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 AT-LARGE Hunting for the Holy Grail Ly NEIL SHISTER m-- - Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Truth Will Prevail NEws PHONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: DAVID KNOKE Fleming on War Research N THE SURFACE, President Robben W. Fleming's stand against classified military research as voiced in a Daily interview yesterday is admirable. Fleming said he thought the school should take "a general position against classified military research." Fleming cited sound reasons for his view. First, many projects are "unneces- sarily classified." Second, he thinks that University involvement in secret military projects abroad-like the $1 million counterinsurgency effort in Thailand- "prejudices the nature of our Univer- sity's research." He is also concerned about being involved in top secret work --like "Project 1111"-which "aren't ,eared at our end." As a result, the new president thinks the universities should "apply some pres- sure to get some of the work "declassi- fied." ALL THESE ARE powerful arguments. This kind of thinking has prompted school. likeHarvard, Minnesota, and Wis- consin to abandon secret research. But as it turns out, Fleming becomes his own worst enemy. He undermines his carefully prepared stand by saying that he is willing "to make specific exceptions" to his general policy and have the school accept specific classified projects. The Daily is a member of the Associated Press and Collegiate Press Service. Fall and winter subscription rate: $4.50 per term by carrier ($5 by mali,. $8.00 for regular academic school year ($9 by mail). Daily except Monday during regular academic school year. Daily except Sunday and Monday during regular summer session. Second class pnstage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 420 Maynard St.* Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104. And after going on at great length about how the University should not be involved in clandestine work of the Thai- land variety, Fleming turns right around and says he really "doesn't see how" the school can end it. If Fleming is really opposed to the University's Thailand-style "research" and believes that it is inimical to the purpose of an academic community, he should terminate it immediately. Concerning the more general question of all classified contracts, Fleming be- lieves that peaceful negotiation and a little polite pressure will force the gov- ernment into "declassifying" the classi- fied research. On this point he is sadly mistaken. Industry has been fighting the same battle for years with little success. IF FLEMING IS serious about what he, says, he must take definite steps to end clasified research. He should immediately work to cancel the Thailand project. He should have the University refuse to accept any more classified contracts. Without positive action, his verbal stand against classified research is mean- ingless. A successful college president can not just be a mediator who appeases one siae with empty words and appeases the other side with inaction. He must be a decision-maker who takes stands and sticks by them. Fleming has taken a clear standon classified research. He is now committed to do all he can to implement it. -ROGER RAPOPORT Editor THE ULTIMATE reality is complete illusion. There can be no greater truth than that held to be unequivocal and so apparent that it cannot be contested, yet to be such a "true believer" is to live in a uni-dimen- sional world with a single perspective which all percep- tions are tailored to fit. The true problem facing our generation, or at least those of us who have lost the faith, is not finding the structual cures to society's problems-this motif is out of another era-but somehow findig for ourselves a satisfying reality, a complete illusion in which we can believe. Any social ideology is fraudulent, it has to be by virtue of presuming an absolute order to which all experience must conform. Perhaps the most important lesson we ever learn is the one which insures our destruction, the phenomenon of entropy which is the movement of any system-physical or social-from an original position of organization and differentiation to one finally of random chaos and disorganization; in other words, the system's running down and wearing out. But ideologies assume an unchanging social context, or at least one in which the meaning of events from moment-to-moment is fixed and understandable, and where the future will evolve in conformance to an ideal. The great world visions-Christianity, Darwinism, Marxism, American transcendentalism and faith in pro- gress, for example-have all had a central tenant and the meaning and importance of specific moments could be understood in terms of that tenant. To the archetype Christian, the theme of existence is perhaps something like love and humility; to the Marxist, the stuff of life is conflict and change; the point is that both believe they have The Word, they are into truth and understand the reality of experience, yet by virtue of understanding completely they are oblivious to anything that cannot be seen through their "lenses." THE PROBLEM HAUNTING our generation is the problem of subscribing to some faith, of "getting into" something. The old illusions don't work for us, and we are left now with a pervasive sense of disillusionment and cynicism. There is nothing more fundamental to man's psyche than his world view, and most of us don't have one beyond individual success. This hollow ideal is simply inadequate for stringing together the pieces