LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

EIir Mir4igan Daily
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I

NIGHT EDITOR: JIM NEUBACHER

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1969

The government prepares
to do battle

111HE NIXON administration's shabby
attempts to dispel legitimate protest
of the Vietnam war in Washington Nov.
15 should strengthen the determination
of all who are opposed to the war to turn
out in force next week. Deputy Atty. Gen.
Richard G. Kleindienst's denial of permits
for the Pennsylvania Avenue march, his
threats of meeting peaceful demonstra-
tors with military force, and finally his
"backing down" to allow marchers to use
an alternate route past the White House,
are all part of a conscious effort to per-
suade the protesters to stay at home.
These efforts should not be permitted to
succeed.
When the Justice Department original-
ly denied the Mobilization a permit for
next Saturday's planned march from the
Capitol to the Washington Monument,
via the White House, Kleindienst ration-
alized to the press that the proximity of
the line of march to the ghetto and the
downtown business district, when coupled
with the anticipated violent disruptions
by Weatherman and others, would lead to
rioting and destruction in the federal
city. The paranoia behind such fears be-
comes apparent when one discovers that
the "militants" the Justice Department
is so sure will cause violence are primar-
ily the nation's college students.
ARMED WITH the spectre of violence
they themselves have raised, Nixon's
lackeys first denied permission for a
march past the White House, then threat-
ened to prevent such a march by calling
out the Army. Such actions would have
been criminally stupid two years ago, and
now, with the lessons lof Chicago staring
the Justice Department in the face, they
are totally unforgiveable. Only the in-
credibly naive could believe that the gov-
ernment is not aware that such denial of
Beware
GASP IN HORROR as a handful of
young activists attempt the heist of
$275,000 from the pockets of unsuspecting
University students. Ads placed in The
Daily by local bookstores give all the
scary details ..is there any hope for
the virtuous students?
But wait, coming over yonder hill, it's
the Silent Majority! You've thrilled
as they rose in anger against "the effete
snobs," you've cheered as they saved the
nation again and again from a crazed
minority, now see them as they smash
the evil "student-run bookstore!"
We wish to thank Ann Arbor bookstores
for rallying them to action.
-A.S.
-J.M.

permits and threats of force will prac-
tically guarantee that violence will break
out.
VESTERDAY'S "compromise" leaves the
situation practically u n c h a n g e d.
While the Justice Department has agreed
to let the march take place along Con-
stitution Avenue, informed sources indi-
cate that the police are massing on the
Mall and the scent of blood is still in the
air of the nation's capital. The Mobiliza-
tion Committee has rejected this "com-
promise" and rightly so, since it would
still prevent the march from passing by
the White House.
The earlier denial of permits allowed
the administration to explain the pres-
ence of not only the police, but the Army,
the National Guard, the White House se-
curity forces, and the D.C. Park Police
in downtown Washington on Moratorium
Day. And the original fears of student-
led violence are revealed as sham when
the government's anticipation of disorder
in the ghetto somehow vanishes when
the parade route is moved two blocks to
the south.
IN THIS LIGHT, the administration's
actions can only be seen as a blatant
attempt to emasculate the Moratorium by
scaring off demonstrators with threats of
anticipated (dare we say "probable?")
violence. By convincing the more mode-
rate - and especially the more middle-
aged-protesters to stay at home next
week, Nixon hopes to discredit the peace
movement in the minds of his silent con-
stituency by diminishing both the size
and the Establishment character of the
march.
Such manipulation must not be tolerat-
ed if American society is to retain even
the pretense of freedom of speech. By at-
tempting to undercut dissent by threat-
ening violence against peaceful protest-
ers, the Nixon administration comes close
to forbidding protest altogether.
THOSE OF US who were simply going to
Washington to m a r c h against the
Vietnam war must now show our deter-
mination to march at any cost. We must
not be frightened away from expressing
our views by tle threat of violence, or
even by violence itself.
What is at stake now is more than just
the issue of the Vietnam war-it is the
question of whether the basic freedoms
on which this country was founded are
to be allowed to survive. If we let Nixon's
threats deter us from speaking our minds
in Washington next week, we might as
well surrender now, and let the police
state come.
-JENNY STILLER
Editorial Page Editor

