(1 icbiAlra mEITaiy
Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: STEPHEN WILDSTROM
Dienbienphu Day:
Time to Get Out of Khe Sanh
TODAY IS THE 14TH anniversary of the
siege of Dienbienphu.
On March 13, 1954, Viet Minh regulars,
under the command of Gen. Nguyen Giap,
attacked the French jungle fortress at
Dienbienphu, near what is now the North
Vietnam-Iaos border, with infantry and
heavy artillery. Sixty-six days later, the
remainer of the fortress garrison surren-
dered and the French presence in Indo-.
china came to an end.
Today, the American fortress at Khe
Sanh, just south of the Demiliterized
Zone (DMZ), lies surrounded- by North
Vietnamese regulars under the com-
mand of the same Gen. Giap, now, as
then, commander-in-chief of the North
Vietnamese People Army (NVA). While
the situations of Dienbienphu and Khe
Sanh are not directly analogous, the
Americans now appear to be making the
same mistakes the French made 14 years
ago.
Like Dienbienphu, Khe Sanh was
originally conceived as a "mooring point"
-a home base for "search-and-destroy"
missions designed to block infiltration. It
has been some time since Khe Sanh sent
out a successful reconnaissance party;
only last week, an American platoon was
attacked, suffering heavy casualties, only
a few hundred yards outside the base.
JHE SANH has ceased to fill any valu-
able strategic function. There have
been two major reasons promulgated for
a defense of the base. One is that the fall
or evacuation of Khe Sanh would open
all of South Vietnam to infiltration from
the north. The second is that if Giap
chooses to attack the garrison, his army
will be by decimated American air strikes.
The first reason is patently absurd.
The NVA does not rely on conventional
supply lines; its thousands of coolie sup-
port units can circumvent Khe Sahh just
as they circumvented Dienbienphu. The
evacuation of Khe Sanh would be pri-
marily a psychological, not a strategic
blow to the United States.
Those who hold that we can annihilate
the NVA in a set-piece jungle battle at
Khe Sanh are forgetting Gen Giap's basic
maxim: "Strike to win, strike only when
success is certain; if it is not, then don't
strike."
Giap will attack when he is good and
ready to attack and not before. As out-
lined by the late Bernard B. Fall in his
analysis "Hell in a Very Small Place,"
Giap worked against the French by very
slowly moving against Dienbienphu, ever
tightening the NVA noose around the
isolated base. He attacked only after his
artillery had the fortress' air strip within
artillery range, effectively preventing
supply or evacuation of the base.
HERE IS a good deal of evidence that
Giap is using the same tactics against
Khe Sanh. The surrounding NVA troops
have slowly been moving in on the base
and their fortifications are now within
50 yards of the outer fortress walls. By the
time NVA positions are discovered for air
strikes, they may be on top of U.S. and
South Vietnamese soldiers, rendering air
power ineffective.
NVA artillery has also begun to hit
the airfield with deadly accuracy. Khe
Sanh has become increasingly dependent,
upon air drops for supplies.
By the time the #French considered
evacuating Dienbienphu it was too late
-the airfield was useless because of the
deadly artillery fire. Time is running out
for the Americans and South Vietnamese
at Khe Sanh.
THE U.S. AND SOUTH VIETNAMESE
forces at Khe Sanh are headed for a
defeat or, at best, a Pyhrric victory. The
base is simply not worth the enormous
toll in lives an all-out battle with the
NVA would undoubtedly take.
The base should be evacuated now
while evacuation is still possible.
-STEVE WILDSTROM
Managing Editor
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(Inaugural) Analysis
EDITOR'S NOTE: Following are
excerpts from President Robben
Wright Fleming's inaugural ad-
dress delivered Monday at Hill
Auditorium.
