Still standing Library won't uproot 70-year-old elm. See page 3.
SINCE 1889
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 1986, VOL. 96, NO. 119 (USPS 650-640)
Warm Details page 3.
Libyan attack brings reprisal by U.S. forces
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Libya launched six more missiles at American targets in the disputed Gulf of Sidra area and U.S. warplanes and ships hit back at the missile sites a second time and destroyed two more Libyan patrol craft, the Defense Department announced today.
Officials said that with the new Libyan attack, a total of 12 missiles had been fired at U.S. Naval units operating near Moammar Khadafy's self-proclaimed "line of death" across the mouth of the gulf since yesterday.
No U.S. forces have been hit or lost, officials said.
The six new Libyan surface-to-air missiles, SAM-2s and SAM-5s, were lost from Surt, the Libyan coastal site that U.S. officials said was knocked out yesterday.
Three Libyan patrol craft, including two previously reported, were destroyed yesterday by U.S. planes.
A Pentagon spokesman said that at 1:07 a.m. EST today, two A-6 warplanes from the carriers Saratoga and the Coral Sea, hit a Nanouchka II class missile corvette near Behngazhe. The corvette, a vessel that normally carries a crew of 70, was reported "dead in the water and on fire" with life rafts in the area and a Libyan search and rescue helicopter flying overhead. U.S. forces did not fire at the helicopter.
A third craft, a Wadi patrol boat,
"which was preparing to attack our
forces," was hit and destroyed by a
ship-to-ship missile launched by the
crusier Yorktown in the eastern part of
the gulf at 6:12 p.m. EST yesterday,
a spokesman said. Debris was seen in the water. The U.S. cruiser was operating just outside Khadafy's
"line of death."
U. S. officials announced yesterday that Navy planes attacked the Soviet-built Libyan surface-to-air missile base at Surt and destroyed two missile boats in reprisal for six Libyan anti-aircraft missiles fired at American fighters.
Officials said following the second Libyan missile attack, two A-7 Corsairs from the carrier Saratoga hit a radar site near Surt at 6:54 p.m. EST yesterday. There was no damage assessment.
orticial Libyan radio vowed to avente U.S. naval and air intrusion into the Gulf of Sidra. The United States does not recognize Khadafy's claim that the elbow-shaped gulf is Libyan territory.
"This was not an act to provoke a response or humiliate Khadafy." White House spokesman Larry Speakes said. "We simply cannot allow other nations to dictate where we can or cannot go. I can't characterize it as war."
Speakes said U.S. forces are prepared for further action.
Fans plan migration down south to Dallas
Bv Frank Ybarra
Staff writer
As KU students make plans to spend the weekend in the Big D, Lawrence businesses also are caught up in the Final Four hoonla.
Thousands of KU basketball fans are planning a pilgrimage south this weekend to the city of the NCAA Final Four and of KU basketball destiny - Dallas
Gary Gould, Prairie Village junior,
said he and a group of nine others
would head for the National
Collegiate Athletic Association tournament
Friday afternoon. Gould said
his group stood in line Sunday to get
vouchers for some of the 170 tickets
set aside for KU students.
"We've been talking about it since the beginning of the semester," he said.
He said that if the University of Kansas didn't win Saturday's game,
they might try to sell their tickets for the championship game.
Phil Duran, Johnson freshman,
said he was going to Dallas with a
group of about six friends. He said
the group would leave for Dallas on
Friday night.
Duran said that they were planning to miss classes April 1 but that if KU lost they might try to sell their tickets.
Other fans have been keeping local travel agencies busy with plans for
"I'd sure be willing to take a couple of offers." Duran said.
Leslie Kibbe, a supervisor at Maupintour Travel Service, 831 Massachusetts St., said the travel agency had received numerous calls from people looking for the cheapest way to Dallas.
See DALLAS, p. 5, col. 1
She said the agency didn't have
By Grant W. Butler
Staff writer
Director says prize isn't the statue
Staff writer
Achieving too much too soon is a guaranteed way to get overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Robert Benton, an Oscar-winning film director, and member of the academy, said last night.