To the Editor:
HAVE YOU NOTICED how
som e of the private bookstore
owners are trying to buy a "no"
vote against a University book-
store through the use of hundreds
of dollars worth of distorted, emo-
tional, and incomplete advertise-
ments?
These ads are motivated by the
self interest, of the private book-
store owners - not by a sincere
concern for the welfare of stu-
dents. Many of the private book-
stores are deathly afraid that a
University Bookstore would pro-
vide substantial savings to stu-
dents and thereby decrease the
profits made by the private book-
stores.
One of the ads is entitled "Beat
the Machine." Hundreds of dol-
lars are being spent by some of
the private bookstores to prevent
the establishment of a University
Bookstore. On the other hand, the
resources of the students who sup-
port the University Bookstore are
extremely limited. I ask. who is
the "Machine?"
ANN ARBOR'S prices are among
the highest in the nation. Stu-
dents are forced to pay exorbitant
amounts for books, rent, food and
other supplies. Remember w h e n
you paid $15 for that book, they
bought it back from you for $7
and then resold it for $11?
The University Bookstore is de-
signed to be a financial success
and save students money. It will
be a non-profit corporation run
by a professional manager, it will
use accepted accounting proce-
dures and receive regular auditing.
Students will receive an exem-
ption from the 4 per cent sales
tax. T h i s exemption cannot be
given by private bookstores. Des-
pite a proposed bill to the con-
trary which would provide the ex-
emption to private bookstores, it
is very unlikely that the Michi-
gan legislature will approve a
change in the state sales tax.
The University Bookstore will
also save students money by pour-
ing profits back to students in the
form of discounts and/or rebates.
On the other hand, thousands and
thousands of dollars of private
bookstore profit go to the owners
of the private bookstores - not
to the students.
IF YOU ARE concerned t h a t
the University Bookstore, may not
be a financial success, examine
the University Discount Store and
the U-M Students Credit Union
which are b o t h located in the
Michigan Union.
T h e extremely successful Dis-
count Store, which will be com-
bined with the University Book-
store, already offers substantial
savings on school supplies a n d
records. The Credit Union expects
to pay dividends and has $148,000
of deposits after less than three
months of operation.
Also, the five dollar levy in-
cluded in the bookstore proposal
is not a tax but rather a return-
able deposit which can be collect-
ed by the student when he finish-
Letters to the Editor should I
be mailed to the Editorial Di-
rector or delivered to Mary
Rafferty in the Student Pub-
lications business office in the
Michigan Daily building. Let-
ters should be typed, double-
spaced and normally should not
exceed 250 words. The Editorial
Directors reserve the right to
edit all letters submitted.

- 7- , -
- r
A r
-
Commission report finds SST to be 'a white
elephant, too expensive, and too loud.'
-News Item

couple of points about the Stu-
dent Mobilization Committee. A
coalition in which we are partici-
pating, but did not initiate, has
called local actions for Nov. 13-14.
TO MY knowledge, no local ac-
tions are planned for Saturday,
and the SMC would oppose any
such actions, which could cut
across building for Washington.
Our focus is exclusively local in
the sense that the focus of our
independent activity is local ac-
tion.
We are not acting independent-
ly in Ann Arbor to build the March
against Death or the Mass March
Saturday; the March against
Death Committee and New. Mobe
are the organizations doing those
jobs and doing them well.
BUT WE consider the Nov. 13-15
actions to be of historic impor-
tance and the first priority tasks
at hand. It is with the idea of
complementing those actions, by
involving some of the tens of
thousands of students who won't
be able to express their opposition'
to the war in Washington, that we
support the local actions Nov. 13
and 14.
Nationally, local actions will
constitute a November Moratorium
which will add impact to the
Washington actions.
-Andy Bustin
Student Mobilization
Committee
Nov. 5
Exciting career
To the Editor:
SENIORS! Do you want to get to
the top when you leave college?
Forget corporations! In a cor-
poration, you have to completely
abandon all your ideals of right
and wrong, dedicate your life to
being the pawn of the corporation.
and then it takes years to get to
the top. No! There is an easier
way.
Become a Dictator. It is easy and

