Seventy -Sev en Years of Editorial Freedom
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ROGER RAPOPORT:
On Classified Military Research
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Y, OCTOBER 25, 1967
NIGHT EDITOR:
DANIEL OKRENT
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LAST WEEK the Gallup Poll reported that more Amer-
icans (48 per cent) now believe the United States
should "scale down the fighting or get out" of Vietnam
than believe the "war should be stepped up." (37 per cent)
Why then is the national leadership moving in the
opposite direction? Why is the war escalating instead of
deescalating?
A close look at this campus, which is traditionally
viewed as a leading center of anti-war protest, suggests
some sobering answers.
President Harlan Hatcher, President Designate Rob-
ben Fleming, and Vice President Pierpont have all come
out against the war. Students here have protested the war
through a draft board sit-in downtown, by picketing Dow
Chemical in Midland for making napalm, Fort Wayne in
Detroit for inducting draftees, and they have participated
in numerous national demonstrations.
In the process the anti-war movement has placed the
blame for the war on the President, his cabinet, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the military-industrial complex and a
host of other deserving targets.
Vice President Pierpont has questioned Secretary Mc-
Namara's judgment, President Designate Fleming has
challenged State Department policy on the war and
President Hatcher has indicated he believes the national
military is taking the wrong course.
But until last week, when the Vietnam conflict was
edging into its third year, (with over 100,000 American
casualties) no one on campus had made a serious effort
to examine the University's relationship with this war
effort.
FRANKLY THIS NEWSPAPER is as negligent on this
score as anyone else. Although its editors and writers have
continually challenged U.S. policy in Vietnam, it has not
been until October, 1967, that this serious issue was fully
reviewed.
One thing clearly emerges from all the reports on
military research at the University: for all the outward
anti-war sentiment voiced by administration, faculty and
student leaders, the University of Michigan is playing an
integral role in the Vietnam war.
Officials here, of course, publicly hold to the fiction
that we are not directly involved: "We are only filling
orders." We only developed the side-looking radar, they
argue that makes it possible for jet pilots to pick out the
targets for Dow's napalm.
And when the University gets involved in military
maneuvers, it claims this is only for defensive purposes.
For example, consider Electrical Engineering Department
Chairman Hansford W. Farris' explanation of a classified
contract on radar jamming work:
"We only do research on defensive projects, not of-
fensive'projects. Now on this jamming project, you might
say that finding a better way to jam radar is offensive
because it permits us to get bombers past enemy defenses.
But in our parochial view, this is defensive, beacuse we're
protecting our pilots from counterattack."
And when you ask Willow Run director Rune Evaldson
about the University's $12,666 project on the Strat-X
ICBM project for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency: "If
they (the Defense Department) count that as part of
the Strat-X ICBM, it's their bookkeeping."
And when you ask Vice President for Research A.
Geoffrey Norman for a look at the full list of projects at
Willow Run he refuses to oblige. "Some of the names are
misleading," he explains.
INDEED THEY ARE. They are misleading the Uni-
versity into the kind of classified military work that can't
be defended here. Why else would a public university re-
fuse to give out a full list of its own projects? (All this
must come as a contrast to President-elect Fleming. At
Wisconsin, contract title statements are all open for in-
spection.)
One can hardly expect that Evaldson or Norman would
feel otherwise about the situation. After all, Willow Run
Labs is an $11 million research factory (less that 3 per
cent of the WRL staff is teaching any courses) that de-
pends on war research for sustenance. And Dr. Norman,
who worked for the Army's Ft. Dietrick biological warfare
laboratory in the 1940's, voices few qualms about classified
military research on campus.
But all those who are opposed to the American role in
Vietnam have an obligation to challenge the University's
virtually open policy on accepting classified war research.
Make no mistake, this University has profited finan-
cially-from playing a direct role in the war effort.
The school currently takes $9.7 million in secret mili-
tary contracts, which helps to fund a vast research fac-
tory at Willow Run Laboratories. Over the past 14 years,
the army has poured more than $70 million into Project
Michigan, a classified battlefield surveillance project at
WRL.
All this finances the careers of 600 full-time employes
at Willow Run, and pays overhead for military research
facilties.
In addition, the electrical engineering department has
relied on classified contracts to fund Cooley Laboratories,
a modern facility on North Campus. The money helps
to fund research and these projects from graduate stu-
dents.
