Get sloshed
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Details, page 2
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Friday February 27, 1987 Vol. 97, No. 105 (USPS 650-640)
Tower report says control inadequate in Iran affair
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Tower commission yesterday blistered President Reagan for failing to control his national security staff, and said the president's concept of his arms-to Iran policy was not reflected accurately in the reality of the operation.
The sale of arms to Iran's Khomeini government "rewarded a regime that clearly supported terrorism and hostage-taking," the panel said in a report released to Reagan and to the public.
The panel, chosen by Reagan, provided detailed criticism of key aides, including chief of staff Donald Regan, former CIA Director William J. Casey, former National Security Adviser John Poindexter and National Security Council staffer Oliver North.
Regan, expected to resign within days, bears "primary responsibility for the chaos that descended upon the White House" after the affair was disclosed, and Poindexter "failed grievously" by not telling the president about the diversion of arms money to Nicaraguan rebels, the report said.
Missiles set worth of hostages, panel says
United Press International
WASHINGTON - Lt. Col. Oliver North, in a complex memo, set the price of freedom for one U.S. hostage in Lebanon at about 300 TOW missiles for Iran, the Tower commission reported yesterday.
A French hostage in Lebanon was worth 2,000 TOWs, according to the North memo.
North, the fired deputy staff director of the National Security Council, set the worth of each hostage being held in Lebanon in a
lengthy Dec. 4, 1985, memorandum to Vice Admiral John Poindexter, who had been named head of the NSC that day. North proposed a complicated new weapons exchange with Iran to get the hostages back.
The report indicated that the price for the hostages had been discussed with the Iranians before North's preparing the memo, but it also noted that many follow-up with the Iranians as a result of North's proposal.
In other shipments, Iran was
charged $3,500 to $8,000 for each TOW missile.
North outlined the failure of a Nov. 22, 1985, effort to ship through Israeli agents, 18 HAWK missiles to Iran in exchange for hostages.
His plan involved the transfer of a total of 3,300 TOW anti-tank missiles and 50 HAWK anti-aircraft missiles to Iran in exchange for release of all the hostages, according to the Tower commission report.
North's plan involved a segu
ence of five deliveries, through Israel, and hostage releases spread over 24 hours that would commence on Dec. 12, according to his memo to Poindexter.
The board estimated that Iran overpaid $3 million for arms in 1985 and almost $20 million in 1986, and said that sizable sums of money generated by the arms sales to Iran remained unaccounted for.
Iran against its adversary, Iraq, and establish Israel as the only real strategic partner of the United States in the Middle East.
If the deliveries didn't result in the release of the hostages, they were to be ended, he wrote.
According to the Tower commission, the North proposal was discussed at a Dec. 7, 1985, meeting at the White House attended by President Reagan.
"The president made mistakes," said former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas. Tower was the chairman of the special review board that spent three months investigating the secret sale of weapons to Iran and the diversion
The panel traced the origins of the Iranian initiative to Israel, saying that Israel wanted to promote its arms export industry, strengthen
of profits to the contra rebels.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers said the report provided evidence of the weakness of Reagan's management style.
Reagan was poorly advised and poorly served by many of his aides. Hirsch
Marine Lt. Col. North was described as working practically in
isolation on both the Iran policy and on efforts of questionable legality to raise funds to support the Nicaragua conquest rebels. The Tower commission said that Iranian arms funds were diverted to the contras, and that North's reliance on "private intermediaries, businessmen and other financial brokers, private operators and Iranians hostile to the United
States ... invited kickbacks and payoffs."
Reagan's policy of selling arms to Iran created an incentive for further hostage-taking, violated the U.S. arms embargo, and threatened to upset the military balance between Iran and Iraq, the board concluded.
There was no evidence, the board said, to contradict Reagan's contention that he did not know about the diversion of money, or to involve Reagan in a cover-up later.
