Seventy-Sixth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS The Assassination: Old Doubts Don 't Die 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MIcH. 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. SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 1967 NIGHT EDITOR: MICHAEL HEFFER Reagan and the U. of Cal.: From Skirmishes to Battle LAST YEAR the California New Left supported the election of Ronald Rea- gan for governor over incumbent Pat Brown. Brown was the "good liberal"; Reagan in many ways an unknown quan- tity, but a good bet to come out swing- ing reaction. The bet was won, and Reagan's first swing was at the "home of New Leftism," the mammoth University of California. Reagan immediately proposed a budget cut, and fired another "good liberal" by the name of Clark Kerr who got in his way. Now, in light of radical opposition to both Kerr and Brown, many are grum- bling that the U. of California disaster is a "victory for both the far right and the far left." They are correct. The far right has flexed its muscles. But the "victory" for the far left is a little less obvious, and needs some ex- plaining. The problem with "good liberals" is that they obscure the issues. Whether the election of Ronald Reagan is a "good thing" or not, it has served at least one very real purpose-it has placed the prob- lems of the University of California in easily'definable and tactile terms. WHAT HAVE BERKELEY radicals been demonstrating about for these past years? The university is run like a corporation. Students are assembled as freshmen, are processed through their classes and the campus and come out the other end as finished products. They have no signifi- cant say in their lives on campus, in the classes they take, in the type of institu- tion in which they reside. The University is a corporation. The men who head the universities are also the ones chiefly concerned with the cor- porate aspects of the institutions. The University of Michigan's monetary assets are phenomenal-its property and build- ing worth is in the hundred millions, it supports a town of 70,000, its yearly budg- et runs in the hundred millions. This is a fact of life. But the men who take care of the mon- ey also take care of the education, and the two just don't seem to mix. In the past, financial considerations have come well before student considerations on con- troversial issues such HUAC, the draft, and handling student demands. Where accession to student needs means loss of outside approval, university leaders seem to count the potential donations first. GOVERNMENTAL PRESSURES on the university are huge. The University of Michigan gets over $50 million in re- search grants alone every year, while also depending on Washington for var- ious other forms of aid. The situation at California is much the same. With that in mind, is it surprising that university heads find it difficult to op- pose government policy on the draft or on HUAC? Indeed, as branches of the state government, universities find even the le- gal grounds for opposing Washington often tenuous. The firing of Kerr has made the en- tire situation all too obvious. Though this is the most controversial and best-pub- licized incident of this sort, it is merely a reflection of the type of pressures that are felt by a university president every day. That is why Kerr was known as a good president. Caught in the fantastically dif- ficult position of having to keep his uni- versity going while being asked to make it more than a corporation, he did well by contemporary standards. But things have simply gotten to the point where the best that the situation could offer is not good enough-the situ- ation itself must be changed. IT IS SAID that the Berkeley revolts from 1962 onward have been highly destruc- tive. In absolute terms that is probably so, but in the long run it seems fairly obvious that to change a system one first must recognize the real problems. The Berkeley revolt started people talking about the very nature of the university- not merely about a few isolated flaws. In the same way the long-run effect of the firing of Clark Kerr may be that peo- ple will finally realize just how bad, things are-that a governor can, in fact, have a university president fired. That a university is, in fact, in many ways a branch of the federal government. And that our campuses have degenerated to grey, corporate machines. Clark Kerr was a good man, a good president. But the job of president has disserved the real interests of the univer- sity. Reagan has made the war between the university and the state a declared one the office of the university presi- dency must now change to fight it. It will cost the university a fortune. It may make them unlivable for at least a few years. But our universities are not now autonomous, and until society and the state realize that a university without autonomy is not worth the investment, then their value as institutions must re- main in serious question. -HARVEY WASSERMAN Editorial Director By CAROLE KAPLAN and LEMAR MORRISON IN THE THIRD winter since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a swarm of unan- swered questions surround his death. The many mysterious and unexplainable events regarding the shooting, the glaring discrepancies in evidence collected by "reliable" investigative bodies, and the in- adequacy of the Warren Commis- sion report might make us wonder -wonder about the attempts of those