The war research also helped to bankroll the political
career of Weston Vivian, who just completed a two-year
term as Michigan's 2nd district Congressman.,Formerly
involved in military research at the school, he put his
talents to work for Conductron Corp. and made a small
fortune that enabled him, to run and win a seat in Con-
gress, where he was a "liberal" who spoke out against
U.S. policy in Vietnam.
THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT can't continue to have
it both ways. President Hatcher can't -legitimately con-
tinue to say he opposes the war while sitting on the board
of the Institute for Defense Analysis, a war research
"think tank" that is studying "Tactical Nuclear Weapons
--Their Battlefield Utility, Chemical Control of Vegeta-
tion in Relation to Military Needs," and "Small Arms for
Counterguerilla Operations."
Nor can Vice President Pierpont justify opposing the
war while the schbol continues{ to line its coffers with
lucrative secret war research contracts.
And if President Designate Fleming's opposition to the
war is to mean anything, he is obliged to lead the Uni-
versity in elimination of classified military research.
Most important, if the general campus anti-war move-
ment is to be meaningful, students and faculty must take
direct action to end secret war research. The "Mother -of
State Universities" should not be allowed to prostitute
herself any further.
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'The Pentagon March' in Cinemascope
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TheWashing]
THEN THERE WAS Ray Mungo of
LIBERATION News Service who tells
of his night in a cell with Tuli Kup-
ferberg of the Fugs.
"Your name?" said the guard.
"Tuli Kupferberg," said Tuli Kup-
ferberg.
"Look, kid, your name," said the
guard to the forty-odd year old Kup-
ferberg.
"Tuli Kupferberg," persisted Kup-
ferberg.
The guard recorded the name. The
point, said Mungo, was what other
name could a guy who looks like Tuli
Kupferberg have, other than Tuli Kup-
ferberg.
AND THEN Dick Gregory telling the
thousands at the Lincoln Memorial
rally that his first act as president,
that is, his first act after . repainting
the White House, will be .
OR THE BOY standing on the bridge
leading to the Pentagon holding the
sign which read: "Johnson pull out
like your father should have."
"That's gross," s a i d an awed
marcher.
"So's war," retored the boy.
STEVE DAVIS, a student at Boston
University complained sadly of the
"forced-feeding" that went on through
Saturday night as the nice peace
ladies carted in boxes and boxes of
food - friend chicken, pickels, ba-
nanas -- for the all-night sit-inners.
"I didn't want to hurt anyone's
feelings so I ate twelve goddamn ba-
loney sandwiches . . . and I can't
stand baloney!"
* * *
AND DICK GREGORY again: What
I want to do, he said, is walk into
the White House garden, step on Lady
ton.
Bird's t
band, "I
ONE IF
gon
the Chi
March.
"The
were 10
today. V
people w
Wee kend
ulips and yell up to her hus-
Hey, boy!"
RATE SPEAKER at the Penta-
plaza spoke disparagingly of
cago Tribune's coverage of the
Tribune reported that there
,000 marchers in Washington
Why, there were over 10,000
waiting to use the john."
AND THERE WAS back-bending dem-
ocracy. After the demonstrators
voted unanimously for non-violence
before the imminent arrests on Sun-
day night, someone noticed that the
military police had not taken part in
the voting.
"Let's let guards vote, too," said the
speaker. "Will any guards planning to
use violence tonight please raise their
clubs?"
And, to a man, the guards voted for
non-violence.
* *
AGAIN AT THE Pentagon plaza. A
hippie, in a show of love, offered.
the guards a string of beads. There
was wild applause when a federal mar-
shal stepped forward to accept the gift.
Presumably the guard had sold the
Pentagon for the same- price that, years
earlier, had bought Manhattan Island.,
rJgHE HIPPIE named Sharpe apolo-
gized for the failure to exorcise the
Pentagon. The five men (one to a side,
naturally) needed for the ceremony
could not make it to Washington to-
gether. So, the three that did get there
would raise the structure for twenty
seconds at midnight.
"What will occur, however," con-
ceded Sharpe," is that you will all ex-
perience total mental blackout im-
mediately and no one will remember
the act."
