PRIMARY DECISIONS Pg. 6

A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES MARCH 13, 1992 • $1.50

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Under Surveillance The FBI and Central American Dissidents New Broom Sweeps Teamsters A Role Model for Labor Reform DIALOGUE

Democrats by Default declining number of people voting. In Struggle, The Observer's mention (TO, 12/27/91) of —Frank Valdez, Co-Chairman, the San Antonio Progressive Democrats' Progressive Democrats of San Antonio. renunciation of the straight Democratic ticket failed to mention why we have taken this A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES Philpott Remembered We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to controversial, but principled position. the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are We believe that none of the current Many memories were brought back as I read dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above Democratic presidential candidates stands a the tributes to Professor Tom Philpott (TO, all interests, to the rights of human-kind as the founda- snowball's chance in hell of defeating George 12/13/91). I first met him in 1976, my fresh- tion of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrep- Bush in '92. Even if by some rare stroke of luck man year at UT, in a nine-hour course called reSent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or one of them were to beat Bush, none of these the American Experience. The readings were cater to thi ignoble in the human spirit. candidates offers any real alternative to Bush's substantial, and to this day many of the books, Writers are responsible for their own work, but not chaotic domestic policies.... Hard Living on Clay Street, Catch 22, Native for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree The Democratic Party is anything but Son, and others, remain with me. with them, because this is a journal of free voices. Democratic. Last May the Democratic When I was growing up in Abilene, my Leadership Council (DLC) arrogantly refused parents had always taught me about the horri- SINCE 1954 to offer Statehood Senator Jesse Jackson the ble cruelties of prejudice and the inequalities Publisher: Ronnie Dugger same opportunity as other leading Democrats that exist. When I left home for college I was Editor: Lou Dubose to address the DLC conference. This same DLC confident in my beliefs and determined to treat Associate Editor: James Cullen that is pushing Bill Clinton for the presiden- people as my parents had taught me. The only Layout and Design: Diana Paciocco tial nomination openly espouses a more con- Copy Editors: Roxanne Bogucka, Amy Root problem was that I didn't know how many oth- Mexico City Correspondent: Barbara Belejack servative party line, and is for the most part ers felt the same way. How comforted I was Editorial Intern: Paula George controlled by such multinational coprorations to sit down in an auditorium of 400 and listen Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Warren as TRW, B.F. Goodrich; and British Petroleum. to Professor Philpott reinforce all of my par- Burnett, Jo Clifton, Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, These and other corporations financed the DLC James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Ellen Hosmer, Steven ents' teachings. I had a new friend. Kellman, Michael King, Deborah Lutterbeck, Tom conference last May in Ohio. Philpott would lecture for more than an hour McClellan, Bryce Milligan, Greg Moses, Debbie Nathan, We are tired of working for and supporting and then announce that he would lecture for an Gary Pomerantz, Lawrence Walsh. Democratic candidates who differ little if at all additional hour on material that we would not be Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; 'from their Republican opponents. We are tired Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerrville; Chandler tested on. Half the class always stayed. I never Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; of doing the blockwalking, the phonecalling missed a word. He showed slides and read sto- Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, and the other legwork, yet continuing to be ries aloud. We saw how Indians, Jews, Hispanics, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth excluded from the decision-making processes blacks, children and the poor were treated in our Galbraith, Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, of the party. More importantly ; we are tired Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly own country. He was outraged and so were most Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury of giving our money and votes to a party that of us. We listened in horror to the atrocities Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; has no clear or consistent ideological direction. that people inflict on each other for the most ludi- Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan The time is long overdue when the majority crous of reasons. Many cried during his lec- Reid, Austin; Geoffrey Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) of this nation (workers, women, farmers, Schwartz, Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. tures and afterward a line would form to hug and small business people, persons with disabili- thank him. I always settled for a nod in his,direc- Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread ties, the aged, African-Americans, Asian- tion after I was sure his eye was on me. Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hin- Americans, Native Americans, Mexican- In December of 1980, after finishing my last terlang, Alan Pogue. Americans and other Hispanics) should have a Contributing Artists: Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, exam as a student at Texas, I spotted Professor Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, presidential candidate who is truly theirs and Philpott in front of the undergraduate library. Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, not just another politician prostituting him- It had been more than four years since I had Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods, self to the wealthy and corporate class. last seen him, and I knew it was probably my Matt Wuerker. Our solution? We will remain Democrats last chance to say thanks. I walked over and Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson only until something better comes along. introduced myself. He smiled and introduced Subscription. Manager: Stefan Wanstrom Fortunately for us and the rest of the U.S., me to his wife, who sat at his side. I tried Executive Assistant: Gail Woods that "something" is now beginning to take form hard to tell him what he had meant to me and Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons and is being manifested through several dif- Development Consultant: Frances Barton what he had done for me. I wanted to thank him ferent, but equally vital sectors of the pro- for all he had taught me, and for reinforcing SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $27. two years $48. three years $69. Full-time gressive community: the National Organization my beliefs. He should have known that his was students $15 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms for Women, Ralph Nader, the National Rainbow the first outside voice I had ever heard talk- Intl.. 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. MI 48106. Any current subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no one need forgo read- Coalition, and at least 5,000 trade union activists ing about dealing everyone an equal hand. I ing the Observer simply because of the cost. across the U.S. under the auspices of Labor wanted him to know that he caused me to speak THE. TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/USPS 541300), entire con, Party Advocates. While these different sectors louder than ever of the convictions that we knew tents copyrighted, 1992, is published biweekly except for a three-week inter- val between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer have yet to unify and consolidate their efforts, to be right. But as I stood there, "Thanks" Publishing Co.. 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) events driven by the people's dismay with the was all I could muster. He must have known 477-0746. Second-class postage paid at Austin. Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, 307 two-party system make such a consolidation what I wanted to say, for his eyes were as watery West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. inevitable. as mine. A Member of the Association of So you see, it really doesn't matter to us what I'm sorry Professor Philpott is gone but with Alternative Newsweeldles party functionaries like Bob Slagle or Ron the same conviction he possessed I can assure Brown think. The majority of the people of the you he lives forever in many of his students. U.S. certainly don't care, as proven by the —Patrick Terry, Austin 2 • MARCH 13, 1992 EDITORIAL 1 -1T1111 TIXAS :0, oserver On Raising Hell MARCH 13 1992 in the Primaries VOLUME 84, No. 5 et's get this straight. Tom Harkin is tee- House will further solidify the conservative L./ tering on the brink of elimination from hold on the federal courts. They are desperate to elect a Democrat as president, and Bill Clinton the Democratic primary because he has swept FEATURES only one state primary and finished second in has seen his opportunities. But Texas Democrats another primary, while Bill Clinton is poised shOuld think long and hard before they place to capture the nomination because he has fin- their bets on the boy governor from Arkansas. ished a strong second in one primary and a bet- Maybe the lurid scandal over Clinton's affair Under Surveillance: ter-than-expected third in another. All of a with Gennifer Flowers, who says he got her a The FBI in the Valley sudden, Paul Tsongas, a little-known former state job, will not do him in. Maybe the pub- By Robert Kahn 5 senator from Massachusetts, is considered a lic will understand his decision to renege on a leading contender because he won in neigh- promise to join the ROTC and instead take Break Ins, Death Threats boring New Hampshire, most of which falls advantage of a high draft number in 1969 so he and the FBI under BoSton's TV beams, while the victory of could avoid Vietnam while maintaining his Book review by Lou Dubose 7 Robert Kerrey, a better-known Nebraska sen- "political viability." Maybe his ties to ator, is discounted in South Dakota, which at Nicaraguan contra supply operations in Think Red. Instead? least is a full-sized state with distinct media Arkansas and his support for the Persian Gulf By James Cullen 9 markets. war and the death penalty in his home state will Teamsters: Role Model It sounds as if the Democrats are headed help make inroads with Southern conservatives. for a repeat of 1988, when Michael Dukakis, Or maybe, as Kerrey told Georgians, the foi Reform a solid if unspectacular Massachusetts gover- Republicans will open up Clinton like a boiled By James Cullen 10 nor, used a strong showing in neighboring New peanut in the general election. Pepper Pickers Picket • Hampshire and the attendant Eastern-dominated But President Bush is looking more and more Growers press coverage to run away from the others of like Herbert Hoover, with his popularity falling By Kent Paterson 14 the Democratic "Seven Dwarves." Dukakis, below 40 percent as the bills for a decade of you will recall, won the Democratic nomina- Reaganomics come due. Democrats can afford Cooking the Books on tion, only to get his legs cut out from under him themselves the luxury of raising hell this spring the Supercollider in the general election race by George Bush and and voting for candidates they really believe in, By Deborah Lutterbeck 16 his running mate, Willie Horton. whether it be Harkin, with his support for This time Bush is bloodied by a lingering organized labor; Kerrey, with his single-payer, Newspapers in Chains recession and unkind cuts from Republican state-administered health care plan; or Jerry By Ronan G. Lynch 17 rivals, Pat Buchanan and David Duke, who com- Brown, with his anti-incumbent campaign. bine taunts of Bush's broken campaign promis- There will be plenty of time later to sober up es with appeals to latent racism. So who does and plant Clinton yard signs in the fall. —J.C. DEPARTMENTS the brain trust of the Democratic Party put up to face the wounded Bush, but Clinton, who is covered with festering sores of his own. Only Son Dialogue 2 The line on Clinton was that he was electable, at least before he ran into the one-two punch of r intended to write toward a conclusion in Editorial his past as a war-dodger and a womanizer. 1.which I would say that "Bill Clinton's suc- Liberals liked Clinton because he worked on cess must be counted in the devalued curren- Journal George McGovern's campaign in 1972 and cy of American politics. He is a masterpiece Whipsawed at the UAW Mario Cuomo couldn't make the race. Blacks of manufacturing, a triumph of positioning rather By James Cullen 11 liked him because he is from the South and Jesse than positions, an encyclopedia of first pages Saudi Owners OK Jackson decided not to run. Conservatives liked and a political dictionary of few words." with OCAW Clinton because he was one of the founders But Andrew Kopkind had already said that By James Cullen 12 of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council in the The Nation. And, since Bill Clinton is and Lloyd Bentsen opted out. As governor of going to win the Democratic nomination any- Books & the Culture Arkansas, a state whose most prominent socio- way, and George Bush will be the Republican Cinema Latinisimo economic contribution is the Wal-Mart, Clinton nominee, there's a pragmatic argument to be Movie review by Steven G. Kellman 18 has shown himself willing and able to help busi- made for getting behind Clinton now. Down to Earth ness interests, even at the expense of crossing Labor lobbyist and organizer Dee Simpson Movie review by. Betty Brink 19 organized labor, but the AFL-CIO decided to is making that argument. Simpson, who works withhold its formidable support from Harkin, for the public employees union, AFSCME — Political Intelligence 24 the closest candidate the Democrats have to a here at the Capitol and around the state on polit- progressive populist in the race, and watched ical campaigns — takes the pragmatic argument Cover illustration by Gail Woods him founder during the critical early stages. a step farther. Bill Clinton, he contends, is not Democrats have a justifiable fear that anoth- only the best candidate among the Democrats er four years of Republican control of the White on the ballot in Texas this year. "He is," Simpson THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 3 said, "the best of our genera- tion." The best of our genera- tion, that is, as represented at No,1V0-, HELP ME „. NOT ANoTUEf „ 50E500' .5TOP the top of the. ticket in this pri- 570P- NE OFFoli'E mary election. I *1•11111ATE- 4014(ft What makes Bill Clinton the best of our generation is his personal history — the history that matters: Clinton comes out of the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and the McGovern campaign. And fol- lowing in the tracks of Winthrop Rockefeller, Clinton set out to implement a pro- gressive agenda in a backward Southern state. If Clinton seems to have compromised his ideals over the past 20 years, it's because for 12 of those years he's worked within the narrow con- straints of an executive office A btAlip NORTHERN, in a "third-tier Southern state." will, MALE WITH .Judging Clinton by the stan- 'dards of the national liberal REUTIVE CHARISMA, 'agenda doesn't work. "Bill plio VAPID, NEBULOU5 Clinton jumped on a bunch of liE01111ERALNUTic,5 ivery liberal initiatives in his first term and the people in Arkansas Or - thought he was the second ;smart aleck," Simpson said. Then, at a particular moment in his career, Clinton understood MATT WUERKER that he had to be "of the people" he represent- guy have the character to govern? ... Does he "symptomatic of the work that he's done in ed. "And among their priorities is not the have the character to put together the kind of working the territory. They [MAD] don't usu- repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act," Simpson said, coalitions to get the country out of this mess?" ally give that unanimous support ... the other adding that it's not a priority of the Texas Former Texas Ag Commissioner Jim campaigns just didn't seem to get started soon electorate, either. That's for organized labor Hightower is less enthusiastic about the race. enough." to do, "for us to do, with the help of politicians, As Hightower sees it, the candidates are all Clinton's Texas organization is built around but without leading those politicians to slaugh- "decent human beings and any one of them could the coalition that helped elect Ann Richards: ter. ... If Ann Richards is going to run for probably beat George Bush in the general elec- teachers, key players in the Mexican American president, are we going to say that she's from tion. ... After all, they're getting into an race community, the statewide Coalition of Black a right-to-work state so she's not qualified? Are with a President who has a one-third approval Democrats and some labor unions. There's prob- we ready to say that the governors of 17 states rating," Hightower said. But all are being cau- ably an argument to be made for voting for aren't qualified to run for president? That the tious, listening to their advisors and following this coalition in the Texas primary. And besides, only Southern governor who can run is the gov- the polls. no one else is here. "Kerrey has said he wants ernor of Florida?" Hightower, who worked in New Hampshire to work Texas but we haven't seen him yet," The labor issue, according to Simpson, is one on behalf of the Ralph Nader write-in campaign Brischetto said. The Tsongas campaign, he of many "cheap shots" available to politicians and the Campaign for Financial Democracy, added, has done little in the state. from Northern states, politicians who inherited said he could support Clinton, Harkin, Kerrey, Clinton's coalition might be broader than it a tradition of organized labor. "What we're doing or Brown. Hightower expects that in the pri- is deep, but at least Clinton and his supporters down here is Southern labor unions and we know mary Democrats will. "vote their gut." have done their work. No one else has The what that's about," Simpson said. However,'he can't quite stomach the candi- Harkin campaign is dead, Jerry Brown's cam- The real measure of the candidate's worth dacy of Paul Tsongas, whom he described as paign never got off the ground, and Bob Kerrey, is what he has done with the limitations of his a supporter of Reaganomics with a voting record draped in a bloody flag, is in Georgia exploit- office. "The most important thing Clinton could in Congress that "wasn't pro-business, but pro- ing the worst in the Southern character. have done as a governor in one of those almost corporate America and anti-farmer." If all our wagers are made in a devalued Third World situations and we have it The advantage Clinton has in Texas, accord- currency, perhaps it's because it's the only cur- South Texas, we have it in West Texas, and ing to Hightower, is that he has done some work rency we have left. For some of us two-dollar we have it in parts of East Texas, and in inner organizing the state. Bob Brischetto of the bettors, a vote for Clinton represents nothing cities in Texas — is to get the education system Southwest Voters Education and Registration more than lowering the odds that U.T. law pro- straightened out. Do what you can to provide Project agrees. "Clinton perceived the South fessor Lino Graglia will be appointed to the for security of people in their homes and get the and Texas as important to him, lined up a Supreme Court. Bill Clinton's not our favorite educational system straightened out. That's part campaign manager who's very energetic, son; he's our only son. of what Bill Clinton's done in Arkansas." Garry Mauro, who is doing his work here and I set out to be pragmatic, and so I have. Yet "We're struggling with it here. But that is beginning to do all the right things in lining there's something very sad about the circum- doesn't mean we're not people of vision, up the leadership among the Hispanic com- scribed nature of our political debate, and Bill because we start with this difficult circumstance. munity." Clinton doesn't seem inclined to change that. In a Southern governorship, you don't run the 'Brischetto said the Mexican American "The country," Lawrence Goodwyn said a world ... What you want to know is does this Democrats (MAD) endorsement of Clinton is few years ago in Austin, "is lonely." — L.D. 4 • MARCH 13, 1992 Under Surveillance The FBI Exposed in the Valley