"I think Hollywood's a very complicated place, and they don't like you to be young and successful," Benton said. "Steven Spielberg is both."
Benton, who won Oscars for best director for his 1979 film "Kramer vs. Kramer" and best original screenplay for "Place in the Heart" last year, spoke last night in the Spencer Museum of Art Hallitorium as part of the Hallmark Lecture Series in Visual Arts.
Award-worthy directors getting ignored by the academy is not a new thing, Benton said. "They never honored Hitchcock. There's a great number of people who have never been honored."
About 250 people attended Benton's speech, which was sponsored by the department of design.
But the system of nominations basically is fair. Benton said.
"Given the American electoral system, it's about as fair as you can get," he said. "There are people who get overlooked. Steven Steinberg got overlooked this year and is too bad, but they do their best."
This year, Spielberg's movie,
"The Color Purple," was nominated in 11 categories but failed to win a single award.
Anyone who is nominated for an award automatically becomes a member of the academy and may participate in the nomination process, he said.
But don't blame him for the exclusion of Spielberg from this year's awards. Although Benton has won an Academy Award for best director, he said, the category
in which the members are first nominated is where they cast their nomination ballot.
benton was first nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for the film "Bonnie and Clyde."
But in the final vote, academy members get to vote in all categories, he said.
The real prize given by the academy is being recognized by peers with a nomination, Benton said, not the golden statuette.
Winning is nice, he said, but it doesn't mean that much because it is difficult to pick a winner from completely different types of projects.
"How can you choose between films as diverse as 'Out of Africa,' Prizzi's Honor, 'The Color Purple,' and 'Witness?' Beeka asked.
After speaking about the development of his career, Benton showed excerpts from "Places in the Heart" and discussed how the film was a series of recollections from his childhood.
The film originally was going to be about Texas bootleggers, but was becoming too violent, he said.
"I wanted to soften it, so I introduced this character that was based on my great-grandmother, and she eventually nudged the bootleggers out of the picture," Benton said.
Because the film evolved into a depiction of a woman's struggle during the Depression, instead of a shoot-'em-up adventure, Benton said, he was turned down by four film companies before Tri-Star Pictures approved the project.
Most of the action in the film is based on what he was told about his great-grandmother's experiences, he said.
"It's that growing up in a time when people told stories — when there was a sense of an oral history. That's the basis for this picture." Benton said.
Other elements of the film came from his own memories of growing up in the Depression — memories of people begging and having, to struggle to earn a living — making
Robert Benton, Oscar-winning director of the motion picture "Kramer vs. Kramer" and screenwriter of "Places in the Heart," spoke night in the Spencer Museum of Art Auditorium as part of the Hallmark Lecture Series.
it a child's vision of the Depression.
"Part of my lack of comprehension of the Depression is what you see in the film," Benton said.
'Out of Africa' takes seven Oscars
United Press International
as a wacky Mafia princess in "Prizii's Honor" and a rejuvenated boy in "Cocoon."
HOLLYWOOD — "Out of Africa," a sumptuous love story set in Kenya, swept the Oscars last night, winning seven awards out of 11 nominations including best picture and best director.
In the evening's most stunning development, Steven Spielberg's "The Color Purple," also nominated 11 times, failed to win a single award from 1977 for the most defeats in Oscar history.
Geraldine Page finally won an Oscar on her eighth try, picking up the best actress award for her touching role as a widow returning to her roots in "The Trip to Bountiful." William Hurt was named best actor for his offbeat role in "The Kiss of the Spider Woman."
"Out of Africa" won five other awards for adapted screenplay, original score, cinematography, sound and art direction. "Witness" was a double winner, for original screenplay and film editing. "Cocoon" also won a second Oscar for visual effects.
Oscars for supporting roles went to two sentimental favorites, Anjelica Huston and Don Ameche, for their widely praised performances
Lionel Richie, a Grammy winner earlier this year for his work on "We Are The World," won an Oscar for "Say You, Say Me" from the movie "White Nights."
