Paris talks: 94C fiirgigan Dail 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 No progress in 4 months 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-05521 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: RICHARD WINTER By TRAN VAN DINH WASHINGTON - Four months have passed since the Demo- cratic Republican of Vietnam (DRVN, North Vietnam) agreed to send in May 1968 a delegation headed by Minister Xuan Thuy to begin official-talks in Paris with representatives of t h e United States. Yet no progress has been made, although Secretary Rusk often in the past (before May) stated that what he needed was an answer, a signal from Hanoi - and the war would be over. But since then Washington has escalated its conditions, which in fact amount to the surrender of the DRVN and of the National Liberation Front of South Viet- nam (NLF), and the recognition of the legitimacy of the U.S. in- tervention in Vietnam. It is not difficult for anyone who has read' only one page in the long history of Vietnam to predict that the an- swer to such demands can only be No. The patience of the DRVN delegation, whose country is being pounded daily by B 52's is indeed amazing. And so is the persistence of the U.S. delegation, whose cit- ies are not touched by bombs, in in their rhetoric. Chicago's peace is' disturbed, not by the NLF mor- tars, not by the students, but by Mayor Daley's police troops and their MACE. THE PURPOSE of any meeting or conference is to reason over differences, and to reason requires the admission of certain b a s i c truths. It one side is deaf to those truths, no conference can succeed no matter how long it lasts. On August 28 the Paris talks h a d reached their 19th sessioh; even at that late date, Minister Xuan Thuy had to call the attention of Averell Harriman to such obvious truths as these: "I have many a time made an analysis of it (the origin of the war). As fully demonstrated by facts, the origin lies in the U.S. government's aggression and its sabotage of the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Vietnam. Especial- ly the introduction by the U.S. of more than half a million troops and m o r e than 60.000 satellite troops into South Vietnam, and the . unwarranted air and naval attacks on the DRVN, have ex- posed before the world and Ameri- can public opinion the real nature of the U.S. aggression. "YOU (MR. HARRIMAN) have besides t r i e d to mislead public opinion by pretending that the United States has only "limited objectives" in Vietnam. It must be clearly pointed out that the United States has no right to have any objectives - no matter how limited - in Vietnam, for the sim- ple reason that Vietnam belongs' to the Vietnamese and not to the United States - the cities as well as all the plains, mountains, riv- ers. forests and seacoasts in South- Vietnam belong to the Vietnamese people and not to the U n i t e d States. "So-called "limited objectives" of the U.S. in Vietnam simply aim at occupying the South in t h e hope of imposing on it a neo-co- lonialist domination. What an irony and a fraud in President Johnson's words about such "civil efforts" as "expanding education." splanting new rice fields," and so on while U.S. aircraft have daily been razing to the ground so many" schools, hospitals, a n d villages, and U.S. bombs a n d chemicals have been destroying crops and even forests in both zones. "PRESIDENT JOHNSON h a s said that a "genuine peace" in Vietnam s h o u 1 d be in keeping with the "vital interest" of the United States and that a formula which would get the United States out of Vietnam would be "disas- trous to the interests of the United States." This is a plain confession of t h e U.S. government design which dismisses all your allegation that you have "no ambition in Vietnam." Those who are frustrated at the lack of progress in the Paris talks can find reason in the persistence of Mayor Daley in Chicago who insisted that his police, his troops. his security agents were right and were doing a good job of keeping law and o r d e r: and . that the peaceful demonstrators (among them some delegates to the Demo- cratic National Convention) were outside agitators and Communists. Mr. Daley and Mr. Harriman, af- ter all, represent the same inter- ests, the same power structure. They are different in age (Mr. Harriman is older) but they are n o t so different in motivations and arrogance. The death-wish of SGC: Time for re-evaluation AT ORGANIZATIONS tend to find reasons for remaining in existence even when their self-stated goals have been fully achieved is a cliche that wouldn't bear repeating had Student Government Council not given it a new twist Thursday evening. In a heady, chaotic moment that pain- fully illustrated the nihilistic death-wish of most student politics, two Council