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HIGH: 90s
LOW: 70s
Vol. 88 No. 183 USPS 045360 6 Pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, August 8,1989
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U.N. official: Releasing
hostages may take years
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — A se
nior U.N. envoy expressed optimism
Monday about chances of freeing
Western hostages in Lebanon, but
predicted “a long process of quiet
and patient diplomacy.”
Algeria’s ambassador, who has
acted as an intermediary, said get
ting the hostages released might take
a year or more.
Israel on Monday rejected a new
demand for release of a kidnapped
Lebanese Shiite cleric and urged
Shiite radicals to use the Red Cross
to arrange a hostage-prisoner swap.
Israeli officials said the government
would only accept a deal if three Is
raeli soldiers were included.
President Bush was described by
White House press secretary Marlin
Litzwater as “cautiously optimistic”
about the American hostages in Leb
anon. However, Litzwater said, “He
knows that it’s probably going to be a
longer period of time rather than
shorter” before the matter is re
solved.
“Certain tendencies, certain
trends in the international climate
. . . suggest that circumstances may
be more conducive to a settlement to
the hostages problem now than they
have been sometime in the past,”
said Marrack Goulding, U.N. under
secretary-general for peacekeeping
operations.
“Many governments and organi
zations will have to take part,” he
said. It will be a cooperative effort.
FBI: Terrorists killed Higgins
WASHINGTON (AP) — LBI
analysts have concluded that the
body hanging from a rope in a vi
deotape released by Lebanese ter
rorists is that of hostage Marine Lt.
Col. William R. Higgins, Pentagon
sources said today.
“It is our understanding that the
study is concluded. . . . Evidently,
they have concluded that the figure
in the tape is Rich (Higgins) and that
he is dead,” said a Pentagon official,
who spoke on condition he not be
identified.
The sources said the study was not
able to pinpoint the cause of death
or when it occurred.
Higgins, head of a 75-member
United Nations peacekeeping team,
was kidnapped in south Lebanon on
Leb. 17, 1988. His captors claimed
last Monday that he had been
hanged in retaliation for Israel’s re
fusal to release a kidnapped Moslem
cleric.
There have been some theories
that Higgins could have been killed
as long as a year ago, after a U.S.
Navy ship shot down an Iranian air
liner.
A videotape of a figure, hanging
by his neck, bound and gagged, was
released last Monday as supposed
evidence of Higgins’ death.
The LBI conducted the study of
the tape and was expected to release
a statement about the review later to
day, the sources said.
But forensic experts who exam
ined the tape said the body shown on
the tape could have been someone
who was dead for a while and not
someone who had been killed on
Monday, as the kidnappers claimed
“It’s a very difficult and very com
plicated problem in which there are
a large number of elements and a
large number of players involved,”
Goulding said in Beirut after five
days of meetings in Lebanon and
Syria.
Goulding met Monday in west
Beirut with Salim Hoss, premier of a
Moslem Cabinet that vies for power
with a Christian government, and
Sheik Mohammed Hussein Ladlal-
lah, spiritual adviser of the funda
mentalist Shiite Moslem group Hez
bollah, or Party of God.
See Hostages/Page 4
Leland’s whereabouts unknown
after plane misses planned stop
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Junior Ingraham Thompson puts his money
where his mouth is while teaching freshman
Kathrine Dresser how to play Hacky-sack
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
Monday on the Polo fields. The Hacky-sack
hit Thompson in the mouth.
A&M Honors Program grads receive
top graduate schools bids, fellowships
By Cindy McMillian
STAFF WRITER
Graduates of Texas A&M’s Uni
versity Honors Program are receiv
ing top bids from graduate schools
around the nation, according to data
gathered on May’s graduating class.
Of the 50 graduates who were
named either University Honors
graduates, University Undergrad
uate Fellows or both, more than 80
(iom oses t percent are immediately pursuing
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arge fellowships. The list of grad
uate schools includes Harvard Uni
versity, Dartmouth College, Cam
bridge University, Stanford
University, Johns Hopkins Univer-
Ifsity, Cornell University and the Uni-
■ versity of California at Berkeley.
These students were at the tops of
50 '‘!f| their classes at A&M in both academ-
, giics and campus leadership positions,
1 g|Honors Program director Dale Kno-
ins, ’plbel said. The class includes a recipi-
jate **Mentof a Junior Lulbright Fellowship
;en JjIBfor international study, four recipi-
ents of National Science Foundation
Fellowships for graduate study and
the University’s 1989 Rhodes Schol
arship nominee.