BY ROBERT KANN

Brownsville EGINNING IN 1982, the FBI conduct- ed a secret investigation of political B activists in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, sharing the information its agents gathered with other federal agencies and foreign governments. The focus of the investigation was Proyecto Libertad, a non-profit corporation and the major law firm representing representing indigent refugees in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Most of Proyecto Libertad' s -clients are Central Americans detained at the largest immigra- tion prison in the nation, at Bayview, 25 miles northeast of Brownsville. Though the subjects of the investigation included attorneys, paralegals, volunteers and donors to the law office — as well as the Texas Farm Workers Union and its officials -- the investigation focused on Lisa Brodyaga, an immigration attorney who founded the Proyecto . Libertad law office in 1982. Information was collected on Brodyaga's reading habits, office finances, the license plate numbers of office workers and visitors, and on political asylum applications Brodyaga had submitted on behalf of Salvadoran clients. Not only was the information gathered for the FBI's use; some of it was turned over to the Internal Revenue Service and other government 'FILE PHOTO: VALENTIN! AVALOS agencies. The Immigration and Naturalization Lisa Brodyaga and two paralegals Service, however, has always maintained that information in asylum applications is con- Among the revelations from the FBI files are: September 30, 1983, that Brodyaga represent , fidential. , • An INS official at the Bayview immigra- ed Salvadoran asylum applicants "knowing full Documents from the investigation, coordi- tion detention center provided the FBI with infor- well that these aliens will ultimately be deport- nated in the San Antonio FBI office, are titled mation from political asylum applications filed ed to El Salvador, thus keeping the UNINS camp "El Salvador-Terrorism." A May 10, 1985, cable by Brodyaga on behalf of Salvadoran clients. busy and keeping the United States/Central to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., states: • The FBI reported information about American policy controversy alive in the Rio "No information has been received by the San Brodyaga to the Internal Revenue Service. Grande Valley, Texas." Antonio office to indicate that captioned orga- (Sections of the FBI files are deleted by request The FBI also investigated religious groups nization [Proyecto Libertad] is directly connect- of the IRS.) that opposed U.S. foreign policy in Central ed with any terrorist organization. Furthermore, • The FBI investigated the political views America. • there are no specific or articulable facts to of a McAllen Monitor reporter after the reporter indicate Proyecto Libertad [half line of text delet- wrote an article about a Pan-American BI officials in Washington refused to ed] or in any activity in support , thereof." University public forum on U.S. Central comment on the investigation. "The infor- The heavily censored, 2-inch thick stack of American policy, at which Brodyaga spoke. F mation you received is information that FBI reports was obtained through a Freedom of • The Texas Farm Workers Union was includ- stands on its own, meaning that any informa- Information Act request. The bureau wrote that ed in the FBI investigation after a TFWU tion that is going to be released, you have it," it located 362 pages of files from its investiga- organizer criticized U.S. Latin American poli- said Carlos Fernandez, spokesman for the tion of Proyecto Libertad. It released only 128 cy at a 1982 Pan-American University forum at FBI in Washington. Asked why the bureau pages and blacked out more than half the text Edinburg. investigated a law office, FBI San Antonio in those pages. • The FBI investigated contributors to spokesman Joe Hanley said, "Most of this file Many of the techniques described in the Proyecto Libertad, including "an unidentified is classified in nature and therefore because memos are reminiscent of the intrusive viola- `young millionaire' from Austin, Texas, whom of. the different reasons protecting it, will not tions of First Amendment protections that the [deleted] described as eliberal.'" The file states be made available." FBI promised to cease after reforms during the FBI would "try to determine the identity Brodyaga said she was most concerned that the 1970s. of the young millionaire." the INS had disseminated information from • The FBI also compiled photographs — Salvadorans' asylum applications. "On one all deleted from the files — of Proyecto Libertad hand, it's disgusting, but on the other hand it Robert Kahn is city editor at the Brownsville workers. doesn't surprise me in the least," Brodyaga said. Herald. An FBI agent in San Antonio wrote on "I am deeply angered, particularly with respect THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 5

-••■■■••••*g to the manner in which the INS treated the asy- to the United States to kill Salvadorans. specifically to El Salvador, said Beth Stevens, lum applications of Central Americans flee- The AP reported on July 8 that Guevara "is an attorney for the Center for Constitutional ing U.S.-sponsored terror and persecution in thought to be 'Commander Norma Guevarra' Rights in New York, who helped litigate the their own countries. Our government appears ... [who] allegedly belonged to a terrorist group CISPES lawsuit. (See story, pg. 7.) to have lied about this practice, lied even to ... according to an FBI agent who asked not to The last entry in the Proyecto Libertad FBI the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case be identified." This occurrred one week after file is dated in late 1985. Responding to a where we were trying to obtain guarantees of the CIA cabled to the FBI that."[Salvadoran] Proyecto request, the FBI wrote in a cover confidentiality for asylum applicants." authorities do not believe subject is identical to letter that the bureau had "agreed to transfer all Brodyaga appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court Norma Guevarra." Given the chronology of the CISPES related documents to the National the case of a Aria Guevara Flores, a Salvadoran documents, it is difficult to avoid drawing Archives Records Administration." The woman arrested by Border Patrol agents on June two conclusions: that the FBI knowingly dis- National Archives has not responded to a 24, 1981, near Cotulla, Texas. In that case, FBI seminated false information about Guevara and Freedom of Information request for material and CIA cables to and from Central America that it did so to stir up fear and hatred of on Proyecto Libertad. show that while Guevara faced deportation to Salvadoran refugees in the United States. Brodyaga said she is concerned that the 1981 El Salvador, the Border Patrol, FBI, and CIA Attorney Thelma Garcia, co-counsel with FBI memo which states she "[knew] full well cooperated to provide information about Brodyaga in the case, wrote that the FBI cables that these aliens will ultimately be deported Guevera to the Salvadoran National Guard. "were reasonably calculated, if successful, to to El Salvador" indicates that the INS had pre- These cables are not included in the Proyecto result in the death of my client at the hands of judged Salvadoran asylum' claims and denied Libertad file but were introduced as testimony the Salvadoran government." them in order to avoid embarrassing a U.S. - in another federal court case. After the INS denied Guevara asylum, supported government that has been widely crit- In an answer to an FBI cable of June 30, 1981, Brodyaga appealed the case to the Fifth Circuit icized for killing its own people. CIA deputy chief of station Fred Burger in in 1984. The appeals court remanded Guevara's In December 1990, the U.S. government San Salvador cabled to the FBI in San Antonio case to an immigration judge for reconsidera- acknowledged that its political asylum policy on July 1 that Guevara "is not a known guer- tion in 1986, but refused to order the INS to was biased against Salvadorans and Guate- rilla subversive.... [Salvadoran] authorities do keep political asylum applications confidential. malans. In agreeing to settle the lawsuit, not believe subject is identical to Norma (Courts of original jurisdiction in immigration American Baptist Conference vs. U.S.. Attorney Guevara, for whom they have arrest warrants. cases are special immigration courts.) General, the Justice Department agreed to give ... They stated, however that it is against the "The INS said that it was not a routine prac- new trials to all Salvadorans and Guatemalans laws of El Salvador to possess subversive lit- tice to give information about asylum applicants denied asylum in the 1980s — if the asylum erature and she could be detained in E1Salvador to other agencies or governments," Brodyaga applicants remained in the United States. The for possession of the same. ... El Salvadoran said. Since the early 1980s, the INS has said out-of-court agreement acknowledged that authorities_ requested that copies of all docu- that because political asylum applicants fear by deporting refugees to a country at war the ments found in subject's possession be for- persecution from their own government, infor- U.S. Justice Department had violated the warded to them for analysis. In addition, if mation from asylum applications are kept strict- Geneva Conventions. The 1949 Geneva subject is deported back to El Salvador, they ly confidential. Conventions define forcible repatriation of would desire to be notified of the date and flight Don Nielson, spokesman for the INS Southern refugees as a "grave breach" of the Conventions number....Perhaps copies of documents found Region in Dallas, said "If they're not using — which may be considered a war crime. on subject could be furnished the captain of the name [of the applicant], then that would Since 1981, Proyecto Libertad has repre- TACA [El Salvador's national airline] for be very much within intelligence guidelines, to sented more than 12,000 asylum applicants, passage to El Salvador National Guard, to the share the country information," with the FBI. according to the office's paralegal coordinator, attention of Col. Eugenio Vides Cassanova, However, beside information from the Jonathan Jones. The immigration law firm had director general." Guevara case, FBI documents from Jan. 13, represented more than 6,000 clients — nearly • The "subversive documents" found on 1982 and Feb. 23, 1982; contain names of other all of them Salvadoran, before the INS first Guevara were a cassette tape of a sermon by Salvadoran clients represented by Brodyaga. granted asylum to a Salvadoran in 1986. Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassi- The 1983 file is marked "documents submitted In that case, Karen Parker, a San Francisco nated March 24, 1980, while saying mass, a by attny Lisa S. Brodyaga Proyecto Libertad in attorney who specializes in international law, book on the role of women in the church, and support of Political Asylum requests." told an immigration judge at the Bayview deten- "a leftist-appearing letter ... found hidden in her According to Nielson, the sharing of infor- tion camp that the Geneva Conventions define underwear." mation saved U.S. taxpayers money. "Oh, the the forcible repatriation of refugees as a war Six days after the FM. received the cable in confidentiality thing, our business is people, crime. Immigration Judge Michael Horn delib- San Antonio, an FBI agent in Texas told the service to people. In this particular case, some- erated the case for two years before deciding to Associated Press that Guevara was a commu- body else [the FBI] didn't have the information grant asylum. nist terrorist. A Border Patrol agent told the and didn't have to go over the same ground." Proyecto Libertad remains one of very few Associated Press that day that Guevara had come Several notes in the Proyecto Libertad FBI files offices that provide legal recourse for indi- refer to the agency's investigation of CISPES, gent refugees in South Texas. Brodyaga, no the Committee in Solidarity with the People longer associated with the Proyecto, practices of El Salvador, and the "CISPES spin-off files." immigration law in Harlingen. Since 1978, she CISPES is a nationwide organization of has led or assisted in virtually ever major case activists opposed to U.S. policy in El Salvador. that secured legal rights for refugees in South ANDERSON .% COMPANY A lawsuit filed by CISPES in 1988 turned up Texas. The file of successful lawsuits she has COFFEE evidence that the FBI had burglarized CIS- filed against the INS is as voluminous as her TEA SPICES PES offices, planted informers in the organi- FBI file. TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE zation, stolen lists of members' names, and may "While I still can be disgusted, I can no longer AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 have provided the Salvadoran government with be shocked by the manner in which either of 512 453-1533 information about Salvadorans seeking politi- those agencies operates," Brodyaga said of the Send me your list. cal asylum in the United States. The FBI set- INS and the FBI. "Those of us who dare to dis- Name tled the CISPES case in 1990 by agreeing to sent, or to defend the victims of the govern- turn over CISPES files to the National Archives. ment's excesses are called communists and Street "There were intimations that information subjected to vilification and harassment. This City Zip gathered [in the FBI CISPES investigation] was is a price I have long decided to bear, in order disseminated to other, foreign governments," to follow my conscience." El 6 • MARCH 13, 1992 Under Surveillance II The FBI exposed in its own words and deeds

BY LOUIS DUBOSE

BREAK INS, DEATH THREATS end, hung him out to dry. The "little girl" was neck with a knife blade. Another raped her with AND THE FBI: Ana Estela Guevara Flores, detained by the INS a stick. The Covert War Against the on the Texas-Mexico border and represented "All the while they kept interrogating her Central American Movement by Lisa Brodyaga, a Harlingen attorney. about CISPES, about her brother who is a union By Ross Gelbspan. Gelbspan speculates that the epidemic of activist in El Salvador, and about individuals 257 pages. Boston: "official harassment and covert low-grade involved in CISPES. Her wounds were con- South End Press. 1991. $14 terrorism" began shortly after the election of firmed by both an investigating officer of ' Ronald Reagan. Perhaps it was in 1982, when the Los Angeles Police Department and a he FBI surveillance of the Harlingen a New York woman returning from Nicaragua doctor in a Los Angeles hospital who examined offices of Proyecto Libertad and attor- learned that she was the subject of a sudden IRS Corea." T ney Lisa Brodyaga were not isolated inci- audit. Or perhaps not until 1983, when The attack was followed by a series of relat- dents. Nor is it likely that this surveillance Milwaukee field agents began questioning Daisy ed death threats, break- ins, and one other abduc- was part of an operation conducted by "rogue" Cubias, a Milwaukee woman working for a tion that occurred during a two-week period FBI agents — operating without the consent of group called the Ecumenical Refugee Council. in the Los Angeles area. Gelbspan admits he their superiors. Cubias's run-in with her government was some- can't directly link violence to covert U.S. or In Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI, thing more than interrogation; FBI officials told Salvadoran government activity. But he does Ross Gelbspan documents a coordinated nation- her, "You're going around with a bunch of provide careful documentation of FBI collab- wide operation of surveillance of U.S. citizens, terrorists and we want to keep you clean." Or oration with the Salvadoran National Guard, fdreign residents in the United States, and perhaps the campaign began on Jan. 3, 1987, and the three-way sharing of personal infor- domestic and foreign organizations perceived when burglars broke into the offices of the mation among the Salvadoran government, the to be opposed to the Reagan Administration's Arlington Street Church in Boston — on the FBI and private right-wing groups in the United Central American policy. The surveillance cam- night before a Sunday sermon when Rev. States. paign was complemented by series of unsolved Victor Carpenter announced the results of his What is most solidly documented in Break- break-ins, intimidation, and in at least one case, congregation's vote to participate in the sanc- ins is that the FBI, working out of the Dallas violent sexual assault, of opponents of American tuary movement and provide shelter to refugees office, coordinated an investigation of U.S. cit- policy in Central America. from El Salvador and Guatemala. Or perhaps izens who opposed their country's policies in Gelbspan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston four days later when the office of Rev. Timothy Central America. The central target of the four- Globe investigative reporter, stops short of con- Limburg of the Christian Reform Church of year nationwide investigations was CISPES, cluding that the break-ins were conducted by Washington, D.C., was burgled for the sec- and the central figure in the investigation was any government agency. But though his story ond time in a month. Frank Varelli. Baptized in El Salvador as doesn't place the burglars' tools in the hands By page 33 Gelbspan's narrative has already Franklin Agustin Martinez Varela, Varelli of FBI agents, it makes unmistakably clear that reached California and 1987: had once preached to 100,000 people at a San the collaboration of the bureau, or informa- "In June of that year, Yanira Corea, a 24- Salvador revival. That was three years before tion provided through some government agen- year-old Salvadoran woman who worked as a he fled the country, after FMLN guerillas cy, is the connective tissue that holds together volunteer at the Los Angeles Committee in attacked his family's house. Their target was the two hundred-plus incidents of harass- Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CIS- Varelli's father, Col. Agustin Martinez Varela, ment, arson, death threats, assaults, and, most PES) office, was driving to the Los Angeles former head of the Salvadoran Military Training commonly, burglaries in which files were stolen airport with her three and a half year old son Center, former Director of the National Police while cash and other valuables were left behind. when a car driven by two Hispanic men forced of El Salvador, former Minister of Interior of These were not, as writer Frank J. Donner writes her off the road. While one of the men kept El Salvador and former Salvadoran Ambassador in a foreword, "a series of scattered horror pounding and kicking her car, the other tried to Guatemala. After the assault, in which six stories ... [they] must be recognized as uni- to pull her out of the door. Although she man- died, the Salvadoran government arranged safe fied by an overall plot to eliminate critics and aged to escape, the man did get .a book of passage to Los Angeles for the Varela family. opponents of Reagan's Central American ini- hers containing a photo of her son Ernesto. The Shortly after their arrival in Los Angeles in tiatives." boy was so traumatized by the event that he did 1980, Franklin Varela — who had adopted The Proyecto Libertad case Robert Kahn not speak for three days after the incident. Two the more American sounding name Frank writes about (see pg. 5) is discussed briefly in weeks later she received a letter with her son's Varelli — was approached by FBI special agent Gelbspan's book. It, too, appears to have photo. The letter, containing petals of dried John Esparza, according to Gelbspan. Varelli, been part of that overall plot. "The little girl flowers, bore the notation: "Flowers in the desert a graduate of the Salvadoran military acade- was carrying the papers in her clothing, when die," a traditional warning of Salvadoran death my and well connected with the Salvadoran customs nabbed her," Frank Varelli, a squads. The following Tuesday, as she right, was enlisted in an FBI investigation of Salvadoran FBI contract employee, says in a approached her car outside the Los Angeles terrorism exposed by the author as an effort to routine phone call from Dallas to San Salvador. CISPES office, a man came up behind Yanira coerce and intimidate opponents of Reagan's "Perfect! Good work!" responds Salvadoran and put a knife against her back. The man Central American policy. National Guard official Antonio Villacorta. and two others (she later identified them as two Within the course of four years Varelli had; Varelli's calls were, by his own arrangement Salvadorans and one Nicaraguan by their • Traveled to El SalJador to arrange a secret with the FBI, monitored by The National accents) drove her around the city in a van pact by which the FBI and the Salvadoran gov- Security Agency satellite system. They were for six hours. They cut the initials EM (for ernment would directly share information, thus also taped by Varelli, who seems to be a lot the Spanish words for death squad) into the circumventing the CIA and the American brighter than the FBI officials who, in the palms of her hands. One man punctured her Embassy, both perceived as unfriendly dur- THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7

