Vol. 82 No. 171 GSPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, July 1, 1987
Soviets aid Afghans
with troops in battle
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Soviet troops rushed
in just nine miles west of Kabul, the capital of Afghani
stan, to shore up Afghan forces besieged by anti-Marx
ist guerrillas, Western diplomatic sources said Tuesday.
In southeastern Afghanistan, they added, the heavi
est fighting of the nine-year war has reduced to rubble
the provincial capital of Kandahar, once the country’s
second-largest city.
In Moscow, visiting United Nations Secretary-Gen
eral Javier Perez de Cuellar said Tuesday that he and
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev have agreed that ne-
otiations on a solution to the Afghan situation might
e concluded soon. Perez de Cuellar did not go into de
tails. U.N.-sponsored negotiations in Geneva recessed
in March and no date was set for resumption.
Diplomatic sources in Islamabad, demanding that
they not be identified further, said that Islamic insur
gents have closed in on the town of Paghman, just west
of Kabul.
The rebels are fighting government forces and their
Soviet backers. Outside observers are rarely allowed in
side Afghanistan and verfication of war claims is not
possible as a rule.
Afghan militia and security forces suffered heavy
losses in a guerrilla attack last Wednesday on Paghman
and Soviet reinforcements arrived 48 hours later, the
sources said.
Diplomats in Islamabad said first reports since that
Soviet deployment described massive artillery barrages
and destruction of orchards, vineyards and houses
throughout the area.
They said many people fled to Kabul to escape indis
criminate shelling by about 90 Soviet guns. Soviet heli
copters were reported ferrying troops and equipment
from Kabul but not attempting air strikes, apparently
for fear of guerrilla surface-to-air missiles.
Diplomats in Kabul said the Kabul-Paghman road
was under government control only two hours a day.
Various sources, including travelers, said Kandahar
was without electricity, water and telephones most of
last week. Guerrillas are using sophisticated U.S. and
British anti-aircraft missiles and shot down up to nine
Soviet and Afghan aircraft in the third week of June,
the sources said.
Diplomats and other observers said the Soviet-Afg-
han air threat was sharply curtailed after insurgents re
ceived U.S.-made Stinger heat-seeking missiles last fall.
The Hezb-I-Islami, a major mujahedeen group
fighting to oust the Marxist government and turn Af
ghanistan into a Moslem state, said guerrillas shot down
16 Soviet planes and seven helicopters throughout the
country in the first two weeks of June.
Reports from Kandahar say the Soviets began bull
dozing guerrilla strongholds in the suburbs and wid
ening roads in the center to allow use of tanks and ar
mor.
Caperton sees success
in opening government
By Robert Morris
Staff Writer
For the last six years, Sen. Kent
Caperton, D-Bryan, has worked to
ward opening the doors behind
which many public administrators
have conveniently hidden.
Last Thursday marked the suc
cessful completion of that effort.
Beginning Sept. 1, the strength
ened Open Meetings Act, which was
signed into law by Gov. Bill Clem
ents, will help make government
more accountable to the public.
The openness issue isn’t new. Ef
forts to add muscle to the law began
in 1977. Caperton’s involvement
came in 1981 as a freshman senator.
“I became convinced that there
were many loopholes in the open
meetings law as it was written and
that it needed to be strengthened,”
he said.
Caperton stressed the importance
of the new law.
“I feel that it’s very important that
we promote openness at all levels of
government,” he said. “I think that’s
essential to a democracy.”
Under the current law, govern
mental bodies are allowed to meet in
private sessions to discuss a variety
of matters.
While the new law doesn’t change
the criteria for calling a closed meet
ing, it does require certified agendas
or tape recomings at all such meet
ings.
The tapes or agendas could be
made available to members of the
public who challenge action by a
governmental body, and any action
taken by public officials who violate
the law could be voided.
The focus of the bill is to “ensure
that we only have discussions going
on that are exempted legitimately
under the act,” Caperton said.
Early on, the state universities
rovided heated opposition to the
ill; however, they eventually testi
fied in favor of it, he said.
Further opposition came from
several areas, including cities, coun
ties and school boards.
