Texas A&M mm
The Battalion
J®ol.82 No.93 GSRS 045360 14 pages
Colleae Station, Texas
Friday, February 6, 1987
axi drivers report seeing Waite in Beirut
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Two
i drivers said they saw missing
lOStage negotiator Terry Waite
alking in a southern Beirut suburb
hursday with an escort of about 10
nmen and four turbaned Shiite
oslem sheiks.
Waite, the 6-foot-7 Anglican
hurch envoy, was last seen by re-
rters Jan. 20 when he left the Riv-
ra Hotel in west Beirut to meet the
dnappers of two Americans. Since
en, Waite has not contacted the
church or his family.
■ The taxi drivers, who spoke on
| jtondition of anonymity, told the As-
| iociated Press they saw Waite walk-
png with his escorts in a street close to
Hie Lebanese capital’s airport high
way at about 3 p.m. Thursday.
“I saw him smiling and waving his
nd to onlookers as he walked. He
wore a gray raincoat,” said one wit
ness. “I stopped my taxicab to watch,
but the escorts waved me away,
shouting: ‘Don’t stop. Drive on.’ I
did.”
Waite wore a raincoat when he
was last seen by reporters.
Another taxi driver said he saw
Waite at the same time in the same
procession, smiling and waving his
right arm to onlookers on the left
side of the street.
Both drivers work in the neigh
borhood of the Riviera Hotel, where
Waite stayed between his arrival in
Lebanon on Jan. 12 and the time he
dropped from sight Jan. 20.
Waite came to Beirut to try to win
the freedom of foreign hostages. A
total of 26 foreigners, including
eight Americans, are missing and
presumed kidnapped in Lebanon.
ers nun®
d settler
lements' budget
reportedly targets
igher education
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
pen-irEi Senior Staff Writer
rt in tte' .
j D | aa ,(lJg Describing Governor Bill Clem-
•omnwe ems budget as “sketchy,” Bill Pres-
pial, Texas A&M vice chancellor of
state affairs, said Thursday that
veral substantial higher education
dget cuts have been proposed,
ich of which would require special
islation.
The proposal calls for a $140.2
lion withdrawal from the Per-
nant University Fund to be bud-
ted for university research, Pres-
ff Hi said.
H But he doesn’t know if this would
be a one- or two-year appropria-
tipn.
■ The budget also calls for a $49.2
■ ^Hillion cut in “special items” appro-
J ■ Hiations, but doesn’t specify what
^^Hose special items are, Presnal said.
■ The budget also would eliminate
$85 million the Legislature agreed
H pay to Texas universities for
Herestimates in the revenue uni-
Hrsities would receive in tuition
■id other income, he said.
iroup A&M’s share of this payment is
around $6 million, he said, explain-
^Hg the payment as follows:
'"'H During the last regular session,
He Legislature calculated the
higher education budget based on
the overestimate of revenues.
In September, during the second
special session, the Legislature
agreed to repay universities an
amount between $32 million and
$42 million for the miscalculation.
Under the governor’s budget
however, this payment would be
eliminated.
Presnal said he has requested a
more detailed version of the pro-
posed budget.
The University had no immedi
ate plans for responding to Clem
ents’ proposal to draw money form
the PUF, he said.
“It’s not that we don’t take it se
riously, but it’s not brand new ei
ther,” he said.
“This is the same issue that came
up during the special session,” Pres
nal said.
In August, House Speaker Gib
Lewis proposed drawing $1.1 bil
lion from the PUF and the Perma-
nant School Fund but the bill died
in the House Appropriations Com
mittee.
Presnal said the proposed cut
couldn’t be put into effect by pas
sage of an overall appropriations
bill.Instead, a separate bill would
have to be proposed for each mea
sure.
Many are believed held by Shiite
Moslem captors.
The taxi drivers said that before
Waite’s disappearance, they fre-
quendy had seen him walking on the
In West Germany, the mass-circu
lation newspaper Bild quoted un
identified “Beirut security circles” as
saying Waite was shot and critically
wounded after he tried to escape
“I saw him smiling and waving his hand to onlookers . .
. I stopped my taxicab to watch, but the escorts waved
me away, shouting: ‘Don’t stop. Drive on.’ I did.”
— Beirut taxi driver
beach or traveling in a motorcade.