ing the tenure of Jimmy Carter. missioned him to do, Varelli found most of Buck Revell." Revell had been the assi§tanT • Compiled lists of Salvadorans identified by the names and addresses of advocacy groups in director of the FBI. their government as being threats to the coun- a single issue of Mother Jones.) . This is not the only incident in which the try's security. The list, by Varelli's admis- • Entered the headquarters of CISPES in author documents that representatives of the sion, included not only names of suspected Washington to meet with their director and agency were either lying or ill-informed. terrorists, but also of "liberals, socialists, and sketch the office floor plan. Gelbspan is a better reporter than these guys are homosexuals..." and some who were placed on • Entered the headquarters of the Institute for cops. His book is meticulously documented and the list because of family feuds. Policy Studies in Washington — to gather infor- the careful reader can cross-reference the' • Arranged a loose partnership with Salva- mation and study the layout of the office. (Both author's citations within the book. doran expatriates and the FBI, who together the CISPES and IPS offices were subsequent- Like the best of journalism, Gelbspan's work would work to discourage American liberals ly broken into). here is both anecdotal and documental. Until: opposed to the war in El Salvador. • Compiled 'a "Terrorist Scrapbook" for the he disagreed with Gelbspan, apparently over • Joined a number of peace-activist groups FBI's use, which included foreign and domes- politics, Frank Varelli was a primary source. and participated in a series of meetings with tic suspects — including U.S. Sen. Christo-pher And the 3,500-page FBI file that the Center for CISPES activists — including meeting to orga- Dodd and Rep. Patricia Schroeder. Constitutional Rights forced the agency to turn nize a 1983 anti-Klan protest march in Dallas. • Briefed FBI agents on potential terrorist over to Varelli corroborated the story he told to (When he began the research the FBI corn- threats, the Salvadoran left and U.S. organiza- Gelbspan; Christi Harlan, then of the Dallas tions opposed to the war in El Salvador. Morning News; and a Congressional commit- • Gained access to all passenger lists of tee. (The FBI files frequently corroborated state- • TACA, the Salvadoran airline. Varelli forwarded ments and accounts made by Varelli which had This is Texas today. A state full of the passenger manifests to the Salvadoran been denied by the FBI.) Sunbelt boosters, strident anti-union- National guard, so they could intercept Salva- Think about it, though. Where else but in ists, oil and as companies, nuclear dorans deported from the United States. The Ronald Reagan's America could a refugee weapons and power plants, political INS exclusively used TACA for deportations, preacher, fresh off the plane from San Salvador,

hucksters, underpaid workers and toxic after losing a contract with a U.S. airline. include photos of a congenital senator like . wastes, to mention a few. In the end Varelli became disillusioned Christopher Dodd and a prominent member of with the FBI after he began to suspect that they Congress like Patricia Schroeder in a "Terrorist were more interested in surveillance and intim- Scrapbook" for agents of the federal police idation than tracking potential terrorists. (They force? In what other America and at what other showed little interest in the only potential ter- time could an expatriate cab-driver whose rorists Varelli ever located.) house was "filled with Nazi-type artifacts, None of this occurred in a vacuum; it all relat- including books on Hitler and the Third Reich ed to policy decisions made in and around the (never mind Wagner blaring on the stereo)" BUT Reagan White House. And it is a. policy that become a credible informant for the national DO NOT began, according to the author, in such docu- police by making only one phone call? Could DESPAIR! ments as a 1980 Heritage Foundation report there have been another government that would which recommended a restoration of *extraor- include Houston's Lady of Guadalupe Church, dinary powers to the intelligence agencies — Radio La Tremenda, and Ripley House in lists powers that had been curtailed after inquires of groups that threatened the internal securi- 70E41 WAS and legislation in the 1970s. Another recom- ty of the republic? This, while the real crimi- mendation of the Heritage Foundation was that nals were looting the S&Ls and the evil empire intelligence agencies be allowed to contract that was using Ripley House as a subversive server secretly with private sources, and to allowed front was collapsing — and the intelligence to conceal such contracts. community was the last to know it! The recommendations of the right-wing think It's almost funny. But, in two passages that tank became policy with Reagan's signing of have nothing to do with our eroding domestic Executive Order 12333. And Reagan's par- civil liberties, Ross Gelbspan reminds us that doning of two FBI officials who had authorized it's not: TO SUBSCRIBE: a series of break-ins against civil rights and anti- "The most sinister aspect of the FBI's col- Vietnam War groups in the '60s and early laboration with the Salvadoran National Guard `70s sent a strong signal to CIA and FBI agents may lie in unmarked graves and obscure who might have been concerned about restraints ravines in the small war-ravaged nation, where Name imposed on them by the reforms of the 1970s. refugees, having sought shelter and a safe haven One result of this change in policy was "a mas- in the United States, were buried after being sive FBI operation which targeted more than deported by U.S. officials back to waiting secu- Address one thousand domestic political groups and hun- rity forces. dreds of thousands of citizens — opposed to the "One sample of 154 political refugees, which President's policies in Central America." The was reported by the Political Asylum Project City State Zip investigation turned up no terrorists and pro- of the American Civil Liberties Union Fund, duced no indictments. included 52 returnees who were killed, seven There was, of course, a Congressional hear- who were arrested, five who were jailed as polit- ing. Appearing before a House Committee, FBI ical prisoners, 47 who were disappeared (fates Director William Sessions — who was con- ❑ $27 enclosed for a one-year unknown) and 43 who were captured and dis- subscription. firmed director of the agency after the project appeared under violent circumstances." involving Varelli had been terminated — said Frank Varelli, whose story is more unshak- [I] Bill me for $27. that he could find no evidence that high-level able than the FBI's, maintained that the bur- FBI officials had ever been involved in any CIS- eau approved "every damn call I made [to PES investigation. "He must not have looked the National Guard]." If that is true, Gelbspan, 307 West 7th, very hard," Gelbspan writes. "A copy of the a prudent reporter concludes, "then the Bureau Austin, TX 78701 October 28 teletype — directing the nation-wide has on its hands the blood of innocent expansion — was signed by none other than refugees." ❑ Think Red Instead? BY JAMES CULLEN

olitics being a perverse science, often the "that Taft-Hartley law is still in place." people who seem to make the most sense American labor leaders are going to have Pare the ones farthest from power. to revive their demands for social and eco- J. Quinn Brisben, the Socialist Party USA nomic reform, soft-pedaled since the 1930s, candidate for president, is free to tell his ver- when the unions embraced Roosevelt's New sion of the truth as he crosses the country in his Deal, Brisben said. quixotic seach for write-in votes for the nation's "The workers are fairly sensible, and they highest office. know it's not really a democracy when you've Brisben, a retired Chicago schoolteacher who got no choice except between George Bush and resembles Col. Sanders, as played by Burl Ives, whichever Democrat wins the primary," he said. has visited 20 states since he accepted the party's "They know you have a democracy when you nomination in September. One of his first can determine how your work is laid out and trips was to Florida, where he spent three how you do it. So it's not enough to have a polit- days in an Orlando jail for his part in a disability ical democracy; it's got to be an economic rights demonstration. On a recent Texas swing democracy too." that took him through Denton, Fort Worth, Even the Democratic candidate closest to Richardson, College Station and Austin, organized labor, Tom Harkin, has felt the Brisben, 57, an Oklahoma native, had pointed need to tone down his rhetoric, Brisben said. comments about Texas politics and the cast "He used to be in favor of a progressive income of characters running for president in the two tax ... [but] Tom Harkin told the Des Moines "mainstream" parties. Register a couple months ago that he didn't "I'll never understand two things about want to be known as the `soak the rich' candi- Texas," he said to a dinner group of 25 in Austin date. I sent a letter immediately to that paper, recently. "First, why you think it's necessary Mounting a write-in applying for the vacancy." for the state to kill mental defectives who've campaign is Brisben dismisses the fear that a vote for a been convicted of a crime, and second, why you Socialist candidate may help elect a Republican, elect so many of them to public offices." "a tremendous even with the threat of further stacking of the Brisben peppered his remarks with similar disadvantage, given U.S. Supreme Court with conservatives. one-liners as he outlined the Socialist platform, "I wouldn't worry too much about one or two which calls, among other things, for higher the state of your more reactionary judges," he said. "I think it tax rates for wealthy individuals and corpora- school system." would be a disaster if Roe vs. Wade [the land- tions, socialized banking and health care, more mark decision establishing abortion rights] were spending on education, public works to provide repealed, but in a way I'd kind of like to see affordable housing for all, support for unions everybody go out there and raise some hell with and family allowances for day care. He also money? Why aren't we building houses? Why their representatives and their senators to get called for universal nuclear disarmament, aren't we healing the sick with that money?" protection for abortion rights in the law." abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency and The bailout of the nation's banking system Mounting a write-in campaign is "a tremen- a drastic reduction in military spending. is a good time to institute a central bank, he said. dous disadvantage, given the state of your school Brisben believes health care is an issue whose "If we're going to. socialize their losses, why system in a lot of areas," he quipped, but he has time has come. He noted that a recent poll don't we socialize the profits too," he said. little choice as Texas allows only one month showed 70 percent of Texans want to see a new His plan to put the nation's jobless to work after the regular primary elections for inde- approach to paying for medical care, but Time building houses for the homeless is not terribly pendent candidates seeking to get on the gen- magazine has dismissed U.S. Sen. Robert original, he admitted. "It's exactly the kind if eral election ballot to collect more than 58,000 Kerrey's plan to create a national health-care idea FDR used to steal off Norman Thomas [the signatures from registered voters who have not system, which does not even approach the social- Socialist leader of the 1930s], and I'm terribly participated in either the Democratic or ized health-care model Brisben proposes, which disappointed in the Democratic Party that Republican primary. would abolish all fees for service. they don't have anybody around today with the The low-tech campaign has Brisben and his He proposes a drastic reordering of the gov- wit to steal ideas like that today." wife travelling by car and usually bunking at ernment's spending priorities, with more money That prompted another one-liner: "I've the homes of fellow Socialists. Brisben joked spent on health, education and a public works always felt friendly toward the Democrats. You that George Bush probably spends more on project to build 30 million housing units. know the Republicans will do things to the work- his hairdresser than Brisben will spend on the "One of the reasons we have to starve the health ing people on principle what the Democrats will entire campaign. And response sometimes and education sectors in the United States is that only do when they're bribed with hard cash." comes from unlikely places, such as the punk we've been ... spending billions and trillions of Brisben support the rights of democratic labor rock fanzine, Maximum Rock and Roll, which dollars on weapons systems, and the best unions to represent workers, a fairly radical con- generated interest when it reported his com- thing I can say for them is they're useless," he cept these days. A top priority would be repeal ment, "We don't need new drug laws, we need said. "Now George Bush, in his State of the of the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows states better reasons to stay sober." Union message, said we won the Cold War. such as Texas to adopt "right-to-work" statutes. In his parting shot, Brisben said the two major Well, dammit, if we won the Cold War, why While the Democratic Party has been cam- political parties reminded him of a remark are we still paying all this money on Stealth paigning to repeal the law ever since it was attributed to Tallulah Bankhead as she watched bombers and other things we don't need? passed, he noted, despite Democratic control of a bride and groom stroll down the aisle: "I've Why aren't we building schools with that Congress during most of the intervening years, had them both, and they're awful." ❑ THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 9

oreinfillipiortn* Role Model: Teamsters BY JAMES CULLEN

Austin bers multiple salaries for holding more than one 800,000 union members for the international he victory of a reformist Teamster slate union office. president, instead of sending delegates to a con- in elections, supervised by the federal Carey also faces the challenge of trans- vention, which then selects the international T gOvernment has encouraged reform forming the middle ranks of the union and officers. movements that hope to democratize other rebuilding the union's bargaining strength. "Ron Carey's recent victory with the labor unions. He promised to change the recent string of Teamsters, thanks to the long years of work A slate headed by Ron Carey, a former UPS endorsements of Republican presidential can- by the TDU, has made that seem a lot more real driver from New York, swept the top 16 offices didates and support pro-labor candidates instead. to people in the UAW," Tucker said. "I think in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Don Stone, TDU organizer in Detroit, said there's little doubt that if we had (directvoting) the nation's second-largest union, with 1.55 mil- Texas and the South were early supporters of today, that Owen Bieber and the national lion members. Carey's victory, aided by more the reform movement, but he said it was too leadership would be on their way out." than 16 years of work by the Teamsters for a early to tell how much resistance Carey will Tucker said the success of the Teamsters Democratic Union, is a model for reformers meet as he tries to implement those reforms. reform movement has helped UAW New in the United Auto Workers, the United Food TDU has pressed for majority rule on contracts, Directions grow to approximately 7,000 on and Commercial Workers and the United increased strike benefits and elected business its mailing lists. He noted that locals with a com- Paperworkers International Union, all of whom agents, and Stone expects the TDU to grow from bined membership of 80,000 have elected New- are mounting challenges in their respective the approximately10,000 members it now Direction-affiliated presidents, including Carroll . unions. All share the hope of instituting one- claims. "Many more people are coming out and Butler, president of Local 848, with 5,000 mem- member, one-vote elections for union offi- are curious about Teamsters for a Democratic bers, mainly at the LTV plant in Grand Prairie. cials and of ending what they see as sweetheart Union," he said, particularly since the intimi- Butler's local has worked out the problems deals with employers. dation that reformers experienced in the past it had with the international union leadership In the case of theTeamsters, the rank and file has been curtailed. "They want to know their in 1984 and 1985, when local union officials watched as three of their last five presidents rights. They're hungry for information," he said. complained the international officers were were jailed on charges ranging from tampering "One had to only be at the IBT convention in not supporting their efforts to beat back con-, with union pension funds to bribery of public Orlando to witness that the spirit was just fan- cessions the management sought. Butler officials. Members also resented the lavish tastic compared to conventions in the past, where believes the international officers have become salaries of union executives, as 154 Teamster our people were beat up, and booed, and spit more responsive to local units, but he still officials made more than $100,000 each in 1990. on, and everything else. It's a new day in this supports the New Directions efforts to democ- Teamsters for a Democratic Union got its Teamsters union, and it's good for all Teamsters. ratize the' union. break after the U.S. Justice Department filed an It's even good for those who are oppoing it. With the prospect of defense cuts, Butler's anti-racketeering lawsuit against.the union lead- They just don't know it." local also is concerned about the union's role ership and a federal court appointed an admin- Tom Salinas, a TDU member in San Antonio- in avoiding cutbacks. "I hear a little about what's istrative panel to oversee the union. When based local 657, attributed the low turnout in going on in Arlington, and the international Teamster officials, facing possible criminal pros- the election to cynicism about the possibility hasn't been very vocal at all about the way ecution, agreed in 1989 to changes in the for real reform, but he hopes rank and file mem- the company is going about it," he said before union's bylaws, including the one-member, one- bers will seize the opportunity to democratize GM announced its decision to keep the vote election in 1991, Carey saw his opportu- their locals. Arlington plant open (see accompanying arti- nity. Although not a member of TDU, Carey Salinas ran as a reform candidate for 28 years, cle, "Whipsawed at the UAW"). had a reputation for integrity as well as support but finally won election as a delegate after the Butler does not expect Tucker to win the pres- for rank-and-file members, and he relied on the feds took over. He sees the opportunity for idency at the national convention in June. organization's support as he campaigned for the minorities, who until now were given token jobs "You've got to beat an incumbent, and that's next two years. with the unions. pretty hard to do in this union," he said. But In the election, tallied in December, Carey's "Durham lost the election because he relied he sees better prospects for a change in the vot- slate carried 48.5.percent of the vote, doing best on the officials to carry the ball. Carey won ing, which could allow direct elections in 1995. in the South and West, but carrying the East and because he relied on the rank and file." Of the Tucker said Texas locals generally have sup- Central regions as well. The second-place fin- remaining old-liners, Salinas said, "Some are ported the reform movement, including the isher with 33 percent was R.V. Durham, the bitter, but hopefully once Carey talks with them Arlington GM local, before it became preoc- hand-picked successor to outgoing international. he can change some minds." cupied with saving the plant. President William McCarthy. Walter Shea, a He added, "We don't underestimate the work "I think generally across the country peo- former presidential assistant, finished third with needed to get things done, but we're happy at ple are getting more and more angry, which, 18.3 percent. Only 28 percent of members voted. the opportunity." rather than hurt, it helps our efforts to reform The election also brought the first woman the union, because the anger is looking for an to the executive board in Diana Kilmury of Reform drives outlet, and one of the things we have stood British Columbia, and the first Hispanic in John for all along and now find greater resonance Riojas of San Antonio, bringing hopes that auto workers in is the voting rights of the membership." the union would pay more attention to the issues Jerry Tucker, a United Auto Workers (UAW) of minorities and working women. reformer from St. Louis, is running for presi- Reform in the Carey has promised to bring democracy dent of the international union against longtime and aggresively pro-worker unionism to the incumbent Owen Bieber. Piney Woods union. He cut the president's salary by 22 per- One of the priorities of the three-year-old John Anthony of Naples, president of cent, to $175,000 a year, and promised to end New Directions movement, which Tucker Texarkana-based local 1149 of the United the practice-of paying executive board mem- helped organize, is to get direct voting by the Paperworkers, is running for president of the 10 • MARCH 13,.1992