of our life into a meaningful whole. The great interest in drugs is indicative of the search for a vision, a reality, a new illusion. It is difficulty to say how many are serious users, or indeed have even smoked marijuana once, but the nijmber of people who turned-out for the Drug Teach-In here last Sunday shows there are a lot who want to at least hear about turning- on. What is most interesting about the whole marijuana controversy, and most revealing, is the different ways the generations react to it. It seems the older generations, as represented by their power brokers, are irrationally in- timidated by the drug and are handing out incredibly cruel penalties for its possession. At the same time, the sons and daughters of these people use grass with near non-chalance, the major consideration being that of avoiding arrest. Somebody who has returned from a few weeks in San Francisco tells of hitch-hiking across the bridge 'to Berkeley and casually being offered joints by the drivers who offered rides. that he cannot detach himself from his time and look to see what he is missing. Still, it seems that we are in a period of such profound ferment that the entire character of our vision of the world is undergoing change. Subtle to be sure, but nonetheless real. In the Bob Dylan movie currently showing, there is a scene where Dylan is having a show-down with a re- porter from Time Magazine. He goes on and on, telling the reporter how he can't talk to him because the writer wouldn't understand what he was saying and even if he tried, by the time it got published it would be written by somebody who didn't understand and would end up THE HIP GREETING now-a-days is "what are you into?" instead of "hello," and the idea of having a "thing" is that of being into some central theme which orders life. You have your bag filled with your thing which is what you are into. That's where it's at! Punctuated with a few "wows!" This is the contemporary litany, as sacred as any that has preceded it and perhaps as effective. Drugs may be part of it, yet the instinct propelling it goes beyond drugs itself and is aimed at finding something more basic that hasn't been found by us yet. THERE ARE VERY few things more difficult to un- derstand than the intellectual flavor of an era, especially when one is living through it and is so much a part of it calling Dylan "a folk-singer." Then Dylan goes into a short speech about what reality is, and how no magazine publishes it how it is. The reporter looks away and then looks back at Dylan and asks him "are you serious about what you're saying?" Dylan explodes-"How can you ask such a question!?!" Dylan doesn't claim to be a spokesman. I suppose we'll never have a single one, which is right. But the ones around, the Bealtes, the "black-humorists," the experi- mental film-makers, even perhaps the hippies. all elicit the same response from the generation preceeding us: Are You Serious? Yes, they are. There's a lot of put-on, but beneath it in fact they are very serious. And they have some kind of pre-verbal vision. <............-r. , ...... : ...:.. .... . .. . . e . '.. . . .. t .. .-.A. :..._ .a ~~~~.":.::: }":tiiii{"t.i: ,.'.S"YlJ"}: :: :".'.... "."." "": rf 1r aw; The By WALTER GOLDSTEIN MR. CHAIRMAN, Congressmen: It is always difficult to col- lect accurate data on military op- erations or to draw precise infer- ences from battle reports; indeed, we even find difficulty in each de- cade in compiling an accurate census of the U.S. population. Working exclusively from reports in the public press, however, it is possible to test the logical con- sistency of the successes claimed in the Vietnam war by the Ad- ministration. Efforts to do so al- low questions to be asked about the feasibility of the military stra- tegy that is now being pursued- or about the benefits that might be gained if new goals were to be pursued. The numbers game poses a dif- ficult problem to be resolved. Con- flicting reports suggest that ene- my forces are 300,000 strong, or 250,000 weak; other estimates vary by 20 percent up or down. Some- times the V.C. is suposed to find great difficulty in recruiting in South Vietnam; or the North Viet- namese are supposed to find diffi- culty in infiltrating reinforce- ments into the South. Moreover, the Administration now claims that 40,000 enemy have been killed in the last six months. Hence, some suspect that we must have killed the enemy several times over - unless we have erred about his ability to re- cruit or to infiltrate further re- inforcements. Numbers have also been con- fusing in considering the combat- readiness both of the enemy and of ARVN forces. A recent count indicates that 76 -of 163 enemy battalions are now unfit for com- bat. If this is true, we must ask how they were able to stage such large battles at Conthien and Dakto? Similarly, if 200,000 of the 630,- 000 ARVN troops are combat- ready, we must ask what has hap- pened to the rest and why U.S. casualties are greater than those of the combat-ready contingents? THESE QUESTIONS must be raised in appraising General Westmoreland's recent statements that (a) within two years there could be a sizeable phasing-down of U.S. forces in Vietnam; be- cause (b) the enemy force is be- coming demoralized and severely depleted; and because (c) ARVN forces are growing stronger and better able to take over this high- ly Americanized war. Questions must be raised about Vietnam I. BOMBING OF NORTH VIETNAM First of all, there is a great un- certainty about the effectiveness of U.S. bombing operations in the North. Over 2,000 targets