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1
)l. 89 No.24 USPS 045360 10 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, October 4,1989
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Being Board
Michael Ward, 18, a senior from Bryan High
School performs a hand plant in front of Rudder
Photo by Scott D. Weaver
Tower while friend Chris Willis, 16, looks on. Mi
chael and Chris were skating on Tuesday.
Noriega’s troops recapture
headquarters, crush coup
PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) — Troops loyal to
Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega recaptured the head
quarters of the Panamanian Def ense Forces on Tuesday
and declared that they had crushed an attempted coup.
Rebellious troopers seized the headquarters com
pound in the morning but apparently failed to capture
Noriega, and loyal forces counterattacked. After a six-
hour gunbattle, the government claimed victory.
“We want to underline that the situation in the coun
try has been duly controlled to guarantee the peace and
tranquillity that the state should assure for its citizens,”
a statement released by Justice and Interior Minister
Olmedo Miranda said.
The United States has been trying to oust Noriega,
the Defense Forces chief who controls the government,
for nearly two years. However, officials in Washington
said they were not responsible for the attempted coup
and U.S. troops were not involved.
The Justice Department statement declared an 8
p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew and said the news media could
report only official statements on the revolt.
Panama’s provisional president, Francisco Rodri
guez, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in New
York, said an attempted coup against his government
had been crushed.
Rodriguez, in his midafternoon address, did not ac
cuse the United States of complicity in the revolt but
said Washington had undermined his nation with “fi
nancial terrorism, economic blackmail and political in
terference.”
Rebel soldiers had seized the Defense Forces head
quarters in downtown Panama City Tuesday morning.
The rebels’ claimed in a broadcast around noon that
they had overthrown Noriega and retired top officers,
but that communique was not repeated. Loyalist forces
later announced they were “ready to give their lives” in
resistance.
An officer loyal to Noriega later said the general was
at an undisclosed location controlling the operations
against the insurgents.
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tues
day afternoon in Washington that officials had heard
“rumblings” of the uprising. He said later it appeared
that Noriega’s forces “are back in control.”
Fishing boat explosion kills three;
search for survivors continued
PORT ARTHUR (AP) — Three
people were killed and at least four
were injured when a 160-foot Fish
ing boat hit a gas pipeline and ex
ploded Tuesday night in the Gulf of
Mexico.
U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Don
Merwin said 14 people were aboard
the “Northumberland” when the
vessel exploded about a half-mile
offshore, about four miles from Sa
bine Pass. The boat belonged to a
firm from Cameron, La., officials
said.
Merwin said three men were
known dead and four had been
taken to area hospitals.
Two Coast Guard boats and heli
copters and as many private air and
water crafts continued searching for
the other seven occupants late Tues
day.
“Apparently, they hit a natural
gas pipeline and it exploded,” Mer
win said. “It’s still burning and we’re
trying to get (the pipeline) shut off.”
Merwin said he did not know who
owns the pipeline. He said several
people reported the explosion about
6:05 p.m.
A private helicopter pilot,
ffs
who
ferries drilling crew to offshore rigs,
said he and his mechanic saw the ex
plosion and flew to the blazing boat.
“It was just a boom and big ball of
fire went up into the air about 300
feet,” said Allen Willett, a pilot for
Evergreen Helicopters in Sabine
Pass.
“We didn’t know what it was, we
just went out there, and as soon as I
saw what it was, I radioed back in
and they notified the Coast Guard,”
Willett said.
Open hearing concerns
core curriculum changes
-tool: Scientists exposed fusion experiments
)y Melissa Naumann
)f The Battalion Staff
It wasn’t science as usual last
pring when two scientists from the
Jniversity of Utah announced the
esults of their cold fusion experi-
nents.
Their findings rocked the scien-
ific community, but the way they
lisclosed the information was also
lew; Stanley Pons and Martin
leischmann went to the public im-
nediately, bypassing the traditional
outesof releasing information.
Dr. Robert Pool, who covered the
:old fusion story for Science mag-
izine, said that, through Pons and
leischmann, the public is getting a
hance to see science at work.
“Scientists have the attitude that
ou should present science to the
Robert Pool
public as a finished product,” Pool
said. “It (Pons and Fleischmann’s an
nouncement) is the scientific equiva
lent of indecent exposure. They
went out in public without their sci
entific clothes on.”
Pool, speaking as part of the
Texas A&M Science and Technol-
ogy Journalism Lecture Series, said
many people find science mystify-
ing.
“The public somehow sees science
as a blaclk box, an unknown quanti
ty,” he said. “Perhaps by seeing the
false starts, the arguments, the w'ay
science really happens, some people
will see that it’s not just a black box.”
Because the Pons and Fleisch-
mann findings didn’t undergo as
much of the peer-review process as
is normal, journalists had to get anal
yses from other scientists about the
likelihood of the cold fusion results,
said Pool, who was an assistant pro
fessor of math at A&M from 1982 to
1984.
Even with these assessments, how
ever, writing about the findings was
difficult because many scientists
changed their minds, he said. To
combat this problem, Pool devised a
Fusion Confidence Index. On the
index, he showed where A&M scien
tists confirmed similar findings and
then “hedged”, as did Georgia Tech
University researchers.