«a•t4"-tfa• 41. Nashville-based union, which has 200,000 mem- plants in Pennsylvania, Maine and Wisconsin, going to take is a reorganization from the inside; bers in the United States and Canada. which resulted in the decertification of two nobody's going to come down from Nashville, "We're going to have a reform platform — union locals. "We lost 2,300 members to per- off the mountain, and help us out," he said. much like what they had in the Teamsters elec- manent replacement," Anthony said. Like many tion," Anthony said. Reformers have been talk- other locals working on expired contracts, Familiar complaints ing about mounting a campaign since the Anthony's own local is working on a contract spring of 1991, he said. When they failed to that expired in November 1991. Anthony from food workers come up with a better-known name, Anthony said many of the companies have adopted con- A similar reform movement is brewing in the decided to run himself as president against the frontational tactics, seeking concessions from United Food and Commercial Workers union, incumbent, Wayne Glenn. Anthony hopes the union and seeing little need to bargain in where Lewie Anderson, former director of the reformers will run for offices in every region. good faith after 12 years of Republican admin- packinghouse group of the UFCW, organized "We're going in with the knowledge that istration of labOr laws. REAP (Research Education Advocacy People) incumbents are going to be hard to uproot, "Ever since 1980, when Reagan replaced the in 1989 to support changes in the 1.3-inillion- because they have the freedom to travel and air traffic controllers, it's been open season member union. access to membership lists, but it's like every- on strikers. The [National Labor Relations While union members, mainly in grocery thing else — the rank and file is like the whole Board] has been useless," he said. stores and meat-packing plants, have absorbed country in wanting a change at the top," Anthony said the reformers are not radi- contract concessions, their officers have treat- Anthony said cals. "We're not Wobblies [referring to an early ed themselves to lavish salaries and perks, Rank-and-file members were bitter at the lack Socialist trade union); we're just working guys, Tucker said. He noted that International of leadership from the international during a but I just think somebody has to go out and President William Wynn received $263,000 bitter 18-month strike at International Paper make the union more democratic. What it's in 1990, and the average salary of presidents of

Whipsawed at the UAW

Unitedd Auto Workers officials played down type to go on for eight years, but they weren't Tucker expects more assembly to move Unitereports of conflicts between its union local as visible as what went on between Arlington south as well. at Arlington's General Motors plant and a and Ypsilanti," said Tucker, who opposed "Somewhere along the line we have to get UAW officer in Detroit who threatened to veto UAW-sponsored concessions when he was off the downward spiral," he said. By replac- any concessions the local may have made to a director of the region that includes Texas. ing the current leadership, he said, "At least keep the plant open, after the Arlington plant Since 1987, the Arlington plant has oper- we can begin with a fresh start and people who won the closely-watched contest. ated under the "team concept, where six to are committed to basic unionism." Stephen Yokich, a UAW vice president and eight assembly-line workers Operate as a team, To prevent lawoffs, Tucker would elimi- director of its GM Department, on Feb. 25 which allows them input into how their jobs nate overtime where possible. He noted that accused the carmaker of "whipsawing" the are set up to increase productivity, Seiler said. European and Japanese workers are reduc- Arlington plant against .one at Willow Run, The point of controversy was whether work- ing their work hours, with German carmakers near Ypsilanti, Mich., in an attempt to force ers would be called to work four 10-hour shifts looking at a 35-hour week, while the. UAW concessions from the union. Yokich said the without overtime pay. Seiler said there was has proposed a 50-hour work week at GM's union could strike at supplier plants to stop no concession. Saturn plant. The union could save 20,000 jobs GM from putting in a third shift at Arlington by reclaiming nine paid-absence days it to accommodate the movement of work from hile Yokich criticized the purported gave up in 1982, he said. the Michigan plant. Yokich backed off the WArlington deal, Tucker said the UAW "Workers are awfully afraid of the possible threats after Mike Seiler, shop chairman at had approved a similar work plan at loss of jobs, and they're faced with a major UAW local 276, which represents 3,450 hourly Lordstown, Ohio. Tucker also said the restructuring of the auto industry, but already workers at the Arlington GM plant, explained Michigan workers were prepared to match we're feeling the impact of shifting jobs out that the local made no concessions and does Arlington's concessions in their last-ditch of the country," he said. "The free-trade agree- not plan to go beyond the UAW national agree- attempt to save their plant. "I sympathize with ment will enhance that," but he added that ment with GM, which runs through 1993. "I've the workers who have been whipsawed, but he does not blame Mexico for seeking the been a union rep 24 years and I'm not going if anything it shows we should stay away from plants. "These are U.S.-based corporations outside a national agreement," Seiler said. so-called partnerships with GM, Ford and making these moves and no one in national "But I am going to use it to the extreme and Chrysler," which the UAW has promoted since political life seems likely to challenge them." I'm going to stretch the hell out of it." 1984, Tucker said. Seiler sees cooperation with the company GM chairman Robert Stempel on Feb. 24 "In the historic sense of labor v. capitalism, — without surrendering — as the wave of the announced the Willow Run plant and 11 there's plenty of instances of workers being future. "I think it's the only way to survive others with 16,000 employees would be lured into cooperation with management, only and make it a better place to work," he said. closed in the first phase of a reorganization to be victimized by the corporate agenda," Seiler said he hated to see jobs lost, but when that will eliminate 74,000 jobs. Tucker said. While carmakers have been GM announced its plans to close plants, Jerry Tucker, a UAW dissident from St. pitting American plants against each other, "We stepped up and we started making things Louis, dismissed Yokich's threat as "bluster they have been moving production outside of ' happen." He also said he supports Bieber and and blow" after a decade of concessions the country, where wages are lower, he said. the incumbent leadership in the election. "We promoted by the UAW leadership. Tucker, "Arlington winds up being the gateway to need to have more involvement and we need organizer for New Directions in the United low-wage production in Mexico," he said. to help drive the train; we don't need to sit Auto Workers, is running for president of .Mexico already has 33 GM plants (See back and let the train wreck and then holler," the 800,000-member international union "General Motors Grows in Mexico," TO he said. "If this corporation and this union against incumbent Owen Bieber. 2/28/92). While most of the Mexican plants don't change with the times, we're all going "They've permitted whipsawing of that very supply parts for assembly at American sites, to lose our jobs." —J.C.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 11

••••••4?.te the 50 largest UFCW locals in 1990 was membership, their economic situation, the type independent union magazine in Detroit, wrote $110,000. of representation they're getting, the insensi- that even in unions where the leadership is less "There's a real problem with leadership tivity of their leaders, that it's easier to push for remote from the membership, the need for accountability to the members," said Tucker, reform than it has been in the past. We see a real reform is evident. "The job is clear. The need an unpaid international.vice president and busi- upsurge in enthusiasm ..." is immense. And we have a great example to ness agent of local 304 in Sioux Falls, S.D. Like Jim Woodward, editor of Labor Notes, an inspire us. Let's get on with it the other reformers, he is pushing for direct elec- tion of officers. "Both groups [retail and meat packers] are taking a terrible beating,",he said. "We have the highest paid international officers in the labor movement, or at least among the highest paid OK With OCAW ... and they have a record established of being C audi Arabian plans to buy a half-interest based oil company with bankruptcy. one of the leading concessionary unions in the ‘..3 in Fina Inc. may be good news for employ- Under the joint venture, Sparks said, "I labor movement, with at one time as much as ees at two Fina refineries in Texas, if joint really haven't noticed any change," other 80 percent of its membership being forced ownership of Star Enterprises, another Saudi than expansion of the refining capacity, into concessions.... We're talking about people joint venture, is any indicator.. which workers hope will give them more job who in many cases are not a hell of a lot above Earlier this month, oil industry newsletters security. He also noted that the Saudi ties the federal poverty level to start with and end reported that a group of private Saudi investors should ensure a stable crude oil supply at the up with concessions." was close to an agreement to buy one-half the plant. REAP claims 5,000 members, but he admit- refining and marketing system of Fina Inc., Mickey Breaux, chairman of the Fina ted there is little organized support in Texas. which operates refineries in Port Arthur and Workers Committee at the OCAW local in "The local unions down in Texas, at least at this Big Spring. Port Arthur, said initial reports on the joint point, seem to be in line with the international In 1988, the Saudi national oil company, venture talks were positive. "If anything it leadership," he said. "We do have rank and file Aramco, bought one-half of Texaco's refin- will stabilize our operation," he said. members in Texas, particularly in the Dallas ing and marketing system in 23 Eastern and Fina has confirmed it is negotiating with area, but in leadership, not so far." Gulf Coast States. One of the Texaco refiner- the Arabian Petroleum Co., the private Saudi Anderson believes the time is ripe for a chal- ies, renamed Star Enterprises; is in Port Arthur, group. Fina is 85-percent owned by Petrofina lenge. "I think the Teamsters is just the top of and Jerry Sparks, chairman of the Star S.A., based in Belgium. the iceberg of what's yet to come," he said. Enterprises group of local 4-23 of the Oil, "It's just unfortunate it wasn't Chevron "It can be done. ... The Miners for Democracy Chemical and Atomic Workers union there, instead of Fina" announcing the joint ven- did it in the mid-to-late 70s after a very bitter said workers welcomed the Saudi investment ture. said Eldon Soileau, president of the Port battle. In fact, one of the reformists, [Jock] at the plant. Arthur-based Sabine Area Labor Council. Yablonski, was killed in the process of trying "I was kind of glad at first, because of the Chevron, based in San Francisco, recently to reform that union, and that membership now financial situation Texaco got into with has announced it would eliminate at least 700 has the right to vote for their international Pennzoil," Sparks said, referring to a multi- jobs at its Port Arthur refinery. ❑ officers. billion-dollar court judgment against Texaco, "It's a long and a very difficult struggle, since settled, that threatened the New York- —James Cullen and Paula George. but my sense of it is that in this [UFCW] union ... things have gotten so bad as it relates to the

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12 • MARCH 13, 1992 LIFETIME INVESTIGATION BY RALPH THOMAS JUST RELEASED! MISSING LINKS THE JFK ASSASSINATION CONSPIRACY INVESTIGATIVE REPORT By: Ralph D. Thomas

•I , Based on a lifetime of investigation, research and obsession by one of the country's most well known investigative professionals.

Missing links is an encyclopedia on the assassination conspiracy and cover- NEW IDENTIFICATIONS: INFORMATION, DISINFORMATION up of JFK containing new evidence as well as a different lock at old evidence AND MISINFORMATION: The gunman behind the knoll identified The through the eyes of a professional investigator. men in the tramp photographs identified. Attempts to plant disinformation and misinformation. This section goes into both the Chancy Holt story and the INTRODUCTION: bails of the trip to Dallas, the first reports of the Rosco White story. Some of the facts uncovered have never before been assassination and the beginning stages of the cover-up. revealed. THE VVrINESSES THEY WANTED TO GO AWAY: In this investiga- REVERSE SPEECH AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: New tion, Thomas looks at glassy knoll witnesses who felt that at least one shot was evidence that utilizes a new audio investigative technique that proves Oswald fired fran the grassy knoll. Some heard shots, sane saw men behind the fence didn't assassinate Kennedy backed up with PSE testing. an top of the knoll, sane saw puffs of white smoke and some smelled gunpower in the area Many were threatened, several had their film taken flan PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND THE QUESTION OF MOITVE: Prior them and sane remained silent for years, but the story of these people provide knowledge of a plot to murder the President existed in Chicago and Miami. conclusive evidence that shots were fired from the grassy knoll There is evidence that authorities in New Orleans knew of the Dallas assassi- nation before it happened. Motive is explored as far as the current evidence of THE MAGIC BULLET AND OTHER EVIDENCE THAT DOESN'T' the 60's and what policy changed after the assassination. Highly revealing. ADD UP: The magic bullet theory and why ifs just a theory and couldn't be a fact. The Paraffin test that would have proven Oswald not guilty in a court of law. Solid evidence of other rifles found in the School Book Depository and evidence of one rifle filmed being brought down the back fire escape. Suspicious information =reining the empty shells and fingerorint.The third man wounded during the assassination, and the attempted cover-up. Blood on the sidewalk steps and the attempts to cover it up. The body of the president and suspicious facts. The fake backyard photographs.

