V Texas A&M g| ^ •
The Battalion
College Station, Texas
Friday, December 5, 1986
Man indicted
in strangling
of student, 34
i Volunteer stands guard over the casket of Eli Whiteley Thursday in the Systems Administration Building.
Photo by Tracy Staton
ce easel
siimt |
Funeral, military procession set today
for medal of honor recipient Whiteley
By Rodney Rather
Staff Writer
■The funeral for Dr. Eli L.
Whiteley, a Congressional Medal
. of Honor recipient and Texas
I lA&M professor emeritus of soil
ami crop sciences, will be held in
Rudder Theater today at 10 a.m.
■ Whiteley, a 1942 A&M grad-
iiate, received the medal of honor
[for the courage he displayed in
[World War II and retired from
b&M after 30 years of teaching in
I 1 1979.
|After the funeral, the casket
be taken from Rudder The-
JtiT and placed on a World War
I-style artillery wagon, marking
the beginning of a military hon
ors funeral procession.
Whiteley lay in state Thursday
in the rotunda of the System Ad
ministration Building with the
U.S. flag draped over his casket
and Ross Volunteers standing
guard over it.
“(Whiteley) exemplified all the
things we try to instill in the Ca
det Corps,” said Donald Simons,
a friend of Whiteley’s and assis
tant director of administration at
A&M’s Educational Broadcasting
Services.
A&M President Frank E. Van
diver said Gen. James Earl Rud-
der was the last person to lie in
state here.
Rudder was president of A&M
from 1959 until his death in
1970. He died March 23, 1970.
Both Vandiver and Simons
said they don’t believe anyone
else has lain in state at A&M.
Permission for the funeral to
be held on University grounds
and for Whiteley to lie in state at
A&M was granted upon requests
from Whiteley’s family, Simons
said.
Vandiver said he’s allowing the
funeral to take place at A&M be
cause “Eli Whiteley was a very dis
tinguished Aggie in both war and
education.”
The funeral procession for
Whiteley will include a riderless
horse and two riders from the
Parsons’ Mounted Cavalry, Si
mons said.
The procession will end at the
east entrance of campus, where
the coffin will be put into a hearse
and driven to the College Station
City Cemetery.
Whiteley will be given a full
military burial, Simons said.
By Mike Sullivan
Staff Writer
Malcolm Trent Primrose, 23, of
College Station, was indicted by the
Brazos County Grand Jury late
Thursday in connection with the
Nov. 25 strangling murder of a
Texas A&M graduate student.
Brazos County Sheriff Ronnie
Miller said Primrose, who was ar
rested early Wednesday in Arkansas,
was brought back to College Station
about 10 p.m. Wednesday, charged
with unauthorized use of a motor ve
hicle and taken to the Brazos County
Jail. Primrose is being held without
bond.
Later Thursday afternoon. Prim
rose was served with a warrant for
capital murder issued by the district
attorney, Miller said. He said Prim
rose’s case was heard by the grand
jury late T hursday.
Linden Kauffman-Linam, 34, was
found strangled to death in her
apartment outside College Station
on Cain Road by a friend who also
attends A&M.
“She was strangled to death in the
bedroom,” Miller said. “She was lay
ing on the floor, her feet and hands
were bound and there was a cover
ing over her head.”
Miller said some of Kauffman-Li-
nam’s credit cards, her student ID,
driver’s license, pistol and diver’s
watch were missing from the apart
ment.
“There was no forced entry, so we
felt we had a burglary or a sexual as
sault on our hands,” he said.
Miller said that on Nov. 26, a 1983
f )ick-up truck was reported stolen
rom a grocery store on Highway 60.
On Monday, police were notified
that a man had been using one of
Kauffman-Linam’s credit cards in
Dallas, Tyler and Mount Pleasant,
Miller said.
“Tuesday morning, we got a call
from the Benton, Ark., Police De
partment and they had arrested a
man who was in the stolen truck,”
Miller said.
Miller said the man was found
sleeping in the stolen truck at a rest
stop on Interstate 30.
“While he was asleep, his brake
lights were on, and an officer
\
Malcolm T. Primrose
stopped to talk to him and he no
ticed a pistol on the dash,” he said.
The officer woke up the man, told
him his brake lights were on and ran
a check on the truck, Miller said. He
said the truck was listed as stolen and
the man was arrested without inci
dent.
