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 The Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICI-H. 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. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1967 NIGHT EDITOR: STEPHEN WILDSTROM Halloween Is a Time for the Great Pumpkin of Witchunts This is the first of a two part series by Jeffrey Goodman, Editorial Director of The Daily in 1965-66, and is a graduate student in sociology at the University of Chicago. He and other members of Students for a Democratic Society recently talked with representatives of South Viet Nam's National Liberation Front in Montreal. THE TERM war of national liberation is far from a propa- gandistic distortion as applied to South Viet Nam. It is an accurate description of the genuine struggle of a whole population against foreign and domestic aggression. However, the people engaged in that struggle are winning it. They are determined to continue fight- ing until their country is com- pletely liberated, and almost with- out doubt they will be militarily and psychologically capable of do- ing this. NLF ance of schools in the liberated zones. WE OCCASIONALLY sensed that the Vietnamese we spoke with were not telling us the com- plete truth about such matters as the extent of North Viet Nam's military operations in the South or the extent of Communist in- fluence in the Front. Yet it was possible to understand their par- tial incompleteness on these points in a way which did not condemn it as a willful attempt to deceive us. Hearing constantly about Americans' deep suspicionsaand fears of Comnmunism, the NLF representatives naturally felt we would be overly sensitive to such issues and would therefore mis- judge the true nature of their movement. VBwcO these camps do not soon return to their land, then the hamlets often become NLF strongholds. A VILLAGE or hamlet is secure only if it contains a large number of American or Saigon troops. carry on a good deal of political organizing. There are well-or- ganized underground systems and substantial guerilla bands, which can successfully attack govern- ment and U.S. posts and escape into friendly neighborhoods or In the liberated zOnes they (the NLF) have established a remarkably stable and demo- cratic government which is so popular and well organized that it has held up . . . under the awesome military opposition.. . o;:.}.;;,.:}}}; ;,;"oqM. {:' ".};}; :.;""{:}.;Ly;?"}}y}S i "}o .-: rr;.v r: xv.-.v w3%ffs2 9%siMr.:r': r.".:".l~sa AS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE become growingly restive over the stalemate in Vietnam, it becomes increasingly plau- sible that this frustration will manifest itself in a "witch-hunt" against the vocal and persistent student left. A massive initial step in this direction came with the revelation this week that the Senate Internal Security subcom- mittee under the leadership of Senator James O. Eastland (D-Miss.) is under- taking a broad and far-reaching investi- gation of the National Conference for New Politics (NCNP) and the organi- zations which participated in its fractious convention last month in Chicago, in- cluding Eastland's major nemisis, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The significance of the Senate 'sub- committee's unanimous action is further heightened by the fact that its member- ship includes a cross-section of Northern liberals and moderates as well as a goodly assortment of the antebellum Southern Democrats and reactionary Republicans who comprise the larger and more famous House Un-American Activities Committee. HE NCNP CONVENTION was no more radical, subversive, and un-American than the teach-in held here at the Uni- versity early this month. It would there- fore be obvious that if NCNP is fair game for the "red-baiters," a major tour of the nation's campuses is likely to be next on the subcommittee's itinerory. Some members of the committee and many other observers have undoubtedly been pacified by the proviso that the security subcommittee's sessions will be closed to the press unlike televised politi- cal circuses of the past. Even though the closed hearings will be devoid of the public glare, it should be recognized that the mere fact of NCNP being investigated by Congress, re- gardless of the conduct or the outcome of the probe, will seriously debilitate the basic political freedoms of the organiza- tion and its members by casting a spectre of subversion over their present and sub- sequent activities. 1 HE ACTION BY THE Senate Internal Security subcommittee is not germaine to the legislative activities of Congress. Such an inquiry will only serve to dras- tically raise the price of dissent, and in- crease political cleavages which are rend- ing this country apart. The most effective way to halt the current Senate investigation is to chal.- lenge, every action of the subcommittee in the courts. These challenges should be undertaken by both individuals and institutions like the University who should refuse to co-operate with the com- mittee's subpoenas. But the only permanent solution to this investigatory cancer is to abolish the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, its big brother, HUAC, and that peculiarly American admixture of patriotism and paranoia which have spawned these leg- islative monstrosities. -WALTER SHAPIRO if Vietnam Otherwise it is most likely impos- sible for the Saigon government to function in the locality at all. Government officials are "punish- ed" or, in fact, work with the NLF covertly. The Front is able to carry on some or all of its administrative and political functions. The village contains NLF partisans who will attack U.S. troops, without being betrayed, and an extensive system of tunnels, trenches and shelters against bombing raids. In other places a village which seems to be partially secure may actually become a staging area for NLF attacks and an