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I Vol. 87 No. 92 GSRS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, February 10, 1988
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HOUSTON (AP) — A notary
bublic faces a misdemeanor charge
In connection with the filing of alleg
edly fraudulent signatures on peti
tions to qualify Republican presi-
pential candidates for the March 8
Texas primary.
Sylvester Neely, 39, is charged
ivith official misconduct for alleg
edly failing to properly notarize peti
tions for Sen. Bob Dole and Alexan
der Haig, authorities said. He is the
first charged in connection with the
plleged fraudulent petitions.
Neely failed to take sworn oaths
from campaign workers that the pe
tition signatures were valid, Harris
County Assistant District Attorney
Casey O’Brien said Monday.
There is evidence of fraudulent
signatures on the petitions, but there
is no evidence Neely was aware sig
natures had been forged, O’Brien
said.
Neely surrendered to the Harris
County SherifFs Department and
posted a $500 bond. The charge is a
Class A misdemeanor punishable by
up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
O’Brien said Neely accepted more
than $300 in return for notarizing
election petitions at 35 cents a page
during early December. The signa
ture collectors were not present as
required when the petitions were no
tarized, the prosecutor said.
Several thousand signatures were
not notarized, he said. Neely was
charged with failing to take an oath
for one page because of practicality.
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Associated Press
Republican Sen. Bob Dole and
jDemocratic Rep. Richard Gephardt
Iblew into New Hampshire on Tues-
Iday, two Midwesterners angling to
[■turn their first-place Iowa caucus
Jfinishes to advantage in next week’s
[lead-off presidential primary elec-
[tions.
Vice President George Bush, the
[national front-runner humbled by a
[third-place finish, redoubled his
[campaign efforts and requisitioned
[one of Dole’s campaign themes. “I’m
[oneofyou,” he told New Hampshire
I voters.
But Pat Robertson, Iowa’s sur-
[prise Republican runner-up, said
[the vice president’s “myth of invio
lability” was gone. Another rival
[forecast Bush’s swift political de-
Jmise, despite the vice president’s
[lead in New Hampshire polls.
Unlike Dole, Gephardt notched
[only a narrow win in Iowa. He im-
[mediately declared himself the
[“clear underdog” in the state and
I pronounced Massachusetts Gov. Mi-
Ichael Dukakis the Democrat to beat.
View of caucus impact varies
AUSTIN (AP) — The impact of
Iowa’s presidential precinct caucuses
was called everything from deeply
significant to utterly meaningless in
Texas, depending can which cam
paign was viewing the results Tues
day.
Aides to Sen. A1 Gore, D-Tenn.,
who didn’t contest Iowa and re
ceived less than 1 percent of those
votes, said Iowa didn’t matter be
cause their candidate is concentrat
ing on the March 8 Southern “Super
Tuesday” primary.
Massachusetts Gov. Michael Du
kakis, who finished a close third in
Iowa and was favored to win next
week’s New Hampshire primary,
said his Iowa showing proved he can
wage a national campaign.
“If I can get out of New Hamp
shire in good shape, and I fully ex
pect to, I think we’re going to do well
in the South and be on our way to
the nomination,” Dukakis said. “I
think the South is wide open.”
Even so, he said, “I’m gonna do
fine.”
Sen. Paul Simon, runner-up
among the Democrats in Iowa, also
pegged Dukakis the man to beat,
and said, “The important thing is
who comes in second.”
Dukakis predicted he would carry
the state next Tuesday but neither
he nor his aides wanted to predict a
margin. “I think after New Hamp
shire the field will be narrower and
we will be the front-runner,” he said
in an interview.
He added, “I think it’s going to be
more aggressive, only because the
field now is going to begin to nar
row.”
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urging ratification for treaty
MOSCOW (AP) — Soviet tele
vision brought glasnost to the seat
of Soviet power Tuesday, when it
broadcast live a session of the Su
preme Soviet with officials urging
ratification of the treaty banning
intermediate-range nuclear mis
siles.
In an unprecedented move,
state TV ran two hours of the ses
sion held in the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet, the nominal par
liament.
Speaking under the gold ham-
mer-and-sickle seal of the Soviet
state, top officials called for the
treaty’s ratification, but ques
tioned the trustworthiness of the
United States.
Kremlin No. 2 man Yegor K.
Ligachev, Foreign Minister Edu
ard A. Shervardnadze and De
fense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov all
backed the document in their
speeches to the Foreign Relations
Commission of the Supreme So
viet.
Yazov promised the public that
no country would ever gain mili
tary superiority over the Soviet
Union.
“We prepared it profoundly
and comprehensively,” he said of
the treaty. “Each word and each
figure in it were most thoroughly
studied and checked.”
The commission must make a
recommendation to the Presid
ium, which has the final decision
on ratification.
Noriega portrayed as force
behind criminal operations
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A&M athletes enjoy extras
Players get
some types
of favoritism
WASHINGTON (AP) — A for
mer associate portrayed Panama
nian strongman Manuel Antonio
Noriega on Tuesday as the driving
force behind a “gigantic machine”
that generated hundreds of millions
of dollars through drug trafficking,
money laundering, gunrunning and
other criminal enterprises.
Jose I. Blandon, a former Pana
manian intelligence official fired by
General Noriega as his country’s
counsel general in New York, said
also Cuban President Fidel Castro
once personally intervened in a dis
pute between Noriega and the Me
dellin drug cartel in Colombia.
One cocaine shipment by an al
leged Noriega associate involved an
apparent connection to the U.S.-
backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua,
Blandon told a Senate Foreign Rela
tions subcommittee.
