Seventy-Sixth Year
EDTED AX)D MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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Peace Corps, I:. New
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM
The Hornberger Referendum:
SGC's Web of Confusion
ITH ITS BACK to the wall and im-
mersed in red tape, Student Govern-
ment Council could only stand by last
Thursday night while Council member
Lee Hornberger forced an ambiguous and
meaningless referendum onto the Novem-
ber 17 ballot. Hornberger was obviously
too busy winning a victory to initiate
a motion that would provide a compre-
hensive view of how the student body
feels about U.S. policy in Viet Nam.
The Council members' hands were tied
because Hornberger had collected 1000
signatures for a yes-no referendum ask-
ing whether "the student body of the
University of Michigan is in basic agree-
ment with the administration's' policy on
Viet Nam." According to its rules, SGC
must "either adopt (petition-backed) leg-
islation or submit it to the student body
for their approval at the next regularly
scheduled election." Thus, no matter how
SGC voted on it, the referendum had to
be considered, either by SGC or the stu-
dent body.
The wording of the referendum has nu-
merous levels of meaning and it is quite
probable that some students will be vot-
ing on whether they themselves feel the
government policy is bad while others
will vote yes or no on the exact motion,
which asks whether they feel the student
body supports the government's policy.
Thus, due to the ambiguity of the word-
ing, the results of the poll will be mean-
ingless.
If the student does interpret the ref-
erendum as asking whether he personal-
ly supports the government's policy, he
will have then to totally agree or totally
disagree with government policy instead
of being able to qualify his opinions.
THE ORIGINAL PLAN of Hornberger
and Council member Steven Daniels
was to have a preference poll on specific
political and military alternatives.
Daniels had been working with a mem-
ber of the Department of Social Re-
search to develop a referendum which
would delve into the feelings of the stu-
dent body on Viet Nam and he was sup-
ported by Hornberger, who later aban-
doned this poll for his new referendum.,
The student would have been able to
vote on several alternatives: should the
United States withdraw now from Viet
Nam without conditions, or try to reach
a negotiated settlement without letting
the Viet Cong participate in the negotia-
tions or in any South Vietnamese gov-
ernment, or carry on the war until the.
Viet Cong and North Vietnamese give up
their attempt to take over South Viet
Nam?
In this poll, if a person disagreed with
U.S. policies, he could indicate how he dis-
agreed; in the Hornberger poll, this will
be impossible.
SGC CAN TAKE ONE of two paths to
extricate itself from the present con-
fusion. Two-thirds of SGC members covld
support an additional motion in the form
of a preference poll which would be plac-
ed on the ballot in addition to Horn-
berger's referendum, os SGC could initiate
a preference poll in the future, which
would not be placed on the ballot. Un-
fortunately, it seems probable that the
first method will be adopted, triggering
off more confusion on the issue.
The preference poll, along with Horn-
berger's ambiguous motion on the same
ballot, would tend to confuse the voters.
While there could be no true comparison
of results because of the ambiguity of
Hornberger's referendum, the day after
the election partisans on both sides would
find some way to claim victory. In addi-
tion, conservatives might vote only on
the Hornberger referendum and liberals
on the preference poll, rendering the
results even more useless.
The second path-to conduct in the fu-
ture (not on the ballot) a student opinion
poll-is the best one for SGC to follow.
This idea has been forwarded by SGC
member Christopher Mansfield, who pro-
posed "a responsible student opinion poll
by a professional organization or other
methods."
ALTHOUGH THIS is still not ideal, it is
the only way to untangle the web of
problems that Hornberger's referendum
has produced. It is unfortunate that for
every two steps forward, SGC must take
three backwards.
-HARRIET DEUTCH
WHEN THE Peace Corps brought
me to Washington for four
days last summer to put together
The Peace Corps News, I was
dared not to become blindly en-
chanted with the organization--
both in theory and in practice. So
I cultivated cynicism.
I lost.
For the Peace Corps has man-
aged, if only on a small scale
(10,000 or so Volunteers around
the world is something like one
per 300,000 people) to unite two
of the most potent forces in our
world: the restlessness of youth
in general and the goallessness
and lack of identity of American
middle class youth in particular,
and the overwhelming drive of
nations around the world for
"civilized development."
