VOL.100,NO.52 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
TUESDAY NOV. 7,1989
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
NEWS: 864-4810
FBI purges files in CISPES case
By Bryan Swan
Kansan staff writer
The FBI will purge files containing the names of people and organizations that protested U.S. policy in Central America, but some campus Latin American Solidarity members think the decision came too late.
Rhonda Neugebauer, founder of Latin American Solidarity and a librarian at Watson Library, said people's lives had already been done.
"Hundreds of people and dozens of groups had their reputations tarnished," she said. "Anyone who finds out that someone was investigated by the FBI, like an employer, the police, or a member of the faculty . . . that can be very damaging."
William S. Sessions, director of the FBI, announced in a letter to Congress last week a plan to transfer records of the bureau's 1983-85 investigation of the Coalition in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, or CISPES, to the National Archives and Record Administration.
In a related incident, the National Security Archive, a private nonprofit group, said that documents received last week revealed that the bureau had made a second investigation of people who had protested against the CISPES investigation. The second investigation was called the "Library Awareness Program".
Neugebauer said that in January
1988, an FBI agent entered the Green Hall Law Library, showed a librarian at the reference desk a photograph of a student and asked the librarian to identify the person. The agent then asked to see circulation records of certain journals in an attempt to discover whether the person had checked any of them out.
Neugebauer said that the FBI did not have the right to review circulation records, and that librarians were allowed to let anyone review them.
"In effect, the agent was asking the law at the request of the FELK."
"Our actual inquiry dealt with a specific, violent criminal act in the Lawrence area," he said. "We were looking for someone who had been out an article dealing with explosive devices and terrorist acts."
Max Geiman, spokesman for the FBI in Kansas City, Mo., said that the agent's request for access to the circulation records was not illegal and that the request had nothing to do with the CISPES probe.
Kansas law concerning the right of disclosure states in essence that just because it might have been against library policy to disclose certain information, that does not prevent individuals from asking for access to it, Geiman said.
See FBI, p. 6
Court clears payments to those hurt by shield
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for the start of payments from a $2.5 billion settlement fund to women injured by the Dalkon Shield birth-control device.
The device, marketed in the early 1970s, allegedly caused infertility, spontaneous abortions, pelvic masturbation and in some cases, deafness.
A target date for payments for those with active claims is late February, but lawyers say the payments may not begin until the spring.
Nearly 100,000 of the more than 300,000 women who filed claims against A.H. Robins, the Richmond, Va., manufacturer of the device, still have active claims
and stand to share in the settlement
and stand to share in the settlement. Baltimore lawyer Michael Prell, however, says thousands of women with active claims may collect very little because of problems in their cases. For example, they may have used more than one brand of intrauterine device.
About 9,000 cases were settled before A.H. Robins declared bankruptcy and announced a reorganization plan in 1985. Payments made under those settlements are serving as a model for awards in this settlement. Prelt predicts that women who suffered serious injuries may collect between $25,000 and $250,000.
A four-member "trust fund" committee appointed by U.S. District Judge Robert Merghie in Richmond will make the awards.
Stacey Gore/KANSAN
Seen Holmes, Ottawa, Canada, graduate student, balances a ball during a KU Soccer Club practice.
Heads Up
E. Germans march, rally for reforms
The Associated Press
BERLIN — Half a million East Germans thronged the streets of Leipzig in a cold rain last night to demand free elections and unlimited freedom to travel abroad, while the number leaving for West Germany topped 23,200.
Banners demanding "Free elections" and "Travel law without restrictions" waved above the Leizig crowd, and others challenged Communist Party supremacy, the official ADN news agency reported.
ADN reported that several hundred thousand people took part in what it called the biggest rally in Leipzig, where some of the largest protests in the pro-democracy campaign have been held.
Michael Turek, a Lutheran Church pastor in the southern industrial city of 650,000, said by telephone that about 500,000 people marched. A mammoth rally Saturday in East Berlin, where the crowd was estimated at 1 million, was the largest protest in the communist nation's 40-year history.
