The Battalion
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Vol. 89 No.27 USPS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, October 9,1989
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Officials say U.S.
prepared action
to seize Noriega
Sign language
Texas Tech fans show their support for their team during the
Tech-Texas A&M game at Jones Stadium in Lubbock Saturday
PBS documentary
examines mission
of visiting A&M prof
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
afternoon. The Red Raiders defeated the Aggies 27-24 with two
fourth-quarter touchdowns. See related story/Page 5
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Bush administration was preparing
covert action to seize Panamanian
leader Gen. Manuel Antonio No
riega during a coup attempt last
week but the uprising collapsed be
fore the plan could be executed, of
ficials said Sunday.
President Bush made the decision
near the end of a failed coup Tues
day, and the order was conveyed to
the commander of U.S. forces in
Panama, Gen. Maxwell Thurman,
said Secretary of State James A.
Baker III and Brent Scowcroft, the
White House national security ad
viser.
“The message that was sent was
that if there were an opportunity to
do this, without risking bloodshed
and significant loss of American life,
and to do so without open military
involvement, then he was free to go
ahead, the commander on the
ground was free to go ahead,” Baker
said on the NBC-TV program,
“Meet the Press.”
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
said that at the outset of the coup he
told Thurman to be prepared to use
peaceful means to take custody of
Noriega, but the chance never came.
“After the Panamanians had con
tacted us and told us . . . that they
had Noriega but that they would not
give him to us, I made it clear that
our commander on the scene was
authorized to get him if he could,
without using military force, and
that he should develop an option or
a plan to use military force to get
him,” Cheney said on the CBS-TV
program “Face the Nation.”
“We never made the decision to
use military force, that would have
involved going in against the rebels
and taking Noriega from them. I
never thought that was a very good
idea, but we told to him to be pre
pared in case he got the order to do
so. Shortly after that, the coup fell
apart,” Cheney said.
The order to ready non-uni-
formed U.S. forces for a covert ac
tion to grab Noriega was first re
ported in Sunday editions of the
Washington Post.
Although that report did not at
tribute the decision to the president,
Scowcroft said, “President Bush per
sonally was responsible what ever
guidance was sent down, yes, per
sonally ordered whatever guidance
was sent to General Thurman.”
Baker, Cheney and Scowcroft said
top presidential advisers believe they
acted correctly during the failed
coup, despite criticism from Con
gress that U.S. forces should have
helped the rebels or intervened to
seize Noriega for trial in the United
States on drug charges.
“There is nothing like 20-20 hind
sight. Given what we know now
about what was actually happening
on the ground, then, I think I would
not change what we did,” Scowcroft
said on the ABC-TV program “This
Week with David Brinkley.”
Nearly a week after the incident, it
was still not 100 percent certain that
the rebels ever nad custody of the
leader, Scowcroft said.
Gallup Poll of college seniors shows
deficiencies in basic history, literature
UNIVERSITY NEWS SERVICE
Dr. Dennis Sheehy, a visiting pro-
Ilessor of range science at Texas
[A&M University, will be featured in
[a PBS television documentary airing
[nationwide Monday.
The special program, entitled
I'The Cowboy in Mongolia,’ docu-
[ments a Vietnam veteran’s return to
I Asia on a mission to save the Chinese
[grasslands. The program will air lo-
[cally at 9 p.m. Monday on KAMU-
ITV Channel 15 (cable channel 4).
While recovering at a Navy hospi-
|tal after losing an arm in a rice-
paddy firefight during the Vietnam
War, Sheehy began thinking about
returning to Asia in a non-combat
activity.
Eighteen years later, the Chinese
government hired the Mandarin
Chinese-speaking scientist trained in
rangeland management to set up a
pilot grass-saving project.
Sheehy and his family moved
from their Oregon ranch and be
came the first foreigners ever to live
in Yihenoer Sumu in the People’s
Republic of China.
His mission, he says, was to help
stop the destruction of Mongolia’s
grasslands due to over grazing —
changing patterns in place since the
time of the Mongol empire ruler
Genghis Kahn.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Columbus Day
poll suggests one-fourth of American college se
niors either never heard or do not remember the
childhood ditty: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the
ocean blue.”.
In addition to finding that one in four do not
know Christopher Columbus made his famous
landing in the Western Hemisphere prior to the
year 1500, the Gallup Poll suggests considerable
ignorance of other basic facts about history and
literature.
Nearly 60 percent did not know the Korean
War started when Harry S. Truman was presi
dent, 58 percent did not know that William
Shakespeare wrote “The Tempest” and nearly a
quarter believed a famous saying from Karl Marx
is part of the U.S. Constitution.
“If the students’ answers were to be graded,
more than half of those tested would have
failed,” concluded the survey, which was con
ducted for the National Endowment for the Hu
manities.
Armed with the survey results, NEH Chair
man Lynne Cheney called Sunday for colleges
and universities to revise their curricula so un
dergraduates study “essential areas of knowl
edge.”
In a booklet titled “50 Hours,” she outlined a
suggested core curriculum for college students.
Responding to her admonition, several college
presidents essentially told the NEH chief — in
more or less polite terms — either to mind her
own business or that she was behind the times.
Here are some of the Gallup Poll highlights:
• 24 percent of the college seniors surveyed
thought Columbus landed in the Western Hemi
sphere some time after 1500.
