4 The Daily Reflector. Greenville. N (' Thursday. November 11,19K2

Bridge Is Major Loss

Kremlin Will

One thing the Outer Banks and Eastern North Carolina didn't need was the wrecking of a span in the William B. Umstead bridge at Manteo,

Bridge pilings were extensively damaged last weekend and resulted in its being closed to traffic. It will stay that way ^for weeks while a bridge building firm is retained to come in and reconstruct it.

It means that land access to Manteo from the west is cut off. Traffic from the west must now detour to the north to reach the Outer Banks and Manteo. Much of the coastal areas supplies reach it by truck from eastern communities. Winter and summer there is steady traffic from throughout the state headed to the Outer Banks by way

of U S. W and 264. Now this vital link is cut for an indefinite length of time. A makeshift ferry service has been set up but it will provide litUe relief.

Of course, the bridge dates back only 27 years but before that there was adequate ferry service across the waters. Since then the route has become heavily used and provides essential service to the Outer Banks. ^

Getting along without the bridge will be difficult, but of course not impossible. All who are accustomed to using it will just have to improvise. In the meantime hopefully repairs will proceed rapidly and strong efforts will be made to retrieve the cost from those responsible for the damage.

A Day To Say Thanks

Today is Veterans Day, a day which grew out of Armistice day which observed the end of World War I.

Since then millions of Americans have gone to the battlefields of the Pacific and Europe. They have fought in Korea and Vietnam and selected numbers have taken part in missions throughout the world designed to keep the peace.

Most were citizen soldiers who have since melted back into the civilian population and are little distinguishable from those who work and live next to them. That is

THIS AFTERNOON

as it should be in a democracy.

Still, it is well to have a day to honor those who have served in the armed forces. It gives our society the opportunity to say thank you and it affords those who served, a moment to reflect on the time when they answered their countrys call to arms.

Our nation makes military mistakes, but without the veterans we might today be goose stepping to a militaristic government, or crushed by the oppression communism.

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Political Reality

Statehood Still Remote

No Alternatives?

By FAULT. OCONNOR RALEIGH - When Gov. Jim Hunt formed his special study committee on school construction financing, he asked its members to give him some fresh ideas. He stacked the committee with some of the state's leading businessmen and educators and told them to put some of the miracles of modern financing to work for the states schools.

If the committee eventually recommends the methods of financing discussed at their November meeting, Hunt is likely to be disappointed. As committee chairman Dick Spangler said after two hours of highly technical discussion, Were looking an awfully lot like ground zero.

Ground zero represents the three financing methods already widely discussed for rebuilding the states aging schools: bonds, a penny increase in the sales tax and a legislative appropriation. All three proposals carry with them considerable political risks.

The state Department of Public Instruction estimates that $1.8 billion is needed to rebuild the public schools. Traditionally, school construction is the responsibility of the counties but the state has regularly chipped in with about one-third of the costs. So, the state need to raise $600 million, the committee figures.

In past years, the state has issued bonds for school construction, If the state chooses to borrow $600 million, said several business members of

the committee, there is no cheaper approach than bonds. Put the full faith and. credit of the state behind the bonds and youll get the best interest rates possible. But such a targe issue at todays interest rates would seriously strap the state. And John Medlin, chairman of Wachovia Bank, told the committee that there was no

such difficult times. Keep in mind that he may seek another office someday.

Others proposed a pay-as-you-go approach. As Bill Lee of Duke Power said, the Legislature should allocate a certain amount of money for. construction each year the equivalent of what it would cost to pay back the bonds. The problem with this is that the 1983 Legislature cannot bind future Legislatures to,that committment. And, with the 1983 budget looking so awfully tight, its unlikely any money could be found.

Although these three ideas Please turn to Page 6)

By STEVEN KOMAROW ' Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -The will of the voters may be at odds with political reality in the District of Columbia, where elected officials are pondering the fate of a controversial state constitution approved in last weeks election.