arm of the Front's intelligence network. Much of what the Front might be unable to accomplish during the day car be done at night. In fact, the situation today is better for the NLF than it was in 1965, before the major U.S. troop buildup and the bombing of North and South began. Ameri- can forces have not even been able to maintain the unstable status quo which they inherited at that time. The cities are also increasingly coming under NLF control, though the Front admits that its power there is limited and probably can- not be extended very much far- ther. Yet in every urban center there are large areas in which through them into the country- side. Supplies brought into the cities are very often successfully seized. THE CONVERSE of this situa- tion, the NLF representatives ex- plain, is that there has been no major offensive by U.S. troops since the highly unsuccessful Junction City operation last year. The great majority of U.S. troops are concentrated around coastal bases and cities, virtually all of which the NLF has encircled, has frequently penetrated (e.g., Da Nang), and could overrun if troops moved out into the coun- tryside. Approximately 250,000 troops. for instance, are tied down in the Eye Corps area in the northern part of the country. It is here that the main force of North Vietnamese troops - whose pres- ence the NLF would not admit- operates. These Northern soldiers probably number no more than 50,000, and the great majority entered the South only after the U.S. began bombing the North. For the most part they are engaged only in diverting American troops from the NLF forces. Search and destroy missions, on the other hand, were said to be largely unfruitful, and to a con- siderable extent, we were told, the villages, transportation routes and cities is fairly well substanti- ated. The same can be and has been said for the fruitlessness of troop forays, the success of at- tacks on American bases, the im- possibility of holding territory, the relative infrequency with which American troops are able to engage and decisively defeat NLF forces. etc. At the same time, there is cer- tainly no obvious reason to believe the U.S. press more than the NLF. Indeed, the latter's interpretations make for more sense when one re- calls the heavy U.S. casualties, the lack of visible military progress in any way commensurate with the size of the American commitment. and the length of time the war has dragged on. Perhaps the total picture is not quite as rosy as the NLF repre- sentatives painted it, but there cannot be any doubt that they are, in the final analysis, winning the war. JUST WHAT IS the nature of the NLF that has enabled it to repulsefAmerican aggression so successfully?: In answering this question, the three Vietnamese provided us with an appreciation not only of their own movement but also of national liberation movements in general. Probably the Front's most im- portant strength is its ability to mobilize the entire population in the areas it controls. The NLF representatives insisted, in fact, that the war in their country is not a guerrilla war but literally a people's war; this is precisely the "facelessness of the enemy" which has been so frustrating to American military and political efforts. The regular NLF troops are only one of three layers of armed peas- ants. Beneath these Liberation Armed Forces are somewhat less regular regional units, which in 4 4 4 Burning a U.S. jeep Inadequate Draft Counsel STUDENT GOVERNMENT COUNCIL has . apparently failed to provide compe- tent draft counseling for students. SGC draft counselors are scarce and rarely available; each one may have a broad knowledge of draft laws, but expert ad- vice in the complex areas of draft legis- lation is not provided. The majority of the eleven counselors are students at the University, the re- mainder being Ann Arbor residents who are employed full-time. Because of their limited free time, these people do not provide an adequate counseling schedule. When the Department of Defense an- nounces the list of "essential" graduate fields later this fall, the lack of scheduled time will be made embarrassingly clear to hundreds of seniors and graduate stu- dents in "non-essential" fields will be seeking draft advice. The limited number of counselors will not be able to handle the situation. All of the counselors were trained this summer at a weekend workshop where they gained a general knowledge of the draft laws. Unfortunately, the personnel did not specialize in individual areas so that there are no experts for the compli- cated divisions of draft legislation. If a student with a difficult technical pro- blem seeks advice at SGC, he will not be able to get the answers from the average agency advisor, nor can he be referred to an expert within the service. This lack of expertise limits SGC's new service or- ganization to a small group of well-in- formed people incapable of dealing with the most difficult, technical, and im- portant cases they will receive. SGC COULD IMPROVE the quality of the counseling service by first train- ing more general counselors and then having the present staff specialize in separate areas of draft legislation. If the existing personnel were properly trained, they could train other people. Each counselor should thoroughly teach four or five other students the basic pro- visions of draft laws. With 50 more coun- selors SGC will be able to handle the expected rush of seniors and graduate students as well as be prepared to cope with other situations involving a large body of students. To deal with cases too difficult for personnel with broad training, each of the eleven present 'staff members should choose a field of draft legislation and be- come expert in that field through con- sultation with lawyers and become ex- pert in that field through consulattion with lawyers and professional draft counselors. The presence of these ex- perts