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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1987)
i l^xasA&MQ 1 ilC £j3tt3llOn Vol. 82 No. 149 CJSPS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas Monday, May 4, 1987 Freshmen members of Company I-1 take on a determined look dur- privileges. The men are preparing to jump up on the monkey bars in ing drills conducted before they are permitted to receive sophomore Spence Park. The group later went on a picnic to celebrate. Supercollider bill may eliminate all but one site, legislators say SAN ANGELO (AP) — Some West Texas leg islators believe a bill aimed at trying to bring the superconducting supercollider to the state con tains language intended to eliminate all but a Dallas-area site from consideration. At issue is whether the wording of the propo sal should suggest “one or more sites,” as con tained in the Senate version, or “two or more sites,” as in a bill offered by the House Science ( and Technology Committee. The full House is expected to vote today on its committee’s version. After that vote, a Senate- House conference committee will have to thrash out a compromise on proposals that the Texas National Laboratory Commission may submit to the U.S. Department of Energy to try to win the multibillion-dollar facility. Rep. Larry Don Shaw, D-Big Spring, has dis tributed a “Dear Colleague” letter to all 150 House members asking them to support the “two or more” version. “I said in the letter that two of our competing states — California and Arizona — already have announced they are submitting two sites,” Shaw said. “We submitted three for the homeport. And DOE has said they expect more than one site from many states. “I reminded them that Illinois submitted two sites (25 years ago) for the Fermilab, and the site selected was that state’s second choice. I re minded them that (U.S. Sen. Lloyd) Bentsen said Texas is too big to offer just one site, and that it is imperative we offer the federal government the broadest examples of what the state has to offer.” Rep. Dick Burnett, D-San Angelo, said the Senate wording could clear the way for a single site proposal. “The word around the House,” Burnett said, “is that a decision already has been made that the TNLC will recommend a site near Dallas — pos sibly the one near Waxahachie.” Jim Raster, legislative liaison from the gover nor’s office, said last week research has shown the Dallas site best met DOE criteria. The bill itself, relatively routine on the surface, gives the TNLC permission to hire an outside consultant without going through the normal, time-consuming state bidding procedures. Not only would the “one or more” language eliminate a Garden City site, but also the many other communities now spending their own pri vate and public funds for site proposals, legis lators said. On Thursday, West Texas legislators, along with several committee chairmen and other rep resentatives from around the state met with House Speaker Gib Lewis to ask that his appoint ments to the Senate-House conference commit tee represent the two-or-more faction. The meeting was spearheaded by Burnett and Shaw. “The speaker assured us he doesn’t care how many sites are forwarded to Washington,” Shaw said Friday. Official pushes racial equality with white vote JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — The chairman of South Afri ca’s most powerful corporation said Sunday that apartheid “has made fools of us all” and urged whites to vote this week for candidates com mitted to racial equality. Gavin Relly, chairman of the An glo American Corp. mining and banking conglomerate, said in a newspaper column that the govern ing National Party has turned away from reform and should be defeated in Wednesday’s elections for the white chamber of Parliament. “The privileged white electorate, in my view, should support candi dates who have the courage to move forward to a policy of putting all South Africans first, irrespective of race, color or creed,” Relly wrote in the Sunday Times, the country’s largest-selling newspaper. Relly was among the leaders of a delegation of South African busi nessmen who traveled to Zambia in September 1985 for talks with offi cials of the outlawed African Na tional Congress, the guerrilla movement fighting to end white domination in South Africa. In his column Sunday, Relly said meaningful black-white negotiations “will mean a dramatic, mind- wrenching and courageous act of leadership.” Under apartheid, South Africa’s 24 million blacks have no vote in na tional affairs, while the 5 million whites control the economy and maintain segregated schools and neighborhoods. President P.W. Botha, in a letter to voters published in English and Afrikaans newspapers Sunday, said the National Party’s insistence on se paration of races is “based on the practical realities of our population structure.” “You can criticize me and my gov ernment for our personal shortcom ings,” he wrote. “But never for a lack of love, or dedication to South Af rica.” The National Party, heavily fa vored to retain its large majority in Parliament’s dominant white