I;
rn Texas A&M W*% m m W #
The Battalion
■ons
onjJ
'‘•’gaJ
shineii
ding
•cerfotJ
e gKlar|i'f
takine
le 's reL
J2 No. 60 GSPS 045360 14 pages
College Station, Texas
Friday, November 21,1986
:r ." the
enate
adders
ets pay®
s aid, anlB
uiteimjMSHINGTON (AP) — Senate
I Hcrats, flexing their new politi-
it knoin,H usc i e ’ reinstalled Robert C.
,e sts ," t -d|°f West Virginia as majority
i a i| of® Thursday, and Republicans
tnaki B of Kansas as mi-
nakf' 'ity l eac ler for the 100th Con-
jss, which convenes Jan. 6.
pat reverses the roles Byrd and
; Hplayed in the 99th Congress
■fleets the outcome of the Nov.
■ions, which ended six years of
iPlontrol in the Senate.
‘We are in the majority and we
heady to do business,” said Byrd,
■as led Senate Democrats since
fTIHe is returning to the majority
iition he held until 1980.
Mh each party’s choices for its
dership posts all but settled in ad-
ice. there was no suspense as the
upl at Democrats and 45 Repub-
ii ■ met privately in different
1 »ns near the Senate chamber.
rulB t ^ ie ,eist y Democrats served
i'■ that they intend to put to-
‘ world ^ a comprehensive agenda of
iumai! «j sn( an( j foreign policy issues to
llUra Bcapture the legislative initiative
' )diel imlthe White House early next
Howe , r 1 7
pagel
isease
tietics,
fsprii
are not 8°* n 8 to w 3 * 1 three
thfii j n t p, e presidential waiting
entireBy r d said. “The president
huimrmis timetable; we have ours.
hqgoing to send to the American
[> "“He a signal that it is no longer
are [l sinessas usual.”
■ankr:®
| (tynl called on the administration
, |end its fiscal 1988 budget to Con-
Hon Jan. 5, as required by the
- ■m-Rudman budget-balancing
■ But administration officials
vfcsaid the spending proposal may
: ready until early February,
kd also said the Senate will be
|ng in early January, instead of
a recess that had been ex-
id to last until late that month,
bng with Byrd, the Democrats
cted their top leaders from the
longress.
lie Democrats also elected 85-
ald John C. Stennis of Missis-
, the oldest member of the Sen-
|o the largely ceremonial post of
pent pro tempore.
[addition to Dole, who will be
his first Congress as minority
p, the Republicans re-elected
■entire leadership team.
Mi
'
Painting By Numbers
Terry Perry, left, and Mark Record paint
white outlines around the Kyle Field yard-
Photo by John Makely
line markers Thursday for Saturday’s A&M-
TCU football game. Kickoff is at 12:04 p.m.
CS bank fails,
sold to bank
in Caldwell
FDIC official says deposits
safe; bank will reopen today
By Christi Daugherty
Staff Writer
Blaming the Texas economy and
poor lending practices, Texana Na
tional Bank declared insolvency at 4
p.m. Thursday, and was sold by the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
within hours.
An FDIC spokesman said all ac
counts at the bank are safe.
Bill Olcheski, an FDIC spokesman
in Washington D.C., said that the
bank was purchased by First State
Bank of Caldwell and would open its
doors today as a College Station
branch of that bank.
Olcheski said First State assumed
$11.1 million in deposits, and that all
Texana Bank depositors now are au
tomatically First State depositors.
He said that First State agreed to
pay the FDIC a $225,000 purchase
price and assume $7.7 million in
loans.
The FDIC will advance $3.3 mil
lion to the assuming bank to facili
tate the takeover, he said.
The FDIC will recover some of
that money, Olcheski said, by liqui
dating some assets that weren’t
transferred to First State Bank.
He said that in such cases as these
the FDIC has precedence over First
State on handling some of the loans.
Buster Chandler, the FDIC rep
resentative handling this case, said
that the assets to be liquidated are
the bank’s bad loans.
“Basically that means that the as
sets of the bank that caused it to fail,
mainly bad loans, will be liquidated,”
Chandler said.
“They will either be collected or
sold,” he said.
