Seventy-Sixth Year EDTED AX)D MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Peace Corps, I:. New Diplomacy 0 Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Truth Will Prevail 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. 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