I MUST, at the very outset, ex-
press the great sense of honor
which I feel at being invested
with this high office. My earliest
memories _ of The University of
Michigan stem from a childhood
in Illinois where, as a small boy
intensely ' interested in sports, I
was conscious of the famous
phrase "FTMriedman to oosterbaan"
and of the rhythm of "Hail to
the Victors" as the Wolverines
marched past my more favored
Illini. ' -
It was later, when I was myself
a college student, that I first be-
came acquainted with the emin-
ence of Michigan as an academic
institution. And it was still later,
when my own career turned to-
ward the academic world, that I
fully realized the respect and ad-
miration which scholars every-
where hold for The University of
Michigan.
It is easy for me to say that
this is one of the truly great uni-
versities of the world, for I have
had nothing to do with building
that reputation. If future his-
torians can record that I had some
small part in maintaining and ad-
vancing that reputation, I shall be
content.
University inaugurations are
touched by a sense of history. The
ceremony Itself, with the aca-
demic procession, the colorful robes
and hoods, the presence of our
colleagues representing the proud
world of scholarship - all sug-
gest an awareness of and respect
for the past and its traditions.
PERHAPS it was natural, there-
fore, that in preparing for this
occasion I turned to Professor
Howard Peckham's recent history
of The University of Michigan,
published last year as part of the
observance of the University's ses-
quicentennial. The book is organ-
ized around the various presidents
who have served the University,
1 and it is not long. before the gigan-
r tic figure of President Tappan
strolls across its pages. Let me read
a brief passage about Tappan :
n
Henry Philip Tappan ar-
rived in Ann Arbor . . . in
the summer of 1852, fresh
e from Europe. He was forty-
n seven years old, six feet tall
and handsome, with side and
underchin whiskers. In the
The President's
F
y
Robber W. Fleming
the function of the public univer-
sity. Despite the tax outlay for
education, students and their
, families, ,are being asked to bear
more and snore of the total ex-
pense. With this goes an aggra-
vated form of economic isolation-
ism in which legislatures, aware
of the fact that there is a sub-
sidy for every student who at-
tends a university, raise the tariff
wall even higher against taut-of-
state and international students.
The. virulent fallacy that the
out-of-state student somehow
imposes an unfair burden on the
taxpayers particularly plagues The
University of Michigan because it
'has. from its earliest days, been
a national university. I have spoken
of this in the past, and I shall
do so again.
For today, I simply say that, in
my judgment, 'there is no econ-
omic and certainly no education-
al justification for this kind of
isolationism. In the long run, it can
only be detrimental to the progress
of the state.
The free exchange of students
across state lines is just one as-
pect of the problem of main-
taining excellence. Another, in the
words of my colleague Alan Smith,
"is the challenge for education, to
find a way to. justify, preserve and
foster genuine excellence in a
society Heavily' committed to an
egalitarian philosophy." There is
pressure, on both state and na-
The Military Bit, Advertising I wtse
IN THIS AGE of flowered hippie-
mobiles and traveling-band
micro-buses, it's nice to see that
the armed forces of our country
are keeping up with the trend.
Walking across the parking lot
between the Union and the SAB
last week, I was surprised 'to, see
a U.S. Navy recruiting micro-bus
with the words "Go Navy" scrawl-
ed in large yellow and blue letters
on the side. Underneath was the
catchy slogan, "In the, air, on the
sea, under the sea." With such
persuasive advertising, I reflected,
who could resist rushing down to
the nearest Navy recruiting office
and enlisting immediately?
Fascinated by the idea that the
previously stodgy Navy might be
embarking on a Madison Avenue
style campaign to create a - new
public image, I called up the local
recruiter to find out what the
Navy has up its blue and white
sleeves.
ACCORDING to the recruiter,
the Navy and its sister branches
have no plans for future publicity
drives done in this imaginative
genre. That's too bad, because
there are a number of fascinating
possibilities they could toy around
with. For example,
1 "Go Navy' streamers to be
flown over the football stadium;
0 "Support Your Local Recruit-
er" buttons to be circulated wide-
ly on campus.
david
duboff
,A Psychedelic posters-designed
by Peter Max--commemorating the
Navy frogmen as they dive for
bombs off Greenland;
0 More extensive coverage of
military events. There could be a
2-hour weekly Sunday afternoon
program on ABC called "Wide
World of War." It could be joined
during the second season by an
NBC spectacular, "Battle of the
Week."
