Brewing debate
Bar owner, minister argue merits of new liquor laws. See page 3.
SINCE 1889
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4, 1985, VOL. 96, NO. 70 (USPS 650-640)
Warmer Details page 3
Student tells jury of attack
By Karen Blakeman Of the Kansan staff
A KU student testified yesterday in the jury trial of a 21-year old Atwood man charged with raping her.
The man, Mark R. Buhler, is being tried in Douglas County District Court on felony charges of rape, aggravated sodomy and aggravated burglary.
The trial, which started on Monday, will continue at 9 a.m. today.
The charges were filed against Butler on June 4 in connection with an incident that occurred April 28 in Hashberg Hall.
messenger
The KU student told District Judge Ralph King and a jury of eight women and four men that Buhler entered her residence room hall at about 6 a.m. April 28 while she slept.
"I heard the door open and thought it was my roommate, but it wasn't," she said in response to questions by Douglas County District Attorney Jim Flory.
"He walked straight over to my bed and grabbed my arms and said, 'I'm Bradford,' or something like that," the woman testified. "He said he had a knife and would kill me if I didn't do what he wanted."
The woman said her attacker forced her to have oral sex and sexual intercourse. He then apologized, told her he didn't have a knife and said she could call the police if she wanted.
She said she had been afraid to call the police while the man was in the room.
The man then forced her to have oral sex and sexual intercourse again, saying that since he had already done it once, it wouldn't matter, she said.
Flory asked whether she had screamed or struggled, and the woman said she had not.
"I was afraid," she said.
"I saw the door and called left, she locked the door and called the police.
Buhler's attorney, Tom Boone, Hays, questioned the woman about her ability to identify Buhler as her attacker.
'Are you telling this jury it was
Alan Hagman/KANSAN
See TRIAL p. 5 col 3
Sky Hook
Kansas center Greg Dreiling shot a hook shot for two points in the second half of last night's 86-71 win over Southern Illinois-Edwardsville. Drrelling and Danny Manning each scored 14 points, but Archie Marshall led the Jayhawks with 18. See stories and box score; p. 13.
Autopsy finds KU professor was strangled
Police find body in closet after worried friends' call
By Karen Blakeman Of the Kansan staff
A KU professor of interior design, found dead Monday evening in his bedroom closet, was murdered, Lawrence police said yesterday.
George VanStein Hixon, the professor, was found dead at 4:44 p.m. in his condominium, 1405 Westbrooke St., by police who were called by concerned friends, police said.
Maj. Ron Olin. Lawrence police department, said yesterday afternoon that an autopsy conducted late yesterday morning revealed that Hixson died of strangulation.
"It is a homicide," he said.
Olin said the weapon police thought was used to strangle Hisson was found in the apartment, but he refused to say what the weapon was.
The police report said Hixson died Nov. 22, but Olin said that they had not yet determined the time of death.
Olin declined to comment further on the results of the autopsy and refused to give any information about the condition of Hixson's apartment. He said he thought Hixson lived alone in the apartment.
Olin said eight Lawrence police of officers, two KU police officers and two Douglas County Sheriff's officers were investigating the death.
were investigating. Investigators were conducting interviews, but no motive had been established, he said.
Lee Mann, chairman of the department of design, said Hixson had been on medical leave since the beginning of the semester.
"He had been injured in a traffic accident about a year ago, and had recurring back pains and several surgeries," Mann said.
"He had been up and around though, he came here about every other week to pick up his mail."
other week to pick up
Ann Raney, 1404 Westbrooke St.,
said she had lived next door to Hixson
for two years.
She said she had just returned home from Thanksgiving vaction Monday afternoon when two or three people who said that they were friends of Hixson knocked on her door and asked whether she had seen him.
"They tried his door, and it was open," she said. "They stepped inside, but didn't want to go too far, so they used my phone to call the police."
She said one police officer came to the condominium first.
"Then another came, and then a whole bunch came. They were here until midnight and then they've been all day today." Raney said last night.
"After the police came and opened the door, there was a definite odor." Raney said that she had overheard police saying some things had been stolen from Hixon's home.
"TV, stereo — that kind of stuff," she said.
Raney said Hixson was home a lot,
but had friends over frequently.
but had a history with it.
"He had mentioned something about being on sabbatical and doing a lot of writing," she said.
Huxson, 57, had been employed by the design department since 1963.
He graduated from KU with a bachelor of fine arts degree in interior design in 1952.
In 1978, Hixson was commissioned to design the living quarters for Princess Jawahar, granddaughter of Kinzab Abdul Khalid of Saudi Arabia.
Mann said Hixon always had been close to his students.
"George genuinely cared about his students and was concerned about their futures," she said. "He kept track of what they did after graduation."
Mann said that Hixson was not married and had no family in Lawrence, but that he had two sisters, one in Minneapolis, Kan., and one in Hawaii.
Pentagon suspends defense contractor
From Kansan wires
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon barred General Dynamics Corp. yesterday from receiving any government contracts until the federal indictment case it is involved in is closed. The company and four individuals have been charged with fraud in the case.
The temporary ban does not affect existing contracts for the production of weapons, ranging from nuclear-powered submarines to tanks. But those contracts cannot be renewed or extended during the suspension period, the Navy said.
The punishment was meted out by the Navy in its role as executive agent for Defense Department contracts with the company. The suspension is considered severe because it it affected all of the company's divisions, not just the one in Pomona, Calif., that is the focus of the indictment. Further, the suspension is not restricted to the Defense Department, but applies to all government contracts.
