Draft 'Salvage' Operation
To
Educate Past Rejects
LY
S Ir.A 6
:4Ia iti
By STEVE WILDSTROM
Considerable interest and con-
troversy has been aroused by a
plan, announced last week by the
Defense Department, to "salvage"
for military service draft eligible
men previously rejected because
of educational 'deficiencies.
Pentagon manpower experts said
they -expect to be able to raise 10
per cent of approximately 400',000
men currently found lacking in
education each year up to the
army's minimum standards. The
experts also estimated that 30 per
cent of those salvaged would be
Negroes.
Each year 600,000 potential in-
ductees are rejected as unfit for
military service. Over half of these
are rejected because they do not
meet minimum standards on the
services' educational assessment
test. Because of the present mili-
tary manpower shortage, the De-
fense Department decided to util-
ize its own large educational es-
tablishment to raise some of the
rejects to minimal standards.
The fact that 30 per cent of the
men to be salvaged for military
service are Negroes is likely to be-
come to source of major dispute.
Some civil rights leaders, notably
Stockeley Carmichael of the Stu-
dent Non-violent Coordinating
Committee have charged that Viet
Nam is a "poor man's war" and
that the salvage .operation would
increase disproportionately the
representation of the poor.
Last year, Negroes made up
about 10 per cent of all draftees,
a figure roughly comparable to
the percentage of Negroes in the
total national population. The
Pentagon's educational plans
would undoubtedly increase the
proportion of drafted Negroes.
Beyond the need for military
manpower, Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara justified the
plan as a move to save "part of
America's subterranean poor." He
added, "What I do believe is that
through application of advanced
educational and medical techni-
ques we can salvage tens of thou-
sands of these men each year-
first to productive military careers
and later for productive roles in
society."
McNamara said that the Defense
Department has "the largest single
educational complex that the
world has ever seen." The armed
services currently:
offer more than 2000 courses to
train men for 1500 different skills;
o'p e r a t e 30 correspondence
schools with one million students
and 327 dependents' schools for
166,000 students around the world;
and enroll more than 250,000
Seventy-Six Years of Editorial Freedom
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1966
Gireek
Theatre
Provides Aura
Of Summer Nights in
Ypsilanti
By BETSY COHN
Strategists Plan To Double
U.S. Troops in Viet Namn
I
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1
i
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Experts on United States strat-
egy in the Viet Nam war are said
to be thinking in terms of long
range planning that calls for
over 600,000 U.S. men in Viet
Nam in the next 18 months.
This would mean a doubling of
present U.S. strength in that
country.
Of the new total of troops,
about half would be devoted to
mainly "nation building" projects
in the densely populated areas of
Viet Nam.
According to the planners, larg-
er forces are required regardless
of whether the enemy continues
to form division-size units and
seek big victories or decides to
break, up into smaller elements
and revert to hit-and-run attacks.
Along with the projected build-
up of ground forces, the Air
Force would add about five squad-
rons of tactical fighters to the 18
it now operates there, and would
vastly expand its airlift capacity
to haul thousands of tons of am-
munition, food and other supplies
from coastal ports to combat
units in the interior.
No responsible official, Vietna-'
mese or American, now says the
Viet Cong appear to pre-eminatel
in the field. On the contrary, in
battle after battle in the last few
months, the enemy has been
consistently beaten.
But ranking officials believe
that military victories are not
enough. Unless the millions of
peasants can believe the Saigon
government will provide security
and improve their living condi-
tions, U.S. strategists feel the
prospects for defeating the enemy
are blank.
The Viet Cong have planted well
indoctrinated, highly motivated
cells in the hamlets and villages.
They have been able to exact tax-
es, food and military recruits from
the generally apathetic peasantry
by promising a better life and
threatening to call in guerrilla
bands.
Said one U.S. officer: "The only
way to uproot this intrastructure
is to get into each village with
the peasants by providing them
some peace from marauders, by
building schools, and providing
fertilizer and government serv-
ices."
students in Armed Forces Institute S.Y
teaching courses ranging from Summer evenings in Ypsilanti
elementary to college levels, wvere in an antiqiue aura this sum-
mer as the Walter O. Briggs base-
According to McNamara, the ball field at Eastern Michigan
armed forces are further qualified University yielded itself to a fore-
to train men previously considered runner of diversion, the Greek
untrainable because of the role Theatre,
they have played in educational And so it grew, from somewhere
innovation. Teaching machines out of left field where skeptical
were first developed to train air- spectators stiffly cocked their
craft inspectors during World War heads and curled their lips. Their
II. Defense Department educators predictions were that reconstruc-
have been among the first to tion of a ,traditional Greek Thea-
make use of films, language labo- tre in the midwest would certainly
ratories, television and computers be a foul play.
in teaching. Nevertheless, a few adamant
Another potential area of con- sportsmen persevered and the the-
flict in McNamara's proposal re- atre concept materialized into an
lates to objections to the Defense outdoor arena charged with elec-
Department becoming a large tronic music and a limber chorus
quasi-educational institution. Fred of over 20.
