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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1989)
WEATHER : °tt McCullai evin Thomas PUPATION ?) by Paul | rw jn i wptihe.. ces ties 'ess issue ian party boss Vladimir iky, the only Politburo >m the leadership of rezhnev. Shcherbitskv, at. inner was Yeltsin, who stablishment campaign :rcent of the vote. Atits the Central Committee ivestigation of Yeltsin, rissed as Moscow part) aying Gorbachev’s re- not accomplished Medvedev, the Corn ’s chief ideologist, has aiittee examining the d report at the next pie- . The Central Commit- ower to discipline Yelt- s a member. portrayed the March ■eferendum on reform, <! and government ofli- use they “were restruc- tern diplomat, who tely, said Tuesday's it focus on political re- ans for the 2,250-seal w'hose first meeting is ■ May 25. It is to electa .veil as a full-time legis- Texas A&M The Battalion FORECAST for THURSDAY: Partly cloudy and continued hot with gusty southeast wind. There is a 20 percent chance of af ternoon showers. HIGH:91 LOW:69 Vol. 88 No. 141 USPS 04536012 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, April 26,1989 Protesters for abortion rights rally at capital AUSTIN (AP) — About 3,000 abortion rights protesters crowded the Capitol grounds Tuesday in sup port of a 16-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion that they fear could be overturned. The court is scheduled to hear ar guments today in a Missouri case See related story/Page 12 that has become one of history’s most closely watched and could lead to a reversal of the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973. "It is the 11th hour and the clock is ticking,” Kate Michelman, exec utive director of the National Abor tion Rights Action League, told the crowd. “We must seize the debate . . . The pro-choice majority, the sleeping gi ant, has been asleep too long, but he’s waking up,” Michelman said to the cheering, sign-waving throng. Michelman said the makeup of the court has changed since the Roe vs. Wade decision because of ap pointments by the Reagan adminis tration. "We do not want politicians or a ;s or lawmakers to decide,” elman said. “We will decide.” She urged those present to peti tion government officials ana to “carry our support for choice to the voting booths in 1990 and 1992.” Michelman, who lives in Washing ton, said protests and rallies were planned Tuesday and Wednesday See Protest/Page 6 Photo by Jay Janner Great balls o’ fire Employees of Monsanto Chemical Corpora- Field Tuesday. Monsanto sent 95 workers tion prepare to extinguish a simulated pro- from around the nation to College Station for a pane-leak fire at the Brayton Fireman Training five-day training period. Students begin petition to get Bush library By Stephen Masters SENIOR STAFF WRITER Texas A&M Student Government members have begun circulation of a petition asking President George Bush to locate his presidential li brary at the University. Ty Clevenger, speaker of the Stu dent Senate, estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 student signatures had been collected by Tuesday af ternoon. Clevenger, a sophomore genetics major, said the petition drive was planned for later in the year. But Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, asked the group to speed up plans in order to possibly present the petition to Bush while he is in College Station to speak at commencement. Bush is scheduled to speak at the May 12 commencement at 2 p.m. Clevenger said other universities in the running for the library are Bush’s alma mater Yale University, Rice University, the University of Houston and possibly the University of Texas, the location of the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Library. Clevenger said Bush has “given strong indication” he will put his li brary in Texas, but said A&M will have to fight for it. “Rice will probably be our strong est competition because Bush taught a class there while he lived in Hous ton,” he said. “But we’ve gotten some extremely positive indications about A&M. The reason we’re pur suing the petition drive is to put us over the edge.” Petitions will be distributed by members of the Corps of Cadets, Student Government members and possibly Inter-fraternity Council members, Clevenger said. A table will be set up in the MSC today through Friday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., he said, and plans for a table in the Blocker Building early next week are being pursued. Persons wishing to collect signa tures can pick up petitions in the Student Government office on the second floor of the Pavilion. A spokesman for Gary Englegau, exec utive director of admissions and re cords, said Tuesday no decision has been reached on limiting the num ber of guests per graduate at the commencement ceremony. Communist Party reshuffles officials to expand Gorbachev’s power base MOSCOW (AP) — The Communist Party swept out 119 senior officials and promoted 24 people Tuesday in a major reshuffling that ex- nds President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s power se to push for reform. The party’s policy-making Central Committee retired 74 of its 301 full members, including for mer President Andrei A. Gromyko, 24 non-vot ing members, and 12 members of the party’s Central Auditing Commission, which handles fi nances. “The situation has changed considerably, com rades,” Gorbachev said in remarks carried by lass, the official Soviet news agency. “Vast changes have taken place over this period also in state bodies, and this required personnel.” The outgoing members said they were step