the daily , - l► A man of many hats The pioneer of participatory journalism, George Plimpton, reminisces last night in Eisenhower Auditorium about his career of first-hand participation in everything from a boxing match to a symphony orchestra. Plimpton's speech was sponsored by Colloquy. See story page 12. Fate of learning center will be decided tomorrow By VICKI SCHNEIDER engineering) said he became concerned leading to the creation of the Learning Daily Collegian Staff Writer when the center was closed and he Suppport Center. 1p The Learning Support Center may get started a petition to have the program Murphy said he will discuss his a reprieve, or be permanently reinstated. The petition, signed by about feelings on the petition and the fate of the eliminated, tomorrow when Raymond 0. 25 students who claimed that they center with Weppler on Wednesday. Murphy, vice president for Student strongly disagreed with the decision, Dante V. Scalzi, former head of the Affairs, responds to a student petition was sent to various people involved with center, said he also received a copy of supporting the center. the center both in the administration and the petition, but was not at liberty to The center, a self-improvement in- the student body. comment on it. lifructional program for students with Weppler said a main reason why he is The petition has also been examined problems in study habits and reading fighting to save the center is a survey by Randy Albright, Academic Assembly skills, was closed in June due to budget taken in 1974 and 1975 on services con- president, who said the matter would cuts in the Office of Student Affairs, sidered most important by students. A probably come before the assembly at Murphy said. self-improvement service such as the its meeting later this month. Paul Weppler (10th chemical center was ranked second in the survey, According to the annual report of the Summit reaches 'decisive stage' CAMP DAVID, Md. (UPI) President Carter stepped up peace ef forts at the Camp David summit Mon- day, waging an intense campaign to , He said Carter, Israeli Prime Minister "We are now in a period of renewed If lear away "important differences" still Menachem Begin and Egyptian effort, even more intensive and detailed dividing Israel and Egypt at a decisive President Anwar Sadat are also trying stage in the talks. , "to refine those areas where there is ." searching for possible alternatives ' "There ,is no basis for informed progress." and approaches to the substantial areas speculation about the outcome of this The authoritative Cairo newspaper Al of differences and to define the appar ent areas of progress," he said. onference," White House press Ahram, in a report from the presidential secretary Jody Powell told a news retreat in western Maryland, said the Sadat, who took the biggest gamble of conference. "Neither optimism nor talks have reached a "most delicate" his life when he flew to Jerusalem last pessimism is justified at this time." stage with "profound differences" year to meet with Begin, may have to Powell, who has been acting as dividing Israel and Egypt. . take an even bigger one now if the spokesman for all three nations at the Powell said Carter and Sadat met summit is to succeed and head off a new summit, said the negotiators are in the alone for two hours Monday morning Middle East war. lIP Senate opens natural gas debate WASHINGTON ( UPI) The Senate Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, filibuster is expected to follow. And if the finally took up the compromise natural spearheading a move to send the Senate finally approves the corn gas pricing bill Monday, with a leading measure back to committee, also promise, it still must clear the House. opponent denouncing it as "a C-minus rejected administration claims that the As it emerged from the long ee of legislation" that would cost legislation would help shore up the dollar deadlocked House-Senate conference American consumers up to $4l billion by abroad. committee, the bill called for phasing 1985. Metzenbaum engaged in a shouting out price controls on newly produced match with Sen. Henry Jackson, D- natural gas by 1985. Time for a change Wash., the bill's chief manager, who The Senate approved its initial version opened debate with the declaration: "I of price deregulation a year ago. And 'bSome sunshine this morning will fade don't want to face a cold winter with a Monday, in another of the twists ehind afternoon clouds with afternoon short supply of gas." . typifying the plodding progress of and evening showerg and thunderstorms The Senate chamber was nearly President Carter's energy program, the in the area and a high of 80. Tonight will empty at the outset of debate, with a two senators who co-sponsored that be mostly cloudy and noticeably cooler showdown vote not expected before measure parted ways on the current bill. with the chance of a shower and a low of Wednesday on the Metzenbaum Sen. James Pearson, R-Kan., an -54. Tomorrow will be a big change from coalition's move to pull the measure off nounced in a statement he is not happy „kday with cloudy skies, cool, and breezy