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The Battalion
^ol.88 No. 6 CJSPS 045360 16 Pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, September 5, 1988
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Back for seconds??
Shean Dalton, a sophomore mechanical engi
neering major from Georgetown, has second and
third servings of pecan pie during an outdoor pic-
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
nic sponsored by the Department of Food Serv
ices.
Ganges river overflows,
entire villages disappear
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) —
loods have inundated three-quar-
: 1 Hers of this impoverished nation,
!. '/Htranding at least 20 million people
'P I Ivho are eating raw food and drink-
" ' ing muddy, probably contaminated
lS fl water, officials sa
rp
rnieni
with
111 OlllS
lev (tlit !
ing^
saici Sunday.
At least 882 people have died
since June, when rivers began over
flowing their banks in annual mon
soon flooding in this country of 110
million people, according to newspa
pers in Dhaka. The government
count of 333 dead is widely consid
ered low.
“It is a calamity,” Information
Minister Mahbubur Rahman said
Sunday night. “It is a havoc-creating,
enacing flood.”
Flying in an airplane across Ban-
ladesh Sunday from the Indian
[border to Dhaka, it was virtually im-
Ipossible to discern the mighty rivers
that normally ribbon this nation’s
landscape —just vast seas of brown
water.
The storied Ganges River, which
draws its life in the foothills of In
dia’s Himalayan mountains,
stretched as far as the eye could see.
“I’ve never seen anything like it
before,” Capt. Ghias Ahmad, who
has piloted over this country for 19
years, said.
“You can’t find the rivers any
more,” he said. “You can’t differen
tiate between the rivers and the
flood waters.”
The flood waters swallowed up
entire villages. Occasionally, tin
roofs glinted in the sunlight, the
houses beneath them completely
submerged.
On a few high spots of ground or
short stretches of paved road still
above water, people milled idly,
small boats beached beside them.
The information minister said at
least 21 million people lost their
homesteads and at least three-quar
ters of the nation was flooded.
The Ganges and Brahmaputra
rivers and their dozens of tributaries
flow from India and through Ban
gladesh to the Bay of Bengal.
The rivers flood almost every year
after the monsoon rains in Bangla
desh and India. Last year, the flood
ing in Bangladesh killed about 1,500
people.
This season, some refugees have
found shelter in relief centers or rel
atives’ homes, said government offi
cials who spoke on condition of ano
nymity. But they estimated that at
least 20 million people were either
stranded in their homes or ma
rooned on small outcroppings of
high ground with few supplies.
Field investigation ends
at Delta 1141 crash site
Cause of crash not yet known
GRAPEVINE (AP) — Federal in
vestigators wound up their field
work at the site of last week’s Delta
air crash Sunday, refusing to com
ment on speculation that double en
gine failure might have led to the di
saster.
The Dallas Morning News, quot
ing anonymous sources close to the
investigation, reported Sunday that
investigators are trying to determine
whether two of the three engines on
the Boeing 727 failed in the seconds
before Wednesday’s crash.
See related story, page 11
“When someone says engine fail
ure there are a whole host of things
that might mean,” Lee Dickinson, a
member of the NTSB, said at a
briefing Sunday. “One of the things
I will not do is speculate on any
thing.”
Some pilots said the fact that the
wing flaps on the jet were apparently
retracted at the time of the crash,
when they ordinarily would have
been extended for takeoff, may have
been a sign the pilots were trying to
fly the plane on one engine, not a
cause of the crash, newspapers re
ported.
Thirteen people were killed when
Flight 1141 en route to Salt Lake
City crashed and burned seconds af
ter takeoff at Dallas-Fort Worth In
ternational Airport. Ninety-five peo
ple survived.
A recording of cockpit crew mem
bers showed they mentioned engine
failure. Two loud pops were then
heard, which could have indicated a
“compressor stall.” But Dickinson
said a compressor stall, which occurs
when an engine is starving for air, is
“When someone says engine failure there are a whole
host of things that might mean. One of the things I will
not do is speculate on anything. ”
— Lee Dickinson,
NTSB member
not critical. “Keep in mind, compres
sor stall is not serious, it’s a hiccup.”
At the site Sunday, investigators
sealed the cockpit in a blue tarp. It
will be taken to Delta headquarters
in Atlanta where it will be dis
mantled and studied.
Workers used power saws to re
move the landing gear beneath the
727 and also bored into the ground
beneath the left wing to determine
the amount of fuel that may have
spilled during the crash.
