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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 14, 1987)
pWH Texas A&MW-% m m V • The Battalion Vol. 87 No. 32 USPS 045360 10 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, October 14, 1987 Missile strikes Iraqi school; blast kills 32 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — A mis sile fired from Iran exploded at an I elementary school Tuesday morning as pupils filed into the building for dasses, killing 32 people and wound ing 218, nearly all of them children, I officials said. Shrapnel, shattered concrete and I shards of glass flew through the j playground of the Monument of Martyrs school, witnesses said. Text books and schoolbags lay strewn I about. The force of the explosion blew 1 down parts of the building, Principal Ismael Ghetan Jassim said, but “Thank God it didn’t hit the class rooms complex itself or casualties [would have been much higher.” Neighbors said 12 members of lone family were killed in the house on which the missile made a direct | hit. Baghdad radio said the missile de- [stroyed 16 other buildings in the I heavily populated area when it [struck just five minutes before the school bell, but only three of those killed were adults. All but 22 of the wounded were children, the radio said. It was the fourth Iranian missile to strike the Iraqi capital since Oct. 4, the first to cause major casualties. It spurred fears of a new round of the War of the Cities that killed thou sands of people on both sides in its seven years of existence. Iran has lobbed more than 30 mis siles into this city of 5 million people and dozens more have hit other cit ies. The official radio quoted a mili tary spokesman as saying: “It is our right and duty to respond to this ugly crime.” He said Iran had “de clared a war of the cities and so it shall be. It is time for revenge.” Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said the missile was aimed at the Iraqi Defense Ministry in revenge for an air raid Monday in Lorestan, a western province where it said a school was bombed. Photo by Sarah Cowan How much wood... Several outfits in the Corps have begun “swamping” logs to prepare cutting buds and branches off so the logs will be ready when the actual them for stacking. Swamping entails arranging logs by their sizes and building of the bonfire begins. Texas corporation puts B-CS Eagle up for sale Rv la net floorie • i. . , , By Janet Goode Staff Writer The Bryan-College Station Eagle, owned I by the Harte-Hanks Communications Inc. i since June 1967, went up for sale Tuesday. The San Antonio-based company also [plans to sell two other Texas newspapers, [the Denison Herald and the Herald Banner [in Greenville. Seven cable television sys- |terns, two televisions stations, a non-daily [publicaton and a direct marketing opera- Jtion also are up for sale. “The Eagle is up for sale, it’s not that we are selling it — there’s a difference,” Gerald Garcia Jr., publisher of the Eagle, said. “The Harte-Hanks company has 14 op erations for sale,” Garcia said. “If a pro spective buyer and a fair market value are found, then it may be sold. If not, then the Eagle may remain part of the corporation.” Bob Marbut, president and chief exec utive officer of Harte-Hanks, said the for mer publicly-owned and now indepen dently-operated corporation is selling the jers to generate profits and pay off )ts. pape debt “There’s no question that the proceeds from all of this will be used in part to pay off debts — mostly debts due to a relatively high rate of interest,” Marbut said. Selling the operations also is necessary because of the economic environment and today’s media prices, he said. “We are selling the various operations in hope that we can remain an independent company and increase flexibility to stimu late growth in our company,” he said. “This will allow us to focus on a smaller number of relatively larger operations.” Marbut said this will help Harte-Hanks to become more “customer oriented.” John Morton, a newpaper analyst with Lynch Jones 8c Ryan, a brokerage firm, re cently listed the typical bid on newspapers at $1,000 per subscriber. The £ag-/e's circulation is 26,310. If sold, the paper could bring in over $20 million for Harte-Hanks. Marbut said the £agfe just happens to be one of the smallest papers owned by Harte- Hanks. “It’s not one of our most profitable pa pers simply because it’s not one of our larg est,” he said.