Seventy-Sixth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS The University: Communications Gap Ttt Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN APBOR, Mict. Truth Wil Prevail NEws Pt-oNE-: 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, FEBRUARY 15, 1966 NIGHT EDITOR: LEONARD PRATT Ronney Abandons Principle For Headlines GOVERNOR GEORGE ROMNEY has seemingly advanced his campaign for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination by making the brilliant and radical state- ment that he is. against a Communist conspiracy to destroy the U.S. govern- ment. Romney's declaration came after last week's Senate uproar over Communist speakers at the state's universities. Rom- ney chose the opportunity not to clarify his position on the issues, but simply to get his name in the headlines. It is no secret that Romney is at least interested in the coming presidential race. He has just finished a trip to New Eng- land during which he was treated like a candidate, and during which he acted suspiciously as if he was considering the possibility. IT HAS BEEN NOTED by many sources that although the governor has an ex- cellent liberal record as a governor, he has a major weakness in his lack of knowledge of national and international issues. The problem of Communist speakers, not only at universities, but any where in public, is just such an issue. It is a complicated and often emotional problem which will not be settled by being ignored, or buried under a mass of cliches.' Romney should have used this oppor-- tunity not only to clarify his views on a complicated subject, but also to enlighten the public on the problem. ROMNEY SAID that there is "a differ- ence between providing understanding (of Communism) and permitting the use of facilities and meetings to further the Communist conspiracy." He then said that he "would be in- clined to think that the speeches by Communist historian Herbert Aptheker "would be for the purpose of promoting the Communist party. His past record would indicate that." *He continued by declaring that his comments were not in the category of restricting free speech, and that ulti- mately, the problem would have to be solved by the individual schools involved. HE THUS AVOIDED saying anything that would be damaging to his reputa- tion on the right, the left, or the middle. He avoided saying anything against freedom of speech, while at the same time putting all Communists into a cate- gory by themselves, and saying that it had nothing to do with freedom of speech to deny it to them. Romney is falling more and more into President Johnson's pattern , of keeping his opinions and the facts they are based upon from the people. If he is seriously considering running for the presidency, Romney should re-, sume some of the responsibility that comes with the desire. It is time that he stopped hunting for headlines, and began to give the American people something to think about. HE CAN ONLY DO this by becoming fa- miliar with the issues that are before the American people today, by forming intelligent opinions on them, and by free- ly and clearly expressing these opinions to the public. It can't be done by avoid- ing the issues, or making palid state- ments which say something pleasant to everybody, and, thus, say nothing to anybody. --RICHARD CHARIN .wE HAVE one nearly impos- sible problem at this place," an observer said recently. "It's the gap between the Regents and the administrators on the one hand and the students on the oth- er. And I don't know how to over- come it." The controversy over a Univer- sity-supported bookstore is an ex- cellent example of this difference in outlook, and the "obvious" is- sue, student economic welfare, is in the long run the least signifi- cant aspect of the entire episode. What the Bookstore affair also demonstrated was a problem of the greatest magnitude: a very great communications gap be- tween the Regents and adminis- trators and the students for whom the University is run. A majority of the Regents didn't want to meet with interested students to dis- cuss Vice-President Cutler's report on the bookstore, and they, with the tacit approval of several ad- ministrators, also made it abund- antly clear that no administrator should either. IT IS also, however, abundantly clear that approach to communi- cations, which the Regents and the administration unfortunately did not choose, would have been wise if only from the tactical standpoint. It is unfortunate in- deed that the only group of men in anyone's memory to sit down with students in the august Reg- ents Room to hear student views has been a committee headed by a publicity-hungry state repre- sentative. One wonders if that's what it takes to involve students in their own University. The communications gap ap- pears in fact, pervasive. The Reg- ents rarely see students except for a few formal and largely ceremon- ial gatherings. Students recently criticized the Student Housing Advisory Committee as a "power- less farce" and attacked Cutler and Vice President Pierpont for failing to attend committee ineet- ings. Students have also said that ad- ministration representatives, who do appear, have been unwilling to give them full information and the complete rationale underlying Uni- versity housing policies. A large number of students have started taking courses at the Free University in a demonstration of their relative lack of enthus- iasm for the deficiencies of Uni- versity academic life - which stu- dent steering committees are sup- posed to be improving. WHEN COMMUNICATIONS are impossible or minimal, as they fre- quently have been in this sort of situation, then protest movements of all kinds - pickets outside the Adminstration Building, Student Government Council efforts to register 2000 graduate students in Ann Arbor, criticism in The Daily, legislative snooping and all the rest - become the rule. The Daily, in particular, has been criticized itself for its criti- cism, and