Page 7
Once again, another major city
could no longer support two
major newspapers in its market,
and the reason is as simple as the
bottom line-money.
-Columnist Todd Stone on the last
printing of the Dallas Times Herald.
The Battalion
Vol. 91 No. 72
College Station, Texas
‘Serving Texas A&M since 1893'
8 Pages Thursday, December 12, 1991
Jury acquits William Kennedy Smith of sexual assault charges
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -
William Kennedy Smith was acquitted
Wednesday of sexual assault and battery
in a case that focused national attention
on date rape and tarnished the Kennedy
legend.
The jury of four women and two men
took about 90 minutes to reject the allega
tions of a 30-year-old woman who said
Smith chased her, toppled her on the
lawn of the Kennedy estate and raped her
under a full moon.
Smith wished a Merry Christmas to
cheering supporters outside the court
house.
"I want to thank the jurors," he said.
"My life was in their hands and I'm so
grateful."
He also thanked the judge and said, "I
have an enormous debt to the system and
to God and I have a terrific faith in both of
them."
"This has hurt all rape victims, and
you're going to have a lot of victims that
won't come forward because of what has
been done to this woman," Robin Miller,
who heads a group called Families En
raged Against Rape, said outside the
courthouse.
In Rhode Island, Patrick Kennedy
said: "This has been a very difficult time
for my family. I believed in my cousin
Willie's innocence all along. The jury's
swift verdict will now allow Willie and all
of us to get on with our lives."
Smith graduated from Georgetown
University Medical School this year. He
was to enter a residency program at the
University of New Mexico Medical Cen
ter in Albuquerque. Officials of the school
said they will talk to Smith before decid
ing anything about his status.
Smith, 31, had taken the stand on his
own defense, adamantly denying her
charges and painting her as a sexually ag
gressive woman who initiated sex after
they met at a trendy night club during
Easter weekend.
Smith grinned as the verdict was read
and embraced his lawyer, Roy Black, who
had argued passionately in his defense
earlier in the day.
There was no other reaction in the
courtroom because the judge warned the
spectators they would face punishment if
they made any noises to show approval
or disapproval.
After the verdict. Circuit Judge Mary
Lupo thanked the jurors, saying "You
have done justice regardless of your ver
dict."
"This has not been a movie made for
TV," she told them. "The TV has come
into the courtroom. The only difference
between this case and any other is that
more people want to see this case.".
She told jurors it was up to them
whether they wanted to talk publicly
about their decision, but "I need to tell
you that you are the story now."
As he left the courtroom. Black was
asked how he felt. "Terrific, just terrific."
"I feel great, just great!" said Smith's
mother, Jean Kennedy Smith.
Before the jury began deliberating,
prosecutor Moira Lasch denounced Smith
as a rapist who inflicted "violence, humil
iation and degradation," on the Florida
woman. Black said the sexual encounter
was "right out of a romance novel."
The sensational case was submitted to
jurors at midafternoon by the the judge,
who told them "all of us are depending
upon you to make a wise and legal deci
sion in this matter."
"This isn't a date rape," Lasch told the
panel in closing arguments. "This is a
stranger rape. She didn't know this man."
"This is the act of a rapist," she said.
"This is not the act of love."
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Stars and stripes
TED W. ALBRACHT/ The Battalion
Jake Battenfield (left), a freshman from Lewisville, and Jesse as Brian Box (right), a junior from Mexia, folds it in front of the
Guzman (middle), a sophomore from Del Rio, hold the U.S. flag Academic Building Wednesday evening.
Republics
plan move,
Yeltsin says
Russian President attempts
to win support for alliance
Boris Yeltsin
MOSCOW (AP) - Boris
Yeltsin said Wednesday two more
republics will join the common
wealth forged by
the three Slavic
republics,
adding momen
tum to efforts to
replace the dis
solving Soviet
Union with a
new political ar
rangement.
Four other
republics called
a meeting to de
cide their stand on the common
wealth, founded over the week
end by Russia, Ukraine and
Byelorussia.
Yeltsin met with senior Soviet
Defense Ministry officials and
army commanders to win support
for the commonwealth, one day
after Soviet President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev held talks with the
same military leaders.
Gorbachev and Yeltsin are bat
tling over who will decide the fate
of the former Soviet Union, and
both the Russian and the Soviet
legislatures convene Thursday for
crucial sessions on the new com
monwealth. Ukraine and
Byelorussia have already ratified
it.
Yeltsin and Gorbachev met
Wednesday.
They refused to speak with re
porters, but Yeltsin said later that
Gorbachev had ruled out the use
of force in their political con
frontation, the Russian Informa
tion Agency reported.
Yeltsin told a separate meeting
of Russian lawmakers that Gor
bachev would remain comman
der-in-chief of the military for the
present.
Although Gorbachev has
struggled to keep the union intact,
an aide acknowledged that it was
a lost cause.