Through uniting these two
forces, a new mode of interna-
tional relations has been de-
veloped. It derives its strength and
success from its ability to tran-
scend ideology, to be nonpolitical
-to enunciate and work toward
goals and to establish a system
of human relationships that says
and does more than provide a
context for territorial, national-
istic squabbles or ideological de-
bates that end up like religious
wars.
The technique is the same one
being used by Students for a
Democratic Society in Cleveland
and Newark, and being attempted
by the poverty program people in
other cities: organizing the poor.
The Peace Corps calls it commun-
ity development.
IT IS SLOWLY being recog-
nized that for an underdeveloped
country to move toward its ideals
of economic advancement does not
involve just building factories and
dams and roads and making the
peasantry productive. It means
the development of a whole new
social system within each country.
And such a system cannot be
handed to a country and every-
body told to line up within it in
the proper order. The new social
order must be brought into being
by the people themselves, for they
are the ones who are the system,
who have to make it work.
It is useless for a few Volunteers
to go into a small village some-
where and build in a few days a
badly-needed aqueduct. The vil-
lagers, not understanding either
the aqueduct or the controlled and
organized efficiency with which it
was built, will simply ignore it.
Not only do they have to build it
themselves, they have to put to-
gether the organization and un-
derstanding a m o n g themselves
needed for that building job.
And all this has to be pre-
dicated on a conviction that they
can do it and should do it.
So one is faced with a massive
teaching job. In the United States,
teaching and change are so in-
stitutionalized that we are like
dogs constantly learning new
tricks-the most important part of
the process,' learning, we take
more or less for granted.
Learning is by no means in-
stitutionalized in most of the other
countries of the world, so the
Peace Corps Volunteers have to
start from a very literal and dis-
mal beginning. At least, however,
they seem to have found the right
road.
IN THE BARRIOS of Latin
American cities the poor are be-
ginning to learn how to do for
themselves and demand from their
local and national governments
what has always been successfully
denied them till now.
Eventually, Peace Corps officials
admit, this is going to cause trou-
Michigan MAD
By ROBERT JOHNSTON
ble-i.e. revolution, maybe or may-
be not bloodless--but Peace Corps
projects have been sufficiently In-
nocuous and nonpolitical that no
one has paid much attention to
them yet.
They don't start by demanding
votes and land and power through
marching, revolting or whatever,-
they start by instilling a sense of
personal worth and importance
and value on a local level, parlay
these attributes into some organi-
zation capable of working ration-
ally toward defined if modest
goals, taking the first accomplish-
ments and building on them and
so on.
Of course they've hardly gotten
to the first "and so on" in most
places yet, but they will.
It is the peculiar quality of
political non-involvement, a feel-
ing that politics and ideology and
East vs. West isn't really very
important, that provides the Peace
Corps with one of its special
strengths, and allows it to get
away with all that it has and to
inspire tremendous local feeling
wherever it goes.
While President Johnson's Ma-
rines were overrunning the Do-
minican Republic recently, Peace
Corps Volunteers, protected by
the people they had been working
with, remained behind the rebel
lines, many of them working in
rebel hospitals patching up the
U.S. Marines' victims.
United States youth, in their
search for something beyond rou-
tine American middle class numb-
ing experiences, has taken the
Peace Corps to heart. The culture
shock and subsequent establish-
ment of cross culture identifica-
tion provides a depth of emotional
involvement that produces a ma-
turity and sophistication that
lend some more considerable
meaning to life than is found in
suburban living.
AND THE idea has proved to be
a poular one. At home it is being
imitated by the poverty program.
Abroad there are several coun-
tries, India among them, that are
enlisting youth for service at
hone, similar to our Job Corps.
Putting a country's youth to work
in the field can begin to mold the
great, unorganized and unproduc-
tive masses in an underdeveloped
country into a growing and func-
tioning society. It will also begin
to move a large segment of the
population into effective positions.
In India tens of thousands of
youth go through college and then
are unable to get jobs commen-
surate with their abilities, so that
the state gets no return for its
investment in their education, and
the students get no return for
their time and trouble. Several
years of service among the poor
would begin to create the type of
economic and social base needed
for jobs to open up at upper levels
of management and government.
This sort of thinking at an in-
ternational level creates a new
context for international relations.
It's more than the glib "people to
people" cliches that spring up
when the Peace Corps is discussed.
It is a belief in the essential worth
of the human being-anywhere-
and in his potential self-impor-
tance and self-recognition and im-
portance and recognition within
his society.
