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nent *'/ol. 89 No.6 USPS 045360 12 Pages
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ungary gives East Germans freedom
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HEGYESHALOM, Hungary (AP) —
Thousands of East Germans, crying, laugh
ing and shouting with happiness, poured
into Austria from Hungary early Monday
sn route to freedom in YVest Germany.
They began driving across the border at
midnight as Hungary removed the frontier
barriers to allow more than 7,000 East Ger
man refugees to escape to the West.
It is the largest mass emigration of East
Germans to West Germany since the Berlin
Wall was built in 1961 to stem the flow
across the border.
Hungary, in a decision announced Sun
day, was the first East bloc government to
help the citizens of another Gommunist
country freely leave their homeland.
East Germany promptly attacked the
Hungarian decision, saying Budapest had
“directly interfered” in East Germany’s in
ternal affairs.
“The Hungarian government has chosen
to illegally allow East German citizens to
travel to West Germany in violation of in
ternational treaty,” the state news agency
ADN said.
It said that Hungary, “under the guise of
humanitarianism, has engaged in the orga
nized smuggling of human beings.”
West Germany said Hungary made a
“humanitarian” decision.
At this frontier town 120 miles northwest
of the Hungarian capital, border guards
gave only cursory checlcs to East Germans.
As the first groups crossed, hundreds of
others waited in their cars, forming grow
ing lines at the main border crossings.
Eight of 18 lanes at the Hegyeshalom
crossing were open as the jubilant East Ger
mans drove through.
They honked their horns, cheered and
whistled, releasing emotions pent up by
days and weeks of waiting for a decision by
Hungarian authorities. Some refugees
waved bottles of foaming champagne from
the car windows.
“It’s wonderful, it’s terrific,” they
“X
I he Hungarian government
has chosen to illegally allow
East German citizens to travel
to West Germany in violation of
international treaty.”
— ADN,
East German news agency.
shouted to reporters and border guards.
One man, overcome with emotion, tried to
smile as tears rolled down his cheeks and he
couldn’t speak.
Dozens of people who had taken taxis
from Budapest waited to cross into Austria
on foot.
A group of youths among them held up a
sign saying, “Give it up Erich!” referring to
East German Communist leader Erich
Honecker.
Once on the Austrian sideVif the massive
border barrier, many East Germans
jumped from their cars and danced with
j°y-
A statement Sunday by the official Hun
garian news agency MTI said: “Hungary
has decided to make it possible for the East
C»erman citizens staying in Hungary and re
fusing to return home to leave to any coun
try which is prepared to let them through
or receive them.”
“Interior Minister Istvan Horvath in
structed the police and border guards to let
East German citizens leave Hungary with
their East German travel documents” at any
border point.
The Hungarian foreign minister, Gyula
Horn, suggested on Hungarian TV that
tens of thousands of other East Germans
now vacationing in Hungary also may
choose to leave for the West along with
those in the refugee camps.
To make the exodus possible, he said,
Hungary decided to suspend a 1969
agreement with East Germany, a Warsaw
Pact ally, saying Hungary should not take
into account West Germany’s claim to East
Germans.
The fate of the refugees had been dis
cussed for weeks by East and West Ger
many, with Hungary insisting it was a
bystander interested in a solution.
The communique said, “The talks be
tween East Germany and West Germany
ended in failure.” It did not elaborate.
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A&M hosts presentation
by astronaut Jerry Ross
By Todd Swearingen
A NASA astronaut said he has abso
lutely no doubt that today’s students
will see human beings walk on the
surface of Mars within their life
times.
Saturday, Sept. 9, the Texas A&M
student chapter of the American In
stitute of Aeronautics and Astro
nautics hosted a presentation by as
tronaut Jerry Ross on his
experiences in space. Ross showed a
film of the December 1985 Atlantis
shuttle flight 61-B, on which he per
formed experiments involving con
struction in space.
The space shuttle is approxi
mately 180 feet tall, weighs nearly
4.5 million pounds and produces
nearly seven million pounds of
thrust at takeoff. Ross, described the
trip into space as very shaky, rough,
and loud.
“We make sure that all three en
gines are at 100 percent power and
Jfunctioning properly before we do
■ the next thing — which is light the
Isolid rocket motors,” Ross said.
I “After you’ve lit the solid rocket mo-
Itors there’s no turning around —
[you’re along for a real ride.
“This beats any E-ticket ride Dis-
Ineyland has ever created,” Ross said.
Tin 45 seconds you’re already going
faster than the speed of sound.”
During the mission, construction
experiments were repeatedly per
formed to gather information on
problems such as fatigue, and to dis
cover how quickly an astronaut could
adapt to working in space. The as
tronauts found that it was very tiring
and difficult to assemble a structure
while free-floating.
