3SS
OS
'e$
The Battalion
Vol. 82 No. 190 CJSPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, August 5, 1987
Iran: Gulf manuevers
'ler m (M
; ; r train suicide squads
»nd —u[..
'as victiuilfeMANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Iran
own wild Tuesday its war games in the
Hrrow Persian Gulf gateway were
led on itraining su i c id e squads to attack U.S.
ihort$tof;|rarships with speedboats converted
e Mahlt’into bombs. Most commercial ships
indGh;»teered clear.
load i|]( One shipping official said “almost
iito ships” were making the east-west
to scon journey through the Strait of Hor-
Ul MahlcHiu/ from the gulf, where Iran and
with Bas Iraq have been at war since Septem-
singled i; bcr 1980.
id. i,’ |Traffic in the other direction, into
stros'blBp southern end of the gulf, was re-
[roundot: ported down by one-third to half,
sixth,bm Another shipping agent said a
hings e; ?jpanicky” reaction caused sharp re-
h capp«; ooctions in sailings after reports, ap
parently exaggerated, that Iran had
blocked shipping channels in the
ten a 2-t : Strait.
i last-mis Hormuz is 44 miles wide, with Ira-
Jim Dt nian territory on the north shore
Ider si and Oman on the south,
up, on i Iran’s official Islamic Republic
ionjame News Agency quoted Cmdr. Mo-
‘t—andi hammad Malekzadegan as saying:
Mahler:: “Iran’s naval forces are fully pre
pared to take revenge on the United
upsixbi! States and its criminal accomplices
1 two ami for shedding the blood of innocent
lehadlo pilgrims.”
of his Iasi
His reference was to the deaths of
hundreds of Iranian pilgrims in bat
tles with Saudi Arabian riot police
Friday in the Moslem holy city of
Mecca. Iran says police shot them
down. The Saudis say the pilgrims
were trampled to death or killed in
riots.
At the United Nations in New
York, Iran circulated a letter accus
ing U.S. warplanes patrolling the
gulf of violating Iranian air space
July 11. It said “any unlawful pro
vocative act by the United States”
would have “very dangerous conse
quences.”
Iran began three days of naval
maneuvers in the strait, the Persian
Gulf and the Gulf of Oman at mid
night Monday, telling all foreign ves
sels and aircraft to stay out of its wa
ters.
The reflagged Kuwaiti tanker Gas
Prince and its U.S. Navy escort
passed through the strait out of the
gulf a few hours before the starting
time.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon offi
cially professed a lack of concern
about the Iranian maneuvers, but
several ranking officials said pri
vately the next Navy convoy proba
bly would not sail until next week.
There had been reports that one
would start north on Thursday.
Iranian television showed dozens
of speedboats docked at a port and
others cruising in the Persian Gulf,
with crews manning heavy machine
guns and rocket-propelled grenade
launchers.
Volunteers on shore waved a
huge banner that said in Farsi, the
Iranian language: “Persian Gulf of
Iran, Graveyard of Reagan.”
Jeeps and bulldozers moved be
hind earthen barriers built along the
coastline.
Flares and tracer bullets were
fired at night. The crackle of auto
matic and anti-aircraft fire could be
heard.
A commentary on Tehran radio
said “martyrdom-seeking” volun
teers “have become quite capable of
approaching U.S. warships in their
fast boats and dealing deadly blows.”
Among Iran’s weapons are
“speedboats loaded with explosives”
that would ram their targets in sui
cide attacks, the radio said.
Malekzadegan, the naval officer,
was quoted as saying Iranian missile
systems were prepared to counter
any American action.
rfeld and
ip. Smitl
after put
prising it
e Brave
s by Ke:
Moslems end
pilgrimage
to holy city
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) —
More than 2 million Moslems
“stoned the devil” Tuesday in the
climax of their pilgrimage to this
holy city, and Iran said the Satan
they struck was the United States.
Saudis officials claimed Iran
had plotted to take over the
Grand Mosque, lock hundreds of
thousands of pilgrims inside and
force them to swear fealty to Aya
tollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s
revolutionary patriarch, as leader
of the world’s 850 million Mos
lems.
