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Texas A&M m m V • The Battalion ii Vol. 1 Mo. 190 6 Pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, August 10, 1988 Reagan nominates Cavazos or secretary post on Cabinet iay be eringn ranee WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi dent Reagan announced Tuesday he nominating Lauro Cavazos, a His panic and president of Texas Tech Jniversity, to be secretary of educa- lon, succeeding the departing Wil liam Bennett. »ee related story, page 6 Reagan, noting that Cavazos ould become the first Hispanic in lie Cabinet, said, “This is a proud 1 lay. for all Americans.” V “It’s hard right at this moment to think of a more exciting moment,” Said Reagan, who appeared in the White House briefing room with ff Bennett and Cavazos, 61. ■ Asked whether he had selected Kavazos because of his heritage, ^leagan said, “I didn’t even ask him Biat.” Reagan said he selected Cava- l|os because he was “the best-fitted Ilian to succeed” Bennett. H Vice President George Bush, in a eech to the United League of American Citizens in Dallas stjuly 6, had pledged to name a ispanic to the Cabinet if he were ected to succeed Reagan. Asked if he had allowed Bush to fluence the decision, Reagan re- ent vJicd, “No, I’m just still working at iroii!li;B ie j ob here '” erntrl Bennett said he was ready to turn 35 pti feden :d mai upti of tk imiittt, te. IV t$ wb hardts o era uld re centoi age fa bevob jnal oloci to seel whet tot :d oni District entet ins® 1 tliose norsti g abor i of tin Show! occur Royi ith tbf in, ui' th tl« e f' i keep (linu® day® sbeiui signot consKt' Cant® w tio!f to tl 11 ' ,1 to" ,! evv iver to Cavazos “the apple, the pen- Lauro Cavazos cil and the key” to the Cabinet offi cer’s door. Reagan called Cavazos “a distin guished educator.” “With his administrative skills and his many accomplishments in the field of education, Dr. Cavazos is an ideal selection for this Cabinet post,” the president said. “His commitment to the profes sion of teaching and to excellence in education and his belief in getting back to basics and things like home work, and above all his emphasis on education of special importance to America’s minorities, are messages I hope he will sound far and wide across the nation,” Reagan said. “This job has had its thrills during the past 91 months, and not a few of those experiences I’ve shared with you in this room,” he said. “But it’s hard right now to think of a more exciting moment than this one, and the knowledge that Dr. Cavazos will be the first Hispanic-American member of the Cabinet,” he said. “That says a lot about him and about Americans of Hispanic heri tage. It also says something about America — America as a place of op portunity and hope,” he said. Cavazos is a native of south Texas and the son of a foreman of the Santa Gertrudis Division of the huge King Ranch. He has served as president of Texas Tech since 1980 while also heading the Texas Tech University Health and Sciences Center. He was the first Texas Tech graduate and first Hispanic to hold those two posts. Previously, he was a member of the faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine as professor of anatomy and earlier had taught at the Medical College of Virginia. Reagan also used the occasion to pay tribute to Bennett, calling the departing Cabinet secretary the “best thing to happen” to American education. On the right track Viola by Sam B. Myers Cindy Little, a senior marketing major from Arli on the railroad tracks behind campus after her car day afternoon. ngton, walks home broke down Tues- United Nations lack money for observer corps Jen 1 ® I ab<>*' nU”! tn b s ^ U pof ,rd 11 pod' YlW UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The financially strapped United Nations created a $74 million ob server corps Tuesday to monitor a truce between Iran and Iraq, but the secretary-general said, “I simply do not have the money” to pay for it. Marrack Colliding, underse cretary-general in charge of peacekeeping operations, said the General Assembly probably would be summoned to special session this week to assess funds from the membership. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar told an American re porter: “You should advise your government to participate fully in these efforts for peace.” The United States, which sup ports U.N. peacemaking in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, has fallen $467 million behind in its U.N. payments over several years. It is assessed more than $200 million annually, one-quarter of the regular budget. U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters said: “I think the United States will meet its obligations and make its payments.” At the White House, spokes man Marlin Fitzwater said the ad ministration welcomed the cease fire announcement and would bear “its fair share of the cost” of the observer force, including transportation and equipment. “It is our understanding that there will be neither U.S. nor So viet troops in the observer force,” he added. “It has been a major aim of the United States to bring this war to an end.” Perez de Cuellar announced Monday that a cease-fire will be gin Aug. 20 in the 8-year-old war, which has killed or wounded more than 1 million people and cost hundreds of billions of dol lars. The Security Council created the observer group, which is part of the truce agreement. Twenty-five countries will pro vide the 350 unarmed observers, paying the members they assign. The $74 million, including $47 million in start-up costs, will cover the initial six-month authoriza tion. A U.N. naval force, the first in its history, also may be created to patrol the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway that forms the southern border between Iran and Iraq. Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said the United States will withdraw most of its naval forces from the gulf only when it is convinced the cease-fire has taken effect. This will be the seventh U.N. peacekeeping or observer group created by the 159-member orga nization. The others operate in Afghanistan, Cyprus, the Middle East and India and Pakistan. In Iraq, state television an nounced the cease-fire declara tion after midnight, declaring vic tory in the war and three days of celebration. Bush accuses Dukakis of trying to hide record Associated Press Michael Dukakis and George Bush exchanged new volleys in their polit ical dogfight Tuesday, with Bush placing the Democratic nominee out on the “very, very far liberal fringe.” Dukakis retorted with a line bor rowed from Bush’s boss: “There he goes again.” Just six days before the Republi can National Convention opens in New Orleans, a new Gallup Poll showed the presidential race tight ening. The survey gave Dukakis 49 per cent to 42 percent for Bush in tele phone interviews with 1,004 regis tered voters Aug. 5-7. A Gallup survey two weeks ago gave Dukakis a 17-point lead — 54- 37 — coming out of the Democratic convention. Both surveys had a 3 percentage point margin of error. “Things are moving,” the vice president said. “We’re beginning to get them in focus. Watch and you’ll see these surveys turn around.” Bush was in Pennsylvania talking about crime and drugs. Dukakis was in Cincinnati dis cussing housing and attending the National Governors’ Association meeting. But both candidates took the occa sion to launch new barrages —claim ing the other is fuzzy on the issues. Bush claimed Dukakis is trying to hide his record as governor of Mas sachusetts. “He’s trying to run away from a record in Massachusetts on the vety, very far liberal fringe of the political fringe of the political spectrum and I have to pin him down,” Bush said in Pittsburgh. “He thinks he can pre empt the middle.” “There he goes again,” Dukakis responded at a news conference in Ohio, echoing Ronald Reagan’s fa mous retort to Jimmy Carter in their P r . Dukakis, called “the stealth candi date” on Monday by Bush, struck back Tuesday with a mirror-image barrage at the GOP nominee-to-be. “I don’t think Bush’s positions are clear on much of anything,” Dukakis told reporters as he flew to Cincin nati. On foreign policy — where Bush has called Dukakis inexperienced — the Massachusetts governor said it is the vice president who has little to say. Dukakis said only Bush’s positions are clear only in his support for Con tra aid, which Dukakis called “this endless fiasco in Central America.” “I don’t know. Do you know where he stands?” Dukakis said to reporters. “I don’t think anybody knows where he is on these things.” Dukakis met with fellow Demo cratic governors at the end of their summer meeting, taking part in a joking presentation to New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, picked to deliver the keynote speech of the Republi can convention. Dukakis and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton — whose lengthy Demo cratic keynote speech drew derisive comments — gave Kean a large hourglass. In New Orleans, where the GOP convention opens Monday, prepara tions hummed along. Carpenters banged away on the half-million-dollar podium in the Superdome and the GOP platform committee trudged through the drafting of each policy plank for Bush and his still-unnamed running mate. In Pennsylvania for his last major campaign trip before the conven tion, Bush focused on building an image as a hard-liner on law en forcement. “Let’s not take away the guns of innocent citizens,” Bush told the state chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police in Erie. “Let’s get tougher on the criminals.” Liberals in Congress drew his fire on the fight against drugs. “Congress is full of rhetorical heroes on the issue of drugs, but when it comes to law enforcement a lot of the liberals there go AWOL,” Bush said. In a change of pace, Dukakis had some nice things to say about the Reagan administration, “It’s an administration that’s growing. . . . Frankly they’re coming a lot closer to where I am,” Dukakis said. “Here’s an administration that five years ago was talking ‘evil em pire.’ “The interesting thing is the presi dent and I are closer together on U.S.