have been systematically attacked and 750 U.S. fixed-wing planes have been lost in the last two years. In critically important testi- mony before the Senate Prepared- ness Sub-committee, on August 25, Secretary McNamara revealed that only 57 targets on the list submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff has not been attacked - though in the last three months most of the 57 were hit. He add- ed that if they were attacked it would "not materially shorten the duration of the war." Unfortunately, many influen- tial people have disagreed. Lead- ers within the Congress and in the Joint Chiefs of Staff have insist- ed that the bombing must esca- late; significantly, none has mar- shalled hard evidence while dis- agreeing with Mr. McNamara. If saturation raids were launch- ed on Hanoi and Haiphong (through which only 550 tons of material pass each day, and only 10 percent of which is military equipment bound for the South), it would still be possible for the North Vietnamese to devise alter- native routes of communication and supply. Ships outside Haiphong are al- ready offloaded onto barges and hence pounding the dockside would not particularly arrest the flow of trade-though it might sink Soviet shipping. 85 percent of the electricity generators in North Vietnam and most railroad brid- ges have also been knocked out- but Secretary McNamara has no- ted how difficult it is to destroy the war-making potential of an agricultural economy. North Vietnam's primitive in- frastructure and its mass of un- skilled labor can probably with- stand many more months of U.S. bombing. It might even gain in morale, too! IF THE INTENTION of the bombing is to "punish" North Vi- etnam, or to make it pay a high price for not negotiating, our 2,- 000 bombing sorties a month would apear to have failed. The North has enough peasant man- power to make hasty repairs to its roads and canals and it has re- ceived sufficient supplies from China and the Soviet Union to take care of urgent needs. That it wil collapse under the con lict --I The Military Options .:.....:-. k The following article is the second of six pieces analyzing the Vietnam War and suggesting alter- natives to the present American policy. The papers were presented in Washington on Nov. 28, 1967, to a 19-man Congressional study group. The hearing was initiated by Rep. Donald W. Riegle, Jr., a Re- publican from Flint who requested the testimony from five Asian scholars, four from the University, headed by Prof. Alexander Eckstein, director of the University's Center for Chinese Studies. Today's article is by Dr. Walter Goldstein, a Visiting Professor at the School of International Affairs at Columbia University and a former pro- fessor at the City University of New York. Dr. Gold- stein has served as a consultant on political-military affairs at various government and private research agencies. mara reports that the forces in the South require only 100 tons of supplies a day, at the maxi- mum. This means that only a few trucks a day need get through or that a fleet of several hundred bi- cycles (carrying 500 pounds each) need traverse the bombed supply routes. It is hardly surprising that the North Vietnamese have been able to send through about 6,000 new troops each month and to keep them adequately supplied to fight sizeable battles a g a i n s t U.S. forces. Evidence has yet to be cited that the bombing of the North, as a purely military operation, has achieved its purposes or that its cessation would be unbear- ably costly to the U.S. (Nor should one minimize the fact that the rest of the world press has reported that a great number of Bomb Cluster Units, or anti-personnel guava bombs, have been dropped by U.S. planes on Northern cities. This raises a ter- rible moral problem that should exercise our consciences while we are calculating the cost/effective- ness of bombing a nation with which we are technically not at war.) II. THE WAR IN THE SOUTH It is impossible to estimate ex- actly what progress has been made since 1965 in the war in the South. 000 over and and a half years; the cost has risen from 6 billion dol- lars in 1966 to more than 22 billion dollars in 1967; and our casualties have at least doubled. But what has been gained from this increase besides the assurance that our enormous force will not be defeated by a puny opponent? The number of reads that are open" or the percentage of the 17,000,000 people living in "secure" areas cannot be definitely meas- ured. More important, the enemy has been free and able to stage pitched battles at Dak To, the Iadrang Valley, Song Be, Loc Ninh and Conthien. The purpose of these battles was: (a) to draw American troops away from the rice-growing areas on the coast, especially at harvest time, so that the V.C. could replenish its supplies; (b) to im- pose higher casualties upon U.S. forces in order to deepen political divisions within the United States; and (c) to impede any U.S. and ARVN progress in pacification. Each one of these V.C. goals has been attained, though admittedly at a high price. It appears that the enemy can still mount operations at almost a division level, despite all the punishment and demoral- ization that we can claim to have meted out in recent months. Though there is no longer a danger of military disaster to our III. PACIFICATION There are 12,000 hamlets and agricultural units within South Vietnam but it is impossible to cal- culate what percentage of them remain permanently under U.S. or friendly control. Many of the friendly villages have to be "clear- ed" several times a month and many of