Soldiers and army helicopters
shadowed 157,000 Iranians who
joined pilgrims, called hajjis,
from 122 other countries in ston
ing the three Devil’s Pillars on th<.
Plain of Arafat 16 miles from
Mecca. Each pilgrim threw seven
stones at each pillar.
A Saudi newspaper, Okaz,
quoted official sources it did not
identify as saying only one-fourth
of the Iranians who came for the
hajj were real pilgrims.
It said the rest were Revolu-
onary Guards, “suicidal volun
teers” or “revolutionary genera
tion” fanatics.
A Tehran radio broadcast said:
‘The Saudi killers and their insti
gator America, the great Satan,
will not escape Islamic punish
ment. Today, the hajjis stone the
evil. . . . the real devil to be
stoned and burned is America
nd its lackeys.”
Moslems believe the site of the
Devil’s Pillars is where Satan
tempted Abraham to refuse the
sacrifice of his son Ishmael as
d commanded. God provided
a huge ram that Abraham sacri
ficed instead, according to the
ightingi HCoran, Islam’s holy book.
)y$
1980s-:.
r ends.
? can M
develop:
ve an»:
n’t malti
3ne if »|
ss upon
a goodlti
er or inali
Irysaidb
oach.
eat chain
■y said.'O
ameyei
o, altooi
'ederain-
Fairness Doctrine
scrapped by FCC
in unanimous vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
fairness doctrine requiring broad
casters to present all sides of contro
versial issues became history Tues-
day when the Federal
Communications Commission voted
to abolish the 38-year-old policy.
In a move that shifts the battle
over the issue to Congress, the FCC
voted 4-0 to scrap the doctrine on
the grounds it is unconstitutional
and unnecessary and hinders broad
cast coverage of important issues.
“Because we believe it will serve
the public interest, we seek to extend
to the electronic press the same First
Amendment guarantees that the
print media have enjoyed since our
country’s inception,” said FCC
Chairman Dennis R. Patrick.
Reaction from consumer groups
was swift and congressional support
ers of the doctrine promised quick
action in the House and Senate to
overturn the commission’s disman-
ding of the policy and enact the doc
trine into law.
Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C.,
chairman of the Senate Commerce,
Science and Transportation Com
mittee, branded the FCC’s action
“wrongheaded, misguided and illog
ical.
“The fairness doctrine protects
and preserves freedom of speech of
the American public at large, by pro
viding the only means for many in
the public to be heard,” Hollings
said in a statement.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader
said the action marked “both the
FCC’s darkest hour and the begin
ning of its greatest repudiation.”
Broadcasters have long opposed
the policy as an infringement of
their constitutional right to free
speech. They also say stations’ fear
of running afoul of the doctrine has
inhibited coverage of controversial
issues.
Supporters of the doctrine, in
cluding members of public interest
groups who held up “Save the
Fairness Doctrine” signs during the
FCC’s meeting, say the policy assures
that minority viewpoints are aired by
television and radio stations.
Earlier this year, Congress passed
a measure to make the fairness doc
trine a law, but President Reagan ve
toed the bill in June. Congressional
supporters of the doctrine have been
unaole to gather enough votes to
override the veto.
The FCC’s action to end enforce
ment of the doctrine came on a law
suit brought by the Meredith Corp.,
a broadcast group based in Des
Moines, Iowa, after the commission
found that Meredith’s Syracuse,
N.Y., television station had violated
the doctrine by airing a series of ad
vertisements advocating construc
tion of a nuclear power plant.
A federal appeals court remanded
the case to the FCC and directed the
agency to consider Meredith’s con
stitutional arguments.
In its reconsideration of the case,
the FCC determined the doctrine vi
olates the Constitution’s First
Amendment guarantees of free
speech.
The FCC’s action does not apply
to the provisions of the law requiring
broadcasters to give candidates for
the same office equal access to the
airwaves.