But, the panel said former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane admitted to helping prepare an account of the Iranian initiative that was "misleading, at least, and wrong at worst." Moreover, the panel said it would be in an effort to conceal or withhold information or mation and that notes that should have been taken by Poindexter could not be found.
Despite Reagan's claim that he could not remember, the board concluded that he had authorized a 1985 sale of arms by Israel to Iran, a conclusion siding with an account given by McFarlane instead of the recollection of Regan.
House gives OK to fee release bill
By JOHN BUZBEE
Staff writer
TOPEKA — The Kansas House gave preliminary approval yesterday to a fee release bill that would return to the University of Kansas half of the tuition money from its record enrollment.
The Board of Regents originally requested that the Legislature release $1.2 million in excess fees, which the House Appropriations Committee cut in half in the proposal it sent to the floor. An amendment to the bill to return 75 percent of the budget was narrowly defeated along party lines. The House gives final approval today; the bill will then head to the Senate.
The House bill would allocate $635,000 to KU.
"It became a partisan issue, and the party supporting it didn't have the votes," said Mark Tallman, the director of the Association of the Associated Students of Kansas.
Tallman said House Republicans wanted 50 percent to gain leverage against the Senate, who might vote for 100 percent.
"There may be a lot of people who really could handle 75 percent, but voted against it anyway," he said. State Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, voted for the amendment for 75 percent.
"It shouldn't be used as a bargaining chin," he said.
But state Sen. Wint Winter Jr., R-Lawrence, said that because the House is now on record against a 75 percent fee release, the House and Senate would have more difficulty compromising at that level.
"It's going to make it harder for the house to move on it," he said. But he said the fee release would be received well in the Senate.
"People are very understanding about it," he said. "I really feel very good about it right now."
"I'm going to fight that battle until we've got 75 percent minimum, he said.
Winter said that he would work for a 100 percent fee release, but that he wasn't counting on success.
The University had hoped for a 100 percent fee release, and ASK had made that a priority for this legislation. The university supported a 75 percent fee release.
But Tallman said that because the Legislature had not released excess fees for five years, the 50 percent release would not be a defeat.
Solbach said he thought the end result would be a 75 percent fee release. Winter said it would be more than 50 percent.
The University receives money from the state based on enrollment predictions. When enrollment exceeds predictions, as it has at KU, the university must extra tuition money and the University must deal with the extra students.
Fingerprints found with lasers and glue
By PAUL BELDEN
Staff writer
TOPEKA - The two most powerful tools in Robert Olsen's toolbox are a $30.00 laser and a 63-cent bottle of super glue.
Olsen, a criminalist at the Kansas
bureau of Investigation in Topeka,
Kansas.
Two methods of discovering fingerprints, laser and super glue, are the most effective at detecting hard-to-find prints. Olsen said.
Investigators can easily lift prints and photograph them for evidence. The hard part is searching for that one clear print.
The science of fingerprint identification is so advanced that wherever criminals leave fingerprints, police officers can trace them. They have lifted prints from human skin.
"We like to think that people committing a crime tend to sweat a little more than most people." Olsen said, and they often their fingerprints easier to discover.
But aid from the enemy never hurts.
From June 1985 to June 1986, Olsen and his staff searched for prints on more than 3,500 pieces of evidence sent to his office by more than 700 law enforcement agencies across Kansas. With such a work load, they reserve the laser for more serious crimes.
The bureau has a relativity small 4-watt laser, Olsen said. By comparison, the FRI has a laser with 18 watts of power.
Human sweat contains a vitamin B complex that glows at a wavelength between 575 and 675 nanometers — when it is exposed to the laser.
The Kansas bureau's laser produces a beam with a wavelength between 470 and 514 nanometers, which is blue light.
On Tuesday, Aug. 2, 1983, Frank Seurer Sr. was stabbed to death in the kitchen of his barbecue restaurant, 2214 Yale Road. A former employee of Seuer's confessed to the crime, but not before his fingerprints had been found on two envelopes in the restaurant.