Pool said covering the fusion story
taught him that journalists have
more power than they understand.
One scientist told Pool that he
learned about cold fusion solely
through Science magazine and the
New York Times. Also, a phrase
coined by Pool to refer to past fail
ures by Utah scientists, the “Utah ef
fect,” appeared later in The Econo
mist.
An open hearing on proposed re
vision of the science category of the
Texas A&M University core curric
ulum will be held by the Core Cur
riculum Oversight Subcommittee
(CCOS) today at 3 p.m. in 302 Rud
der.
The hearing is to receive com
ments from students, faculty and de
partment heads outside of the sci
ences whose majors must satisfy this
core requirement.
president. Only after the approval of
the President do any of this body’s
recommendations become policy.
The CCOS encourages student in
put on the proposed revision.
propc
ire tm
to ensure that every student takes at
least four units from one of the fun
damental physical or biological sci
ence courses taught without science
prerequisites.
The revision also is to permit stu
dents to choose from a wider range
of science courses for the other four
units that are required.
The CCOS is advisory to the Aca
demic Affairs Committee and the
Faculty Senate, which in turn, make
recommendations to the University
Correction
A story in the Friday issue of
The Battalion incorrectly identi
fied a person killed in a head-on
collision Sept. 23 near Prarie
View.
Roland Ira Tompkins, 19, was
killed in the accident. He was the
cousin of A&M student Marion
Dwayne Tompkins, 19, who also
died in the accident.
The Battalion incorrectly iden
tified Tompkins as the brother of
the A&M student. The Battalion
regrets the error.
olice get extra training at A&M Riverside Campus
3y Pam Mooman
)f The Battalion Staff
urs
or 41 years, police officers and security
guards have come to Texas A&M to learn how to do
heir jobs better.
The law enforcement and security training division
>f the Texas Engineering Extension Service was the
irst state academy to be licensed by the Texas Commis-
ion on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Edu-
ation. The division teaches courses on various law en-
orcement topics. Located on the Texas A&M Riverside
ampus, the training division is currently offering a
ligh speed driving class.
Dr. Morgan Robnett, division head, said the curric-
ilum offers a variety of special topics as well as required
ourses.
“We have different specialty courses that last from
ne day up to a couple of weeks,” Robnett said.
They’re on an as-needed basis — whatever we need as
e go along.”
Robnett said that course subjects come from a variety
(sources. The training division conducts surveys and
ssessments, and clients express interest in certain sub-
tts, he said.
If a department contacts us and says ‘We need a
ourse on XYZ,’ then we’ll try to get it together for
lem,” he said.
However, Robnett said the backbone of the training
•rogram is a 400-hour mandated course for police offi-
ers. The course is taught twice a year, and police de-
artments know when it will be taught, he said.
“We cooperate with all law enforcement agencies and
heir needs,” Robnett said. “You must successfully com
pete those 400 hours before you can be a police officer
the state of Texas.”
Robnett himself is a retired Dallas policeman. After
20 years on the Dallas police force, Robnett retired in
1982 and served for two years as assistant chief in the
Dallas Sheriffs Department. Then in January 1985,
Robnett came to work for Texas A&M.
In contrast to a large city police force, TEEX’s law
enforcement and security training division has only 11
permanent employees, including Robnett. But the divi
sion has 10 to 20 guest instructors, Robnett said.
One of the instructors is Dr. Douglas P. Starr, a pro
fessor in the journalism department. Starr, who teaches
a course on media relations for the training division,
has known Robnett for many years. They met when
they were both stationed in Shreveport, Louisiana in
the Coast Guard, Starr said. Robnett still serves in the
Coast Guard Reserves as a Lieutenant Commander in
Investigations.
Starr said that a law enforcement career today re
quires education.
“(In the past,) anybody short of an ex-con could be a
police officer,” Starr said. “(Nowj you’ve got to be an
educated person to be a police officer.”
Starr said Robnett believes in education for officers.
“All the people he employs he requires to go to
school,” Starr said. “He believes the better educated the
officer is, the better he’ll do his job.”
Starr said that Robnett’s desire for his officers to
have higher education helps the officers perform their
jobs.
“Law enforcement officers, by their very nature,
must deal with people,” Starr said. Starr said TEEX’s
training division teaches officers and security guards
how to deal with belligerent people.
Robnett said that the division trains federal, state and
local officers and individual security guards. The Uni
versity Police Department sends some of its officers to
TEEX’s training program. However, Robnett said that
the University Police Department and TEEX’s training
division are not connected.
Robnett believes that students in the training pro-
A police officer practices turns on a training
course at the Texas A&M Riverside Campus.
gram are getting first-class instruction.
“Out of the eight (instructors), including me, we
range from 10 years to 27 years (of experience),” Rob
nett said. “Everybody’s working on graduate school.”
Photo by Kathy Haveman
Police from all over the state have been com
ing to the campus for training for 41 years.
Robnett said that the instructors’ practical experience
and academic pursuits make them better teachers.
“Those are the things I’m mow proud of about
them,” he said.