“But in relative terms, it always has been profitable and always has been a great contributor. “Of the three newspapers we are selling, it’s no coincidence that three of them are our smallest papers.” Marbut said although he has no idea at this point about prospective bidders, he has received many phone calls from various qualified companies. Survey shows Texas deficient in services for mentally retarded ARLINGTON (AP) — Texas and New York lead the nation in verifiable shortages of services for the mentally retarded, and the problem is only growing worse, a national survey has found. About 21,900 requests for help for mentally retarded people have gone unanswered in Texas, perching the state on top of the Association for Retarded Citizens list of troubled states. The Arlington-based national advocacy group found in its year long survey that there are 1,900 mentally retarded people in Texas on waiting lists for resi dential services, such as place ment in group homes. Another 20,000 are unable to find placement in day programs such as supervised activities, and the Arlington-based advocacy group said Monday that some mentally retarded people have to wait just to get on waiting lists. Researchers said they based their estimates on the official waiting list for placement in state schools and a survey of other public and private facilities for the state’s retarded. “The service sytem has not been able to cope with increased numbers of people leaving insti tutions, a new generation exiting school special-education pro grams and the growing number of older families who have kept family members at home for years, but who now need serv ices,” the report said. Experts said the long waiting lists are discouraging others in need of services from applying and indicate that thousands of re tarded adults are sitting idle at home and regressing in behavior. Texas is required under a fed eral court order to reduce the population of its institutions, and private-sector institutions have been unable to pick up the slack, officials said. The association’s research di rector, Sharon Davis, said many states put the same people on dif ferent waiting lists, making the numbers appear larger. But she believes Texas and other states also underestimate the number of retarded citizens whose names do not appear on lists. “In some states, people are not counted as waiting for services until they have had a comprehen sive evaluation,” Davis said. “This service often has a waiting list as well. Thus, people wait to wait.” Nationally, the group reports, as many as 130,000 mentally re tarded people are on waiting lists for residential and day programs. Several states, including Okla homa, Rhode Island, South Da kota and Wyoming, compile al most no statistics on requests for service for the retarded, the study shows. '-reshmen elect Wehrheim is class president in runoff Admiral says president ignored ‘normal channels’ in arms sales WASHINGTON (AP) — The Reagan administration bypassed normal Pentagon channels when it decided to sell weapons to Iran and failed to get the military’s assessment on the impact of those sales on the Iran-Iraq war, the nation’s top uni formed officer has told Congress. Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chair man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not learn about the arms sales until at least five months after Presi dent Reagan approved them in Jan uary 1986. When he eventually asked De fense Secretary Caspar Weinberger about the sales, Crowe said, Wein berger replied that “it was his under standing that a conscious decision had been made that it was not a mili tary matter, so it was not necessary to bring in the military.” The weapons were transferred from Defense Department stocks to the CIA, which helped get them to Iran. The admiral made the statements to congressional Iran-Contra investi gators in a deposition last June. It was made public Tuesday by the Iran-Contra committees, now pre paring to issue their report on the affair later this month. Crowe said he and Weinberger “both agreed that the . commander- in-chief of the United States can do what he wants to do . . . Whether it is wise or not is a separate question.” Crowe said, too, that no active- duty military officer should lead the National Security Council. He did not refer by name to newly retired Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, who, as Reagan’s national security adviser, headed the council during much of the Iran-Contra affair, in which profits from the Iran arms sales were diverted to support Nica raguan rebels. But Crowe added there was no way to write rules that could offer an ironclad guarantee against future problems. Crowe said he had concerns about military personnel willing to provide advice in order to keep a covert ac tion restricted to a closed circle of people. He said those officials rep resented themselves as defense ex- . perts but “didn’t have the means” to give solid or complete advice. “That is a very prejudiced view,” Crowe conceded, “because as the chairman, I think if you want a mili tary bias in the sense of the chiefs, you should go to the chairman, not to the NSC adviser.” Before U.S. sales of TOW anti tank missiles and Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, no analysis was made of the impact of the sale on U.S. weapons stocks or on their pos sible impact on the Iran-Iraq war, in which the United States was offi cially neutral, Crowe said. While those weapons in the long run may have proven not to have profoundly influenced