Danny Fotenot, who works for Landmark Restora- bricks that will match the rest of the bricks of
don, is replacing the bricked-in windows with new Hart Hall.
Homosexual student urges
others to
By Yvonne DeGraw
Staff Writer
“What if. . . ?”
I’ve been taught to ask lots of
questions. Who? What? When?
Where? Why? But the full impact of
“What if. . .” hit me last week.
A male student walked into the
newsroom with a letter to the editor.
He looked like hundreds of other
_____________ Aggies, but the
letter he car-
ViewpOint ried was differ-
ent. His eight-
page letter had
no signature. “John” wanted to re
main anonymous.
Page two of The Battalion says
each letter to the editor must be
signed, so we couldn’t print the let
ter. But John had something impor
tant to say.
His letter began, “I was tested.”
John is homosexual, and he had just
been tested for AIDS.
He is concerned that many homo
sexuals are choosing not to be tested
for AIDS.
I talked to him for almost an hour
behind the closed doors of the edi
tor’s office. I never learned his full
name.
John said he has been homosexual
for as long as he can remember. It
wasn’t always an easy thing for him
to deal with. He was engaged to a
woman at one time, but it was frus
trating to deny what he felt, he said.
be tested
By all rights, he should be happy
now. He said he has found the man
with whom he wants to spend the
rest of his life. They’ve been dating
for six months and plan to continue
living together after they graduate
this month.
“It almost sounds like you are ri
diculing the situation to say we are
married, but that’s how I feel,” he
said.
But John has worried about ac-
? [uired immune deficiency syndrome
or the past three to four years.
“I think everyone worries about it
to some degree,” he said. “I’m not
sure I’m really in a high risk group.
They always say homosexuals with
multiple partners (have the highest
risk), but that isn’t my case at all.”
In fact, he said the reason he
wants to remain anonymous is not
that he is ashamed of being homo
sexual. Instead, he doesn’t want peo
ple to get the impression that he
worried about AIDS because he was
promiscuous.
But the spectre of the disease was
never far. John knows three people
who have dfied of AIDS and two who
are dying.
Those “What ifs . . .” kept crop
ping up for John.
“What if I have AIDS?” he asked
himself. “What if I gave it to some
one I love? What if I die? What if I
kill him?”
At first glance, it seems easy to
stop asking these questions — just
for AIDS
get tested for the HTLV III virus
that causes AIDS. At least eight clin
ics in the Bryan-College Station area
either perform the test or send
blood samples to another lab.
But John said many homosexuals
decide not to be tested for the virus.
“I don’t think you ever want to
know when you are going to die,” he
said. “Even when you are 80, you
still don’t want to know when it will
happen.
Of the 40 homosexual males he
knows well enough to know whether
they have been tested, he said only
he and his partner have been tested.
They, too, decided not to be
tested at first.
“We did not want to know that we
were going to die,” he wrote in his
letter.
“We were going to be together
anyway for what we perceived to be
the rest of our lives, however long or
short that was, so it didn’t matter,”
he explained. “If one of us had it we
figured we both had it. We were
both either going to live or become
sick and die, we thought.”
Now John believes differently. He
said no matter what the results, it is
better to know than to live with the
fear.
Both he and his partner tested
negative; they don’t have the dis
ease. u
It was his relief at learning this
See Homosexual, page 6
not H
hinkan I
son said'
ild be •
TV executives hesitate to air condom ads
icavywen'
*2 By Kathryn McMinn
nd spin Reporter
J. Thai* Condom advertisements may
weight f soon be making regular television
appearances, but many health care
: lcer said experts worry that the commercials
toil! heighten public fear of AIDS
, in the [ rather than stir up awareness of pre-
Ve had cautions to take against the disease,
thing ah 1 ; Local media executives hesitate to
run the ads because they fear the ex-
i knockf'Plicit nature of the material won’t be
Tysonreadily accepted in the Bryan-Col-
s won allege Station community.
> ut ’
i goodry “Although our station doesn’t en-
ignt haf counter many ads we don’t run, as of
Hehasio Ur p resen t situation, our corporate
nds ^policy of this station is not to accept
. He f these advertisements,” said Todd
hope ^Carroll, sales manager for KBTX-
her ” TV in Bryan.
