9i4C Siriigan Daily
Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
under authority of Board in Control of Student Publications

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News Phone: 764-0552

Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1968_

NIGHT EDITOR: LESLIE WAYNE


Chicago police:
Guilty as charged

THE REPORT of, the National Com-
mission on the Causes and Preven-
tion of Violence gives a final stamp of
authority to something many people have
known for months-the Chicago Police
Department 'used force tantamount to a
"police riot" in quelling demonstrations
at last August's Democratic convention.
Even Mayor Richard J. Daley has en-
dorsed the report silencing those who felt
the police were justified in "giving those
hippies what they deserved."
The importance of the report, how-
ever, is not its description of past events.
Rather it should serve as a strong warn-
ing for the future. If the report is to
serve any purpose at all, its vivid descrip-
tions of the horrors of misused police
power must be considered as an urgent
demand that police practices be chang-
ed.
The savage beatings of non-violent
protesters, members of the news media,
and innocent bystanders will undoubted-
ly occur again unles the conditions which
the report describes as contributing to
the "police riot" are corrected.
ALTHOUGH THE report does not spell
out specific corrective measures
which should be taken, it clearly implies
areas in which they must be made. It
lists three factors which contributed to
the actions of the police. The first two
of these, the threats to the city - which
it concludes were unduly blown out of
proportion - and the city's response to
them are history. Much can be learned
from them, but nothing can be done to
change them now.
The third factor, the expectations of
the policemen that violent overreaction to
demonstrations would be condoned by
city officials, is correctable, And it must
be corrected if this situation is to be
avoided since the absence of this attitude;
even granted the first two conditions,
would lead to greater police restraint.
The source of police misconduct does
not lie so much with the officers in the
streets as it does with the police per-
sonnel and the city officials who are in
An eXplanation
RECENT REFERENCES in The Daily
to current controversies over the
administration of the Barthell estate,
and the Buhr estate and trust, were in-
tended only as descriptions of, a n d
comments u p o n, a series of articles
concerning these matters in the De-
troit Free Press. According.to those ar-
ticles interested parties in these pro-
ceedings have questioned delays in ad-
ministration a n d alleged failures by
the attorneys to disclose the details of
their handling of the properties under
their administrative charge. The writ-
er of the editorial in the last issue of
The Daily intended to comment upon
the uncertainty in which the published
reports have left these cases, but did
not intend to imply that there had
been illegal activities on the part of
any of the parties involved.

charge of the men. They are respon-
sible for allowing the patrolmen to be-
lieve that they would not be disciplined
for brutality and misconduct during a
riot.
MAYOR DALEY'S infamous statement
that police should "shoot to kill ar-
sonists and shoot to maim looters," fol-
lowed by refusal of police officials to dis-
cipline officers who attacked demon-
strators, bystanders, and newsmen dur-
ing a peace march on April 27 reinforced
the idea that police would not be re-
strained during riot situations.
In remaining silent on the matter of
police attacks, officials condoned such
action. The results during the disorders
of convention week should have come as
no surprise. After officials had as much
as announced that officers' behavior
would not be controlled, the men cer-
tainly would not feel much compulsion to
obey the directives of their supervisors to
restrain their actions. They knew that
they would face no reprisals.
Such a breakdown in police discipline
is just as unforgivable as the misconduct
which resulted from it. Police in the
streets faced with the difficult task of
carrying out orders in the face of pro-
vocative taunts and throwing of rocks
must be closely controlled. Only if they
understand that the consequences for
misconduct will be severe can they be
expected to restrain themselves in a tense
situation. Tempers in such situations run
too high to expect them to behave other-
wise.
In order to make it clear that police
misconduct during riots or demonstra-
tions will not be tolerated and'to reestab-
lish the degree of discipline necessary to
maintain an effective, fair police force,
Chicago officials must strongly censure
the police force for its behavior and se-
verely discipline those who are known to
have been guilty of misconduct.
In addition to taking steps to estab-
lish discipline on the force, city officials
must work to educate police officers as
to the importance of maintaining com-
munity stability. Every officer must be
made to understand he must act so as to
maintain order in his beat without an-
tagonizing the law abiding sector of the
community, regardless of his personal
views.
ONLY IF THESE measures are taken
will it be clear that those in command
of the police department will not permit
a continuation of this irresponsible trend.
Chicago can take steps to correct the
situation if it wishes to do so. It must if it
wants to prevent a recurrence of the
bloody events.
The thrust of the report, though, goes
far beyond the criticism of Chicago. It is
aimed at all police departments which
might be faced with a similar problem.
The problems described in the commis-
sion'sreport require urgent solutions in
many cities. It should be read and ap-
plied, and hopefully will not meet the