within the service would make it better qualified to advise the variety and complexity of problems liable to arise. THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL must announce its recommendations concerning graduate deferments by De- cember 31, 1967. This deadline gives SGC a maximum of two months to recruit and train the counselors needed for success in the first major test of the draft counseling service. SGC formulated the valuable idea of creating a draft counseling service, but it must now work hard and fast to rea- lize that ideal and provide the student with competent draft advice. -BRIAN FORD Already, in fact, they claim to have liberated 80 per cent of its territory and two , thirds of its population. In the liberated zones they have established a remark- ably stable and democratic gov- ernment which is so popular and well organized that it has held up and even become stronger under the usually abhorrent and always awesome military opposition of the most powerful nation on earth. THESE THEMES were stressed by three representatives of South Viet Nam's National Liberation Front with whom a dozen other members of Students for a Demo- cratic Society and myself spoke for over six hours. The Vietna- mese spoke in voices charged with deep feelings of justice, pride and confidence, and the meeting-held in Montreal early this month - provided some rare insights into the nature of events in Viet Nam. Our informants were two men and a woman: Ly Van Sau, 37, a former teacher of literature; Le Mai, 27, a former education stu- dent at the University of Hue; and Mrs. Nguyen Ngoc Dung, 34, a former medical student. All three had joined the Front when it became apparent to them that until their country was liberated there would be no place in it for them, at least no place which did not involve complicity in its sup- pression. All three are members of the Union of Students for the Libera- tion of South Viet Nam, one of the component organizations of the NLF, and are engaged in or- ganizing students. The union is also responsible for the mainten- With respect to other informa- tion which we might have doubted on the basis of what the U.S. gov- ernment or press say, moreover, it seems obvious there was no reason whatsoever to put more faith in those reports than in the NLF representatives. In fact the Viet- namese seemed far more credible, both as persons and in their grasp of the situation. And while this still does not mean we accepted everything we were told, we did feel that the NLF representatives were amazingly open, sincere and candid. ONE OF THE most impressive parts of the NLF representatives' discussion dealt with the basis for their conviction that the Front has won the war militarily. There are two specific senses in which they claimed this is true: 1) The NLF has steadily ex- tended the territory under its con- trol to include virtually all of the countryside and fair-sized areas in the cities. 2) It has pushed the American- Saigon forces into extremely de- fensive positions; the latter are almost wholly occupied with de- fending militarynbases, a few refugee hamlets and villages, the cities, and transportation routes, most of which are highly insecure. The NLF representatives told us, for instance-and the New York Times confirms their statement--- that no more than 167 in a total of 14,000 villages in South Viet Nam are considered secure. The story is the same with respect to the stra- tegic hamlets; if the peasants who are made into refugees to populate 4 I 40 Saigoners opposing the Saigon regime Saigon troops, even on visits to their families, are not safe while in uniform. The Front claims to have in- formers in almost every govern- ment agency, and it is able to SLetters to the Editor Student Housing Reforms STUDENT HOUSING ASSOCIATION'S newly formed Student Rental Union shows promise of becom'eing a major veh- icle as a lobby for student apartment dwellers. Already established as a legit- imate and fairly effective agency for voicing individual tenants' grievances, the union needs more student support if it wants to attack the underlying causes of tenant-landlord conflicts. One cause is landlord negligence, us- ually in returning damage deposits and making maintenance repairs. SRU is get- ting results by informing student tenants of their legal rights and by pressuring landlords about individual complaints. A significant problem, however, is that the vast majority of Ann Arbor land- lords still use twelve-month leases, for- cing students to sublet their apartments at drastic losses during the four month summer. The only way the housing as- sociation will be able to bring about a change to eight-month leases is by dir- ecting mass student action against the landlords as a unified body. SRU's PLAN FOR a boycott is feasible only if the agency is supported by a large majority of the student tenant population. Manifestation of that sup- nort must come from increased student I To the Editor: PROFESSOR BROWN makes three points the basis for his defense of classified research in the university (Daily, Oct. 26). (1) Proprietary research is, in fact, an established tradition in various non-defense oriented pro- grams (M.D.'s - patient proprie- tary, Lawyers - client proprie- ty, Engineers-Patent Propriety). (2) Any restrictions on such re- search would constitute a viola- tion of academic freedom. (3) There is a precedent for such military research which was set during World War II (Radia- tion Lab. at M.I.T., Manhattan Project); few of us would take issue with their necessity. Let us be absolutely clear from the outset - secret research is an evil. It is evil in that it violates the basic principal underlying all pursuit of knowledge - that the results of such inquiry be avail- able for universal judgment. The merit of some particular research is determined by the extent to which that concerned segment of the intellectual