--LISSA MATROSS
By WALTER SHAPIRO ,
IT WAS LIKE the set for one of
those old Cecil B. DeMille
movie spectaculars as the cast of
thousands kept milling around
this massive five-sided building
and impatiently waited for the
filming to begin.
But what was wrong with Sat-
urday's massive march on the
Pentagon was that the director
never got .up out of his funny
white chair and shouted, "Ac-
tion!" So the imprssive array of
extras was forced to muddle
through without script or guid-
ance.
Consequently the m illi n g
around continued, the demon-
strators played peculiar, semi-
violent games of tag with the
soldiers and eventually most of
the mobilized got bored, cold and
hungry and wended their way in
a kind of disorganized retreat
back to their buses or to the al-
most abandoned, city of Wash-
ington.
The problem was that as murch
as the scene resembled a psyche-
delic French Revolution, the
Pentagon just wasn't a techno-
cratic Bastille. Thus Saturday's
Mobilization became merely an
object lesson in the politics of
frustration.
For - as was discovered Sat-
urday - what can 30,000 uni-
formly variegated young white
middle-class demonstrators do
with a five-sided building - es-
pecially a building which was
heavily guarded?
Still, over 600 demonstrators
managed to solve this dilemma by
getting themselves arrested. And
while few were as conspicuously
driven as Norman Mailer to prove
their virility, there was something
intrinsically masochistic about
their actions, no matter how con-
scientiously and courageously
motivated.
For the civil disobedience at
the Pentagon last weekend, un-
like draft resistence for example,
had little tangible connection
with the war in Vietnam. Con-
sequently, the only real purpose
served by being arrested was to
salve an individual's conscience.
Furthermore, the mass arrests
will require the mobilization of
large financial resources to pay
for both bail and court costs -
money which could be more prof-
itably used by the far from sol-
vent anti-war movement for or-
ganizational and educational
projects.
THE IRRELEVANCE of the
march on the Pentagon was em-
phasized by the absence of war-
makers whom the demonstrators
could confront. The soldiers and
military police were paltry substi-
tutes for the policymakers who
use them as pawns in pursuit of
national honor and American in-
terests in Vietnam,
While there were several cele-
brated defections by soldiers, the
mass of the armed forces de-
ployed around the Pentagon on
Saturday were far too steeped in
the justifications for American
military involvement abroad to
simple declarative, "I've been
gassed by my own government."
But to the vast majority of
Americans at home, the govern-
ment was justified in deploying
this traditional riot-control de-
vice and therefore such events
will generate little sympathy for
the anti-war movement.
For what the Detroit News,
over-enthusiastically billed as the
"Battle of the Pentagon" proved
was that the Johnson Adminis-
tration is deeply aware of the
dangers of emulating the Oak-
land Police and thereby creating
a legion of martyrs.
MANY demonstrators were sur-
prised to learn this weekend that
although the Government is not
particularly adverse to using
force, this Administration is too
politically sagacious to be so re-
pressive and violent as to risk
triggering the anti-war move-
ment in the way Bull Conner's
dogs once set off the civil rights
movement.
The Administration's relative
tolerance of the demonstration
was based on a recognition of the
probability of their getting sat-
isfaction.
STUDENT PROTEST is rooted
in a reaction from the material-
ism of their parents and the
American value system which is
premised upon it. Since the stu-
dents are concerned with Ameri-
can military intervention abroad
and the draft, the government
cannot head off their protest by
passing a law or appropriating a
few billion dollars.
Since the appeals of the stu-
dent left run so counter to the in-
tellectually suffocating American
values of anti-Communism ad-
mixed with chauvinistic, patriot-
ism, the Johnson Administration
believes that it cannot accede to
their demands for withdrawal
from Vietnam, for example, with-
out alienating the mass' of the
voting. American people.
In terms of Vietnam, in all
probability the best the anti-war
movement could gain from the
Administration would be some;
new bombing halt or peace of-
fensive - which in reality would
only be a signal for renewed es-
THIS THE ADMINISTRATION
can do relatively successfully be-
cause, in the final analysis, the
student left is devoid of signifi-
cant allies. I
The middle-aged, concerned
Democrats and members of peace
groups such as SANE are in gei-
eral far too committed to con-
temporary America and, out of
necessity, far too pragmatic not
be pacified by the tokens of a
liberal Administration.