ping down “now that all comrades on the Com munist Party Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission should work hard to fur ther perestroika.” Party ideology chief Vadim A. Medvedev told a news conference the officials voluntarily of fered to resign and that the Central Committee unanimously approved. The resignations followed the first contested, nationwide elections in 70 years of Communist I he situation has changed considerably, comrades. Vast changes have taken place over this period also in state bodies, and this required personnel.” — Mikhail Gorbachev rule on March 26. Dozens of top party and gov ernment officials, including more than 30 re gional party chairmen, were defeated. Medvedev said Gorbachev discussed those elections on Tuesday at the Central Committee meeting, but the president’s remarks were not immediately released. Tuesday’s resignations left the Central Com mittee with 251 members, party personnel chief Georgy P. Razumovsky told the news conference. Medvedev said 83 members, or more than one-quarter of the policy-making body, have lost the government and party jobs that entitled them to committee membership since they were elected by the 27th party congress in 1986. Offi cially, they lost their jobs because of poor health or age, but some clearly fell out of political favor. Of the 83, many were removed from the Cen tral Committee on Tuesday. Western observers call such officials “dead souls” who can be a conservative force slowing re forms. All but two officials promoted Tuesday to full membership were made non-voting members at the 1986 party congress, Gorbachev’s first as gen eral secretary of the party. The reshuffling be tween party congresses, however, was very rare. Earthquake hits Mexico City, Acapulco MEXICO CITY (AP) — A strong earthquake struck Mexico City and Acapulco on Tuesday, cracking buildings and an aqueduct, shatter ing glass and panicking thousands of people who remembered the killer quake of 1985. One man was electrocuted when power cables fell on him, and two women were seriously injured when they jumped in panic from the sec ond story of a swaying building dur ing the 8:26 a.m. (9:26 a.m. CDT) quake, officials said. Police sent on inspection patrols throughout the city reported no col lapsed buildings or other deaths or serious injuries, but many buildings in the seismically sensitive center swayed widely and were evacuated. “The quake produced a lot of panic because of the recent (1985) experience,” Mayor Manuel Cama cho Solis said. He said fallen cables and short cir cuits caused power blackouts in many parts of the city. He also said the Tlahuac aqueduct, one of several bringing drinking water to this me tropolis of 19 million, cracked in sev eral places and caused flooding. He said all services would be re stored within three days. President Carlos Salinas de Gor- tari made a quick tour of affected areas and, in a television interview, praised residents for maintaining “serenity and coolness.” He said their experience in the 1985 disaster had served them well. Tuesday’s tremor shook the Pa cific beach resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo, but there were no re ports of death or damage through out the state of Guerrero, said state government spokesman Miguel An gel Hernandez. “Even though the quake was in tensively felt, everything is normal and there are reports of no major damage,” Hernandez said by tele- See Earthquake/Page 6 House approves bill to put school logos on car license plates By Kelly S. Brown STAFF WRITER Many students at Texas A&M place Aggie bumper stickers on their cars to identify themselves with the school, and soon they may be able to go a step further and buy A&M license plates. A collegiate license plate bill passed on its second reading in the Texas House Thursday and will, “almost without a doubt,” pass Congress, a spokesman for Rep. Bob Richardson, R-Austin, who wrote the bill, said. The bill, which would create plates for all colleges and univer sities in Texas, is now in a Senate committee. The plates would raise nearly $2 million a year for scholarship financial aid. “I think it will definitely make an impact on scholarship pro grams, as well as making a posi tive impact on students,” said Ty Clevenger, a sophomore genetics major and speaker of the Student Senate. The plates would cost $30 in addition to regular motor vehicle registration fees, and would be available when the Highway De partment can make arrange ments. Clevenger said the bill requires that $25 from the sale of each plate be used by the colleges and universities to provide aid to stu dents demonstrating a financial need. He said money raised from this program would go to universities on a proportionate basis accord ing to the number of license plates sold for each school. “Whichever school’s emblem is on the license plate is the school that will receive the money,” Cle venger said. As a member of the Legislative Study Group, Clevenger has been working with the House of Rep resentatives on the bill. Clevenger authored a Student Senate bill, which passed unani mously, authorizing Texas A&M to support the bill in the Legis lature. He said he got the idea in a political science, class from Dr. Patricia Hurley. “She mentioned that other states had adopted the program as a means of alleviating budget problems,” Clevenger said. Clevenger said the specialized lates would bring in about 150,000 a year for the state. The LSG took the idea to Aus tin and found that Richardson al ready was working on the bill. vay ists sychologists have been slant, Patrick DeLeon, er of the board