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The Battalion
Vol. 92 No. 113 ( 6 pages) 1893 - A Century of Service to Texas A&M - 1993 Friday, March 12,1993
w
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AITING in
AGO Day 13
Standoff creates
business boom
WACO - Good luck findin;
hotel room or rental car in
ig a
this
city.
Fast food sales are sizzling.
Camping gear is going fast.
At Waco Communications Inc.,
manager Pam Katrycz has rented
about 100 pagers to federal agents
and journalists covering the
standoff between federal authori
ties and members of the heavily
armed Branch Davidian religious
sect.
“We're almost out of stock.
People are still coming in," Ms.
Katrycz said.
Whether it's a $25 Yellow Cab
trip to the sect's Mount Carmel
compound or the $10.26 pepper-
oni pizza delivered, money has
flowing into Waco since the siege
began on Feb. 28.
Hundreds of law enforcement
officials, reporters and photogra
phers have swarmed the city since
that Sunday, waiting for the cult
members to surrender to federal
agents.
Some reports have estimated
that the armies of agents and jour
nalists are spending $1 million a
week. But local experts say they
can't put a price tag on the spend
ing.
Some business owners even
downplay the boom, noting that
the slaying of four agents and
wounding of 16 others isn't the
kind of publicity any city would
want.
“It's certainly having an eco
nomic impact," said Chamber of
Commerce President Jack Stewart.
“It's not an event anybody would
have asked for."
Stewart said Chamber officials
by next week should know just
how large the impact has been.
Gordon Rostvold, secretary of
the Waco Hotel-Motel Associa
tion, credits the standoff with fill
ing the city's 2,700 hotel rooms to
about 90 percent occupancy.
Rostvold has hired temporary
workers to answer phones and
wash laundry at the Hilton hotel
he manages.
Koresh to release
3 more members
WACO — Doomsday cult
leader David Koresh agreed to let
three men leave his armed com
pound, the FBI said, but his
dozens of followers remained
locked in a standoff with federal
agents for a 12th day Thursday.
The three men, whose exit was
promised in a phone call early in
the day, had not left the Branch
Davidians' rural compound near
Waco by early evening, federal
authorities said.
Rain and fog blanketed the
compound for much of the after
noon, as the weather began to
turn colder. While highs reached
into the 80s earlier this week, be
low-freezing temperatures were
forecast for the weekend.
Also Thursday, a 12-year-old
girl who lived with the cult for
four years said that while there,
she was taught to put a gun in her
mouth and instructed how to
commit suicide by taking cyanide.
Two elderly women and 21
children were allowed to leave
last week. The last was a young
girl last Friday. Ninety adults and
17 children are still believed to be
in the compound.
More than a week ago, Koresh
reneged on a promise to surren
der the entire cult once a radio
station played a 58-minute state
ment of his on the air.
FBI spokesman Dick Swensen
called Koresh's latest promised
release a positive signal in negoti
ations to end the stalemate, which
began Feb. 28 when an attempted
raid by federal agents turned into
gun battles. Four federal agents
and at least two cult members
died.
But Swensen also cautioned,
“Until they come out, we won't
be comfortable that they are com
ing out."
Swensen identified one of the
three men who want to leave the
compound as Oliver Kyarfas, 19,
an Australian. \
The Associated Press
Reno becomes nation's first female attorney general
THE ASSOCIATED RPESS
WASHINGTON — The Senate unani
mously confirmed Janet Reno on Thurs
day as the nation's first female attorney
general, completing the Clinton Cabinet
and bringing fresh leadership to a Justice
Department still led by a Bush holdover.
Applause broke out in the normally
decorous Senate chamber when the 98-0
vote was announced, making Reno the
government's top law enforcement offi
cer.
Problems ranging from a terrorist
bombing in New York to questions about
the FBI director in her own department,
await the 54-year-old South Florida pros
ecutor. She is expected to be sworn in
next week.
“President Clinton should be com
mended for taking yet another step in
opening new opportunities for women
and minorities," Sen. Howard Metzen-
baum, D-Ohio, said in the brief discussion
that preceded the vote.
