25 years ago: KU found to be subject of Soviet interest

According to government representatives, Kansas University and three other Big Eight institutions were on a Pentagon list of universities the Soviets were interested in as part of a campaign to steal Western technological information. Reaction was mixed: “We can’t decide whether to be chagrined or proud,” said Jim Scally, assistant to KU Chancellor Gene Budig.

Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman was in town, giving the keynote address at the KU Forum for Women. She spoke on the ’80s as being a decade of “paralysis of ambivalence” in which women and men were searching for compromises to make their lives work in the aftermath of the 1970s, which had pitted radical feminists against reactionaries.

Business was brisk at the local liquor stores as the federal liquor excise taxes were set to increase the following week. The price on a one-liter bottle of 80-proof spirits was to go up by 65 cents. Beers and wines would not be affected by the excise tax.