Seventy-Sixth Year
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: JOHN MEREDITH
Some Negative Viewpoints
The Intellectual Underground
The Conference
THIS WEEK the campus has become the
center of vociferous, well organized
and well financed activities and attacks
on United States policy in Viet Nam.
These have ranged from a "respectable"
International Conference on Alternative
Perspectives on Viet Nam to one of the
most blatant exhibitions of poor taste
ever seen at the University-the placing
of two extremely offensive signs in the
Fishbowl.
The international conference, most of
whose sessions have been closed to the
public, has culminated in a repeat per-
formance of last year's teach-in. The Of-
fice of Religious Affairs has broadened
its scope of theological concern to the
political realm by agreeing to act as a
sponsor for this gathering .of "the inter-
national intellectual community" here.
Tens of thousands of dollars have been
expended to bring a Japanese film pro-
ducer, a Moroccan abbot, a civil rights
agitator, a poet, a playwright and various
other intellectuals to participate in a
dialogue regarding our policy in Viet Nam.
IT SEEMS rather stronge, however, that
this conference, which is attempting to
"derive a more realistic picture of the
conflict in Viet Nam from an analysis of
the Vietnamese people as they see them-
selves," has failed to invite representa-
tives from South Viet Nam, Thailand,
the Philippines or any of the other na-
tions directly involved in this problem.
One might even be so bold as to question
the degree of expertise and qualification
which these intellectuals have for de-
termining the destiny of the people of
Southeast Asia
As a matter of fact it appears that
the participants in his international con-
ference have journeyed to Ann Arbor with
some rather strong prejudices. The obvi-
ous politicization of these people-as well
as that of the Office of Religious Af-
fairs in planning this program-is in-
deed unfortunate.
All of a sudden, it seems, people from
all fields ranging from baby doctors and
chemists to poets and engineers have be-
come self-appointed experts on Southeast
Asia and foreign policy in general and
feel more qualified than our trained ex-
perts in this area to deal with the prob-
lems there.
IT IS PARTICULARLY interesting to
note that the list of authors of most
of the published material which has op-
posed our policy is conspicuous for its
absence of recognized Southeast Asian
scholars. Many of these intellectuals who
have so freely and carelessly adopted im-
practical and simplistic positions which
are incompatible with the realities of
the situation. The expertise which has
been assembled for this conference seems
to be inappropriate for a discussion of
realistic alternatives.
If we are to pattern future confer-
ences after this example, then we should
invite engineers to make medical deci
sions, poets to build bridges and mathe-
maticians to formulate foreign policy.
Seems rather absurd,doesn't it?
-ARTHUR J. COLLINGSWORTH
Editorial Staff
ROBERT JOHNSTON Editor
LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM JEFFREY GOODMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
JUDITH FIELDS .................. Personnel Director
LAUREN BAHR..........Associate Managing Editor
JUDITH WARREN....... Assistant Managing Editor
ROBERT RIPPLER ....... Associate Editorial Director
GAIL BLUMBERG................Magazine Editor
LLOYD GR.AFF ................ Acting Sports Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Susan Collins, John Meredith,
Leonard Pratt, Peter Sarasohn, Bruce Wasserstein.
PAY EDITORS: Robert Carney, Clarence Fanto, Mark
Killingsworth, Robert Moore, Harvey Wasserman,
Dick Wingield,
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Alice Bloch, Mere-
dith Eiker, Merle Jacob, Carole Kaplan, Robert
Klivans, Lynn Metzger, Roger Rapoport, Neil Shis-
ter, Katherine Teich, Joyce Winslow, Charlotte
Wolter.
Business Staff
CY WELLMAN, Business Manager
ALAN GLUECKMAN. .......Advertising Manager
jOYCE FEINBERG ... .........Finance Manager
SUSAN CRAWFORD .....Associate Business Manager
The Fishbowl Sign
WITH ALL FREEDOM we must accept
responsibility. Part of that responsi-
bility lies in exercising that freedom with
good taste. The Friends of the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and
the other organizations which make up
the "get-out-of-Viet Nam-no-matter-
what-the-cost-and-consequences" move-
ment on this campus seem to have for-
gotten this in accusing American soldiers
in Viet Nam of being war criminals.
