s
s
fexas A&M
The Battalion
WEATHER
FORECAST for TUESDAY:
Cloudy and much colder, with
gusty north wind and a 50 per
cent chance of rain.
HIGH:60
LOW:40
/ol. 88 No. 114 USPS 045360 12 pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, March 20,1989
alvadorans vote for new president under fire
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) —
alvadorans voted for a new president Sun-
ese-6wii, ay as leftist revolutionaries opposed to the
lection attacked military posts and army
roops Countered with rockets and rifle fire.
At least five guerrillas and two soldiers
vere killed in lighting in nine provincial
owns, military officials and witnesses said,
[wojournalists and a Dutch television cam-
raman also were reported killed.
Early voter turnout appeared diminished
>y the combat and a rebel-imposed trans-
lort ban. But Roman Catholic churches
rere crowded with Palm Sunday worship-
rs, at least some of whom planned to vote
ater. By midday, there were long lines at
he downtown polling stations.
Turnout was light in smaller towns.
“With these problems, it’s better to stay
“t Sundj
laoxmg
were
wl tiled,
ii Lama.
isary of,
torn
ver braid
“dom aai
ral pario;
Most ].
nation I*.
home,” Jose Carlos Ortiz, 23, said. He
spoke in front of his home in the capital as
guerrillas retreated from an assault on a
military post three blocks away.
Sporadic rifle fire echoed from the slope
of the Guazapa volcano north of the capital,
a guerrilla stronghold, as troops from the
army’s elite Bracamonte battalion pursued
the insurgents. Two air force helicopters
raced toward the volcano and fired rockets
into the mountainside.
Guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti Na
tional Liberation Front are waging a 9-year-
old war against the U.S-backed govern
ment.
Salvadorans voted to elect a president
from among seven candidates. Fidel Cha
vez Mena of the incumbent Christian Dem
ocratic Party and Alfredo Cristiani of the
rightist Nationalist Republican Alliance, or
Arena led the field in polls. But neither was
likely to receive the more than 50 percent
required to avoid a runoff next month.
Cristiani, favored to become the coun
try’s next president, pledged free-market
policies and reduced state intervention in
the economy. His party promised to step up
the war if the guerrillas do not agree to lay
down their arms.
Surrounded by a mob of supporters,
Cristiani voted Sunday morning on the cap
ital’s central Roosevelt Avenue.
“I hope the United States realizes that
(Salvadorans) want democracy, with this ef
fort they’re making to vote. We don’t want
any more bombs,” he said.
President Jose Napoleon Duarte’s five-
year term ends June 1. Duarte, barred by
law from running for re-election, is Wash
ington’s staunchest ally in the Western
Hemisphere. He is dying of liver cancer.
Chavez Mena is a lawyer and leader of
the Christian Democratic Party’s conserva
tive wing.
The centrist Christian Democrats con
tend Arena has not changed much since it
was founded in 1981 by individuals alleg
edly linked to death squads.
Arena denies links to death squads. Cris
tiani says the party’s ideology is similar to
that of the U.S. Republican Party.
The leftist Democratic Convergence,
whose leaders maintain formal links with
the guerrillas, is running third in the elec
tion, according to polls. It was the first elec
tion since 1977 in which socialist candidates
have competed.
About 1.83 million people out of a pop
ulation of 5 million were eligible to vote.
Polls opened at 7 a.m. in 243 of the coun
try’s 262 municipalities and closed at 5 p.m.
Nineteen towns in the north did not set
up voting stations because election officials
deemed those rebel-held zones'too danger
ous.
Ricardo Perdomo, chairman of the Cen
tral Elections Council, said preliminary re
sults would be available early Monday. Re
bel sabotage to telephone lines and
electricity, which has cut or restricted
power to 80 percent of the country, were
likely to slow the vote count.
ill)
,s
ilainis
icmev i,
ed
fer io at;
'nt polid
md unit!
separai
1 the b#
bui extu
f (he n
me of i
or havii
caragiE
m am«i
'om hen
xico C
ive soi
paid)!
rom Ii
them!
Discovery crew returns
home after flawless flight
he
ts
s liol
being
tes
bassv
v was
ng
i his
ipany
USOV
ap-
: Au-
jsibil
screi
SPACE CENTER, Houston
(AP) — The Discovery space
shuttle astronauts, back from a
five-day mission in which they de
ployed a vital communications sa
tellite, spent Sunday with their
families but were to return to
work the next day to discuss their
nearly flawless flight.
The crew’s 1.9 million-mile
journey ended Saturday morning
with a picture perfect landing at
Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.,
that was watched by a near-re
cord 460,000 spectators.
Discovery’s flight lasted 4 days,
23 hours and 39 minutes. It was
the 28th shuttle mission overall
and the third since Challenger
exploded, claiming the lives of
seven astronauts and halting
manned spaceflights for nearly
three years.