-
nachine
you need no advanced degrees.
Just pick out a piece of real estate
anywhere in the world that you
want for your dictatorship. Con-
tact the State Department in the
land of the free and the home of
the brave. Tell them you think you
saw a communist hiding behind a
tree in the land and that you have
a burning desire to liberate the
people from the threat. The gov-
ernment will take it from there.
You may never have been to this
locality: it may not even have a
tree; but that is immaterial. The
freedom-loving U.S. taxpayer is
supporting dictators all over the
world. You might as well be one
of them.
ONE SHOULD use a little discre-
tion in choosing the locality for
his dictatorship. It should have
some natural resources that may
be exploited by U.S. Industry. For
example if the resources of the
U.S. Department of Defense are
required to maintain you as a dic-
tator, there is little point in your
being a dictator over an iceberg.
This would require a public rela-
tions "snow job" to convince the
American housewife that she
should abandon the noisy electric
refrigerator and return to using
the silent ice refrigerator. This
objective would not be impossible;
but it would add to the overhead.
Of course, if you are on the trail
of a communist, any consideration
of cost or economics is completely
beside the point. It is chiefly a
matter of your own personal in-
fluence. If the freedom-loving
American taxpayer had to pay the
cost of sending the 7th fleet down
to protect your domain, your per-
sonal influence would be en-
hanced if your domain contained
the natural resources that could
increase the tax-exempt wealth of
some multimillionaire American
industrialist.
It would be an exciting career.
Give it your consideration.
-Marsh F. Beall, '32E
Nov. 3

es his studies and leaves the Uni-
versity.
Like the advertisements say.
"Make your own Decisions. You
know the issues. Make your vote
count." Don't be pushed around by
the same people who have been
pushing students around for years.
If you are concerned about high
Ann Arbor prices for books and
student supplies, then do some-
thing about it. Beat the Ann Ar-
bor Bookstore Machine by voting
YES for the University Bookstore.
-Neill H. Hollenshead
President, Lawyers Club
Board of Directors
Nov. 7
Expertise
To the Editor:
SOME OF US on the faculty
who are familiar with the Middle
East were greatly impressed by
the i;ecent articles on Arab politics
by Rosenthal and Dinner.
With great insight, and mar-
shalling impressive evidence, they
present a convincing case to the
effect that the Arabs are not only
fundamentally incompetent, but
killers by instinct and probably,
as Newsweek recently contended,
"congenital liars."
Citing the authoritative Al-
Hayat of Beirut, they prove that
the lowly Syrians are practising
genocide against the Kurds. Equal-
ly damning evidence is presented
against the Egyptians and Arabs
in general (except the Christians
of Lebanon whom the authors.
demonstrating t h e i r in-depth
knowledge of the ethnology of the
area, do not consider as Arabs 1
BY CONTRAST the authors in-
cisievly demonstrate the integrity
and hard-work of the Isrealis.
There is little doubt that the Is-
raelis are the only hope for pro-
gress in the Middle East.
We are indebted to Rosenthal
and Dinner for helping us under-
stand such a complicated situ-
ation. Their credentials and
sources of information, unfor-
tunately not mentioned in the
article, must be excellent. We hope
that we can benefit from their
expertise in the future.
-Prof. John Waterbury
Political Science Dept.
Nov. 4

Local action
To the Editor:
LUNSFORD PHILLIPS and Al-
bert Vellucci have performed a
service in their letter to The Daily
on Tuesday the need for which
probably hadn't occured to anyone
else. Those working to organize
the Fall Offensive tend to forget
that most of the people who are
participating in it are not partic-
ularly aware of or concerned with
the organizational forms within
which they 'work.
A simple setting forth of the
functions each organization is per-
forming, to clarify the options for
antiwar action, was valuable.
This letter is just to clarify a

Feidhamp on Feidhamp

To the Editor:
WOULD LIKE to respond to
charges against myself and the
housing office which appeared in
a letter to the editor written Oct.
1 by William L. Levy, secretary of
Frost House Council (Daily, Oct.
25). I would like to reiterate some
of the responses I made to Mr.
Levy at a beneficial meeting with
Frost House residents on Oct. 8
and which Mr. Levy raised again
in his letter to The Daily:
1. Roommates for Resident Ad-
visors. While it wasealways our
preference to have Resident Ad-
visors in single rooms no guaran-
tee of single rooms had been of-
ficially provided. At the March
27. 1969 meeting of the Board of
G o v e r n o r s representatives of
Markley Hall, t h e board voted
unanimously that it "go on record
as desiring to do whatever pos-
sible to better the situation of the
Resident Advisors and that all ef-
forts be m a d e to obtain single
rooms...
AT THE APRIL 10, 1969 meet-
ing of the Board of Governors, the
board was made aware that about
$76,000 in additional General
Fund monies would be necessary
to carry out a guarantee of single
rooms. It w a s then determined

