The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, October 22, 1986, Image 1

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Vol. 82 No. 38 GSPS 045360 10 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, October 22, 1986
United States expels
55 Soviet diplomats
■r on a mow m
subject muterk
Gil
ets
lealed Down
Buddy Connor, a second-year graduate student in
environmental design at Texas A&M, works on a
scale model of the state capitol building as part of a
Photo by Doug Driskell
project to renovate Congress Avenue in Austin.
Connor is one of several students working on the
Austin Urban Design Project.
loslem group in Lebanon claims
kidnapping of another American
andwi i EIRUT > Lebanon (AP) — An
.-range m. SS ,!^fJ < ^ ound S rou P said . Id *esday it
nf rhMrttaP'i™ ^dnapped a long-time Anien-
iles due tolei| esi ^ n I t T of B , e ' rut ' calli "g him . a
i Mylor the United States and Israel,
est Germany, lu ri . , , . . .
, v ,i i A handwritten statement in Ar
tie NetnerlandK'BB ji i- in i
purportedly trom the Kevolu-
inary Justice Organization said it
had abducted Edward Austin Tracy,
of Rutland Vt., one of a few
icricans who stayed in west Beirut
ite the kidnapping of 60 for-
rs there since January 1984.
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stock-index fi*
professional tnifi
tit tires
Seven Americans are among the
20 kidnapped foreigners still miss
ing in Lebanon. The Revolutionary
Justice Organization, believed to be
made up of Shiite Moslems loyal to
Iran, earlier claimed to have kidnap
ped another of the seven Americans
and three Frenchmen.
Tuesday’s brief statement was de
livered to a Western news agency in
west Beirut. It did not say where or
when Tracy was kidnapped or make
any ransom demands.
State-run Beirut radio quoted un
identified police sources as saying he
disappeared Friday.
A color photograph of Tracy and
a copy of the first page of his Ameri
can passport accompanied the Revo
lutionary Justice statement.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said
he could not confirm Tracy had
been abducted, saying Tracy lived in
west Beirut, but the embassy hadn’t
heard from him lately.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Reagan administration Tuesday or
dered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave
the country within nine days, but
said it hoped the action would not
sour the prospects for arms control.
Five of the diplomats were de
clared “persona non grata” in retal
iation for the earlier expulsion of
five U.S. diplomats from Moscow.
The additional 50 were ordered out
to bring the Soviet embassy staff in
Washington and consulate staff in
San Francisco “to parity” with the
size of the U.S. contingent in Mos
cow and Leningrad.
President Reagan, at a state din
ner Tuesday night in honor of West
German chancellor Helmut Kohl,
said the explusions were ordered be
cause “we feel that they were con
nected with intelligence operations
— the KGB.”
“Besides,” Reagan added, “they
had more than we did and we just
leveled it out.”
Asked whether he believed the in
cident might damage chances for
arms control agreements, Reagan
said that “there is no way of knowing
that now — but I have to believe that
it is as important to them as it is to
us.”
State Department spokesman
Charles E. Redman announced the
massive retaliation with “regrets,”
but said it was forced on the admin
istration by the Soviet Union.
Redman also sought to assure
Moscow that the United States did
not want to lose the momentum
achieved at President Reagan’s sum
mit meeting in Iceland with Soviet
leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
“This problem of espionage is an
important one,” he said, “but it is a
separate problem, and our plan is to
go ahead with the dialogue.”
The administration is preparing
new arms control proposals, based
on the summit meeting, to present to
the Soviets in negotiations in Ge
neva.
Under the new ceiling, required
by Congress last year, the Soviets will
be permitted to have no more than
225 people at their embassy in
Washington and no more than 26 at
the consulate in San Francisco.
This amounts to a reduction of 54
positions in Washington and 15 in
San Francisco. But with some of the
posts currently unfilled, 38 people
will be required to leave the capital
and 12 must quit San Francisco.
The five Soviets declared “per
sona non grata” were identified as
counselors Vasiliy Fedotov, Oleg
Likhachev and Aleksandr Metelkin
and attache Nikolay Kokovin, all at
the embassy in Washington, and Lev
Zaytsev, consul in San Francisco.
This matches the expulsion of the
five Americans from Moscow for
what the Soviets Sunday called “im
permissible activities.”
Redman said the five Soviets were
singled out because “they are per
sons we have reason to believe have
engaged in activities inconsistent
with their diplomatic status.”
tall tally,
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American Steel i*
market value
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Sc Poor's index oil' 1 1
fell 3.13 to
500-stock a
>wn 2.87 at 235i
Bar owners to keep past policies
despite new liquor-liability ruling
:o Servici
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moral Repairs
Cars & LigiilW
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FOR APPOINT©
46-5344
one mile north of AW
the Shuttle BtiiWi
I Royal, Bryan
College FromTcrT
By Craig Renfro
Staff Writer
■Some area restaurant and bar owners Tuesday
said business will continue as usual despite the re
cent Texas Supreme Court decision that ruled
that their establishments can be held liable in tra
ffic deaths caused by their patrons who leave
while intoxicated.