M. Hechinger, education editor of On June 14, 1966, the Ypsilanti
the New York Times, wrote: Greek Theatre group under the
("One consequence may well be Idirection of Alexis Solomos, pre-
for the regular educational estab- sented a re-run of the prize-win-
lishment to abdicate even more ning Greek Trilogy from the 458
readily its mandate to seek ways B.C. drama festival. The open-
of preventing drop-outs and help- ing performance was more than
ing the poor to climb out of pov- a success; over 100 drama critics
ing, from all over the country soewed
erty." forth a mouthful of dynamic de-
Hechinger voiced fears that the scriptions such as "electrifying
Pentagon plan might lead to the success," "brilliant and exciting,"
creation of a military-educational- plus odes and puns on every facet
industrial complex in the United of Greece and theatre available.
nis Xenakis who provided ac- Despite this
companiment to his music by use there was the i
of an IBM 7090 computer. Xenakis of traditional t
programmed his own ideas and in the non-me
musical axioms into the computer ance of Dame
and decoded the results into mu- whose portraya
sic for conventional instruments. with it the path
He calls his philosophical ap- the ancient Gre
proach "stochasis," a term he in-, Director of t
vented for music which is based ties in Ypsilan
on probability theory. his first Ameri
immutable element ture which had been three years ' own Athenian company. Solomos
heatrical greatness in the making. Solomos, who had remained in the United States
chanical perform- spent the previous year teaching until early this month at which
Judith Anderson drama seminars at Eastern Mich- time he returned to Greece and
l of dignity carried igan University, has been called his native playbill. He neverthe-
hos and tragedy of the backbone of the Greek Theatre less has hopes of returning to
ek dramatists. in America. In Greece he is also the group next summer.
he summer activi- known in theatrical corners as
ti, Solomos greeted the director of the National The-! Another recent rearrangement
can audience that atre of Greece for 14 years and hael King and David Rhys An-
derson (a University drama stu-
dent). Michael received an offer
to play in "On A Clear Day You
Can See Forever": David, his tin-
derstudy was given the part, and
Orestes (according to recent re-
views), seems to have suffered
none the worse from the sudden
change -in his personality.
The second production. "The
Birds," starring Bert Lahr was
also hailed as a theatrical suc-
cess. Critics hooted and cheered
Lahr on his winged endeavours.
They delivered glib orations on
the excellent set arrangement
and stage direction; and hailed
"The Birds" as a political satire
which fit with amazing comfort
into contemporary drama, in spite
of the fact that it was written
over 2000 years ago.
It rotated throughout the sum-
..;mer, between Dame Judith An-
derson to Bert Lahr; and no one
ithut"havin
attended one without aving
see the other."
On September 4, the season wi
to a close after nearly three
~ ~ mnthso outdoor productions.
Ideally the theatre has been a to-
} tal success in providing the first
authentic Greek Theatre in the
United States. Unfortunately, the
E..theatre cannot survive on ideal-
ism alone and to borrow from a
nationally syndicated pun: "ev-
ery Gi'eek must have its tragedy."
y stage of the Ypsilanti Greek Theatre. See NEW, Page 5
modern influence, evening with a slight bow, a ges-
most recently,
director of his
States leading to still greater
concentrations of power.
Hechinger also asserted that the
Defense Department's educational
facilities are not all that McNa-
mara makes them out to be. How-
ever, he concluded by saying, "The
answer to these objections, of
course, is that somebody better do
the job.... The question thus be-
comes whether American educa-
tion and political leadership on1
It was also an internationally
acclaimed success and received
complimentary coverage from a to-
tal of over 800 newspapers. The
first night audiences were effec-
tively assimilated into a musical
amalgamation of the ancient and
the modern. While the trilogy re-
tained its ancient plot, the chorus
members moved in a sinuous .ab-
stract arrangement, choreograph-
ed by Helen McGehee, assistant
local, state and federal level are to Mai'tha Graham.
willing to concede defeat and let Electronic music written espe-
the armed forces take over." cially for this performance by Ian-
Shown here is the present temporary
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