It can be characterized, some-
what crassly, as developmental
diplomacy, for it sweeps the whole
rotten world-wide diplomatic sys-
tem aside. It works toward the
development of human and hu-
mane societies, so that when the
African student goes back to his
country after studying in the U.S.
and experiences "culture shock"
in reverse as Eric Sevareid has
put it, he sees through new eyes
"the boredom, triviality, prejudice
and crushing conformity of tribal
life."
PEACE CORPS youth have
fired the opening shots in a
world-wide war on poverty; per-
haps the best sign of success is
that they return home feeling
they have received more educa-
tion than they have given-a sure
sign of a good educational process
for both sides.
Many look on the Peace Corps
as a university. Volunteers claim
it provided them what universities
should but don't, "experimental
learning; mechanisms for per-
sonal involvement in decision-
making responsibility; and a
world-view."
Perhaps, in fact, the Peace
Corps could provide some general
lessons on how to make far more
effective use of the energies and
enthusiasms of youth, both at
home and abroad, than any other
vehicle of involvement anyone has
yet come up with.
It's a critical mass combination
of "verve, confidence and high
good humor" with a pretty realis-
tic understanding that, as Vice-
President Humphrey said, "You
don't really have to save the
world, just start saving the home
town."
(Friday: The Peace Corps
Volunteers at home)
*
4
4
"I'm Beginning To Think They Don't Want Us"
jj f,
R ay _ F
0~96%
Xo R~p
Letters: GROUP Rebuttal
To the Editor
AM disturbed with the current
SGC election campaigning. I
have heard distortions leveled by
REACH toward GROUP. As an
elected SGC member, I can no
longer remain mute and what fol-
lows will be an attempt to inject
some rationality into the cam-
paign.
SGC prior to last semester's
election was an ineffectual, stag-
nant organization. All they did
was talk, pass paper resolutions
and talk more. Then enter the
five elected members of GROUP.
While I will certainly not attribute
the entire change in SGC to
GROUP members I do know that
SGC is finally DOING something.
And I do know that GROUP mem-
bers were very instrumental in
this revitalization process. For
example:
1) A carefully researched docu-
ment was prepared on the Univer-
sity Discount Bookstore. Follow-
ing the establishment of student
support (13,000 signatures) the
proposal is now in the hands of
the OSA, I am convinced that stu-
dents have not heard the last
about it.
2) An intensive exploration of
the Housing situation with efforts
now being made for an 8-month
lease, and establishment of a non-
profit co-op housing project which
could result in 30 per cent rent
reduction from current prices.
3) Efforts to open communica-
tion channels between Regents
and students and administration'
and students and to include stu-
dents in the decision making pro-
cess of this University.
4), An acceptance of SGC to con-
cern itself with Off-campus issues
such as Civil rights and Apartheid.
SGC must concern itself with is-
sues directly or indirectly ,related
to students.
IN ALL the. above areas GROUP
was instrumntal Four GROUP
members initiated the Bookstore
proposal and served as co-chair-
men. A GROUP member is chair-
man of the Off Campus Housing
Advisory Board. Furthermore,
GROUP members have been work-
ing with members of the State
Legislature and will speak at the
hearings to be held on Campus
Wednesday, November 10. In short,
GROUP has done much.
And yet REACH makes allega-
tions that SGC should have done
more research into the bookstore
proposal. Does REACH know that
four months were spent on the
research? Have they read the 20-
page report? REACH centers its
entire campaign around the need
for research yet gets a grade E
for its knowledge of the Bookstore
Report. One must know what to
criticize before criticizing.
I fear students are being misled.
REACH is a well organized effort
to elect members to SGC, and
nothing more. The emphasis of
their campaign has been a public-
relations approach more suitable
to Winter Weekend. SGC is not
involved in advertising, its pur-
pose is government. REACH be-
lieves SOC should not be involved
with off-campus Issues and in the
same breath claims to represent a
diverse range, of student senti-
ment. How can this be?
All candidates make grandiose
claims. Claims of research, com-
munication, diplomacy with the
Regents and administration. But
few have any suggestions for ac-
tion after the research and diplo-
macy. It is easy to make claims,
for REACH is new. But GROUP
has done more than make claims
-they can point their finger to an
increasingly effective student gov-
ernment.
-Mickey Eisenberg, '67, SGC
The Verdict of History
F ONLY ONE LESSON should have been
learned from the Nuremberg trials, it
is that there is no excuse for blind sub-
servience to irrational leadership, no ex-
cuse for mass murder in the name of
duty or ignorance, no excuse for failure
to condemn these outrages.