FROM THE SIXTH FLOOR WINDOW TO OSVVALD'S ARREST: Prime motives and prime suspects including the Mob, the Civil Rights Time study that proves Oswald couldn't have been in the sixth floor window. Movement, The Vietnam War, Castro and the Cubans, Right Wing Groups and Witnesses who describe men other than Oswald with rifles in the upper the Oil Business, Internal Affairs, J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA, the Bay of Pigs and windows of the School Bock Depository. Oswald's activties after the assassi- the Cuban Missile Crisis are explored. nation that indicates he didn't murder anyone, including Tippit. The suspicious and strange arrest. Missing links is over 100,000 words and concludes that JFK was murdered as the result of a conspiracy which was covered up. It contains hard evidence and MISSING LINKS: THE OSWALD/RUBY LINK: Complete background takes new investigative approaches never before explored. Judge for yourself the investigations on both Oswald and Ruby that proves: Oswald was involved in overwhelming evidence of the conspiracy and cover-up on the crime of the intelligence work and Ruby was involved with orgainzed crime. Indepth century from one of the most famous investigative specialists in the United linkage and study of communication both covert and overt of Oswald and States. Ruby taking place before the assassination. Charts are provided. Over 100,000 words, Large 8 112 X 11 pages, Perfect Bound, charts, 208 pages Private printing, Limited Edition, numbered and signed by the author. $35.00

ORDER FORM Rush me a limited edition signed and numbered copy ofAilysi I ' at .5. 5I I At(! I am enclosing $35.00 plus $4.00 shipping and handling per order or wish to charge my: (} VISA ( ) MASTERCARD ( ) AMERICAN EXPRESS. (credit card orders can call 512-928-8190 to order) CARD NUMBER: EXP. DATE: RUSH MY ORDER TO: SEND TO: NAME: PHONE: Thomas Publications ADDRESS: P 0 Box 33244 Austin, Texas CITY, STATE, LIP: 78764 CREDIT CARD ORDERS CAN ORDER BY PHONE AT 512-928-8190 or by fax at: 512,928-4544

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13 Pepper Pickers Picket BY KENT PATERSON

Albuquerque, N.M. NCE A SPECIAL TREAT of South- western cuisine, the New Mexico chile 0 is fast becoming a hot item on the international food market. Nowadays, border food-processing companies churn out a steady supply of chile-based powders, salsas, frozen and canned foods for a worldwide clientele. The chile's popularity reached new heights in 1991 when electric lights fashioned in the image of red New Mexican chile peppers glittered from the nation's Christmas tree at the U.S. Capitol. With chiles garnering an estimated $230 mil- lion to $300 million annually for the New Mexican economy alone (according to New Mexico State University analysts), it's not surprising that growers in Texas and Arizona are joining the bonanza. "We're now in eastern Arizona and West Texas growing chiles to come to the Rio Grande Valley here to be processed," said NMSU researcher Paul Bosland. "So it's like ripples on a pond. We started here [New GLENN ELLIOT Mexico] and kind-of just expanded to Arizona Farmworker in barracks [and] Texas." Bringing in the chile crop requires lots of Still, Kitteridge and her roommates consid- say that we should pay a little bit more money, hand labor, and in recent years thousands of ered themselves lucky to have a roof over we'd be able to attract more people, but unfor- mainly Mexican field hands have arrived in the their heads. Across the Southwest, according to tunately if we pay more money, we take our- chile-growing belt in search of work. Many say the Associated Press, the homeless farmwork- selves out of-the world market," said Cervantes. they are not sharing in the boom. Arriving in er is an increasingly common sight, scrambling While the popularity of chile had increased old cars or labor contractors' buses from the . to find shelter under bridges in Hatch, on phenomenally in the last few years, boosted U.S./Mexico border, they often encounter low street corners in El Paso, and in caves just min- by the surge in popularity of spicy ethnic wages, fields without bathrooms and inadequate utes from exclusive Pebble Beach, Calif., golf goods, the future of the domestic chile indus- hosing. Surveys by two separate groups, the greens. try is at a crossroads. Like other labor-intensive non-profit housing organization Tierra del Sol "So many people don't have a place in Hatch," crops, the business will be put to a test by the Inc. of Las Cruces, N.M., and the El Paso-based said Kitteridge, I would like to have good apart- expected signing of. the North American Free Border Agricultural Workers Union, estimated ments ... for so many people to come. You Trade Agreement between Mexico, Canada and the average chile picker earns between $4,800 can tell Bush, OK?" the United States. and $6,000 per year. Touted by the Bush and Salinas administra- And according to Ruben Nunez, an orga- 11 ack4 of shelter for Mexican workers trav- tions as virtually the cure-all to the ills of their nizer with the New Mexico Catholic Church- eling to U.S. fields is starting to become nations' economies, the agreement is sure to affiliated Farm Worker Project, the typical a contentious issue between Washington, have its share of winners and losers. Analysts agricultural worker in the Texas-New Mexico D.C., and Mexico City. In El Paso, the Mexican such as Ed Avalos, a marketing specialist border region has a life span of 48 and 52 years, consul is requesting city authorities to devise with the New Mexico Department of significantly lower than the national average. some sort of temporary housing for chile har- Agriculture, foresee grain and livestock pro- Early in the harvest season at a windowless vesters who gather at the downtown Santa Fe ducers on the U.S. side in a-better position to cement barracks in the chile-producing town of bridge to be recruited and then transported to cash in on Mexican markets. Hatch, N.M., chile workers complained of farms in the region. Conversely, the -lifting of remaining U.S. declining wages and housing shortages. A forty- Many chile farmers, who logically would commercial barriers for Mexican agricultural ish Mary Kitteridge, laid off from a $7.10-an- seem to be the parties responsible to provide exports, principally labor-intensive crops such hour job as a Colorado meatcutter, said she liked worker housing, maintain they are hard-pressed as chile, strawberries, tomatoes and citrus, picking chile but wished she made more than by competition from Mexican chiles and can- puts pressures on U.S. farmers to keep their the minimum wage of $4.25 an hour. Her co- not afford, to shelter their seasonal help. labor costs at a minimum. In the worst-case sce- workers nodded in agreement, claiming piece "I'd like to see everyone live in a new house nario, observers say, smaller growers could rates for each bucket of picked jalapeno pep- and drive a new car, but unfortunately we com- be forced to lay off field help and switch to pers had dropped from $1.30 in 1990 to 85 cents pete in a world market where people make 10 crops that require less hand labor. Some pro- in 1991. "Let's say the work isn't easy, because times less," says New Mexico chile grower Dino ducers may go out of business entirely. you work hard enough and they pay very little," Cervantes. According to Cervantes, who is "When the negotiators negotiate the free-trade added Juarez resident Pablo Ramirez. experimenting with growing chiles in Mexico, agreement, maybe they can take into consid- U.S. processors are buying cheaply-produced eration the negative impact it could have on the Mexican chile varieties. In Mexico, he points chile industry in the U.S., especially New Kent Paterson is a free-lance writer and radio out, harvesting cayenne peppers costs $3.75 a Mexico," Avalos suggested , "and maybe producer based in Albuquerque, N.M. pound as opposed to $7.75 in the U.S. "People restrict or keep an import duty for a certain peri- 14 • MARCH 13, 1992 dd of time. It would be a period to phase in the of criteria used to assess labor shortages and see there are plenty of workers willing and avail- free trade agreement." new guidelines for existing guest worker pro- able that want to harvest the crops," New said. In fact, extensive agricultural trade already grams such as H2A, a program that brings "And why they want to bring in workers'from takes place between Mexico and the United Caribbean workers to U.S. shores for the sug- another country is .absurd, other than that States, a situation which gives some clue as to arcane and apple harvests. bringing in workers from another country is to the probable effects of free trade on growers and A section of the 1986 law allowed the entrance keep wages down and exploits the workers. How workers. Today, a shopper in a U.S. super- of hundreds of thousands of Replenishment long can we put up with things like this?" market can find Mexican chile, broccoli, toma- Agricultural Workers (RAWs) into the U.S. Chile farmers like Dino Cervantes, on the to sauce, beer and a host of other products on in the event of a federally sanctioned farm labor other hand, insist the immigration reform has the shelves. Mexico's farm exports to the U.S. shortage. So far, the feds have declined to cer- led to an exodus of their best workers from doubled between 1982 and 1990, reaching a tify that a shortage exists, much to the disap- the fields, driving productivity down because value of $2.6 billion in 1990, according to the pointment of chile and other growers who have of the inexperience of newer chile pickers. U.S. International Trade Commission. claimed periodic labor deficits in their fields. Workers will have to become more productive, One significant development of the 1980s Now groups such as the New Mexico Farm and cautions Cervantes, or suffer the prospect of was the spread of "agro-maquilas," U.S.- Livestock Bureau seek the easing of current reg- seeing their jobs lost to mechanization as based firms in Mexico that take a raw product ulations to permit the seasonal entry of Mexican farmers attempt to compete with Mexican rivals. and process it for export. According to writer contract workers. Cervantes, for one, plans to monitor the progress Tom Barry, a director of Albuquerque's "We believe that our area is in need of a guest- of free-trade negotiations, a regional version of Resource Center and the author of a forth- worker program for Mexican nationals, where- the world scene .by the GATT talks aimed at coming book on Mexico, some 40 "agro- by farmworkers are allowed to enter the U.S. eliminating global trade barriers. The realities maquilas" existed in Mexico by 1991. on a seasonal basis and then return to their homes of free trade, Cervantes predicts, might encour- Big players setting up shop south of the in Mexico at the end of this contract period," age growers to request federal assistance to help border include Campbell, Carnation, Ralston- farm and livestock bureau Vice President Bob pay for worker housing and transportation. Purina, Kellogg and Beatrice Food. At the same Porter testified in Las Cruces. "This proposal "With free-trade agreements hanging on the time, growers and corporations such as Del could be modeled somewhat similar to the horizon, I think those supplements from gov- Monte and Caste and Cook provided financing bracero program of the late '40s and '50s," he ernment are going to become a reality here short- and technical assistance to capital-poor Mexican said. "Such a program would not replace ly," said Cervantes. agriculture. Barry's research revealed that 90 American workers and could become a valu- El Paso's Border Agricultural Workers percent of the crops in Baja California, Mexico, able tool in the implementation of a free-trade Union, known popularly by the Spanish for in-stance, are grown with transnational zone between our nations. acronym UTAF, is also keeping abreast of free- financing. trade politics. The union took an early stance in Although some analysts discount a massive ut farmworker advocates dispute the exis- opposition to free trade ad in May 1991 and migration of U.S. agriculture to Mexico because tence of a labor shortage and charge that working with allies from the Democratic of free trade, noting that productivity and tech- B guest-worker schemes are thinly veiled Peasant Front of Chihuahua shut down one lane nology across the Rio Grande still lag behind the attempts at union-busting. In El Paso alone, hun- of an El Paso-Juarez bridge in protest. U.S., the existence of a huge, low-cost labor pool dreds of chile pickers went without work this The Democratic Peasant Front, which rep- to the south is a powerful incentive for agro- season because of bad weather and the mech- resents members of Mexican communal land- investors. David Runsten, a researcher on free anization of some chile crop thinning. Advocates holdings called ejidos, fears that the Salinas trade and agriculture for the California Institute report that the situation is even worse in South gov-ernment's economic liberalization plan will of Rural Studies, estimates that farm workers Texas, where hundreds of thousands of agri- force millions of peasants off their lands. A vital in central Mexico, where many vegetables for cultural workers provide much of the nation's element of Salinas' economic strategy — the U.S. market are grown, earn from 65 to 85 migrant labor pool. linked with free trade — is to break up the eji- cents an hour. In real terms, this wage level is In February, chile pickers loudly protested dos and allow their sale, a policy opponents argue about equivalent to 1960 rates in the U.S. outside the annual chile conference in Las is sure to result in an agribusiness land grab. In testimony before a federal commission Cruces. Hosted by New Mexico State. "The ejidos are going to be eaten up ... that meeting in Las Cruces, N.M., last October, University, farmers, agricultural workers, agri- is going to play into the hands of the ranchers Runsten also claimed that real wages for U.S. culture researchers and representatives of and they'll be saturated with labor," says UTAF farmworkers have declined since 1986. "The food processing firms met to discuss free spokeswoman New. Both the union and the market right now is working in favor of agri-. trade and eye a new line of chile-harvesting Front also decided to fight free trade, she culture businesses. That is, there is a flooded machines designed to eliminate the need for said, because they don't think small Mexican labor market. Wages are falling," he testified. hand labor. But while conference attendees corn or bean farmers will have the where- Despite the low wages, the U.S. farm-labor lunched with the staff of New Mexico's con- withal to compete with a tide of more efficiently market is different from five years ago. The pas- gressional delegation, scores of UTAF mem- grown U.S. exports to its southern neighbor. sage of the 1986 Immigration and Reform bers stood outside the Hilton Hotel meeting site, The consequences, she contended, will be a Control Act legalized hundreds of thousands of waving union flags and demanding an end to landless proletariat subject to the whims of formerly undocumented farmworkers, giving what they charged are subminimum wages in agribusiness on both sides of the border. once-hidden laborers greater freedom to travel the field. "Free trade is going to push workers off their from field to field, looking for the highest pay. "People are almost desperate to find work," land. They're not going to be able to compete says Yvonne Charbineau, the director of the with the small crops — beans, corn," maintains aced with the uncertainties of free trade, Farm-worker Health and Safety Project for New. "It'll displace a lot of workers who, of farmer representatives want the federal Texas Rural Legal Aid. "From what we see course, will come north. It's going to be a F government to step in and guarantee a there's a work shortage, not a worker shortage." field day for the growers." dependable, affordable workforce. That was the What labor recruitment problems may exist, Since last spring's bridge closure, UTAF has message delivered to the U.S. Commission on contend worker advocates, stem from the taken its anti-free trade message to the Mexican Agricultural Workers in Las Cruces this fall. unwillingness of once-illegal workers to put up media, talked with other activist groups opposed Established by. Congress to study the impact with abusive working conditions and poverty- to the Bush-Salinas accord and held meetings of the 1986 immigration reform on agricul- level wages. Grower proposals for expanded with farmworkers on the subject. ture, the commission is preparing a 1992 report guest-worker programs are meant to control a New said the work will continue. "We'll keep to Capitol. Hill lawmakers. Recommendations potentially restive workforce, said Border forming alliances, talking to workers and could result in changes of employer sanctions Agricultural Workers Union staffer Sandy New. they'll talk to other workers on the rancho. We for hiring undocumented workers, redefinitions "It's hard to realize that people are blind to plan to keep on voicing our opposition." [11 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 15 A Ghastly Kitchen Cooking the books on the supercollider