cham ber, has tried to present itself as a centrist party that would enact some reforms but resist black majority rule. It is being challenged by two far- right parties which oppose any mod ification of apartheid. Also running is an informal alliance of liberal par ties and independents who favor abolition of discriminatory laws. Said one independent, former Ambassador to Britain Denis Wor- rall: “South Africans are simply fed up to the back teeth with our apart heid image as the ‘ugly South Afri cans’ — the racists and untouchables of the world.” Officials say new law hurts Latin region WASHINGTON (AP) — The prospective return of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to Latin America and the Caribbean because of the new immigration law could aggravate the region’s already se rious social and economic problems, U.S. officials say. Of the estimated 3 million to 5 million illegal aliens in the United States, more than 75 percent are be lieved to come from America’s southern neighbors, with Mexico ac counting for more than half the to tal. But Mexico, because of its size, is expected to be able to absorb its re turnees more easily than tiny El Sal vador, a major refugee source whose economy is suffering from pro longed civil war and a devastating earthquake last October. The administration is considering a plea from President Jose Napoleon Duarte to give temporary refuge in the United States to the huge num ber of Salvadoran aliens who would otherwise be expected to return home. The presence of illegal aliens in the United States has represented a significant benefit to the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. Each alien working in the United States means one less job to fill back home and the dollars they send to family members who stayed behind often make the difference between a measure of prosperity and penury. But a number of U.S. officials and diplomats said it is impossible to gauge the degree to which the re turn of the illegal aliens will set back the economies of these countries. Contra investigators check Bush’s dealings in supplying weapons WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran- Contra investigators are looking into Vice President George Bush’s con nections to the supply of weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras, including a record of involvement from start to finish by a former CIA agent who is a top aide to the vice president. Reporting to Congress on the pro gress of his investigation, indepen dent counsel Lawrence Walsh specif ically listed the office of the vice president as among the objects of his ongoing criminal investigation. He said those inquiries were “proving fruitful.” While there have been questions about the vice president’s role since last winter, only recently has the fo cus sharpened on Bush and his aides. The Tower commission’s re port released in February made scant mention of Bush’s role despite signs of involvement in the affair by him and his staff. But the Tower panel interviewed only Bush and none of his staff. Wary that Bush’s 1988 presi dential chances could be wrecked on the shoals of the Iran-Contra affair, the vice president’s political advisers insist that they do not have a prob lem as congressional hearings open Tuesday. But Donald Gregg, the CIA agent who is Bush’s national security ad viser, as well as two of his own aides, bring the investigative trail into the office of the vice president. Investi gators have talked to former White House staffers about Gregg’s activ ities. In addition, Bush, himself a for mer CIA director, has had meetings with key figures in both the arms sales to Iran and the private aid net work for supplying the Contras. Moreover, Bush attended the da ily intelligence briefings for Presi dent Reagan where a number of key decisions in the case were made, in cluding the one at which the Iran initiative was formally approved. “The office is being looked at,” a source familiar with the congressio nal investigation said Thursday. “There are people being talked to.” Bush campaign manager Lee At water said last week, “I do not see Don Gregg as a political liability for the vice president.” Gregg acknowledges that in De cember 1984 he recommended his friend from his days in Vietnam, Cu ban-born former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, as an on-the-scene ad viser to the Salvadoran air force at Ilopango air base in El Salvador. Gregg refused to be interviewed for this story. He has maintained there is evidence fired National Se curity Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver North recruited Rodriguez into the network providing support for the Contras, and that he was unaware of that involvement. This was in 1985, during the two- year period when Congress had made it illegal for the government to provide lethal support to the Con tras trying to overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. But twice when the Contra sup port program ran into trouble, Ro driguez took the problem directly to the vice president’s office. One former White House official familiar with the NSC operations