Their sign of this week is in very poor
taste. It smears the good name and char-
acter of hundreds of American boys who
have given their lives in defense of their
country in the jungles of Viet Nam.
Moreover, the sign was put up under false
pretenses.
UNIVERSITY REGULATIONS give Al-
pha Phi Omega the right and respon-
sibility to govern the use of signs, tables
and other such devices on University
grounds, including the Fishbowl. APO by-
laws call for the clearance of all posters
with its executive board, something which
was not done prior to the posting of the
sign.
On the original form handed in by
Friends of SNCC, no mention was made of
the sign at all. .The form asked for per-
mission to distribute literature on Viet
Nam and to solicit support for the hous-
ing drive. Later, permission for the Fish,
bowl sign was granted when a new form
was submitted by the same organiza-
tion.
Perhaps permission was legitimately
granted because of the furor raised by
the cries of free speech and censorship.
The fact remains, however, that the sign
never did go through the proper chan-
nels-the executive board of APO.
THE ONLY BASIS APO has on which to
judge posters is whether or not they
comply with the size (no larger than 24"
by 36") and content requirements stip-
ulated in its bylaws. APO should also,
however, use the criterion of good taste,
which would cover such things as obscen-
ity, slander and libel, not to mention
character assassination.
The immediate superior of the APO is
J. Duncan Sells, director of student ac-
tivities and organizations and a member
of the administration. Since APO derives
its power from and in turn is responsible
to the administration, the administration
has the right to intervene in the affairs
of APO when it feels APO has used its
prerogatives unwisely. Had APO approved
the sign, this would have been one of the
instances in which the administration
should have stepped in.
WE MUST REMEMBER that we are still
students and not yet adults, and the
University still has the right to exercise
certain parental duties.
-JEFFREY BEAL
No Wider Sign
THE INSIDE STORY about the Fish-
bowl sign controversy-which brought
University students and the U.S. armed
forces eyeball-to-eyeball-can finally be
told. The inside story:
As soon as the "war crimes" sign went
up, the recruiters, using a janitor as an
intermediary, issued three demands to
the sign-users:
--Immediate cessation of the use of
the arrow;
-Subsequent withdrawal of both the
sign and the arrow, and
-Basic acceptance of the vieys of the
Joint Judiciary as the "voice of the Uni-
versity students" in the controversy.
THE SIGN USERS, however, termed the
demands "outrageous," charging that
Joint Judiciary "does not have any sub-
stantial following among the people."
They also declared that if the military
recruiters "would just stop bothering
their neighbors and go home, there would
be no problem." They added, "We seek no
wider sign."
However, the janitor used as inter-
SM1ith:"
FROM ALL INDICATIONS thus
far, President Harlan Hatcher's
selection of Allan F. Smith of the
Law School to succeed Roger
Heyns as Vice-President for Aca-
demic Affairs was an outstanding
decision.
The incredible smoothness of the
difficult transition period attests
to the administrative brilliance of
both Smith and his predecessor.
And the clarity and incisiveness of
the University's response to the
housing issue last week, plus the
Free Speech sign this week, must
have been due in some measure
to strong ideological commitments
on Smith's part.
Amidst the almost inhuman re-
sponsibilities thrust upon him, he
can be optimistic first of all about
the state of the University, at
least with respect to outward in-
dications. Not only is a phenom-
enal budget request going up to
Lansing, but the University has
more going for it this year, in
terms of backing from the other
state colleges, than it ever has
before.
NEW BUILDINGS are being
built or are coming. Recruitment
of stimulating young faculty to
take on the rising tide of students
has been impressive by its success.
Well-planned new education and
research programs are seeking,
and getting, support. Recent fig-
ures show that University's re-
search program, already the best
in the country, is continuing to
grow at a boom-times pace.
