4
and the University Outreach Honors Program and the minorities can have a part in “The president and the attention, but Johnson believes don’t meet the standards.
pWH Texas ASM m m V •
The Battalion
Vol. 87 No. 59 (JSPS 045360 8 Pages
College Station, Texas
Friday, November 20, 1987
Iran-Contra officials
say aides interfered
WASHINGTON (AP) — National
security aides John Poindexter and
Oliver North interfered with seven
criminal investigations when the
probes threatened to expose the
Reagan administration’s private
Contra resupply operation, the con
gressional Iran-Contra committees
say.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Ed
win Meese III, the target of strong
criticism in the panel’s 690-page re
port, described the study on Thurs
day as “a great job of Monday morn
ing quarterbacking.”
“There wasn’t anything partic
ularly new,” Meese said of the re
port, which said he failed to keep re
cords and neglected to seal North’s
office during a weekend inquiry last
November that uncovered diversion
of funds from the secret sale of arms
to Iran to the Contra rebels in Nica
ragua.
North continued to shred docu
ments throughout the weekend in
quiry.
The report, released Wednesday,
also concluded that Meese probably
approved the use of private funds
for a failed 1985-86 ransom opera
tion for U.S. hostages in Lebanon
bankrolled by Texas industrialist H.
Ross Perot.
Defending his performance dur
ing the inquiry a year ago, Meese
said, “It looks a lot different when
you are on the scene.”
He declined to discuss the ransom
operation.
Asked whether he might resign,
Meese replied: “That’s silly.”
The Iran-Contra report provides
some new details of efforts in 1985
and 1986 by Poindexter, a former
national security adviser to President
Reagan, and fired National Security
Council staffer North to monitor
and in some instances impede crimi
nal investigations.
The investigations had the poten
tial for uncovering the NSC’s role in
overseeing the private Contra sup
port network at a time when U.S.
military aid for the rebels had been
cut off by Congress, the report said.
University investigates
possible Corps hazing
By Clark Miller
Staff Writer
Texas A&M officials have begun
their investigation into the possible
hazing of George Russell Pulliam, a
senior journalism major and mem
ber of the Corps of Cadets who was
found handcuffed to a post on the
University of Texas campus early
Sunday morning.
Dr. John Koldus, vice president
for student services at A&M, said a
report of the incident has been re
ceived from the UT police and an in
vestigation is underway.
Because freshmen abducted Pull-
from A&M and took him to
lam
Austin, where he was handcuffed to
the post of an anti-apartheid shack
on the UT campus, Koldus said he
Tornado victims
may get homes
DALLAS (AP) — Victims left
homeless by the string of tornados
that battered East Texas could live
rent-free in vacant homes for one
year under a plan going to President
Reagan for approval this week, offi-
dals said.
Gov. Bill Clements and the Fed
eral Emergency Management
Agency is asking Reagan to immedi
ately declare Anderson and Chero
kee counties major disaster areas,
Edd Hargett of the agency’s regional
office in Denton said.
The disaster designation and the
grants and loans that accompany it,
Hargett said, could eventually be ex
tended to 20 other tornado-torn
counties.
“We know that we are going to get
some long-term assistance,” Pales
tine Mayor Jack Selden Jr. said. “It’s
virtually assured.”
Ten people were killed and nearly
160 were injured when an estimated
30 tornados struck sites ranging
from northeast Texas to the Gulf
Coast. At least 150 homes were de
stroyed in 24 counties Sunday and
Monday, and scores of businesses
were destroyed or damaged.
Clements visited the hard-hit
communities of Palestine and Jack
sonville on Tuesday, pledging to
rush a disaster declaration to the
president. Hargett said the Emer
gency Management Agency has al
ready received the paperwork from
Clements and is processing it.
“What the state has decided to do
is ask for a declaration for those two
counties and just add counties to
that later,” Hargett said.
He said the application is for indi
vidual assistance only, adding that
the only significant damage to public
property was at a Palestine elemen
tary school.
Residents with verifiable losses
could receive up to $5,000, qualify
for temporary housing or receive a
Small Business Administration
Loan, Hargett said.
“There is probably housing that
we would put folks in temporarily,”
he said. “If it is available locally, we’ll
just use it. The housing would be
rent-free for up to a year.”