Thirty-five members of the class
shared 75 different undergraduate
scholarships worth more than
$325,000, including President’s En
dowed Scholarships and National
Merit Scholarships.
Director Dale Knobel said the rec
ognition students earn as graduates
of the Honors Program provides
them with remarkable credentials
for graduate study or post-graduate
employment.
Nine members of the class began
their careers immediately after grad
uation with leading employers such
as Rockwell International, Trammel
Crow, Arthur Andersen, and Shear-
son, Lehman, Hutton.
Several others will attend medical
and dental school at Washington
University, Baylor University, Texas
A&M University, McGill University
and the University of Texas.
University Honors graduates have
completed 36 or more hours of chal
lenging Honors coursework, and
University Undergraduate Fellows
complete a full year of Honors re
search culminating in a Senior Hon
ors Thesis.
The graduates represent 19 major
fields of study in the Colleges of Lib
eral Arts, Science, Engineering, Ag
riculture and Life Sciences, Veteri
nary Medicine, Architecture and
Environmental Design, and Business
Administration.
More than 90 percent of the stu
dents were placed on the Deans’
Honor Roll (GPR of 3.75 or above)
or named Distinguished Students
(GPR of 3.25-3.74) during their last
semester of studies.
HOUSTON (AP) — U.S. Rep.
Mickey Leland was among six Amer
icans reported overdue Monday on a
plane trip that was taking the dele
gation on tours of refuguee camps in
the southern Sudan in Africa, his of
fice said.
Leland, 44, a Democrat from
Houston, is chairman of a select
House subcommittee on hunger. He
is in his sixth two-year term.
“We do have information from
the State Department that he is over
due,” Alma Newsom, a spokesman
in Leland’s Washington office said.
“But I need to put that in perspec
tive. I think it’s too early to raise any
alarms until morning.”
Leland left for Africa on Satur
day. Newsom said it was unlikely she
would learn anything further until 3
a.m. EDT, due to the seven-hour
time difference.
“There’s no way we could talk
with him,” she said. “He does not
check in and there’s no reason for
him to check in with us.”
Newsom, who said she was not
overly concerned, said communica
tions were poor and individuals on
the trip could not readily pick up a
telephone or cable to say they were
changing plans.
“For all practical purposes, they’re
cut off,” she said. “They’re going to
be overdue all night. They’re going
to be overnight in the camp.”
She said Leland and five others,
including members of his staff and
officials from relief organizations,
were late in departing Monday from
Rep. Mickey Leland
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia because of
bad weather.
“My guess is once enroute, the
camp that was the original destina
tion! was too far and they opted to
go to a different camp,” Newsom
said. “Even at that, once they got on
the ground and began their tour,
they simply ran out of time to end
their tour and get back.”
She said pilots were very strict
about adhering to a 5 p.m. curfew to
return to Addis Ababa.
“If they feel they can’t get back by
that time, then you stay where you
are overnight,” she said. “They sim
ply will not fly. And at that point,
they’re overdue.”
She described Leland’s presence
in Africa as a humanitarian mission.
“There has been a very big effort
to bring relief into southern Sudan,
and he’s been a part of that,” she
said. “The mission he’s on involves
visits to refugee camps.”
The normal routine calls for Le
land and the delegation to leave Ad
dis Ababa each morning, tour the
camps and then return.
“For the most part, it’s not easy to
do the day trips but that’s the way
they’ve been doing them,” she said.
Newsom said she went on a simi
lar trip in April and encountered
similar difficulties.
“We’re not concerned,” Timmie
Jensen, a spokesman for the hunger
committee said. “I think it’s prema
ture to be concerned because it’s
night time. They do not fly at night.”
“This kind of thing comes up
when you fly in the bush.
She said Leland was aboard a
plane known as a Twin-Otter, oper
ated by the Relief and Rehabilitation
Commission of Ethiopia.
“They have experienced pilots
and do a lot of relief flying,” she
said.
“Congressman Leland certainly
knows the area. He’s visited some of
these areas and is familiar with the
whole situation.”
At Leland’s Houston office, staff
ers were taking the incident in
stride, she said.