About 25,000 people marched in Schwerin for free elections,legislation of opposition groups and other democratic movements.
Protests have become regular Monday night events in Boston. Crowds at the last two were estimated at 300,000.
Earlier yesterday, the government published a new draft law that is expected to take effect before Christmas
Many East Germans, including opposition leaders, reacted coolly to the draft law.
Bestabian Pflüggel, a founder of the pro-reform group New Forum, said, "Travel is not the primary problem in Germany."
Note ruled inadmissible in William trial
Although the new law would allow travel abroad, East Germans pointed out that it still gives authorities the right to refuse passports for vague reasons.
In an unusually frank disclosure on the continuing exodus from the communist nation, ADN said that 23,200 East Germans had gone to West Germany since the suspension of exit rules Saturday.
Kansan staff writer
By Jim Petterson
Judge James Paddock said that the manner in which police acquired the firearms from a man was unlawful.
A Douglas County District Court judge ruled yesterday that a note John William allegedly wrote to the boy he was charged with killing could not be admitted as evidence in Willam's trial.
The note allegedly expressed the writer's love for someone identified as "Richard S." The note was a request for sex and also contained a threat of sexual mutilation if the request was denied.
Wakefield-Green told Paddock that testimony from witnesses showed that, when William was booked into the Douglas County jail, all his personal property wasn't individually owned on property inventory sheets.
Court-appointed defense attorneys, Margie Wakefield-Green and Ed Collister Jr., had filed motions arguing that the note should not be admitted as evidence because it was obtained illegally.
"There was never any police officer that saw this note," Wakefield-Green said. "Stuff has to be inventoried when it's first received. Police can't just go in anytime later on in an
investigatory search. They were looking for evidence and you have got to have a search warrant."
Paddock said, "There's no question that, like it or not, the law is that a search will be made by a warrant unless some other matter of law doesn't require that. I feel the motion to suppress must be granted."
William, 28, is charged with pre-meditated murder or, in the alternative, felony murder and aggravated kidnapping in the death of Richard D. Settemyre, 9, Lawrence.
Settlemyre's mutilated body was discovered floating in the Kansas River July 14, 1988.
Paddock also granted a defense motion to question prospective jurors individually. William's attorneys will question jurors about their feelings regarding insanity and the amount of pretrial publicity to which they may have been exposed.
Paddock denied a motion filed by Jim Flory, Douglas County district attorney, to keep psychological and psychiatric records from Texas hospitals where William was treated several years ago from being admitted as evidence.
William's trial proceedings are scheduled to resume this morning.
Politician's success began at an early age
By Derek Schmidt Kansan staff writer
Rochelle Chronister learned to count by playing poker before she was 4 years old. She started by playing five-card draw with her family and during grade school played with her uncle's military buddies.
As a child, she usually won.
Chronister, now 50, was elected in September as chairman of the state Republican Party, the latest in a line of political victories that began with her first race for the state House in 1978. She hasn't lost since a bid for
high school student council president.
"Maybe some of those early poker skills carried over." she said.
The top Republican job was not a goal that Cironien sought out, but party friends said her long-established work recruiting party candidates made her a logical choice.
"We didn't pick Rochelle Chronister because she's a woman," Gov. Mike Hayden said. "We picked her because she's qualified."
ties.
Her capabilities, combined with her gender, have made Chronister a first in many areas of Kansas poli-
She was the first woman elected to represent her rural legislative district, which includes Wilkes County, Tazewell County and Jeffrey County in southeastern Kansas.
"We spent a lot of time in the first two months talking about, 'Was my family going to be properly taken care of,' "Died my husband approve," things like that," she said. "But it was hard to tell me what he and I would absolutely be lying if I said I didn't expect to win. I play to win."
a leadership position in the Legislature, serving from 1983 to 1986 as assistant majority leader. Now she is the president and lead the Kansas Republican Party.
