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The Battalion
Vol.82 No. 100 GSPS 045360 10 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, February 17, 1987
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The Last Straw
This bale of hay for sale outside a farmhouse in
McDade seems to contain more than just hay. The
Photo by Dean Saito
fake body has been drawing stares from passerby
on Highway 290 for the better part of a week.
Soviet leader claims
advances on rights
Gorbachev says U.S. 'trampled' on accords
MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail S.
Gorbachev told an international
peace conference Monday the Soviet
Union is changing its approach to
human rights “for all to see,” but not
because of Western pressure.
The Kremlin leader repeated So
viet opposition to the American
space-based defense project known
as “Star Wars” and accused the
White House of “trampling” on
agreements he and President Rea
gan reached at their 1985 Geneva
summit to spur arms control nego
tiations.
There will be “no second Noah’s
Ark for a nuclear deluge,” he said.
“We (have) rejected any right for
leaders of a country, be it the
U.S.S.R., the U.S. or another, to pass
a death sentence on mankind.
“We are not judges and the bil
lions of people are not criminals to
be punished, so the nuclear guillo
tine must be broken.”
Soviet arms control proposals
show his government’s “prepared
ness to give up its status of a nuclear
power and reduce all other weapons
to a minimum of reasonable suffi
ciency.”
Gorbachev delivered his hour-
long address in the Grand Kremlin
Palace on the final day of a world fo
rum on peace and disarmament that
brought about 1,300 Soviet and for
eign scientists, film stars, doctors,
businessmen and other public fig
ures together in Moscow.
He did not make new proposals
on disarmament, as some had pre
dicted, but stressed Soviet proposals
made at the Reykjavik summit last
October and a plan he announced in
January 1986 for eliminating nu
clear weapons by the year 2000.
Gorbachev indicated the Soviet
Union would resume nuclear tests
following an 18-month freeze.
He got a warm reception from the
audience crowded into the cream-
colored Kremlin hall and was inter
rupted 20 times by applause.
Actor Gregory Peck, writer Nor
man Mailer, economist John Ken
neth Galbraith and musician Yoko
Ono were among the Americans in
attendence.
Andrei Sakharov, who won the
1975 Nobel Peace Prize and is the
best-known Soviet dissident, sat in
the middle row of the hall. He shook
hands with other, delegates and
signed autographs on business cards
and scraps of paper.
Trial begins for autoworker
charged with WWII crimes
JERUSALEM (AP) — Retired
Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk
went on trial Monday on charges he
ran gas chambers at a Nazi death
camp where 850,000 Jews died.
Holocaust survivors in the audi
ence wept. One shouted that Dem
janjuk had strangled his family.
Demjanjuk, who says he is inno
cent, could face execution if con
victed.
He is only the second man to be
tried in Israel on Nazi war crimes
charges. The government prepared
for a showcase trial to teach young
Israelis about the Holocaust during
which 6 million Jews perished in
German-run death camps.
During the session, he sat hun
ched over, his face expressionless, as
he faced a capacity crowd of 400
journalists and spectators in a movie
theater that had been converted into
a courtroom for the trial.
The indictment charges Demjan
juk, 66, was the notorious guard
“Ivan the Terrible” who beat and
tortured victims before turning on
the gas chamber engines at Treb-
linka, a death camp in German-occu
pied Poland, in 1942 and 1943.
Mark O’Connor, Demjanjuk’s de
fense attorney, has maintained his
client is a victim of mistaken identity.
“This man, John Demjanjuk, has
never been in any death camp in any
capacity,” the defense attorney said.
He said the Ukrainian-born Dem
janjuk was captured by the Germans
in 1941 while serving with the Soviet
army and was interned at the Chelm
camp for prisoners of war near
Treblinka.
O’Connor also said the case
against his client should be dismissed
because Demjanjuk was extradited
from the United States on an order
specifying he would be tried for
murder, not war crimes.
But Judge Dov Levine, chairman
of the three-member panel hearing
the case, rejected the argument, say
ing “the (U.S. extradition) document
made it clear that by murder, it
meant all the crimes mentioned by
the extradition request.”
Report: Services
won't be strained
by immigration law
4-year old grandmother enjoys job
eaching Texas prison unit inmates
By Darren G. Allen
Reporter
At 5:15 a.m. every weekday, Marcia Baker, a
34-year-old grandmother, goes to prison.
iShe is escorted by armed guards down corri-
lors and must go through three doors which are
ocked behind her before she can reach her desti
nation — her classroom.
For about four years the Texas A&M graduate
student has been teaching special education to in
mates at the Wallace Pack I Unit, about nine
miles south of Navasota, but she admits she was
nervous when she began teaching prisoners in
1983.
“I honestly think it took almost a year before I
was really comfortable,” she says.
Baker interviewed for the job when she was
teaching people with learning disabilities in
Bryan.
“The warden was telling me all the reasons I
shouldn’t take the job,” she says, “but also telling
me how much they wish I would.
“I had never done anything like it before. I
kept thinking that the reason for being in educa
tion is to make some sort of an imprint on people
if possible.”
