Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1967
NIGHT EDITOR: PAT O'DONOHUE
Foot-in-Mouth Disease:
It's George Again
4 t I I
I1 ,
GOV. GEORGE ROMNEY'S recent state-
ments on the war in Vietnam seem to
lead to a logical contradiction.
On the one hand, he says he favors
peace negotiations with the National Lib-
eration Front. The governor says his in-
formation shows that "the largest per-
centage" of Viet Cong are "disenchanted
nationalists in the south" and not Com-
munists. "The objectives of the Viet Cong
differ from those of North Vietnam,"
he adds.
On the other hand, he repeats an ear-
lier statement that he does not favor a
coalition government in a peaceful South
Vietnam.
FRANKLY, WE FAIL to understand how
he can expect to include the Viet Cong
in talks, but not make any provisions for
them in the government that rises from
the rubble of the war. After all, even he
agrees that the NLF is composed of "na-
tionalists." And surely these nationalists
-whose aims are not those of Hanoi-
will demand an effective voice in ruling
their native country in the South.
POOR OLD GEORGE. He read Walter
Lippmann too late, and found out that
the only way he could win the 1968 elec-
tion was to offer the voters a way out of
the entangling Vietnam mess.
Now he has to backtrack over earlier'
statements to delineate for himself a po-
sition that keeps him comfortably patri-
otic, while permitting him to question the
wisdom of the administration's policy of
escalation.
Judging from the confusing assort-
ment of Romney positions on the war, his
trip will not be an easy one.
-STEPHEN FIRSHEIN
y 1967, The Register
t and Tribune Syndicate,
"Civilian Casualty"
The View From Here
. . . By Robert Klivans --
Wallace at the Starting Gate
Nickel Odium
A SPECTRE is haunting America - the
spectre of meter maids.
And society is refusing to be kow-
towed away. Instead of servilely accept-
ing these pariahs who have finally found
some meaning in life, car owners are pro-
testing the scourge of the pavement
pounders inh ighly individualistic ways.
As a result, our swashbuckling, street-
walking meter maids-armed only with
ticket pads and sadistic dispositions -
have been subjected to much abuse. Two
examples caught our attention last week:
"ONE WORD COST a University stu-
dent $71.50 yesterday.
"Police said Richard O. Uhlmann,
21-year-old East Quadrangle resident,
parked his car in a 'no parking' area
of the General Library lot on the
campus.
"When he returned to his car Meter
Maid Faith Wheeler was writing a
violation ticket. The meter maid, said
Uhlmann, a junior in the School of
Education, was angry about the tick-
et. When he took the ticket he used
one obscene word in 'thanking' her
for it, she told superiors.
"Mrs. Wheeler notified police head-
quarters and Patrolman Paul Buntin
was sent to the scene. He placed
Uhlmann under arrest for using ob-
scene language in a public place and
brought him before Acting Municipal
Court Judge Chandler A. Rogers.
"The student pleaded guilty to the
charge and was ordered to pay fine
and court costs of $71.50 or spend five
days in jail."
-Ann Arbor News
"JUST LAST FRIDAY, in the Bronx, a
New York City meter maid was at-
tacked in broad daylight by the owner
of a car she was ticketing. Dozens of
neighborhood residents stood by and
shouted 'Ole, Ole'."
-Washington University Daily
T° THIS NEWLY oppressed class of
workers we suggest unionization to
provide security and protection. Meter
maids of the world unite. You have noth-
ing to lose but your change.
-JOHN LOTTIER
-STEPHEN FIRSHEIN
EDITORS' NOTE: After this editorial
had been written, writer Lottier discov-
ered, to his chagrin, that his motorcycle
parked in back of the Student Publica-
tions Building had been ticketed, by -
you guessed it-a meter maid.
How did they know?