“They felt like it was too much of
a burden on their local units of gov
ernment to have to comply with
these requirements,” Caperton said.
“My answer to that was that that’s
one of the prices we have to pay for
serving in a democracy.”
While the bill was widely sup
ported by both Democrats and Re
publicans, Caperton said Gov. Bill
Clements was not a factor in the pas
sage of the legislation.
Photo by Sarah Cowan
Monkey Business
Polly O’Brian, 6, swings on the monkev bars at For-Diabetes swim-a-thon takes place. O’Brian’s
Thomas Park Tuesday morning, while the Swim- brother and sister were also at the park.
Vandiver: Passage of bill will hurt efforts to recruit faculty
By Kirsten Dietz
Senior Staff Writer
Outstanding faculty will be difficult to re
tain and recruit if the Texas House gives fi
nal approval to a bill temporarily cutting
the state’s contribution to the faculty retire
ment plan, Texas A&M officials said Tues
day.
“Every time you turn around, the Legis
lature seems to be saying to the higher edu
cational world, ‘We love you, but we’re not
going to pay you very much. You’re going
to have to stay here on faith,’ ” A&M Presi
dent Frank Vandiver said. “That’s fine, but
1 think people have been staying here on
Faith for several years. When they get better
offers from other states and their plate here
s a little thinner, they’re going to go where
hey can eat and get more money. How do
mi fight that if you don’t have the treasury
to back it up?”
Dr. Clinton A. Phillips, A&M’s dean of
faculties and associate provost, said, “That
isn’t how you treat your faithful servants.”
The House gave preliminary approval
Monday to a bill that would save $24.4 mil
lion by temporarily cutting the state’s con
tribution to the Optional Retirement Plan,
which covers about 90 percent of the state’s
college faculty members. The bill was op-
osed and criticized by some House mem-
ers, including Richard Smith, R-Bryan,
and Wilhelmina Delco, D-Austin, chairman
of the House higher education committee.
Smith said he opposed the bill because it
defeats the purpose of the ORP, which is to
compete with other states in recruiting out
standing faculty. The state is working at
cross purposes by raising faculty salaries
and cutting retirement benefits, he said.
The bill, sponsored by Ed Kuempel, R-
Seguin, still faces a final House vote before
it can be sent to the Senate.
Currently, the state contributes 8.5 per
cent of a faculty member’s annual salary to
the retirement fund. The bill would lower
that contribution to 7.5 percent until Sept.
1, 1989, when it would revert to 8.5 per
cent.
The bill also requires faculty members to
keep their jobs for three years before be
coming eligible to get their money out of
the system. They now wait one year.
The Personnel and Welfare committee
of A&M’s Faculty Senate will meet Thurs
day to draft a resolution protesting the tem
porary measure. It will be presented as an
emergency resolution at the Senate’s July
13 meeting.
Speaker C. Richard Shumway said the
when the 69th Legislature took similar ac
tion.
“You cut the fringe package and it causes
a real impediment to hiring outstanding
people,” he said. “It’s one of those things
we’ll live through. There are worse things
that could have happened. But it doesn’t
convey a consistent committment to higher
education.”
Phillips and Vandiver agree.
“It (the cut) will be taken as symbolic of
the attitude of the Legislature toward fac
ulty and state employees generally,” Phillips
said. “When you impair a person’s retire
ment program, that’s bound to be inter
preted very badly by the people affected,
even though it’s temporary.”
Vandiver said, “I think the message
going out to higher education on yet one
more front is that the state is saying all the
right things and then cutting the monetary
support. They’re not putting their money
where their mouth is. And that bothers me
because we’re having serious recruiting and
retention problems, which are both inter
twined heavily.
“I understand the state’s problems and I
sympathize with the Legislature, but my
problem is that I have part of the state’s ob
jectives in my purview and I can’t meet my
objectives without help from the state trea
sury.”
If the bill goes to the Senate, a spokes
man for Sen. Kent Caperton, D-Bryan, a
member of the education committee, said
the bill probably will be defeated. Caperton
opposes the bill, she said, for the same rea
son Smith did — faculty cannot be attracted
or retained if benefits are cut while salaries
are raised.