- URBAN LEHNER--
Misreading our
allies and mission
"AMERICANS say that they are here in the name of their principles
of democracy and freedom," complains a South Vietnamese citi-
zen. "I do not believe them; at best I believe them 50 per cent of the
time."
He goes on: "I agree perfectly with (the Communists) when they
give a rifle to a peasant and say to him: 'Fight for a better life.'
"I agree perfectly with them when they abolish the privileged
classes, and when they say that the system of division of classes is
wrong."
This citizen is not a sympathizer with the North Vietnamese and
the National Liberation Front. He is Nguyen Cao Ky, vice president
and commander of the Air Force of South Vietnam. The quotations
are from an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci reprinted
from her book The Egotists in Sunday morning's Detroit Free Press.
THE PICTURE of Ky emerging from this interview is far different
from the popular conception of the vice president as a callous right
wing junta ringleader, sort of an inept, younger George Papadopolous
of the Orient. Such a man would not be expected to say "For me, de-
mocracy means social justice, that is, distribution of the land, building
of houses and schools, no more starvation."
That Ky might have flaunted such leftish-sounding sentiments
purely for the benefit of Miss Fallaci is entirely plausible. She is a
talented interviewer with a certain nimble facility for eliciting hyper-
bole from her subjects. And Ky, who once publicly expressed admira-
tion for Adolph Hitler, has not hitherto been known for his socialist
leanings.
That these were not Ky's candid opinions, then, is possible. But
it is unlikely. Throughout the interview Ky's positions are consistent
and eloquently stated; they do not read as if their proponent was par-
roting them for effect from sources with whom he did not really agree..
BUT THE SIGNIFICANCE of Ky's remarks is not in this unveil-
ing of a man so much as in their implied refutation of the guiding
pieties of American foreign policy. For example, the State Department
views last autumn's South Vietnamese elections as a sort of legitimi-
zation-after-the-fact for the presence of American troops in Vietnam.
The United States, our Vietnam apologists now argue, is fighting to
save a democratically elected government.
Ky, who was elected vice president in last fall's plebiscite, debunks
this vindication. "What do elections mean to someone who is dying
of starvation?" he asks. "In most cases, the men who have been elected
in South Vietnam are not those the people want; they do not represent
the people.
"The people voted for them because someone told them to vote for
them. Our last elections were a loss of time and money, a mockery.
They were useful only as a means of electing a regime that is wrong
and corrupt and weak, that would fall immediately with a revolution."
With Ky exposed as soft on Communism, the
Nixon-Agnew administration may now choose
to withdraw from Vietnam.
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ANOTHER EXAMPLE: Implicit in the domino theory, which Presi-
dent Johnson recently reaffirmed as one of our most compelling rea-
sons for fighting in Vietnam, is the assumption that the war began not
as an indigenous rebellion but as part of a Communist design, ultimate-
ly traceable back to Peking, to take over all of Asia.
Contrast this reasoning with Ky's: "And when some Americans
say that Ho Chi Minh will ask the Chinese to intervene in this war
with their troops, I answer, 'You are crazy.' Ho Chi Minh is a Vietna-
mese; and he hates the Chinese as I hate them, and he knows that
calling in the Chinese would be the mistake of his life."
In one way, all of this is encouraging. With Ky exposed as soft on
Communism, the Nixon-Agnew administration may now choose to with-
draw from Vietnam.
In another way, however, it is appalling. That American policy
abroad is ethnocentrically motivated is not a new observation; more
than those of most nations, our policy-makers regularly forget to look
at crises from other vantage points.
EVEN OUR ALLIES often find their views ignored in the high
councils of American policy-making. De Gaulle said as much two years
ago in his statement announcing France's withdrawal from NATO.
With regard to Vietnam, however, our arrogant ethnocentrism has
reached its nadir. Our decision to intervene there was allegedly made
upon the invitation of the South Vietnamese themselves. Ky has been
a leading figure in South Vietnam for years and at one time was chief
executive. Yet his analysis and that'of the State Department couldn't
be farther apart. So far apart, indeed, that he only believes us' "50 per
cent of the time."
Had we observed Ky's wishes to the letter (a course at least as un-
reasonable as not observing them at all) our policy probably would not
have been much altered. Ky is still a hawk in a hawk's cabinet; he dis-
likes the Communists' fanatical party discipline, their emphasis on the
party as the source of salvation to the expense of all other values.
Still, listening to Ky would have forced our policy-makers to re-

think the decisions to intervene militarily. He would have forced them
to invent rationales in closer conformity to reality, and, had they
failed at that, we might through some irony of justice never have be-
come involved.
AT VERY LEAST, dealing with Ky seriously would have been a
promising first step down a road which our failure to take is imperiling
the world's uneasy semi-peace. As the most powerful nation on earth,
the United States cannot make a foreign policy decision that will not
have wide-ranging impact on other nations; until we learn to make
our decisions on the basis of a consensus that extends beyond the
Potomac, we will continue to perpetuate the kind of world tensions that
make peace impossible.

