KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Friday, March 26,1982 Vol. 92, No.120 USPS 650-640
Exports are the answer Baldridge sure of recoverv
By VINCE HESS Staff Reporter
A stronger U.S. economy and more emphasis on exports are necessary because of increasing world trade competition, Malcolm Baldridge, U.S. secretary of commerce, said last night at a KU-sponsored conference on U.S. business with Eastern Europe.
"We really have to get the U.S. economy back on track so we can play a leading role in world affairs," he said.
Baldridge predicted the Consumer Price Index, an indicator of inflation, would increase only 0.5 percent this year if President Reagan's policy to raise interest rates would drop to 12 percent.
In 1880, he said, the Consumer Price Index was 13 percent and interest rates were 21 percent.
"I really don't think there's any doubt about it. "Reaganomics will succeed."
BALDRIAGE SPOKE to an audience of several hundred business, faculty, students and government officials from the Midwest in the Ballroom of the Kansas Union.
The speech was part of the conference on "U.S.
Business and Economic Relations with Eastern Europe," which continues today in the Union.
Baldridge said permanent economic recovery should occur about mid-year because Reaganomics would end the historical cycle of recessions, recovery accompanied by high rates of inflation, high interest rates caused by the recession and recession caused by the interest rate.
rate.
An increase in exports is vital to U.S. economic strength in the near future, Baldridge said, because the growth of the Gross National
See related story page 3
Product in the United States and other countries will slow down in the 1980s.
Currently, he said, one of eight jobs in the company he works at, but this figure will rise to one of sixty-several. "Everyone
HE SAID the Commerce Department was asking Congress to change export laws to ease restrictions on U.S. exporters and was spotted by Trump that it would help to help smaller firms enter the export business.
The proposed Export Trading Companies Act now under Senate consideration would allow companies to work as one exporting group that would resemble existing Japanese groups, he
Such a company group would now violate U.S. antitrust laws. Baidridge said.
The Commerce Department is also sponsoring 1,000 export seminars to show small- and medium-sized companies how to export their goods, he said. The seminars are taking place in cities of 75,000 population or less and will continue until the end of this year.
Baldridge said the United States sought free trade with all nations, following a policy of linkage toward the Soviet Union and of diffusion toward the nations of Eastern Europe.
BALDRIDGE SAID the United States would "seriously" consider trade controls in cases of future Soviet aggression as part of a U.S. policy to resolve conflicts and to economic dealings with the United States.
Selected trade sanctions by the United States and western Europe against Poland and the Soviet Union because of the recent Soviet-backed
See BALDRIDGE page 5
JOHN DEELE BALDRIVER
Malevolent Baldriver, U.S. secretary of commerce, tells an afternoon press conference the U.S. economy must be strengthened. Baldriver spoke last night at the Kansas Union.
JOHN EISELE/Kansan Staf
Lawrence firemen lift a portable fan to the roof of the storage building at the FMC phosphorus plant, 9th and Maple streets, where chemical-filled drums broke open and ignited yesterday.
JON HARDESTY/Kansan Staff
Fire causes evacuation of NE homes
By JAN BOUTTE
Staff Reporter
Fire broke out yesterday in a warehouse at the FMC phosphorus plant, 9th and Maple streets, when drums filled with phosphorus pentafluoride broke open, causing some residents of northeast Lawrence to be evacuated because of potentially harmful smoke produced by the blaze.
The fire began about 12:45 p.m., when four or five steel drums filled with a molten form of phosphorus fell off the pallets they were stacked on in the concrete warehouse. The phosphorus ignited upon exposure to oxygen, Joel Jacobs, plant manager, said.
Officials reported that the fire was out by 7 p.m. and that the cost of damages and reason why the barrels fell would be determined later today.
FMC manufactures phosphorus pentafluoride for use as an additive in lubricating oils and in agricultural acids. The drums of phosphorus that ignited were newly filled with the chemical in the molten state, but Jacobs said that others in the lab had been solidified, lessening the chance of combustion.
He said that about 10 employee were in the area at the time, but none were close enough to him.
ALTHOUGH THE fire was contained within the concrete warehouse where the chemical was stored, the area to the south of the plant was evacuated because of potentially harmful fumes produced when the phosphorus pentafluide burned.
Jacobs said the funes, phosphorus peroxide,
were irritating to the respiratory system and
The evacuated area were sparsely populated, Mike Wilden, assistant city manager, said.
"We've evacuated not more than a half-dozen houses," he said yesterday. "We've alerted an area east of Connecticut Street and north of 15th Street that an evacuation might be necessary."
At Woodland Elementary School, about four blocks away from the FMC plant, pupils were kept nearly 45 minutes past the regular dismissal time and parents were asked to come in.
Wes Williams, Woodlawn principal, said Lawrence officials originally asked that the children be evacuated, but he was later instructed to keep the students inside the school.
WILLIAMS SAID teachers took all the pupils
to the gym and waited for the all clear signal,
the gpt being delayed by 15-minute intervals.
Every time they extended the deadline, it was waking them telling the kids, 'Santa Claus is waiting tomorrow.'
Rescue workers kept abreast of weather conditions, as a wind shift to the east would have put a larger part of Lawrence's population in the furies' nath.
tumes Path. Eagleman, KU professor of meteorology, told McMain, Lawrence fire chief, that a wind shift to the east was unlikely.
The dense smoke prevented firefighters from getting close enough to directly extinguish the fire.
"From the look of it, there's not much fire, just a lot of smoke." Jacobs says at the scene. "We're here in the parking lot."
LAWRENCE AND FMC firefighters, wearing oxygen masks, slowly filled the building with dioxide.
we're filling the building with carbon dioxide, trying to displace all oxygen," Jacobs said.