! More TV testimonials, follow-
ing the, format of the currently
popular Savings Bonds ad ("They
buy savings bonds where they
work . . . shouldn't you?"). A
"Marine of the Week," chosen by
popular vote of the troops, would
take a two-minute battle-break to
tell why he decided to enlist.
For the Army and the Ma-
rines, shortie battle dramas with a
television commercial format. One
could be patterned after the Katy
Winters Listerine series:
Setting: the jungle around Khe
Sanh : A battle-weary private calls
to the sargeant in the next bunker :
Private: "Gee, Sarge, I just don't
get any kick out of shooting VC
anymore."
Sarge "'Ja ever think it might
be that old rifle you're using? Here,
try this new M-16, w1Dri-Slide."
A week later, during a lull in
battle. The sargeant comes over
and offers the private--looking
very refreshed-a cigarette from
his pack of "Wings."
Sarge: "Nice job you've been
chin', kid."
.Private: "Thanks, Sarge, I owe
it all to the Army and modern
technology."
0 Replacing the traditional
Military Ball with a benefit light
show rock concert featuring "Sgt
Barry Sadler and the Special For-
ces" with such hits at "Rifle, Don't
Ever Fail Me" and "Dear John
I'm in love with your mortar,"
while pictures of. contorted GI';
flash on screens overhead in tempc
to the music;
*Postage 'stamps commemo-
rating the Tonkin Gulf incident;
*Feature-length films depict.
ing the trials and tribulations of
university researchers as they work
long hours trying to perfect neu
radar sensing devices.
AH YES, even the military coulc
benefit from an injection of Madi-
son Avenue techniques. After all
with thousands of young Amer-
icans in the next few months de-
ciding that maybe Canada would-
n't be such a bad life after all
General Westmoreland is going tc
have, to get those 240,000 troop:
from somewhere.
The Ox-Ford Incident
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4"I t is often easier for critics of the present gen-
eration of students to fulminate against their
bad manners, which are frequently, displayed,
than. to- accept the fact that underlying the bad
manners may be a dedication to human well
being not found in their critics . ."
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IT IS DIFFICULT to understand the
University's,-reasons for offering two
sororities space in Oxford Housing.
University H o u s i n g Director John
Feldkamp contends that by allowing the
two Negro sororities, Delta Sigma Theta
and Alpha Kappa Alpha, to occupy Van-
denberg and Goddard Houses of Oxford,
the University will have made a "gesture
to make Michigan more attractive to
Opportunity Award students and to Ne-
groes." He claims that most of the mem-
bers of the two sororities are Opportun-
ity Award students,.
By signing up the girls as individuals
rather than sorority members, the Uni-
versify conveniently circumvents its
policy that it is not responsible for pro-
viding housing for Greek groups.
Unfortunately, the policy which Feld-
Vote?
IF YOU didn't get a chance to vote yes-
terday in the SGC election, you can
still vote today.
Please do.
-U. L.
Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor. Michigan,
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104.
The Daily is a member of the Associated Press,
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ygear.
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Fall and winter subscription rate: $4.50 per term by
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Editorial Staff
MARK LEVIN, Editor
STEPHEN WILDSTROM URBAN LEHNER
Managing Editor Editorial Director
DAVID KNOKE. Executive Editor
WALLACE IMMEN .... ............ ... News Editor
PAT O'DONOHUEN.. ........ .... .. News Editor
DANIEL OKRENT,.................... Feature Editor
LUCY KENNEDY ...... .... Personnel Director
CAROLYN MIEGEL,....... Associate Editorial Director
WALTER SHAPIRO,....... Associate Editorial Director
NEAL BRUSS...................... Magazine Editor
ANDY SACKS ......................... Photo Editor
ROBEm RTHWFTT..........................Lab Chief
kamp evades is far sounder than his
rationale for evading it.
jF THIS IS a gesture to make the Uni-
versity attractive to Opportunity Award
students, it is a strangely inconsistent
way of going about it.