All these developments, and
their continued rosy health, are
the responsibility of the vice-
president for academic affairs. Yet
more ought to be expected of
Allan Smith, and Smith, in turn,
ought to be able to expect more
of the University than a series of
budget requests.
A great deal of thought and
action is needed at levels beyond
those of skillful paper-shuffling
and facts-gathering. It should,
after all, be a fairly rudimentary
problem to coordinate and assess
a series of budget requests from
below and put them together for
passage up the line.
The fact that it hasn't been
rudimentary is not so much a
negative comment upon the Uni-
versity as it is upon the general
state of higher education admin-
istration in this country.
BUT BEYOND the budget pro-
cess, which is well in hand, re-
cruiting, which is best left to
lower administrative levels, and
internal University coordinating,
which has made great strides
through the device of the Aca-
demic. Affairs Advisory Council,
there are at least two higher levels
of possible operation.
There is room for much more
work on the questions of where
we want to go and how we are
going to get there. And, indeed,
these two questions can be thought
out either in terms of numbers of
students and faculty and dollars
and buildings needed for their
maximum utilization or in terms
of definition and evaluation of
more cosmic goals and ideals to
justify the existence of the Uni-
versity of Michigan.
How many faculty and how
Michigan MAD
By ROBERT JOHNSTON
many classrooms and laboratories
and books will be needed in 1980
for how many students? is a pri-
mary question. What are some of
the less basic things that stu-
dents and faculty will be doing
with their time (such as doing re-
search, filling up housing, playing
tennis, or whatever) that will have
to be provided for? Is a more
complex one.
Then, at the next level, the
questions are rephrased. How
should present, traditional pat-
terns of classroom and lab ac-
tivity be modified so that learn-
ing goals, however broadly we
should chose to define them, can
be reached? And, beyond the
learning process, what other goals
do we wish to strive toward with-
in larger concepts of university
purpose?
WHAT ROLE, for instance,
should the scientist-researcher
play in the social harnessing of
his work? Elinor Langor of Science
magazine contended in a recent
book review for The Nation that
any role that presently exists is
pretty meaningless. Here is fer-
tile ground for social involvement
and leadership operating on more
plausible philosophies of respon-
sibility and authority than the
teach-in movement.
Or, similarly, how hard should
the university. as the dispenser,
among other things, of the means-
to-get-ahead, press for more
equitable availability of these
means, for a more balanced na-
tional investment in human re-
sources among all social classes?
These are questions the Univer-
sity community ought to expect
Allan Smith to start asking and
proposing some tentative answers
to. And, if he can master in
eight weeks all that Heyns has
brought to the job in five years,
there is grounds for thinking that,
given a few more, Smith will be
heard from.
AT THE SAME time, Smith has
a right to expect some response
from the great nether regions of
the big 'U'. It is of no use to holler
in the dark, for nothing is going
to happen either to our thousand-
year-old concepts of education or
our too-new and too cold-blooded
concepts of administering it un-
less someone can get a little talk,
some dialog if you will, going on
the subject.
It is only in this give-and-take
and testing of ideas and theories
that new and viable responses to
new problems can be worked out
and implemented. When Smith
says either publicly or privately
that the literary college is edu-
cationally and administratively a
mess and asks why we don't do
such and such about it, and lit-
erary college faculty stir up hell
fire and damnation in response
but add that such and such else
might not be a bad idea, only
then will real life and vitality be-
gin to flow back into this in-
stitution.,
While the Viet Nam sign in the
Fishbowl was obnoxious and taste-
less in its presentation, at least
it raised some issues that an aw-
ful lot of people found it worth-
while to debate at length on the
spot. (How long since you as a
faculty member or student had a
real fight going in one of your
classes, a really provacative fight
that made you think about some
things you usually try not to?)