members introduced a motion calling for the permanent dissolution of SGC. Nor did the, sponsor, Executive Vice President Robert Neff and at-large mem- ber Gayle Rubin, make the motion for entirely facetious reasons. Troubled by a vague feeling that after a year's suc- cesses Council is 'now beginning to drift purposelessly, Miss Rubin and Neff hoped that in their discussion of the motion next week Council members would be forced into a §erious re-evaluation of SGC's raison d'etre. LIKE THAT archtypical example of in- stitutional self - perpetuation, the March of Dimes, Student Government Council finds itself in the position of hav- ing achieved beyond its wildest dreams many of the goals it has set itself for the past two years. It has succeeded in throwing out the last vestiges of in loco parentis and in moving tentatively toward improving the economic position of students vis a vis local landlords and merchants. Among the successes it can rightfully consider to be in large part its own are the aboli- tion of women's hours, the liberalization of parietal rules, the abandonment of driving regulations, the undisputable es- tablishment of dormitory legislatures and judiciaries as the legal organs for mak- ing and enforcing dormitory regulations. Furthermore, such SGC-created com- mittees as Consumer's Union, Student Housing Association, Student Rental Un- ion, have made significant steps toward bringing about the day when Ann Arbor commodity prices and> terms of rental will be comparable to those in communi- ties that do not have captive student markets. ' THESE GENUINE victories have made the University one of the most pro- gressive institutions in the countr'y and they are not to be underrated. Neverthe- less, they are past accomplishments, and if all that now remains to be done is to protect them from erosion then surely some more efficient and rational me- chanism to that end can be conceived than the-weekly ordeals that pass as SGC meetings. If SGC is to work its way out of this institutional self-preservation- induced drift, it must find a cogent phi- losophy to shape its future course. That self-justifying philosophy lies in September 1970 MINNEAPOLIS - SEPT. 15, 1970 - Former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey yesterday successfully fought off Senator Eugene McCarthy's attempt to win the Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Party's nomination for a third term in the U.S. Senate. In a closely contested primary election fight, Minnesota Demo- crats chose Humphrey over McCarthy as their candidate for the Senate in the up- coming general election. It was sweet revenge for Humphrey as he turned out of office the man who had done so much to disrupt the Vice Presi- dent's unsuccessful bid for the Presidency two years ago. The continuing Vietnam war, the issue which had divided the two in 1968, was the central focus of the cam- paign. Minnesota Democrats, however, showed their continuing loyalty to the man who had united their party in 1948. -ROB BEATTIE Second class postage paid .at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104. Daily except Monday during regular academic school r ear. Daily except Sunday' and Monday during regular summer session. Fall and winter subscription rate $5.00 per term by carrier ($5.50 by mail); $9.00 for regular academic school year ($10 by mail). ss The Daily .is a member of the Associated Press and the call for academic reform that SGC has mouthed so often in the past few months. For in spearheading the success- ful drives of the past academic year, Council viewed the student in his role as dormitory resident or an apartment own- er or a member of the Ann Arbor com- munity. But SGC has made few concrete moves viewing the student as student. Only by making a firm commitment to work for and with students to improve and makemore relevant the day to day education available at the University can SGC avoid playing the meaningless small games of the mock-parliaments student governments in this country characteris- tically have been. Council must formulate goals and tactics for academic reform, keeping in mind both the potentially most effective measures and its own in- herent limitations. * It must commit itself in the first place to the most difficult chore of aca- demic reform-uplifting the content, the relevance and the level of instruction of the courses presently offered by the Uni- versity. This is difficult precisely be- cause one is'hard-pressed to find a start- ing-point. A possible place to begin, al- though one that will not be easily won, is the inclusion of students on hiring, curriculum, and tenure committees. 