concerned with the assassi- nation to obscure the facts, about the chain of evidence that brings the official solution of the murder into question. From the beginning, Lee Har- vey Oswald was tabbed by the Warren Commission as the sole assassin and plotter. A volumin- ous amount of evidence was cited to support this contention. Admittedly, it is possible to dis- count the testimony of any one >erson if it does not jibe com- pletely with the Warren report. But all of the bits and pieces that havearecently come to light cast some doubt on the theory. THERE IS no record of any of the interrogations of Oswald that took place during his two days in prison. Immediately after the assassination, when Oswald went back to his rooming house, his landlady claimed to have seen a police car stop in front of the house, honk, and move on When police records were checked, the only patrol car unaccounted for at that time belonged to Officer Tip- pet, the policeman who was shot by Oswald a few hours later. Both the cab driver and the landlady have since died. Oswald himself was killed two days after the assassination by Jack Ruby, the owner of the Carousel Club, a dingyrstripteasenightclub. A Dallas lawyer, in fact, said he saw Oswald talking to Ruby at the club about a month before the Dallas tragedy. The WarrentCommission insist- ed that all of the shots were fired from the Texas Schoolbook De- pository where Oswald was em- ployed. However, according to Es- quire, out of 121 eyewitnesses to the assassination, 32 said the shots came from the depository, 38 had no opinion, and 51 said the shots came from a grassy knoll to the right of the motorcade. A man on a nearby railroad tower said he saw a "puff of smoke" rise from the grassy knoll when the shots were fired. A woman reported that before the shots were fired she saw a man carrying what appeared to be a gun case up the slope. An article the autopsy show President Ken- nedy's back wound in a different place than that described by the Warren Commission. Why did FBI men who were present at the autopsy report both a different position and depth of the first wound than was describ- ?d in the commission's report? And with the President's shirt and jacket supporting the doctor and the FBI reports, why has the com- mission not explained the incon- sistency? Most important, why are more than one-third of the documents 'elated to the case, about half of the FBI reports and 90 per cent of the Central Intelligence Agen- vy reports still classified and with- held from the public? Hasn't any- one, including the Warren Com- mission, examined the photo- graphs and X-rays taken at the autopsy?And why didn't the com- mission even request these vital >ieces of evidence during the in- vestigation? WE ARE FORCED to ask our- selves how it could be possible that the Warren Commission pre- pared a report so lacking in thor- oughness. competence and, to a large extent, credibility. Some have expressed the opin- ion that the only possible explana- tion for the inconsistencies in evi- dence and the mysterious occur- rences surrounding the assassina- tion is the existence of a conspir- acy including in its ranks men in powerful positions. These people believe 'that the suppression and disappearance of evidence and the failure of the Warren Commission to seriously consider the possibil- ity of an Oswald accomplice could only be the result of pressure from the highest ranks of government. There is, however, a "conspiracy of silence" operating to prevent the truth from coming to light. It is neither organized nor hidden- it does not need to be. It consists, ' simply enough, of the primary in- stinct of our government officials o avoid embarrassment and con- tradiction of official doctrine at all costs. AND SO the "conspiracy" oper- ates. The men in high positions would much prefer to forget the whole thing than remedy it. The public is expected todremember John Kennedy with pride and sor- 'ow, and not ask embarrassing questions about what happened to him. With Jack Ruby dead and buried and memories fading fast, the Kennedy assassination will, in all likelihood, become the great un- solved mystery of our time. hi 4 in the Saturday Evening Post said that a deputy sheriff raced up the knoll after the shooting and halted an unidentified man who showed Secret Service credentials. Later, the Secret Service said all men were accounted for at the time, and that the unidentified man could not have been a Secret Serv- iceman. ABRAM ZAPRUDER'S famous film footage, recently displayed in Life, shows President Kennedy's head moving backward and to the left after the fatal shot. This suggests that the gunman fired from the right front of the motor- cade, rather than from behind where the depository was situated. The azsertion of the Warren "ommission that there was only one assassin-Oswald-rests on the "single-bullet theory," which claims that the first shot fired went through President Kennedy's neck and hit Texas Governor John Connally. As a commission lawyer said, "to say that they were hit by separate bullets is synonymous with saying that there were two assassins." Oswald's gun simply could not have been fired fast enough, even by the most skilled rifleman, to have pumped two sep- arate shots into the two men in the short time span. The Zapruder film of the assas sination shows only a second be- tween the reactions of Kennedy and Connally, but Oswald's rifle takes more than two seconds to refire. There