisneros, who opposes the limit,
said a turnout of at least 100.()()() vol
ets is nec essary to defeat the propo
sal Aug. 9. I he spending limit pro
posed bv conservative G.A. Stubbs
has solid support from at least
la.000 citizens* Cisneros said Tues-
dav.
Supporters of the measure are
mote likely to vote than opponents,
( isneros said. The mayor said he
based his prediction on the number
that voted last year to defeat a pro
posal to fluoridate the citv’s water
supply.
St ubbs’ Homeowner- I axpayer
Association led the anti-fluoride
fight. The organization also gath-
eied signatures on petitions forcing
the upcoming spending cap t eferen-
dum.
Cisneros said a turnout of
100.000, which would tepresent
more than 20 percent of the city’s
voters, would be unusually high for
a one-issue referendum.
I he proposed amendment to the
citv charter would tie spending to
population and inflation.
For example, if the city's popula
tion increased 3 percent and the
consumer price index increased 3
perc ent, the city’s budget could grow
onlv 0 percent the follow ing vear.
1 he upcoming city budget for fis-
cal 1987 is pegged at $606 million.
( itv staf f members say the proposed
budget is well within (about $150
million) the proposed restrictions.
1 he- population is about 850,000.
Staff members say capital im-
piovements the city needs could
lot c c- the budget to bump the cap by
10S9.
Stubbs, who estimates the cap
pi obablv has at least 90,000 support-
cts. said Cisneros “is the leader of
this community. I am a lowly tax-
pavet living to get him to pay as
muc h attention to the taxpayers as
he has to people who take tax
memev."
In a related development, the
leader of a San Antonio-based Cath
olic organization criticized Arch-
hishop Patrick Flores for opposing
the spending limit.
MJNICH, West Germany (AP) —
terrorist bomb planted at the base
jftloadside tree demolished an in-
istrialist’s passing limousine
ednesday, killing him and his
auffeur and sending bursts of
me 65 feet into the air.
The car carrying Karl Heinz
tekurts, 56, was blown 20 feet off
e road near his home, crumpled
tl riddled with holes. Police found
remote-control cable leading into
woods of the exclusive Strasslach
rb.
A message from the leftist Red
Army Faction found nearby said it
killed Beckurts, a board member of
the giant Siemens electronics com
pany, because Siemens was negotiat
ing a role in the U.S. space defense
program known as Star Wars.
The force of the explosion
smashed the windshield of a trailing
car carrying a bodyguard, who was
not injured and described the flames
to police.
Terrorists of the Red Army Fac
tion, and its predecessor Baader-
Meinhof gang, have been attacking
West German industrialists and
other corporate, government and
NATO targets since the 1960s.
The seven-page letter cited “se
cret negotiations for Siemens” on a
possible role in the research pro
gram formally called the Strategic
Defense Initiative.
Beckurts was a nuclear physicist
and head of the Siemens research
and development division.
Kurt Rebmann, the chief federal
prosecutor, said the reference in the
Red Army Faction message was to a
preliminary meeting in June 1985
between West German corporate
and government officials, about the
controversial research program.
He said Beckurts’ name was on a
list of participating business exec
utives police found in a January raid
on a suspected Red Army hideout.
Siemens spokesman Werner Osel
said the company, based in Munich,
has no formal contracts or proposals
for participating in Star Wars.
Photo by Tom Ownbey
Bearing All — Eventually
Mrs. Savage, played by Patience Reading, holds a teddy bear as
Lynn Bond and Butch Farmer look on in the Premiere Players
production of “The Curious Savage.” The show, part of a high
school summer theater department sponsored by the Texas A&M
theater department, compares the sanity of asylum inmates to the
craziness of the outside world. Tickets for the show, which begins
tonight, are $2 for students and $3 for non-students.
ide Ws
group
ive tin-
: Soviet
Consensus for top tax rate limit emerging
slower
, 40.3)
covlev's
Washington (ap) — As con-
ional tax writers prepare to
1 a final version of landmark
overhaul legislation, a fragile
sensus is emerging for reducing
top individual rate to 27 percent,
ssed by the Senate, while gener-
ccepting higher business taxes
proved by the House.
White House chief of staff Donald
Regan was the latest to add his
ice to those suggesting such a
package may emerge after House
and Senate negotiators begin their
work the middle of next week.
President Reagan, meanwhile, will
travel to Dothan, Ala., Thursday to
resume the drumbeat for passage of
the tax bill.
The president’s chief of staff indi
cated that Reagan “will say that he
certainly likes the idea of a 27 per
cent rate, yes.”
Regan said the president also will
tell his audience in the southeastern
Alabama town “that tax reform is an
idea w hose time seems to have come:
It’s gone through quite a period of
maturation; it’s bipartisan; it’s some
thing that certainly every American
wants — a fairer and a simpler sys
tem.”