• 42 percent could not place the Civil War in
the correct half century.
• 58 percent did not know that Shakespeare
was the author of “The Tempest,” but 95 percent
knew that Mark Twain wrote “The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn.”
• 58 percent did not know Truman was presi
dent when the Korean War began. Fourteen per
cent thought it started when John F. Kennedy
was president.
• 55 percent could not identify the “Magna
Carta.”
• 23 percent believed that Marx’s phrase,
“From each according to his ability, to each
according to his need,” is part of the U.S. Consti
tution.
According to the survey, 39 percent of the col
lege seniors failed the 49-question history section.
On the portion of the survey devoted to litera
ture, which consisted of 38 questions, 68 percent
of the students failed.
A&M joins other colleges in statewide effort
to beef up security measures for students
fSTAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Texas A&M University Police are
[part of a statewide effort to prove to
[students that college campuses are
hot crime-free playgrounds.
“Students think they are Alice in
[Wonderland once they enter a uni-
bersity environment,” Bob Wiatt,
[A&M’s director of security and uni-
bersity police, said. “They think
[there is an umbrella over the college
campus that protects tnem trom the
realities of the outside world.”
A&M instituted Aggiewatch, simi
lar to a neighborhood watch pro
gram, this year.
The program allows students to
get to know each other while increas
ing their awareness of crime and
ability to prevent it.
A&M has added 12 security offi
cers to its police force this year,
which also has 42 commissioned po-
BVSO lowers prices
to encourage students
The Brazos Valley Symphony
Orchestra is offering a special
season ticket price to students:
$20 for 5 performances.
“We want to make the season
affordable for Aggies,” Franz
Krager, conductor of BVSO and
lecturer of music at Texas A&M
said. “We would love to have a
balcony full of students."
Although attendance at the
performances has been growing
steadily since he took over the ba
ton six years ago, Krager said he
wants to get more students into
the concert hall.
“1 look at the audience and
don’t see the 18 to 21-year-old
age group,” Krager said. “We
want to get them into the concert
hall for the first time — if they get
exposed, they’re going to grow."
Krager said there is a problem
with education of symphony mu
sic in America not present in Eu
rope.
“In Europe, I saw' a garbage
collector singing opera while he
was picking up trash,” he said.
“They grow up with it. Here we
formalize it to the point that we
scare people.
"We want to break the idea that
the symphony is for the old and
lofty. That’s a myth. Music speaks
to all ages.”
For more information call
Bruce Williams at the symphony
office at 776-2877 or the MSC
Box Office at 845-1234.
lice officers, seven dispatchers and
six civilians.
The security officers can neither
arrest nor detain suspects, but are
charged to be additional eyes and
ears for the police, W’iatt said.
The University of Houston em
ploys similar tactics with a computer-
aided dispatcher — the only such
system used by a Texas university.
The computer dispatcher short
ens the department’s response time
to two minutes for emergency calls
and five minutes for all other calls,
Assistant Police Ghief Frank Cempa
said.
Houston’s campus, which has a
police force of 40 commissioned of
ficers, 22 civilians and about a dozen
student volunteers, this year became
a subscriber to Law Enforcement
Television Network. LETN is a cable
network carrying police-oriented
training and education programs.
“We’re here to educate the com
munity, to remove the opportunity
and desire for crime to occur,”
Cempa said.
At Houston, students are required
to show identification before enter
ing the newer dormitories. The
older residence halls are patrolled by
the Cougar Guard, a student branch
of the campus police.
“It’s been so successful, we really
don’t have transients walking
through the buildings anymore,"
Cempa said.
Police at Rice University in Hous
ton conduct a similar program with
student government leaders.
Rice University Police Chief Mary
M. Voswinkel said her 16-member
department will lend an engraver or
give stickers to students who want to
personalize their possessions. The
police each year conduct daylong
orientation sessions about campus
crime for students and parents.
Unlocked dormitory buildings or
individual rooms are typical of care
lessness, and universities have taken
measures to eliminate the problem.
This fall, A&M instituted a 24-
hour lockup policy for the 11,000
campus residents, Wiatt said.
Residents who have keys or pass
cards can enter the dorm, but all
others must be let in by residents.
“That precludes a stranger walk
ing in at 2:30 in the morning,” Wiatt
said.
At first, the policy was met by an
outcry from students who equated it
w ith being in a prison, he said.
“It doesn’t do that at all. What it
does is keep unauthorized persons
outside of tne residence hall,” Wiatt
said.
In October 1988, a 21-year-old
A&M student was kidnapped at mid
day from a campus parking lot,
raped, stabbed and left tied to a tree,
her throat slashed. She survived.
One week later, a suspect was ar
rested with the help of the Texas
A&M Police Department.
After such incidents, Wiatt said,
“Then you start to get calls from all
over from concerned parents. They
want to know what kind of security
does exist.”
Round and round
Photo by Kathy Haveman
Jason Oakes, a junior MSC Town Hall member from Plano, par
ticipates in the “bat race” at MSC Play Day. The MSC organiza
tions gathered Sunday at Hensel Park to compete and have fun
at the annual event. Activities included volleyball, flag football
and a tug-of-war, all dasignecMataoocifmcffate. * #£?