Ninety-four Years
of
Editorial Freedom

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Skies will be overcast today
with a 50 percent chance of snow:
High near 26 degrees.

Vol XCIV-No. 98 Copyright 1984, The Michigan Daily Ann Arbor, Michigan - Saturday, January 28, 1984 Fifteen Cents Eight Pages

Trade deficits
set new record

WASHINGTON (AP) - America's trade deficit soared to a
record $69.4 billion in 1983, the government reported yester-
day. One analyst said the problem already has cost the nation
more than a million jobs, and federal and private economists
alike feared the imbalance will top $100 billion this year.
The trade deficit last year was 62 percent higher than the
record $42.7 billion set in 1982, and would have been even
worse had not oil prices declined, the Commerce Department
said.
THE TRADE situation looked bleak all over. In the impor-
tant category of manufactured goods, the deficit hit $38.2
billion, almost four times what it was in 1982 and a category
where the United States was running a surplus in 1981.
The nation posted a record $21 billion trade deficit with
Japan - traditionally the country that contributes the most
to the U.S. imbalance. But America also ran up a $1.6 billion
deficit with the countries of the European Common
Market, the first such deficit since 1972.
For December, the overall trade deficit narrowed to $6.3
billion from November's $7.4 billion, but analysts attributed

the improvement to two temporary factors - a dip in oil im-
ports and a surge in aircraft sales of $500 million. For the
month, exports were up 2 percent and imports were down 3.2
percent.
THE IMPROVEMENT was not expected to last, and most
forecasters saw the trade imbalance growing to $100 billion
or perhaps $110 billion this year.
Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, who last week
was forecasting a $90 billion deficit in 1984, revised that
projection upward yesterday to $100 billion.
The nation's poor trading performance is blamed
primarily on two factors. The high value of the dollar makes
U.S. exports expensive and imports relatively cheap. And the
U.S. economy is growing much faster than that of other
nations, resulting in brisk American purchases but a lag in
foreign buys of U.S. goods.
Many economists blame the dollar's high value on the
large federal budget deficits, which boost interest rates, en-
couraging foreigners to put their money in U.S. financial
markets, thus increasing the worldwide demand for dollars.

Shower of gold AP Photo
A quality-assurance inspector for the Waterbury Companies factory in Waterbury, Conn., spotchecks the stability of 24-
carat gold-plated brass buttons before they are shipped to clothing manufacturers who will then attach them to U.S.
Army Uniforms.

Campus Inn averts tragedy



By NEIL CHASE
AND KAREN TENSA
A combination of equipment failures,
that "supposedly can't happen" nearly
touched off a disastrous explosion at the
Campus Inn Thursday night, city fire
department officials said yesterday.
The hotel was evacuated around 7:30
p.m. after smoke from an overheated
} boiler began to filter into the hotel's
restaurant. The evacuation was ham-
pered by a malfunctioning fire alarm
system, said city Fire Marshall Wesley
Prater, and employees and firefighters
had to'go door-to-door and call the room
to empty the building.
PRATER SAID the boiler, which
should have shut off automatically
when the system failed to keep it full of
' water, became so hot that it melted
plastic and aluminum in the room and
seriously damaged itself. "It was a

'I'm sure
that room
plosion.'

if there would have been gas in
... there would have been an ex-
- Jack Donaldson, director
Ann Arbor Building Department.

that the gas valve malfunctioned.
City officials said the hotel's fire
alarm and boiler system had apparen-
tly passed annual inspection last year,
and they expected that no criminal
charges would arise from the incident.
Guests were put up at several area
hotels Thursday night and were allowed
to return to their rooms yesterday af-
ternoon after the fire alarm system was
repaired and tested, hotel employees
said. The building is being heated by an
auxiliary boiler, and Donaldson said
the exact cause of the problem may
never be discovered because much of
the heating system was destroyed.
"When we got there it was so badly
melted that you couldn't tell" what had
happened, he said. "All the controls had
been virtually melted down by the in-
tense heat that was in the room."
"Everybody was very fortunate,"
Donaldson said.


very dangerous, hazardous condition,"
he said.
"I'm sure if there would have been gas
in that room... there would have been
an explosion," said Jack Donaldson,
director of the city's building depar-
tment. He said the extreme tem-
peratures in the room would have
ignited any natural gas that escaped
from the gas-powered system.