of the on. tation last December, ’ to “proclaim that one and take all of their criptions for psycho- .eon said the Defense ce for this expansion” :ribe drugs becauseof incidence of mental munity sees it. ry psychologists with treciited medical edu- esidence training., judgment,” said Dr. of the American Psv- f the drug divisional m, said simply, “We biologists to prescribe d lightly,” added Dr. /chiatry at Columbia s the “potential inter drugs and medical s can be dangerous.” Proposed amendement to restrict state attorney general passes House AUSTIN (AP) — A measure that would restrict the attorney general’s ability to run for an other office was adopted by the House Tuesday, when the spon sor of the measure won 35 more votes to send it to the Senate. The proposed constitutional amendment — which two weeks ago mustered only 81 of the 100 votes needed for passage in the 150-member House — passed 116-29. Rep. Stan Schlueter, D-Killeen, said he had not held any bills hos tage in the Calendars Committee in order to switch votes. The com mittee, which he heads, schedules bills for debate in the House. Some House members were “tired of hearing” that the mea sure was a slap at Attorney Gen eral Jim Mattox, who plans to run for governor in 1990, Schlueter said. He said the bill was not prompted by Mattox’s actions and would not apply to him. Other representatives found it State Legislature easier to vote tor the bill because of a provision that was added to allow the attorney general to raise money for a period of one year after being elected in order to offset a campaign debt, Schlueter said. The measure previously would not have allowed the attor ney general to accept political contributions while in office. “It’s an opportunity not for us to make a decision, not for us to condemn anybody,” Schlueter said of his measure, which will be on the 1990 ballot if approved by the Senate. “We’re just saying, ‘Voters of Texas, here’s an opportunity for you to express an opinion on this issue,’ ” he said. The attorney general’s office is a powerful one, Schlueter has said. The attorney general issues legal opinions and defends the state in court, while accepting po litical contributions from a num ber of sources, he said. Rep. Paul Moreno, D-El Paso, spoke against “cluttering up the constitution.” Rep. A1 Price, D-Beaumont, said voters currently have the power to unseat an attorney gen eral if they so desire. With Schlueter’s measure, he said, “We can very easily have a situation where the state will say the requirements for being an at torney general are so strict that many good people will not run for the office.” Recordings reveal Exxon captain rocked tanker to free it from reef VALDEZ, Alaska (AP) — Radio messages recorded the morning the Exxon Valdez hit a reef show the ship’s captain spent up to an hour trying to rock the tanker free, which could have sunk the ship and spilled more oil, the Coast Guard said Tuesday. The captain ignored Coast Guard warnings that try ing to move the ship could have made the nation’s worst oil spill almost five times as bad, the recordings show. The state revised the estimate of the oil spilled from the tanker’s punctured tanks to 11.2 million gallons. Officials said its crews had been busy with the cleanup and were slow revising Exxon’s original estimate of 10.1 million gallons. Environmental damage from the oil still is being as sessed, but three hatcheries in oil-soaked Prince Wil liam Sound have begun releasing millions of tiny salmon because the annual bloom of plankton, an im portant food source for the fish, was at its peak. “You can’t stop Mother Nature,” said Heather Mc Carty, spokesman for the non-profit association that owns the three hatcheries. By mid-May, 800 million salmon fry will be released from five hatcheries throughout the sound. “If we don’t release them now or within the next few days they’ll miss the peak for plankton flowering,” she said. “Then they won’t survive for sure.” Salmon fry tend to swim close to the surface of the water and remain close to shorelines until they migrate to the open sea, McCarty said. Exxon estimates at least 1 million gallons of oil still is floating on me water ot the sound ana the Gulf of Alaska. Oil-skimming operations were hampered by a third straight day of rough seas. Most vessels remained anchored in safe harbors, and snow fell in Valdez. The recorded radio messages showed that Coast Guard Cmdr. Steve McCall in Valdez warned Exxon Valdez Capt. Joseph Hazelwood to take it “slow and easy” in trying to get his ship off the reef that ripped his hull on March 24. “Before you make any drastic attempt to get away, you know, make sure you don’t start doing any rip ping,” McCall said. “You got a rising tide ... I wouldn’t recommend doing much wiggling.” But Hazelwood had begun trying to free the tanker. “A little problem here with the third mate, but we’re working our way off the reef,” Hazelwood said. “We’ve, ah, the vessel has been holed and we’re ascertaining right now, we’re trying to get her off the reef and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.” The third mate was Gregory Cousins, whom Exxon says had been given control of the ship as it maneu vered through Prince William Sound on its way to the Gulf of Alaska and on to Long Beach, Calif. Cousins, who was not certified to control the ship in the sound, has been unavailable for comment. The reef was well outside the shipping lane through the sound. Hazelwood is charged with operating the vessel while intoxicated, reckless endangerment and negligent discharge of pollution into the water, all mis demeanors.