0 It must secondly continue to work for academic innovations along the lines of the newly-created Inner City Course. Such suggested reforms as the course mart, and the interdepartmental depart- ment, although far from panaceas, rep- resent worthwhile attempts to widen the curriculum, as long as they are not em- phasized at the expense of improving .existing courses. " It must work to improve counseling, making it a simpler process for those' with clearly-defined academic goals of their own while at the same time providing lengthier, more sympathetic counseling for those who have no idea whither they are going. A N AD HOC committee now working closely with SGC is beginning to probe some of these areas. Furthermore, many of the colleges and some individual de- partments have student steering com- mittees and are working toward including students on some faculty committees. For these reasons, it is especially im- portant that Council define its own role in the sprawling, unwieldy effort of achieving academic reform. Unless SGC has its own masterplan dealing adequate- ly with the three major aspects of the problem already discussed, and providing for a closely-defined SGC role in the pro- cess, it will lose its opportunity to make a valuable contribution. In considering its role and drawing up its masterplan, SGC should remember that the University is composed of nu- merous small largely autonomous de- partments. Reform, therefore, is most likely to be achieved at the departmental level. Furthermore, Council must be cogni- zant of its own legitimacy problems. De- spite its victories, SGC is not regarded by many faculty members as the legitimate representative of student interests. Direct SGC proposals thus may not receive fair and adequate faculty consideration. Consequently, it may be both neces- sary and expedient for Council to assign itself an indirect but essential role in the upcoming battles over academic reform. While the actual work is being carried out by student committees on the depart- mental level or by large ad-hoc groups of deeply concerned students, SGC can organize the student body to support spe- cific reform efforts; co-ordinate the ac- tivities of the various committees, thus serving a clearinghouse function; provide financial aid for especially promising ventures; advocate academic reform pub- licly and attempt to instigate it in de- partments where reform efforts are non- existent or lagging. STUDENT Government Council is at a turning point. If it does not do some hard thinking soon, it will continue to drift, holding the line against adminis- trative reaction, and wasting its time on internal structural reforms that are of relatively little importance. 1( FEIFFER AS A (-lAW TO- W(&) THAMw 10Ml 7[HE OLD r2AYJ. E~OA1 WfNbfW35 M(CE TO L.S T A . AFFL-U6ATi. I &)TO G8ULIG1U5J. MA G'PATeFUL. Syndicate as 4 FIN UA 6 TMY' MIND O~F Tgott l' D ' MY t7iet. 1'ttUli.heralial! S} Letters:'Strenuous'discipine needed for protesters To the Editor: EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a letter sent to University Presi- dent Robben W. Fleming.) I WRITE YOU as a 1912 1 a w alur-nus who met you and your wife when you were here shortly after your inauguration. .. I am very disturbed with what goes on in Ann Arbor. According to the news dispatch in the Los Angeles Times on last Saturday. September 7, an estimated 1,000 students marched to the Wash- tenaw County Building and some 200 of them were arrested because they refused to leave the building after having occupied it for two straight days, the excuse being in "support of demands for m o r e money for mothers on welfare." The Pasadena S t a r News of Saturday, September 7 had a longer news dispatch detailing the "sit in" at the County Board of- fices. In the Pasadena Star News news dispatch a Ronna Magy, a graduate from the University of California at Berkley was quoted. WHEN YOU were in Los Angel- es you gave our alumni association to understand that the students were working closely with you in order to prevent such disturbances which bring disrepute to the great name of the University of Michigan. I was shocked to learn that the Students for a Democratic Socie- ty, commonly referrea to as S.D.S., was inauguarated at Michigan un- der President Hatcher. It is obvious that S.D.S. and these groups that are agitating now at the University of Michigan are subversive organizations. The new chancellor at the University of California at Los Angeles re- cently suspended the right of S.D.S. to operate at that institu- tion. I encourage you, Pthe faculty and the Board of Regents to take some strenuous disciplinary action at once to get these "revolutionaries" under control, or preferably ousted from the university. I think the chancellor at U.C.L.A. is prepared to take that step as the next step in his attempt to curb the situa- tion at U.C.L.A. Perhaps this letter, if nothing else, will bring thestudents to a realization that