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - If the
93rd Kentucky Derby was any
sign, the contest for the Repub-
lican presidential nomination is
going to be quite a horse race. As
if a Nixon-Romney-Rockefeller-
Reagan-Percy contest weren't
enough, the stocky, Southern fig-
ure of Mr. George Wallace has
been added, an as yet untested
national competitor. But so was
Proud Clarion, the 30-1 thorough-
bred who won the Run for the+
Roses against a field of strong
favorites, such as Damascus, Ru-
ken and the open housing dem-
onstrators.
For there are rather ominous
signs in the spring trials of the
ex-Alabama governor, and his
swing around the Midwest circle
last week demonstrated this.
Though politically unattractive to
anyone left of Barry Goldwater,
he is a handsome, able speaker
whose simple message could dam-
age the best laid plans of mice,
men and politicians.
In Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Cleve-
land and Terre Haute he reiterat-
ed his constant theme: a Lockean
appeal to life, liberty, private
property and the pursuit of hap-
piness, even if that means segre-
gating "Niggras." His natural ene-
mies make fine targets for his
barbed, but crude attack. Gold
help us from:
". ..The intellectual liberals,
who come to power and think
they know everything and what's
good for everybody, who op-
press the people. Intellectual
morons, I call 'em. Sometimes
theory just don't work. You got
to be practical in dealing with
human problems. Take Castro.
Any man plowing a mule down
there-and I don't mean a man
plowing a mule didn't go to
school-any man with a sec-
ond grade education knew Cas-
tro was bad just looking at his
picture and reading what he
said. Any cab driver in Mont-
gomery-and I don't mean to
throw off on them because I
used to be one myself - know
more about why we're in Viet-
nam than a Yale professor sit-
ting up there in his ivory tow-
er. We got to get all this theory
out of things..
EXACTLY how seriously to take
the reconstructed Dixiecrat move-
:: the dilettanl
ment is a problem. To dispell Wal-
lace as a peculiarly Southern phe-
nomenon may be hasty. His* en-
try into the 1964 Democratic pres-
idential primaries was a nasty
shock to the North: Wallace cap-
tured- 30 per cent in Indiana, 34
per cent in Wisconsin and 43 per
cent in Maryland. And the vote
was not merely an ephemeral pro-
test exercise, for in Maryland last
November the Democratic candi-
date for governor, who lost to
Republican moderate Spiro Ag-
new, ran on a platform whose
motto was "every man's home is
his castle," a blatant pitch to the
segregated, private-property ap-
proach. One indignant Marylander
labelled the candidate "a North-
ern Wallace."
And in the South, which still
commands a sizable bloc of dele-
gates and electoral votes, there
seems to be no slackening of the
Wallace influence. His wife is con-
tinuing the Wallace Alabama re-
gime with a maximum of resist-
ance to federal desegregation
guidelines. In neighboring Georgia,
eyebrows were raised at the elec-
tion of Lester Maddox, whose pre-
vious claim to fame had been
pointing a gun in thehfaceof
Negroes seeking to buy some bar-
becued chicken at his Pickrick
Restaurant. Maddox, who harped
on a TV interview Sunday about
"private property and free enter-
prise" as the solution to all ills,
will not back a "wild, far-left,
liberal administration," like that
of President Johnson. Though he
doesn't feel a third party would
work, he likes neighbor Wallace.
REALISTICALLY, the question
becomes not whether Wallace
could win the presidency, a Klans-
man's pipedream, nor whether he
can dent the civil rights stand of
either major party, for neither.
could reverse themselves on a
cause that is practically the law
of the land (though Goldwater
tried, in a sense). The problem
Wallace poses, and it may be more
real than many realize, is which
party-and candidates-would he
most harm by tossing his third-
party hat in the ring?
Third parties have been notor-
iously impotent political instru-
ments in American history, though
they often proved to be the harb-
ingers of social change. A reac-
tionary movement like Wallace's is
more an appeal to the past - the
glory of individualism and the
liberty that used to be-than an
impetus toward progressivism. But
Wallace is not a voice crying in
the wilderness, as liberals would
like to think. Here in the urban,
industrial centers one does not
hear the anti-war cries of the
New Left, nor the philosophical
justifications of black power. Here
there is talk of crime-knifings
in the streets, robberies, gang
fights. There is talk of too many
taxes, a far-off war we're not
winning fast enough and school
systems that can't get money to
compete with suburbia.