the floor for extensive committee with the compromise but will support it, 'With the chance of a shower and a high of revision. whereas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, only 67. If the bill survives that effort, a has come out against it. midst of an "intense and detailed effort and then directed their aides to follow up to see if approaches can be found to deal the discussions with an evening with the important differences." negotiating session. Collegian Violence growing in Nicaragua MANAGUA, Nicaragua (UPI) Sandinista guerrillas fighting to over throw President Anastasio Somoza seized Nicaragua's fourth-largest city Monday and battled National Guard troops rushed from Managua with or ders to kill the insurgents "to the last man." The government ordered convoys of troops and helicopter gunships to Masaya, 15 miles east of Managua, to reinforce 1,500 National Guardsmen fighting to wrest control of the city from a force of 200 to 300 guerrillas who seized it earlier in the day. Somoza clamped martial law on Masaya and Esteli, another city where fighting between the guerrillas , and government troops was reported Monday. Late Monday night, a government communique said "cleanup operations in Masaya and Esteli are being carried out with the greatest possible success." It said "numbers of communist Fourth shot in Dallas 'probable' WASHINGTON (UPI) An acoustics expert yesterday played a reconstructed sound track he said indicated a "probability" of 50 percent that a fourth shot was fired in Dealey Plaza, Dallas during the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The Warren Commission had concluded there were only three shots, all fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. The chairman of the House Assassinations Com mittee, opening the second week of its public hearings on Kennedy's death, warned against drawing "sen sational conclusions" from the evidence. Acoustics expert Dr. James E. Barger twice played for the committee his recording of the reconstructed sounds of the moment of the assassination. Under close questioning as to interpretation of the recording, he told the panel his personal estimate was that the probability of two shots was 95 percent; the probability of a third shot about 60 to 70 percent, and the probability of a fourth shot around 50 percent. To reporters, the tape sounded like two shots in quick succession, then a pause and two more shots in quick succession. . Rep. Samuel Devine, R-Ohio, who said he was familiar with, the sound of rifle shots, said, "My per .sonal interpretation ig . that the first, second and fourth were rifle shots. The third noise sounded like something else." ' Conspiracy theorists claim four shots at the motorcade would have been too many for one man to take in the alloted time frame with the suspected murder weapon, Oswald's bolt action repeating rifle. The Warren Commission found it took FBI experts 2.3 seconds to get off a shot from Oswald's rifle. But by Chip Connelly terrorists" have been killed while others "are fleeing in disorder." In, Washington, a State Department spokesman said that despite the "serious disorders" in Nicaragua, the United States had no plans to evacuate 5,000 Americans living there. One has been wounded and is being flown out. Heavy fighting raged in all the country's . major cities, including Managua and Leon, but it appeared the most intense in Masaya. The Nicaraguan Air Force strafed Masaya from the air with helicopters and the Sandinistas replied with rifle 'fire. "Those sons of whores (the helicop ters) are shooting at anything that moved," said one resident who managed to slip out of the embattled city. The National Guard rushed more troops to Masaya Monday to reinforce the estimated 1,500 guardsmen already there. A huge column of black smoke spiraled up from the center of town, committee Chief Counsel G. Robert Blakey introduced surprise testimony that staff members and experts had gotten off two shots with a separation of only 1.65 to 1.75 seconds and three shot within 2 and 2.125 seconds. Blakey said "it would seem that the FBI assumption of a minimum firing time of 2.25 or 2.3 seconds is questionable and will have to be verified." Barger testified there appeared to be only 1.6 seconds between two of the shots, which Blakey said "raised the specter of two rifles" and resulted in the new tests. "It was possible for a relatively untrained person to do considerably better" than the FBI, he said. The committee experts' tests last weekend used two rifles identical to Oswald's but not his weapon, which has been in the National Archives for 14 years and hence was not considered in prime condition for the tests. Barger reported to the House panel on elaborate tests based on a recording of sounds from a police motorcyclist's microphone inadvertently left open at Dealey Plaza at the time of Kennedy's slaying. The study involved test firings in the plaza last month, both from the Texas School Book Depository from which• Oswald allegedly fired and 'from the "grassy knoll" at the other end of the plaza, to com pare with the police tape. The accounts of 178 eyewitnesses, some