Regan’s remarks were in a tran
script the White House released
Wednesday of an interview the chief
in I was
id that
Economics of state reflected
Texas bank’s
earnings fall
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111*
15 Vi
22
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■DALLAS (AP) — Texas banks’
second-quarter earnings will re
flect the shaky energy and real es
tate conditions in the state with
weak earnings and hefty loan-loss
provisions, analysts predicted,
i RepublicBank, Texas’ largest
bank-holding company, led off
second-quarter reports Tuesday
when it announced that its earn
ings dropped 84 percent.
41*
7
8
i|Net income for the quarter
ending June 30 was $5.7 million,
or 13 cents per share, and the
loan loss provision was strength
ened by $78.5 million.
|iThe bank holding company
has 40 subsidiary banks and assets
of $22.5 billion and was the first
to report on the quarter ending
June 30.
First City Bancorporation of
Texas, which made a $275 loan
loss provision in the first quarter,
showed net income of $15.1 mil
lion or 36 cents per share, for the
second quarter, officials said
Wednesday.
The company is reporting a
net loss of $217.2 million for the
first six months of the year be
cause of the large reserves set
aside, said spokesman John Jami
son of Houston.
He said the net income re
ported for the second quarter in
dicates First City w^as correct in
increasing reserves. The com
pany charged off $126.6 million
in loans during the second quar
ter. Reserves for loan losses stood
at $269.8 million as of June 30.
Most second-quarter reports
from financial institutions will
probably reflect a slight deterio
ration from first-quarter results,
said Georgia Head, an analyst
with the Dallas firm of Rauche
Pierce Refsnes Inc.
Head said the plunging price
of oil touched off troubles in
Texas banks, and the real estate
market has softened because of
some overbuilding during the
boom period.
RepublicBank’s provision for
loan losses of $78.5 million in the
second quarter exceeded charge-
offs of $53.8 million, thus in
creasing the allowance from the
first quarter by $24.7 million to
$285.7 million, RepublicBank
said in a statement.
of staff had the day before with an
invited group of reporters.
Those comments reflected the
growing public show from Congress
and the White House of a will
ingness to compromise to make sure
the tax measure becomes law.
During a speech in Boston on
June 27, Rep Dan Rostenkowski, D-
111., chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee, exaggerated
the easy path the tax bill faces.
“From now on, it’s largely a matter
of guiding it to the Rose Garden” for
the president’s signature, he said.
But in that same address,
Rostenkowski suggested he might be
willing to accept the lower individual
tax rates of the Senate-passed bill if
Senate bargainers would be willing
to go along with the heftier cor
porate taxes in the House-passed
measure.
The Senate bill compresses more
Wife of cancer victim
could face charges
FORT WORTH (AP) — A Tar
rant County grand jury may review
the case of a cancer victim’s widow
who says she removed a life-support
tube from her husband’s throat to
give him dignity in death, authorities
said Wednesday.
Police spokesman Doug Clarke
said investigators plan to refer the
case to the Tarrant County district
attorney. Prosecutors would then
decide whether to take the case to a
grand jury.
The widow, Barbara Clark, said
she was surprised at a homicide rul
ing returned in the death of her hus
band, Joseph, who had suffered
from cancer of the esophagus.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I
don’t know why they’re doing this to
me.”
Clark told police she believed her
husband was dead when she re
moved the tube.
On Tuesday, however, the Tar
rant County medical examiner’s of
fice ruled the death a homicide be
cause an autopsy showed Clark died
of asphyxiation caused by the re
moval of a life-sustaining tube,
spokesman Bill Fabian said.
Clark said she visited her husband
on July 4 with her mother-in-law.
She said she took Clark’s hand as his
mother left the room. Then he
opened his eyes and his breathing
stopped, she said.
She said she pulled out a tube that
was keeping his mouth open as a
nurse walked into the room.
“His lips were all bloody,” she
said. “I said, ‘He doesn’t need this
anymore, he’s dead.. . . I did not pull
a tube out of my husband until he
died. He wasn’t breathing, and the
(heart monitor) was straight.”
than a dozen existing individual tax
brackets — ranging from 11 percent
to 50 percent — into two brackets of
15 percent and 27 percent.
ihe House bill has individual
rates of 15 percent, 25 percent, 35
percent and 38 percent.
Reagan’s original tax proposal
carried a top individual rate of 35
percent.
Reagan to
campaign
for Clements
AUSTIN (AP) — Former Gov.
Bill Clements will get some high-
powered help in his bid to regain
the state’s top office when Presi
dent Reagan campaigns for him
in Dallas later this month.
Clements' campaign manager
George Bayoud said Wednesday
the president will make two ap
pearances for Clements July 23.
Clements, ousted after one
term in 1982, in May won the
COP nomination to challenge the
man who beat him in the last elec
tion, Democratic Cov. Mark
White.
“The president and the gover
nor are close, personal friends
and have been political allies for
many years,” Bayoud said.