As the first woman to teach at the unit, Baker
says the extra security sometimes made her ner
vous.
“I was the first woman teacher,” she said, “and
I couldn’t go anywhere without a guard. There is
something about being locked in and getting es
corted everywhere that made me timid at first.”
Baker, who is seeking a doctorate in adult edu
cation, says she is now settled into her job at the
minimum-security prison.
“There is very little disciplinary action I have
to deal with,” she says. “We have school rules just
like any other school —just like A&M.
See Teacher, page 10
AUSTIN (AP) — The estimated
600,000 illegal aliens in Texas who
could become legal residents under
a new federal law probably will not
place major new burdens on state-
funded social programs, according
to a legislative report.
The report by the Texas House
Research Organization last week
said public schools in Texas already
enroll the children of illegal aliens.
As a result, there should be no
added costs to education, the state’s
biggest expenditure, the report said.
In addition, the immigration law
passed Nov. 6 provides for federal
payments to state and local govern
ments to help cover costs of services
to newly legalized residents.
The report said that while long
term implications cannot be mea
sured, there are indications the new
law will have no immediate impact
on state finances and the state’s
economy.
“The impact is uncertain because
of the many unknowns — the num
ber of illegal immigrants in the state,
the number who will be granted le
gal status and how the INS (U.S. Im
migration and Naturalization Serv
ice) will enforce employer
sanctions,” the report said.
The new law grants temporary le
gal status to illegal aliens who have
lived in the United States since Jan.
1, 1982 and levies fines against em
ployers who knowingly hire illegal
aliens.
The report said the employer
sanctions could cause major changes
in the Texas work force, depending
on how vigorously the immigration
service enforces the law.
The immigration service is consid
ering a series of administrative rules
to enforce the law. Under the cur
rent timetable, the service plans to
open legalization centers for aliens
May 5
Unusual events mark Aggie Friday the 13th
Student charged in case
involving burglary of 3 cars
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Senior Staff Writer
iA Texas A&M student and
Corps of Cadets member who be
came something of a hero in Sep
tember for chasing down an auto
burglar was arrested early Satur
day morning in connection with
the burglary of three cars in an
A&;M parking lot.
John Christopher Stegall, 19,
an electrical engineering major
and member of Squadron 13, was
observed walking along rows of
cars and testing doors in the
parking lot behind the Commons
area, said Bob Wiatt, director of
University Police.
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cause of earlier vehicle burglaries
there, arrested Stegall after he
was seen removing a tennis ra-
quet, books and several other ob-
Chris Stegall
jects from three cars, Wiatt said.
Six months ago Stegall was li
onized for chasing and capturing
a 19-year-old Caldwell man the
See Burglary, page 10
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Senior Staff Writer
The moon was full and the air
still and cloudless on Friday the
13th — and, true to form, strange
things happened on campus that
night.
For one thing, the Church of the
Subgenius — a nationwide, pseudo
religious cult that worships “Bob,” a
grinning pipe-smoker — held their
“first Aggie subgenius devival” Fri
day on the lawn in front of the
Blocker Building — or so the yellow
fliers posted around campus that
day declared.
University Police report that sev
eral other unusual incidents oc
curred Friday night as well.
Two fires were started in trash
cans in the Blocker Building shortly
after 4 a.m. Saturday, and Univer
sity Police suspect the fires were in
tentionally set, said Bob Wiatt, di
rector of the University police.
Bound stacks of The Battalion
were placed in large plastic trash re
ceptacles in the first floor lobby and
in one of the building’s halls. They
were then set on fire, charring a
wall and a bulletin board, Wiatt
said.
He said thick smoke filled the
first two floors of the building, acti
vating a fire alarm, and two Univer
sity Police officers were able to
bring one of the fires under control
with hand extinguishers.
The College Station Fire Depart
ment used air respiration equip
ment to locate the other fire and
bring it under control amid the
thick smoke, Wiatt said.
He said the police have no wit
nesses or suspects at this point but
are continuing to investigate.
Arson is a felony offense punish
able by two to 20 years in prison, he.
said.
In another incident, an A&M
professor was arrested Friday night
on suspicion of assaulting a Texas
A&M police officer.
Roland William Smith, 34, a bio
chemistry professor, was stopped
by a campus police officer for rid
ing a bicycle not equipped with a
headlight, Wiatt said. The officer
was writing out a $4 ticket when
Smith became angry, knocked the
clipboard out of the officer’s hand
and struck the officer in the chest,
he said.
The officer backed up a few
Photo by Bill Hughes
Steve Anderson, left, and Tony Riggs inspect fire damage to a wall
in the Blocker Building.
steps and declared his intention to
arrest Smith, who then submitted
peaceably to the officer, Wiatt said.
Smith was released form Brazos
County Jail Saturday morning after
posting $125 bond on suspicion of
assault.
“I don’t know if it was the full
moon, Friday the 13th, or what it
was causing all these strange
things,” Wiatt said.
A University Police stakeout at
See Events, page 10