She became the first woman to hold
Chronister thinks about being a trailblazer, but that role doesn't consume her.
"Hopefully, we're getting past the sage where first women are a big challenge."
She prefers to talk about party and legislative tasks. Since becoming Republican vice chairman in January, Chronister has blanketed the state to find Republican candidates
Name: Rochelle Chronister
▶ Occupation: Chairman, Kansas Republican Party; State Representative from Neodesha; homemaker
Age: 50
Quote: "My father really did not want me in politics. He saw politicians as being rough and tumble, maybe not the place for his girl. I don't think he realized that his girl grew up to be pretty tough in many ways."
to challenge the 57 Democratic incumbents in the House.
Her Chrysler, purchased 19 months ago, has more than 50,000 miles on it
and is in the shop for repairs. She now endures driving her husband's
Muir resigns as coordinator of Senate GradEx committee
See CHRONISTER. d. 12
By Lara Weber
Kansan staff writer
He resigned the paid position at a GradEx meeting and said he was doing so to accept a full-time job in a job offered by the university and to devote more time to his wife.
Ending almost all his involvement in University governance, James Muir resigned last night as executive coordinator of the Graduate Executive Committee.
Also at the meeting, Heithem EL'Hodir], GradEx chairman, expressed his support for a new Student Senate Graduate Affairs Committee. The new committee has been criticized by Muir for infringing upon the authority of
Although Muir's position remains vacant, three new GradEx members were appointed last night, filling all seven GradEx seats. Muir's position was that of a non-voting member.
At a later Senate meeting, a letter from Muir stated that he had acted alone in his boycott and that GradEx and the GSC wanted to work with Senate to solve several of the graduate concerns.
GradEx and the Graduate Student Council.
At the first Senate meeting this semester, he announced a graduate student boycott of Senate because he thought, in part, that the undergraduates were unable to deal effectively with graduate student concerns.
See MUIR, p. 6
Since Muir's boycott from Senate, 13 vacant graduate seats have been filled.
Battle for spots turns parking lot into a war zone
Muir has been instrumental in calling for more graduate student involvement in Senate
Muir had suggested, though,
that if graduate students wanted
to get involved that they join GradEx.
By Steve Buckner Kensan staff writer
Christina Sharp scanned the two rows of parked cars in front of her automobile at 9:15 a.m. Friday in lot 62, east of the Computer Center off Illinois Street.
Kansan staff writer
At the other end of the lot, Pam Dewey, Wichita senior, pulled up in her small pickup truck and began her wait.
They were hoping for an empty spot in one of the 153 full parking spaces in the Yellow Zone lot. Besides the waiting, commuters are sometimes frustrated that not all play by the same rules for taking turns for the next space, because no rules exist.
The competition was friendly on this occasion. A student walked into the lot to leave. Although he was parked closer to Dewey's truck,Sharp started her car and took the open space because she was first in line.
Competition is fierce for parking near the Computer Center.
"People take turns although there
are some jerks," said Sharp, a teaching assistant in the department of philosophy.
strategy of staying put while waiting
She said she had developed a
strategy of staying put while waiting
"I made the mistake of circling last year," Sharp said. "If you go 'round and 'round you lose your
place."
Dewey laughed as she explained why she let Sharp have the opening. "I take turns," she said. "I don't want to get hot up."
Although Dewey was first in line for the next opening, David Orr, Overland Park junior, said it was his turn. He was there first, but had circled to the other level of the lot when he saw a student go to his car. Unfortunately, Orr said, the student was getting a book out of his car.
1
Another potential crisis was averted, however, when two students pulled out at the same time, allowing both Dewey and Orr to park. Still, Orr was dissatisfied.
Orr suggested that the Parking Department create a painted waiting lane for the lot 30 cars could park in a line instead of parking at both ends of the two levels.
Donna Hultine, assistant director of the Parking Department, said Orr's idea could be feasible for lot 62, but it would not work in most other yellow zones.