Prater added that if water lines had
melted or broken, choking steam could
haye filled the building.
THE BOILER converts water to
steam to heat the building, and four
separate safety controls are built into
the system. Two of those controls are
supposed to shut off the gas if there is a
problem, and Donaldson speculated


U.S. policy on
Mideast wrong,
speaker says

Newspaper box explodes

AP Photo-

By ERIC MATTSON
A speaker at Rackham Amphitheatre
last night blamed most of the problems
of the Middle East on American
politics, America's inability to com-
prehend the Arab world, and the in-
fluence of the pro-Israeli lobby.
Cherif Basiouni, a professor of law at
DePaul University said that the U.S. is
adopting a misguided policy in the
region by continually bowing to the
wishes of Israel.
BASSIOUNI was the final speaker in
yesterday's conference, "The United
States and the Search for Peace in the
Middle East."
The conference, sponsored by the Cen-
ter for Near Eastern and North African
Studies, continues at 9:30 this morning.
Bassiouni said the U.S. is so concer-
ned with the spectre of communist in-
fluence in the Middle East that it is not

establishing friendships with potential
allies.
"I simply do not see the Arab people .
as becoming communistic or
becoming allied with the Soviet Union,"
he said.
But Bassiouni added that unless the
United States makes more overtures
towards Arab nations, the Soviet Union
may gain influence in the region simply
by default.
"THE ONLY thing the Soviet Union
has to do to gain ground (in the Middle
East) is to do nothing, he said.
Bassiouni said the close relationship
between the U.S. and Israel is causing
America to follow a narrow, self-
destructive course. He said it is
"propaganda" to say that Israel is the
only reliable U.S. friend in the region.
"We have ... natural allies in the
Arab world," he said.
See SPEAKER, Page 5

A bomb planted in a newspaper vending machine exploded yesterday mor-
ning outside an apartment complex in Dallas, killing a 63-year-old man. The
explosion appeared to be a random act, police said.
Nuclear.aens uard
Williams recruiter

By CLAUDIA GREEN
When Williams International Cor-
poration decided to interview Univer-
sity engineering students for jobs, the
company never asked for or wanted
security protection.
But that was exactly what they got
from "Nuclear Security Agents," a
group sarcastically protesting the
company's production of cruise missile
engines for the federal government.
Williams International is the same
Walled Lake company which recently
faced large demonstrations because of

its defense department contracts.
INSIDE A tiny room at the career
planning and placement office in East
Engineering, fourteen students met
behind a paper covered window with
the company's personnel manager,
Daniel McCullen.
Outside the door, four men stood
silently, dressed in long trenchcoats and
dark glasses. They claimed to protect
the company representative from "lef-
tist thuggery" on a campus tainted by
three sit-in protests.in the past year.
Two of those protests were against the
See CAMPUS, Page 3

Bunker brigade AP Photo
Three U.S. Marines in Beirut yesterday build a bunker at "Golf Co.," near
Beirut International Airport.

TODAY-
Shakespearean honor
ITIZEN OF THE YEAR in Calhoun County,
Alabama, is a man who needs no introduction. He
was, in his own words, "A fellow of infinite jest, of
most excellent fancy." Forsooth, we joke not, it's


cepted in a world so different from the world he lived in."
The honor annually goes to a person who has done the most
to help the town philanthropically, industrially, and
culturally. "In trying to pick that person this year, we
realized that all of the descriptions of real people applied to
the spiritual father of the Shakespeare Festival," said
Chris Waddle, managing editor of the newspaper. The per-
son who has done the most to help Ann Arbor philan-
thropically, industrially, and culturally hasn't been named
yet, but an unidentified source said he saw the judges all
standing at the corner of State and William recently inter-

sity vice president for state relations, said the 1 p.m. com-
mencement will allow more time to seat the larger audien-
ce, and keep them from shivering in the cold April morning.
"The temperature at 10 o'clock can be uncomfortable," he
said. But that time change has made things uncomfortable
for a number of schools who had plans for their own
graduation exercises. Business Administration graduates
will attend their private convocation at 9 a.m. now instead
of in the afternoon; The School of Nursing will hold its
ceremony at 9:30 a.m. instead of 2:30 p.m., and the School of
Engineering's ceremony has been pushed back to 5:30 p.m.

" 1933 - A self-proclaimed "B.M.O.C." who ran a Daily
personal ad to find "a beautiful date for the J-Hop" said he.
was worse off than before he ran the advertisement
because of the huge number of women clamoring to attend
the annual event with him.
. 1966 - A Washtenaw County Circuit Court jury took 20
minutes to convict 20 students protestors of trespassing for
their part in a Vietnam sit-in at the Ann Arbor draft board.
e 1972 - In a contradiction to the national trend,
Washtenaw County's gonorrhea rate dropped by more than
100 cases.

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