Reno's cakewalk through the constitu
tional advise-and-consent process closed
the book a Clinton Cabinet-selection
process that got under way not long after
his election last November.
Clinton's difficulties filling the job of
attorney general — the failed nomination
of Zoe Baird and the withdrawal of feder
al judge Kimba Wood from consideration
— have delayed any major policy reviews
at the Justice Department.
“I would submit that President Clinton
— albeit not the first time at bat — has hit
a home run," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-
Del.
The Senate confirmed Reno just a day
after the Judiciary Committee approved
her nomination. Normally, there must be
a three-day waiting period before the full
Senate can act, but that was waived.
The agency has been run, since Clin
ton's Jan. 20 inauguration, by Bush ad
ministration appointee Stuart Gerson.
Reno, who will be the first Democrat to
head the Justice Department in 12 years,
is expected to make many policy changes.
But the standoff between federal
agents and an armed religious cult in
See Reno/Page 3
Clinics
tightening
security
Added measure taken
after death of doctor
Alabama sells out G. Rollie
DARRIN HILL/The battalion
Randy Owen, a member of the band Alabama, performs in Thursday night.. Alabama stopped by College Station during
front of more than 6,500 fans in G. Rollie White coliseum a tour of their most recent album.
FBI tracking money behind bombing
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEWARK, N.J. — Investigators in the
World Trade Center bombing are track
ing $8,000 transferred from Europe into a
Jersey City bank account jointly held by
the two key suspects, an official con
firmed Thursday.
Federal investigators believe the mon
ey paid for the attack but didn't appear to
have come from either suspect's family or
homeland. The New York Times reported
Thursday.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOSCOW — The Communist-domi
nated Congress whittled away more of
President Boris Yeltsin's powers Thurs
day and canceled a national referendum
he had sought to cement his authority.
The criticism was so biting that Yeltsin
walked out of the Grand Kremlin Palace
before the Congress of People's Deputies
adjourned its second day of an emer
gency session.
The votes cutting his power were pre
liminary but potentially damaging to
Yeltsin, who has haggled for months
with Parliament Speaker Ruslan Khasbu-
The newspaper quoted a law-enforce
ment official it didn't identify as saying
the money trail “suggests some foreign
group was financing them."
Investigators continued searching
with body-sniffing dogs for a worker
missing since the blast, and crews at the
110-story towers started an expected two-
week job scrubbing soot from the com
plex.
A third man arrested during the blast
investigation, Ibrahim Elgabrowny, faced
a bail hearing on charges that he punched
FBI agents when they came to search his
latov over who should
wield supreme power:
the president or par
liament.
Without his pre
sent power to issue
decrees, Yeltsin loses
the ability to imple
ment market reforms
over the heads of ob
stinate officials and
pro-Communist law
makers. And without
the threat of the proposed April 11 refer
endum, lawmakers may be emboldened
to attack Yeltsin further.
Yeltsin's supporters in the 1,033-mem-
apartment in New York's Brooklyn bor
ough on March 4. Elgabrowny faces no
charges related to the bombing, although
a federal judge at an earlier hearing said
Elgabrowny “may be involved up to his
eyeballs."
The two main suspects are Mo
hammed Salameh, 25, an illegal alien
from Jordan who was arrested March 4 in
Jersey City, N.J., where he was living;
and Nidal A. Ayyad, 25, a Palestinian-
American chemical engineer arrested
Wednesday at his home in Maplewood,
N.J.
hard-liners
ber Congress claimed the restrictions, if
given final approval, could make Yeltsin
a lame-duck president. The resolution
was sent to an editing committee —
which includes Yeltsin and Khasbulatov
— and could be presented for a final vote
Friday.
“After this Congress, the reforms
could be finished," said Leonid Gure
vich, a pro-Yeltsin lawmaker.
In Washington, Secretary of State War
ren Christopher expressed confidence
Yeltsin could emerge in a stronger posi
tion. “It's a very dynamic situation,"
Christopher said. “The end of the story
See Yeltsin/Page 3
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PENSACOLA, Fla. — Investigators
found no evidence Thursday of a con
spiracy in the shooting death of a doctor
outside his abortion clinic. The anti-abor-
tiondemonstrator who reportedly con
fessed was ordered held without bond.