BY DEBORAH LIIITERBECK

New York City work on the atom and the nucleus," Moore said. lion, while Congress provided $434 million. HEN SAMUEL JOHNSON was told People who have traveled down this path pro- That is not all. In 1989 there was an attempt of Bishop Berkeley's theory that all vide all the assurance you could ask for. Right on the House floor to limit SSC spending to W time and space was simply an illu- now, the largest physics laboratory is the research and development rather than con- sion, the greatl8th-century doctor reputedly Fermi lab outside of Chicago. The head of the struction. That effort was soundly defeated, 331- kicked his foot against a stone and declared, "I Research and Technology Applications section, 92. Last year when an amendment was offered refute it thus." These days you must do 4 lot Richard Carrigan Jr., noted that work done at to shut down SSC it was defeated 251-165. more than kick a rock to participate in theoret- Fermi helped to develop magnetic resonance Barton says we are past worrying about the actu- ical scientific debates. You must prepare cost- imagers. The laboratory also was used by Leon al survival of the SSC, but that doesn't mean the benefit analyses and dodge funding roadblocks. Lederman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize struggle is over. The next line of attack comes Consider the modern scientific debate over for Physics in 1978. But while Carrigan on the foreign-contribution front. Which takes the proposed $8.25 billion Superconducting acknowledges that the "gadgets" from Fermi us to Japan. Super Collider, which is being built in are a welcome offshoot, he said, "it's really When the President went to the Far East, most Waxahachie, just outside of Dallas. While physi- for knowledge in the fundamental sense" that of the focus was on cars and car parts, but anoth- cists want the atom smasher to answer questions the laboratory is important. er reason for his trip was to secure a $1 billion about how the universe began, policy-makers commitment from Japan for the collider. Instead, are more inclined to wonder about the next elec- cientists in Texas are sounding the same he came back with an agreement to create a study tion. For Texans, even before the sub-atomic themes about the Super Collider. Vidgor group. Critics called this a setback. To Barton, particles are sent around the collider's 54 S Teplitz, who heads the Physics Department "It was a disappointment that people were dis- miles of underground track, the project will be at Southern Methodist University, said, "I think appointed." The Congressman was not looking providing a gravy train for the state. it is a tribute to our country and our century; we for an actual pledge out of the trip, he said, but Part of the problem with the collider, or SSC, have the capacity to ask the fundamental ques- he hopes to get a firm commitment from the is with science itself. While we all know Albert tions about what the world is made of ... and Japanese in 1992, and actual funding the next Einstein had one of the greatest minds of all time, the knowledge itself is the chief reason (to pur- year. "Even if we don't receive foreign funding even the wonderfully simple formula, E=MC', sue the project)." But, he too, adds that when that won't kill the SSC," he said. can be tricky to explain. The idea of giving a you "go after nature's secrets" you often find So far, the only country to toss a coin in the select group of physicists all this money has practical applications. collider's cup has been India, with a $50 million some people seeing a boondoggle on the "Big Some of that has already happened. Last commitment. One Congressional staff member Bang" scale. U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, March, work on the SSC yielded a self-shield- dismissed the $50-million pledge as, in fact, a D-NY, warns: "The project will swallow up the ing magnet, a tool for biologists to map the drain. "It will take money out, not put it in," nation's already limited science budget, forcing human brain. In April, a second practical the aide said, because the payment is an in- a round of 'beggar thy neighbor's' scientific dis- application allowed medical plastics to be kind offering of scientists and hardware. "I don't cipline." sterilized or reused instead of being dumped. follow that logic," responds. Barton, who notes, So comes the need to make this academic pur- SSC proponents say you can't even imagine "$50 million is a help not a hurt." However, he suit more palatable to the tax-paying public. what the future could hold along these lines. concedes that there is merit in the debate on how Spin-offs from great science projects often are Some say the future windfalls are not the only to spend the funds. "There is an honest dis- given as much weight by policy-makers as the thing left to the imagination. They like to agreement on priorities," he said. theoretical studies. This is the chord that Henson point to the surprises in the price of the SSC. Some lawmakers simply make short-hand Moore, the former deputy energy secretary, now The official estimate for the collider is attacks, labeling the SSC an "economic black- deputy White House chief of staff, wanted to $8.25 billion. However, forecasts have run as hole," or the "Texas Gila Monster." Jim Slattery, strike in early 1990 when he addressed the high as $11.3 billion — a long way off from the D-Kan., voices the sentiment: "Will our coun- International. Industrial Symposium on the SSC. $4.4 -billion initial estimate in 1988. try be better off 10 years, 20 years from now "Who among us tonight can possibly guess what So far, the federal government has coughed if we pour all this money into the SSC? Or technological progress and what economic up more than a billion dollars for the project. will we be better off if we take part of this money progress is going to come from an operating Overall, it is expected to grant $5 billion in fund- and put it into desperately-needed basic research Super Collider?" he asked. "We'll learn a ing. The state of Texas has to come up with in our universities all across this country? ... great deal just in building it. We've learned a $1 billion, and the rest is supposed to come from With the adoption and support of the SSC, we great deal already in the past year in designing foreign governments. are going to choke off basic research in this coun- it. And just think what we're going to learn in This year the President asked for $650 mil- try. There is no other way to look at it." the years to come from operating it." Moore con- lion for the collider, and according to Rep. For the 1993 Fiscal year, the Administration jures up the ghosts of physicists of the 1920s Joe Barton, R-Ennis, whose district includes the is asking for $650 million for the SSC, and about and 1930s whose research in quantum mechan- SSC site, "If I do my job right, he'll get it." Each $630 million for other high-energy physics pro- ics and the splitting of the atom led to such things year the battle for funding gets tougher — but jects. Those projects are part of the Energy as personal compirters, Walkmans and compact this is no reason to start writing epitaphs. The Department's $3.4 billion budget for the Office disks. "One-third of our present day GNP can funding always comes through, although it might of Energy Research Science. be traced back to basic knowledge from their not be exactly what the President asked for. For At the state level, SSC funding has made a example, the request for 1991 was $318 mil- difference. The $1 billion to be financed by lion; over the course of the appropriations Texas taxpayers has swelled the state's bond- Deborah Lutterbeck is an economics writer process $75 million was shaved off. Similarly, ed debt in recent years. So far, $500 billion in based in New York City. the full request for fiscal 1992 was $484 mil- Continued on pg. 21

16 • MARCH 13, 1992 Newspapers In Chains BY RONAN G. LYNCH

HEN JASON ROBARDS' Ben operations with circulations under 5,000. The so many newspapers are now owned by outside Bradlee strides into the Washington remaining 80 are owned by chains. This is con- interests, their profits disappear into the chasm WPost newsroom in the 1974 movie sistent with newspaper ownership across the of the parent company's databases, making it adaption of "All The President's Men" and prac- country: Of about 1,650 American dailies, 82 virtually impossible to figure out profits for indi- tically challenges Richard Nixon to a kick- percent—about 1,350—are owned by groups. vidual newspapers. Since many reporters boxing match, real editors must have had a There's no inherent evil in being in a chain; can't independently find their typewriters, it's laugh. Closer to the truth, then andnow, is 'a it's a fact of modern life that small, family- probable that most have no idea what sort of managing editor whose motto is not "'damn- owned businesses get bought out by corpora- profits their newspapers generate. That keeps the-cost' journalism," but "'damn-the-journal- tions. Some corporations, like Knight-Ridder potentially rebellious advertisers and employ- ism' profit" . and 'The New York Times Co. have (barely- ees under control. If life imitated art in the newspaper business, deserved) reputations for spending money on The Canadian-based Thomson chain, which the order of the day would be serving the talent and facilities. Others, such as Donrey owns 163 dailies—six in Texas—had 1990 rev- community; generating public debate and try- Media and Thomson Newspapers are known enues of $1.4 billion, up almost 6 percent ing to outscoop the competition. In reality, news- for their balls-out profiteering and newsroom from the previous year. Busy gobbling up small- papers serve their shareholders, generate stinginess. Problem is, neither Knight-Ridder town monopoly newspapers over the ,last ten whopping.profits, and the competition, frankly, or the Times own Texas newspapers. Donrey years, Thomson's reputation for fantastic stingi- is dead. and Thomson do. ness was exceeded only by its reputation for Reseaching his 1983 book, The Media fantastic profits. By the mid-1980s, the Thomson Monopoly; former editor Ben Bagdikian found n fact, virtually every small and medium- group's pretax profit margin peaked at 37 per- that 29 corporations controlled the lion's share sized newspaper in Texas is owned by cent. The most recent figures, from the third of America's 25,000 media outlets. In the 1987 I Donrey Media (10), Thomson (five), quarter last year, still show Thomson produc- second edition, the 29 had dropped to 26. The Freedom Newspapers (four), Southern ing margins of 15.7 percent. The little papers latest number is 23. In Texas newspaperland; Newspapers (five), Cox (four), Hartman (five) have made majority owner Kenneth R. Thomson things appear to be going the same way; stan- or Harte-Hanks (five). Small-circulation news- a rich man. According to last year's Fortune dardization, monopolization, only three corn papers enjoy a monopoly in their local mar- magazine, Thomson is worth a cool $6.7 bil- petitive markets—Oh, well, there goes the Dallas ket, enabling chains to engage in ruthless lion, making him the tenth richest man in the Times-Herald; make that two . . . cost-cutting to squeeze maximum profits world. . The only two truly competitive newspaper from the paper. In these papers, the first thing The Thomson chain is by no means unique. markets in Texas are Houston and San Antonio. to go was the "hard news" hole; reporters are Donrey Media, owned by Nevada billionaire In El Paso, a joint operating agreement between notoriously expensive, especially when they Donald W. Reynolds, is the biggest chain in the Times and the Herald-Post combined their actually get outside the press-conference Texas, with 10 papers. It enjoys a stinginess business operations while the two newspapers room and start digging up stories of their reputation equal rivalling Thomson's, although compete editorially. To put a less inspira- own. (This is why most newspapers don't have Donrey—which is privately-held—won't give tional twist on it, that means a monopoly situ- "investigative" reporters; publishers think they out its profit margins. ation in virtually every newspaper market, which cost too much.) Instead, "soft" news—features Not that larger, privately-owned companies translates into high profits for corporate news- on cars, real estate and fashion—which draws have a reputation for benevolence; in fact, paper chains. advertisers has become the mainstay of many you might be grateful that the smaller compa- The chain phenomenon began about 30 papers. nies only own your newspaper. The Hearst years ago, when third- and fourth-generation Publishers have consistently defended the Corp., for example, owns two major Texas owners of family newspapers who no longer decimation of news staffs and budgets because newspapers, the Houston Chronicle and the San felt familial allegiance to the paper sold out to of "tough times," which usually means increased Antonio Light, and four smaller papers. But larger corporations. As corporations started to competition from other media, and declining as a "diversified" media corporation, newspa- trade publicly, Wall Street investors taking an profits. There's a consensus that things aren't per money counts for only about a third of interest in the newspaper business were pleas- all roses in the newspaper business; the rise Hearst's income, as privately-held Hearst also antly surprised to find that newspapers, quite of cable television and information services has owns several TV stations, chunks of A&E, simply, made buckets of money. driven down newspaper readership or has it'? Lifetime and ESPN, and is second only to Time Twenty years ago, the only chains in Texas Thirty-seven newspapers have suffered a Warner in magazine publishing. to speak of were Harte-Hanks Communications decline in readerShip, mostly less than 10 per- The recession/depression has brought down Inc., which owned 11 newspapers, the News- cent, while the other 57 have increased read- the pretax profit margins of publicly-traded Texan group which had six Dallas suburban ership. (Donrey and Southern in particular seem newspapers from 17.7 percent in 1989 to 15 per- newspapers, and Freedom Newspapers Group, to have a special touch for killing off reader- cent in 1990. While most businesses would be which owned five. Out of the 112 daily news- ship at almost every paper they get their hands deliriously happy with profit margins of five to papers in Texas, 48 were in "chains," mostly of on.) But overall, the 94 dailies still publishing 10 percent during periods of economic growth, two or three newspapers. In other words, there in Texas enjoyed an average increase in read- many newspapers have laid off reporters, fur- were' 64 independent newspapers; 64 inde- ership of over 25 percent in the last ten years. ther reduced their "news hole" and increased pendent newspapers that made loads of money. Sure, the death of fourteen other Texas papers their prices to maintain profits and remain an Today, there are 94 dailies published in Texas. and population growth has had an effect on read- attractive investment. (As near as I can make Fourteen are independents, 10 of which are small ership, but those still publishing and whining out, a third of Texas' newspapers are owned by about the decline in readership should be billionaires: Did the billionaire Cox sisters real- taken with a grain of salt. ly need that extra 15 cents per copy for the Ronan G. Lynch is a doctoral student in Radio- Newspaper publishing remains one of the American-Statesman?) Television-Film at the 'University of Texas. most profitable businesses in America. Because Continued on pg. 21 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 17 B OOKS & THE CULTURE Cinema Latinisimo

BY STEVEN G. KELLMAN

WO INGREDIENTS are necessary from Latin, Haitian and Quebecois works do Diego. Honorable_mention also went to anoth- for a successful film festival: imagina- not show up at CineFestival. er study in stubborn construction: Casita T tive programming and an adventurous But those that do have to be assigned to one Culture. Narrated by salsa star Willie Colon, audience. In its 16th edition, CineFestival, of seven categories: documentary, made-for- Cathe Newcum's video examines the prolif- San Antonio's annual exposition of Latino film TV documentary, animation, experimental, first eration in New York City of more than 40 and video, offered almost 100 works not like- film/video, feature, and short feature. Winners casitas, "little houses" with a distinctive ly to be encountered in the shopping mall the- of CineFestival's Premio Mesquite and hon- Caribbean architecture that have become cul- aters that have been proliferating throughout orable mentions are determined for each clas- tural oases for Puerto Rican immigrants. Casita the county like fire ant mounds. Most are avail- sification, while the coveted Special Jury Award Culturealso won the CineFestival Special Jury able from independent distributors and/or are is bestowed on the one work from any catego- Award. already scheduled for theatrical circulation; ry that best exemplifies the spirit of CineFestival. An inn is the icon for the winner in the cat- information can be obtained from the It is often an unruly spirit, as in the case of egory of made- for-TV documentary; Natatcha CineFestival staff at (512) 271-3151). But, apart Border Brujo, a manic monologue written Esteban& calls her WGBH portrait of Mario from a few glamorous events—opening night and performed by Guillermo Gomez Pena and Bauza Notes From the Mambo Inn. The film festivities that included a premiere of the directed by Isaac Artenstein. With minimal traces the development of the 80-year-old musi- Mexican film Cabeza de Vaca or an awards cer- change of clothing, Pena] alternates among cian from precocious stints with the Havana emony presided over by Cheech Marin—a zeal- 15 distinct personalities who, in Spanish, Symphony and with nightclub bands in Cuba ous viewer could count on 19 days of solitude. English, Spanglish, Nahautl, and tongues, pon- to emigration in 1926'and emergence as a It was a sweet-and-sour 16 for the oldest sur- der the polarities of North-South, Spanish- hero of Spanish Harlem, the leading proponent viving festival of Latino cinema. Sponsored by English, myth-reality, and self-other. The of Afro-Cuban music. Ignoring his personal the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, in San only other recent work that comes close to life, Notes From the Mambo Inn, is the story— Antonio's westside barrio, the 1992 resembling Border Brujo is Eric Bogosian's told through interviews and performances—of CineFestival, which ran Jan. 23 through Feb. Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and the only catego- Bauza's public career in jazz. Honorable men- 14, was a succes d estime, but the few able to ry in which judges could possibly consider it tion in the same category went to Carolyn Hales' do the estimating were outnumbered by a typ- would be something called Performance Tierra o Muerte: Land or Death, an analysis of ical audience for Home Alone. Docmentation. So they created that label and the ancient struggle over land rights to the New Though they did not adjudicate anything quite awarded Border Brujo a Premio Mesquite in Mexico region of Tierra Amarilla. Narrated by as consequential as Roe v. Wade, the nine jurors the new classification. Luis Valdez, the video traces the current clash for CineFestival had a case load as heavy as the between commercial development and con- Supreme Court nonet. Several works, includ- ver the years, CineFestival has been par- servation, between private speculation and com- ing Cuban director T6mas Gutierrez Alea's The ticularly strong in documentaries, non- munal culture, to the differing attitudes toward Last Supper, the 1977 feature, about an 18th- 0 fiction accounts of political struggle ownership and society held by the Indians, century slave revolt, that was a seminal force in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Mexicans, and Yankees who have laid claim to in the resurgence of Latin American cinema, and elsewhere in the hemisphere. Though this the bare but stunning valley, now one of the were screened out of competition. But enough year's festival offered fewer documentaries poorest counties in the United States. Tierra works were entered to drive a lucid judge to about Latin America,. nonfiction film and o Muerte is both a lucid case study and a . Visine. Not only did jurors have to view and video continued to be a powerful part of the pro- haunting corrido about dirt and death. grade each entry in the brief interval between gram. The Premio Mesquite for documentary The award for novice work went to Home submission and exhibition. They also had to be went to Carlos Loarca, the portrait of an exu- Is Struggle, Marta N. Bantis' attempt to tell the more adept at taxonomy than the IRS. berant and remarkably accomplished self-taught parallel lives of Hispanic women, from a "Latino" is the only qualification for gener- painter. For Loarca, painting is "one of the very wide variety of countries and backgrounds, who al eligibility, but CineFestival's definition is so few ecstasies that we can experience in this have settled in New York. Honorable men- generous that it encompasses works either by world as we are alive," and the 15-minute video, tion went to a fascinating piece of ethno- Latinos, about Latinos, produced in Latin directed by Danna Peterson and Jonna Ramey, graphic cinema: Huichol Sacred Pilgrimage to American countries, or about Latin American does a persuasive job of illustration. Loarca, Wirikuta. Larain Boyll managed to appren- countries. If Oliver Stone ever does a biogra- who lives in San Francisco, left Guatemala in tice herself to a shaman of the Huichol Indians phy of Cheech Marin, it could be entered in 1956, but his native myths persist in the pres- in western Mexico, and her film records the rit- CineFestival, as could a biography of Oliver ence of a black dog—who, according to Indian ual pilgrimage of 1,000 miles and the sacred Stone by Cheech Marin. Pace Dan Quayle, a legend, is the patron of cantina drunks—in many hunt for peyote that the surviving Huichols knowledge of Latin is less necessary to a of Loarca's vibrant canvases. undertake each year. Latino filmmaker than intimacy with one of the Gustavo Vasquez's Free From Babylon, hon- Harry Gamboa Jr.'s Vis-A-Vid won in the cat- Hispanic or Portuguese cultures of the Western orable mention in the documeritary category, is egory of experimental work. The 13.5-minute Hemisphere. Though French, too, is derived the portrait of another extraordinary personal- video consists of four vignettes that emphasize ity—Joseph DiLerbert aka Treehouse Joe, a the absurdity of Chicano life in Los Angeles. middle-a&d man who opted out of the alien- Luis Valdovino's The World of Dance, which Steven Kellman is a professor of comparative ating complexities of technology for the sim- won honorable mention in the same category, literature at the University of Texas-San Antonio. plicity of a treehouse he constructed near San is a wrly irreverent spoof of both ballet and cal-