"If one of these national par-
ties don't recognize that people
are fed up with crime in the
streets," Wallace says, "and I
mean people of all races are
fed up with courts and politi-
cians coddling these criminals;
if they don't realize we're tired
of handing out foreign aid while
nobody helps us out in Vietnam
and we're tired of helping France
when they won't help us, and
we're tired of folks raising mon-
ey and blcod for them Viet Cong
under academic freedom and
freedom of speech while our boys
get shot at--we've got to dif-
ferentiate between what's dissent
and academic freedom and
what's treason - if the two
parties continue along this lib-
eral path, attackin' private
property rights and free enter-
prise, a lot of people will be out
of a choice and I'll give them
one."
AT A RECENT National Gover-
nors' Conference in Washington,
President Johnson had a day-long
consultation with the state lead-
ers in the White House. Mean-
while, Lady Bird took the gover-
nors' wives on a female-oriented
tour of some Washington sights.
Of course, the forgotten man was
George Wallace, a governor's hus-
band, who sat in his hotel room,
complaining to chuckling newsmen
that nobody had planned anything
for a governor's husband. But if
no plans had been made for Wal-
lace, he certainly had plans of
his own, and they just could be
the key to determining the out-
come of the 1968 presidential race.
.-TRAN VAN DINH
Rigid Censorship
In South Vietnam
During the last month there has been a visible buildup in the U.S
about the value of the elections in South Vietnam-local elections,
presidential elections, etc.-as if they were free and could be made
free, as if they would bring instant democracy to the South Viet-
namese, as if they would bring about the instant disappearance of
the Viet Cong. Very few have asked the question: "How can elections
be free in a country where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom
of association and no freedom of the press?"
The April 1, 1967, Constitution of South Vietnam which General
Ky proudly brought to President Johnson for approval at the
Guam Conference last March, guarantees the freedom of the press.
Yet today the censorship and the control of the press in South Viet-
nam is stricter than anytime in the past. A look at the newspapers
in South Vietnam brings to mind the garishness of a pop-art show:
half white front pages, columns with headlines and no stories; articles
blackened out in such haste that the ink is not thick enough to pre-
vent the reader from reading them against the light; editorials filled
with large letters such as: "Begin the day with the Saigon Post . ."
ALL NEWSPAPERS in South Vietnam-the great bulk of them
published in Saigon-have to submit their copies to the Department
of Information headed by Majot General Nguyen Bao Tri, a Northern-
er, and a close associate of General Ky. Then the censors go to work
and proceed to operate on articlesranging from advertising to edi-
torials. There is no criterion for censorship. Editors do not under-
stand why certain articles are cut. In fact, often the censors even cut
statements made by South Vietnamese cabinet officers. Parts of the
speech made by Foreign Minister Tran Van Do at the Washington
SEATO meetings in April were deleted, although his statements were
hawkish and followed the Saigon line. The guess was that he once
mentioned "peace" and "negotiations" which to General Ky are
synonymous with Communism, and therefore treason.
The most recent case of press suppression involved the English
daily "Vietnam Guardian." Its editor, Dr. Ton That Thien, a Cell
known anti-Communist but a stubborn nationalist, questioned the
official version of how Mr. Tran Van Van, a member of the Con-
stituent Assembly, a Southerner and a potential candidate for the
Septembre presidential elections, was murdered.
In an article, "Saigon's censors busy in spite of Constitution"
(Washington Evening Star, May 1), Mr. Richard Critchfield wrote from
Saigon: "When an American reporter protested the prolonged clos-
ure (of the Vietnam Guardian since early December, 1966), the
political counselor (of the U.S Embassy) Habib replied, "Who cares
about the Guardian? There are plenty of other papers. Besides, they
provoked the government." Mr. Habib, now back to Washington, no
doubt had dispensed such kind of political thoughts to the Vietnamese
government.
THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE government has its own news agency,
"The Vietnam Press," which is in reality a propaganda mill. Not only
does the agency fail to provide accurate information,, but it often
prints news which is completely distorted. For example, on April 21,
American and Vietnamese psychological warfare experts tried an
elaborate and expensive propaganda ploy to meet Hanoi's dare for
them to bring Nguyen Van Be, the Viet Cong "hero-martyr" (who ac-
cording to Saigon turned up as a live prisoner of war), before his
former neighbors. Thirty-five selected newsmen were flown from Sai-
gon for the "terrific story."
But when the newsmen, the government officials and the U.S,
experts arrived at Kim Son village well cordoned by 1000 U.S. and
South Vietnamese soldiers, the show turned into a farce: no one in
that village knew Nguyen Van Be and he knew nobody there. All U.S.
newspapers, AP; UPI sent the story as it happened. But the Viet-
nam press version read like this: "Nguyen Van Be who has lately
been honored as a martyr by the South Vietnam Liberation Front
was taken back to his native village of Kim Son where he was rec-
ognized by his neighbors , . ." This is the version printed in all South
Vietnamese newspapers.
No wonder now, in South Vietnam, people listen to the gossip
in the street, the clandestine NLF radio, the BBC (the most reliable)
to find out what is actually happening in their country. They also
read numerous clandestine pamphlets and newspapers and they find
that the barber at the street corner has all the news that is fit to hear.
It is tragic that the war has cost 9,226 Americans killed, 55,119
wounded and 548 missing (as of the last week in April). Two billion
dollars have been spent a month to defend the "freedom" of South
Vietnam, a country without the elementary freedom of the press.
SOME VIETNAMESE look back with ironic nostalgia to the
period of 1930-1940 during the French colonial regime, when the press
in Vietnam was relatively free. Newspapers such as Phong Hoa and
Ngay Nay ridiculed the high officials at the time and gave people a
good laugh. The press at the time was free enough to allow three
Trotskyites to compaign, to be elected on April 30, 1939 in the "Co-
chinchina Colonial Council" and to defeat three Stalinists. And the
French were not such good colonial masters.
Cassius Clay:*
A British View
I
w
4'
Schizophrenia
BOBBY KENNEDY was in Detroit last
week in his self-appointed role as
spokesman for the alienated, warning
that the Democratic Party is losing the
nation's youth "to extreme movements or
to public indifference." Bobby exhorted
the assemblage of Democratic function-
aries to capture the hearts and minds of
"the most active and idealistic younger
generation since the American Revolu-
tion." Because Bobby, when not kayak-
racing, is a serious student of demograph-
ic data and knows that the youth of to-
day will be the voters of 1972.
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Summer Editorial Staff
LAURENCE MEDOW.................... Co-Editor
STEPHEN FIRSHEINE.............. Co-Editor
MARK, LEVIN ..........Summer Supplement Editor
NIGHT EDITORS
David Duboff, Aviva Kempner, Patricia O'Donohue,
Jennifer Rhea, Walter Shapiro.
Meanwhile back in Washington, Sena-
tor Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) has scrup-
ulously avoided the recent Senate mini-
debate on Vietnam. In fact he has tried
to ignore America's Asian imbroglio since
his courageous March 2 speech urging a
temporary halt to the bombing of North
Vietnam. It is thought that the senator
who has repeatedly pledged his support
to the Johnson-Humphrey ticket for '68
feels that widening his over-publicized
rift with the administration will not be
in either his or the Democratic Party's
best interest.
BOBBY'S SPEECH explains why Sena-
tor Kennedy's Vietnam stance will not
win the "idealistic younger generation"
for the Democratic Party. These youths
regard the war in Vietnam as a moral,
rather than a political, issue. It is the
middle-aged, not the young, who become
ecstatic over bombing pauses. Students
value personal conscience more than po-
pitical expediency or party loyalty. View-
ing a Democratic Party dominated by
Lyndon Johnson and Senator Kennedy,
they have come to regard the machina-
tions of politicians with ever-increasing
cynicism.
