Zile Pallas 4-Em-ning ,Nrins Saturday, January 26, 1980 U.S. hostages are 'expendable,' Clements says By GEORGE KUEMPEL Austin Bureau of The News AUSTIN — Gov. Bill Clements called Friday for a U.S. naval block- ade of Iran and Cuba and said the 50 American hostages in Iran are "ex- pendable" in terms of this nation's "national interest" in the Middle East. "The time has come when we must assert our national interest, and if in- deed the hostages are put into jeopardy . . . then they have to be- come expendable . . . in regard to the national interest," Clements said. "There is fundamentally no differ- ence whatsoever between those em- ployees held hostage in the embassy than any of our service people. It's the same thing." Clements, a Republican and for- mer deputy secretary of defense, is- sued his most biting attack yet on President Carter. He said Carter's re- fusal to deal sternly with those coun- tries threatening U.S. security is di- rectly responsible for the crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of neigh- boring Afghanistan. Clements, who has publicly pledged to do everything in his power to help defeat Carter, said he has refrained from criticizing Car- ter's handling of the Iranian crisis until now to give the president a chance to resolve the problem. _ Clements' contention at his weekly news conference that the American hostages are "expendable" in terms of national interest came as a surprise to some of his own staffers. Clements said if he were running the show, he would order the U.S. Air Force into the Sinai, Saudi Arabia and Oman, the tiny country at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The governor said he had been told through "third parties" — whom he refused to identify — that Egyp- tian President Anwar Sadat and Is- raeli Prime Minister Menachem Be- gin "would be happy for this to hap- pen." "In support of these three develop- ments, we should blockade the mouth of the Persian Gulf and tell Iran that unless they release those hostages promptly. . . that there will be nothing going in or coming out through the Persian Gulf to Iran, and just cut them off," Clements said. He said further that U.S. Navy ships should surround Cuba "to re- strict the communications in and out" of that country. "Cuba has been nothing more or less than a surrogate of the Russians, and they have used them to cause un- rest and problems and trouble throughout the world, particularly in Africa, and I am sick and tired of it. "If the Russians want to play hard- ball, let's play it. Hardball was in- vented in the United States." , The primary purpose of the naval blockade of Iran would be to cut off that country's oil exports. Tar balls head - away from Texas CORPUS CHRISTI (AP) — Coast Guard buoys indicate oil sheen and tar balls spotted in a 9,000- square-mile area are moving,away from the Texas coast with southerly currents. Coast Guard Capt. Gerald Hinson said the oil does "not constitute any particular threat to the United States." The oil, which originated with the uncapped Ixtoc I well in the Bay of Campeche, was sighted earlier this week by routine Coast Guard reconais- sauce flights about 60 miles southwest of Browns- ville, Hinson said. ''Actually, there were a number of sightings of sheen," Hinson said. "The sheen is given off by tar balls in the water. They (tar balls) are cherry- sized, in heavy to light concentrations in ,patches as narrow as 20 feet and as long as 2 to 10 miles. There were 12 to 13 sightings in that area. • "Other areas have pockets or patches of sheen on them. We have been tracking this stuff all over the Gulf for six months or so. This is not really unexpected. It came as no surprise. "Even if it were to come up on the, beach, you probably couldn't see it," he said of the sheen, which is similar to suntan oil floating on swim- ming pool water.