Richard Benning, owner of Duddley’s Draw,
said his employees have always been aware of the
need to monitor his customers’ drinking.
■“We’ve been doing this for 13 years,” Benning
said. “It’s not like it’s anything new.”
■Benning said his employees are taught to no
tice the first signs of intoxication. If it appears
customers have had too much to drink, Benning
said, employees will ask them to stop.
■“If they appear to be drunk we will cut them
off,’’ he said. “If they don’t the College Station
Police will come get them.”
Ray Knotek, Bennigan’s general manager, said
it has always been Bennigan’s policy to be on the
lookout for patrons who have had too much to
drink.
pKnotek said employees carry a pocket card
which states the signs of intoxication. If the per
son appears to be intoxicated, Knotek said,
drinks will no longer be served.
■The manager of Graham Central Station
would not comment on the subject.
I The Court decision, handed down Oct. 16, af
firmed a 14th Court of Appeals decision against
the El Chico Restaurant Corp.
|g,The appellate court found that El Chico was
liable in a lawsuit involving the traffic death of a
Houston-area resident in 1983.
The lawsuit was filed by the parents of Larry
B. Poole, who was killed when a drunken driver
ran a red light and crashed into Poole’s car.
Some area lawyers said more suits will be filed
against drinking establishments as a result of the
court’s decision.
'Sara Goode Jones and Michael B. Calliham
both said they expect to see more cases filed ini
tially, but that the number of suits filed in the fu
ture will depend on the results of the first cases.
“I hope that juries will give some serious
thought to the evidence before deciding that the
bar is totally responsible,” Jones said.
Jones said many of the cases filed probably will
be “deep pocket” suits. A “deep pocket” suit is
one in which a business, rather than an individ
ual, is sued because the plaintiff thinks there is a
better chance for being awarded damages.
However, Calliham said, not all cases will be
decided in the plaintiffs favor. The courts will
require statements proving that the bar owner
knew the plaintiff was drunk, and this could be
hard to do, he said.
“You need witnesses who say the man was fall
ing down and that employees of the bar saw, or
knew, he was intoxicated,” he said.
“It can work a good purpose,” he said. “We
will just have to see what thejuries do.”
Calliham said the Court decision is fair if ap
plied to bar owners who serve drinks to intoxi
cated personsjust to get more money, but it is not
fair if customers sue and the bar owner couldn’t
tell if they were drunk.
Jones said the court ruling was not fair because
it will be difficult for bar owners to tell how much
someone has had to drink.
However, she said, the decision must have
some justification because 41 other states follow
the same procedure.
The state’s beverage code prohibits any seller
of alcoholic beverages from selling alcohol to a
person who is intoxicated.
Violators are subject to a fine of up to $1,000
and a jail sentence of up to one year.
Benning said the decision eliminates personal
responsibility on the part of the consumer.
“The days of personal responsibility seem to
be over,” Benning said. “Now no one is responsi
ble for their actions.
“A good example of this would be someone
graduating from A&M and then suing the Uni
versity because they couldn’t find ajob.”
To control customers’ drinking, Benning said
employees are assigned to each room to watch
for people who have had too much to drink.
“First, we will try to use social peer pressure,”
he said. “We’ll tell their friends that the guy has
had too much to drink, and then hopefully they
will tell him, ‘Hey buddy, you’ve had too much to
drink. Let’s go.’ ”
Knotek said one of his main concerns is serv
ing drinks to someone who has already been
drinking.
Since Bryan establishments quit serving alco
hol at midnight, Knotek said customers arrive af
ter midnight in College Station and expect to be
served.
Benning said he doesn’t expect many prob
lems because today’s social drinker is more aware
of the consequences of drinking and driving.
“It’s becoming easier to cut them off because
of all the publicity surrounding drunk driving,”
he said. “Folks are just limiting their intake.”
This appeared to an allegation
that they were involved in espionage
activites, but Redman did not make
the charge directly. However, he
stressed their expulsion was caused
by “the unjustified action by the So
viets in expelling five U.S. diplomats
in Moscow.”
In Moscow, Gennady Gerasimov,
a spokesman for the Soviet Foreign
Ministry, said “if the United States
will insist on continuing this game of
tit-for-tat, then this can continue in
definitely. We consider it is time to
stop.”
The official Soviet news agency
Tass, in a Russian-language dispatch
datelined Washington, said Tuesday
that with the expulsion, “the Reagan
administration has undertaken the
next step aimed at worsening Soviet-
American relations.”
Congress last year, in an amend
ment by Sens. Patrick Leahy and
William Cohen, gave the executive
branch three years to bring the dip
lomatic staffs in the two countries to
equality. The amendment permitted
the administration to determine how
and when to meet the deadline.