Two surviving flight attendants
were taken to the wreckage and
questioned by investigators, Dickin
son said. He said he had no immedi
ate information on what they said.
Dickinson said he planned to
leave Dallas later Sunday, and only a
few investigators would remain as
the center of the inquiry moves to
Washington.
Meanwhile, NBC and the Wa-
shington Post reported that as the
plane taxied to the end of the run
way, the cockpit crew spoke about
previous air crashes including the
1985 Delta Flight 191 crash that
killed 137 at the airport.
The newspaper said the crew
talked about recent reports about a
cockpit recording in the crash of a
jet last November in Denver, which
revealed the crew members dis
cussing a co-worker’s dating habits.
vnen an engine is starving tor air, is cussing a co-worker s aating nat
U.S. group to hold
Soviet space talks
NBC reported Saturday that the
Delta crew members last week joked
that they should be careful since
their comments could become public
if the plane crashed.
Dickinson said Saturday night
that he had not heard the cockpit
voice recording, but added “if in our
analysis we decide that’s pertinent
information, we’ll analyze it.”
The role of the wing flaps, which
are extended during takeoff to pro
vide added lift, continued to be dis
cussed.
Flight Engineer Stephen Judd has
told investigators that the wing flaps
were extended in the proper posi
tion upon takeoff. But eviclence col
lected from the wreckage indicates
the flaps were completely or almost
completely retracted.
The Delta co-pilot, Carey Wilson
Kirkland Jr., told investigators Sat
urday that he did not remember
anything from when the plane left
the gate, Dickinson said. Doctors
said the pilot, Capt. Larry Davis, was
not well enough to be interviewed.
Bill Melvin, a Dallas-based Delta
pilot participating in the crash inves
tigation on behalf of the Air Line Pi
lots Association, said he believes the
pilot could have been facing engine
failure and decided to retract the
flaps in a last-ditch effort to save the
plane.
HOUSTON (AP) — A group of
15 Americans, including several
from Texas, are in route to Moscow
for talks with top Soviet officials on
the possibility of future cooperative
efforts in commercial space ven
tures.*
The discussions will take place at
the prestigious Space Research Insti
tute of the Soviet Academy of Sci
ences and at Star City, the secretive
cosmonaut training base outside
Moscow, the Houston Chronicle re
ported Sunday.
“My personal belief is that these
enterprises are the wave of the fu
ture for Houston and the rest of the
United States and that they will
prove to be mutually profitable for
both the government and private de
velopment,” Harlan J. Smith, the
dean of the group and a longtime
observer of the Soviet space pro
gram, said.
“Houston should be one of the
leading areas in the country for this
kind of cooperative government and
private space development,” Smith,
a professor of astronomy at the Uni
versity of Texas at Austin, said.
Smith and the others are sched
uled to meet Monday with Soviet
space scientists at the institute, possi
bly including Roald Z. Sagdeev,
head of the institute.
Sagdeev is an advocate of joint So-
viet-American cooperation in space
and has the ear of party secretary
Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
He also is a strong supporter of
the Soviet leader’s attempts to reju
venate the communist nation
through “glasnost” (openness) and
“perestroika” (reform), particularly
in science, according to Soviet ex
perts.
Other Americans scheduled to
take part include Louis Friedman,
executive director of the Planetary
Society; John Pike, director of space
policy for the Federation of Ameri
can Scientists based in Washington,
D.C.
Others include Steve Armour, a
Houston investor in Space Com
merce; James Calaway, a founder
and vice president of Space Indus
tries; and Charles R. Gallagher,
president of the Menefee Founda
tion, which holds stock in Space
Commerce.
Smith believes one day private
space commerce, in hand with
NASA, will be a strong part of the
city’s industrial diversification.
“The combination of having the
Johnson Space Center at Houston,
plus the universities in Texas . . . and
the presence of a strong nucleus of
private companies, will add to that,”
Smith said.
“One of the underlying purposes
of this visit is to investigate the fu
ture of possible space cooperation
between the Soviet Union and the
United States,” he said.
Soviet trial
may expose
corruption
MOSCOW (AP) — The trial of
Leonid Brezhnev’s son-in-law, ac
cused of taking $1.1 million in
bribes, is expected to lay bare the
widespread corruption of the
Brezhnev era.
Court begins Monday for Yuri
Churbanov, a former first deputy
interior minister who once moved
in the top levels of Kremlin so
ciety. If found guilty of bribe-tak
ing and abuse of office, he and
eight co-defendants could be exe
cuted by firing squad.