the military balance in the war, the U.S. judgment prior to making the sale “was an intuitive one, not an analyti cal one,” he said. Crowe added that he did not be lieve the decision to avoid using the normal system of military notifica tion for covert actions was made by Reagan himself, but was made by subordinates “to keep dissent out of the decision-making calculus.” The investigators said the sales to tally depleted U.S. inventories of 15 kinds ol replacement parts for Hawk missiles and 31 other parts were sig- nificandy depleted. Crowe also told the investigators that he occasionally saw intelligence that indicated the existence of a pri vate arms supply to the Contras fighting Nicaragua’s leftist govern ment. But he said he did not know at the time that retired Air Force Mzy. Gen. Richard Secord was involved in the operation or where the private suppliers obtained the money for the weapons. Arias wins Nobel Peace Prize for plan to restore order to Central America Steven Wehrheim, a political sci ence major from Boerne, was chosen Treshman class president Thursday in a runoff election against Heather Menn. Wehrheim had received the most votes in the initial election for class Officers last Monday. B He received 67.4 percent of the votes cast Thursday. ■ Jason Wilcox, a general studies major, defeated Steve Miller by a thin margin for the vice president’s Office. Wilcox received 55 percent of the 649 votes that were cast for vice president. In the initial election, voters gave Miller eight votes more than Wilcox received. A computer breakdown Friday at the measurement and research serv ice delayed the counting of the bal lots, so the four candidates in the runoff election were not informed of the outcome until Monday. The 653 votes Thursday were 246 fewer than those cast in the initial election. OSLO, Norway (AP) — President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica won the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday for a Central American peace plan that he fashioned and persuaded the re gion’s other leaders to adopt. Selection of Arias was a surprise, and unusual because the choice was based at least partially on accom plishments after nominations closed Feb. 1. There were 93 candidates, including 15 organizations. President Reagan, who has called the Arias plan “fatally flawed,” said Tuesday: “President Arias fully de serves the Peace Prize for having started the Central American region on the road to peace.” The Norwegian parliament’s No bel Committee cited Arias, 46, as “the main architect” of the plan the five Central American presidents signed Aug. 7 and are putting into effect. Committee Chairman Egil Aarvik told reporters the award was meant to add impetus and be “a support for the democratic process in the whole region.” Asked whether the committee was trying to influence the peace proc ess, he replied: “it is our sincere wish that it will do so.” world are fixed on Central America, that this little geographic part of the world has suffered,” he added, call ing for an end to the civil wars in Ni caragua and El Salvador. Aarvik said his five-member com “We must not forget that in this moment, in which the eyes of the world are fixed on Central America, that this little geographic part of the world has suffered, ” — Oscar Arias, Nobel Peace Prize winner Arias, reached on vacation at a Costa Rican beach resort, said the award was “incredible.” “I accept it for Costa Rica, for E eace, and not only for Costa Rica ut for Central America, where 25 million human beings deserve to live in peace, with optimism, with some hope of progress,” he said, speaking in English. “We must not forget that in this moment, in which the eyes of the mittee did not decide until late Sep tember who should get the Peace Prize, which like the other 1987 No bel awards includes a cash payment of $340,000. The Central American peace plan is intended to end guerrilla wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guate mala. It requires cease-fires, amnes ties and measures bringing greater democracy to be arranged by Nov. 7, when each nation is to report on its progress. compliance with the plan by Jan. 7, four months after it was signed in Guatemala City by the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The Reagan administration sup ports both Contra rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government in Ni caragua and the centrist government of El Salvador, where a civil war with leftist guerrillas began eight years ago. Administration officials have crit icized the Arias plan, which would require an end to all outside support for rebels, because it does not pre scribe penalties for non-compliance. Arias has not permitted Contras to operate from Costa Rica, which is Nicaragua’s southern neighbor and has no army. He proposed the peace plan after taking office in May 1986, but needed another 15 months to over come objections, mainly from the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.