for its occasional re- semblance to the Central Intelli- gence Agency. But when normal communications are block- ed, everyone from Voice to SGC to The Daily wonders if a CIA ap- proach is almost the only way to discover what's going on. This, naturally raises administrators' and Regents' suspicions even fur- ther, tensions and demonstrations start and the University acquires something of an air of a Latin American banana republic. If it were possible to manage the University's affairs by ignor- ing students, the gap between them and the Regents and ad- ministrators would be unimport- ant. But it is essential to under- stand the needs and problems of students as completely as pos- sible - and University students know and can discuss those needs and problems better than anyone else. For that reason the present communications gap at the Uni- versity is extremely grave. POWER AND POETRY By MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH As the University's 1962 Reed Report on student affairs says, the student ". . .must be considered a participating member of a 'com- munity of scholars,' with respon- sibilities and opportunities com- mensurate with his capacities. He should be expected to participate fully in decisions affecting his wel- fare." In the last analysis, the University must either believe in the Reed Report or not, and only if it does can it overcome the tre- mendous problem of communica- tions. THE SITUATION may not be completely grim, however. The Regents' proposal on selection of President Hatcher's successor- is wise and full of foresight in its in- clusion of students -- the first time a university has sought stu- dent views on such a question. Neither administrators nor the Regents realize fully how much future student opinion will depend on how meaningful their partici- pation in this decision is. But at the moment, despite its under- standable lack of specifics, the Regents' plan has been extremely encouraging. The Regents now have a great opportunity to add to the new esteem in which they are held by students by establishing a small executive committee of students, faculty and alumni to sit with the Regents and interview presidential candidates. Any other arrange- ment fails to provide for the con- tinuous student - faculty - alumni - Regents interaction which is in- dispensable for a wise decision. Any other arrangement inherent- ly creates a "we-they" feeling in which alumni, student and faculty panels vie for the attention of the Regents and wonder if they are being bypassed. ALL THESE questions - from housing to the selection of a pres- ident -- involve delicate questions of confidence: both secrecy and candor. And these issues call for a good deal of realism from every- one involved, for no one is so noble or so informed as to have a mon- opoly on insight or truth. There is always, of course, a good deal of popularity to the conspiracy theory of the Univer- sity: the idea that administrators and Regents, and occasionally faculty, are constantly scheming to deprive students and each other of what is good and meritorious from the University. The more realistic interpreta- tion to its many problems, how- ever, is the confusion theory. A communications breakdown has deprived each group in the aca- demic community from the full counsel of the others on Univer- sity problems. It is going to be difficult to overcome the com- munications gap, but such decis- ions as the Regents' plan on pres- idential selection give hope that they, administrators, students and faculty will in the future be some- what like Chaucer's Oxford scho- lar who "would gladly learn and gladly teach." "IT IS very tragic," said a letter from an obscure physician printed several days ago in these columns, "that placing the' editorial policy of The Daily alongside the editor- ial policy of The Worker, one would be hard pressed to tell a significant and cohsistent differ- ence." More encouragingly, another ob- server was quoted recently as say- ing, "The Daily has a proud tra- dition as an outstanding news- paper of reportorial fact and edi- torial opinion." But what, after all, Daily? Its new editors chance at defining it. The Daily is, first, -a journal of fact -a newspaper. The idea of The Daily as a newspaper is sim- ple, but deceptively so. Some feel it must be a bulletin board, where the various trivia of student and faculty life ought to be prominent- ly displayed. Some want it to be a thermo- meter, reflecting whatever the temper and temperature of the great mass of the University com- munity might be. Others feel it should be an arm of the Univer- sity's public-relations apparatus and keep foremost in mind what some frustrated bureaucrat thinks the public should know. But The Daily is none of these, because it is, quite simply, a news- paper, and because it must judge and report events according to their significance and ultimate im- portance. Adolf Ochs' dictum is appropriate: "To give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of any party, sect or interest involved." The Daily is also a journal of opinion, found on the editorial page, open to any opinion intelli- gently formed and clearly phrased. A good many seem to think The Daily has an editorial policy - but its only editorial "policy," other than editorials signed by The Senior Editors, is that of a healthy respect for ideas and for perfect competition in the intel- lectual arena. But The Daily is also some- thing of an institution. It is eager and critical - possibly, at times, too much so. It is impatient and outspoken - but aware that "civility is never a sign of weak- ness, and sincerity is always sub- ject to proof." Finally, it is proud to be a great newspaper at a great university, and aware that the fruits of its efforts are bound- ed only by the justness of its cause. USSR' 4 is The want a w Writers' Convictions Hurt Counseling System Needs Revision1 THE JUNIOR-SENIOR counseling office has taken the first step