He said that 36 percent of the
bank’s loan portfolio involves real es
tate.
Charles Hancock, the chief exec
utive officer of First State of Cald
well, said that depositors probably
will notice few changes.
He said that because most person
nel will stay on and because First
State policies are similar to Texana
policies, depositors will need little
adjustment.
“We will operate with our policies,
which are relatively conservative,”
he said.
“We’re an old bank; we’re well-
backed and well-capitalized,” he
said.
He said this branch will be among
the first to be allowed to organize
under the new branch banking law
passed by Texas voters in Novem
ber.
He also said that his son, Bill Han
cock, will be president of the College
Station branch.
Larry Chilton of the Texas De
partment of Banking said that all
those who have deposits in the bank
have nothing to worry about.
The investments of the depositers
are protected for up to $100,000 by
federal law.
Chilton said that the Texana case
basically followed the book for cases
of bank insolvency.
The bank can reopen so quickly,
he said, because the FDIC knows
when a bank is struggling and pre
pares to take over.
He said the FDIC can assume con
trol of a failing bank whenever it
thinks that such an action would re
duce the potential FDIC loss.
“The FDIC makes a list of poten
tial buyers and calls the buyers who
meet at a bidders meeting in Dallas,”
Chilton said.
“Once a bid is accepted by the
FDIC, the bank is closed and re
opened under a new owner,” he
said.
He said the FDIC moves in quickly
to make sure that assets are properly
taken care of.
The FDIC said Texana is one of
126 banks to fail nationwide so far
this year.
It also is one of 22 to fail in Texas
this year, he said.
male cadet files Congress blasts Reagan’s secret arms sales
port over assault
bonfire stack
By Bob Grube
Senior Staff Writer
A female Texas A&M cadet filed a
iport Wednesday with the Univer-
F Police Department against five
l» who she said dragged her from
’Bnel and threw her outside the
Ifire perimeter.
.Simone Weaver said Thursday, “I
■large them with assault if the
lice can find them.”
Cdiege Station Police Depart-
:nt Detective Rita Watkins said as-
iltis punishable by up to one year
jail and a $2,000 Fine.
However, she said, this is the max-
um penalty and probably would
t he given to students, especially if
HWere first-time offenders,
poh Wiatt, director of security
I traffic, was unavailable for corn-
!ht on the charges Thursday
jjht
weaver, who is a first lieutenant
Company W-l, said she had been
I Pshe could not work on stack and
i Edecided to “swamp logs” (carry
■in from the outside perimeter)
lesday night.
Bui no one was swamping logs, so
■.looked around for something
«to do.
Weaver said the chain crews were
|/So she asked the “scarecrow” if
needed a break.
he “scarecrows” direct the trucks
'(tying the logs, so the logs can be
it on the stack.
jTl|ey stand on a 55-gallon oil
, so they’ll be visible to the
driver.
■talked to him and he said he
rtally tired and needed a break,”
Ver said. “I’ve scarecrowed be-
:e,[so I knew what I was doing.”
She said she expects to be teased
ien she goes out to bonfire but
itij’s OK because she’s used to it.
Bui, she said, about five minutes
ershe got up on the barrel, five ci-
Ts approached her and knocked
her off, causing her to flip in the air
and land on her back.
“I was a little winded, but I was
OK,” Weaver said. “I looked at
them, and at least two of them were
wearing hard hats with the letters
‘DG’ on them.
“I got up and got back on the bar
rel, and I think it surprised them
that I didn’t get up crying.”
She said what happened next is
both unforgettable and inexcusable.
“After I got back on the barrel, I
told them to go do something useful,
and they told me they were doing
something useful by getting rid of
me,” Weaver said.
“While I didn’t appreciate what
they had said to me, I wanted to be
as unantagonistic as I could be,” she
said. “A brown pot came over to me
and asked me if I was all right and
the guys left.
“About five minutes later, the
same five guys came back, and this
time they grabbed me.
“They dragged me off the barrel
and knocked my hard hat off my
head. They carried me to the pe
rimeter and threw me outside of it.”
Weaver said she fought back be
cause the men handled her roughly,
as though they did not care if they
hurt her while carrying her from the
field.