“I haven’t the slightest doubt
about his identity,” one driver said.
“I know him and I saw him this af
ternoon.”
There have been a spate of con
flicting reports about Waite.
from captivity in Lebanon. The
newspaper, in a report prepared for
its Friday editions, did not say when
the alleged shooting occurred or
provide other details.
Shiite and Druse militia officials in
Beirut scoffed at the newspaper re
port.
“It’s absolute fantasy,” said one
militia official, who also spoke on
condition of anonymity.
Also Thursday, police and mili
tary officials in Beirut renewed their
denial of any U.S. military action
anywhere in Lebanon, following ru
mors that U.S. Marines were landing
to attack Shiite guerrillas.
“We have had no report of any
such attack anywhere in Lebanon,
yet,” a police official said. He spoke
on condition of anonymity.
The rumors were sparked by the
presence of a flotilla of U.S.
warships off Lebanon. Some Leb
anese politicians and news media
said the warships were ordered into
the area to put pressure on groups
holding foreign hostages. Two of
those groups have threatened to kill
their captives in response to an at
tack.
In Washington, sources speaking
on condition of anonymity said no
attack on Lebanon was planned.
The Reagan administration an
nounced the aircraft carrier USS
Kennedy would begin a port call in
Israel on Friday and that four of the
Kennedy’s escort warships had been
ordered to sail for home.
The Washington sources said one
of two Marine amphibious groups
now in the Mediterranean soon also
would be allowed to head home.
“We’re dropping back a bit be
cause our presence there is being
blown out of proportion with ru
mors of invasions,” one U.S. official
said.
Mid-jet
Larry Batton, left, and Jeff Seippel take a look at a Wscale model of
an F-16 that was parked near Rudder Fountain Thursday afternoon.
Photo by Bill Hughes
The model is part of an exhibit which was brought to campus by the
Air Force Orientation Group from Dayton, Ohio.
w Immigration hotline' experiment
allows Social Security card check
Two bills before Legislature
seek to regulate abortions
ristif!
By Melanie Perkins
Staff Writer
In an effort to aid potential em-
ers and prospective employees,
e Social Security Administration
las launched an “immigration hotli-
ie,” which, if successful in Texas,
nay be expanded nationwide.
A six-month test of the hotline be-
Hjan. 20 and is aimed at employ
ers in the Dallas, El Paso and Corpus
3hristi areas. The program allows
employers to receive telephone veri
fication of the authenticity of Social
Security cards.
“For the new immigration law to
function properly, employers must
be able to hire with confidence and
workers must be able to seek jobs
without fear of discrimination,” said
Sen. Phil Gramm, D-Texas, in a re
cent news release.
The 1986 Immigration Reform
and Control Act — the most sweep
ing immigration law in years — con
tains two primary issues. First, am
nesty will be granted to illegal aliens
who came to the United States be
fore 1982 and have lived here con
tinuously since then. Second, civil
and criminal penalties will be im-
osed on employers who knowingly
ire illegal aliens.
Under the latter provision, the
See Hotline, page 14
Sandstone Center for Psychiatry
to give B-CS more than 100 jobs
7<li
ive
It
By Robert Morris
Staff Writer
H When it opens its doors in early
1988, the Sandstone Center for
Psychiatry, a general care psychi
atric facility, will have a strong
economic impact on the Bryan-
- College Station area.
■ “When completed, the new
hospital will create over 100 jobs
in the area and have an annual
payroll of $2.7 million,” the new
hospital’s administrator Ginn
Black said.
B “We’re talking about a work
force with an average salary
above $20,000 per year,” he said.
“It will include nurses, psycholo-
,sts, accountants, social workers,
cupational therapists, and jobs
if that nature.
“It’s a very high average salary
compared to an industrial man
ufacturing plant.”
■ The 72-bed facility will provide
‘ftomprehensive, state-of-the-art”
treatment facilities for mental
and emotional illnesses to the im-
.Ml 1 ; mediate and surrounding com-
' munities.
^Substance abuse services, both
.TEXAS AVE 507
BARRON PARK
HWY
COLLEGE
STATION
Future location of Sandstone Center for Psychiatry
alcohol and drug related, will also
be provided to adults and teen
agers, Black said.