toward freeing upperclassmen completely from counsel- ing. Unfortunately, its new "optional" counseling program indicates only that it has'run out of a way to make the coun- seling system effective in its present, mandatory form. Last year SGC recommended that coun- seling for upperclassmen be made com- pletely optional. The college's administra- tive board, however, apparently felt that something could be done for the student who was not receiving help from counsel- ing. Therefore it instituted its own new program. Under the "optional" program, a stu- dent meets only twice with his counselor: once as a second-semester sophomore and once as a senior. In between these meet- ings he makes out (and changes) his own election card. His counselor will not even know what he is taking until they meet again in his senior year. THE TWO MEETINGS with the counse- lor are the heart of the program. What the counseling office envisions is a new student-counselor relationship which is to spring up out of the freeing of the counselor from approving elections. The question remains, however, what special provisions are being made to foster a clos- er student-counselor relationship? All students are being given the same 15- minute appointments they have been given for some time. While students not taking the optional counseling program are expected to ac- complish about what they normally ac- complish, students who are under the "optional" plan, bringing in their educa- tional goals on a sheet of paper, are ex- pected to develop a closer relationship with their counselor. Acing Editorial Staff MARK R. K LLINGSWORTH, Editor BRUCE WASSERSTEIN, Executive Editor CLARENCE FANTO HARVEY WASSERMAN Managing Editor Editorial Director JOHN MEREDITH.......Associate Managing Editor LEONARD PRATT ...Associate Managing Editor 1ABErTE COHN---------------------PersonneI Director The head of the office fully expects that these appointments will run longer than 15 minutes and, therefore, counse- lors will run behind time. The knowledge that one is running late is not likely to foster the relaxed, interested atmosphere the program's planners had in mind. Then too, the student in this plan, grabbing at a chance for more freedom, is not likely to gain much-if he really needs help. FOR THE MAJOR FAULT of this pro- gram is not the manner in which it attempts to free some students, but its complete lack of effect on those stu- dents who need help, and its lack of ef- fect on the quality of counselors. The head of the office does realize that these two major problems exist, yet, for anoth- er semester, nothing is being done about them. Thus, for the moment, any sophomore with a fairly good idea of what he is tak- ing can hope his counselor will let him join the program. Any sophomore who needs help-good luck, just like under the present system. The counseling office, in its search to change the nature of the student-coun- selor relationship, which is probably a major key to successful counseling, might do well to note that traditionally the most productive relationships on campus are those which develop between interested student and teacher. Not the random se- lection of an advisor of the same field, but the utilization of an existing relation- ship, could be the most effective means of "counseling" students. FOR EXAMPLE, why not set up a small fleet 'of non-professorial counselors whose job is simply to check graduation and concentration requirements of stu- dents? Let each student, then, individ- ually find a professor or even graduate student. with whom he can discuss the field and decide into what area he wants to go and what courses he might take. If the counseling office could find means to openly encourage student-teacher rela- tionships, the whole college would be appreciative. Maybe such a solution is impossible in a large school. Maybe professors do not -zrs- fn hnhnth rn i rif 4 the rnh .mc o By DAVID KNOKE RUSSIAN writers Yuli M. Dan- iel and Andrei D. Sinyavsky were sentenced to seven and five years in prison, respectively, for allegedly slandering the Soviet government in manuscripts smug- gled to the West. In a surprise move before the trial, the Soviet Union permitted a third writer, Valery Tarsis-author of "Ward 7", a novel highly critical of communist politics-to travel to London. Tarsis speculated that he might be branded a triator and not allowed to re-enter the country. Behind these events in the Soviet literary world having far- reaching political implications, is the indication that the slow evo- lution of the Russian government towards a less militant posture has not yet been extended to ac- comodate internal criticism. BOTH Daniel and Sinyavsky led double literary lives. While publishing "acceptable" writings in Soviet literary journals under their own names, they managed to smuggle out harshly critical works to be published in the West under pseudonyms. Daniel's name was Nikolai Arzhak, Sinyavsky's was Abram Tertz. The charge under which the two were tried was covered by Ar- ticle 70 of the Russian Republic's Criminal Code which states that "agitation or propaganda conduct- ed for the purpose of undermining and weakening Soviet power, .;. the dissemination with the same intent of slanderous material be- smirching the Soviet state and social system" is a crime carrying a penalty of six months to seven years in prison. The trial itself was termed "open" by Soviet officials, but newsmen from Western or other Communist countries were not permitted to attend, on t h e grounds that limited courtroom space prevented attendance ex- cept by invited spectators. ACCORDING to press reports by Tass, the Soviet news agency, both the authors, whose identities had been unmasked last fall, de- nied guilt of engaging in anti- Soviet propaganda. Sinyavsky said under cross examination that his novels portrayed disillusionment with the Communist society be- cause, "I wanted to tell people about th is nation's spiritual needs." Daniel