One experiment showed that an
astronaut using foot restraints could
assemble a 45-foot-long truss struc
ture in approximately 30 minutes.
Ross explained that engineering
for applications in space involves
many trade-offs in design.
“Every time you make a trade for
weight or volume or anything —
strength — youYe always making the
ultimate in trades because it costs so
much to get up there.” Ross said. “E-
verything has to operate 100 percent
of the time, or else you’re going to
have f ailures of some sort. ’
Ross stated that many of the prob
lems with working in space are
caused by the cumbersome space
suits. He explained that the suits are
pressurized to four pounds per
square inch, making tne suit very
stiff and difficult to manipulate.
“I liken working in a space suit to
putting on the heaviest winter coat
vou can think of, some welder’s
gloves, and a fish bowl; and then
going out into a dimly lit garage and
trying to change your spark plugs,”
Ross said.
or
Political leaders cheer
plant’s arrival despite
problems of pollution
!35.(
AUSTIN (AP) — A Taiwanese
firm that has fouled parts of its is
land homeland, Texas and Loui
siana with releases of cancer-causing
chemicals is getting $225 million in
tax breaks and direct subsidies to
build a chemical plant in Texas.
Texas political leaders cheered
when Formosa Plastics Corp. Chair
man Y.C. Wang picked Point Com
fort, 100 miles southwest of Hous
ton, last fall to locate a $1.3 billion
plant. The state beat out Louisiana.
To lure the company, Democratic
and Republican legislative leaders
agreed to phase out some sales taxes,
dedicate state money and support
tax abatements.
Political leaders cited the eco
nomic benefits, but they didn’t dis
cuss Formosa’s pollution problems.
In Taiwan, Wang had to face an
angry crowd of farmers as they pro
tested his expansion plans there be-
N
n«
t
Degree requests
due by Friday
Seniors and graduate students
expecting to graduate this semes
ter must make a formal applica
tion for their degrees by Friday.
Undergraduate degree appli
cants should take thetr paid fee
«p or diploma fee receipt to
morn 105 Heaton Hall and com
plete a degree application.
Graduate degree applicants
should take their paid fee slip or
diploma fee receipt to the Office
of Graduate Studies in room 125
Teague and complete a degree
application.
cause of environmental problems.
And in Louisiana, Formosa’s plant
is one of 205 nationwide where the
EPA calculated the cancer risk as
greatest: 1 in 100. Formosa’s other
choice was a southern Louisiana par
ish where air already was too pol
luted — partly from Formosa’s cur
rent discharge — for the plant to
expand.
An EPA consultant’s report found
reason to believe that in Texas, For
mosa has put cancer-causing and
toxic materials into Cox Creek,
which runs directly into Lavaca Bay
and feeds the Matagorda Bay sys
tem, which produces 8 million
pounds of commercial seafood and
$120 million in recreational fishing
each year.
Texas negotiators say the only en
vironmental issue raised was how
fast state and federal authorities
could expedite Formosa’s discharge
permits,,the Houston Chronicle re
ported Sunday.
“That’s usually the case,” Willie
Fontenot, an environmental coordi
nator with the Louisiana Attorney
General’s Office said. “You don’t
think about all those things when
something like this is up. You just
see the dollar sign. You can’t put
groundwater in the bank, but you
can put $1.7 billion in a bank and it
goes a long way.”
Doug Lynch, coordinator of the
Texas Formosa campaign as the di
rector of Calhoun County Economic
Development Corp., said county
people were lured by growth.
“There’s always concern with the
environment,” Lynch said. “Some
times it may be subordinated to
other concerns.” The county, with
16 percent unemployment at the
time, badly needed Formosa, he
added.
“The bottom line of the experi
ment was — the space station origi
nally was designea to be an accord
ion type of structure that when you
got into orbit, you pull this pin and
stand back and the springs would
throw the thing out,” Ross ex
plained. “That was going to be very
complicated, it was going to be very
expensive, it was going to weigh a lot
more than what we now intend to do
— which is to do a hand assembly of
the structure piece by piece.”
The assembly of the space station
Ross described is expected to begin
in early 1995; however, it must re
peatedly survive congressional bud
get cuts. Ross said that the public has
the misconception that NASA re
ceives a large portion of the national
budget; actually, NASA funds
amount to only four tenths of one
percent, he said.
Another experiment concerned
separating the various constituents
of human blood to isolate the partic
ular enzyme that regulates red blood
cell production. Ross stated that this
could lead to a new ‘wonder drug’
useful in treating anemia and de
creasing the need for blood transfu
sions during major surgery. Other
highlights of the mission were the
deployment of three communication
satellites and the second night
launch of a space shuttle.