“Sandstone is being built by a
group of people here in town
who feel that there is a need for
an up-to-date and modern psy
chiatric hospital,” he said. “We
have identified the need, gotten
organized, and decided to pro
vide a facility for the community
that it has needed for quite some
time.”
We have found that people are
having to drive out of town to
Houston or Austin to find good
facilities, he said.
The group has a great deal of
See Center, page 14
By Christi Daugherty
Staff Writer
Two bills currently pending in the
Texas Legislature seek to regulate
abortions in this state.
Called viability and consent bills,
they are actually two identical bills —
one in both the House and the Sen
ate.
The viability portion would make
it illegal for a doctor to perform an
abortion if the fetus is “viable,” or ca
pable of life outside the womb.
The consent portion would re
quire teenagers 17 years old or
younger to obtain written parental
permission before having an abor
tion.
Chris Elliot, a legislative aid to
Sen. Ted Lyons, who sponsored the
bill in the Senate, said the bill consid
ers viablity to occur after 24 weeks,
which is in the second trimester.
Currently, he said, there is no legis
lation at all in Texas as to how late in
her pregnancy a woman can legally
have an abortion.
Diane Vount, director of the
Houston Women’s Clinic, said their
clinic performs no abortions beyond
the 16th week of pregnancy.
“The risk increases every week
that a woman waits,” Vount said,
“and not all doctors will do abortions
beyond that point.”
No abortion clinic contacted of
fered abortions any later than the
26th week.
Elliot said, “Generally doctors
consider 24 weeks to be the point at
which a baby has a reasonable
chance to live on its own.”
In both sections of the bill, the
doctors who perform the abortion —
not women who have it — are re
sponsible for the action, he said,
which would be considered a Class A
misdemeanor, with a maximum two-
year prison term.
Lyon, D-Rockwall, also sponsored
a bill that passed last year which re
quired licensing for abortion clinics
and set up certain standards they
must meet to retain a license.
Elliot said, “We think this bill has
the best chance to succeed of any
abortion bill thus far. In a Democrat
ically-controlled Legislature there
are now abortion bills in both the
House and Senate sponsored by
Democrats.”
The House bill was sponsored by
Rep. Mike Milsap, D-Fort Worth.
The bill must meet certain
guidelines set down by the U.S. Su
preme Court’s Roe vs. Wade deci
sion, which determines just how
By Christi Daugherty
Staff Writer
Three Texas House bills now re
siding in committee will attempt to
tackle the problem of teenage prom
iscuity and pregnancy.
Proposed by Rep. Lena Guerrero,
D-Austin, the bills call for statewide
cooperation among schools and par
ents to develop a comprehensive
program to deal with what has been
termed “an epidemic of teen preg
nancies.”
Eliza May, Guerrero’s legislative
aide, said the ideal result of these
bills would be a community-based
outreach program to educate and
aid both the teens and their parents.
“It’s our hope that we could give
education in the areas of contracep
tives and of social activity,” May said.
“We want to get the idea out to the
kids that delaying sexual activity is
not such a bad thing, but if you do
involve yourself in sexual activity,
protect yourself.”
The bills suggest the involvement
of the Texas Education Agency in
much the abortion industry can be
regulated.
Much state regulation is allowed
in the third trimester, while less reg
ulation is permitted in the second.
“We’re acting under the assump
tion that any baby of sufficient de
velopment to live outside the womb
has the right to do so,” Elliot said.
In its current form, the consent
portion of the bill leaves open the
option of judicial consent, which
would allow a minor to receive the
See Abortions, page 14
developing classes to educate young
sters more effectively about the
truth and consequences of teenage
sex, May said.
Betty Howell, assistant principal
at A&M Consolidated High School
in College Station, said sex educa
tion is taught in a required health
class at the beginning of each stu
dent’s freshman year. The sex edu
cation part of the class is taught by
two female coaches, she said, and is
considered comprehensive.
But still, she said, College Station
has a problem with teen pregnancy,
and she agrees with Guerrero that
more than education will be required
to solve the problem.
“It would take a combination of
education, a change in social values
and parents being more involved
with their children’s lives,” Howell
said. “It’s not that College Station
has a problem, it’s a problem with so
ciety.”
Flowell can’t foresee many educa-
See Teens, page 14
Texas teen pregnancy bills
call for parents' cooperation