community is compelled, by the weight of its evidence and logic, to accept its conclusions. To exclude a portion of one's peers from this decision process is to judge with an in- complete jury. There should be no need to emphasize the hege- mony of this principal in aca- searchers is not the name of the client involved but the case his- tory and this in no way is undis- closable by professional ethics. In the case of patent secrecy, Pro- fessor Brown must demonstrate what greater evil will ensue by engineers' refusing to accept such a contract from General Motors. Can one legitimately sacrifice an intellectual ethic in the interest of fatter research grants? PROFESSOR BROWN'S appeal to academic freedom is more subtle, but equally spurious. He and his colleagues are perfectly free to pursue their research. All I demand is permission to inspect their results. In fact, the present system which tolerates confiden- tial research on campus is violat- ing academic freedom - mine. No one is attempting to dictate what research may or may not be conducted in the university, only that it be free and open. If Pro- fessor Brown sees this as a vio- lation of academic freedom, then he must likewise view the entire foundation of scientific inquiry as a threat to his integrity. There remains P r o f e s s o r Brown's third point. Although confidential research is an evil, it is necessary in order to avoid a greater evil. Most of us would agree that the Manhattan Project was such a necessary evil. At that time Germany was a clear and defense posture". A case can be made that, indeed, our defense posture is overadequate. In any event, the onus is on Professor Brown to demonstrate that with- out the aid of the university, our defense posture would necessarily be inadequate. Why is it essential that the university sacrifice its principal of free inquiry if an adequate defense can be main- tained without its aid? After all, there are any number of corpor- ations and private research insti- tutse which are delighted to whore for the military. There are any number of academics who consult for these groups. Why un- necessarily prostitute the univer- sity? If there is any clear and present danger to the United States it is the American Mili- tary, as is abundantly evident by recent actions taken against North Vietnam. Professor Brown alludes to this danger: "If the military happens to go down the wrong road, perhaps the State Department isn't functioning properly." And perhaps academia isn't functioning properly. Cer- tainly this road was well car- peted by some of Professor Brown's colleagues for the recent visit to the university of Rear Admiral Brown. Professor Brown is asking us to sacrifice a principal in the inter- est of maintaining an adequate U.S. and Saigon troops are more often on the defensive than the offensive. While they can and do capture supplies and may kill a fair number of liberation troops, there is no way for them to hold onto territory without.committing hundreds of soldiers to its phys- ical occupation. "Pacification" or "revolutionary development" teams-for the most part composed of draft dodgers, criminals and sons of the upper classes-are rarely sufficient for this job, since they can be picked off fairly easily. In addition, the NLF insists that reports in the U.S. press greatly deflate American casual- ties, including the number of planes downed over North Viet Nam. Though U.S. bombing and shelling in the South do take a heavy toll of South Vietnamese, they have yet to break the power of the resistance movement. THIS THE NLF is convinced it has demonstrated to the U.S. that. its strategies are not militarily viable.rThe Front pointsrout that. the U.S. has increasingly turned to a policy of genocide and total destruction as the only way to defeat the insurgency. The NLF, on the other hand, is determined to fight for another 10 or 20 years, an~d it is convinced the South Vietnamese people are also just as determined. Of course most Americans will find this interpretation of the military situation hard to believe -as we did at first-since it seems to contradict most of what the U.S. press says. Yet the fact remains that the NLF description is not all that different from what our press does say or imply-or at least what independent western nhCoxraC rnnnrt turn are backed and fed by irreg- ular defense units at the village level. Those who compose the village units are invariably engaged full time in activities other than fighting - e.g., study, political organizing, production in the Front's many jungle factories, farming, etc. - and the village units often undertake such non- military tasks as constructing shelters and evacuating old per- sons and children. Fighting units at all three levels include many women. In addition, we were told that fighters at all three levels join voluntarily, unlike the Saigon troops. At first we were not sure we accepted this, but the Vietnam- ese argued convincingly that a liberation movement struggling against such fierce odds simply cannot succeed at all on the basis of coercion or authoritarianism in any phase of its operations, es- pecially military recruitment. It is in this context that the NLF representatives' explanation of so-called "Viet Cong terrorism" also becomes very plausible. Sanc- tions, including execution, they told us, are directed only at the hated functionaries of the Saigon government and other known col- laborators. In most cases there are open trials in the villages. Those who are punished - Saigon-appointed 'village chiefs," pacification teams, tax collectors, etc. - are widely and rightly regarded by the vil- lagers as enemies, traitors and spies. The villagers, who by all accounts are amazingly politically sophisticated, understand the real meaning of the functions these of- ficials are sent to perform., To them, trial and execution are jus- tice. Moreover, the very fact that