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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1988)
e$ irl ''stream ut do»t a. 'rkpo[ itute (01 ' rsh aiiiin 1 are md tble anji in ii trceni fe avorablf HOUSTON (AP) — The bitter feud between Texaco Inc. and Pennzoil Co. was fought in various courtrooms •sanaii for four years, but ended quietly Thursday with bank transactions that put $3 billion in a Pennzoil account. * The wire transfers to Texas Commerce Bank-Hous- aeUti ton began at 10:03 a.m. CDT. Ten minutes, four trans- ctions and $3 billion later, the transfer was complete. “With Pennzoil’s receipt of the $3 billion cash set tlement, this saga that has lasted a little over four and a quarter years comes to an end,” Pennzoil Chairman J. Hugh Liedtke said. The settlement is part of Texaco’s reorganization plan, which was approved March 23 by a federal bank ruptcy court judge. Texaco also will begin making an other $2.6 billion in payments to its other creditors. Thursday’s payment ended the bitter legal dispute between the two oil companies that began with Texaco’s 1984 acquisition of Getty Oil Co. ■son has, i GenH adviser, ite m® tail! ;eheai ep. Hen presdi ndloi rjolr fReati >r rep- rot far’ Santa Is leal witko: enforces blic A ight to i arrestee urcessar: : chief o! ,S. m nerDnip ration h ink : effort® rustod)' ing c lity. es Nicaiii Sapoa. fortwt central emote & nthetoK he t» the id a an esc r a to f •st 15 ib 1S11S I .omiai isedoHj taken time it the* ■TexasA&MQ _ - ■ _ 1 • _ Tne Battalion Vol. 87 No. 128 USPS 045360 16 Pages College Station, Texas Friday, April 8, 1988 Feud ends; Texaco pays firm $3 billion Houston-based Pennzoil sued Texaco, claiming in terference with a planned merger between it and Getty. In November 1985, a Houston jury shocked Texaco by agreeing with Pennzoil and awarding the Houston company $10.53 billion in damages. Texaco appealed, but a state appeals court upheld the verdict, reducing the $3 billion in punitive damages to $1 billion. Texaco filed for bankruptcy protection, saying it had to do so to avoid posting a potentially ruinous bond to continue its appeal of the judgment. Last November, the Texas Supreme Court refused to hear oral arguments in Texaco’s appeal and let the ver dict stand. Texaco then said it was going to the U.S. Su preme Court, but a committee of Texaco shareholders proposed the $3 billion settlement to get the company out of bankruptcy court reorganization. Soviets say agreement is near in Afghan conflict gesif uringe- f MOSCOW (AP) — The Soviet nYeier; jjUnion and Afghanistan said Thurs day an agreement is at hand on end ing the Afghan civil war and urged that a formal accord be signed in Ge- ineva so the Kremlin can begin with drawing its troops May 15. The target date is two weeks be fore Soviet Communist Party Gen eral Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan begin their summit in the Soviet capital. Agreement on Afghanistan would resolve an issue that has troubled re lations for nearly a decade, prompt ing a U.S. grain embargo and keep ing Americans home from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Gorbachev and Afghan leader Najib issued a joint statement after meeting in the Soviet Central Asian city of Tashkent. “There is certain to be a signed agreement on political normaliza tion,” the news agency Tass quoted Gorbachev as saying while he toured Jet refueled after hijackers vow to fly with empty tanks NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Air port workers in northeast Iran re fueled a Kuwaiti jetliner and its Arab hijackers said they would take off this morning with about 50 hostages, who have been held for three days, Iran’s news agency reported. The plane was refueled after the hijackers fired at security guards at the Masshad airport and threatened to force the pilot to fly with the little fuel left in the jet’s tanks, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said. According to IRNA, Iranian offi cials asked the hijackers for the ex tension to provide time for the Turkish and Pakistani prime min isters, Turgut Ozal and Mohammed Khan Junejo, to talk to Kuwaiti offi cials in an effort to persuade them to accept the hijackers’ demand. IRNA, monitored in Nicosia, said Ozal spoke by telephone with Prime Minister Hussein Musavi of Iran on Thursday. It said Musavi told Ozal his gov ernment wanted to end the incident without “any unhappy event,” but added: “Of course you should know that our possibilities are limited.” a collective farm near Tashkent. “I think both Pakistan and Afghanistan will come to agreement, and that we and the Americans will agree to be