-Soviet relations than he is with Bush,” Dukakis said. Mother, son found dead in Houston HOUSTON (AP) — A blow to the head killed a 13-month-old boy dis covered inside a freezer by police who were investigating the death of his mother. The blunt object that hit Sammy McClain Jr. fractured his skull, kill ing the toddler, according to an au topsy performed Monday. Sammy McClain, the boy’s father, found his common-law wife, Linda Annette Flora, dead in their Hous ton home Sunday afternoon and po lice found the boy stuffed in the freezer about six hours later. Flora, last seen by her husband the day before when he left to work with his brother on a deer lease near Trinity, had been stabbed several times. The couple’s son was thought to be kidnapped until a police officer found (he body. Houston homicide investigators said Tuesday they were continuing their investigation but had not yet made any arrests. Mother files suit against hotel for athlete’s death Triple digit temperatures sear Texas; Heatwave blamed for death rate rise Associated Press 1. heat wave that continued to sear Bexas with temperatures above the century mark Tuesday was blamed for at least four deaths, with fore sters predicting only a tropical |torm off Louisiana might bring re lief. rtntf? | But temperatures across much of lO s ‘ the state were expected to climb to i: l' 1 11)3 or above at least through Friday, Sie National Weather Service said, re"* pf$m ’ pT The National Weather Service re- i n , {t JJorted the high temperature at Eas- uDi^rwood Airport Tuesday was 105 JV fg rees - Authorities on Monday discov- ^ efed the body of a Paris, Texas, woman, who had died at her home w'here her portable fan apparently had tipped over. Myrtle Spruell, 77, had been try ing to cool her home with the fan be fore her body was found, police said, ipruell s sister discovered the body, officers said. An emergency room physician at Houston’s Hermann Hospital attrib uted two deaths on Sunday to the heat. One victim was a jogger who was out in the heat and had a fatal heart attack, said Dr. Joseph Coppola. He said an elderly Houston man who apparently succumbed to the heat in his home also died. The death of a 23-year-old Grand Prairie man was also blamed on the heat, said the Tarrant County Medi cal Examiner’s office. The man died Sunday at Dallas-Fort Worth Medical Center Sunday night, only hours after he was found in a Grand Prairie park. It was 104 degrees at Fort Worth’s Meacham Field on Tuesday af ternoon. The mercury had climbed to the century mark in Abilene, Killeen, Stephenville and Wichita Falls, and it was 101 in Corpus Christi, San An tonio, Temple and Waco. The weather service said College Station reported 102 degrees. The Austin temperature reached 101 at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, before a storm brought rain and 47-mph gusts to the city and dropped the reading to 82 degrees. The heat wave results from a high-pressure ridge extending across Central Texas through Okla homa and into Central Kansas. But tropical storm Beryl’s westward movement along the Gulf coast may bring rain. “We’re thinking right now' it all depends on what this tropical storm does down in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast — it’s been pre tty much stationary,” said Buddy McIntyre, an NWS meteorologist in Fort Worth. From Staff and Wire Reports The mother of Texas A&M track star Craig Calk, who fell to his death from a hotel window, has sued the hotel for failing to warn guests the windows would not support them. The suit alleges the hotel failed to install safety glass and was negligent in not informing its guests that the windows would not not sturdy enough to contain them. The 23-year-old senior journalism student died after falling seven floors and landing on the roof of a one-story -building attached to the hotel. The Dallas County Medical Exam iner’s office has ruled that Calk died from acute multiple injuries and was intoxicated when he died. Calk’s attorneys have obtained a temporary restraining order against the hotel to prevent personnel from repairing the window and destroy ing any evidence in the incident. The suit seeks unspecified dam ages. Calk’s attorneys would not com ment further on the case until after hearings have been conducted this week. A spokesman for Holiday Inn said she had no knowledge of the lawsuit. She had no comment other than that they are cooperating with the inves tigation into the incident. Craig Calk was attending a bache lor party along with five other A&M students for Michael Wolf. Wolf is an A&M senior from Cuero, Calk’s hometowm. Farmer’s Branch police said the group was “drinking heavily and wrestling in a party atmosphere” Craig Calk plate when Calk went through glass window in the room. Police said there is no evidence of wrongdoing, and are investigating the death as an accident. Calk was scheduled to graduate Saturday. While at A&M, Calk was a four- year letterman in track and was a four-time All-Southwest Conference hurdler. He also was an All-Ameri can hurdler in 1986. Calk holds school records in the 400-meter hurdles, the sprint med ley relay and the two-mile relay.