ADMINISTRATORS are taught
from their cradles to avoid con-
troversy like the plague. Smith
could do no better than to stir
some up around here. And it be-
hooves the rest of the University
to pay some attention. While the
large and growing numbers of
students and faculty make unified
positive action impossible, vigorous
if disorganized responses are still
in order. From such interaction,
the trappings of the multiversity
might be undermined and forced
out of the picture, and the Uni-
versity might deal more in quali-
ties of intellectual health and
vitality and less in the mass out-
put of the computer-scholar-
publisher.
Smith could do no better than
administer the University a good
slap in the face.
OVERHEARD on the Diag yes-
terday:
Harlan's back!
So?
He's the President!
Oh.
Time for Hard Questioning?
4
*
Viet Nam
War:**In Defense of Diversity
First of a Two Part Series
By MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH
D~CUSSION of the war in Viet
Nam seems to have aroused
considerable emotionalism. Rarely,
however, has it produced much
enlightenment.
To some supporters of the war,
its opponents are all appeasers
and, worse yet, communists.
To some of its opponents, those
who support the effort in Viet
Nam are fascists and militarists.
It may be too late to retrieve
rational discussion. Stanley Millet.
one of the professional partici-
pants in the conference here, has
said that "terror on our side" ac-
counts for all that goes on in
South Viet Nam. Indeed.
Debate on the issue, far from
generating enlightment, seems
only to have generated confusion
--and, in confusion, many have
concluded that something, any-
thing, else must be better than
the present United States policy.
ONE EXAMPLE of the murky
quality of the "dialogue" which is
taking place over our Viet Nam
policy is the following, by now an
old, familiar charge:
"The United States is violating,
both militarily and politically, the
Geneva Agreements of 1964 in
South Viet Nam-by sending
troops, and by refusing to hold
the agreed-upon elections."
This, unfortunately, is less than
accurate. As Prof. Bernard Fall, a
French-born professor at Howard
University who has spent years in
Viet Nam and has an intimate
knowledge of the Vietnamese,
points out, from 5000 to 6000
hard-core guerrillas, the elite of
the Vietminh, went underground
in the South in 1954 after the
agreement was signed and then
began terrorist attacks.
(The agreements had called for
a regrouping of all Vietminh
forces in the North.)
Prof. Fall also notes that be-
tween 1954 and 1956, the North
Vietnamese increased their regular
army units from 7 to 20 divisions.
(The agreements had called for
a freeze on troop strength.)
AND, ON JULY 21, 1954, Walter
Bedell Smith, the U.S. under sec-
retary of state, declared at the
Geneva talks during discussion of
the final agreement that the
United States was "not prepared
to join in a declaration by the
conference such as ishsubmitted."
He added that the U.S. would
"refrain from the threat of or
use of force to disturb" the agree-
ments, but he added that we
would "view any renewal of the
aggression in violation of the
aforesaid agreements with grave
concern and as seriously threaten-
ing international peace and se-
curity."
In short, Smith's statement
warned that we would oppose any
such aggression.
THE ULTIMATE significance of
such misconceptions about the war
lies not in the particular aspects
of the actual situation in Viet
Nam which they obscure. What is
important is that they demon-
strate how complex-and how mis-
understood-United States policy
in Viet Nam is.
But discussion of our policy is
inadequate without an underlying
that our way is the only way,
that our conceptions of "freedom,"
"democracy" and "free enterprise"
are suited not only to our coun-
try, but' to all countries.
We have thus regularly asserted
a divine mission on earth, and, on
occasion, have therefore commited
such virtuous acts as our refusal
to aid India's Bokhara steel mill
because it is not operated by pri-
vate enterprise.
But slowly the U.S. has turned
from this belief, as difficult to
maintain in theory as it is to en-
force in practice; and were are
turning toward a policy of di-
versity.
THE FUNDAMENTAL thrust of
U.S. policy-and, indeed, of all
policy-is to preserve order amid
change and change amid order.
We feel that change, to be mean-
ingful and lasting, requires
healthy, stable and independent
governments of all kinds, and we
realize that this can happen only
in a world of diversity.
There is a definite difference
between internal change and ex-
ternal subversion, and our policy
has, gradually to be sure, made
that distinction.
