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Texas A&M
The Battalion
Friday, December 2, 1988
College Station, Texas
Aggies display
spirit despite
losing game
Running back Darren Lewis
plows the ball through two of Ala
bama’s defense Thursday night
in the Hurricane Bowl.
The Texas A&M Aggies lost
the game 30-10.
Jackie Sherrill sings the Texas
A&M Alma Mater during the
football game.
Despite allegations of NCAA
violations, Sherrill remained sup
portive of the football team
throughout the entire game.
Photos by Dean Saito
Vol. 88 No. 68 USPS 045360 10 Pages
200 charged
in U.S., Italy
for drug trade
WASHINGTON (AP) — More
than 200 people were charged in a
multimillion-dollar heroin importa
tion and cocaine distribution opera
tion involving Sicilian Mafia figures
and the Gambino crime family in
New York, the FBI and Italian au
thorities announced Thursday.
A total of 68 people were charged
in the United States and 133 in Italy,
stemming from a three-year FBI un
dercover operation in which agents
traveled to Italy and posed as inter
ested buyers who discussed making
major drug purchases, the FBI said.
As of midday Thursday, 59 peo
ple had been arrested in the United
States and 20 in Italy.
Substantial amounts of imported
heroin were sold to the Gambino
Mafia family in New York, which al
legedly arranged for nationwide dis
tribution, according to a complaint
filed in the case in Philadelphia.
Some of the heroin was passed to
buyers in pizza parlors.
Arrests were made in Baltimore;
Buffalo, N.Y.; Miami; Newark, N.J.;
New York; Philadelphia; San Fran
cisco; and Rockford, Ill. In Italy, ar
rests were being made in Palermo,
Bologna and Florence.
One of those arrested in the police
roundup was Giuseppe Gambino, a
nephew of Carlo Gambino, the late
reputed head of the Gambino crime
family.
A complaint filed in Manhattan
against 28 people alleged that the or
ganization “obtained cocaine in the
U.S., transported the cocaine over to
Italy, exchanged the cocaine for her
oin, so the cocaine was sold in Italy,
and the heroin was sold in the U.S.,”
U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani
said.
“They found the best market for
their product,” the U.S. attorney
added.
Giuliani and James Fox, assistant
director of the FBI’s New York of
fice, said 14 of the 28 charged in
New York were arrested. If con
victed, they could face a maximum
penalty of life imprisonment and up
to $4 million in fines.
Ten people were arrested when
the FBI crashed an early-morning
party at the Cafe Giardino, a Brook
lyn social club. Fox said a popular
Italian singer had just finished per
forming when FBI agents broke in.
“One (agent) walked up to the mi
crophone and said ‘This is the last
dance. We’re the FBI. You’re under
arrest,”’ Fox said, noting that the ar
restees submitted peacefully.
Officials said the heroin was
brought from Italy by female cou
riers who strapped the drugs to their
bodies, or was shipped as liquified
heroin in wine bottles from Italy.
At least 37 people named in arrest
warrants issued by Italian magistrate
Giovanne Falcone are members of
the Spatola, Gambino and Inzerillo
crime families in Italy and the
United States, the news agency
ANSA said. The state-run RAI-TV
said Italian authorities, with the help
of U.S. investigators, arrested seve
ral top Mafia figures.
The FBI said the operation devel
oped from what originally were in
dependent criminal investigations in
Buffalo, New York and Philadel
phia. They grew into a coordinated
effort when agents found links be
tween many of the targets of the sep
arate investigations.
Atlantis set
after winds
to try again
delay launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)
— Weather permitting, NASA will
try again Friday to send Atlantis on a
secret military mission after scrub
bing Thursday’s attempt because of
violently shifting 104 mph winds in
the shuttle’s flight path.
Officials said they would look at
the forecast late Thursday before
giving a go-ahead to fuel the space
craft again for a launch Friday in a
three-hour period beginning at 6:32
a.m. EST. If the weather looked bad,
NASA would wait until Saturday.
“We’re going to take a hard look
at the weather again,” launch direc
tor Bob Sieck said. “If it is clearly a
no-go tomorrow, we don’t want to
exercise the launch team, the crew
and the systems.”
Navy Cmdr. Robert L. Gibson and
his four-man military crew, dressed
in uncomfortable, bulky flight suits,
had been lying on their backs in
cabin seats for nearly five hours
Local woman’s alleged killer
may be ready for trial soon
IT J
A'A'
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) — A 27-
year-old transient accused in the
death of a young newspaper re
porter from College Station could be
mentally fit to stand trial within six
months, mental health officials say.
A three-page report was issued
Wednesday on the mental fitness of
Rodney Woidtke, 27, a drifter from
California accused of killing 24-year-
old Audrey Cardenas, an intern at
the Belleville News-Democrat.
It was the second time in three
months Woidtke was judged unfit to
stand trial.