To detect a fingerprint, Olsen shines the laser on an object, then puts on goggles that filter all light between 757 and 675 nanometers long.
A Lawrence murder was instrumental in bringing the laser to the Kumoto.
Olsen said the fingerprints had been too taint to identify, so he sent the envelopes to the Illinois Bureau of Investigation, which had a laser at the time.
The laser also can detect semen, saliva and faded ink.
If a fingerprint is on the object, it appears eerily in the yellow-orange light, where it was invisible before.
Using its laser, the Illinois bureau enhanced the prints so they were clearly identifiable.
"Word got around in the Legisla
See PRINTS, p. 14, col. 4
Fred Sadowski/KANSAN
Overcast skies don't keep Curt Hatton, Hutchinson freshman, from taking time out from studying to play some basketball. Hatton was practicing his dunking skills yesterday behind Tempelin Hall.
Hooping it up
Program recruits merit scholars
By ROGER COREY
The University of Kansas has started a new scholarship program to attract some of the nation's brightest students.
Staff writer
The program is designed to offset the declining number of national students enrolled at the University. The number has dropped steadily since 1881.
Under the program, national merit scholars who select KU as their first college choice are eligible to receive a financial stipend of $1,300 a year. Students who receive $500 a year. Students are eligible to receive the stipend for four years.
"We think our increase in the stipend has been appropriate," Sally Bryant, assistant to the dean of
educational services, said. "We don't want to drain other scholarship programs to finance the merit scholarships."
The increase came after a series of articles written last spring in the Wichita Eagle-Beacon. The series examined the state's "brain drain," a decline in the number of national scholars enrolled at Kansas schools.
The report prompted the Kansas Legislature to appoint a committee to investigate the problem.
"The committee found that a high number of national merit students were leaving Kansas to go to college." Bryant said. "And many of those who left the state did not return."
oil and gas economies were suffering, the Legislature was trying to improve other resources. One of those resources, she said, was educa-
Bryant said that because Kansas
"The Legislature realized that those high achievers could be used as resources if they stayed." Bryant said.
Bruce Lindvall, director of admissions, said. "A major concern in Kansas is that there has been a brain drain."
The Legislature has attempted to entice national merit scholars to enroll in Kansas schools through financing and recruiting, he said.
KU officials, Lindvall said, were
See MERIT, p. 6, col. 3
Legislator questions KU tuition
By JOHN BUZBEE
Staff writer
TOPEKA - KU students, and particularly non-resident students, should pay higher tuition to cover more of the cost of their education, a state legislator said yesterday.
State Rep. Robert Vancum, R-Overland Park, said Kansas paid about half the cost of educating non- students, who then get out of Kansas.
"Too many of these students will
not be able to the economy of
Kabana," Marge
But State Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, said out-of-state students contributed more than $400 million annually to the state's economy through living, entertainment and other expenses.
A bill in the House Appropriations Committee states that non-residents should pay 60 percent of their educational costs, and residents should pay 25 percent. Kansas residents now pay 10 percent of their educational costs.
The bill would not force the Board of Regents to raise tuition but simply would send a signal from the Legislature to the Regents. Because the Legislature controls Regents purse strings, that signal would be loud and clear, Vancrum said.
Vancrum amended the bill to state that two-thirds of the money from increased tuition should stay at the universities to improve programs and should not replace current state
Stanley Koplik, Regents executive director, said the Regents wanted to work with the committee on tuition levels. But the amount of tuition shouldn't be written into the law books, he said.
Also, the Regents would have trouble measuring and enforcing a strict tuition ratio, he said.
See TUITION, p. 6, col. 5
On your mark
The Kansas Jayhawks men's and women's track teams begin competition in the Big Eight Conference Indoor Championships today in Lincoln, Neb. See stories page 11.
History relived
"The Black Experience," an exibit that details the struggles and successes of blacks opened yesterday at the Spencer Library. The exhibit will be in Spencer until April. See story page 3.