Unfortunately, it appears that once
again the lessons of history have been
forgotten. There seem to be some who feel
that blame for immoral acts may be
transferred to some enigmatic higher au-
thority, and that one is not an accomplice
to murder if one does not actually pull
the trigger.
A few days ago research scientists at
the University of Pennsylvania, when
confronted with the evidence that they
were helping to develop agricultural poi-
sons that could eventually be used to kill
large numbers of people in Viet Nam by
poisoning rice crops, could only reply that
they were not responsible.
CONSIDER THESE COMMENTS from an
article of a few days ago in the stu-
dent newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian:
"Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupe, director of
the University's Foreign Policy Research
Institute, said yesterday that classified
research done by the Institute last year
was approved by high-placed 'members
of the administration,' and that he had
nothing to do with it."
"According to Strausz-Hupe, University
groups such as the FPRI are not respon-
sible for their contracts, and neither are
their directors. According to his informa-
tion, he said, contract approval is the re-
sponsibility of the University's Contract
Bureau."
Editorial Staff
"Oliver Grennan, head of the Bureau,
told the Daily Pennsylvanian that he and
his organization were only 'paper push-
ers' and involved agencies such as the
FPRI were responsible for security and
classification."
If these men are not to blame, then
who is? Perhaps the president of the uni-
versity, or the Department of Defense,
or, even, the President of the United
States. The whole argument is more than
vaguely reminiscent of that used by Eich-
mann at his trial in Israel three years
ago.
LET US PURSUE this line of reasoning
for a while, as it is not too unrealistic
considering the state of American for-
eign policy today.
The Department of Defense, or more
correctly, the Army, did indeed commis-
sion the development of the agricultural
poisons and provided the money for the
research project. Undoubtedly they con-
ceived the use of such poisons as fully
justified in the light of the general bru-
tality of the war in Viet Nam, and the
urgent directives from above that the
U.S. must win.
President Johnson, in turn, as one of
the major architects of the war, must be
fully aware of the methods being used
in its prosecution. It is well known that
the President plots out each day's tar-
gets in North Viet Nam over his break-
fast.
However, depicting the President as the
sole instigator of mass murder does not
rest on the most logical grounds. It is
about as logical to say that the research-
ers at the University of Pennsylvania are
solely responsible for the deaths of the
thousands of Vietnamese who will eat
the poisoned rice, or who will starve try-
ing to avoid it.
About 'The System
and the Peace Corps
EDITOR'S NOTE: Peter Mc-
Donough is a graduate student
in political science who spent
1961-63 as a Peace Corps vol-
unteer.
By PETER McDONOUGH
MANY AMONG the bad crowd I
hang with go limp in the face
when my Peace Corps experience
comes up. To the Trots, those
pale Californians, I am a world-
historical laughingstock; and, to
the unreconstructed in SDS, a
strategic fink. Having bought
neither nonviolence nor the dia-
lectic, I am at the very least
uncool and, at best, forgiven.
Likewise, to the few Miasmatic
Leaders of Creeping Fossilism
among my fellow political science
students, the Peace Corps is a kind
of commendable irrelevance: dis-
tracting, career-wise, and ram-
pant with people of less than
transcendent intellect. Empirical
Life is Something Fierce.
The public, too, seems to have
gone through a sequence of am-
bivalencies about the Peace Corps.
The first was responsible anxiety.
What our elders had coped with
catastrophically or indifferently
was not likely to be solved by
dissatisfied Wunderkinds and lurk-
ing virgins.
Then, for a time, we became
successful as well as sincere-the
pride of our parents and the envy
of the cop outs.
NOW, since last winter's pub-
licity about the unhappy ex-PCVs,
the most frequent question is inot
"How did you like it?" but "Is it
true-you can tell me-that the
returned volunteers have a hard
time readiusting?"
service benefits of the Peace Corps
were oversold. After pounding the
pavement for a while, I wrote
out a heroic resume and submitted
it to an employment agency.
"Well, son," the man said, "all
this might get you into heaven,
but it's not going to get you a
job."
And two years overseas means
two years away from where a lot
of people think it's at. Last March,
about 800 of us had a conference
in Washington. Harry Belafonte
had to scrounge to find a decent
number who knew the words to
"We Shall Overcome."
