The Battalion
/ol. 87 No. 95 GSPS 045360 14 Pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, February 15, 1988
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Experts discuss
minority students
By Tracy Staton
Senior Staff' Writer
Minority students who have posi
tive role models and are aware that
higher education is a viable alterna
tive are more likely to attend college,
minority educators said Friday.
Experts in many fields gathered at
Aggieland Inn Thursday and Friday
to discuss “Race and Ethnic Rela
tions in the 1990s,” a conference or
ganized by Texas A&M’s Depart
ment of Sociology Race and Ethnic
Studies Group.
Early exposure to the idea of at
tending college was an underlying
theme in two sessions that concen
trated on education. The educators
who led the roundtable discussions
“Education and Race — I” and “Re
cruitment and Retention of Minority
Students in Predominantly White
Colleges” stressed the importance of
informing minority stvidents about
their educational prospects.
Dr. Karen Wilson, an educational
researcher from the University of
Pennsylvania, said the most influen
tial factor in determining whether a
black male attends college is the stu
dent’s aspirations.
“The high school and beyond se
nior survey indicated that the se
niors who had had plans to attend
college were more likely to do so,”
Wilson said. “Those students with
higher goals are more likely to
achieve them.”
In an attempt to increase the aspi
rations of minority youth, Texas
A&M has started a Minority Out
reach Program in conjunction with
the University of Texas. Judy Young
of A&M’s Office of School Relations
said the program is designed to get
minority students to start thinking
about college.
“It’s a whole new concept,” Young
said. '“We will set up outreach cen
ters for early identification of mi
nority students in middle school, so
we can act as the support service
they need to be eligible to attend any
college. It’s not specific to any partic
ular college.”
The outreach program may be
able to bring more minority students
into the higher education system by
encouraging those students who
would never have considered college
otherwise. Young said.
This type of program is necessary
because students have few minority
role models, several other educators
said.
Dr. Patricia Larke, Texas A&M
See Minority, page 9
Bush emphasizes ties
with Reagan in debate
Campaign wars escalate
as primary approaches
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) —Repub
lican candidate Pat Robertson Sun
day called for phasing out Social Se
curity, as Democratic front-runner
Michael Dukakis was attacked by his
rivals in the closing hours of the in-
[ creasingly bitter campaign for the
New Hampshire primary.
With Republicans George Bush
and Bob Dole running neck-and-
neck, the five GOP candidates gath
ered for an hour-long League of
Women Voters debate in which
Bush and Dole both came under at
tack from the rest of the field.
Dole, the Republican winner in
Iowa last week, indicated he hoped
to deliver a knockout blow to Bush
in New Hampshire.
“Some of us would like to see it
end Tuesday here with someone
winning,” said the Kansas senator.
Bush, for his part, made an im
passioned appeal for support. “My
work isn’t done yet,” he said.
With less than 48 hours to go be
fore the first votes are cast on Tues
day, Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois
switched to attacking Dukakis, the
clear front-runner in the Democratic
field. Simon dropped his controver
sial focus on Missouri Rep. Richard
Gephardt, with whom he is battling
for the No. 2 spot.
For his part, Gephardt has a tele
vision ad calling Dukakis “one of the
biggest tax raisers in Massachusetts
history.”
Robertson, who ran third in the
Iowa caucuses, speculated he might
do even better in New Hampshire.
“I want to have the satisfaction of
seeing the television anchormen’s
faces when they have to report that
Pat Robertson won New Hamp
shire,” he said.
GOFFSTOWN, N.H. (AP) — Vice
President George Bush, struggling
to regain his footing in the GOP
presidential race, depicted himself
as President Reagan’s loyal second-
in-command Sunday in a high-stakes
debate two days before the New
Hampshire primary.
Iowa caucus winner Bob Dole was
challenged forcefully by his rivals
during the nationally televised de
bate.
Former Delaware Gov. Pete du
Pont thrust a piece of paper in Dole’s
face and asked him to sign the tradi
tional New Hampshire pledge not to
raise taxes.
The Senate Republican leader
looked the material over and shot a
barb in Bush’s direction.
“I’d have to read it first,” he said.
“Maybe George would sign it.”
When Bush said he expected the
Soviets to go forward with a prom
ised troop withdrawal from Afghan
istan, Rep. Jack Kemp of New York
said heatedly, “We have a State De
partment that has run amok on this
issue.”
“Wait and see,” said Bush. “Don’t
fight progress when you see it. Don’t
be afraid.”
Bush tried to close out the argu
ment, saying, “I don’t jump away
from the president when the going
gets tough” and then added, “give
peace a chance,” which brought an
other outburst from Kemp.
“You’re using the same language
as Jim Wright,” he said in a refer
ence to the Democratic speaker of
the House and arch-villain in cur
rent GOP mythology.
“You should be embarrassed to
use ‘give peace a chance,’ ” he said.
“We’re the party of peace.”
Dole has eliminated Bush’s once
formidable lead in the New Hamp
shire polls since he scored a convinc-
Hopefuls to debate in Dallas
DALLAS (AP) — Presidential
candidates surviving New Hamp
shire will try to woo Texas voters in
debates at Southern Methodist Uni
versity Thursday and Friday as the
campaigns swing into the South.
Organizers of “The Texas De
bates” said they will force the candi
dates to address issues important to
Texas and the South in preparation
for the March 8 Super Tuesday
southern regional primary.
But tf))e candidates also will be ad
dressing a national audience when
they take the stage at McFarlin Audi
torium at Southern Methodist Uni
versity.