guarantors.” President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq said the Geneva accords were ready for signing, but U.N. mediator Diego Cordovez indicated problems remained. “There are very difficult decisions and the only good thing — I think that is important — is that the politi cal will is obviously there to take them,” he told reporters in Geneva. Draft documents in Geneva call for an end to outside aid for the re bels and U.S. officials have pressed for a simultaneous end of Soviet mil itary aid to Najib’s government. - 'T- -- Tired out Mary Bert of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority runs through an obstacle course during the Greek Photo by Jay Janner games held Wednesday at Fraternity Row on Well born Road. Please see story and photos, page 9. Playboy attracts nearly 150 students for Southwest Conference pictorial Higher cost of service at post office includes more than 250 stamp By Lucinda Orr Reporter A&M students will be paying more for mailbox rental next year, along with all the other in creases. “As of Sunday, box rent in creased from $ 11 for six months to $14 for six months,” said Mon roe Hejl, station manager of the Redmond Terrace and Aggie- land post offices. A national change in postal rates went into effect Sunday, in creasing the price of stamps to 25 cents. Hejl explained that postal increases used to be an item for Congress, but now are deter mined by a commission. “When the post office needs to raise rates to meet its budget, it must present its proposal to the Rate Commission to be appro ved,” he said. “They do about a six-month study, and then the Board of Governors acts on their recommendation. “But they don’t always give us what we ask for. Because of this short notice, stamps cannot be printed ahead of time and a letter of the alphabet is temporarily is sued to stamps of the new amount.” The new “E” series stamps are worth 25 cents, but cannot be used for international mail be cause the amount of postage is not printed on the stamp. If someone wants to use any re maining 22-cent stamps, 3-cent stamps can be purchased. “We should have some 3’s in to use with those 22’s,” Hejl said. “We sold out, but should have some more in a couple of days.” He also noted that anyone who Illustration by Carol Wells still has a whole unbroken roll of 22 cent stamps may exchange it at the post office. Postal problems will arise if people continue using the 22 cent stamps alone, and Hejl stressed that doing this will only inconve nience the mail’s recipient. “The 3 cents will still have to be collected on the other end,” he said. “Plus we’ll have to send out notices of the overdue postage to those people, they will have to come pay it, etc.” Hejl noted that the price of ex press mail was $10.75 for up to two pounds, but changed to $8.75 for up to one-half pound. International mail was proba bly the least affected by the postal rate changes, as the price only in creased from 44 cents to 45 cents per half-ounce. By Richard Williams Senior Staff Writer About 150 Texas A&M students have interviewed with Playboy pho tographer David Chan in hopes of being chosen for the Playboy women of the Southwest Conference picto rial, Chan said. Because so many women from A&M already have interviewed, his stay in College Station will be shorter than orginally planned, he said. Originally Playboy planned to stay at A&M until Wednesday, but because of the number of women who have applied, Playboy will leave after to day, Chan said. Only about three or four of the approximately 200 women who ap ply will be picked to pose, he said. To pose for the pictorial women must be at least 18 years old and stu dents of a SWC school. Chan said the only other qualifica tion is that the women must be pho togenic. “A lot of people think you must pose nude to be picked, but that is not true,” he said. The application the women filled out asks if they would like to pose nude, semi-nude or fully clothed. Chan said the women who pose fully nude have a better chance of being picked, but “the ones that have the best personalities and faces will usually be the ones for clothing,” he said. “In the clothing area sometimes a little bit heavy doesn’t matter be cause I can always dress them down with clothing.” Women who pose fully nude get paid more. Playboy will pay $500 for nudes, $250 for semi-nudes and $ 150 for clothing shots, Chan said. Chan, who photographed the last women of the SWC pictorial for Playboy, said the women who apply are about the same regardless of the part of the country they are from. However, Chan said women from A&M are not as sophisticated as those from Rice University and