Are all the girls in the houses Oppor-
tunity Award students? If not, why isn't
the gesture made to those who are as
individuals?
Are there other Opportunity Award
students not members of these two soror-
ities on campus? Why aren't gestures
being made to them?
The problem here is that the gesture
is being made toward sororities, not to
Negroes or Opportunity Award students.
Sororities are selective, expensive
groups. That the University aided two
Negro sororities constitutes a rather sorry
calling card for University recruiters in
the ghettoes. Most of the promising Negro
students they approach cannot even af-
ford to go to school here, much less join
a sorority.
PERHAPS AS Feldkamp says, there
were vacancies for next year in Oxford
before the, sororities were offered the
spaces. But the University has overreact-
ed. Not only will two of the houses go to
the two sororities, but a third, Noble
House, has been converted to men's hous-
ing. This means that many girls now liv-
ing in Oxford will not be able to return
next year. Again, the University's policy
of allocating University housing spaces
by seniority has been ignored.
The University's efforts to attract Ne-
groes and assist them deserves commen-
dation; its efforts to subsidize sororities
do not. The Univesrity's policy not to pro-
vide housing for fraternities and soror-
ities should be enforced consistently.
While Feldkamp claims that this policy
sets no precedent, it would not seem un-
reasonable for other sororities to de-
mand the same privileges. Kappas in
Stockwell, for example?
T 1, Ut, .n rm 'flTtr a n r
Letters to the Editor
The Riot Comm issiori Revisited
To the Editor:
YOUR RECENT editorial, "The
Riot Commission Report: Who's
Afraid of White Racism?" con-
fuses many issues and, adds very
little to a realistic discussion of
this nation's racial problem. There
are four items that need clarifi-
cation.
First, you intimate that the Riot
Commission's report calls for a
continuation or expansion of many
existing welfare programs. A care-
ful review of the Commission's re-
port indicates ; that it questioned
the present welfare and housing
programs and found they had fail-
ed to accomplish their ends. The
report called for fundamental
changes in the welfare system, a
complete reorientation of housing
programs and major revisions in
the system of federal support for
education.
It is unusual for a commission,
appointed by an incumbent presi-
dent, to arrive at so many con-
clusions which challenge that pres-
ident's basic domestic 'programs.
The Riot Commission's report is
a very anti-establishment docu-
ment, perhaps without precedent
in our history.
SECOND, your editorial claims
that existing federal programs
have failed to solve anything. An
investigation of the characteristics
of blacks indicates there have been
lacked plumbing decreased from
44 percent to 29 per cent. Since
1964 not only has Negro income
gone up, but the white-black in-
come discrepancy has narrowed.
. It is true that racial differences
in social and economic status re-
main quite large. But it is clear
that some improvements have been
made. There is good reason to be-
lieve that many of the existing
government programs have played
a 'sole in improving the status of
blacks in our society.
Third, in proposing solutions you
suggest that there is some type
of homogeneity within black com-
munities. You indicate that if
black neighborhoods were to con-
trol welfare agencies or educa-
tional facilities at least one step
would be taken toward solving ur-
ban problems. This represents a
kind of stereotype thinking. Why
should there be this agreement
within the black community?
Would blacks, any more than
whites, agree about what the sig-
nificant, social problems were and
how they might be solved? Is it
possible to imagine four spokes-
men as diverse as Senator Brooke,
Mr. Stokley Carmichael, Mr. Asa
Spaulding and Dr. Martin Luther
King agreeing about how a black
community should be run?
FOURTH, I think your suggest-
ion of urban decentralization de-
dition, a tradition which severely
handicapped blacks for many de-
cades.
The more financially able white
ghettoes would enact zoning laws
which would have the consequence
of keeping poor whites and blacks
out. I think that further frag-
menting of the central cities will
help to separate the rich from the
poor and blacks from whites. Per-
haps a better solution would be to
establish national standards for
housing welfare, medical care and
education and provide federal
monies wherever a city could not
provide these services.