Igor Malashenko said on na
tional television that the Soviet
leader must retain that power and
the right to represent the republics
in foreign relations. "I think that
Mikhail Gorbachev is ready to re
sign, probably he will do that, but
I don't think his potential is ex
hausted," said Malashenko.
II University surpasses Yale, Princeton
A&M ranks in Merit Scholars
EC leaders establish compromise
By Susan Maguire
The Battalion
Texas A&M has overtaken
Yale and Princeton to become fifth
in the nation in the number of
freshmen who are National Merit
Scholars.
Dr. Dale Knobel, director of
the University Honors Program,
said on Tuesday the National Mer
it Scholar Corporation issued its
annual report during the first
week of December and the report
showed that A&M has moved up
two places from its seventh place
ast year.
Texas A&M is listed behind
arvard. Rice, the University of
exas and Stanford. A&M has 154
new National Merit Scholars this
year, an increase from last year's
number of 131 and the previous
year's number of 113.
"The University is coming to
the attention of some heavily-re
cruited students," Knobel said.
Merit scholars are recruited
through the Summer Honors Invi
tational Program, scholarships
| and visits with officials from the
Honors Program.
He said A&M is doing a good
^ job of delivering the opportunities
that the Honors Program advertis
es.
"We pop up on several top-10
lists," Knobel said.
He mentioned that A&M's
Honors Program is one of the
largest and most comprehensive
honors programs in the country.
"We offer 300 honors classes a
year, and 2,500 students partici
pate in the program," he said.
He said that the University is
seventh nationally in the volume
of research funding, taking in $275
million.
Knobel said that many good
students at A&M aren't National
Merit Scholars.
"Almost half of the freshman
class came out of the top 10 per
cent of their high school classes,"
he said.
"Almost 1,000 have SAT
scores that range in the top 1 per
cent of SAT-takers."
National Merit Scholars are
chosen from their PSAT scores,
their SAT or ACT scores, their
high school records and from rec
ommendations of counselors and
principals.
"One-half on one percent of all
graduating seniors wind up as
National Merit Scholars," said
Knobel.
He said that each Merit Schol
ar needs a sponsor which can be
the National Merit Scholar Corpo
ration, private corporations or one
of the 225 colleges and universities
that sponsor the scholars, includ
ing A&M.
"One of the nice things we can
do is to tell any National Merit fi
nalist who declares A&M as their
first choice that we can sponsor
them," he said.
The University sponsored 118
of the 154 National Merit Scholars
that chose to attend A&M this
year, Knobel said.
Tammira Early, a freshman
chemical engineering major and
National Merit Scholar, said that
she decided to come to A&M be
cause it is a well-rounded univer
sity.
"I like the extracurricular ac
tivities, the spirit and the tradi
tions," she said.
Early said she participated in a
Summer Honors Invitational dur
ing the summer of her junior year.
Also, she said, she received "a
ton of mailings" and was invited
to a presentation given in Hous
ton.
Early said she never consid
ered A&M when she was thinking
about her college career.
MAASTRICHT, Netherlands (AP) - With tur
moil gripping the eastern half of their continent, Eu
ropean Community leaders have agreed to expand
their powers to help achieve greater stability and
prosperity.
Leaders of the 12-nation trading bloc hammered
out a compromise in the early hours of Wednesday
setting up a loose federation with a common foreign
policy and a single currency by 1999.
The accord, marking a turning point in the com
munity's 34-year history, was fashioned only after
Britain was exempted from the single currency and
rules governing workers' rights and other labor con
ditions.
See European/ Page 2
Final Exam Schedule
The following is a list of the final exam schedule for Fall ‘91:
Day:
Dec. 13, Friday
Dec. 13, Friday
Dec. 13, Friday
Dec. 16, Monday
Dec. 16, Monday
Dec. 16, Monday
Dec. 16, Monday
Dec. 17, Tuesday
Dec. 17, Tuesday
Dec. 17, Tuesday
Dec. 17, Tuesday
Dec. 18, Wednesday
Dec. 18, Wednesday
Dec. 18, Wednesday
Dec. 18, Wednesday
Time of final:
10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
12:30 to 2:30 p.m.
3 to 5 p.m.
8 to 10 a.m.
10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
1 to 3 p.m.
3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
8 to 10 a.m.
10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
1 to 3 p.m.
3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
8 to 10 a.m.
10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
1 to 3 p.m.
3:30 to 5: 30 p.m.
Classes meeting:
MWF 8 a.m.
TR 12:30 to 1:45 p.m
TR 11a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
MWF 9 a.m.
MWF 12 p.m.
TR 8 to 9:15 a.m.
MW 3 to 4:15 p.m. •
MWF 10 a.m.
MWF 2 p.m.
TR 3:30 to 4:45 p.m.
MWF 1 p.m.
TR 9:30 to 10:45 a.m.
MWF 11 a.m.
TR 2 to 3:15 p.m.
TR 5 to 6:15 p.m. or later