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.