THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL.100,NO89
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
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THURSDAY, FEB. 8, 1990
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Communists to share power
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — The Communist Party, which for decades swore that its red tide would cover the globe, bowed to a different revolution yesterday and agreed to allow alternate political parties to compete for control of the Soviet Union.
The decision amounts to an acknowledgment that new political forces have taken root and that it is no longer possible or desirable to
ANALYSIS
crush them with the repressive tactics used by past leaders. Mass murders were committed while dictator Josef Stalin ruled, and Leonid Brezhnev preferred the arrest of dissidents.
'The decision by the party's Central Committee to give up the Communists' constitutional monopoly on power was a triumph of political maneuvering by President Mikhail Gorbachev. He packed the meeting of the 249-member body with more than 700 other officials, many of them progressives who took the floor to demand radical reform.
In the end, the guests also were allowed to vote on the new party platform, said Svyatoslav Fyodorov, a famed eye surgeon and one of the participants. He spoke in an interview on Red Square during a break in the closed-door meeting.
"Article 6 will no longer be," he said, referring to the article in the Soviet Constitution that guarantees the Communists a leading role. "There will be a multiparty system. There will be a normal democracy."
Politburo member Vitaly Vorotko,kov said, "We cannot rule out the emergence of new parties. But we communists are not going to surrender or lose any party in the world, we shall be waging a struggle for our rights."
He said the party would negotiate with any political force that stood for democracy and rejected violence.
"We shall speak not only with Communists but with the whole people," the official news agency Tass quoted Votornikov as saving.
Fyodorov said only maverick Communist Boris Yeltsin voted against the platform that called for abolition of the article, which calls the party the "leading and guiding" force in Soviet society.
Yeltsin said he favored a more radical program that demanded a virtual apology by the party for decades of totalitarianism.
Gorbachev has been struggling for nearly five years to transform the Soviet Union from a repressive "Third World nation with missiles," as some Westerners have termed it, to a modern democracy.
Afghanistan, arms control on Baker's Moscow agenda
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Secretary of State James A. Baker III set out last night to measure the power of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to deal with the United States on world issues as the Communist Party undergoes major shifts.
Baker moved swiftly into an opening session with Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, his plans unchanged, a few hours after the communist Central Committee agreed tourity's guarantee of power political.
Baker said on his flight here from Czechoslovakia that he had not determined what impact the move, taken at Gorbachev's behest, would have on the Soviet leader's authority.
"Why don't you ask me that question after I spend two days with Mr. Gorbache and Mr. Shevardnadze, and then I would be doing a lot more than just guessing for you. I would be giving you a very, very informed answer," Baker said.
Still, Baker said the uncertainty
would not alter his plans to try to make headway on arms control, Afghanistan and other issues.
"As far as I know the schedule is exactly how we originally laid it out," Baker told reporters. "That's not taking anything at all away from what are clearly some very, very important and fundamental developments going on in Moscow."
Though the Central Committee was acting at Gorbachev's direction, it is not clear whether the authority he derives from his post as party general secretary will be weakened — or if the eclipse of party bureaucrats might actually strengthen his hand.
Baker planned a four-day stay in the Soviet capital. His scheduled meeting with Gorbachev tomorrow is the anticipated climax of what was designed initially as a trip to make preparations for a Washington summit meeting in June but has now grown into a more important U.S.-Soviet exchange.
Wescoe cafeteria will start closing early
Bv Eric Gorski
Kansan staff writer
Lack of business forced an earlier closing time for the Wescoe Terrace Cafeteria this semester, a concessions official said yesterday.
On Monday, the cafeteria changed its weekly closing time from 7:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., said Robert Derby, concessions manager. The Fall 1989 closing time was 9 p.m.
A $240,000 renovation last summer to Wescoe Terrace gave the cafeteria a new kitchen and service line. The cafeteria offers deli sandwiches, fountain drinks and other snacks.
renovation. Derhy said
The work was the first phase of a two-phase
He said Fall 1989 sales were too low to justify keeping the late hours.
Gross sales after 4:30 p.m. from September to November 1989 ranged from $27 to $200 a night, Derby said. Maintenance and employee salary costs outweighed sales.
Derby said concessions experimented with a 7:30 closing time this semester, but gross sales after 4:30 did not exceed $75 a day.
Wescoe Terrace hours were extended in Fall 1989 on a trial basis, Derby said. The cafeteria previously had been open until 4:30.
"We thought it was a good service to provide."
Derby said. "Unfortunately, a great enough need wasn't there, and we thought the fall semester would be a pretty good trial."
He said the cafeteria offered a half-price discount on food items from 3 to p.m. when it opened last fall. Even with the offer, there was not a strong response.
Derby said the second phase of the Wescoe Terrace renovation would include an increased seating area in the cafeteria's southwest corner.
The estimated $550,000 project will add about 210
hours to Wescue Terrace. The project has no
scheduled start date.
Journalism prof, Leslie Polk, dies
Les Polk
By Sandra Moran and Buck Taylor Kansan staff writers
Leslie D. Polk, professor of journalism, died of a heart attack last night. He was 61
Paramedics responded to a call at his home about 6 p.m. Mr. Polk was transported to the Central Hospital, where he was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest at 7:08 p.m., a nursing supervisor
Mr. Polk had a history of heart problems.