While the Negro. is the only
major group in America which
is alienated from society to the
same extent as the "new intel-
ligentsia," the basic demands
of the black community differ
significantly from those of the
student left.
For this reason, it is still pos-
sible for the government to pre-
vent a large portion of future
black protests and violence by
making a massive financial com-
mitment to. alleviating the misery
of the urban ghetto.
Even if the government decided
not to pay the high price of paci-
fying the Negro, it is likely that
the growth of the black power
movement has placed new and
THE MOST VIRULENT example
to create a transcendent cause are
the attempts of John Gerassi and
others to forge a link between
white radicals here and the op-
pressed 'potential revolutionaries
both in the black ghettoes and the
underdeveloped world.
Seen from this perspective, the
frantic search of Saturday's
Washington Mobilization for "Ac-
tion" becomes clearer. Called to-
gether out of the frustration of
apparently ineffective -- if im-
passioned - dissent, the "new in-
tellegentsia" sought to create a
kind of melodramatic revolution-
ary excitement.
Returning to the movie motif, the
march on the Pentagon seemed
to be a collage of scenarios from
the great political and war movies
of our time.
For example, the march across
the Potomac, behind row after
row of banners as helicopters
hovered overhead, somehow con-
jured up images of that last great
lost cause, the Spanish Civil War,
and that frantic retreat into
France as the fascist planes
strafed the bridge.
0.
I
Can Bill Buckley Do It for Eli?
EW HAVEN, Oct. 20-William F. Buck-
ley Jr. announced today that he would
b as an insurgent candidate for the
man Yale Corporation, to protest the
.versity's "liberal bias."
Mr. Buckley, who was graduated from
e in 1950, expects to run in a nation-
e vote among the 82,000 alumni next
ing to select one new member of the
poration. He will oppose a slate of
didates to be selected by a commitee
>ointed by the corporation, which is
university's board of alumni trustees
His candidacy, he said, is based on ob-
tions to the "almost total absence of
cara~t~vr n t.1Q fmilt_" nd t
to effect a wide diversity in the student
body.
"Somebody's got to protest the im-
balance at Yale," said Mr. Buckley, who
is the editor of the National Review.
"The students simply don't have access
to the conservative point of view."
In admissions, Mr. Buckley, whose
father was graduated from the Univer-
sity of Texas, decried Yale's move away
from its role as "the kind of place where
your family goes for generations," and
said:
"The son of an alumnus, who goes to
a private preparatory school, now has
less of a chance of getting in than some
For Whom The Bell Tolls ?-For Thee, Students!
reality behind the feelings of im-
potence which generated the
Pentagon protest.
A large majority of the crowd
at the Lincoln Memorial and an
overwhelming percentage of the
participants in the Pentagon pro-
test were young, white middle-
class students, ex-students, and
others deeply influenced by the
milieu of the New Left.
This is significant, for it is the
unique character of what could
almost be described as a "new
intelligentsia" which is primarily
responsible for the intense frus-
frnfin which mf su tcl
calation. This is because it ap-
pears unlikely that the North
Vietnamese and the National Lib-
eration Front will render mean-
ingless their years of intense suf-
fering by accepting the face-
saving compromise peace which is
the maximum America will ac-
cept.
Even if the anti-war movement
were to succeed in ending the
war in Vietnam, it is highly un-
likely that the postulates under-
lying American foreign policy
would be significantly altered.
And our present policies almost
guarantee massive American com-
conceivably insurmountable bar-
riers between deep and successful
co-operation with the white stu-
dent left.
Many white radicals have spent
endless hours decrying the de-
pendence of the New Left on the
campus enclaves. The results of
their efforts to reach the white
workers have bordered on the
pathetic because almost all white
Americans are too materially
comfortable to risk radical change.
The pervasive effect of this iso-
lation and impotence of the "new
intellegentsia" are accentuated by
the efforts of many in the stu-
dent left to find nrsnnal ful-
And ascending a steep elu.
bankment on the way to the Pen-
tagon mall, as protesters helped
one another clamber over the top,
one was reminded of the really
good World War II movies and
somehow expected to find an en-
campment of Nazis on the other
side.
These cinematic exaggerations
are important because they illus-
trate exactly what was wrong with
this weekend's Mobilization. For
romanticizing the political process
and the struggle for radical
change can only be destructive to
the anti-war movement.
Th imnotnc nf the "new in-
A