of whom believed the shots came from the knoll, were evaluated. After his elaborate presentation of tapes and graphs, Barger was asked by a staff member, "Is it accurate to say there is evidence of four shots?" center, published in July, 1, 927 students The report included student comments have felt that with no advertising less used the center in the 1977-78 school about the center, with those par- students would use the center, so that year. The report showed that the ticipating giving the center an . "ex- less staff would be needed and costs majority of the students were first term tremely positive" evaluation. One would be kept down. The result was that freshmen or seventh term transfer student claimed he had considered students lost the service all together," students. quitting school before taking advantage, Weppler said. A questionnaire given to students of the program. before their participation in the program Weppler said a major problem was the Some of the materials of the center showed that a majority felt they needed center's low profile and inadequate have been turned over to the Office of help in their study and reading skills. advertising. He said that although the Special Programs and Services for use Another survey taken at the end of the participating students benefitted from by Equal Opportunity Program program showed that over three- the program, not enough students on the students. Sixty-eight percent of the quarters of the students felt they had whole knew of the program to take students using the former center's solved their problems due to the use of advantage of it. tutoring services were EOP students, the center." The Office of Student Affairs must according to the annual report. • Sweet September The blooms of late summer remain fresh leaving no hint of fall's fading apparently from a gas station hit by fire from the helicopters. Guardsmen cordoned off the town and refused to let anyone through. Reporters were warned they would be shot if they tried to pass the roadblocks. The Red Cross set up an emergency field 'hospital outside the town but rescuers were likewise unable to pass the roadblocks to evacuate what one Red Cross official estimated at "hundreds of casualties." One nearly hysterical woman pleaded with guardsmen at a roadblock to let her through, sobbing, "But my children are in there." Witnesses said the helicopters strafed a relief center that was housing refugees rendered homeless by the huge fires which had devastated the city. People fleeing the town said the Sandinistas were in complete control and were wearing regular army uniforms emblazoned with the letters PA TTEE 4 :; com a • 15° Tuesday, September 12, 1978 Vol. 79, No. 35 12 pages University Park, PA 18802 Published by Students of The Pennsylvania State University FSLN (Frente Sandinista de la Liberacion Nacional.) A Red Cross ambulance driver said the gunfire was so heavy it was im possible to evacuate the wounded. Asked how many deaths there had been, he replied, "Too many." The guerrillas launched their of fensive Saturday night and quickly seized control of Leon, the nation's second largest city, and parts of Managua. Government troops counterattacked with tanks and jets and a guerrilla source in Leon said the casualties from the latest fighting had been "enor mous." Red Cross spokesmen said at least 21 Sandinistas and 14 guardsmen had died in Leon. The death toll from fighting across the country was believed to have been well into the hundreds. Somoza met Monday with his Cabinet in the "bunker" Somoza's headquarters. "Yes," the expert , replied, "it is a possible con clusion." Earlier,.committee chairman Rep. Louis Stokes, D- Ohio, had warned the results of the tests "will be troubling to some." But he cautioned against too quickly drawing "sensational conclusions from this evidence." Barger, a senior scientist with the firm of Bolt, Beranek and Newman of Cambridge, Mass., also analyzed gunfire recorded during the shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 and the famous "18 1 / 2 minute gap" on the Watergate tapes. In a major contradiction of the Warren Commission findings, Barger said the recording of the open police microphone showed there was an interval of about 1.6 seconds between the first and second apparent shots, a gap of 5.9 seconds between the second and third and five-tenths of a second between the third and fourth. The commission had found, based on test-firings by FBI firearms experts, the fastest Oswald's Man nlicher-Carcano rifle could be fired was 2.25-2.3 seconds. Based on . the Zapruder film of the assassination, the commission decided the elapsed time from the first shot to the third was between 7.1 and 7.9 seconds. . The police motorcyclist's recording was made on a continuous dictabelt, which the House committee first learned about last September but which the Dallas Police Department said had been turned over to the FBI, which denied receiving it. Committee investigators finally obtained a copy from Paul McCaghren, a retired Dallas assistant police chief. Photo by Chlp Connolly
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