Their trial, and the extraordi
nary publicity given its investiga
tory phase, are in line with Com
munist Party chief Mikhail S.
Gorbachev’s drive to break with
the cronyism, corruption and
nepotism now seen as endemic
under Brezhnev. Brezhnev ruled
the Soviet Union from 1964 until
his death in 1982.
The court case, to be heard by
the Military Collegium of the So
viet Supreme Court, may also
have a political aim — to signal
the Kremlin Old Guard who flou
rished under Brezhnev that their
time has passed and that contin
ued resistance to Gorbachev-era
reforms must cease.
Churbanov, who married
Brezhnev’s daughter Galina in
1971 after divorcing his first wife
in 1964, is a central figure in an
embezzlement and bribery
scheme.
Family will sell movie of JFK’s assassination
llass
HOUSTON (AP) — The family of the
man who made a home movie capturing the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy
nearly 25 years ago is selling the film for as
much as $30,000 per use, the Houston
Chronicle reported in a copyright story
Sunday.
While the footage is currently under
copyright protection, some believe profi
teering from the historical film made by the
late Abraham Zapruder on Nov. 22, 1963,
is wrong and that the home movie should
be in the public domain.
“You shouldn’t be able to copyright
something like that,” David Wrone, a his
tory professor at the University of Wiscon
sin at Stevens Point, said.
“It should be in the public domain, just
like the crucifixion of Jesus. It’s immoral,
socially speaking,” Wrone, who teaches a
class pertaining to the assassination, said.
Chip Selby, a graduate student at the
University of Maryland, sought permission
from Zapruder’s son, Henry Zapruder, to
use the 22-second, color film in his new
documentary without being required to pay
the $30,000 fee for non-exclusive rights.
“I explained to him that I was a graduate
student and I didn’t have that kind of
money to pay,” Selby, whose documentary,
“Reasonable Doubt,” concludes that more
than one gunman fired at Kennedy, said.
“He kept saying that he didn’t want to close
down my project with the price and that we
would work something out. But apparently
he was just jerking me then, too, because he
won’t return my calls. He won’t answer my
letters or anything like that.”
Selby’s documentary now includes a $75
bootlegged copy of the Zapruder film that
he obtained from Canada.
Zapruder, a tax lawyer who has been ne
gotiating the sale of the film’s rights out of
his Washington, D.C., office, would not
comment about his financial interests in the
“You shouldn’t be able to copy
right something like that. It
should be in the public domain,
just like the crucifixion of Jesus,
It’s immoral, socially speaking. ”
David Wrone,
history professor
film. However, he did say: “Anybody who is
using it for their own use, research, show
ing it to students, colleges, can have it free
of charge, other than the costs of reprinting
the film. But if they’re going to be making
commercial use of it, then we charge.”
Zapruder, 50, sells the rights to the film
and stills through the family company,
LMH Company.
Richard B. Stolley negotiated the 1963
purchase of the film and its rights for Life
magazine and Time Inc. from Abraham Za
pruder, who died in 1970, for $150,000.
He said Zapruder was sensitive to accusa
tions that he profited from Kennedy’s
death.
Time sold the original film back to the
Zapruder family in 1975 for $1 in part be
cause Time wasn’t comfortahle controlling
public access to the film, the paper re
ported. Time, itself, he said, still has unlim
ited publication rights of film stills.
Abraham Zapruder, according to Stolley,
saw the sale of the film as a way to provide
financial security for his family.
His wife and his only other child, a
daughter, live in Dallas.
Stolley suggested that Abraham Za
pruder, a dress manufacturer, probably
would not object to the rights being sold if
the film were used by legitimate news orga
nizations.
“His great concern, and it was quite
touching and eloquent, was that it not be
presented in some kind of sleazy way,” Stol
ley said. “He really had real worries that
somebody was going to take this and turn it
into a kind of Times Square sensation. . . .
Abe was a businessman, but he was a very
humane man.”
Author Robert Groden, who provided a
first-generation copy of the film to the ABC
television network in 1975 in what he says
was the first time the film was shown na
tionally, believes Zapruder’s handling of
the film is questionable.
“The worst part of the whole thing has
been the suppression of the film,” Groden
said. “Not so much that one person is mak
ing a lot of money, but, if somebody wants
to do something really good with it, they’re
restricted. It’s like their hands are tied.”'
Although the Zapruders own the original
film and the film rights, the original 8 mm
film is being held on behalf of the family at
the National Archives in Washington, D.C.