’ Tillis* * * A presentation from a condom
lith are producing company was made to the
,ne the station to show what type of com-
jjaercials were being proposed, but
iatch is “Carroll said the station’s directors
^avywedidn’t think the it was ready to han-
ile condom ads.
“There are no written guidelines
as to what type of commercials are
accepted by the station; it’s more a
subjective-type thing,” he said. “We
must remember, however, that we’re
helping these industries sell their
products so we don’t want to asso
ciate our station with anything the
Reactions to TV condom ads
Part two of a two-part series
community might not be ready to
handle.
“I think the commercials defi
nitely would raise some eyebrows.
It’s a pretty conservative town, and
I’m sure there would be objections
from many community leaders. We
get objections when the Contra hear
ings are bumping the soaps; we
would definitely hear about these
ads.”
Television stations don’t take re
sponsibility for advertisements, but
they are, nonetheless, the medium
through which most of the com
plaints are filed.
“The individual business has the
ultimate responsibility as to what
these ads promise and portray, but
we generally take the business at
their word,” Carroll said. “For some
thing like condoms, I think we’d get
negative responses, but I also think
there would be those pro to these
commercials.”
The birth control issue is what
Carroll believes many of those op
posed to these ads are afraid of,
more so than AIDS.
“By airing these ads, maybe it will
force the issue of birth control to
those parents who are hesitant to
discuss it with their children,” Car-
roll said. “Putting the moral issue
aside, I can’t think of anything more
horrid than unwanted pregnancies
or contracting AIDS because of a
lack of knowledge.”
According to an article in the May
12 issue of the New York Times, the
first condom commercials were
funded by the New York City Health
Department, which now is promot
ing a fund-raising drive to raise $6
million from corporations to buy air
time and advertising space.
For now, condoms are being ad
vertised on television with no brand
names being used. But condom sales
probably will become selective, even
tually airing brand names.
Newsweek estimated that the con
dom market is worth more than
$300 million a year, with about
80,000 sold daily.
The Minneapolis-based Mentor
Corp., which produces a line of
health care products, recently added
condoms to its product line.
Product manager Jane O’Meara
said, “Our company started devel
oping the product four years ago
when AIDS wasn’t that much of an
issue. We had a trial market in No
vember of 1985 and the condoms
have been a national product for one
year now.”
AIDS didn’t prove a primary fac
tor for Mentor’s decision to add con
doms to its line, though, O’Meara
said.
“Medical research and the
relationship between condoms and
our other medical products made it
seem like a logical step to follow,”
O’Meara said.
Mentor has targeted their product
toward heterosexual women.
“Our magazine ads are aimed at
single, educated women between the
ages of 22 and menopause, because
it is estimated through our initial re
search that 40 to 70 percent of the
product is bought by this market.”
Although Mentor has not devel
oped advertisements for television
for its condom line, O’Meara said
the company would before the end
of the year.
“The problems we seem to be fac
ing with commercials are the time
slots offered by the television sta
tions, which occur at 11 p.m. to
11:30 p.m., the limits placed on ad
content, and the refusal of certain
stations to take commercials,” she
said.
The viewer objections were the
primary reasons why the stations
would not air the commercials,
O’Meara said.
“If we do produce a commercial
for our condoms, we will not use
fear tactics to try and increase sales,”
she said. “Fear tactics will not have a
positive affect on viewers no matter
what products you are promoting.
By putting the issue on television
and bringing it into the home, how
ever, the message can be more
widely spread.”
Some of the main concepts
O’Meara said Mentor would stress in
its commercials would be product
awareness and public education
about birth control. The AIDS issue
would not be one of the primary fac
tors in its advertisements.
“As far as condoms are concer
ned,” she said, “I would rather see
for our company a public service-
type announcement with a slug on
the end saying it was sponsored by
our company.
“I think the community would
more readily accept this type of ad
vertisement and benefit from it as
well.”