Miller said Kauffman-Linam’s
driver’s license, credit cards, student
ID, diving watch, pistol and some
jewelry were found in the truck.
He said the man, identified as
Primrose, was charged by Arkansas
police with unauthorized use of a
motor vehicle and was jailed at about
3 a.m. Tuesday.
Miller and another officer drove
to Arkansas Tuesday, and returned
to College Station with Primrose on
Wednesday, Miller said.
He said that on Wednesday, Prim
rose gave police a written statement
confessing to the murder of Kauf
fman-Linam. He also orally con
fessed to the murder. Miller said.
Miller said that in the written
statement. Primrose said he went
into Kauffman-Linam’s apartment
through an unlocked screen window
at about 6 a.m.
“As he was stealing some stuff
from out of the living room area, she
came out of the bedroom and she
started yelling,” Miller said. He said
Primrose said he took a rope out of
his pocket and started strangling
See Murder, page 8
ipeakes resigns post
take Wall Street job
Lawsuit filed in Bryan censorship case
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi-
jtial spokesman Larry Speakes,
who faced the daily gridiron of
■ite House briefings longer than
any of his recent predecessors, an-
■nced Thursday he is resigning to
■ an executive post with Merrill
Lynch & Co., the Wall Street invest-
Bn firm.
Speakes, 47, had been negotiating
Wihe senior vice presidency, which
ioiirces have said pays about
,000 a year in salary and bene-
fif for two months. He plans to be
gin liis new job Feb. 1.
■resident Reagan, when asked
hoy he felt about his chief spokes
man leaving in the midst of the furor
ovei his secret arms sales to Iran,
smiled and told reporters: “Congrat
ulate him on getting a fine job.”
Speakes, announcing his decision
at his daily mid-day briefing, said
nothing could ever match the
$75,000-a-year job he has unaba
shedly adored.
Administration sources, asking to
remain anonymous, have said that
Interior Undersecretary Ann Dore
McLaughlin may be Speakes’ most
likely successor if White House chief
of staff Donald T. Regan stays on.
McLaughlin would be the first
woman to run the White House
press office.
Marlin FTtzwater, Vice President
George Bush’s press secretary, also
has been mentioned as a prime can
didate.
Speakes said he had been dis
cussing the position with the broker
age house since early October.
AUSTIN (AP) — The Texas Civil Liberities
Union filed a lawsuit Thursday, contending that
high school students’ rights to free speech and
free press are violated by the Bryan Independant
School District’s policies.
TCLU legal director Jim Harrington charged
that the BISD violated Karl Evans’ rights by re
quiring him to submit material to school officials
before publication. Harrington also charged that
the material was censored by the district.
The lawsuit said Evans, who was a member of
the official high school newspaper staff in 1984-
85 and editor the following year, also distributed
an alternative publication entitled “Twisted
Times” once a month from October 1984 to
March 1985 with the knowledge of Principal
Jerry Kirby.
Evans was suspended for two days after the
sixth issue of the alternative paper was released.
That issue sponsored a contest to draw a likeness
of the principal.
“We spend a lot of time teaching kids in high
school how important the Bill of Rights is and
how well we want them to function as Americans
a year later when they’re out of school,” Harring
ton said. “But when they publish something in
school that’s critical of the principal, to think that
in the United States or Texas you can suspend
someone for two days of school and undermine
the scholarship benefits — I think that’s some
thing we should not tolerate in society.”
In a telephone interview with the Associated
Press, Kirby said he hadn’t seen the lawsuit and
couldn’t comment on its allegations.
However, he said the school’s policy on
censorship was proper.
Evans, now a freshman at the University of
Southern California, appealed to the Bryan
school board in 1985. It denied his appeal. He
then took his case to the Texas Education
Agency.
The TEA cleared Evans’ record of the supen-
sion, saying it had been illegally ordered under a
state law that did not allow suspension of a stu
dent during an appeal, except in cases of contin
uing danger of physical harm.
However, the TEA refused to modify the
Bryan district’s censorship policy.
It can’t be a real scandal
until it has a catchy name
WASHINGTON (AP) — How
Hut “Iranamuk”? Or “Contrade-
ceptive?”
How can there be a real scandal
w ithout a catchy name?
llWhile Washington goes about the
Hous business of sorting out who
did what and who knew what in the
Hiplicated matter of U.S. arms
jNes to Iran, through Israel, with
some of the payments diverted to
Contra rebels in Nicaragua by way of
^numbered Swiss bank account con
trolled by the CIA (w'hew), a lot of
tas serious folk are struggling to
|nic up with a name for the thing.