A second amendment by Leahy,
D-Vt., and Cohen, R-Maine, was
passed and signed earlier this
month. It requires that within three
years the U.S. and Soviet U.N. mis
sions be roughly equal.
Twenty-five Soviets who were
working at the U.N. mission in New
York were identified as intelligence
agents last month and ordered to
leave. The Soviets responded Sun
day with the expulsion of the five
American diplomats by Oct. 31.
Gramm-Rudman
to be discussed
at A&M program
By Sondra Pickard
Senior Staff Writer
The far-reaching impact of the
Gramm-Rudman law will be ad
dressed Wednesday at Texas
, A&M by Sen. Phil Gramm; James
C. Miller III, director of the Of
fice of Management and Budget;
and John Anderson, former pres
idential candidate.
The presentation, sponsored
by the Memorial Student Center’s
Great Issues Committee, is titled
“Gramm-Rudman: Bureaucratic
Inertia and the U.S. Taxpayer,”
and will begin at 7:30 p.m. in
Rudder Auditorium.
If fully implemented, the
Gramm-Rudman law has vast po
tential to change the nature of the
political relationships between
the states and the federal govern
ment, and the degree to which
the federal government will coor
dinate and provide many services
and payments.
One issue surrounding
Gramm-Rudman is how much
these federal cuts will be covered
by the state and local govern
ments, and to what extent serv
ices and programs will be elimi
nated.
Gramm is the junior U.S. sen
ator from Texas and chief ar
chitect of the Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings budget-balancing law,
which has created an immense
degree of constitutional debate,
congressional stopgap measures
and bureaucratic fear. Gramm
was a professor of economics at
A&M until his political career be
gan in 1976.
Larry Neal, Gramm’s press sec
retary, said Gramm will talk in
general terms about what Con
gress has accomplished this year
in terms of economics, and what
has occurred since the inception
of Gramm-Rudman
As director of the Office ot
Management and Budget, Miller
implements the president’s fed
eral budgetary policy, making
him a major player in the
Gramm-Rudman balancing plan.
Before becoming OMB director,
Miller served as chairman of the
Federal Trade Commission.
From 1972 to 1974, he was an as
sociate professor of economics at
A&M.
Anderson announced his pres
idential candidacy as an indepen
dent in 1980, while he was serv
ing his 10th term in Congress.
He originally was a candidate
for the 1980 Republican presi
dential nomination, but during
the campaign, he became known
for his strong, often liberal,
statements on controversial is
sues.
His political views differed
greatly from those of many other
Republicans, and he withdrew
from the race after losing pri
mary elections in several key
states. Anderson then decided to
run as an independent.
South Africa losing
American investment
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ameri
can companies, squeezed by a lag
ging economy in South Africa and
anti-apartheid activists at home, are
leaving the white-ruled country at a
brisk pace, analysts say.
International Business Machines
Corp. and General Motors Corp.,
two industrial giants, are the most
recent concerns to announce plans
to sell operations in South Africa.
Their decisions increase to 29 the
number of American companies that
have left or voiced plans to do so in
1986, according to Investor Respon
sibility Research Center, a Washing
ton-based group that tracks U.S.
business activity in South Africa.
The Coca-Cola Co., Procter &
Gamble Co. and the Marriott Corp.
are among the others who are pull
ing up stakes. Thirty-nine American
companies left in 1985, compared
with seven in 1984.
U.S. firms in South Africa num
ber 244, with investment totaling
$1.3 billion, down from $2.6 billion
in 1981.
Disinvestment has long been a
goal of American opponents of
South Africa’s apartheid system of
strict racial separation. They argue
that withdrawing U.S. capital sends a
strong message to Pretoria’s white
government.
“This remains a major victory for
the anti-apartheid movement,” said
Randall Robinson of the lobbying
group TransAfrica. “We are going
to see . . . increasing isolation of that
country.”
The announcements by GM and
IBM were especially significant be
cause those corporations are big,
well-known entities with global iden
tities, Robinson said, predicting that
more American firms will pull out
shortly.
Disinvestment, however, is not a
requirement of the sanctions legis
lation passed by Congress earlier this
month. The law, which was enacted
over President Reagan’s veto, pro
hibits any new U.S. investment in
South Africa, among other things.
The Rev. Leon Sullivan, a black
Philadelphia minister who has dealt
with American firms in South Af
rica, has called for withdrawal of
U.S. investment and a blockade of
the country if apartheid is not abo
lished by May 1987.
For years, Sullivan urged U.S.
companies to stay in South Africa as
an engine for change, but he set the
1987 deadline as a means of step
ping up pressure on Pretoria.
Sullivan, who hailed GM’s deci
sion, devised the so-called Sullivan
Principles, a code of conduct that
many American businesses follow in
hiring, training and promoting black
workers in South Africa.
South Africa’s recession-plagued
economy has played a big role in the
exodus of U.S. firms.