In the wake of what's believed to be
the nation's first killing stemming from
an abortion demonstration, clinics
around the country tightened security
and women's groups urged Congress to
approve legislation making the blocking
of clinics a federal crime.
At conserva
tive Pensacola's
two abortion
clinics, police in
creased security.
“The whole
community feels
violated by the
killing," Mayor
Jerry Maygarden
said..
A candlelight
vigil in Gunn's
memory was
planned in Pen
sacola for Thurs
day night.
Michael Frederick Griffin, once de
scribed by his wife as suffering “great
fits of violence," was ordered held with
out bond. A day earlier, he shot Dr.
David Gunn, calmly surrendered and
confessed, auhtorities said.
“At this time we have no evidence to
indicate a conspiracy exists," police Sgt.
Jerry Potts said. “The case is not closed,
but I can't say we anticipate additional
arrests."
In Washington, several national
groups urged an FBI investigation of
“anti-choice violence."
The shooting, abortion rights advo
cates said, is indicative of growing ex
tremism in the anti-abortion movement.
“The government needs to ensure that
vigilantes, terrorists and religious ex
tremists do not take away our basic right
to choose," said Kate Michelman, presi
dent of the National Abortion Rights Ac
tion League.
Randall Terry, a leader of the anti
abortion group Operation Rescue, called
the killing an "inappropriate, repulsive
act," but he also called Gunn a murderer
of babies.
Griffin, 31, was charged with murder.
He is accused of firing three shots at
Gunn from a .38-caliber revolver at
point-blank range.
Gunn, 47, was getting out of his car at
the back door of the Pensacola Women's
Medical Services as anti-abortion demon
strators picketed the clinic.
Via a television hookup between the
jail and the Escambia County Court
house, Griffin asked Judge William J.
See Clinics/Page 3
Yelsin looses more power to
Yeltsin
"The whole
community
feels violated
by the
killing."
-Jerry
Maygarden,
Pensacola
mayor
Military cutbacks
Clinton promises aid to ease transition
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BALTIMORE — Looking to wean the
nation off Cold War military budgets.
President Clinton on Thursday promised
help to people and places hurt by deep
Pentagon cuts and a new round of base
closings.
He also pledged to spend billions of
dollars to promote civilian uses of mili
tary technology.
“The world's finest makers of swords
can and will be the world's finest makers
of plowshares," the president told enthu
siastic workers at a Westinghouse Elec
tronic Corp. plant, one day before the
scheduled announcement of a new round
of base closings.
Clinton plans to ease the pain of mili
tary cuts with a five-year “defense con
version" budget of $19.6 billion, a frac
tion of the $112 billion he plans to slash
from the Pentagon budget during the
same period.
Republicans said the conversion pro
gram won't provide enough help to vic
tims of Pentagon cuts.
“I think it is a political effort to try to
cover and make excuses for the incredible
slashing that they're doing in this Penta
gon, because they don't have the guts to
cut anywhere else," said Rep. John Ka-
sich, ranking Republican on the House
Budget Committee.
“I don't pretend that this will be easy,
and all of it will take some time," Clinton
said.
Clinton's first-year budget contains lit
tle new money, and most of the programs
announced Thursday have been on his
agenda since the presidential campaign.
But the Westinghouse plant — with its
electric cars and high-tech civilian radar
— was a fitting backdrop for unveiling
his repackaged defense conversion pro
gram.
Nearly 4,500 plant employees have
been laid off since 1991, but company of
ficials said hundreds of jobs were saved
when the firm began using its technology
to create products for civilian and mili
tary uses.
See Military/Page 3
Sports
•Basketball: One last chance for
A&M in NCAA tounament
•Baseball: Aggie’s ready to open
show on raod
Page 4
Opinion
•Smokers: leapers of the 90s - No
respect, no rights and no place to
smoke
•Long lost verse of Aggie s War
Hymn needs to be sung
Page 5