.-=STEVE WILDS TROM
Growing up in Copland

0

-Daily-Jay Cassidy

W HEN I WAS a little kid, I was taught that po-
licemen are our friends. Once a year, friendly
sergeant somethink-or-other from the Youth Bur-
eau used to come around to school with his train-
ed dog to teach us to cross streets safely and
show us how friendly the cops were.
Like most good middle class kids, I believed
the line, justas I believed most of the other pleas-
ant elementary school myths.
I was in high school before I began to doubt
the myth. I saw Bull Connor's cops do their stuff
in Birmingham, but it was only on television and
anyway that was in the South and the cops up
here weren't like that.
Then in the summer of 1967, I got a first hand
look at cops unleashed during the Detroit riot and
began to think maybe the stuff I'd heard about
police brutality was more than just rhetoric. My
negative view of police was further reinforced
when I saw the Detroit police mount a cavalry
charge into a group of unarmed peaceful mem-
bers of the Poor Peoples March in the incident
that has now become to be known as Cobo I.
BUT IT TOOK the Washtenaw County Sher-
iff's Department to bring it all back home.
In September, while attempting to enter the
county building to talk to the sheriff, I was
jumped and beaten by several deputies. When
they felt I was adequately pummeled, I was hand-
cuffed and dragged over to the jail. Two months
later, I'm technically free on $25 interim bond
awaiting arraignment that will probably never
come on a charge of assault and battery, a charge
that would be funny if I weren't the defendant.
It seems safe to say that most of those who
cry the loudest about crime in the streets are not
among its victims. I've never been the victim of a
mugging - crime-in-the-streets variety - but I
imagine it is a terrifying experience.
But to receive the equivalent of a mugging at
the hands of a duly deputized officer of the law
is probably the most terrifying comprehensible
experience in modern American society (I am
placing such terrors as nuclear holocaust beyond
the realm of comprehension).
THERE IS NO TIME a citizen can feel more
helpless than when the man with the badge lands
a solid blow in his stomach and another pushes
his face into a concrete curbstone. At least when
attacked by an ordinary mugger, you can fight
back. To do so against a cop is to invite a charge
of resisting arrest (if they have taken the pains
to inform you that you are being arrested for
Lord-knows-what) or worse, assaulting an offic-
er, a newly created felony in Michigan.
After a while the protectors of law and order
decided maybe I wasn't a dangerous threat to the
peace of society and they let me go. .
The incident cost a couple of nights' sleep and
a couple of weeks of soreness. Slowly, the terror
of the memory gave way to anger, anger which
is the searing rage of the deaf-mute because, as
you quickly discover, you have virtually no legal
recourse.
A few hours after my run-in with the Wash-
tenaw brownshirts, my mind cleared to the point
where 'I began to think about what I was going
to do next. Of course, I decided to throw the'book
at the officers who beat me. But that book turn-
ed out to be exceedingly thin.
I WAS RELATIVELY LUCKY. Nothing had
been broken and I had no internal injuries or bad

