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I Vol. 87 No. 93 CJSPS 045360 16 Pages
College Station, Texas
Thursday, February 11, 1988
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Pana-
Ima’s military leader, Gen. Manuel
[Antonio Noriega, provided military
[training for U.S.-backed Nicaraguan
rebels after he met twice in 1985
with Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, a for
mer top Panamanian intelligence of
ficial testified Wednesday.
North told Noriega in October
11985 that the Panamanian training
bases were needed because U.S. laws
at the time banned any direct U.S.
help for the rebels lighting Nicara
gua’s leftist government, Jose I.
Blandon said through an inter
preter.
Blandon, who was fired last
I month by Noriega as Panama’s con
sul general in New York, also told a
Senate Foreign Relations subcom
mittee that Vice President George
Bush used Noriega to send a warn
ing to Cuban leader Fide! Castro
hours before the U.S. invasion of
| Grenada in 1983.
Bush, who was asked at the White
House if he ever called Noriega, re
plied, “Nunca — Never.” “Nunca” is
the Spanish word for never.
Blandon, testifying under oath
for a second day, also repeated his
assertion that the CIA regularly sent
Noriega reports on the political posi
tions and personal lives of some U.S.
senators, including Sens. Jesse
Helms, R-North Carolina, and Ed
ward M. Kennedy, D-Massachusetts.
The CIA “categorically denied”
Blandon’s statements on Tuesday,
but he refused on Wednesday to
change his story.
“There is no reason in my heart
and in my mind to invalidate what I
have said,” he told the subcommittee
on terrorism. “Unfortunately, what I
said is true.”
Late Wednesday, the chairman of
the Senate Intelligence Committee
issued a statement saying he
doubted Blandon’s allegation on the
CIA reports.
U.S.-Panama
relations hurt
by Noriega
PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) —
The upheaval in U.S.-Panamanian
relations centers on one man, Gen.
Manuel Antonio Noriega, and
Washington’s efforts to break his
tight hold on power.
Domestic critics of Noriega, chief
of the Panamanian Defense Forces
and the power behind the nominally
civilian government; generally wel
come the platform provided by the
revelations about his alleged abuses
unfolding at Senate hearings in
Washington and in federal indict
ments in Florida.
Yet memories linger among them
that the general once was a welcome
figure in the United States.
Ruben Carles, an editor at the op
position newspaper La Prensa, said
the creation of the sometimes re
pressive 15,000-strong Panamanian
Defense Forces headed by Noriega
was a sore point with the United
States.
“These military boys were cre
ated, trained and supplied by the
United States,” Carles said.
Researcher says
experts are wrong
about AIDS’cause
WASHINGTON (AP) — A re
searcher who says federal experts
are wrong about the cause of AIDS
but are embarrassed to admit error
will receive the first public airing of
his views next week before a presi
dential commission.
Dr. Peter Duesberg, a respected
virus researcher at the University of
California, Berkeley, will appear be-
! fore the Presidential Commission on
the HIV Epidemic at a hearing on
Feb. 20 in New York.
It will be the first time, he said, for
the federal government to acknowl
edge his suggestion that acquired im
mune deficiency syndrome may be
caused by something other than the
human immuno deficiency virus.
Duesberg said he angered col
leagues at the National Institutes of
Health when he questioned their
conclusions about HIV in an article
last March in the journal Cancer Re
search. And he said other research
ers have declined to publicly debate
the issue with him.
“HIV has become a billion-dollar
virus and nobody wants to admit
that it might not be the one causing
AIDS,” Duesberg said in a telephone
interview. “They don’t want to admit
error.”
But Dr. Peter J. Fischinger, the
Health and Human Services coordi
nator of the federal war on AIDS,
said the preponderance of the evi
dence has convicted HIV as the
AIDS villain.
“The sum of the information is
really incontrovertible now,” Fis
chinger said. “Many of the reputable
scientists in this field just don’t want
to go into a public forum and debate
the issues because they don’t think
there is anything to debate about.”
Duesberg said other researchers
shun him because so much now is at
stake that nobody wants to question
the HIV-AIDS connection. All of
the government testing and re
search, he said, is centered on HIV
“and no alternative views are toler
ated.”
A virus researcher for 25 years,
Duesberg said, “I feel embarrassed
for my own field. We are not giving
this due scientific caution.”
Shout it out
While tearing up the sidewald across from Heaton Hall on Wednes
day, ground maintenance workers Albert Englemann, right, and Neil
Photo by Steven Noreyko
Morgan had to yell to be heard. They were tearing up the sidewalk to
install handicap ramps.
Former employees of Toys Plus
seek payroll from bankrupt store
By Richard Williams
Senior Staff Writer
The saying is “He who dies with
the most toys wins,” but several for
mer employees of the defunct Toys
Plus store in College Station say that
the store can die with the toys —
theyjust want their pay.
Toys Plus, a St. Louis-based chain,
has filed for Chapter seven bank
ruptcy and has closed its stores.
The College Station store still has
signs on the doors reading “closed
for inventory,” but company officials
say the store closed permanently in
December 1987.
Chapter seven bankruptcy is com
plete liquidation by a company.
Under Chapter 7 bankruptcy the
company will liquidate its assets and
use the proceeds to pay its creditors.
The amount of money raised will
determine what percentage of each
dollar owed will be paid to creditors.
Filing for Chapter seven bank
ruptcy differs from Chapter 10 or
Chapter 11 bankruptcy because no
reorganization or restructuring
plans are adopted.
Mike Machen, a former Toys Plus
employee, said the company paid
the store’s managers with cashier’s
checks, but it paid the rest of the em
ployees with regular payroll checks.
The returned payroll checks were
stamped “Refer to Maker” by the
Mercantile Bank of St. Louis.