"The suspension is for a temporary period pending
completion of the legal proceedings initiated by the indictment," the Navy said. General Dynamics did more than $6 billion of business with the Pentagon last year.
The indictment alleges efforts to pass off more than $3 million cost overurrans as legitimate expenses and names, among others, National Aeronautics and Space Administration administrator James Beggs. He was an executive at General Dynamics before taking over the space agency in June 1981.
Beggs said Monday that he expected to exonerate and had no plans to resign. But a Reagan administration source said yesterday that Beggs planned to take a leave of absence as administrator of the U.S. space agency while he defended himself against indictment.
"I'll do what I told when I've seen the indictment," Beggs told an Associated Press reporter. "I've been put through more wringers than you can put me through in 17 hours," he said during a brief interview at NASA.
His commends came after remarks by White House spokesman Larry Speakes, who said he was sure Beggs would do the right and proper thing.
General Dynamics, the nation's third largest defense contractor, has 30 days in which to submit a formal opposition to the suspension.
The administration source, who spoke on condition of not being identified by name, said Beggs "felt he should follow the policy established by the White House in the Donovan case."
In a statement, the St. Louis company said the harsh penalty was inappropriate because the issues in the case should not have resulted in indictments against the company or its people.
pally of its preparation.
Repeating the defense it offered Monday, the company said that the actions challenged in the indictment involved sophisticated regulatory and accounting matters and should have been resolved in a civil forum, such as the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals.
Armed Services Board of the government has charged the Pomona division, Beggs and three present company officers with trying to hide a $3.2 million cost overrun on a $39 million contract to build two prototypes of an ill-fated Army anti-aircraft weapon known as the Sgt. York gun.
Comic panel leaves faithful fans confused Far Side is too far-out for many students
By Gary Duda Of the Kansan staff
The Far Side comic panel often borders on the weird side. But yesterday's bizarre episode left most of its readers on the outside.
The Far Side, drawn by Gary Larson, often is the first and sometimes the only thing students read in their newspapers. Besides being entertaining, the Far Side challenges its readers' logic.
yesterday, Larson put logic to the test, and it failed. The Far Side episode, which featured a praying mantis in front of a Victoria, proved too stiff a challenge for even the most loyal Far Side reader.
Steve Beseau, Shawnee sophomore, said that despite being a faithful reader, he was stumped.
"I really couldn't figure it out," he said. "I thought that maybe the cricket thought the phonograph was
Elizabeth Souders, Stanley junior,
said she and her friends also were
confused by Larson's bizarre humor.
Before discovering what Larson actually meant, she said, she was baffled.
his mother. Maybe it was responding to a mating call."
"It looks like the cricket is worshipping the Victoria," she said as she and her friends debated Larson's comic intent.
The Far Side, which is syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, also proved to be too big a match for its readers throughout the country. The syndicate has offices in Fairway, a Kansas City area suburb.
"Maybe Gary Larson just had a bad trip or something."
Jake Morrissey, associate editor for UPS, said most people missed Larson's point in the comic panel.
"We had calls from all over the country," he said. "It was not
necessarily one of Larson's most immediately understood ones."
Morrissie said that in yesterday's panel, Larson replaced the dog with a praying mantis. He said many people did not connect Larson's Far Side to the famous RCA advertisement.
In the advertisement the dog sat in front of a Victrola bewildered after hearing his master's voice coming from the Victrola.
The episode, Morrissey said, was a spoof on the old Radio Corporation of America advertisement featuring a dog in front of a Victrola.
Morrissey said people called only to complain when they didn't like or understand comics.
Readers have opinions on national defense and universal hunger, he said, but these issues don't prompt phone calls as much as the absence of the Far Side or Doonesbury.
U.S., Britain close to deal on Star Wars
United Press International
program.
Weinberger, in Brussels for a year-end meeting of NATO's Defense Planning Committee, indicated that the deal, the first with a foreign country, could be signed later this week when he met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London.
BRUSSELS — Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said yesterday that the United States was close to signing a deal with Britain to participate in President Reagan's Star Wars missile defense program.
The British have been seeking a $1.5 billion package of defense contracts for research into Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars, which is aimed at developing a laser weapon based in space for defense against nuclear missile
Also yesterday, NATO proposed a cutback in the number of U.S. and Soviet troops stationed in Central Europe, Eastern sources at the Vienna troop talks said.
sait.
The plan, the first proposal since the summit of President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev two weeks ago, was presented at the weekly informal session of ambassadors to the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction talks.
Force Reduction tasks. The plan, which also drops a key Western demand for more complete data on Eastern troop numbers, is expected to be formally presented tomorrow, the last official meeting of the two sides before the Christmas holiday break.
The proposal was seen by Western sources as an effort to break the deadlock between the two sides in the talks, which involve 19 countries and have been in progress for 12 years. NATO and the Warsaw Pact agreed early in the talks to reduce overall force levels to 700,000 army and 200,000 air force personnel on each side.
But one of the significant stumbling points in the negotiations has been the issue of troop strengths. Both sides have submitted official troop strengths, but NATO maintains the Soviet bloc has at least 180,000 more troops in Central Europe than it shows on paper.
Concerning Star Wars, Thatcher said last week in London that she hoped a deal could be signed by
See STAR WARS, p. 5. col. 4