But if they could only get together,
Bobby and Senator Kennedy might make
a great political team.
-WALTER SHAPIRO
Uppity ]Nligrah
... by stephen firshein -
Consensus on Tonight Show
As a reluctant addict of the
Johnny Carson Tonight Show, I
have borne patiently the rather
vapid, but partially entertaining
assortment of verbal graffitti.
Carson is usually affable, and
sometimes downright funny. Of
course that's what he's paid for,
and that's what got him the hand-
some pay hike after a month's
hibernation from televisionland-
At 11:30, lumbering Ed Mc-
Mann, often the most intelligent
person appearing on a given night,
gets the spectacle underway with
a stentorian, Gabriel-like pro-
nouncement, "And now - here's
Johnny!"
THE EVENING wears on - the
monologue with Carson's invar-
Considering the variety of
topics discussed, and considering
Carson's success in handling in-
sipid guests over the past several
years, one would not suspect that
Carson would be illest at ease
talking about one of the most
interesting subjects-politics.
But that's the case, and therein
lies my gripe. I don't begrudge
Carson his pay raise, or his med-
iocre guests and gags, or the mul-
titude of commercial interrup-
tions. What I want to know is:
why is he so wishy-washy?
TRUE, CARSON is not as bad
as Joey Bishop, who, subbing as
emcee on the Tonight Show last
year, was so humbled by the pres-
ence of guest Vice President Hu-
He also found himself agreeing
with two other celebrities who ad-
vocated completely opposing
courses of action in Vietnam. Gore
Vidal, no lover of the Kennedys
or President Johnson (a "corn-
pone Genghis Kahn"), had noth-
ing but the meanest things to say
about the war, while Comedienne
Martha Raye sang the p:aises of
our "fight against aggression."
(Earlier in the week, proudly
sporting a green beret, she had
led a pro-war parade in New York
City.)
Carson one day will fume at
the anti-war protesters ("I think
they've carried this a bit far.");
the next, give Arthur Schlesinger
that you-don't-say?-look of agree-
Every day hundreds of young
colored men are refusing to fight
with the American forces in Viet-
nam.
They live in a society where at
the moment the army provides
poor people with almost their only
opportunities for regular pay, so-
cial status and human dignity. Yet
it provides it at a high price -
the risk of growing cynicism and
revulsion from a war in which
one does not believe, and the pos-
sibility of death. Increasingly as
the war escalates poor colored peo-
ple will not pay that price. Most
of them are South Vietnamese.
But one or two are black Ameri-
cans. Now that Muhammad Ali
(Cassius Clay) has decided not
to fight in Vietnam, other young
Negroes may follow his example.
Since Malcolm X was killed
there is probably no other Ne-
gro with whom the inhabitants
of the black ghettoes can identify
so closely. But the immense psy-
chological importance of his deci-
sion should not blur his personal
courage. Like the others who have
already burnt their draft cards,
Muhammad Ali faces imprison-
ment. But it is a decision which
every conscript is aware of. The
glib distinction between hawks and
the war. Unless he took a lead in
encouraging young men to resist
the draft, he felt he was merely
a hawk in dove's clothing. His
stand has had the same psychol-
ogical significance in the white
community. as Muhammad's is
likely to have in the black, for
Dr. King's strength has always
been to jog the conscience of white
America. His move has already
caused dismay among the ranks
of the liberals, and many who
chose to call themselves his sup-
porter have now turned on him.
But his stand is consistent.
The war on poverty and dis-
crimination and the war in Viet-
nam are inextricably connected,
not only because of the psychol-
ogical link of color, as white men
are in the role of oppressors in #
both theatres, not only because a
disproportionately high number of
American casualties are Negro, but
at its most unemotional level be-
cause of the financial link. The
United States cannot afford to
spend more than £140,000 ($300,-
000) to kill one member of the #
Viet Cong, and still fight a suc-
cessful war on poverty at home.
ALTHOUGH Europeans often
think of America as a very con-
formist society, its traditions of