hot, sticky day with
a chance of
thunderstorms in the
late afternoon
Page 9
Aggie football
Twenty-first ranked Aggies
continue closed door policy
during practices
Page 7
Music Reviews:
Toad the IT^t Sprocket
/Cfnfi T!feede
Page 15
There are a lot of things you
can do to make A&M a little
nicer place to live, even if
you're not the type of person
who would go to a Board of
Regents meeting..."
-Ellen Hobbs
The Battalion
Vol. 91 No. 2 DSPS 045360 College Station, Texas
"Serving Texas A&M since 1893"
16 Pages Tuesday, September 3, 1991
ttalion
Soviet Union struggles to piece together union
A&M defense institute official says
KGB, army stopped three-day coup
By Greg Mt.Joy
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The Soviet army and the KGB saved
democracy during the attempted ouster of
Mikhail Gorbachev, not the Soviet people, a
Texas A&M international affairs expert said.
Dr. Ronald Hatchett, deputy director of
A&M's Mosher Institute for Defense stud
ies, said he was disappointed with the num
ber of Soviet citizens who turned out to
demonstrate during the three-day coup.
"Frankly, I'm disappointed at the lack of
outpouring of citizen anger," Hatchett said.
"On the first night of the coup, 3,000 people
turned out. That is not a good sign in a city
of seven million."
Hatchett said the Institute will release a
paper on the Soviet hardliner's coup this
weekend. He said the paper contains a
warning against an overly optimistic view
of the coup's failure.
"There are many problems in the Soviet
Union that have not oeen solved," he said.
"A split in power led to many KGB and
armv units disobeying their orders. For ex
ample, a KGB unit was ordered to storm the
Headquarters of the Russian Republic in
Moscow, but the unit refused to do so."
Hatchett said the same high-ranking So
viet officials that supported Boris Yeltsin
during the coup might not support him if he
chooses to stand by while the Soviet Union
dissolves.
"The Baltic republics of Lithuania,
Latvia and Estonia are gone," Hatchett said.
"But the United States and the rest of the
world must be cautious. The same KGB and
army units could stop the breakup of the
union."
Hatchett, who met with Russian repub
lic officials during his stay in Moscow in late
July and early August, said if other Re
publics follow the Baltic states' lead and
move toward full independence, the need
for Gorbachev's central government could
be eliminated.
"Andre Sedorov, the deputy foreign
minister of the republic, said he is busy
drawing up bilateral treaties with the other
republics," Hatchett said. "This means they
are already acting like the republics are
See Coup/Page 6
Bush recognizes Baltic states' independence,
supports democratic reform for U.S.S.R.
The Baltic republics regained their independence this
week after more than 45 years of domination. The republics
were seized by the Soviet Union after World War II.
KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine
(AP) — President Bush, after
choreographing his move with
Mikhail Gorbachev, on Monday
formally recognized the indepen
dence of the Baltic states of Lithua
nia, Latvia and Estonia, which
were seized by the Soviet Union a
half century ago.
Bush said his decision did not
signify the United States would
necessarily recognize other re
publics that break away from the
Soviet Union. He said he would
look at each declaration of inde
pendence on a case-by-case basis.
And he expressed hope that a
central government would survive
as "a strong partner, a convincing
partner to deal with" on matters
such as foreign policy and arms
control.
Although Gorbachev has lost
much of his power. Bush said he
would continue to deal with the
Soviet president "with respect and
with a a certain degree of recogni
tion that we look at some of these
problems, foreign policy prob
lems, eye to eye."
Bush announced recognition of
the Baltic states at a Labor Day
news conference on the final dAy
of his 29-day vacation at his ocean-
front estate. "We've had a good
rest up here," said Bush, looking
tanned and relaxed while jokingly
complaining about not catching
any fish.
The president hailed news
from Moscow that Gorbachev and
the leaders of 10 Soviet republics
had decided to replace the current
ruling structure with a new gov
ernment giving far more power to
the republics.
"This is a watershed in Soviet
political thinking, equal to the dra
matic movements toward democ
racy and market economies that
we are witnessing in the republics
themselves," Bush said.