After Wednesday’s report from
mental health workers treating
Woidtke, St. Clair County Chief
Judge Stephen Kernan ordered the
Moslem president chooses
first woman prime minister
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) —
Benazir Bhutto became the first
woman to lead a Moslem nation
when the president chose her
Thursday to be prime minister, the
post her father held when he was de
posed and hanged a decade ago.
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan
said in a televised address that Ms.
Bhutto had the best qualities of lead
ership and foresight as a statesman.
Thousands of supporters cele
brated in streets of the nation’s cities
after the long-awaited announce
ment.
They danced, beat drums and
chanted “Long live Benazir!”
Bhutto’s party gained 12 more
seats in the National Assembly when
it voted Wednesday on candidates to
fill 20 seats reserved for women.
With those her populist Pakistan
People’s Party won in the Nov. 16
election, it holds 105 of the cham
hope that the recently conducted
elections will usher in an era of dem
ocratic rule in Pakistan,” a close ally
of the United States, said presi
dential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.
“This is so the new prime minister of our country
can take up her responsibility in an environment of
complete democracy. ”
— Guhlam Ishaq Khan
ber’s 237 seats, and she is said to
have enough support among minor
parties and independents for a ma
jority coalition.
President Reagan sent a letter of
congratulations expressing “his
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded the
Pakistan People’s Party. In 1977, af
ter a landslide victory in the last pre
vious free election, Gen. Moham
med Zia ul-Haq ousted him in a
coup.
Bhutto was convicted of complic
ity in a political murder conspiracy
and hanged in 1979.
Zia was killed in plane crash Aug.
17 after the election date had been
set.
An eight-party grouping called
the Islamic Democratic Alliance,
which included Zia loyalists, won
only 60 seats in the election and
Wednesday’s assembly vote.
Ishaq Khan, the 73-year-old Sen
ate chairman who replaced Zia as
president, said Thursday he was
convinced Bhutto could command a
majority in the National Assembly.
He also declared the end of a state
of emergency imposed after Zia’s
death.
suspect back to the Chester Mental
Health Center.
Woidtke has been at the center
since September. In its report, his
treatment team said he is not fit to
stand trial yet, but is making pro
gress and could be ready to return to
court within six months.
Woidtke stood quietly as Kernan
read portions of the report into the
court record. At the end of the hear
ing, after being told he would go
back to Chester, he said, “All right.”
Woidtke, diagnosed as a par
anoid-schizophrenic, is accused of
killing Cardenas only 11 days after
she had arrived in Belleville from
her home in College Station.
She was reported missing June 20
when she failed to show up for work.
Her body was found about a week
later in a dry creek bed on the Belle
ville Township High School East
campus.
Woidtke was arrested the same
day, June 26, and charged with ob
structing justice for crossing the po
lice barricade set up at the high
school. He was charged Aug. 16 with
murder.
The defendant appeared in court
Wednesday without the beard and
long, shaggy hair he had worn pre
viously. He was clad in a beige shirt
and tan pants instead of the orange
jail-issued jumpsuit he had appeared
in at an earlier hearing.
Woidtke also is charged with a
misdemeanor for attempting an es
cape from the St. Clair County Jail
three days after his arrest.
Thursday when the decision was
made to scrub.
“They took it in stride, so did the
rest of the team,” Sieck said. “We’ve
been talking about the threat of this .
. . so it came as no surprise.”
The astronauts themselves were
not heard from publicly because
NASA, operating under strict Air
Force secrecy requirements, did not
carry the usual shuttle-to-launch
control conversations over its radio
circuit.
Using all the resources at its com
mand — high-altitude weather bal
loons, radar, and a shuttle pilot fly
ing through the clouds — NASA
continuously sampled the weather
before finally calling it quits.
“We were watching the weather
all the way and finally scrubbed due
to the winds aloft,” Sieck said.
“There was no hope we were going
to get out of the situation.”
Rain had left the area and skies
had begun clearing, but eight miles
above the Atlantic Ocean winds ex
ceeded hurricane force.
Lawrence B. Williams, a NASA
engineer, said the blasts were so
powerful and erratic that the shut
tle’s computer could not be pro
grammed to safely adjust its flight
path.
Such winds could cause serious
damage to the shuttle’s wings.
Col. John Madura, an Air Force
weatherman, said the storm front
that caused the problems would be
offshore Friday but could be fol
lowed by strong ground winds that
might affect a launch.
Sources said the countdown,
blacked out publicly for security rea
sons, had been held twice for one-
hour periods. It was allowed to pro
ceed to the nine-minute-to-launch
mark so that quick advantage could
be taken of a break in the weather.
None came.
After the scrub, technicians im
mediately started draining the half
million gallons of supercold fuel that
feed the shuttle’s three main en
gines.
NASA’s practice is to go through
the loading and unloading cycle only
twice in a 48-hour period, then call
ing a two-day break to give techni
cians a rest. So if weather interfered
again with a fueled shuttle on Fri
day, the liftoff would be delayed at
least until Sunday.
The scrub extended Gibson’s un
enviable shuttle record for suiting
up and getting ready to fly-