To that end, the U.S. has aided
the Egyptian, Mexican and Bo-
livian revolutions for some time,
and is now providing similar as-
sistance to East European nations
such as Poland and Yugoslavia-
even though their political and
economic systems hardly resemble
our own.
Gaullism, in France and else-
where, is the direct outgrowth of
our Marshall plan, an earlier at-
tempt to promote viable and in-
dependent nations. It, too, dem-
ontsrates the success of our policy
of diversity, not its failure.
And when we accept the need
for diversity, we accept the need
to protect it.
THIS IS WHY we are involved
in Viet Nam: the war in Viet Nam
is the result of a concerted pro-
gram of "outside interference" of
the North Vietnamese and Com-
munist Chinese which would end
diversity and put their own hege-
mony in its place.
The great issues of the war are,
then, the role South Viet Nam's
neighbors are playing in the con-
flict and, second, what must be
done to oppose this attempt to
destroy diversity in Asia.
It has often been said that the
Viet Cong and their political arm,
the National Liberation Front, are
indigenous, enjoy popular support
and so on and so forth.
Many critics of current United
States Viet Nam policy have,
nonetheless, flatly rejected the
notion that the struggle there is
primarily a civil war. These cri-
tics instead say North Viet Nam
dominates the "civil war."
IN "VIET NAM, the Making of
a Quagmire," David Halberstam,
The New York Times' correspon-
dent there for two years, says:
"The new Indochina war (after
1954) was not a spontaneous up-
rising from the South. It was part
of a systematic and calculated
conspiracy on the part of the
Communist government in Hanoi
to take over the South."
Prof. Hall-who relied heavily
on sources of information and
judgment independent of the U.S.
government-says in his writings,
primarily in Pacific Affairs, that
although the National Liberation
Front was set up in December,
1960, it never disclosed the names
of its alleged leaders until 1962,
indicating its "wholly artificial
character."
"Even in 1962, the NLF bother-
ed to announce only 30 of its 82-
member committee," Fall adds.
PROF. FALL, in a lecture at the
University last year, also demon-
strated the remarkably close cor-
relation between Viet Cong bases
in the South and the areas cited
in North Vietnamese complaints
of alleged Geneva Treaty viola-
tions to the International Control
Commission.
This cooperation is hardly one
way, however. The New York
Times reported in April that the
appeal of 17 neutral nations to be-
gin peace talks was believed to
have been sent to the Viet Cong
via Hanoi.
Fully three-quarters of the new
infiltrees entering the South from
the North are, according to de-
fense department experts, known
to have come from the North.
North Viet Nam, it is also known,
presently has an entire division of
its army in the South. Elements of
two others are strongly suspected
to be present.
Of course, an excellent way to
discover how the North Vietnam-
ese are involved in South Viet
Nam is simply to ask them. The
East may sometimes he devious,
but it is rarely inscrutable.
Writing in the Belgian com-
munist party newspaper Red Flag,
in 1959, Ho Chi Minh said, "We
are building socialism in Viet Nam
... in only one part of the coun-
try, while the other part we still
have to direct and bring to a
close the middle-class democratic
and anti-imperialist revolution."
In September 1960, Ho told the
Lao Dong (Communist) Party
congress meeting in Hanoi of the
need "to step up the socialist
revolution in the North and, at
the same time, step up the nation-
al democratic people's revolution
in the south."
After similar exhortations by
armed forces commander-in-chief
Vo Nguyen Giap and other wor-
thies, the congress decided to
"carry out the socialist revolution
in North Viet Nam" and to "lib-
erate South Viet Nam."
In November of that year, Hanoi
announced the creation of the
National Liberation Front.
A DOCUMENT dated January
26, 1961, found in August of that
year in Ban-Me-Thuot in South
Viet Nam on the body of a Viet
Cong cadre, declared:
"In implementation of the de-
cision of the Third Congress of
the Lao Dong Party, the NLF was
set up to unify the revolutionary
struggle, to overthrow the U.S.-
Diem regime, to establish a popu-
lar government of democratic
union and bring about the peace-
ful reunification of the country.