An employee in the bookkeeping
department of Mercantile Bank said
refer to maker means the account
holder, Toys Plus, had ordered the
checks be returned unpaid. It also
means any questions about the check
should be referred to the company,
she said.
An employee at Toys Plus’ main
office in St. Louis said decisions re
garding the payment of employees
were made by management person
nel.
The employee, who would not
identify himself, did confirm the
managers were paid in a different
manner than other employees.- He
said no one involved with the deci
sion could be reached at the current
time.
The employee also said former
employees with returned paychecks
can file a claim against the bank
ruptcy estate and “that claim will be
a priority claim.”
The employee said a priority
claim would “put them in line in
front of some of the other cred
itors.”
It is not known where in line the
former employees would be until the
entire list of creditors has been com
posed, the employee said.
Machen, a Texas A&M student,
said he has collected about $800
worth of the unpaid payroll checks
and plans to give them to the Brazos
County District Attorney’s office
within the next two weeks.
Machen also said he plans to file
felony fraud charges against Toys
Plus.
Machen said that depending on
the outcome of the liquidation and
bankruptcy proceedings the former
employees might be able to get the
entire amount the company owes
them, but they probably will get only
a percentage of the amount owed.
Charges already have been filed
against Toys Plus by former employ
ees of an Amarillo store who also
had their paychecks returned.
Athletic department stresses
education for A&M athletes
Report: Soviet people gain
more human rights in 1987
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Soviet government gave its peo
ple greater freedom and showed
more tolerance towards dissent
ers in 1987 but with an all-power
ful secret police still unchecked,
there has been no “dawn of de
mocracy” in the USSR, the State
Department said Wednesday.
That finding was contained in
the State Department’s annual re
port on human rights around the
world, which concluded that
while there were positive changes
in South Korea, North Korea was
the most serious rights violator
anywhere. The 1,358-page study
covered 169 countries.
In its section on the Soviet
Union, the report said the
changes in the Soviet Union un
der the leadership of General
Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev
were “more than cosmetic and
less than fundamental.”
While asserting that a majority
of Soviet political prisoners re
mained in jail last year, “there was
some relaxation of totalitarian
controls,” it said, adding that
some political prisoners were re
leased.
The report said that the Soviets
also announced moves to end the
“truly barbaric practice” of send
ing dissidents to psychiatric hos
pitals. There was also an increase
in emigration levels of ethnic
Germans, Armenians and Jews.
Plays and films dealt more
honestly with the realities of So
viet life, the study said. But it said
conditions at prisons and forced
labor camps may have worsened
during 1987.
“Life in prison continues to be
marked by isolation, poor diet
and malnutrition, compulsory
hard labor, beatings, frequent ill
ness and inadequate medical
care,” the report said.
Assistant Secretary of State
Richard Schifter told a news con
ference Wednesday it is impor
tant to note both the progress
which has been registered in the
Soviet Union as well as the limita
tions.
Athletes at A&M
Part three of a four-part series
By Tracy Staton
Senior Staff Writer
Tennis can’t be learned from a
textbook, and grammar is no help in
golf. But statistics about swimmers
are figured after meets. And physics
shows a tackler’s force is propor
tional to his weight.
But do athletes use their text
books? Do they have a grasp on basic
grammar? Do they earn degrees
from Texas A&M, or do they simply
vanish when they can’t compete any
longer?
Don Hunt, the Athletic Depart
ment’s academic counselor, says the
department is an integral part of
A&M’s business — educating young
men and women.
“We’re all in this together,” he
says. “We don’t work separately
from the academic community.”
If the Athletic Department disre
garded the athletes’ education, the
quality of the athletic program
would deteriorate, he says.
“Suppose kids came in here and
we put them on athletics and ignore
academics,” Hunt says. “They’d go
away without a degree and with no
foundation for getting one. How
long could we continue to recruit
with that kind of an approach to aca
demics? Not very long.”
The National Collegiate Athletic
Association requires athletes to be
enrolled in a legitimate curriculum
and to pass 24 hours per year toward
their degree.
Lynn Hickey, associate director
for women’s athletics, says these
rules were made to safeguard ath
letes from being used for athletics
only.
“Athletes are in the mainstream
classroom,” she says. “There are no
remedial classes for them. And if
they don’t compete academically,
they lose their scholarships.”
Hunt says 86 percent of football
Photo by Jay Janner
Academic counselor Dan Hunt helps William Thomas, a freshman
football player, work on a computer in a Cain Hall study room.
players graduate. And 91 percent of
all other athletes earn degrees, he
says. These percentages include the
students who flunk out, and exclude
those who transfer or quit school for
personal reasons.
Between 65 percent and 70 per
cent of entering freshmen graduate
from Texas A&M, Registrar Don
Carter says. But the remaining 30
percent to 35 percent do include stu
dents who transfer or leave A&M for
other reasons, as well as those who
flunk out.
Hunt says he excludes the athletes
who transfer because they were not
forced to leave.
“I don’t consider it my problem if
a student leaves of his own free will,”
Hunt says. “Some have been here
and performed well, but quit the
program for whatever reason, so we
don’t include those students in our
statistics.”
For the purpose of these percent
ages, the department allows athletes
10 full-time semesters to Work to
ward graduation, Hunt says. The
athletes must complete their degree
requirements within this time frame,
or they are included in the percent
age of athletes who don’t graduate.
“We don’t consider four years to
be the ultimate,” he says. “We use
ten semesters of full-time work as
the time they should graduate.
“For example, Rod Bernstein was
with us eight semesters, and he’s
back this semester taking six hours
because he has to attend camps and
workouts for the San Diego Charg
ers. We don’t count this semester as
See Athletes, page 12
ts
h-