the University of Texas — the two other SWC schools he has been at this se mester. “Most of them are not as — well, you can tell they are not from the metropolitian areas,” he said. “They dress a little bit more T-shirt and Le vi’s. In the big city they would dress more like they’re going to a cocktail party ... You could tell that most of Applicant for Playboy calls posing for magazine acceptable, tasteful By Richard Williams Senior Staff Writer It’s a fantasy to some and degra dation to others. But whatever the reason, more than 150 Texas A&M women have applied this week to pose in Playboy magazine. One of the women who applied said she did it on a whim. She asked not to be identified. “I was looking in the GIGEMAG magazine and I saw the article about David Chan and the whole thing and I just thought ‘why not?’,” she said. “I think I’m pretty. You know how it says in there (GIGEMAG) that a lot of girls do it to validate if they really are (pretty). I asked my boyfriend and he said he thought it would be neat.” She said she has not told her par ents she applied. “I told my mom that Playboy was in town,” the woman said. “She (the mother) said, ‘If you’re going to pose, pose with all your clothes on’ and we laughed about it. I haven’t told her that I did it (applied for the job). I don’t think there is any need to unless I get picked.” David Chan does not conform to most people’s image of a Playboy photographer, she said. “You’d think they’ve got to be dirty old men or something to w r ant to do that for a living, but I think he looks more at it as artistic,” she said. If she was chosen to pose, she would pose fully clothed or semi nude, she said. But she said she felt “funny” about modeling a bathing suit for him during the interview. The potential model said she is “fairly” religious. She said she is a Christian, but if picked to pose it would not cause a moral dilemma. “God created us, and our bodies are supposed to be his artwork,” she said. “Eve seen Playboy issues be fore, and it’s very tasteful, very ni cely done. I think it’s a very classy magazine, and I would have no qualms about being in it. “I’m real modest, but I’m not ashamed of what I look like at all.” Posing for Playboy is acceptable, but posing for Hustler or Penthouse would be unacceptable, she said. “Hell, no,” she said. “No, those are dirty magazines and Playboy isn’t. I don’t know that much about them (Penthouse and Hustler). To me that’s more pornographic than Playboy. That’s true dirt. Just be cause I’ve heard of the poses and a lot of the other things they get into — no, I’d never pose (for Penthouse or Hustler).” Others should not look down on the women who pose for Playboy, because it’s not “dirty” to pose for the magazine, she said. “I hate that a lot of guys look at the girls that pose in them as being cheap or being bimbos,” she said. “I just think that it needs to be under stood that I’m not that way .... and that a lot of nice girls aren’t ashamed of what they look like, so they wouldn’t be ashamed to show it (their bodies). She said she is not worried about what others would think if she posed for the magazine. “I know that what I did is not morally wrong, and I’m the one that has to live with that decision,” she said. “As long as I know inside, and I can deal with my own conscience and my own feelings, then to hell with everybody else. I can ignore them.” these young ladies are from smaller areas.” Two women who applied for the modeling job said the interviewing process was handled professionally. One of the women said she was nervous, but “they really tried hard to make you feel relaxed.” She said she would’ be honored if Playboy picked her to pose. She also said her boyfriend thought it was “neat” that she was going to apply. Not every one thinks Playboy’s campus search is neat. In response to Playboy’s campus visit, the A&M chapter of the Na tional Organization for Women will show a slide show about pornogra phy Wednesday. Deanne Lynn Whitley, A&M chapter president, said the group decided to show the slide show in stead of protesting Playboy. The group realizes people have a right to pose. “We don’t want to disrupt any body’s right to participate if they want to, and on the same token we don’t want to interfere with Play boy’s right to publish,” she said. “We are not questioning their First Ad- mendment rights. We just want to make sure the women know what they are getting into.” Chan said he thought that attitude was good. “That’s a good healthy attitude that you can do what you want, leave when you want and are able to dem onstrate with no hassling,” Chan said. “That’s what we’re here for in America.”