Public Broadcasting Service will
offer the forums nationally, and
most of the PBS stations in the coun
try’s top 20 markets have agreed to
air the debates.
Democratic presidential hopefuls
will debate at 8 p.m. Thursday and
the Republicans at 8 p.m. Friday.
The Democratic candidates are
former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt,
Massachusetts Gov. Mike Dukakis,
Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt, Ten
nessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr., former
Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, the Rev.
Jesse Jackson and Illinois Sen. Paul
Simon.
The Republicans are Vice Presi
dent George Bush, Kansas Sen. Bob
Dole, former Delaware Gov. Pete du
Pont, New York Rep. Jack Kemp,
and Pat Robertson, a former reli
gious broadcaster.
The debates, coming on the heels
of Tuesday’s New Hampshire pri
mary, will draw national attention to
the regional primary of 14 Southern
and border states in which a third of
both parties’ delegates will be
picked.
Sponsors of the debates include
the Dallas Morning News, KERA-
TV and Texas Monthly magazine.
“The Texas Debates offer a
chance to focus more closely on the
remaining candidates and on the is
sues, especially the economic ones
that are critical today in the South
west,” said Burl Osborne, president
and editor of the Dallas Morning
News.
ing victory in the Iowa caucuses last
Monday and the vice president
wound up third.
He and Bush are locked in a battle
for first, although the polls all indi
cate the tide is flowing in Dole’s di
rection.
Du Pont, Kemp and former tele
vision evangelist Pat Robertson are
in a tight race for third in the New
Hampshire polls.
Robertson made one of the most
startling assertions of the debate
when he said the Russians have
placed missiles in Cuba. He said his
source was the Senate Foreign Rela
tions Committee.
“Somehow in all this brilliant ne
gotiation which these gentlemen are
so proud of,” Robertson said. “They
left that out of the treaty. And it
seems to me like nukes pointing at
the United States are more vital to
our security than nukes pointing to
Europe.
Political analyst: Soviet reforms could depend on U.S.
By Tracy Staton
Senior Staff Writer
The United States must be recep
tive to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorba
chev’s “New Thinking” policies but
should not make hasty assumptions
about his intentions, a U.S.-Soviet
political analyst said Saturday.
Strobe Talbott, Time magazine’s
Washington bureau chief and for
mer diplomatic correspondent, told
about 250 people at the closing ad
dress for the 33rd Student Confer
ence on National Affairs that the
success of Gorbachev’s reforms
could depend on the United States’
response to glasnost.
“Taking Gorbachev seriously and
giving him a chance does not mean
we should all put on little campaign
buttons that say T like Mike,’ or de
lude ourselves with slogans about
the Cold War being over,” Talbott
said during his speech on “The Fu
ture of the Soviet Union.”
“But it does mean . . . rethinking
Soviet-American relations,” he said.
“We owe it to ourselves — not to
him, to ourselves — to come up with
realistic ways to test Gorbachev’s in
tentions.”
The United States must be cau
tious in assessing Gorbachev’s re
forms because they are not as liberal
as they seem, Talbott said.
“Glasnost means many things —
important things — but it does not
mean a commitment on the part of
the current Soviet leadership to give
that country and that people some
thing like our own Bill of Rights,” he
said. “What Gorbachev wants to do
in a nutshell is to make the Marxist-
Leninist system more efficient. He
does not want to transform that sys
tem into a Jeffersonian Democracy.”
But Gorbachev does want to im
prove U.S.-Soviet relations, he said.
The premier’s approach to the So
viet occupation of Afghanistan could
indicate his sincerity about lessening
the tension between the two coun
tries.
“In the past few days, particularly
since Mr. Gorbachev made some
comments on Monday, it does look
as though he may be willing to pull
out of Afghanistan,” he said. “If that
happens, and in that sense the Sovi
ets lose Afghanistan, lose the war
that they’ve been fighting, it will be
See Future, page 9
Ambassador says Soviet-U.S. relations
reflect behavior pattern of rest of world
By Todd Riemenschneider
Staff Writer
The interactions between the
United States and the Soviet Union
set the pace for the rest of the world,
a Soviet representative told A&M
students at a panel discussion about
United States-Soviet relations Fri
day.
The Honorable Igor Khripunov,
first secretary to the Soviet ambassa
dor to the United States, said he be
lieves the way the United States and
the Soviet Union relate to each other
is how the world tends to act.
“Other nations tend to pattern
their behavior on how we behave,”
Kripunov said at the 33rd Student
Committee On National Affairs.
“The entire world depends on how
we interact and how we operate with
each other.”
Kripunov believes both nations set
a precedent for the world to follow.
He said the summit in Washington,
D.C., last year was something that
was new and unique in the relations
of both countries.
“The summit last year opened up
prospects for both countries to leave
behind the period of confrontation
and work toward the improvement
of our relations,” he said.
He said that getting both sides to
even talk was a tough job.
“The road to the summit in Wash
ington was bumpy and sometimes
zig-zagging, but, as in the Geneva
summit, it showed both sides can
speak to each other in a businesslike
manner,” Khripunov said.
The secretary said nuclear war
must not be waged because nobody
wins. He said both sides need to be
determined to prevent any war, ei
ther nuclear or conventional. He
also said one side should not try to
seek military superiority.
Khripunov said he has a great re
gard for the Intermediate Nuclear
Forces treaty that was signed re
cently, •'educing the number of of-
See Relations, page 8
Photo by Frederick D. Joe
Strobe Talbott, Time magazine’s Washington bureau chief, spoke on
the future of the USSR Saturday morning in Rudder Theater.