O n
By MICHAEL DAVI
IF NIXON has his way, the
a riot in Washington on1
15. Violence. more than anyt
would discredit the peace m
because violence alone wou
the easy equation of peace
order, firmly allying the haw
with the hawks of law ar
Nixon has, since taking office
best to create such an alliance
ing heavily on the ambigui
phrase "crime in the stree
He, like most of the those
ing the war, thought the 0
demonstration would end in r
out outside help. He keptq
did nothing. Despite provoc
several cities, despite minor
in many more, the Octobe
torium was awesomely peacef
covering it noted that pea
with obvious relief and respe
must have been very disapp
He will not do nothing a
has already spoken out ago
peace movement with great
cuning, trying to blame it witl
ening the war, causing Amer
diers to die unnecessarily, an
America in danger of humil
the battlefield. He calledu
American common man to

ways to avoid\
S Committee (MOBE), the march's policy of s
re will be sponsor, took the refusal to court, it showed th
November would probably have won permission. ly that, mE
hing else, If the MOBE won in court, the likeli- look unjus
novem ent,hood of violence would only be some- governmen
Id permit what less than if it lost. plaining '
with dis- If the MOBE lost, the march itself The MC
ks of war would be illegal and all other activities make sure
nd order. would be tainted by that illegality, planned d
done his The police would feel free to attack unjust refs
, depend- at will. If the court granted permis- harassmev
ty of the sion, the police would have to wait for ness of th
ts. an excuse, and 15. Ni
support- The President has, in any case, al- to catch
ctober 15 ready set the tone. Soon he will prob- thing that
lots with- ably announce that, while he hopes ever violex
quiet and there will be no violence, he knows mitted by
ations in that violence is possible and has decid- without ca
incidents ed to take precautions. He will order To do t
er Mora- large numbers of federal marshals and impose co.
ful. Those federal troops into Washington, just participati
acefulness as Johnson did for the March on the matter gi
?ct. Nixon Pentagon. That will help to scare off volved, the
pointed. moderates, radicalize the doubtful, and sary diver
again. He give greater weight to the violent, the lack o
'ainst the Movement
care and Nixon-or rather, someone in the Mbent
h length- Justice Department-will also place be s
ic nsol- provocateurs within the ranks of the forthe s
ri putting demonstrators, leaving as little to the MOE
d putingb - 0 9discipline.
Nation on chance as possible. Provocateurs were
upon the used during the Convention demon- HOW S1
support strations in Chicago and appear to I would su

violence

in

Nixon land

crupulous nonviolence which
e provocations to be obvious-
ade extreme countermeasures
tified, and left the respective
nts the painful duty of ex-
what had happened.
OBE should begin now to
it can both carry out the
emonstrations, even against
usal of permission or extreme
nt, and preserve the peaceful-
he activiites of November 14
o cameraman should be able
one participant doing any-
t even looks violent. What-
nce there is should be com-
the government, seemingly
ause.
hat the MOBE will have to
nsiderable discipline on those
ng in its activities-no easy
Nen the great numbers in-
e open recruiting, the neces-
rsity of opinion and style,
f time, and the discomfort.
people always feel about
ctly organized. Nevertheless,
ake of the peace movement,
E should try to impose that
HOULD the MOBE do that?
uggest that the MOBE begin

draw them unthinkingly into acts they
might later regret.
I would suggest more. Those par-
ticipating in any demonstration should
be given an information sheet warning
them that government agents, mental-
ly deranged persons, or others who care
nothing for peace, may try to provoke
violence either by attacking the dem-
onstration from outside or by engaging
in some violent act from inside the
ranks of the demonstration; that if
attacked they should withdraw quietly
and peacefully or, if ordered by a dem-
onstration marshal, resist passively;
that if any of their number commits a
violent act, they should be given him
no aid, applause, protection, or other
encouragement or support but instead
should leave him standing by himself
as if he were-what he might well be
-a police agent.
Last, I would suggest that the MOBE
recruit and train large numbers of
demonstration marshals, p e r h a p s
enough to assign one to every ten
demonstrators. These marshals should
be committeed to nonviolence, at least
as a temporary tactic. (They might be
asked to take an additional pledge.)
They should be made responsible
for preventing violence by demonstra-
tors and for interposing themselves be-
tween demonstrators and police in