The constitution guarantees each citizen a job or minimum income, full abortion rights, sexual rights, the right to strike for police, as well as more traditional provisions setting up a state legislature and court system. It was approved by 53 percent of the voters.

The next step, under law, is for Mayor Marion Barry Jr. to submit the constitution to Congress as part of a petition for admittance to the union.

Barry, however, has been reticent to discuss the matter. At a press conference.

FAULT. OCONNOR

way the state could take on such a debt without raising taxes to pay for it. Hunt has expressed reluctance to ask for a bond issue fearing it wouldnt pass in these recessionary times.

Hunt is deadset against the second most often mentioned proposal. The state Board of Education and Craig Phillips, superintendarit of public instruction, want a one-cent increase with a portion of the money earmarked for school construction. -Hunt says it wouldn't be fair to ask people to pay higher taxes during

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Public Forum

lietteri; submitted for Pubbc Forum should be limited lo 300 words The editor reserves the nght to edit longer letters

To the editor:

Thanks to Claire and Bob Pittman for sharing the story and pictures of their trip to Hollqnd as part of the Friendship Force. If linking hands across the water is part of the motivation of this organization, Claires perceptive account and Bobs gentle sketches surely warmed the harts of many of us and enlivened our affection for the people and customs of Holland.

Thank you, also, to the Reflector for printing this story. It was B gift to all of us stay-at-homes whose imaginations are ready to take flight.

Amy Hannon 201 Courtney Place

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Other Editors Say Our Microchips

(Greensboro Record)

The future, as measured by use of computers, already is here on most college campuses. The cathode ray tube and the microcomputer in their various forms have become campus fixtures, handy if not altogether necessary in some cases.

There seems to be little, if any, doubt but that this will be the computer generation of students.

For example, Drexel University in Philadlephia has announced it will require its students to buy computers beginning next year. Clarkson College in Potsdam, N.Y., will give each of its entering freshmen in 1983 a microcomputer. In 1985, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh will come on line with a decentralized system developed by IBM that will be the largest computer network in the world.

Heralding the classroom of the future, the Carnegie Mellon system will give instant access to library holdings and data banks undreamed of by earlier collegiate generations. Among other conveniences, students will be able to take examinations electronically and zip them off to their professors, sitting in their dens at home. The ultimate will be the time when the student never has to appear on campus.

We wonder if there isnt a danger of over-computerization. The computer undeniably is great for the retrieval of information, for solving abstract problems, for designing, and even for answering the telephone.

But if, say, too many courses are planned to conform with the demands of the system, wont the nuances so important in English literature and foreign languages be lost? And if and when the time ever comes when it wont be neccessary for students to mingle on a campous, will college life become a dead lifestyle - or does the informal exchange oUideas on campus really have much to do with college education?

Were not opposed to progress. We welcome it. We just want to be sure it is what it purports to be.

Barry said he himself "only reluctantly voted for the constitution. As for sending it quickly to Capitol Hill. Barry said his staff was studying the matter.

City officials privately hold out little hope tht Congress would approve statehood for New Columbia, as the area would be called, based on the proposed constitution or even with a more conventional document. A proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution simply giving the district voting representation in , Congress has been approved in only 9 states in four years.

Interviews with key congressmen last spring, following adoption of the constitution by the drafting convention, showed little support even from members normally friendly toward home rule for the city. Congress, which has veto power over all bills passed by the D.C. Council, last year overwhelmingly vetoed an act liberalizing the citys sexual assault laws, including those covering homosexuality. The Moral Majority, a fundamentalist Christian group which engineered the vem, promises to do the Wme if the proposed state constitution is ever brought to a vote.

"We are adamantly opposed to many of the provisions in it, said Ronald Godwin, the groups executive vice president in Lynchburg, Va. Although a formal position was still in the works, Godwin said in a telephone interview he believed the constitution was a "cloak-for a gay political rights action.