Students and friends remembered Mr. Polk as dependable, precise and demanding.
Aremembrance p.4
"Les Polk was a wonderful teacher, and he was loved by his colleagues at the school," said Mike Kautsch, dean of journalism. "We depended on him for leadership, and I will be grateful to him and I will be deeply at this."
Mr. Polk was born Jan. 16, 1929, in Williston, N.D., the son of a newspaper publisher.
"In the classroom, he gave flesh and blood to the word that is our motto; excellence," said Henry Lippold, former dean of Wisconsin's school of journalism. "Much of the national reputation our department
Before coming to the University of Kansas in 1986, he taught editing for 18 years at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. At Wisconsin, Mr. Polk served on many faculty committees and the faculty senate. In addition, he produced a faculty and alumni magazine.
He believed in teaching journalism students what would be expected of him.
has could be singularly attributed to Leslie Polk."
Steve Koepp, a student of Mr. Polk's at Wisconsin and now a senior business editor for Time magazine, compared Mr. Polk to Professor James Duncan in his series "The Paper Chase." He said Mr. Polk was lovably difficult.
"He inspired us to take the craft very seriously," Koepp said. "He was demanding, but I think he was also understanding."
Mr. Polk earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oregon. In 1953, he earned a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He workd for two years as a copy editor at the Kansas City Star. He later worked as a copy editor and news production editor for 11 years at the Wall Street Journal.
Ted Frederickson, KU associate professor of journalism, was chairman of the committee that hired Mr. Polk to fill the position vacated by.
Depot will become community center
See POLK. d. 6
Kansan staff writer
By Bryce J. Tache
The Lawrence depot is back on track.
After five years of negotiations, the Union Pacific Railway yesterday donated the depot to the city of Lawrence. It will be restored and said Craig Patterson, chairman of the Save the Depot Task Force.
The 102-year-old depot is at Second and Locust streets.
of the $375,000 needed for the restoration of the building, $60,000 already has been raised, Patterson said.
Beeve Traynor/KARSA Craig Patterson, left, shows'a plan to renovate the Lawrence depot as Ken Packard, center, a railroad employee, and Mayor Bob Schumm look on.
'Historic preservation is a very important part of our community. Our children will be able to see a context around them, a cultural growth of this facility being able to be maintained for another
Craig Patterson chairman, Save the Depot
century.'
Patterson said the first step toward restoration would be the construction of a wrought-iron bridge from the nearby railroad tracks.
The Depot Management Board, a non-profit organization, is in charge of raising the funds from community sources.
After that, he said, exterior renovation would begin.
Patterson said that bids had been taken for the fence work but that he did not know when it would begin.
"Historic preservation is a very important part of our community." Patterson said. "Our children will be able to see a context around which their lives are maintained of this facility being able to be maintained for another century."
Union Pacific agreed to donate the structure if the city would build the fence. Railroad officials feared people wandered onto the tracks.
A group of Lawrence residents established the task force to save the structure.
Because of the demise of passenger rail service, Union Pacific Railroad officials decided to demolish the building in 1984.
Railroad officials offered to relocate the structure and pledged
$10,000 for the task. In December 1984, the University of Kansas crew team proposed moving the building to a site on the south side of the Kansas River so it could use part of it for office and workout space, said coach Dan Jewett.
When the renovation is complete, the old passenger waiting
area will serve as a community meeting room, according to task force plans. The freight wing will be used by United Way of Douglas County as office space.
Barbara Smith, executive director of United Way, said the organization tentatively planned to move its office to the depot in
three years. United Way now is at 211 E.Eighth St.
No announcement has been made about whether KU's crew team will receive space.
"We're soon going to be bursting at the seams," she said. "There isn't a building in town more suitable for us."
The Associated Press
Committee to plan for German unification
WEST BERLIN — A committee led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl yesterday began to lay the groundwork for German unification after his Cabinet agreed to seek immediate talks with East Germany on joining the two countries' currencies.
Chief government spokesman Hans Klein said Kohl would travel to Camp David on Feb. 24 to discuss unity with President George Bush.
According to Rudolf Seiters, Kohl's chief of staff, West Germany plans to discuss confederative cooperation with East Germany immediately after that country's first free elections, March 18.
Seiters said immediate talks on monetary union were necessary because of rapid changes in the East Asia Pacific region, and of East Germans to West Germany.
An average of 1,800 East Germans are leaving the country daily with nearly 65,000 having arrived in West Germany since the beginning of the year. Additionally, more than 340,000 crossed the borders during 1989.
the departure of skilled workers, along with strikes and absenteeism, has driven East Germany's economy to the brink of collapse. The influx into West Germany is straining the country's social services.
"The question of German unity has become a dominant theme," Klein said. "All political forces are now committed to this objective."
He said the committee would work on formation of a monetary union, financial questions, economic reforms, energy and environment, infrastructure in East Germany, employment and social welfare systems, legal questions, and foreign and security policy matters.
West German officials have acknowledged that it would cost billions of dollars to rescue East Germany's economy and compensate for losses of jobs as the country adjusts to a free-market economy, one of the results of the fall pro-democracy movement.
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