An administration official said
Bush decided to recognize the
Baltics' freedom last Tuesday after
meeting with foreign policy advis-
See Baltics/Page 6
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HUY NGUYEN/The Battalion
Doing time for money
Reveille V, along with Will Henderson (left) and ATO member Field Hughes, Quadrangle. The detainees must call and raise "bail” before they can be
participates in the Labor Day MDA telethon Lock-Up on the Corps of Cadets released. Brian Collister is a local television reporter.
Budget bill
causes
shortfalls
A&M administrator says funding deficit
creates cutbacks for 'well-deserving people'
By Karen Praslicka
The Battalion
Texas A&M administrators are
not satisfied with the new budget
bill that was signed into law Fri
day by Gov. Ann Richards, but
said the deficits created for A&M
by the law could have been worse.
Dr. E. Dean Gage, A&M
provost and senior vice president,
said there is no question that
A&M's budget for fiscal year
1991-92 has been drastically re
duced.
"They (specific sections of the
law) made it clear we would not
have near the budget we hoped
we would have," Gage said.
The deficit will be spread
throughout programs and colleges
at A&M, and "everybody will be
sharing the shortfall," he said.
Several A&M administrators
met Monday with the deans of all
the colleges at A&M to discuss the
budget reductions.
Gage said A&M would try to
allow the deans to have maximum
flexibility to deal with the cuts for
their colleges.
"Actually, now we're just try
ing to keep the program together,"
he said.
Gage said one of the major
concerns of administrators, in ad
dition to meeting student needs, is
that there are no funds available to
increase salaries for A&M faculty
and staff. State comptroller John
Sharp certified no funds for salary
increases, he said.
"We deeply regret that," Gage
said. "We're unable to provide
any increases for some well-de
serving and hard-working peo
ple."
The next step in the budget
process will be to get the Texas
See Budget/Page 6
U.S. Agriculture Department reacts poorly to today's crises
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Agriculture De
partment still reflects a time when the United States
was largely rural and is responding poorly to such
modern challenges as international competition,
environmental problems and food safety, a con
gressional report said Monday.
The structure and management practices of the
department, the country's third-largest civilian
agency and one that affects the lives of all Ameri
cans and millions of people around the world, have
been largely unchanged since the 1930s, said the
General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative
arm.
Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan said
some of the criticisms were justified, but he said the
department is trying to correct problems and main
tained the agency was doing a good job helping
America's farmers.
Created 129 years ago to conduct research and
disseminate information, the USDA has expanded
to include supporting farm income, boosting farm
Congressional report cites old structure, management practices
as reasons why USDA has difficulty adapting to changing needs
production and exports and improving nutrition.
The department oversees a business that ac
counts for 17 percent of the gross national product
and 20 million jobs. In 1990, it spent $46 billion,
controlled assets of about $140 billion, and em
ployed more than 110,000 people in 36 agencies in
more than 15,000 locations worldwide.
In response to changes in the industry and the
global marketplace, the department has added
agencies and functions, "making it larger but not
fundamentally different from its production-orient
ed, commodity-based past," the GAO said.
The result, it said, is an organization that has
difficulty adapting to the changing needs of the
people it serves "in the most effective and balanced
way."
Madigan, however, said the department "is do
ing a good job of helping to assure a reasonably
priced food supply for consumers" and "there are
food safety concerns under review."
He said the department is assisting farmers to
protect the environment and would be working
with GAO this winter to improve its efforts.
GAO said consolidation would allow the USDA
to provide the same services more efficiently to
agribusiness customers.
Also needed are better ways for the depart
ment to address such "crosscutting issues" as wa
ter quality, food safety and marketing.
"Revitalizing USDA will not be an easy task,"
said the report, the final installment in a series on
the department's bureaucracy. "The individual
agencies protect their interests, which are often
closely tied to special interest groups and as such
garner considerable congressional support."
According to the investigators, USDA's current
structure — with its many local offices — does not
efficiently meet the needs of a modern agribusiness
industry.
"This structure was established during the
Great Depression to serve a largely rural America,
in which one in four Americans lived on a farm.
Today, only one in 50 Americans lives on a farm,
and many farmers manage large, sophisticated op
erations," the GAO said.
And with computers and advances in commu
nications, farmers no longer need as much contact
with multiple farm agencies.
Yet some county offices, the GAO said, spend
more on overhead expenses than they give out in
benefits. The GAO estimated $90 million could be
saved by consolidating field offices.
It said revitalizing the department requires
strategic planning throughout, especially in areas
such as marketing, food safety, water quality and
biotechnology.