To avoid the embarrass

ment of another congressional veto, city officials may propose their own amendments to the constitution before pushing for approval. Just prior to the election, the city council passed a bill giving itself a right to put proposed amendments on the ballot prior to statehood.

Gay rights, however, is a popular cause in the district, and Barry and incoming council chairman David A. Clarke were elected with the help of gay activists.

Asked about Clarkes plans for the constitution, aide Anne Meister said Clarke was tied up with his transition. Right now, were not really addressing it at all, she said.

Walter E. Fauntroy, the districts non-voting representative in the House, was sharply critical of the constitutional convention, saying the only chance statehood had was with a non-controversial proposal. Fauntroy has promised to help with re-drafting the constitution to make it more palatable to Congress.

Once the constitution is sent to Congress, a bill would have to be introduced to admit the city to the union. Approval takes a majority vote of both houses.

Congress in the past has, forced states to change their constitutions before approving statehood. Utah, for example, had to change a provision allowing men to have more than one wife.

The districts case is different than the admittance of a territory because" the federal city was established in the U.S. Constitution. The (Continued on page 6)

By BARRY SCHWEID Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -The Kremlin - and the United States - have been preparing for the death of Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev for at least two years; so the shock to both systems is likely to be limited.

In the Kremlin, a makeshift board of directors had already taken over most decision-making powers, and three possible contenders had emerged as potential successors once Brezhnev passed away, according to US. officials.

Here, at the other end of the U.S.-Soviet relationship, officials are exepecting no great departures from an aggressive foreign policy that has remained relatively static while Brezhnevs energies ebbed away.

The Kremlin is expected to focus its efforts on anjorderly transition, cautious not to jangle the nerves of 262 million citizens experiencing harder times with the shortages of meat and other essentials as winter approaches.

Their major concern is their domestic legitimacy, said a U.S. analyst last week, as Brezhnev faded away. Their real concern is that the people - the unwashed

- are going to rise up. There is a tremendous concern about peoples loyalties. They do believe that Russians are anarchists.

With that in mind, and as Brezhnevs infirmities multiplied, five men in the Kremlin gradually took charge, reducing the Soviet president to little more than a symbol, U.S. officials said.

Without a formal agreement, and even while at least two were jockeying to inherit Brezhnevs mantle, the five

- Konstantin Chernenko, Yuri Andropov. Andrei A. Gromyko, Dmitri Ustinov and Nikolai A. Tikhonov -ran the Soviet government.

Chernenko, who was Brezhnevs right-hand man, and Andropov, former head of the KGB, the secret police, found their own powers increasing to the point they are considered by Reagan administration analysts to be

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the two leading contenders to succeed Brezhnev.

Victor Grishin, head of the Communist party in Moscow, is also thought to be in the running. A fourth erstwhile contender. .Andrei Kirilenko, is in poor health and no longer figures in U.S. speculation. In fact, when rumors reached here Wednesday that a Soviet leader had died, some administration officials thought it might be the 76-year-old Kirilenko.

Brezhnev no longer chaired Kremlin commit- / tees, "He really isnt running * the country anymore^ another U.S. analyst observed on Monday. But he was kept in symbolic power because "they feel its better than to have an open leadership fight.

The quiet transition actually began with the death of Premier Alexei Kosygin two years ago and accelerated with the passing in January of Mikhail Suslov. the lead-ing Cormnunist party theoretician.

In the meantime, the Reagan administration came into power here and embarked on a major arms buildup.

Possibly because the transition was under way, or perhaps in response to a toughened U S. foreign policy, the .Soviets were less ambitious abroad.

As long as the Soviet' government is in a transition period, it's unlikely to take any new initiatives, either of a positive or a negative kind, a top administration official noted recently.

Another said the Soviets , might have been tempted in the late 1970s to challenge the United States by moving into Iran or into Southeast Asia. You could have made a very strong argument that we'were getting closer to war." he said.

But no\^'. he said, if the central issue in our relationship is whether we are getting closer to or further away from war, then I would say we are getting further away from war.