Laureen Chernow, a spokesman
for the emergency management di
vision of the Texas Department of
Public Safety, said Anderson and
Cherokee counties were the only
counties named because officials
haven’t gathered enough informa
tion from other areas.
isn’t sure if state hazing laws will ap
ply to the case. The law is designed
to prevent underclassmen from be
ing hazed by upperclassmen, he
said.
Bill Kibler, associate director of
student affairs, agreed, saying that
in its pure form the state hazing law
may not be applicable in this case.
However, A&M’s definition of
hazing is different than the state’s,
and the students involved could be
charged with hazing at the Univer
sity level, Kibler said.
“Unfortunatly, underclassmen
pulling pranks on upperclassmen
nas occured in the past and is conti
nuing,” Kibler said. “But it is against
the University’s policy.”
Thomas Darling, commandant of
the Corps, said Pulliam’s abduction
occurred as a freshman prank.
“It was a case of freshmen trying
to earn their Corps brass,” Darling
said.
“Through the years, this kind of
thing has been going on,” he said,
“but it is not something we condo-
Kibler said A&M is taking the inci
dent seriously.
“All of the students involved di
rectly or indirectly will be charged
and will have to go through the disci
plinary process,” Kibler said.
Dr. Brent Paterson, student devel
opment specialist with the Depart
ment of Student Affairs, will be in
charge of the disciplinary process.
Paterson said his office will send
letters to everyone involved in the
incident.
The students who receive letters
will have three school days from the
time they get their letter to make an
appointment to talk with Paterson
individually.
The meeting will give the students
the opportunity to discuss their in
volvement or lack of involvement, he
said.
Darling said his office will cooper
ate with Paterson’s investigation and
follow any recommendation the stu
dent affairs office gives.
R.E.M. rocks A&M
Photo by Robert W. Rizzo
Lead singer for R.E.M. Michael Stipe performs with his band at G. Rollie White Coliseum on Thursday night
See related story, page 5.
Center for drug prevention
will open on A&M campus
By Anita Anderson
Reporter
Texas A&M will open its first
drug prevention center in mid-De
cember, Assistant Director of Stu
dent Affairs Jan Winniford said.
The Center for Drug Prevention
and Education will be partially
funded by a two-year grant from the
U.S. Department of Education.
A&M will provide the other funds
and will sustain the center after the
initial two years, Winniford said.
“We are taking the current alco-
haven’t done much with drugs other
than alcohol.
“The primary emphasis of the
center is to try to identify students
who may have a potential for abus
ing drugs or alcohol and try to inter
cede in educating them so they don’t
develop a problem later on.”
The center’s staff will use several
strategies to identify these students.
“We will probably look at higher
risk groups, like social sororities and
fraternities,” Winniford said. “Alco
hol plays a greater role because the
emphasis on social aspects. As a re
bel education program and expand- suit, peer pressure may be greater,
ing it,” she said. “We have had the “Also, people in these groups may
program for about five years, but we be more financially stable and have
Experts: Pilots
may lack
experience
WASHINGTON (AP — The
major airlines have been easing
their hiring requirements because
of the need for thousands of new
pilots, and some aviation safety
officials worry about the decline
in cockpit experience.
Pilot inexperience has been
raised as a possible factor in last
Sunday’s crash in Denver of a
Continental Airlines DC-9 after it
was disclosed that both the cap
tain and co-pilot had only re
cently begun flying that type of
jetliner.
Spokesmen for the airline dis
puted suggestions that the two pi
lots’ flying background was un
usual, calling it “the norm in the
industry.” They emphasized that
both pilots, who were among the
28 people killed in the accident,
met Federal Aviation Administra
tion certification requirements.
But aviation experts said the
overall experience level of pilots
at rapidly expanding airlines,
even some of the industry’s larg
est carriers, has fallen off in re
cent years.
NASA architect plans design for living areas
in space station slated for 1990s assembly
By Lee Schexnaider
Staff Writer
Space station. The words bring up
images ranging from Skylab to
“2001: A Space Odyssey.”
No one knows for sure what the
U.S. space station will look like, but
Rod Jones probably has a pretty
good idea.
Jones is an experiment facilities
engineer for NASA, but he said that
really means the space agency
doesn’t have a title for an architect.
He is concerned with the design of
the living areas of the station, which
will be complete in the early 1990s.
He outlined the latest design for the
new space station in Zachry Engi
neering Center Thursday.
