Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, April 10, 1987
Opinion
The Battalion
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Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Loren Steffy, Editor
Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor
Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor
Jens Koepke, City Editor
Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors
Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor
Tom Ownbey, Photo Editor
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The 'results' are in,
the answers are out
The results of Texas A&M’s in-house investigation into al
leged NCAA violations by the Athletic Department are out,
and they proclaim that, like the rotund guard on “Hogan’s
Heroes,” the University knows nuh-zink. As expected, key
parts of the more than 800-page report were edited and the
“results” such as they are, raise more questions than they an
swer.
Nowhere is mentioned charges that quarterback Kevin
Murray received $3,550 in 1983-84 from Dallas school booster
Rod Dockery for cleaning printing presses. Yet this allegation
was an impetus for launching the investigation in the first
place. If it was investigated, it should have been released. If it
wasn’t investigated, it certainly should have been.
For the $35 price tag, the report offers: copies of each
page of the A&M student athlete handbook, A&M staff man
ual, University regulations manual and Cain Hall dorm poli
cies — six pages of which deal with Cain Hall fire escape proce
dures — and hundreds of pages of “results,” some of which
are almost devoid of type.
The highlights of the report, faithf ully reproduced here in
the style of the document, follow.
I haven’t seen
my sister since she
got married last
summer and
moved to Califor-
n i a. It’s seems
strange after liv
ing with someone
for 17 years and
then attending
the same univer
sity together that
one brief cere-
mony can take them
Jo
Streit
from you. Of
course my sister Marie and I have kept
in touch, but it’s sure not the same
thing. It’s hard to get in trouble to
gether over the phone.
All kids get into trouble, but one of
the advantages of having a brother or
sister is you do it together. Of course
there are advantages to being an only
child — such as not having to share any
thing — but that also means not having
anyone to share the blame with. Let’s
face it, if something breaks in the house,
the kid is gonna get blamed. One of my
dad’s favorite lines for explaining every
disaster is, “the kids did it.” Naturally
only children end up taking the blame
for everything. A five-year-old kid has
no chance of convincing his mom that it
really was dad who tracked in the mud.
I remember when my family first
moved to Texas. I was in sixth grade
and we moved from California to Dallas
Espionage just isn’t the game
it was in the days of Mata Hari
The spy John
Walker Jr. sold the
Soviets blueprints
of American cod
ing equipment.
The damage to
U.S. security was
profound. “If
there had been a
war, we would
have won it,” re
marked Vitaly
Yurchenko, the
All these operations have a few things
in common. Either at the time of the ar
rest or just before sentencing, a high
U.S. official — often a U.S. attorney —
estimated the damage as incalculable.
Sometimes this was echoed by a high ad
ministration official. Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger offered such an as
sessment in the Pollard case.
Richard
Cohen
KGB official who defected to the United
States and then defected back to the So
viet Union. Yurchenko was characteris
tically confused. If there had been a
war, no one would have won.
Two former Marine guards at the
U.S. Embassy in Moscow are now under
arrest. They are charged with allowing
Soviet agents virtual free run of the em
bassy, including the most secure rooms
on the building’s seventh floor. One of
the Marines, Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree,
reportedly admitted that he felt for a
Soviet employee who worked at the em
bassy and then cooperated with her “un
cle,” a man named Sasha. In such a way
did the Philistines give Sampson a hair
cut.
Second, none of the alleged or con
victed spies turned traitor for ideologi
cal reasons. These were not the contem
porary equivalents of the communist
spies of the 1950s. Pollard comes closest,
but even he apparently just wanted to
help Israel, not harm the United States.
For him, the Soviet-U.S. struggle was to-
taly extraneous. No matter. Based on
the Chicken Little statements of the
prosecutor and Weinberger, a judge
sentenced Pollard to life — the same
sentence given to spies who sold infor
mation to Russia, our so-called mortal
enemy.
For the United States, the arrest of
two alleged spies is an almost common
place event. In the last year or two, a
gaggle of them has been shipped off to
the clink. Walker, his son, his brother,
and an associate, Jerry Whitworth, were
among the first. A former employee of
the top-secret National Security Agency,
Ronald Pelton, sold information to the
Russians. Jonathan J. Pollard spied for
Israel and Larry Wu-Tai Chin spied for
communist China.
Third — and maybe most interesting
— all these operations seem to embody a
nonconformist wisdom, as dissent from
conventional thinking. It’s hard to know
precisely what’s in the mind of a spy, but
the actions and statements of some of
them add up to a rebuttal of the remark
made by Yurchenko — “If there had
been a war, we would have won it.”
What the spies seem to be saying is,
“Nonsense, the stakes were never that
high.”
Experts concede they have a point.
That hardly means the information
spies peddle is not important, maybe
critically important. But none of it es
sentially can change the Soviet-U.S.
equilibrium. Neither side can win the
next war. One side may be able to sur
vive it better than the other, but winning
— as the word always has been used — is
no longer possible. What we are talking
about, instead, are degrees of losing — a
war after which, as someone has re
marked, the living would envy the dead.
That reality makes spying less damag
ing than it used to be. There is no single
piece of information-mobilization plans,
railroad capacities — that can substan
tially affect the outcome of the next war.
The era of Mata Hari and Benedict Ar
nold is over. Only in newspaper head
lines and the sentencing of judges does
spying retain its old importance. The
spies, it seems, know better. What they
do is too damaging to be called a game,
but it has elements of one. We spy, they
spy, but nothing fundamentally
changes.