The Riot Commission's suggest-
ions may not solve racial problems
but they do lay out one sensible
approach. The merits and liabili-
ties of these suggestions need to
be evaluated. Your editorial befud-
dles these important issues.
--Reynolds Farley,
Prof. of Sociology
Sports for All
To the Editor:
IS THE DAILY Sports staff so
engrossed with its current cru-
sade against Michigan athletes
getting 10 per cent off on a cup
of coffee that it has forgotten its
past crusade about the gross in-
adequacies of the intramural de-
partment? The Fleming revision
nf the Raves r,'t1Y2 mittP.P. renorts
semirural, parochial town of
Ann Arbor, he was unmistak-
able ... Outdoors, he carried
a cane and was invariably
accompanied by one of his
huge St. Bernards, Buff or
Leo. In a day of stovepipe
hats, he wore a felt hat tipped
to one side. He walked briskly
among the stores not unlike
the lord of the manor in the
marketplace of the peasants.
He looked and acted like a
university president. The stu-
dents were not merely impres-
sed, they were almost over-
whelmed. Some of them more
than fifty years later remem-
bered him with awe. Their
comments paint him best:
"He was an - immense person-
ality. It was a liberal educa-
tion even for the stupid to be
slightly acquainted with him."
After reading that far, I stopped
for contemplation -- and to won-
der about my own qualifications.
Aside from being six feet, tall,
my image seemed inappropriate.
In place of the two huge St. Ber-
nards, I possessed only a small
dachshund who had never learned
.to walk with a :leash and who
therefore protested every step of
the way, making choking sounds
designed to attract the Humane
Society.
I did not own a cane nor a top
hat, and the whiskers were all on
the students. Instead of walking
through the marketplace like the
lord of the manor; I found myself
dodging both pedestrian and vehi-
cular traffic just to stay alive.
And if students .were awed by me
they had most extraordinary ways
of showing it.
As a matter of fact, in per-
suading my own children to come
to this ceremony, I thought it
best to describe- it as my "thing"
THE COST OF supporting the
educational aspirations of so many
young people frightens some of
us. Dollars are important, and I
have no doubt that I shall have
occasion many' times to talk of
them. But today, I suggest that
what should be bothering us ,even
more than rising costs is the fact
that almost half of all youngsters
who rate in the top seven per cent
of the student population on the
basis of ability still do not pursue
tional legislatures to expand ed-
ucational opportunities and equal-
ize funding formulae among in-
stitutions.
More opportunities for higher
education we must have if the
expectations of people are to be
fulfilled, but some kinds of edu-
cation are enormously more ex-,
psensive than others. Neither the
needs of society, the resources of
the country, nor the talent avail-
able permit or require that all of
higher education be funded alike.
The valleys are not less beautiful
than the peaks, but far distant
horizons, which will benefit both
are more visible from the peaks.
IT IS'rREDICTABLE that strong
differences of opinion will divide
us. Is it too much ' to hope that
in this home of the intellect we
can conduct ourselves with dignity
and restraint? Or will we have to
concede that the humanizing in-
fluences and values which we be-
lieve abound in the.university are
always betrayed in a time of
stress?-,My dream, my belief, my
-commitment is that on this
campus we can and will preserve
our community and its time-
honored values. '
As an aside to this point, how-
ever, I am impelled to add that
those of us who. urge dignity and
restraint must not put these qual-
ities ahead of human welfare. It
is often easier for critics of the
.present generation of students to
fulminate against their bad man- .
hers, which are frequently. dis-
played, than to accept the fact
that underlying the bad manners
may be a 'dedication to human
well-being not found in, their
critics.
WE KNOW a great deal more
about methods of injecting infor-
mation into students than we do
about how to make them civilized
human beings. In part, at least,
this is becasue it is )easier to pack-
age knowledge than it is to pack-
age humanity. We know Just what
kind of courses to give to produce
competent scholars and practition-
ers in linguistics, physics, law, or
mathematics. We know °a good
deal less about teaching tolerance,
compassion, and the responsibil-
ities of the civilized citizen.
And there are some who doubt
4k