It hasn’t been easy. But people
rho live in the nation’s capital, and
>av<( seen scandals in other years,
Ir e Itrying desperately to upgrade
fie Iranian arms affair.
“jranscam” was the winner in
Thursday voting by several hundred
■ners to radio station WCLY in
Jteenbelt, Md., just outside the city.
“ Con t rase am,” “Contragate,”
“Armsgate” and other such deriva
tives were suggested by many callers
to the station, suggesting imagina
tions still are controlled by the Wa
tergate scandal that forced Richard
M. Nixon out of the White House
and the Abscam scandal that jailed a
senator and several congressmen.
Other nominees phoned in to the
station were more original. Listen
ers, many of them presumably gov
ernment workers, also came up with:
“Contrafiction,” for those who
have trouble believing what officials
are saying.
“Payatollah” or "Ayatollah-so” to
get the Iranian leader’s name in.
“Reagan-armics” or “Gipper’s
Gap” or even “Bonzo’s Boo-Boo” for
those who blame the president.
“Scantra-claus,” suggested WCLY
disc jockey Scott Woodside, combin
ing “scam” and the Contras and a
hint of the Christmas season.
Items display international flavor
Arts institute to open at A&M
By Jo Ann Able
Staff Writer
A television viewing room in
the Memorial Student Center’s
Browsing Library, once fre
quented by student soap opera
addicts, has been converted,
along with an adjoining game
room, to display paintings, rugs
and other valuables from around
the world.
Leland T. Jordan, Class of ’29,
and his wife Jessie collected the
items during his international
business career that spanned over
30 years.
After Jordan died in 1976, his
wife created the MSC Jordan In
stitute for International Aware
ness to foster his spirit of interna
tionalism in the students.
Jordan began his career imme
diately after graduation from
A&M as a production engineer
for Gulf Oil Co. in the oil fields of
Venezuela.
“When he was a senior at A&M
he wrote to all the major oil com
panies and asked them for a job,”
Jessie Jordan said. “They all in
terviewed him and all of them
wanted him as an employee, but
Gulf happened to offer him $5
more than anybody else did.”
He worked in Venezuela for
six years before returning to his
hometown of Lufkin to marry
Jessie Worth.
“We grew up together — he
was 3 months old when I was
born next door to him,” she said.
“And our fathers grew up to
gether before us.”
After 19 years with Gulf Oil,
Jordan began managing and di
recting the Kuwait Oil Co., Ltd.,
jointly owned by Gulf and the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., later
known as British Petroleum.
For his service to British inter
ests in Kuwait, Jordan was ap
pointed an honorary commander
and an honorary knight of the
British Empire by Queen Eliza
beth II.
After Jordan’s retirement in
1962, the couple returned to Luf
kin, and Jordan became active
with the Association of Former
Students as a charter member of
the Century Club.
Jordan said her husband
started working on the creation
of the institute in 1972, but it
wasn’t realized until she carried
out his wishes after his death.
She said the project was started
and abandoned several times for
various reasons before it was
completed during the ’80s.
Jordan has been here since
Tuesday making preparations for
the display’s opening on Satur
day.
“I’ll be glad when it’s all
cleaned up and ready to go,” she
said.
The items in the collection,
which once filled the Jordans’
home, come from Africa, South
America, Europe, Asia and the
Middle East.
“Everything here is a gift,” Jor
dan said. “We didn’t buy any of
it.”
Jordan pointed out some car
ved screens that were a gift from
the Indian government.
“I tried to bring a little bit of it
all,” she said.
The collection is only one facet
of the institute, which is financed
by a $1 million endowment given
to A&M by Jessie Jordan in honor
of her husband.
The institute also presents pro
grams on international topics to
the student body and community
and promotes a variety of inter
national travel experiences for
students.
About 50 A&M students make
up a committee, which plans and
implements all aspects of the in
stitute.
A reception marking the open
ing of the Jordan Collection of
International Art Objects will be
held Saturday from 1:30 p.m. un
til 4 p.m. in the Browsing Library.
Jessie Jordan will be on hand to
greet guests ahd give personal ac
counts on the history behind the
items. For more information on
the collection, please call Jon Lee
or Michele Mobley at 845-1515.