Seventy-Sixth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS I r _, *ere Opinions Are r 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Truth Will Proenail 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. 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. The Daily is a member of the Associated Press and Collegiate Press Service Summe~r subscription rate; $2.00 per term by car- rier; ($2.50 by mail) $4.00 for entire summer ($4.50 by mali). Daily except Monday during regular academic school year. Daily except Sunday and Monday during regular summer session. Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor. Michigan, 423 'Maynard St., Ann Arbor. Michigan, 48104, 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