The next flight is the planned
April 28 launch of Atlantis, which
will deploy a planetary probe that
will map the surface of Venus.
NASA hopes to complete seven
flights this year and 12 a year by
1992.
Space agency officials Saturday
praised the five Discovery astro
nauts and the orbiter as well as
the efforts of employees who
have worked to get the shuttle
program back on i rack.
“I think the country realizes
we’re back,” Rear Adm. Richard
H. Truly, NASA’s associate ad
ministrator for space flight, said
at a post-flight news conference
Saturday at Edwards.
Truly also said the shuttle “is
just as clean as it can be.” Al
though NASA television close-
ups showed numerous white
marks on the black thermal tiles
that protect the shuttle’s under
side during the fiery re-entry
through the atmosphere, Truly
described them as “a few minor
chips.”
A little more than seven hours
after touchdown, the astronauts
and their wives arrived home in
Houston where they were
greeted by their children and
Photo by Ronnie Montgomery
Discovery astronaut James Bagian and his daughter Krista
enjoy a welcoming party at Houston’s Ellington Field.
about 500 friends, fellow workers
and space fans.
Discovery commander Michael
L. Coats, who guided the 97-ton
spaceship to its centerline land
ing, said his crew worked hard
both before and after blastoff
Monday.
“I’d like to thank all of you and
American people for the oppor
tunity to fly in space,” Goats
added.
The other Discovery astro
nauts are pilot John E. Blaha and
mission specialists Robert C.
Springer, James F. Buchli and
James P. Bagian. Blaha, Springer
and Bagian were all space rook
ies.
Just six hours after liftoff from
Cape Canaveral on Monday, the
astronauts deployed a $100 mil
lion Tracking and Data Relay Sa
tellite.
Protesters threaten to strike
over ‘sabotaged’ campaign
MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of
Soviets took to the streets Sunday to
accuse the Communist Party of sab
otaging Boris N. Yeltsin’s election
campaign and to threaten a general
strike if the maverick reformer fails
to win office.
Police and KGB agents along the
route channeled the marchers but
made no attempt to halt them, even
though their protest violated Mos
cow city regulations that require
seven days’ notice of any demonstra
tion.
The march through downtown
Moscow by 3,000 Soviets chanting
“Hands off Yeltsin!” was an extraor
dinary outburst of passions aroused
by Sunday’s election for a new na
tional parliament, the Congress of
People’s Deputies.
Yeltsin, 58, is running to rep
resent the Soviet capital, where he
headed the local party apparatus for
almost two years before President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev fired him.
At pre-election meetings and in a
televised debate with his opponent,
automobile factory manager Yev
geny Brakov, the stocky, white-
haired Yeltsin has charged the party
machine he once led of conspiring
against his candidacy and restricting
voters’ access to his campaign ap
pearances.
Thousands of Yeltsin supporters
planned to rally after noon Sunday
at southwestern Moscow’s Gorky
Park, where a Russian folklore festi
val was under way. When they were
told permission for the meeting had
been refused, they set off for the
city’s downtown.
Their anger also was kindled by a
recent decision of the party’s policy
making Central Committee, an
nounced Thursday, to form a special
commission to investigate charges
that Yeltsin, who is still a Central
Committee member, opposes some
party policies.
The campaign against Yeltsin ap
peared to enter another phase Sun
day when the party’s Moskovskaya
Pravda printed an account about
Yeltsin’s character and politics. The
newspaper claimed it was a “myth”
that he was more faithful to prin
ciples than others.
Yeltsin won the hearts of many
Muscovites with a campaign against
corruption and spirited attacks on
the privileges, from special food
stores to chauffeured limousines,
available to the government and
party elite.
“He’s against the party mafia, and
that’s why the party mafia is against
him,” declared one of Sunday’s
marchers, Taras Osipov, 65, a re
tired engineer. “Yeltsin is with the
people and for the people.”
Poll finds Americans unsure
about keeping money in S&Ls
NEW YORK (AP) —- The nation’s beleaguered sav
ings and loan industry lacks the confidence of nearly
half the American public and a third of its own deposi
tors, a Media General-Associated Press poll has found.
Respondents to the national survey also doubted the
government’s ability to find a lasting solution to the
S&L crisis. And while half favored government inter
vention, most opposed having the public bear the main
costs.
Only 53 percent of the 1,108 adults polled regarded
S&Ls as a safe place to keep their money, compared
with 93 percent who saw banks as safe. Of those with
thrift accounts, 33 percent said they feared losing their
savings.
Relatively few said they were reducing their accounts
because of the S&L crisis, but a fifth said they were con
sidering that step and as many said they were holding
off on new deposits.
While S&Ls have sustained record withdrawals lately,
federal analysts chiefly blame the higher interest rates
that are available elsewhere. In the poll, 35 .percent of
respondents had S&L accounts and just 9 percent of
them said they had withdrawn money because of the in
dustry’s problems.