18 • MARCH 13, 1992 isthenics. Fast Food Matador, the winner for is traumatized by the atrocities he witnesses. tival's base of operations and Latino cinema its animation, is a fantasy about a coffee shop deliv- Honorable mention went to La Mujer de raison d' etre, this year's screenings were spread ery boy who battles New York traffic as coura- Benjamin, Mexican director Carlos Carrera's over nine different venues throughout San geously as a matador. "The bull was not harmed, account of a village idiot's crush on a ram- Antonio. "Latino filmmakers do not exist in a nor was any real blood shed," reassure the titles bunctious 17-year-old beauty. vacuum," notes Nieves-Cruz, who ponders at the conclusion of this pen-and-ink romp. One of the most beautiful offerings at bringing works from as far afield as India for Luis Avalos' Always Roses is the earnest story CineFestival was Daughters of the Dust, Julie her fourth year at the helm of CineFestival. of a 12-year-old from Los Angeles who reluc- Dash's drama about a Gullah family aban- By 1992, the annual exposition can claim cred- tantly spends the summer with his grandparents doning its base on Ibo Landing, off the Georgia it for a boom in productions by and about in rural Arizona but ends up understanding and coast, at the turn of the century. Shown to a large Latinos, and with their increased participation cherishing his Mexican heritage. The film, which and enthusiastic audience at the Carver in mainstream productions. It must also con- features Freddy Fender as the grandfather, won Community Cultural Center, on San Antonio's tend with competition from newer festivals that the CineFestival award for best short fiction. black East Side, Daughters of the Dust is one are receptive to the kind of programming that Honorable mention in the same category went of the few features directed by an African- CineFestival pioneered. This year's edition over- to /'ll Be Home for Christmas, Robert Diaz American woman. It and several other works, lapped with both the New York Latino Festival LeRoy's drama about a self-loathing Chicano as well as a panel discussion on the impact of and the Sundance Festival, an event now hos- who, though born Roberto Herrera, calls him- the African diaspora on Latino cultures, pro- pitable to Latino independents. With a total bud- self Robert O'Hara and traces his bitterness to vided this year's CineFestival with a connect- get of $35,000, mostly from government grants the death of his father in prison when he was ing theme: the links between African and and corporate underwriters, CineFestival can- only nine. Latino cultures. not afford the pomp of Cannes or the cant of The award- for best feature film went to "A festival in San Antonio cannot exist sole- parochialism. Running a festival can be a roller Jerico, a Venezuelan production that dramatizes ly for one purpose or one community," coaster of elation and despair. Attending one is the crisis of conscience experienced by a CineFestival director Yvette Nieves-Cruz more like staring at the funhouse mirror until Christian missionary who accompanies the told The Texas Observer. Though the fiercely your eyes pop and glaze and the world never Spanish con- quistadors to South America and Hispanic Guadalupe Theater remains the fes- again seems the same. ❑ Down to Earth

BY BETTY BRINK .

EARTH IN THE BALANCE, assault against the environment is global and the GNP," he writes, "resources are not depre- ECOLOGY AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT nothing short of a global response will work. ciated as they are used up." By Al Gore Gore calls for a worldwide commitment to "Why isn't the topsoil in Iowa depieciat- New York: Houghton Mifflin make " the rescue of the environment the cen- ed as it washes down the Mississippi River" 1992 tral organizing principle for civilization," and like buildings, auto, machinery?", Gore asks 365 pages points to the "only model history has given By never being confronted with the "real costs" for the kind of powerful cooperative effort need- of our arrogant asssumption that the earth ed," a Global Marshall Plan for the environ- and its resources are limitless, we will never " It is not so much the easy lies we tell each ment, "a large vision ... translated into effective stop the wholesale destruction of systems other, it is the hard truths that are never action". critical to the planet's fragile life-sustaining told at all." Gore reminds us that the Marshall Plan balance, like the tropical rainforests. Gore is at — Al Gore, on the political ethic of the age, worked not only because it rebuilt a devastat- his best when he writes of the destruction of Earth in The Balance, page 174 ed Europe after World War II; it was consciously the rainforests: designed by its Western Architects to change "...the wholesale annihilation of so many liv- L GORE, Democratic senator from Ten- the dynamics of the systems it aided. Part of ing species in such a breathless moment of geo- nessee, one-time presidential candidate, that "conscious design" was altruistic, but anoth- logical time represents a deadly wound to the Aand longtime environmental voice in er factor was more cynical: the West wanted to integrity of the earth's painstakingly intricate the Senate, has written an extraordinary book. build a bulwark against Communism. web of life, a wound so nearly permanent Earth in the Balance, Ecology and the Human It worked. As Gore points out, Communism that scientists estimate that recuperation will Spirit tells us in straightforward language some finally fell, but at a terrible cost to the earth and take 100 million years." "hard truths" about the environmental crisis we its people. The arms race that grew out of the Nuclear waste will be around that long too. face. It considers the roots of the crisis, names drive to contain Communism drained the Or longer. No one has ever factored that cost the good guys and the bad guys, and, in its final world of resources and wealth and led to the to the future into the capital or operating chapters, charts a path .back to ecological unchecked assault of the environment, espe- costs of a nuclear plant. Here in Texas, if those balance. cially in Eastern Europe where industrial pol- hidden costs of nuclear power had been cal- It will take a sea change in the way we lution is worse than anywhere in the world. culated before Texas's two nuclear plants were think to bring it all off. There are no easy For Gore, a Global Marshall Plan entails built, we would be generating electricity by solutions in this book, no "50 Things You population control coupled with the promise of burning natural gas, and saving energy through Can Do To Save The Planet," no "easy lies." a sustainable lifestyle, the promise that every cogeneration and/or conservation. As it stands We are not going to get out of this mess by recy- child will have the opportunity to grow old. It now, health and environmental costs which will cling and feeling good about ourselves. The entails changing the way we deterthine eco- result from the long-term storage of nuclear nomic value, assigning a cost to the pollution waste in Somerville and Matagorda Counties, we create today and including in that price the sites of the two plants, will be borne by Betty Brink is a longtime Observer contribu- the loss of natural resources that future gener- future generations. The real estate these two tor living in Fort Worth. ations will never be able to use. "In calculating Continued on pg. 21 THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 19

,ArNsPeg '50,..u0A.,11040,..r`!0°V00,404 4 -4 Organizing for the Next Century Dallas But if you give them a third option, develop- How about 1996? n an interview following a book-signing ing according to a new pattern, [one] that I hope we'll be electing a Democratic session, Al.Gore discussed his recently enables them to leapfrog the technologies of incumbent. But if I have a chance to run for Ipublished book: the industrial age ... to avoid the mistakes that president in the future, I will. • You've said that one regret of your 1988 pres- have led to environmental destruction; they Will Earth In The Balance be the'blueprint idential campaign was your inability to make will choose the third option. And the Japanese for your campaign? the environment a major issue that year. What plan to have those new technologies there to j Yes. If I have a chance to run. I'm keenly about the current Democratic contenders, are sell to them. [By contrast, the U.S.] is still argu- aware that history waits for no candidate. If they making the environment an ‘issue, and if ing over whether the problem is real! It's that's the case, I will not have not, why not? just so ridiculous. second thoughts about the decision I made You make a point in the book that in order [not to run this year] because I made it for The political dialogue in,this country has been for this central organizing principle to work, the right reasons. so compressed into seven-second soundbites it will take strong leadership, special leader- One of the most important points you make that the candidates ... are made to feel it's in the book is that we must redefine the impossible to talk about something new way we determine economic value [by ... and that they should use the seven including in the cost of a produCt] the seconds to turn a phrase that will strike economic losses' o the future of lost nat- a spark. ural resources or the wastes left behind: Most of the Democrats are [talking How do you see that in terms of your posi about environmental issues.] In [1988] tion on nuclear power and the amount of it didn't fit the description most people wastes we are leaving for the future? had of a presidential issue. It doesn't fit If you look at the standard I set for the neatly into the agenda that the pundits and new generation of passively safe, stan- pollsters have constructed ... but I think dardized nuclear technology, that the risks we're nearing a threshold beyond which posed to human beings from the dis- [the environment] will become the dom- posal of the wastes has to be no greater inant organizing principle for government than the risks posed by the raw materi- and politics for the rest of this decade and al in the earth before it is mined, then on into the next century.... surely that is a reasonable standard ... You said that this will be the "central Because of the CO-2 problem I don't see organizing principle" for the future. Will how we can fail to continue research ... it be more so than the debate over what but I make it very clear in the book that we're going to do with the peace divi- conservation, efficiency and renewables dend? are by far and away the preferable By central organizing principle, I mean - options. something more than a major issue. For What about the Johnson-Wallop ener.L. the last half-century the central organiz- gy bill 01,81 passed] and its provision ing principle for the Western Democrats td make nuclear plant licensing easier has been the effort to defeat commu- for the utilities and harder for the pub- nism as an idea ... for example, the lic? Did you approve of that provision? Interstate Highway Bill passed as the No, I did not. I proposed a whole Defense Interstate HighWay Bill. Federal series of amendments which passed, and aid to education passed after ... Sputnik which I think you'll like. [the first Russian satellite in 1957]. Aid [Those amendments will direct the to hungry people in Africa and Latin EPA to speed up the phaseout of ozone- America was to slow down the spread ALAN POGUE depleting CFC's; will proVide grants to of communist ideology. In this post-Cold states to distribute' to industries willing War world, that ... principle is no longer one ship. Do any or all of the candidates in the to become More energy efficient; will provide that gives coherence to policies and programs. Democratic primary have that kind of lead- grants to universities and technical schools for The effort to save the earth's environment ership ability? students to work with small bUsinesse§ to make must become the new central organizing prin- All of them are light years ahead of President then more energy efficient; and directs the ciple so that stabilizing populations and DOE to develop programs for "super efficient" accelerating the development of renewable Bush. And all of them haVe made responsi- ble statements about the global environment appliances, among other things.] energy technologies, debt for nature swaps, At that point in the interview, GOre's pub- all seem to make sense because they fit in with ... I've made it plain I'd like to hear more. Does that mean you might get into the race? lisher's representative said awe had to catch this principle. The Japanese understand this. a plane; a final question remained. At least one In the last 18 months they have gone through I'm not having second thoughts. [In August reviewer had suggested that Gore, a journal- a sea change ... they are aggressively orga- 1989, Al and Tipper Gore's young son near- ist for seven years before he entered politics, nizing to make and sell the new technologies ly died from injuries he sustained after a car might have enlisted a ghostwriter to produce that the world will demand to foster progress struck him.] Earth In The Balance. A call to Gore's staff without environmental destruction ... if you "The recovery process has involved the in Washington With that question received a give people in the developing world the entire family, including me," Gore said, resounding, "Absolutely false!" choice between developing and not develop "which meant I could not be away from him ❑ ing, they will choose developing, of course. or my family for a presidential race." —Betty Brink

20 • MARCH 13, 1992 Continued from pg. 19 cial in a position to connect sound thinking on the environment to public policy. But plants occupy will be off the market for a few Gore can only do that with a public commit- `Mrs. Democrat' hundred thousand years, too. ment to make the environment a central or- Sometimes, though, elected officials stum- ganizing principle in our lives. "The choice remembered ble onto the right thing for the right reasons. is ours," Gore writes. " The earth is in the Gov. Ann Richards' offer to buy all the state's balance." ❑ The late Minnie Fisher Cunningham, a autos and trucks from General Motors if the pioneer suffragist and early supporter of company would stay in Arlington and convert what became the Texas Observer, will be to the production of vehicles that run on com- Supercollider honored on March 15 with the placement pressed natural gas may or may not have Continued from pg. 16 of an historical marker. played a role in GM's decision to remain in bonds have been issued to help fund the pro- Liz Carpenter, former press secretary Texas; another more cynical and potentially ject. But, there is a silver lining. According to to Lady Bird Johnson, will be featured environmentally harmful reason is that the the Texas National Research Laboratory Com- speaker at the 2 p.m. event on U.S. 75, 2.6 miles north of New Waverly, with a Arlington plant is closer to parts suppliers in mission, the state arm on the SSC project,- Mexico, where environmental regulation is reception to follow at St. Joseph's Catholic during the first two years the super collider pro- Hall in New Waverly. notoriously lax. ject has generated $883 million in North Texas. Gore also proposes that we tax pollution as Cunningham was the first woman to In years ahead, this is expected to increase. receive a pharmacy degree from the it leaves the smokestack (or seeps into the As for jobs, there are now 1,700 lab employ- ground water). That could result in a quick University of Texas Medical Branch in ees, and during the peak construction years, 1901, only to discover her education reduction in production of ozone-depleting employment is expected to exceed 9,000. was worth only one-half of what her male chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbon (CFC). In the meantime, the funding struggle will colleagues earned. She later said this Texas leads the nation in industrial CFC emit- continue. A European scientist from the last disparity made her a suffragist. ters. Fort Worth's General Dynamics Air century once said, "The science of life is With husband Beverly Jean "Bill" Force Plant 4 leads the state in CFC emissions. superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may Cunningham, a lawyer, she moved to The threat against the three systems which be reached only by passing through a long Galveston in 1907. By 1912 she was lead- keep the earth in its delicate, life-sustaining bal- and ghastly kitchen." The same could be said ing the Galveston Equal Suffrage ance; the ozone shield, temperature constan- about the life of science these days. Association and in 1915 she began the cy and atmospheric oxidation, get a lot of ❑ first of four terms as president of the Texas attention in Earth. Ozone shield protection got suffragists' statewide organization. some additional attention recently with NASA's Newspapers Mrs. Cunningham was a delegate to the announcement that depletion of the ozone is Continued from pg. 17 Democratic National Convention in 1920, greater than had been expected over the a founding member of the League of Northern Hemisphere and that the densely pop- Alternative papers aren't immune from the Women Voters and executive secretary ulated areas of New England, Canada, and dollar chase. Given the profits an alternative of the Women's National Democratic Europe might soon be threatened by an ozone weekly can generate, mainstream chains are Club. hole similar to the one which opens each fall beginning to move into the "alternative" mar- In 1944, she finished second in the over Antarctica. ket. In Ft. Lauderdale, the giant Tribune chain Democratic primary for governor but pre- Perhaps the thought of excess ultraviolet rays publishes both the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel vented Gov. Coke Stevenson from lead- and XS, a new "alternative", weekly, which is ing an anti-Roosevelt delegation to the beaming down on Kennebunkport finally Democratic national convention. In 1945, prompted President Bush. The United States less political and more consumer-oriented t han traditional alternative weeklies. XS's com- she retired, emerging to work in the will phase out CFC's by 1995 instead of the campaigns of Ralph Yarborough and year 2000 as had been previously agreed on. In' petition? The Miami New Times, an alter- native weekly owned by New Times Inc., a Adlai Stevenson and to organize women's the often-reluctant Senate, Gore was able to clubs. She mortgaged the farm to save the push through an amendment to the controver- Phoenix-based alternative chain with four news- papers (including its most recent acquisition, State Observer (forerunner of the Texas sial Johnson-Wallop energy bill by a vote of Observer), and as a member of a local 96-0 (both Texas senators voting yes) that the Dallas Observer) and reported revenues of school board in 1954 worked to imple- directs the EPA to speed up the phaseout of $14 million. ment desegregation. In 1964, "Mrs. CFC's. "Follow the money trail,", old-time editors Democrat of Texas" died and was buried There are important topics that Gore doesn't used to warn their young reporters. It looks like in New Waverly with a donkey pinned adequetely consider, he doesn't give half enough the publishers, not the journalists, have taken to her dress. attention to the tons of radioactive waste pro- that advice. ❑ duced in weapons and power plants. The nucle- ar accidents at Three-Mile-Island and Chernobyl, and their aftermaths, get little atten- tion. Yet he does make the point that it would be a mistake to increase our reliance on nucle- ar power as a means of reducing pollution from the burning of fossil fuel. Despite these omissions, Al Gore has writ- PEOPLE ten an important book filled with valuable information; and it is often, finely and com- Make a world of difference ! passionately written. Gore's accounts of his own Were proud of our employees and their contributions to your personal and spiritual journey, his son's near- success and ours. Call us for quality printing, binding, mailing fatal accident, his despair at his inability to make the environment' theicentral theme of his 1988 and data processing services. Get to know the people at Futura. presidential campaign, and the chapters in which he pays tribute to the gentler earth-preserving P.O. Box 17.427 Austin, TX 78760-7427 cultures of the past and the courageous indi- FUTUM viduals of the present, are powerful. COMMUNICATIONS, INC. 389-1500 Gore's commitment is that of an elected offi- THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21