what many people in the Movement
still do not: that for every person
radicalized by participating in violence,
there are probably four hardened
against whatever that violence was
done for. (It is hard to reason with
people while they are angry or feel
physicially endangered, whether they
are justified or not in their anger
or fear.) Violence only creates a ad-
icalized minority at the cost of mobil-
izing against that minority a vengeful
and selfrighteous majority.
Perhaps violence would still be worth
the cost if that majority were immune
to argument and peaceful persuasion.
But there is no reason to believe that
it is immune. Therefore, radicalization
by doing violence is, as a tactic, stupid.
There is no other way to describe it.
OF COURSE, the Movement cannot
always avoid violence. The best we can
do is not add to it and not implicate
ourselves in it. If the police, or some
onlookers, decide to attack us, we are
in no position to stop them from at-
tacking. All we can do is localize the
violence they commit by peacefully op-
posing it-with our unprotected bodies
if necessary--so that the watching
nation can judge between us and them
on the visual evidence,
There is no better way for people

that converted rooms and second
spaces in staff rooms would be as-
signed last. At that same meeting
the Board of Governors was un-
able to decide whether moving
persons from converted rooms or
giving staff single rooms was more
important.
As I indicated to the F r o s t
House Council, in our budget pre-
parations for 1970-71 our first re-
quest for additional funds is for
monies to obtain single rooms for
staff. Further in the budgetary
planning it has been determined
that easing the situation in Mark-
ley where most staff are in double
rooms had first preference over
other halls. There was also a will-
ingness to reduce Resident Ad-
visors' salaries across the board in
order to accomplish the objective
of single rooms for staff. This lat-
ter mechanism was not available
to us in March, 1969 because com-
mitments had already been made
for 1969-70 staff,
2. Offices in West Quadrangle.
The decision to convert housing
space to office space was made
in March, 1968. The Regents au-
thorized this conversion for a min-
imum of two years. The conver-
sion was authorized based on res-
idency patterns that became evi-
dent during the 1967-68 y ea r.
Residency patterns have changed
substantially since then. The de-
cision to have office space in West
Quadrangle is currently being con-
sidered inasmuch as the two-year
period expires this spring.
3. Conversion of Two Women's
Houses in Markley. The authori-
zation given by the Board of Gov-
ernors to convert two houses in
West Quadrangle on June 5, 1969
was based upon information that
became available to them at that
time. The student-staff planning
group last spring had originally
considered recommending conver-
sion of women's spaces to men's

tives discussed by the planning
committee in the Spring the con-
version of Markley obtained the
greatest support.
The Board of Governors and our
Office both regretted that this de-
cision needed to be made during
the summer. Every attempt was
made to contact persons affected
by this change. We were aware
that these late contracts left a
great deal to be desired.
4. Temporary Space. At its meet-
ing of August 21, 1969 the Board
of Governors of Residence Halls
was asked to consider the fresh-
man male housing shortage that
was apparent at that time. The
consensus of the board was "that
the Office of University Housing
h a d a primary commitment to
house incoming freshmen." T h e
plans for temporary housing were
discussed with the Board and
while no one viewed these plans
as a desirable living situation the
only alternative was to return the
$45 deposits to the freshmen who
could not be housed and ask them
to look for space in private hous-
ing.
W i t h regard to ELI students
there was no policy of s a v i n g
rooms for ELI students. When our
halls opened this fall only 10 ap-
plications had been received by
us from ELI students. When ELI
students appeared in far greater
numbers the only spaces we could
offer were spaces from "no shows"
in Baits. Through a concerted ef-
fort at Baits and in our office all
ELI students were placed by the
end of the first week of classes.
5. Prepayment Problems. T h e
prepayment plan endorsed by the
student-staff planning committee
was designed to reduce the num-
ber of "no-shows" that had been
experienced in previous years. No
one believed that this would make
predictions accurate but if it
could provide the Office of Uni-
versity Housing with advance no-
tice of vacancies these vacant
spaces could be assigned to stu-
dents applying in the latter part
of the summer. As I indicated to
you on Oct. 8, many defects were
found in the prepayment system.
Improvements that we are con-
sidering fox' next year include less
reliance on data processing mech-
anisms.
6. Plans for Solving and Avoid-
ing Recurrences of this past fall's
Problems. As I detailed to t h e
Frost House Council two major
steps should make possible o u r
avoiding the problems we faced
this fall. First we need at an early
date firm policy decisions with re-
gard to what commitments the
University has to freshmen, ELI
students and others. These com-
mitments this last year were made
clear only at a late date.
THE SECOND STEP toward
avoiding these problems is a firm
commitment to earlier mailing of
information to new students. This
last ,rear' housingr informatin as