However, a report to Congress last summer warned of the possibility "(hat the suc-

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Strength For Today

HANDOFGOD

A great religious leader of generations ago, assailed by persecution and overshadowed by what seemed certain defeat, cried out stridently, "So long as the hand of God is in it, mywork will not perish.

Life changes very little from century to century - at least as far as fundamentals are concerned. People have been, fighting battles against doubt, sorrow, sensuality, addiction, avarice, and jealousy since the beginning of time. People have been hoping and trying to achieve in

every age, and in every age have seen their fondest hopes crushed.

But we should never forget that standing over us is an almighty and omniscient Deity who is also a Heavenly Father. Not a sparrow falls but God notes it; every hair of our head is numbered. And this God who notes and numbers also keeps the planets in their courses.

vSo if we get ourselves right with God, then, no matter what happens, our work will not perish. - Elisha Douglass

Staving Off Financial Crisis

ByOWENULLMANN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -International financiers have pieced together a string of multibillion dollar emergency loans for the Third Worlds three biggest debtors to avert a major global banking crisis.

Mexico and Argentina, two of the major borrowers in the Third World, have just won tentative approval for nearly $6 billion in emergency loans from the government-sponsored International Monetary Fund. Another major borrower, Brazil, is lining up more than $1 billion in short-term credits.

The list of developing, nations falling into financial straits is growing rapidly because of a prolonged worldwide recession that has depressed demand and prices for oil, gold and other commodities these nations count on for their foreign earnings,

As a result, their revenues from exports are failing to keep up with their costs for imports and meeting prior debts.

South Africa, for example, . received last week a $1.07

billion loan from the 146-nation IMF to help it meet its debt that stems from falling prices for gold, its major export.

The prospect of defaults has sent a nervous chill throughout the worlds private banking community, which has hundreds of billions of dollars worth of loans outstanding in Third World.

Mexico, Argentina and Brazil alone owe an estimated $200 billion to foreign lenders, mostly private banks in the United States and other industrial countries. According to most counts, which are imprecise, Mexico owes $81 billion, Brazil owes between $60 billion and $87 billion, and Argentina owes between $37 billion and $40 billion.

Financial sources said Wednesday that the IMF tentatively approved a $3.8 /billion loan to Mexico and I about $2.1 billion in credit for Argentina to help the two nations meet their foreign debts.

In return for the aid, both countries will be forced to take stern belt-tightening steps at home, according to

the sources.

Meanwhile, banking sources in London said Wednesday that U.S. banks provided Brazil with abqut $600 million in emergency short-term loans to help the South American country pay up to $4 billion for imports that* it can not cover from export revenues.

The U.S. government js expected to loan Brazil another $500 million to $1 billion later this year, the sources said. The Treasury Department refused comment.

The loans to Mexico arid ^rgentina are subject to the /formal approval of the IMFs board of directors, a formality that will take at least a month.

In Mexico City, Treasury Secretary Jesus Silva Herzog said Mexico had agreed to drastic cuts in government spending to eliminate a multibillion dollar budget deficit as part of the accord with the IMF.

Carlos Tello Maciaw, president of the Bank of Mexico, the countrys central bank, said the nation would not

alter its currency control program to obtain the loan. He said Mexico would maintain its two-tiered exchange rate for the Mexican peso of 50 to the dollar for certain essential imports and 70 to the dollar for other official transactions.

The peso is worth considerably less in free market trading outside the country, as well as on the black market, where it was quoted as low as 130 to the dollar.

The three-year loan to Mexico is the centerpiece of an aid package stitched together by international bankers and governments to prevent a. default. The U.S. government has contributed nearly $3 billion to Mexico in loans, advance oil payments and credits for the purchase of U.S. agricultural products.

IMF and Mexican officials reached a tentative agreement Tuesday after haggling-for months over the specific conditions, the sources said.

The loan would be the second largest ever extended by the IMF. The largest loan, valued at $5.3 billion in current dollars, went to India a year ago..