New summer finals schedule devised
to ease dorm-student moving woes
uy
Staff Writer
At first glance, the finals sched
ule for the first summer session
appears to be a big inconve
nience.
Students who take 8 a.m.
dasses may learn new material in
the morning that will be covered
on the final exam that evening.
Other students don’t have it
much better. Their finals start at
8 a.m. the next day. Both faculty
and students are sure to dislike
iving and receiving finals on a
aturday.
But a second look shows this to
be much better than the Horror
That Could Have Been.
Finals for the first summer ses
sion were originally scheduled for
Monday, July 13 — the day after
students living on campus for a
single term are required to move
in or out.
Allison Kruest, president of
the A&M chapter of the National
Residence Hall Honorary, pro
posed the revised schedule last
summer after watching the diffi
culties other students had with
the schedule.
She says first-term-only stu
dents are required to move out of
their rooms by noon on Sunday,
July 12, so that second-term stu
dents can move in beginning at 5
p.m. the same day.
Her letter attracted the atten
tion of the Academic Operations
Committee last fall. The commit
tee has 15 members, most of
whom are associate and assistant
deans from the various colleges,
according to Registrar Donald
Carter.
The original schedule would
have required some students to
study while others were moving
out, he says. Many students
would have had to juggle finals
and finding a place to sleep.
There are 1,650 students living
on the Texas A&M campus this
summer, according to the hous
ing office.
Carter says the AOC approved
the proposal last October, but the
registrar’s office failed to amend
the summer schedule of classes
when it went to press in March.
His office has sent several
memos to inform students and
faculty of the change.
The revised schedule of finals
for the first term of the summer
session is as follows:
Friday, July 10 at 7 to 9 p.m.
classes meeting 8 to 9:30 a.m.
Saturday, July II at 8 to 10 a.m.
classes meeting 10 to 11:30
a.m.
Saturday, July 11 at 11 a.m. to 1
p.m.
classes meeting noon to 1:30
p.m.
Saturday, July 11 at 3 to 5p.m.
classes meeting 2 to 3:30 p.m.
The finals schedule for the sec
ond term and the 10-week semes
ter have not been changed.
Kruest says she is happy with
the changes.
“All it took was that one letter,”
she says.
“Students really need that two-
day break, especially during the
summer when things move so
quickly,” she says.
New list of candidates
for Supreme Court job
sent to key senators
WASHINGTON (AP) —- The
Reagan administration presented
the names of about a dozen possible
Supreme Court nominees to key
senators Tuesday. The Senate Judi
ciary Committee chairman said some
potential nominees would sail
through, but others would be in for
“a very hot summer” in the Senate.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del.,
said he and Senate Majority Leader
Robert Byrd held blunt discussions
on the list with Attorney Gen. Edwin
Meese III and White House chief of
staff Howard Baker.
Earlier, Meese and Baker dis
cussed the list, about a dozen people,
with Republican leader Bob Dole of
Kansas and Strom Thurmond, rank
ing Republican on the Judiciary
Committee.
Biden told reporters after the 45-
minute meeting, “Clearly, there are
some on there who I believe would
o through like a hot knife through
utter.”
Others, he said, have “hard edges,
with ideologically honed points of
view.” For them, Biden said, it
“would be a very hot summer and a
very hot fall.”
Biden said the two presidential
emissaries met with the two majority
party officials because “they truly
wanted a sense from the chairman of
the committee and the leader of the
Senate if any problems would arise
A congressional source, speaking
only on condition he not be identi
fied, said the list included Judge
Robert Bork of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Colum
bia. A staunch conservative and ad
vocate of judicial restraint, Bork has
been considered the favorite for the
nomination.
The source said other names on
the list included Sen. Orrin G.
Hatch, R-Utah; Sen. Howell Heflin,
D-Ala., a conservative and former
state Supreme Court chief justice;
and federal appeals court judges:
Richard A. Posner of Chicago, J.
Clifford Wallace of San Diego, Wil
liam Wilkins of Columbia, S.C.; and
Patrick Higginbotham of Dallas.