He said that the National Aero
nautics and Space Administration
follows a program involving four
steps in designing the station. Jones
said phase A, or the “sky-blue”
phase, sets many of the parameters
for the space station.
“The decision coming out of
phase A was that it should provide
about 21,000 cubic feet of habitable
volume,” Jones said. “That’s a good
bit — Skylab was about 13,000 cubic
feet, the Soviet’s space station MIR
has about 3,000. That volume would
be for an industrial park. Private in
dustry should come up and do their
basic research there. And in doing
so, hopefully they would learn some
thing — enough to build their own
processing labs in space.
“That’s the gymnastic role — they
are always trying to get private in
structures on the ends. They would
be connected to various extensions
to support solar panels and other ex
perimental packages and docking
ports for the space shuttle.
Jones said several designs for the
interior of the modules were pro-
“Private industry should come up and do their basic
research there. And in doing so, hopefully they would
learn something — enough to build their own proc
essing labs in space. ”
— Rod Jones, facilities engineer for NASA
dustry to pick up the ball and take
off with it.”
He said the basic component of
the station will be a cylinder about 14
feet wide by 40 feet long. These cyl
inders or modules will have ports on
each end so they can be linked to
gether to form the station. He said
the basic station may contain one liv
ing module and possibly three labo
ratory modules, one each from the
U.S..Japan and the European Space
Agency. The modules would be
linked in a “racetrack” or a rectangu
lar design. The modules would be
connected by smaller connecting
posed by NASA and various compa
nies. He said the designs included a
vertical or “bologna slice” design
that utilizes several levels in one cyl
inder. But he said because of space,
maintenance accessibilty and cost, a
horizontal design is favored.
One of the radical designs in
volved mounting all the equipment
on a shaft running through the cen
ter of the module that has utility
lines and creates twin corridors
down the cylinder. He said the de
sign will work if only a small amount
of equipment was in the module.
The design that seems the most
likely to be used involves mounting
modular units on the wall of the cyl
inder and leaving a central corridor
down the middle, he said. The mod
ular units are about 19 inches wide
and tall enough for an average man
to stand in. The units can house ex
periments and equipment or provide
individual sleeping quarters and pri
vacy rooms for the station’s crew.
They have been designed to be easily
removed on the ground and in orbit.
Jones said one of the major con
siderations in the design of the sta
tion is the absence of gravity and the
lack of vertical and horizontal refer
ence points.
“In any given visual field there
must be a consistent local verticle,”
he said. “What that does is try to not
force the entire module or the sta
tion to be in one plane of design.
You do need to reference the things
you have learned since the day you
were born.”
At the end of his presentation, he
said, “I don’t really have a conclu
sion. We’re pretty far away from be
ing done. We’re just getting ready to
start actually. Hopefully in the next
couple of weeks we’ll have a check
and start paying contractors to start
doing the final designs of the space
station.”
more flexibility in terms of having
money for drugs.”
The center will present programs
to educate students at events like
orientations.
The center wants to let everyone
know that the University expects stu
dents to be behave like adults and
take responsibility, she said.
“If they choose to drink, we ex
pect them to do so in a responsible
way, and if they don’t, there will be
consequences for their actions,”
Winniford said.
Information on drugs will be
available at the center.
“We want to have a comprehen
sive, educational resource library,”
she said. “If people want to know
anything and everything about
drugs and alcohol, they’ll know
where to go.”
The center also will deal with
early intervention and referral.
“We want to get students who are
having problems and feel that alco
hol or drug use is interfering with
their lives to examine their situation,
then decide whether or not they
have a problem,” she said. “Habits
and patterns developed now are
going to be with you lifelong.”
Although some services are al
ready available to help students, the
need exceeds current capabilities.
“The Student Counseling Center
does not do, really, any work with al
cohol counseling or drug abuse
treatment,” she said. “They will treat
the effects of the problem but not
the problem itself. And they don’t
have the staff.”
Currently, no data exists on the
extent of substance abuse on A&M’s
campus. The center and the Depart
ment of Measurement and Research
will design a survey to ask students
about their drug and alcohol use.
“We will do the survey in a way
that stresses 100 percent confiden
tiality,” Winniford said. “And we will
try to make the students realize how
crucial this information is. Anytime
you ask students about their drug
use, many will automatically not tell
the truth. The survey will allow for
that margin of response error.”
The center hopes to educate and
train faculty members, resident di
rectors, advisers and student organi
zations about how to spot a problem
and what to do.