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Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom-
VOL. LXXVIII, No. 1 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1967
EIGHTH SECTIO
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Entire Staff Hammers Out Unified Daily Strategy
By MARK LEVIN
Summer Supplement Editor
ON FEB. 20, 1967, 12 men walked into a -small conference
- room in the Student Publications Building and voted 7-4
to reject the unanimous recommendation of The Daily Senior
Editors for The Daily's 1967-68 editor.
Three days later, the same 12 men walked into the same
room and voted 7-4 to accept the once "unacceptable" nomi-
nee, and with him the rest of the proposed new senior edi-
torial staff.
But before the dust had settled, 36 state legislators, hun-
dreds of alumni, President Harlan Hatcher, the University
Regents, the Detroit Free Press, a reporter for the New York
Times and the entire Daily staff had become deeply involved
in the crisis.
The Daily has always aroused controversy, but the 1966-
67 school year had been more controversial than most.
The editor, Mark R. Killingsworth, '67, started off the
winter semester with a bitter attack on President Hatcher,
disclosing that Hatcher had been appointed in 1954 largely
due to the efforts of one Regent, Roscoe Bonisteel of Ann
Arbor, who had refused to consider anybody else.
THEN THE executive- editor, Bruce Wasserstein, '67, wrote
a story quoting a close friend of Berkeley Chancellor
Roger W. Heyns, a former University vice president, saying
that Heyns was "seriously interested" in the University presi-
dency. Presidential Selection Commission Chairman, Regent
Robert Briggs, accused The Daily of trying to promote Heyns
and said the article was doing more harm than good.
And the editorial director, Harvey Wasserman, '67, wrote
an editorial advocating the legalization of marijuana, which
seemed to offend the sensibilities of a number of prominent
Michigan citizens.
In November, 1966, The Daily leaked the text of a confi-
dential Defense Department document charging that the
University is "known as one basically for 'rich white stu-
dents.' " The only reaction the University administration had
to the story was that it should not have been printed in the
first place.
The Daily also printed editorials favorable to last fall's
"student power." movement, and in August, 1966, all ten senior
editors had signed a front-page editorial castigating the
University for its compliance with a House Un-American
Activities Committee subpoena of three campus political
groups' membership lists.
R OGER RAPOPORT, '68--The Daily Senior Editors' nominee
for Daily editor--himself probably symbolized what, to
many members of the University community, was "wrong
with The Daily.
Early in January he disclosed that the -University admin-
istration was considering, using over $4.75 million in student
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Anxious Faces Mark Long Hours Before Board Decision
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