“I fought back,” she said. “I know
I gouged some of them because ev
ery nail I had is gone. I’m used to be
ing carried off because in the course
of Corps life, it happens.
“But this time I was furious, espe
cially when I heard the ‘whoops’ and
the cheers behind me from every
body on stack.
“Not one person came to help me.
No one.”
Weaver said that when University
police went to the stack, no one
seemed to know anything about
what had happened.
See Report, page 14
WASHINGTON (AP) — Con
gressional leaders on Thursday
brushed aside President Reagan’s
defense of his secret sale of arms to
Iran, branding it a mistake that may
very well have violated the law.
As two congressional committees
prepared for closed door sessions
with CIA Director William Casey,
Republicans and Democrats used
nearly identical terms to criticize the
president’s actions.
Reagan met with the House Dem
ocratic and GOP leaders at the
White House but had nothing fur
ther to say publicly, following a
Wednesday night news conference
in which he defended the sales as a
high-risk gamble that at least gained
the release of three American hos
tages.
Reagan’s former national security
adviser Robert McFarlane, who de
livered a planeload of weapons to
Iran, issued a statement saying he
was taking responsibility for a se
rious error in judgment in not realiz
ing that the sale would have a dam
aging effect on the national interest.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole,
R-Kan, said, “The bottom line is that
we should not even have a percep
tion of trading arms for hostages.”
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-
Mass., went a step further in his crit
icism. “It’s the end of the Reagan
era,” he said. “If there was any doubt
that it ended with the election, it
ended last night.”
After meeting with Reagan,
House Majority Leader Jim Wright,
D-Texas, told reporters that the ad
ministration had not complied with
several laws requiring that Congress
be notified in a timely way of major
transfers of arms.
Wright said Thursday the United
States has shipped more than 2,000
anti-tank missiles and more than 200
anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, a figure
higher than earlier published esti
mates.
Panel: Overabundance of rules
could hamper biotechnology
Dr. Winston J. Brill
Photo by Greg Bailey
By Rodney Rather
Staff Writer
Although regulation of biotechnology is
needed, too much regulation may hamper devel
opments in the field, members of a panel dis
cussion said Thursday.
The panel discussion concluded the MSC Po
litical Forum’s E.L. Miller Lecture Series, which
also addressed questions concerning the ethics
and safety of biotechnology and genetic engi
neering.
Harold Himmelman, a lawyer who represents
companies in regulation and litigation involving
biotechnology, said biotechnology has enormous
benefits, but with those benefits come risks.
“I also believe, very strongly, that biotechno
logy is here to stay,” Himmelman said.
Several government agencies are charged with
the research and approval of biotechnological
experiments and products, but he said those
agencies also have hindered growth of the field.
Such agencies as the Enviromental Protection
Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture all have laws
pertaining to the interests of biotechnology en
thusiasts, the public and the government. These
laws should comfort anxiety of the control of the
industry, Himmelman said.
“All these programs should assure the public
that biotechnology can be controlled,” he said.
But the government has refused to let experi
ments continue or products reach commerciali
zation, Himmelman said, although no public
risks have been found and other countries are
surpassing the United States in the field.
“I feel very strongly that if America cannot do
this well, it will be done somewhere else,” he said.
He said there are virtually no rules regulating
development of biotechnology in Europe or
Asia, and both are making rapid advances in the
field.
Andrew Kimbrell, a lawyer and policy-maker
for the Foundation on Economic Trends, said bi
otechnology may include many short-term bene
fits, and also will produce several long-term
problems.
Hard questions pinpointing possibly hazard
ous side effects must be answered before bi
otechnology is given too much freedom to oper
ate, Kimbrell said.
“This technology brings with it a whole group
of technical, social and social distribution ques
tions that should be answered and have to be an
swered before we implement this technology.”
he said.
Dr. Winston Brill, vice president of research
and development for Agracetus Corp., however,
said the changes made through genetic engi
neering would not make radical changes in orga-
But Kimbrell said open, public debate is
needed before questions surrounding biotechno
logy can properly be answered.
“Do we want to change the very structure, ex
ternal and internal, of the vital community
around us to suit our production needs, or do we
want a wait-and-see or status quo attitude until
more is known?” he asked.