None of this excuses spying. It just
puts it into a contemporary perspective
— one that prosecutors, judges and ad
ministration officials seem to lack. For
different reasons, they all have a stake
in continuing to insist that the latest spy
caught represents the most severe, dam
aging breach of security since — well,
since the last breach of security. They
continue the ultimate fiction that the
next war can be won, or lost, and that
human beings can make the difference.
For budgetary or career reasons, gov
ernment officials are the last romantics
of espionage, providing spies with an
importance they either don’t have or,
with a new technological development,
they soon will not have. Handcuffed
and hang-faced, the spies go off to jail,
retaining their ultimate secret: Their
notoriety is deserved only partially, not
so their jail sentences.
Copyright 1986, Washington Post-Writers Group
during one of the worst winters here. 1
hated it. In California we lived right by
the beach, but moving to Dallas was a
lesson in living without any type of vege
tation. No trees, no shrubs and no grass.
We had moved to a new neighborhood
and there were only two other houses
besides ours on the entire block. 1 was
surrounded by dirt.
I think Marie hated it too. And I’m
sure my parents hated Marie and me be
cause we fought from the time we got
up until the time we went to l>ed. One of
our favorite places to fight was in the
bathroom. My dad would l>eat his fist
against the wall adjoining mv parents’
room and the bathroom almost every
morning in an effort to make us quit
fighting. Eventually Marie and I made
new friends and got involved in school
activities. This greatly reduced our
morning bouts.
Of course we still argued about some
things, washing dishes after dinner was
one of them. Both of us wanted to load
the dishwasher and dry anything that
had to be washed by hand. It was agree
ably better than rinsing off the food that
was stuck on the plates and a hundred
times better than scrubbing crusty pots.
Usually my mom did the dishes, but
one night after dinner she and Dad
went for a walk. Marie and 1 had the
thrill of cleaning up. We argued for a
few minutes about who washed the last
time and I lost. Being the brat I was, 1
got even. Right after I had polished the
last pot 1 wrung out the dirty dishrag
over Marie’s head. Of course I had to
spend the rest of the night in the bath
room with the door locked for fear of
death, but Marie never told on me.
Actually Marie was a pretty good kid.
I was a different story. I guess being the
youngest child, I had to play the part. I
don’t think my mom ever had to have a
parent
Marie*
volved
hand,
and loud
grouiidc<
■teat
te;
and
was
tier
Marie a
age so it v
one or twt
had the vear before. Unfortunateli
never worked to my advantage
Marie was the perfect student,
teachers expected the same from nit
seemed like every year I would te,
“Oh, you must Ik* MarieStreit’s
ter.” I had to resist the urge tolita
tell them I was actually her oldersw
but 1 had spent the last three year
juvenile detention center.
During tl
class, my te
roll and gav
Marie last ye
non need my
reeled her
fit
■a day of junior Enji
her read mv nameoaU
the typical cry that ski
•a r. 11 (>wever, she roispfj
last name. When
he gasped, explaining J
mispronounced Marie’s namethe*b
year. I hate when people get my
wrong, but Marie is so good-natunl
and quiet that she would neverrej
edly bring something like mispronom*
ing her name to the offender’satteni
Naturally, everybody liked Mai
Who wouldn’t? She is really oneofM
best people I’ve ever met. Occasions
it’s hard to believe were related!
proud to have het lor my sister,I
growing up I was often jealous and*
noyed by her reputation as such asd
person. I sometimes thought Iw
scream if anyone else told mehowld
1 was to have her for a sister. 1 fW
grew up and realized they wererigM
Jo Streit is a senior journalism ff®]
and a columnist for The Battalion,
Mail Call
Whafs the point?
EDITOR.
It would amaze me to hear that Mike Sullivan can, witli a straight face,ca
himself a responsible journalist. Yes, it would be incredible if Sullivan actual'
thought himself a credible journalist, rather than the elitist liberal
bandwagoneer he really is and truly wants to be.
In his most recent piece of editorial garbage, “Boxing in the nameof
God,” on Wednesday, Sullivan lashes out at TV evangelists, making total
fools of them (and his reason for doing so is not included in his editorial.
Why?) If the day ever comes when this guy is a measure of higher intellect,!
will be the day I pack my bags.
He apparently feels it ridiculous to take the Bible literally, andthatallof
Bakker’s assistants are “brain-dead.” I’ll tell you what brain-dead is, it’s when
some clown up at The Battalion newsroom uses the Opinion Page of a
campus-wide newspaper to spout what he considers humor (that’s “liberal
humor) and cares nothing about bringing a valid point (he it liberal or
conservative) into the open where it can he discussed.
Furthermore, there is no point in his column. What could it be? All
Christians are fools? Everyone that trusts any TV evangelist is a fool? There
is nothing in this column that might resemble a point.
Not only was I offended by this column, I was astonished, as ajournafe
myself, that this type of junk actually goes to piess.
Pete Sukoneck
End the tyranny
EDITOR:
In South Africa, a system of racial segregation exists that allows awhile
minority to suppress and brutalize a black majority. This system, knownas
apartheid, is one of the last outposts of t he legacy of Western imperialism.
The system of apartheid is by no doubt wrong. It infringes on basic
human rights and is unjust and unequal. It violates many of the idealsthat
America was built upon. If you would like to help end the tyranny of
apartheid, please come to the South African Divestment March on Friday.! 1
will begin at 4:30 p.m. on the Texas A&M golf course across from theCollc?
Station city hall.
Jeff Dyess ’89
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to tii"
for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must
in ust include the classification, address and telephone number of the uniter.
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