cuts. An arraignment scheduled for the morning
after was cancelled when the prosecutor's office
failed to issue a warrant and that, it seems, was
the end of criminal proceedings against me..,
I was also lucky that I knew the name of the
ringleader of the group of deputies and had a good
enough look at others so that I could have iden-
tified a couple of them on sight. It seemed the
first thing to do was file charges of 'assault
against Deputy Rick Youngs and his friends.
Naively, I filed a complaint with the Ann Arbor
police. The complaint quickly disappeared into a
bureaucratic morass. Relations between the city
police ,and the sheriff are none too good but a
cop is a cop and they don't like to tamper with
each others jurisdictions. A citizen can't bring
criminal charges unless the prosecutor issues a
warrant and, knowing the county prosecutor, it
didn't look very hopeful. I pretty much gave up on
that angle.
Then I was going to file a civil suit for false
arrest and damages. But I was informed that no
one in recent memory has won a false arrest suit
in Washtenaw County and that even if I won the
suit, legal fees would far exceed anything I might
hope to collect in damages.
Finally, there is a state statute that makes it
a felony to conspire to comit a legal act in an
illegal manner and an obscure 19th century fed-
eral civil rights act that makes it a misdemeanor
to deprive a citizen of civil rights under color of
law without due process. But conspiracy was well-
nigh impossible to establish in this case and. go-
ing through the Justice Department on the fed-
eral charge seemed of very limited marginal util-
ity.
SO THERE I WAS LEFT, still raging and still
without redress. About the best I can hope for at
this point is that I can persuade the ,municipal
court to intervene and order the 'records of my
arrest and imprisonment destroyed so to at least
clear my record.
There is a popular theory about that' a major
.reason urban blacks have suffered so much so
long at the hands of the cops is that they are
ignorant of their rights in such cases. But I know
a good deal more about the law than most. people.
certainly of the law pertaining to such cases, and.
I am no more able to obtain redress than a 16-
year-old black kid in Detroit's 10th Precinct. Even
were he aware of his legal rights, there is prec-
ious little he could do with them.
AMERICAN SOCIETY will never become
peaceful so long as significant portions., of the
population are systematically terrorized by the
police. And no matter what kind of pronounce-
ments come down from police brass, the terror
will continue while individual cops are immne
from attempts by citizens to redress wrongs.,,,,
The only hope is true civilian community con-
trol of the cops. Not just a civilian police review
board, but a community control board' wich
would hire and fire cops and which would have,
and exercise, full disciplinary power.
Considering the powerful vested interests, of
the cops and the widespread belief among the
white community that the cops are always right.
that day probably will not come in my lifetime,
and I hope to live a good long while yet.
Until then, there will be no peace for as blacks
have learned and as students are learning, the
only satisfying way to respond to the violence of
the cops is by violence of their own.

fate of the Kerner
filed neatly away on
shelves.

commission report,
the nation's b o o k-
-ROB BEATTIE

I

Letters to the Editor.


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Exam complaint
EDITOR'S NOTE: The , follow-
ing is a complaint sent to the Final
Examination Committee of the lit-
erary college. The author, Alexis
Archibald, will be circulating a pe-
tition asking the cancellation of
the early language examinations.
To the Editor:
WOULD like to object to the
giving of the final examination
in French 101 (and I understand
this to be the case in several other
French courses as well) prior to
the official date and. without per-
mission of your Committee. This
change results in considerable ex-
tra pressure on many students.
who are working on final papers,
to instead spend an unduly large
amount of time on their. French
when they can least afford it. It
must also be noted that there is,
in addition to the examination ad-
vance scheduled for Dec. 6, an-
other at the officially posted time
thereby doubly penalizing those
students taking French. The first

their signatures included in this
letter but I understand that sev-
eral of them feel as I do.
-Alexis Archibald, '71
Dec. 2.
In defense of Nixon
To the Editor:
STEVE ANZALONE'S ludicrous
editorial , on President-elect
Nixon's campaign proposal for
black capitalism which appeared
in the Nov. 26 edition was typical
of the recent assault from the left
on Mr. Nixon, uninformed and ill-
timed, to say the least.
Perhaps, Mr. Anzalone, Mr.
Nixon was serious about his pro -
posal and, unlike you, maybe he
did think it was meaningful, espe-
cially when compared to what has
been accomplished over the past
eight years.
Keep in mind that Nixon isn't
John Kennedy or Lyndon John-
son and perhaps, just perhaps, he
doesn't make the empty campaign
promises you're used to hearing
from the likes of them. While
Kennedy was running in 1960 he
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through this legislation? All we
have done is proven what many
have said for years; morality can't
be legislated. Discrimination
hasn't and won't disappear says
even such a noted liberal as Daniel
Moynihan. What Mr. Nixon's pro-
posal seeks to do is make up for
the discrimination which can't be
eliminated.
"THE BIGGEST fault of this
administration has been raising
false hopes of poor Americans."
Tha'ts right from the horse's
mouth. President Johnson admit-
tsd this in appraising his own per-
formance. Maybe Mr. Nixon will
provide a new approach.
It might be enlightening to,
know what Mr. Nixon said in
1967: "The fellow who spends all
his time marching for such things
as open housing is pursuing a will
o' the wisp. Sure it's the exciting
way, but the nation is terrified.
Sooner or later the white com-
muity will retaliate and all the
patient work will be undone.
Maybe Mr. Nixon's proposal was
just campaign rhetoric as you sug-
gest. Mr. Anzalone, but why don't

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