The revolution for the liberation
of the South would never succeed
if the (Lao Dong) Party were not
directing it." (Emphasis added.)
In April, 1961, Truong Chinh, in
Hoc Tap, the Lao bong theoretical
studies journal, evidently evaluat-
ing the results of the 1960 con-
gress' decisions, declared he was
optimistic about overthrowing the
southern government:
He added, "North Viet Nam is
being rapidly consolidated and
strengthened, is providing good
support to the South Vietnamese
revolution, and is serving as a
strong base for the struggle for
national reunification."
In 1963, Hoc Tap declared that
the South Vietnamese "are well
aware that North Viet Nam is the
firm base for the southern revolu-
tion and the point on which it
leans, and that our party is the
steady and experienced vanguard
unit of the working class and
people and is the brain and factor
that decides all victories of the
revolution." (Emphasis added.)
THE NORTH Vietnamese are
rather forthright. They are un-
equivocal in declaring that the
war in South Viet Nam is an at-
tempt by them "to unify the
revolutionary struggle, to estab-
lish a popular government of
democratic union and bring about
the peaceful(?) reunification of
the country."
And they are equally clear in
saying that "North Viet Nam is
the firm base for the southern
revolution and the point on which
it leans . . . and is the brain and
factor that decides all victories
of the revolution."
In short, this is the famous
"war of liberation" which, far
from being an attempt by people
within a country to change their
environment and their body poli-
tic, is instead a North Vietnamese
effort to "direct and bring to a
close the middle-class democratic
and anti-imperialist revolution."
AND THIS aggression, planned
and guided from Hanoi and Pe-
king, effects not only South Viet
Nam, but also the Philippines,
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and In-
donesia.
Those who question the im-
portance of diversity need only
listen to Cambodia's Prince Siha-
nouk, who explained in Paris on
July 3 of last year that his coun-
try's neutrality was designed to
allow Cambodia to survive un-
abused after his country's "in-
evitable absorption by the Chinese
dragon."
Prince Sihanouk and other lead-
ers in Southeast Asia have ex-
pressed satisfaction and gratifi-
cation that the U.S. has repeatedly
demonstrated its determination to
resist the attack on South Viet
Nam.
Of course, it is sometimes said
that the war in Viet Nam is a
"civil war." Perhaps. Of course,
Russia, Italy and Germany were
hardly inactive during the Span-
ish Civil War.
But fully to understand the ua-
ture of the South Vietnamese
"civil war," a historical parallel
with the 1961 Bay of Pigs inva-
sion might be instructive.
Discontented with Castro, many
exiles left Cuba and were trained
and outfitted in several small
countries surrounding it, largely
at the behest of the United States.
FINALLY, the U.S. unleashed
these exiles and sent them back
into Cuba to take it over under
the guise of a popular revolution.
This policy was wrong; it was
immoral; it was disruptive; and
it failed.
And just as the 1961 Bay of
Pigs invasion was immoral and
disruptive of diversity, so is the
North Vietnamese and Communist
Chinese direction and support of
the war against South Viet Nam.
Those who disagree with such
an interpretation should, in all
consistency, applaud the attempt-
ed invasion by the U.S. of Cuba
ill 1961.
THOSE WHO DO, however, feel
that South Viet Nam's neighbors
are trying to disrupt diversity in
Southeast Asia should begin to
consider a policy to protect it
there.
TOMORROW: Policies to
protect diversity.
IV
A
t
0i
"Don't Worry, Sam ! The Best Defense
Is A Good Offense"
v /- r
Schuize 's Corner:
The Fishbowl Congress
By JAMES SCHUTZE
HE VIETNAMESE question at
last seems to have been re-
solved. The United States has
agreed to withdraw immediately
undergraduate students and one
associate professor of Greek Love
Poetry. A Marine recruiting officer
present during the early moments
of the impromptu legislative ses-
sion was roundly accused of fas-
A