Ross was a member of the Decem
ber 1988 classified shuttle mission
and said he will be returning to
space in the near future. His upcom
ing mission will explore a means of
transporting astronauts and equip
ment along the space station truss
structure, proposed to be about 500
feet long. The experiment will test a
‘monorail’ system devised by Ross.
The mission also is scheduled to de
ploy a gamma-ray space observatory.
Ross concluded his presentation
by explaining that environmental
pollution and damage is vividly evi
dent from space. Smog, rain forest
depletion, and soil ersion are only a
few examples cited by Ross. Ross
said that although companies are in
the business of making money, re
sources are limited and we must be
able to live in the resulting environ
ment.
Outscored in Seattle
The Aggies emerge from the locker room for
the second half of Saturday’s game as some
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
Washington Husky fans greet them with
thumbs down. See game story/Page 10
Czar Bennett fights against drugs, pessimism
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Congress de
cided that there should be a drug czar, the Dem
ocrats may not have bargained on getting Czar
Bennett. After the war on drugs, William J. Ben
nett could be a formidable figure in the political
wars of the 1990s.
Bennett, now 46. will come awa\ from his cur
rent assignment as one of the most visible figures
in the Republican lineup. His ample ambitions
are directed at government service, as be demon
strated bv volunteering for the drug job after a
brief, lucrative season away from the federal pay
roll.
This might have been a million-dollar vear for
Bennett as a writer and speechmaker. He was
heading in that direction at $14,000 a speech,
plus book advances. As director of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy, he makes $99,500.
And. as he once observed, the hours are bad.
the subject depressing.
Add the fact that there’s anything but a guar
antee of success. Critics are saving President
Bush's drug strategy is old stuf f, underfinanced
and unlikely to succeed. Bennett denies the first
two complaints and dismisses the third as politi
cal pessimism.
The voters want something done about drugs.
Thev probablv will punish failure, il the\ can (in
ure out whom to blame. So far that hasn't hap
pened. but now there is a yardstick: the goals
Bennett set for the Bush drug strategy. It calls
for a 10 percent reduction in drug use b\ Labor
Dav, 1991. The administration also seeks to cut
crack use by addicts in half.
Those clear and specific goals come due one
year before the next presidential election cam
paign. The Bennett blueprint does provide a line
of political insurance, saying that the goals are
realistically achievable only with full federal, state
and local implementation of the Bush plan.
Should thev come up short, the Republicans can
argue that thev didn't get that kind of top-to-bot-
tom action.
The drug job is at best a riskv political assign
ment.
But Bennett has dealt with risks before. He
made his national reputation as Ronald Reagan’s
secretary of education, running an agency the
president once said he would eliminate. Near the
end of his tour there. Bennett told a congressio
nal critic that “largely because of me’" it was likely
the education slot would stay in the Cabinet.
“I made a hell of a commitment." he said at a
Senate hearing, storming back at a liberal Repub
lican yvho complained about budget cuts. “You
just didn’t like the direction. I yvas damn success
ful."
So far. the debate over the Bush drug pro
gram has been restrained and polite. But there
yy ill he some shouting 1x4ore it’s ovei.
Bennett is not given to low-profile operations.
He made a point and angered a Democrat last
spring by refusing to show up for a Senate heat
ing called by Sen. John (»lenn. Bennett’s explana
tion: yvith 74 congressional committees claiming
some piece of the drug program, be couldn't
spend his time at their hearings or he'd never get
the plan finished.
Now that it's done, he yvill be the chief
salesman, in speeches, television appearances,
and at hearing after hearing before Congress.
Bennett has more than a dozen dates for con
gressional testimony this month, before panels
run by Democrats yvho complain that there’s not
enough money in the Bush program. He has a
script ready for them: “I'm just not going to be all
that receptive to criticism of $8 billion from peo
ple yvhose current mark is $6 billion. Thev’re just
not going to get away yvith that.”
By Bennett’s reckoning, nobody should be sur
prised at the political side of the drug program
debate. “You can’t get politics out of politics,” he
said. In mock surprise, he said that since Bush s
drug speech, “political acts have been committed
in this city.”
Bennett committed some himself.
“For a couple of months, I have been criticized
bv some for emphasizing layv enforcement and
judges and prosecutors,” he said in one of tfiree
almost simultaneous and almost identical tele
vision intervieyvs the morning after the drug
speech. “This goes on for quite some time. And
then I go to bed last night, realizing that Joe Bi-
den, speaking for the Democrats, has moved to
mv right, saving that yve need more prosecutors,
more layv enforcement."