likewise said that in his works "there were no po- litical motives." Many intellectuals in the West saw the trial as a test case for literary freedom in the Soviet Un- ion under a post-Stalinist regime. Peter Grose, New York Times correspondant, said that the writ- ers' refusal to plead guilty upon first presentment of the charge may have come as a surprise to the court. "Although there is no real pre- cedent in recent years for this kind of literary trial, where the issue is the specific political effect of what a man has written, it was noted here that Soviet prosecutors generally obtain at least a limited admission of guilt before going to trial," wrote Grose. THERE is a small but very de- termined literary underground in Russia which centers its interests around political and social criti- cism of the communist state. Dur- ing the first days of the trials perhaps three dozen young peo- ple, many students of Sinyavky's World Literature Institute classes, milled around outside the court house, vocally expressing their dis- content with the treatment of lit- erate criticism in the Soviet Un- ion.- An unsigned pamphlet showed up in London, purporting to come from an underground organization called SMOG. The pamphlet said the group's aim is to bring about a renaissance of Russian culture, tion now presumes that individual but under the restrictions of the writers are directly responsible not state-controlled press, "We turn to only for the political content of the Free World which has }more what they write, but for any use than once shown its concern for to which others may put these culture in Russia. Give us help. writings. The defendants had Don't allow young saplings to be steadfastly denied guilt of intent crushed underfoot by h e a v y to undermine Soviet Communism boots." in the smuggled books, but had admitted that the works had been WRITINGS in the Soviet Union used for these purposes, against which receives open approval by their wishes. the government consists of works Free speech is one of the funda- written before the Octobert Revo- mental inalienable rights in West- lution which criticize the czarist ern republics. Freedom to present government, and recent works dissenting views and have them which praise the communist state. heard is seen as essential for the An example of the limits to direction of growth and change in which the Soviet government is public institutions. The Soviet willing to go is the contrasting government's attempts to limit all treatment of two Russia Nobel art to subject matter acceptable prize winners, Boris Pasternak to the current administration's (1958) and Mikhail Sholokov philosophy has reduced art in the (1965). Soviet Union to much lower qual- Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhi- ity than in czarist and early post- vago" was critical of the failures revolutionary times. of Soviet government policies in The dogmatization of any doc- the immediate post-revolution era. trine, whether economic (Marx- The Khruschev government order- ism), biological (the now discred- ed him to refuse to accept the ited Trofim Lysenko's theories of prize, and Pasternak did not go to heredity), or literary (Sholokovish Stockholm for the ceremony. respectablibility) is really detri- Sholokov, on the other hand, mental to the very system that wrote a series of novels on the imposes these guidelines. Don River cossacks during the 1920's and 1930's which did not THE SOVIET "underground' overtly criticize the government. writers' concern with the progress Sholokov's reputation rests on of their country as a whole moves these works written thirty years one to comment that the sentenc- ago and he has become the un- ing of Daniel and Sinyavsky is a titled conservative dean of Soviet step in an unwarranted dogmatiz- letters. ation of literary subject matter. During the awards ceremony in One need only think of the po- Stockholm last fall, when Sinyav- lemics of Thomas Payne during sky and Daniel had been taken the American revolution or the ef- into custody, a number of West- feet Emile Zola's "J'accuse" had ern writers asked Sholokov to en- in arousing France's indignation ter a plea for their release in his over the Dreyfus affair in 1900 acceptance s p e e c h. However, to see that writers have a grea Sholokov did not do this, refusing and immediate influence in the to throw the weight of the recog- direction nof.'social reform. The nrazed literary establishment be- Soviet Union could make it,4 hind the new wave of critical dreams of an earthly paradise writings. more realistic by permitting oper discussion and criticism of poli THE CONVICTION of Sinyav- cies and entertaining constructive sky and Daniel is a precedent-set- suggestions for changes from al ting case. The official Soviet posi- her citizens. OFFSET Editor Replies To Election Critictsm ,l t f e e' d t r d t e l1 e 3 e i h it s is t n R, tt e e Gs e n I- re 11 4 9 4. To the Editor: I shall reply to Mr. Schwartz's letter in The Daily of Sunday, February 12, by reiterating what I said at the Council meeting. Under SGC election rules each candidate may spend only a fixed amount of his own funds on cam- paign expenses. When expenses exceed this minimum the candi- date, especially if he is not run- ning as a member of a political party and thus able to pool funds with several other candidates, is required to seek support from stu- dent organizations. Tutorial Project To the Editor: WE want to express our apprec- iation to the people who so generously contributed to the Tu- torial and Cultural Relations Pro- ject bucket drive Thursday, Feb. 10. The drive netted the grand sum of $843, more than any of us expected. These funds will enable us to sponsor field trips, films, and other projects aimed at giving new experiences to the youngsters in the program. Some of the money will be used to buy books that portray integrat- ed situatiosn and books whose in- } ..,..fi... , A / '.tt '4 ' 1 '; ..L.I A ~ r A