THEN THERE IS the sheer
Wha? of it all. One volunteer gave
a talk to a women's club about
his work in Ethiopia. Afterwards,
a little old lady came up to him
and said, "Thank God you weren't
in Africa."
We have our Loser Birds too.
Another volunteer I know did
nothing for two years but hoard
incredible souvenirs ("You may
not believe it, but this doormat
was painted by an eight-year-old
kid-eight years old!-and it
glows in the dark"), have pictures
taken of himself in pitch helmet
and putees, and write Tarzan
stories for his hometown news-
paper.
But then there are the genuine
articles-those who after, seeing
how slow or unpredictably things
grind and change are still, ir-
redeemably, thankfully, impatient.
The Peace Corps experience it-
self is not, of course, something
you write "wish-you-were-here"
postcards about.
The training-which nowadays
is better, I suppose, if not livelier
OVERSEAS was varied. Some
volunteers performed prodigies of
altruism. Most of us stayed out of
trouble, and became acquainted
with the humbler changes. The
exigencies-the quotidian horror
and the wonderful santity-of,
say, a thousand people per square,
mile with less than 45 bucks a
year apiece may not make you or
break you, for the situation does
not encourage operatic decisions.
But you learn something, though
you may not be able to help: that
you stink just like they do, and
that all the feasibility studies in
the world will not make people
lie down and die.
The social life of the volunteers
is also a matter of interest, if not
of very great concern. A year or
two ago, the Police Gazette pub-
lished something called 'Sex in
the Peace Corps," with flashbulb
pictures that gave everybody that
goosed look.
Sex in the Peace Corps turned
out to be, as it is for most of our
domestic contemporaries, appal-
lingly erratic. At least there was
not an undue proportion, among
the chickies, of roller-derby types
and horsey suffragettes who love
you to change you.
SO, NOW THAT the anti-draft
movement is coming on strong,
the Peace Corps is undergoing a
revival, or is being discovered, as
an option, so to speak, vis-a-vis
the War Corps. There are good
and-in their astonishing, com-
mon sense way - revolutionary
reasons for this.
First, when then Senator Hum-
phrey came up with 'his idea for
a "Youth Corps" as an alternative
to military service, the proposal
was squelched by the Yahoo-
Puritanical Complex - by the
hard-boiled Clydes and the ner-
vous clerks.
Second, the shibboleth of The
System, like the catch-ails of
"class" and "movement" and all
the rest that mean more to the
media than to us, is being re-
examined. "The System?": It is as
barbarous and unfelicitous a tag
as "behavioralism" or "participa-
tory democracy.
But the system, or the establish-
ment, or whatever, exists. The
Chicago Red Squad patrols the
poverty funds and keeps on trying
to bust our beatnik-nigger-junkie-
homosexual-commie basket cases.
Rusk looks the other way, for
homegrown agitators, while China
looms under his upturned nose
et cetera ad nauseam.
It makes deviants out of our
true dissenters, and pariahs out
of our leviants. But it may not be
so bad. Our pariahs, one or two,
may become prophets.
VERY WELL, the Peace Corps is
part of some system or other. But
there are systems and systems. At
any rate, I am a little veary of
having my political errors cor-
rected by the dedicated radical
who still hasn't coughed up the
$25 he owes me.
The anarcho-populism which
began as a revolt against the,
conventions and the cleverness of
academia ("Original Sin as the
Dependent Variable in ;Prenatal
Alienation") is having to go be-
yond the "I-am-more-alienated-
than, thou" bit, or get caught for
the wrong, the stupid, the point-
or-order crimes.
It is fun but probably beside
the point and= hypocritical to go
after the Johnson ethos on esthe-
tic or strictly moral grounds. It
is the man's genius to be, like
all of us in a way, a rich cornball
who wants to be loved; only more
so. You can offend, but hardly
shame, such people.
IT COULD BE WORSE after all.
Bobby Kennedy is saying what
Stan Nadel, guerrilla Americana,
has been advocating, sort of, for
over a year-that the Other Viet
Nam is, besides Communist bodies,
human. Naturally, Barry the Bad
and YAF-that genteel mishmash
of lynchers and undertakers-
blink and mutter treason.
Thy Peace Corps is recruiting
this week in the basement of the
Union. Refoliate Now!
a
Schuize's Corner: Lost Youth
T AST SUNDAY NIGHT, Paul
tellectual honesty and widelity.
In fact everyone agreed with