our own people refuse to spend the night in them. Even if we use computerized cal- culations, it is difficult to judge (and not just count) that 67% of the population lives in "secure zones," especially when the ARVN often leave village affairs to the V.C. The effectiveness of the V.C. can be shown in the widespread and considerable support (in food, sup- plies, and information) which it has been able to provide all over the country; it certainly does not look like a demoralized or deci- mated force verging on the point of collapse. Were the dubious Revolutionary Development Corps maintained by Saigon only half as effective as the V.C., our newspapers would not have to report the ambush of U.S. patrols in a dozen different locales of this wretched war on every day of the week. Considering the gross distortions in the daily "body count" and in other sup- posedly hard data issued by Sai- ;on, it is necessary to question General Westmoreland's new basis foe nrnirition. been vehemently despised for col- laborting with thee French against the popular Vietminh rebellion 15 years ago? ADDITIONALLY, ONE MUST consider the fate of the refugees who have in many cases been for- cibly removed by U.S. troops from- areas of combat. There is not even exact knowledge of their number. Normally it is assumed that there are 2 million out of a population of 17 million, but Senator Edward Kennedy and others have made estimates ranging up to 4 million. What is certainly known is that the refugees live in miserable con- ditions on 8 cents a day, that their loyalty to and support of the Sai- gon regime is dubious, that few of them thank us for liberating them from their family land. If we are fighting to preserve the social and political fabric of Vietnam, our harsh treatment of this numerous group is reprehen- sible both on humanitarian and political grounds. Indeed, our fail- ure to calculate civilian fatalities and to remedy the refugees' mis- ery suggests that we have been :emiss in tending to the welfare of the people whom we now claim to defend. IV. OPTIONS AVAILABLE IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS General Westmoreland and Am- bassador Bunker recently suggest- ed a four-phase scenario of how the Vietnam war might be "won." Reasonable doubts must be raised about their estimates of: (a) whether the enemy is truly being ground down in a war of attrition; (b) whether the ARVN forces can reverse the present process of Americanizing the war; and (c) whether the United States can continue to afford the astronomic political and economic costs of continuing present levels of opera- tion over the next two years? Looking back upon the equally visionary assessments of victory advanced between 1963 and 1966, and after inspecting the alleged "data" cited by General West- moreland or Prof. W. W. Rostow, it is difficult to agree that the Amer- ican people will shortly be present- ed with a decisive military solution to this nightmare of political-mil- itary confrontation which we call the War. There are three different out- comes or options currently avail- able to the United States and we should evaluate each one as open- ly as possible. (1) To sustain the present level of combat activity and to hope that General Westmoreland's two- great staying power, that our allies are impossible weak, and that we must contiue to fight in a largely hopeless terrain. It is utterly un- likely that the enemy will nego- tiate while North Vietnam is being bombed or while he knows that the U.S. is so vulnerable to high casualty lists. Hanoi aims to maintain the present level of combat for at least another year, until the U.S. elec- tion campaign has ended. This will put a great strain upon the ability of the U.S. and Saigon to improve the military stalemate that has dragged on for two years at such a high cost. A careful assessment of the evi- dence suggests that our position next year will not provide a sizable improvement over our current prospects. If we need to seal off the North before phasing down the U.S. effort, the war is likely to last for much longer than two years, (2) Alternately we could escalate the war by either engaging in a massive destruction of North Viet- nam, or by using chemical (or even nuclear) weapons to seal off the infiltration routes from North into South Vietnam, or by puttting a million men into the land war; we could also try to invade North Vietnam in an attempt at a "win- the-war strategy" (such as the Gallipoli landing tried in the First World War or the Inchon Bay landing attempted in the Korean War). None of these escalations could be guaranteed to provide a deci- sive or "knock-out" blow and it is probable that they would be exor- bitantly costly to the U.S. in men and material. Probably our most tempting mistake will be to invade the swamp lands of the Delta. This could bog down U.S. forces and waste as many lives as were squandered in the trench war of Flanders in 1917. (3) The last option available is to find some manner of de-escala- ting the level of combat and the area of conflict. Unfortunately, misunderstandings have been aired in the past about the concept of 'enclaves" a n d de-escalation. Without rehearsing them, it can be suggested that were U.S. troops to withdraw to the coastal plains (on which a large part of the South Vietnamese population is located), U.S. casualties and battle operations could be significantly reduced. Within this area it might be possible for the Saigon Govern- ment to repair its useless attempts at nation-building; and the U.S. could then afford to cease its .4, :: ,. m