By 4 p.m. the firefighters were using a second tanker of carbon dioxide, which contained more oxygen.
See FIRE page 5
Staff Reporter
By DAN PARELMAN
Salvadoran election unfair, profs say
Sunday's election in El Salvador will be unfair because it will not represent all political parties, KU professors who study Central America said recently.
The moderate Christian Democratic Party, led by President Jose Napoleon Duarte, and five rightist parties were vying for election to a de-facto congress, according the election have described it as a farce.
"an election in Latin America without the could hardly be called free," Ivan Barrientos, KU professor of education policy and administration and a Guatemalan native, said.
the erection probably would not change the situation in El Salvador because it will only include parties from the right and middle, while most of the people would be the right training more he, added.
Leftist rebels attacked El Salvador's central electoral commission twice yesterday and raided villages throughout Morazan Province in an attempt to disrupt the election.
seammon is part of the U.S. delegation headed by Sen Nancy Kasebaum, R-Kan., that includes two other congressmen, a group from the AFL-CIO and a priest.
"I don't see how the elections can be rigged.
The pressures are to disrupt elections, not rig
them."
STANSFER, WHO last visited El Salvador in August 1980, discussed the upcoming Salvadoran election with Kassebam, U.S. Rep. Larry Winn and Bob Whittaker, both R-Kanaan, and an aide to U.S. Sen. Ben Stern. The two would participate on March 3, after Kassebam announced she would observe the election.
"I think the elections are unimportant, basically," Charles Stansifer, chairman of the center of Latin American studies, said.
ELECTORAL COMMISSION President Jorge Bustamante said the attack on the commission headquarters failed because material for the report was not available, and already been distributed around the country.
numerous Barbara Wagoneer, courtesy lecturer of Latin American studies, and Jan Flora, professor of sociology at Kansas State University, also at
THE UNITED STATES is taking a risk by supporting Robert G. Hicks, professor of political science.
U.S. election observer Richard Scammon
u.s. observes the voting system set for Sunday
was simply a "cocktail."
Finding the right solution is difficult, according to Tomasek. Theoretically, a coalition sinks nice, but the war will be bringing military and the left for a coalition to succeed, he said.
If a right-wing party wins instead of Duarte's Christian Democrats, the United States could be in the uncomfortable position of supporting a right-wing, military government, he said.
Currently, the United States supplies weapons and military advisers to the Duarte government.
The professors said that Duarte had begun
'An election in Latin America without the left could hardly be called free.'
"The main enemy is poverty," she said.
Stamiser told one of Kassebaum's aides that she should not describe the election as legitimate and democratic when she returned. He hoped that instead she would give a low-key report.
professor of educational policy
tended the meeting with the legislators. Flora met with U.S. Reps Dan Glickman, D-Kan., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
The professors were in Washington to attend a conference of the Latin American Studies Association.
"We indicated that the election is not likely to resolve the difficulties," Waggoner said.
One solution cannot magically transform El Salvador, she said. Waggoner added that U.S. military support of the Salvadoran government that left the leftist guerrillas was also a non-volution.
implementing land reform before the war erupted, but that the land reform had not been completed.
The land reform may not have been beneficial, Wagner said.
She said that from what she has read, it seemed that some people have questioned the accuracy of this story.
The Reagan administration has justified its supplying weapons to the government by citing improvements in the Salvadoran government's human rights record.
human rights reeferent. The professors disagreed with the administration's analyses of human rights in El Salvador.
"We don't even act like we're living in the 20th century in terms of our foreign policy," she said.
Historic bird to nest at Dyche Hall
By ANN WYLIE Staff Reporter
Dyche Hall is getting a new, featherless bird with a six-wing span.
Facilities operations began construction in front of Dyche Hall last week on the base of the "Victory Eagle," a bronze statue of an eagle piloted over two young eagles in a nest.
THE EAGLE was originally at the intersection of U.S. Highway 40 and Kansas 32.
But vandala stole the statue's plaque and eventually tried to steal the statue itself.
"Primarily, it was designed to signify the protection that this country gives its people." Allen Wiechert, University director of facilities planning, said yesterday.
"It had even been clipped off its base. But it was too heavy for the vandals to carry off," said Thomas Swearingen, director of exhibits at the Museum of Natural History.
the Kansas Highway Department, fearing for the safety of a guard, gave the stance to the University.
University of Minnesota.
"So many times along highways anymore,
so there's much destruction that you can't even have a restroom," Swearingen said.
He said he thought the statue would be safer at the University because police toured the campus regularly and the statue would be in a well-lighted area.
THE STATUE was originally part of a movement to dedicate U.S. Highway 40 as Victory Highway after World War I, Wiechert said.
"The idea was to erect pieces of sculpture at every place that the highway crossed a county
U. S. Highway 40 intersects Kansas 32 between Leavenworth and Douglas counties.
The statue will logically go in front of Dyche
"A good bird statue is nice to have," he said.
A good bolt statue is like a fire in the
when it was cast after World War I, it was the
most ornithologically correct eagle statue in the
country. Wiechert said.
Hall, Swearingen said, because it houses the Museum of Natural History.
It was worth $4,000 in 1920. Swearinger said,
"If you give unto what the dollar was worth in
1920, it will be worth $4,000."
Weather
The University only had to pay for constructing the base and foundation walls for the statue, because it was a gift. The base and walls will cost less than $5,000, Wiechert said.
COMFORTABLE
Today will be mostly sunny and warmer with the high in the low to mid 58s, according to the weather report. Wind will be from the south to southwest at 10 to 20 mph.
Lown tonight will be in the mild-30s.
Skies will become cloudy with a chance of
rain.