said that Gregg was more closely re- See Bush, page 12 A&M-Galveston still facing pressure from Legislature to close operations By Lee Schexnaider Reporter On April 13 a bill was in the Texas House of Representatives that would have cost Texas A&M at Galveston the freshman and sophomore portions of its under graduate program. Those provi sions were taken out of the bill, but it was another close call. “During the. last couple of years there has been pressure to close the school,” said William Mobley, deputy -chancellor for academic and resource devel opment for the Texas A&M Uni versity System. The university, located on Gal veston Island and Pelican Island, has been threatened with closure twice in the past two years. The actions mostly were the result of the strain that the drop in oil prices have caused on the Texas economy. Bill Presnal, executive secre tary for the A&M Board of Re gents and vice chancellor for state affairs, said A&M-Galveston has become a lightning rod for con troversy. Dr. Stephen Curley, associate professor of general academics at A&M-Galveston said the threat ened closures have made people anxious. “It’s almost become standard procedure to be threatened by the Legislature,” Curley said. “We’ve been something like a po litical football that people have been kicking around. It is uncom fortable to be a football.” A proposed institute for ma rine-related research, similiar to Woods Hole Oceanographic Insi- tution in Massachusetts or Scripps Institute of Oceanogra phy in California, has been rec ommended by the board. The in stitute will be a joint project between A&M and the University of Texas. Dr. James Kanz, associate pro fessor of marine biology at A&M- Galveston, said this institute could help stabilize the university. “A research institute here would really take off,” Kanz said. He also said that part of the problem the university is facing is its limited scope. It is restricted by law to marine related areas. The degree programs include marine engineering, marine biology, ma rine fisheries, marine sciences, marine transportation, marine administration and marine sys tems engineering. The final decision on the fate of A&M-Galveston lies with three groups — the Texas Legislature, the Coordinating Board for Texas College and University Systems, and a joint task force of faculty and administrators from Texas A&M University and A&M-Galveston. Presnal said House bill 2181 was found to have too much re strictive language in reference to A&M-Galveston. The bill, spon sored by House Speaker Gib Le wis, was taken from the recom mendations by the House Select Committee on Higher Education. “The speaker has indicated his support and priority for the bill,” Presnal said. “It is unusual be cause a speaker may only sponsor a bill every eight or 10 years.” He said the bill would deter mine what the instructional mis sion of the university will be. It also included admissions policy recommendations. “They tried to make it too nar row,” he said. Presnal said all statements ref erring to roles and admissions of universities were removed from the bill. “The intent is that all refer ences to role and admissions now transfer to the Coordinating Board,” he said. The Texas Senate has similar legislation pending, but it is di vided into several different bills, Mobley said. “We don’t want to argue in the Legislature for a free-standing university in Galveston because the political mood is now against such things,” he said. “There is excess capacity in higher educa tion in Texas, but not in our sys tem.” Mobley said A&M is trying to bide its time until the report from the joint committee comes in May. Mobley said they would like to keep the issues out of the Leg islature and deal with the Coordi nating Board. Rick Ritter, a junior marine en gineering major and editor of the A&M-Galveston student newspa per, the Nautilus, said students are not sure what to think about the survival of the university any more: “Most of the students don’t know what is going on,” he said. “We are just sitting around and waiting.” Kanz said students who have attended the university for seve ral years have lived under this cloud for a while and haven’t seen it close; they also have heard a fair number of positive things told to them by the administra tion. “I’m sure the students are say ing, ‘Well, there is not too much I can do about it at this stage, and I am just going to go ahead with my school work, get my degree and go on,’ ” he said. Curley said the problems affect future students more than cur rent students. “It is difficult to recruit new students to a place that has been threatened by the Legislature,” he said. “People are reluctant to commit themselves to something that makes front page news.” John Merritt, A&M-Galveston public information officer, said there has been a good side to the publicity. More people now know about the university and that, he said, is expected to help enroll ment. Curley said students have not let present troubles with the uni versity get them down. “The single most encouraging expression of what is happening See A&M-Galveston, page 12