• A public service message from the American Income Life Insurance Co. — Waco, Texas — Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer (Advertisement)

MYTHS AND MISPERCEPTIONS ABOUT HIGHER EDUCATION by Dr. William H. Cunningham President, The University of Texas at Austin

I frequently have occasion to discuss higher education with have ratios of 11-to-1. Austin is an efficient institution — far groups of citizens, and I find in those conversations a deep too "efficient," I often think, for our students' welfare. commitment by most citizens to supporting and strengthen- Fifth, there is the myth that UT Austin cannot attract a diverse ing our colleges and universities. I also find, however, that student population. It is true that UT Austin has not been as our universities continue to be surrounded by myths and mis- successful as it must be in attracting African American and perceptions, including some that were all too common during Hispanic students. However, our aggressive recruitment and last summer's critically important legislative debates on the scholarship programs have had substantial positive results. UT state budget crisis. Austin, in fact, has the largest number and the third highest per- Here are some of the myths that I encounter most often. centage of African American and Hispanic students among Although many people apply them to higher education gener- all the 50 major state universities. • ally, I will frequently use the example of The University of Texas Sixth, some people are under the impression that research at Austin in explaining why they misrepresent reality. efforts such as those at UT Austin are carried out at the expense First, it is often believed that institutions of higher educa- of undergraduate education. This simply is not true. There is tion in Texas are well-funded. The data simply do not sup- a rich interrelationship between research and teaching, and the port that view. Annual state spending on higher education (that presence of research programs benefits undergraduate edu- is, state appropriations plus tuition) is about $4,200 per student cation in many ways. Many undergraduates work in labora- in Texas — more than $1,500 below the national average. tories or participate in other ways in research. The presence Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Texas ranks of research programs also leads to an enhancement of library 50th in spending per student, just below Mississippi and just materials and other educational facilities, to which under- ahead of West Virginia. One might suppose that tuition and graduates have access. In addition, faculty members who fees might compensate for low appropriations, but the fact is are not involved in research will soon find themselves and their that among the major public universities in the 50 states, UT lectures outdated. A university's reputation is directly a fun-. Austin also ranks 50th is resident tuition and fees. tion of the quality of its faculty. If the University were to try to Second, some people assume that UT Austin can get by with discourage research, most of our prized faculty would soon , lower state appropriations because the Permanent University leave for other institutions. If that happened, undergraduates Fund makes it one of the nation's wealthiest universities. It is who came to UT Austin because it has an outstanding nation- true that the market value of the Permanent University Fund al reputation would soon find that the reputation and the is nearly $4 billion — making it the nation's second largest value of their degrees had declined significantly. university endowment, next to Harvard's. We must always Seventh, it is maintained that universities are short-chang- remember, however, that the PUF does not benefit only UT ing classroom instruction by diverting tuition revenue toward Austin, but institutions in both the UT and Texas A&M systems. ever-expending research programs. Not so. Almost all research The fund is shared by 17 institutions with a combined enroll- spending comes through grants and contracts from outside* ment of more than 160,000. By contrast, Harvard's endow- agencies and is designated for specific research projects. These ment of more than $4.5 billion supports only one institution with awards are made to faculty members on the basis of highly less than 18,000 students. competitive research proposals. Last year UT Austin's budget Third, it is widely perceived that the University's budget included $338 million in state appropriated funds, from which has increased significantly since the mid-1980s. The bottom we budgeted only $8.3 million for research. That relatively small line is that our budget has increased by $202.2 million since amount is a vital investment that, last year, helped leverage 1985 — a 10.4 percent increase over inflation. The interesting $171 million in new research grants and contracts from exter- fact, however, is that although the total operating budget nal sources. increased by $202.2 million, our state tax dollars, which are Eighth, many people are convinced that all undergraduate used to meet the fundamental educational mission of The classes at UT Austin are large, that all undergraduate class- University, actually decreased by $6.9 million during that es are taught by teaching assistants, and that all teaching assis- period. tants are foreign students. While The University does have Fourth, I often hear that Texas universities are inefficient and some large classes, almost 53 percent of our freshman and wasteful. Two of the best ways to measure productivity are sophomore classes have 25 students or less, and 77 percent an institution's administrative cost per student and its stu- have 50 students or less. Only 21 percent of our undergrad- dent-faculty ratio. • At UT Austin; the yearly administrative uate classes are taught by assistant instructors. These cost per student is $690, while the average for the flagship pub- teachers must have a master's degree or its equivalent, and lic universities in the 50 states is $1,540. UT Austin ranks 48th they are closely supervised by regular faculty members. Finally, among those schools. Our student-faculty ratio is 20.39-to-1 25 percent of the assistant instructors are foreign students. — which puts us 44th among the 50 flagship public universi- They must pass an oral English proficiency test before they are ties. The University of Illinois and the University of Michigan allowed to teach a regular class.

22 • MARCH 13, 1992 AFTERWORD Dark Horses BY DAVE DENISON f you're on a deserted sidestreet in Manchester, New Hampshire, on a cold I day in February and a light snow is begin- ning to fall and the signs of economic recession /113t Pre%ide c4t - are all around, then you know several shades an rktial of bleak. Then you know new dimensions of didateu dreariness. I was on that street. And I stopped to take $45-4142 a picture. What caught my eye was the sign on a store- front: Dark Horse Presidential Candidates Headquarters. A deserted sidestreet in Manchester is. just where you'd expect to find the Dark Horse headquarters. One picture would tell the story. But as I approached my subject something on the street changed. Presences that had been lurking were suddenly alert. An electrical current charged the air. A journalist was pre- sent, with camera and notepad. That was me. "Who are you 'writing for?" called out a woman who came toward me from the parking lot across the street. Another one followed behind her. A man stepped out of the Dark Horse office to take a look. Soon they were around me and they all had literature. They were Dark Horse candidates. I was in the middle of a reverse feeding frenzy; candidates converg- DAVE DENISON ing on the press. Dark Horse Headquarters in Manchester The first woman proffered her bumperstick- er: Killeen-Cuomo. She said she was Killeen. sign I stopped to take a picture of. He didn't paigns are lonely and solitary, suggesting low I said, "Why Cuomo?" She said, "Because he's like to be called a Dark Horse. "If you call n-aff. So we need for them a new motiva- my running mate. We don't want another yourself that, people will think that's what tional category. It might be this: need for just Dan Quayle in there, do we?" The other woman y'are." Uh-huh. "I'll tell you what I am," he one or two mentions in the press (n-j1,2,mitp). was running as a Republican. She handed me said. "I'm the next resident of the White The true Dark Horse candidate will travel thou- her 27-page, platform and a handbill. Her slo- House." sands of miles, motivated by n-j1,2,mitp. What gan had a certain kick: "Your Viable Choice to When the Rev. H. said, "I'll tell you what I is amazing in modern society is how many the Slimey Politicians." am," and paused for a brief dramatic breath, mean, indifferent reporters will not satisfy the "But we've got a candidate in here from geography melted away for a moment. What needs of so-called minor candidates. Or, those Texas," she said. "He just got in last night. Why you could see was the Dallas glint in his eye. who will, perversely, mention the candidate don't you come in and interview him?" He gave his Texas preacher look — amiable in a negative or demeaning way. Inside Dark Horse headquarters, they intro- and steely at the same time. Had the tempera- Buried in the middle of Georgiana (Your duced me to the man just in from Texas. Rufus ture gone up a few degrees? Had the sun Viable Choice to the Slimey Politicians) Higginbotham, from Dallas. "I ran for mayor come out? No, it was still dreary outside. Doerschuck's 27-page platform was this cryp- the other day," he said, by way of introduction. And Rufus Higginbotham was a long way from tic reference to the heartbreak of bad press: "You know the Reverend Criswell?" I said sure home. "Here is hoping I will get a big write-in vote, I did. "Well, I'm with him." I knew what he What makes a man or woman go down to as the only publicity of any account was had meant by "with him." With him in spirit. the print shop, order up a few hundred flyers, publicity, in the Palm Beach Post." Caroline And probably with him in peculiar political and declare himself or herself a candidate for Killeen (Killeen-Cuomo ticket) experienced it, views. I didn't foresee an extended inter- the Presidency of the United States? too. An excerpt from her political resume: view. "1984: 'Bad Press' in N.H. forced Caroline to But anyway, here was Rev. Higginbotham sychologists sometimes break motiva- abort her campaign for President.' She headed with a table of his own, in the midst of a dozen tions down into three categories: need for Canada." other tables set up by so-called minor candi- p for achievement (n-ach), need for power Only a temporary setback in her case.. This dates. Rev. H. said he wasn't enamored of the (n- pow), and need for affiliation (n-aff). But year she polled 93 votes statewide. Doerschuck psychologists have probably not sufficiently was the viable choice of 57 voters. Higgin- studied Dark Horse Presidential candidates. botham came in with 31. Low numbers, maybe. Former Observer editor Dave Denison lives in These are not people with high n-ach, or n-pow Still, it says here that they are running for Boston. because they never win ach or pow. Their cam- President of the United States of America. ❑ THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 23 Postmaster: If undeliverable, send Form 3579 to The Texas Observer, 307 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE

a luxury resort complex on Padre Island. GUATEMALAN LAWYERS investi- and then continues to take a beating from his ✓ opponents in April and May — on important gating the 1990 killing of anthropologiSt Myrna TAX ATTACKS. Republicans accused Mack Chang in. Guatemala City (TO, 10/2/91) issues such as adultery or Vietnam — party lead- ✓ ers might panic and persuade Clinton to with- congressional Democrats of — horrors —play- are receiving death threats, according to a story ing politics as the U.S. House of Represent= in the National Catholic Reporter. The NCR draw, allowing Bentsen or House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt to claim the Clinton del- atives, on a 221-209 vote Feb. 37, approved a cited the New York-based Lawyers Committee bill that would give middle class tax relief at for Human Rights as a source of reports of egates. "Fdr Bentsen, a draft would be the only way to run. He misses the strain of all the expense of the wealthy. Pete Geren of Fort threats made against the lives of attorneys Worth, Ralph Hall of Rockwall and Bill Ernesto Rolando Corzantes Cruz and Jose Lopez that retail political campaigning in New Hampshire, Iowa, Maine and elsewhere. More Sarpalius of Amarillo were the only Texas Mendoza, both working on the investigation. 'Democrats voting against the House plan. Reporters following the case in Guatemala have important, he avoids in some states the liberal litmus tests that almost force a candidate to make Meanwhile, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, chair of the also reported receiving death threats. In most Senate Finance Committee, has his own plan cases, stories about the assassination, which was pandering statements that could come back to haunt him in the general election." to pay for $300-a-child tax credits to middle- recently attributed to a military official in the class families with higher taxes for the we althy, presidential guard, are now published without including a 10-percent surcharge on income bylines. V SEWER MONEY, a New York Times editorial called what political campaigns have over $1 million. Both Democratic bills would reduce the tax on capital gains, but not as much REMEMBER TORT REFORM? Four come to describe as "soft money" — huge polit- ✓ ical contributions solicited from wealthy donors as President Bush demanded when he set a (pre- years ago it was at the top of the business sumably apolitical) March 20 deadline for community's legislative in agenda here in Texas. and funnelled through state parties to fund pres- action. Bush has threatened to veto any bill that Trial lawyers and consumer-interest groups then idential campaigns. Soft money allows candi- increases taxes. stood in the way of a complete dismantling of dates to circumvent federal spending limits. This the private tort system, by which an injured party year, all Democratic candidates in the presi- One of Justice Oscar can have his day in court. Residents of Colorado dential primaries have promised not to use indi- ✓ JUDGE NOT. were not so fortunate. Wall Street Journal rect financing in the general election — if the Mauzy's backers is drumming up support for reporter Milo Geyelin found that generally, the Republican candidates will make the same Charles Ben Howell's Republican primary cam- paign for Mauzy's seat on the Texas Supreme . promised decrease in insurance premiums has- promise. The Times article suggested that the Court. Howell, an eccentric former justice on n't happened — six years and 68 laws after real estate subsidies in the President's economic the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas who has won the business-dominated Colorado Legislature package are a give-back to some 60 real estate three statewide GOP primary races, is running went to work on their state's tort system. While executives who contributed $6 million to some rates have dropped, the Journal reports Bush's 1988 campaign. against Craig Enoch, a current justice on the Dallas appeals court with backing of GOP lead- some have increased. Consider automobile insurance: "Between 1988 and 1990, rates rose GREEN VOTES. In contested' prima- ers. The Enoch campaign released a copy of a ✓ telefaxed letter from Timothy E. Kelley, a Dallas 8% on the average nationwide. But in Colorado, ry races, the Lone Star Chapter Sierra Club lawyer and Mauzy supporter, soliciting con- they rose 9.2 percent in the same period." What endorsed incumbent Rep. Glenn Maxey in cen- has decreased are awards plaintiffs receive. The tral Austin- House District 51; Lon Burnam, tributions on Howell's behalf after a GOP poll reportedly showed Howell with a 2-to-1 lead Journal story includes several individual a longtime environmental and social activist accounts of why tort reform doesn't work for challenging incumbent Rep. Doyle Willis in over Enoch. Kelley told the Houston Post he sent the letter as a favor to Howell, but he would plaintiffs. Fort Worth House District 90, Judy . "I think we did legal reform, but now the pen- Millspaugh, a Republican, in open San Antonio support Mauzy in the general election. dulum has begun to swing back, so the person House District 121; Floyd Freed, a Republican who needs compensation can get it," Republican primary challenger to incumbent Rep. Dalton ✓ BEAN COUNTERS. In more evidence house majority leader Scott McInnis told the Spring in Houston House District 135; and of the decline of civilization, a recent Texas Journal. McInnis is described as "an early reform incumbent Rep. Kevin Bailey, a Democrat, in Poll suggested that a majority of Texans prefer supporter who is now backing off." Houston House District 140. The club also beans with their chili. In the poll of 1,003 adult endorsed Lena Guerrero for Railroad Texans, conducted by the Public Policy V THE BENTSEN CANDIDACY con- Commissioner, the re-election of Sen. Carlos Research Laboratory of Texas A&M University tinues to be the story that won't die. Dave Truan, D-Corpus Christi, and, in another for Harte-Hanks Communications Inc., 49 per- McNeely, the veteran political reporter for the Senate primary, Juan Hinojosa, a former cent said they ate chili with beans and 42 per- Austin American- Statesman, suggests that if McAllen state representative, over incumbent cent sided with the traditional bowl of red. Bill Clinton lays claim to enough delegates to Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville, who attempt- Among native Texans, 54 percent prefer their win the party's nomination on the first ballot, ed in 1991 to authorize tax-free bonds to build chili without beans.

24 • MARCH 13, 1992