Federal insurance is insufficient to cover accounts at
the estimated 350 sayings and loans that are failing, and
the government has taken over 166 of the worst-off
thrifts while Congress and the administration devise a
plan to rescue the industry. The nation has 2,955 sav
ings and loan associations.
President Bush has proposed using $50 billion in
government-backed bonds to help cover the accounts,
in addition to $40 billion pledged last year to sell or
prop up failed thrifts. In the poll, however, just 27 per
cent said the government should pay most of the costs
of salvaging the industry.
Instead, a 42 percent plurality said the S&L industry
should bear the brunt of the costs by paying higher in
surance premiums on its accounts — a lesser feature of
the Bush plan. Just 14 percent favored levying a fee on
S&L depositors, an idea the administration considered
and dropped.
In any case, only 31 percent said they believed the
government would come up with a long-term solution
to the savings and loan crisis. Thirty-nine percent ex
pected “only a temporary solution.”
War financier’s heir requests amends
Stafford woman could get $141 billion for 212-year-old debt
56
m
nd
HOUSTON (AP) — A Stafford
woman and other descendants of a
man who loaned money to help fi
nance the Revolutionary War have
filed a lawsuit against the federal
government for repayment of the
212-year-old loan plus interest, a bill
that could run as high as $141.6 bil
lion.
In the winter of 1777, the Conti
nental Army — starved, freezing
and short on supplies — was hang
ing on by its fingernails at Valley
Forge. Thomas Paine described the
winter as “the times that try men’s
souls.”
Congress sent out the word to pa
triots: Send money to keep Gen.
George Washington’s army in the
field. It promised to repay the loans
plus interest.
One of those who responded was
Jacob DeHaven, a wealthy Philadel
phia merchant.
DeHaven lent the government al
most everything he had, gold and
supplies worth about $450,000.
Washington’s army pulled through
the winter and eventually won the
Revolutionary War.
DeHaven’s descendants contend
the government stiffed him.
DeHaven died childless and in
poverty in 1812. He is buried in an
unmarked grave in Swedeland,
Penn., Peter Murphy, the family’s
lawyer, said.
Murphy, a professor at South
Texas College of Law, and his for
mer student, Jo Beth Kloecker of
Stafford, filed a class action lawsuit
Friday in the U.S. Claims Court for
the $450,000 loan — plus 212 years
of the 6 percent compounded inter
est the Continental Congress prom
ised.
Loan officers at Texas Commerce
Bank calculated last week that the
“ I
Uacob DeHaven loaned
the government what was
in effect the Pentagon
budget. He virtually
underwrote the war at
Valley Forge.”
— Peter Murphy,
lawyer for
DeHaven descendants
principal and interest on the loan
w T ould be $98.3 billion if the interest
is compounded annually or $141.6
billion if it is compounded daily.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of
a Stafford woman, Thelma Weasen-
forth Lunaas and the other descen
dants of DeHaven’s nine brothers
and sisters and two half-brothers.
“Jacob DeHaven loaned the gov
ernment what was in effect the Pen
tagon budget,” Murphy told the
Houston Chronicle. “He virtually
underwrote the war at Valley
Forge.”
Without DeHaven’s loan, the
Continental Army might have col
lapsed and the United States would
have been stillborn, Murphy said.
“Lunaas and other DeHaven fam
ily members aren’t interested in tak
ing the government for a ride,”
Murphy said.
“They just feel that Jacob DeHa
ven made a significant contribution
to the war effort, then died in pov
erty after being one of the richest
men in America. It (the loan) wiped
him out.”
He said DeHaven and his descen
dants have tried several times to per
suade the government to pay back
the loans.
During an attempt in the 1920s,
President Calvin Coolidge acknowl
edged the debt and said it should be
paid, Murphy said.
As recently as 1966, a congress
man introduced a bill to repay the
DeHaven loan, Murphy said. That
bill died in committee.
After the Revolutionary War, the
question arose over whether the
debts should be paid in full. Both the
Articles of Confederation and the
U.S. Constitution say the Revolu
tionary War debts are debts of the
central government.
In a 1790 report on the public
debt. Secretary of the Treasury Al
exander Hamilton recommended
that the war debt be paid in full,
Murphy said.
Hamilton said the government
should pay off the loans because the
future of America’s credit depended
upon it, Murphy said.
Some owners of the loan certifi
cates were paid in gold. Old docu
ments imply that others got land and
many were paid in worthless Conti
nental currency, Murphy said.
“If that happened, you looked
upon it as a gift to the government,”
he said.
DeHaven and his descendants
could not sue the government after
the war because the government
could not be sued, Murphy said.
The United States at the time was
following English law that forbade
lawsuits against the Crown, he said.
In 1853, Congress created the
court of claims and allowed lawsuits
against the government in that
court.
Brian Mihlbachler, a graduate range science major, runs oh
A&M’s fitness and jogging trail on the final Sunday of the break.
Mihlbachler says he tries to run six miles everyday.