there. are thous- ands of alumni who are standing aghast at the going on in this so- called 'Revolution of the Campus- es." I am satisfied that if President Kerr at Berkeley had acted stern- ly in 1965 he would still be presi- dent of the University of Californ- ia; likewise if President Kirk of of the American Civil Liberties Union. We would like to commend you and the Court for implement- ing and following procedures which assured that everyone in- volved in the mass arrests which took place at the County Building on September 5 and 6 would be guaranteed his legal rights. The willingness of the Court to pro- vide for immediate arraignment of all those charged and to establish a reasonable bond effectively guaranteed t h e Constitutional rightsnof the defendants. You carefully explained the na- ture of the charges to each person brought before you and attempted successfully; we feel, to ascertain whether or not the accused was fully aware of the implications of 'the charges. Furthermore, we feel the courtesy shown by the Court and its staff to all those brought before it was most unusual 'rt light of the circumstances and the great pressures under which the Court was working at the time. -Lawrence S. Berlin Chairman Washtenaw County American Civil Liberties Union (Sept. 12) Annoyed To the Editor: WAS ANNOYED that Thurs- day's front page story "Stu- dents jeer Humphrey at speech in Flint" gave neither an accurate indication of the size nor the tone of the anti-war protest. There were auto workers, busi- ness me,-mothers, young children, people of all shapes and' colors and sizes as well as students pro- testing in Flint as Humphrey ar- rived to, speak. Quoting from Thursday morning's Detroit Free Press: "Sparce crowds gathered along the route of his (Humphrey's) mnotorcade to the Dort Mall Shop- ping Center. At the Mall, however, several thousand anti-war pro- testers, shoving and chanting 'Stop the War' and 'Dump the Hump' nearly crushed the vice- president. "Secret Service men had to battle a way open for him to the speaker's stand in the covered mnall. "The cheers outnumbered the boos" (we had agreed to short anti-war slogans, booing was not part of our plan) "but the hostile turnout was the largest 'andnois- iest the vice-president has en- countered since his nomination in Chicago two weeks ago." THE TOTAL CROWD has been variosulv estimated from a mini- 5000. From my experience there, I would estimate that over half of the other spectators (not in- cluding the protesters) were not enthusiastic about either Hum- phrey or the war. For the first' time in my experience of such demonstrations in Michigan, the ardent protesters outnumbered the ardent supporters. It was En exhilarating feeling. After the, rally, in order to avoid passing the protesters again, Humphrey left by a back door. -David Gordon, Grad. Propaganda To the Editor: I DO NOr understand what De- borah\ Linderman was getting at in her article on Leroi Jones and his Black Arts Theatre (Daily, Sept. 10). I do not know why she stood and clapped or why' she found value in the "purity" of Jones' propaganda. erhaps "the complications of real life" and "the complexity of race relations in this country today" are too much with me; but since when is there virtue in simplistic formula- tions? I', To applaud Leroi Jones for ig- noring the subtleties of human ex- perience - the difficult grey shades; to admire his dramatiza- tion of life as a great struggle be- tween the forces of evil and -the forces of goddness (see where that's gotten us on the interna- tional scene) ; to suggest that 'playfulness" and "in-jokism" may have been mistaken for ra- bidness and militancy: to do these things is to submerge whatever understanding and compassion we are capable of. It is to deny all reason and, to obliterate hope of ever easing and eventually ending our national agony. MISS LINDERMAN began her article by stating that Leroi Jones "refuses the principle of dialogue." Unfortunately, dialogue -whether verbal or nonverbal-is all we've got in the delicate busi- ness of ordering our lives together. To ignpre the humanity of "the Man" and to condemn all "crack- ers" and "most N/groes" to dam- nation is .to sink'to the mentality of a Hitler or a George Wallace. No, unlike Miss Linderman I did not glean any resonant truth from the Black Arts Theatre-unless it be that hatred and bigotry are ugly in all guises. Certainly the rage of the victimized and oppress- ed is understandable and justified; but I cannot applaud when it lash- es out blindly and indiscriminately in a reverse racism. No, I-did not feel much like clapping Sunday night' I did feel deeply distressed and infinitely sad . . . for all of us.. -Nancy Stein Sandweiss, Grad. Se-t. 10 y Apt pupil LA It * I 5S P1 !I~itbl K'. r (rj 1M. I ..' I 0 I