are, then, two possi- bilities: either both men were hit by the identical bullet, or there were two gunmen and dual shots. The commission accepts the for- mer explanation. However, Conally said, "There is my absolute knowledge . . . that one bullet caused the President's first wound and that an entirely separate shot struck me." IN ADDITION to Connally's dis- sent from the commission's find- ings, there is the matter of the mysteriously undamaged bullet found on "one of the two stretch- ers." If it had been found on Connally's stretcher, it would have been planted there. Doctors testi- fied that more fragments were found in Connally's body than were missing from the unexplained bul- let. Alternatively, if it were found on President Kennedy's stretcher, it could not have passed through him-and the single bullet theory would have been refuted. The War- ren Cdmmission failed to answer the various questions raised by these considerations. More disturbing questions can be posed. Why were tape record- ings of a press interview of the doctors at the Dallas hospital lost? Why did one of the doctors per- forming the autopsy on President Kennedy burn his preliminary notes? Why did a sketch made by one of the doctors who performed Letters: Opposing View on The Silent Slaughter' An American on Viet Nam To the Editor: I WOULD LIKE to make a num- ber of observations on Warren Zucker's views on "The Silent Slaughter." 1. If every conscientious person or group avidly believes in pur- suing what is held to be morally right, I thank Mr. Zucker for prov- ing in his article that the Catho- lic Church at least takes a stand, while other groups remain silent. And judging by the exhaustive "show of power" evidenced con- tinually on this campus, it seems unrealistic to state that a single body such as the Catholic Church has "succeeded in imposing its morality on the remainder of society." 2. Mr. Zucker complains that the causes stated by the ALI would render abortions legal only for causes with "the most severe phy- sical, psychological, and moral reasons." In other words, women who simply don't want to be ,bothered with a pregnancy should have the same rights of termina- tion as the women who have suf- fered deforming diseases during pregnancy or were raped, both through no fault of their own. I BELIEVE the true beauty and essence of conception lies in the correct and natural use of the act -the procreation and continua- tion of the human race. For ma- ture human beings with a sense of responsibility and a pervading spirit of giving, conception is a gift to them-a child, a product of love. To me the real moral dilemma lies in the knowledgible person who attempts to enjoy the pleasures of sexual love while by-passing the end-product. I'm not talking about the sensibility of spacing children for the benefits which will ultimately come to them. I mean those married and un- married women who deliberately plan not to have children, and then futiley seek an abortion when Plan A fails. Plan B is murder. 3. I THINK the AL's ten-year study shows the fruits of their labor and the diligent reasoning behind what constitutes for most conscientious people, grave reasons for legal abortion. How can one delete the primary purpose of love -the child-first by giving it life, and then by taking it away so easily? In every dilemma the gravest reasons must be considered, but what intelligent person could be so selfish as to turn an unwanted pregnancy into a necessary reason for an abortion, obviously because she considered the possibility of getting pregnant impossible? 4. I say that those women who would suffer "the tremendous psy- chological torment that comes with an abnormal or unwanted birth" are without the totality of womenhood which would enable them to perform as a satisfying love partner and as a potential mother. AND TO MR. Zucker who ad- THE ONLY POSSIBLE humane justifi- cation for our presence in Viet Nam lies in the hope that we are wanted there, that the Vietnamese people actually want their country to be made "safe for de- mocracy." This is a doubtful proposition, however. I received a letter early this week from a war correspondent who spent a good deal of time in Viet Nam. Her words were far from reassuring. " MET A LOT of Vietnamese," she wrote, "and they all detest us, with reason. The Daily is a member of the Associated Press and Collegiate Press Service. Subscription rate: $4.50 semester by carrier ($5 by mail; $8 yearly by carrier ($9 by mail). Published at 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich., 48104. Owner-Board in Control of Student Publications, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104. Bond or Stockbolders--None. Average press run-81or0. Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Editorial Staff MARK R. KILLINGSwORTH, Editor BRUCE WASSERSTEIN, Executive Editor CLARENCE FANTO HARVEY WASSERMAN Managing Editor Editorial Director LEONARD PRATT ........ Associate Managing Editor JOHN MEREDIITH ......Associate Managing Editor CHARLOTTE WOLTER ... Associate Editorial Director We have destroyed that country pretty thoroughly . . . The man in the street is a poor peasant (as is 80 per cent of the population) and he is lucky to be alive, not to have been bombed, burned by na- palm or otherwise destroyed. The ones I saw were the uprooted. "I imagine we have made between three and four million refugees, though we have not made proper camps for them nor given them adequate food. So, they get the dread diseases (notably tuberculo- sis), and give their starved, excess chil- dren to orphanages. There is only one children's hospital in Viet Nam, in Saigon -overcrowded, two and three to a bed, like everywhere else. "I heard Julian Bond speak in St. Louis and he made a wonderful phrase: 'It's not our job to make the world safe for de- mocracy but to make American democra- cy safe for the world.' That's it, in a nut- shell. "The only real way to help is to stop this ghastly, insane and evil war ... We have to make ourselves heard, or else we are sanctioning it, by silence, through cowardice. The vietnamese people long for us to go. Quickly and forever...' -KATHRYN GLEBE "WIE ARE SPENDING too much on our vocates abortion to these women who seek a way out from their so- cial and economic situations: if a couple cannot support the basic reasons for which they married, they have no business getting married. If a child would inter- fere with a couple's social life, what really. would they stand to gain from their shallow social worlq? -Janice M. Guerriero, '68L Sesqui-scene To the Editor: BEFORE ANY SORT of judg- ment is passed on "Flaming Creatures" and the directors of Cinema Guild, some examination should be made of two comparable problems within our university community, both of which concern the citizens of Ann Arbor and so- ciety at large as well as ourselves. In each case, the critical terms to be used in making an evaluative determination are decency, self -in- dulgence, vulgarity, and-obscenity. President Hatcher's Sesquicen- tennial is vulgar, but not obscene. As this is simply a matter of bad taste, not of moral turpitude, the whole affair should be quietly ig- nored and avoided. The Business Administration School's proposed Hall of Fame, however, is obscene. As there is no evidence in the proposition of any redeeming social value, but rather candid pandering to the basest of unnatural desires, the plans for this gilt brothel of Mer- cantile Mecca should be confis- cated and destroyed, and its shameless advocates and purveyors incarcerated. Looked at in the perspective of these two matters, and judged by what has been said about it re- cently, one can speculate that "Flaming Creatures" may indeed have been vulgar; it may have been self-indulgent and an oc- casion for self-indulgence; or it may even have been decent in its final intentions. CERTAINLY AT ITS very worst it can have been no less edifying than the Sesquicentennial must be. And the movie, at any rate, would have lasted no more than two hours, whereas our Sesqui- orgy will last all year, and the Temple of Greed might stand a decade or more! by Shister) is, to say at least, in- complete. Briefly and in part, Shister failed to point out: that the con- text in which all remarks were made was a two-hour forum dis- cussion of all the legal issues in- volved; that statements made by Professor Sandalow on which Shis'cr focused his article ac- counted for only five to ten min- utes of the discussion; that San- dalow spoke not necessarily as a faculty member, but rather as an individual in an open discussion between various law professors and students; that Professors Israel and Kamisar (and several stu- dents) took somewhat more "con- servative" stands on issues raised. The result of these omissions in Shister's article is to present an inaccurate and biased picture of what actually was done and said at the Law School yesterday. IT WAS A PICTURE out of con- text. And, although many atnthe Law School agree with the Daily's editorial views on the matter of the University's failure to support the Cinema Guild, such editorial views should neither appear nor be supported under the guise of purely objective news reporting. -Robert Flaherty -Sharon White Two Generations To the Editor: CONCERNING Mr. Whit Hillyer's letter in The Daily of January 13, I have several comments. Mr. Hillyer's concept of educa- tion, and, in particular, the con- temporary college student, exem- plifies the "over 30" attitude which the Berkeley radicals remind us not to trust. Logically implicit in his evalua- tion of the purpose of college as getting an education and making the best grades possible is the idea that education is somehow inex- tricably related to the achievement of grades. This relation has yet to be made clear to me. NEXT, what does "guts" have to do with the position that the Viet Nam war and ranking are intrin- sically wrong. The depth of hu- manistic sentiment in that state- ment astounds me. Is he using his "guts" in so tactfully calling us paranoids? If this is truly his opinion of me I cannot blame him for his polemicism; but could he blame me for becoming an ac- tivist? His letter shows that not only does our generation have differ- ent ideals than his did, but that, unfortunately, he is completely un- able toucommunicate with us - to assauge our fears, to help 'us distinguish between right and wrong to explain the ambiguities of a world he says we must ,ac- cept. FINALLY, in imploring those who cannot accept this University to go elsewhere, he is merely para- phrasing the president of one of the great contemporary citadels of anti-intellectualism, Bob Jones University. Replying to a charge that Bob Jones was not conducted democratically, he declared, "If you don't like it here, you can pack your dirty duds and hit the four-lane highway." -William Pardon, '69 4 I " de \jr rry + irfi i I r +~ 11..1 .. I j : C, & M ,mil awtr