Blandon also testified that No
riega worked closely with the CIA
and regularly received classified re
ports on the political leanings and
personal lives of U.S. senators and
congressional staff members.
The CIA reports, along with oth
ers prepared by the National Secu
rity Council staff, included informa
tion on the activities of Sen. Jesse
Helms, R-N.C., a leading Noriega
critic, and on Sen. Edward M. Ken
nedy, D-Mass., Blandon said.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., head
ing the congressional investigation,
said such reports would be “repre
hensible” and that if the testimony
proves correct, those responsible
should be fired.
Efforts to reach CIA officials for
comment were not immediately suc
cessful.
Kerry said key U.S. agencies, in
cluding the Drug Enforcement Ad
ministration and the State Depart
ment, were until recently either
“duped” by Noriega or blinded to
the nature of his enterprises by their
interest in Panama’s strategic impor
tance as the site of the Panama Ca
nal.
Blandon described a network of
people and allegedly used by No
riega to profit from drug operations.
tee
Athletics at A&M
Part two of a four-part series
By Tracy Staton
Senior Staff Writer
Autograph-seekers mob football
players after the Super Bowl. Chil
dren start trading baseball cards
when they are old enough to mem
orize batting averages. And people
read the sports section of the news
paper before they read the front
page.
In this sports-oriented society, it’s
not surprising that student athletes
receive special treatment. And no
amount of declaration that “athletes
are just like everyone else” can belie
the fact that they are treated differ
ently.
Just how much differently ath
letes are treated is a popular subject
for speculation. Myths and rumors
about the athletes’ lifestyle circulate
regularly.
It’s not a rumor, however, that
student athletes don’t have to meet
the same admission criteria as other
applicants to be accepted to Texas
A&M.
Proposition 48, a National Colle
giate Athletic Association bylaw, re
quires prospective scholarship ath-
Judges’ campaigns
get $50,000 from
Pennzoil’s lawyer
Photo by Jay Janner
Athletes enjoy a chicken fried steak lunch Tuesday at Cain hall.
letes to have a 2.0 grade point ratio
in high school with a core curric
ulum of three years of English, two
years of mathematics, two years of
social science and two years of natu
ral or physical science, including one
lab science. The athlete also must
score 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude
Test or 15 on the American College
Test to be admitted to college.
But if the athlete meets the GPR
requirement and does not make the
required score on either test, he is a
“partial qualifier” and can be ad
mitted on scholarship but cannot
play sports for one academic year.
Dr. Bill Lay, A&M’s director of
admissions, says A&M follows the
NCAA’s admission policy.
“We have followed NCAA regula
tions for scholarship athletes for
many years,” Lay says. “The Univer
sity president a number of years ago
decided to follow these NCAA regu
lations.”
Non-scholarship athletes are ad
mitted according to the require
ments for all other students, he says.
These requirements have changed
considerably since the enrollment
See Athletes, page 8
AUSTIN (AP) — Two Texas Su
preme Court justices got $50,000 in
campaign contributions from the
lead attorney for Pennzoil Co. in its
lawsuit against Texaco Inc., two
months after the court upheld a
multibillion-dollar verdict favoring
Pennzoil, records show.
Houston attorney Joe Jamail on
Jan. 6 gave $25,000 each to justices
Ted Robertson and William Kilgar-
lin, candidates in the Democratic
primary, according to contribution
reports filed Monday.
Jamah's donations were among
several the justices received from at-,
torneys.
A jury ordered Texaco to pay
Pennzoil $10.53 billion after decid
ing the oil giant wrongly interfered
in Pennzoil’s planned merger with
Getty Oil Co. The 1st Court of Ap
peals reduced the amount by $2 bil
lion, but interest on the award con
tinued to accrue, bringing the total
over $10 billion.
The Supreme Court upheld the
decision, but a $3 billion settlement
was later reached.
Including the January contribu
tions, Jamail and his family have
contributed $288,000 to sitting Su
preme Court justices since 1980.
Court members have been crit
icized for accepting large donations
from lawyers who practice before
them.
Robertson and Kilgarlin were in a
court conference Tuesday and did
not immediately return telephone
calls from the Associated Press.
“Both of these people have de
cided that money does not affect
their decisions, and that’s been quite
clear in an analysis of their record,”
Richard Jenson, political consultant
for Kilgarlin and Robertson, said.
Both justices accepted $15,000
from the Houston law firm of
Hardy, Milutin and Johns and
$2,500 from Russell McMains of
Corpus Christi, who represented
Texaco.
Kilgarlin and Robertson got
$5,000 and $10,000, respectively,
from the political action committee
of the Houston law firm of Vinson &
Elkins, which also represented Pen
nzoil. Each also received $5,000
from another Pennzoil lawyer, W.J.
Kronzer of Houston.
A&M student
dies in crash
near Buffalo
John Nino Yaccino, a Texas
A&Mjunior from Houston, died
Tuesday morning after a head-
on collision that occurred at 9:15
a.m. about three miles north of
Marquez.
Yaccino, 21, was driving south
on • U.S. Highway 79 when his
1986 Suzuki Samurai veered
across the center stripe of the
highway and struck the left front
tire of a Kenworth truck driven
by Jerry A. Kile, 26, of Tunkhan-
nock. Pa.
Yaccino was pronounced
dead at the scene at 10 a.m. by
Judge Dorothy Farmer. Kile was
promptly taken to Leon Memo
rial Hospital in Buffalo, where
he was treated and later re
leased.
Yaccino was a physical educa
tion major. Among other activ
ities he was involved in at A&M,
he was a manager of the football
team. He was also a member of
the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
The funeral will be held Fri
day in Houston.
Yaccino’s sister, Maria, is an
A&M sophomore.