Also enlivening the show, seen by an estimated 1 billion people around the world, including viewers in China, were tributes to Buddy Rogers and Paul Newman who accepted by tape from a movie set in Chicago and joked that he was grateful it did not come wrapped as a gift certificate to Forest Lawn.
Rogers, 80, who attended KU from 1922-25.
received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his work with charities.
The retired actor and bandleader from Oathe has worked with such charities as the Arthritis Foundation, Autistic Children's Society, Boy Scouts and Child Help, a child abuse prevention agency. He also serves on the board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
In 1928, he starred in "Wings," which won the first best-picture Oscar. Rogers was in 33 films during his career.
during his acting career. He visited Rogers visited the University in October 1984 to receive the first "Life Achievement Award Ozii" from the Kansas Film Institute.
He was named most popular male movie star and the leading male movie box office draw in 1830-31.
Rogers donated $100,000 to KU in November 1982 for its scholarship fund.
Kansas reporter Russell Gray contributed information to this story.
Local turtle gets visitors from Topeka
By a Kansan reporter
Beauregard, KU's own ornate box turtle, was one of the main attractions at a tour of the Museum of Art at Kansas University attended by 40 Kansas legislators.
Joe Collins, KU zoologist, said the purpose of the dinner and tour was to familiarize the politicians with what the museum had to offer
Beauregard the Box Turtle had some important visitors last night.
After a day of politics in Topeka, legislators, their guests and members of the museum advisory board attended a barbecue and went on behind-the-scenes tours of the museum.
Those lucky enough to tour the herpetology division got a glimpse of a turtle that slowly is reaching celebrity status.
Earlier in the day, the House passed a bill, 77-47, that would designate the ornate box turtle — technically Terrapene ocellata — as the state bird of Kansas.
Collins said he thought the box turtle probably had the needed votes to pass the Senate and become law.
The designation of the turtle as the state reptile was the brainchild of sixth-graders from Caldwell.
The Associated Press supplied some information for this story.
Kansas House Majority Leader Jim Braden, R-Clay Center, and State Rep. Jessie Branson, D-Lawrence, proudly display Beaureagre, the University of Kansas' ornate box turtle. Forty legislators attended a barbecue sponsored by the Museum of Natural History's advisory board last night.
Higher state sales tax won't strain budgets
Staff writer
By Abbie Jones
Students plagued with tight budgets probably won't feel the burden of the proposed 1 percent sales tax increase, local retailers said yesterday.
Students may even enjoy the University's benefits of the predicted $190 million enhanced state budget, say legislators now haggling in the Statehouse.
Students now pay sales tax on the cost of books, groceries and clothing, among others, but retailers agree that the blow would be insignificant.
"It's a tax that hurts the low-income people first," said Jim Roberts, manager of Rusty's Food Center, 901 Iowa St. "It's just one more step of reducing their buying power."
Roberts said most people wouldn't feel the increase unless they lived on a strict budget.
State Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, said a House committee should discuss the issue April 1 with
"There are some college students who would fit into that fixed-income
Last week the full Senate passed the sales tax increase, which Gov. John Carlin recommended before the Legislature convened in January. The measure would increase the state sales tax from 3 to 4 percent on July 1.
full House action expected April 3.
Steve Word, general manager of the Kansas Union Bookstores, said students spent an average of $141.54 on books during the 1984-85 fiscal year. With the new tax, students would pay an additional $1.41.
And a $30 book would cost an extra 30 cents.
"It should not be a significant amount." Word said.
Although the measure passed the Senate on a vote of 24-16, alternative ideas linger in the House. Some members want a package of revenue makers.
State Rep. Betty Jo Charlton, D-Lawrence, said the sales tax increase, teamed with a more progressive income tax, would pump more money into the state's general fund. Overall education is funded by about two-thirds of the fund.
"It means more money for the University and higher education," Charlton said.
But the measure should be accompanied by an income tax increase for people in top financial brackets to soften the blow for those with lower incomes who may suffer because of an increased sales tax, she said.
"We can tell that the 1-cent sales tax is not going to be enough." Charlton said. "We need more."
She also would like the package td
See TAX, p. 5, col. 6