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NAACP requests Clements
name black to police panel
AUSTIN (AP) — A civil rights
leader Monday called on Gov. Bill
Clements to appoint a black to the
state police licensing commission to
ease tensions between black commu
nities and local police.
“I think when you have air so
thick that you can cut it with a knife,
like you do in some cities in Texas
right now, that stems directly back to
the police department,” said Gary
Bledsoe, president of the Austin
chapter of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People.
“What happened in Miami could
happen in Dallas,” he said, referring
to riots in Miami earlier this year
that followed the shooting of a black
by police.
Bledsoe and Michael Tippitt,
president of the Texas Peace Offi
cers Association, urged Clements to
appoint a black to the Texas Com
mission on Law Enforcement Offi
cer Standards and Education.
A black has never served on the
24-year-old commission, Bledsoe
said. The panel licenses peace offi
cers, reserve officers and jailers and
sets minimum standards for educa
tion and training.
A black commission member
would make others sensitive to the
problems in minority communities
and help reduce violence between
See Commission/Page 4
‘Troublefree’ Columbia will launch spy satellite
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
(AP) —Columbia, earthbound for
SVa years and cannibalized for
parts to keep other space shuttles
flying, was pronounced troublef-
ree Monday and ready for a
Tuesday morning launch to put a
high-powered spy satellite in or
bit.
“Everything is on schedule,
there are no constraints to
launch,” said Lisa Malone, a
NASA spokesman at the Ken
nedy Space Center.
Everything about the mission,
except the names of the all-male,
all-military crew, was secret — in
cluding time of liftoff, length of
mission and the cargo in the shut
tle’s 60-foot-long hold.
NASA said only that the liftoff
would be between 7:30 a.m. and
11:30 a.m. EDT. The most likely
time was a few minutes before 8.
Military missions in the past have
lasted only four days, but this one
is expected to remain aloft a day
longer to test the shuttle’s control
systems, unused for 3'A years.
NASA conducted its count
down in secret. The clocks scat
tered around the Kennedy Space
Center were to be lit up just nine
minutes before launch. NASA
Space shuttle Columbia’s mission at a glance
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) —Here, at a
glance, are the facts and figures about the 30th space
shuttle mission:
Spaceship: Columbia, on its eighth flight and first
in 3!/2 years.
Launch: Between 7:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. EDT
Tuesday. Exact time not released because Columbia
carries a classified Defense Department payload,
which sources say is a photographic reconnaissance
satellite.
Landing: At Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., time
and date not released. Flight is expected to last five
days.
Crew: Air Force Col. Brewster Shaw, Jr., 44, com
mander; Navy Cmdr. Richard N. Richards, 42, pilot;
Navy Cmdr. David C. Leestma, 40; Army Lt. Col.
James C. Adamson, 43, and Air Force Maj. Mark N.
Brown, 37.
Next flight: Atlantis, on Oct. 12, with a five-per
son crew to deploy the Galileo probe, which is to or
bit the planet Jupiter.
will provide only minimal an
nouncements during the flight,
including the time of landing at
Edwards Air Force Base in Cali
fornia.
Sources said the astronauts will
launch a 20,600-pound satellite,
capable of gathering photo
graphic and electronic images of
the Soviet Union, China, the Mid
dle East and other areas of mili
tary interest.
The satellite, traveling over
much of the inhabited world, is
able to take highly detailed pho
tographs of troop movements.
military installations and the like,
according to the sources.
The sources also said the shut
tle’s cargo bay holds a package of
scientific experiments for military
research, built by NASA at its
Goddard Space Flight Center in
Maryland and the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in California.
Columbia is the grand old man
of space shuttles. It was the first
of the flying orbiters and com
pleted five missions in 1981 and
1982 before the second ship,
Challenger, joined the fleet. Co
lumbia flew once in 1983 and
once in 1986, completing its 7th
and last mission 10 days before
the Challenger explosion.
But Columbia became out
dated as the newer ships came
along. And when the fleet got its
complete overhaul during the
2'/2-year post-Challenger hiatus,
Discovery and Atlantis got pre
ferred treatment. Columbia was
used as a parts source until mod
ernizing began last November.
“We will have a certain sense of
deja vu when Columbia lifts off,”
said Dick Young, a NASA spokes
man. “Columbia is the first of a
kind and we’re glad to see it back
in flight.”