t 3ny Daih
Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
"This is your captain speaking .. . this Latin American* *
goodwill trip is being hijacked ... we've been ordered Fngc
to land in New York!" .
B~iafra
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.
SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: JUDY SARASOHN
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Rockefellero
IN 1966 LATIN AMERICA sank beneath
the Pacific Ocean. The war in Vietnam
not only has diverted American attention
from domestic needs but has also blinded
the government and public to the prob-
lems of an entire continent.
Whatever happened to Eduardo Frei,
Romulo Betancourt, Castelo Branco, Ar-
turo Frondizi? For that matter whatever
happened to Fidel Castro?
Only after Rockefeller's recent trip to
Latin America, which in many ways was
mere political protocol, has Latin Ameri-'
ca come back on the front pages. It should
surprise no one that after six years of ne-
glect inter-American relations have re-
gressed to the level of 1958 when Nixon
was spat on in Caracas.
The area enjoyed its last major flurry
of attention during the Kennedy admin-
istration's inauguration of the Peace
Corps and the Alliance for Progress. In
the halcyon days of the early 60's we pro-
jected at least illusion of concern for Lat-
in American reform.
Recognizing the need for change, Ken-'
nedy patronized left-of-center' leaders
like Frei in Chile, Betancourt in Venezue-
la and Manuel in Mexico. In the minds of
many Latin Americans, this progressive
interlude officially ended with the Santo
Domingo intervention in 1965 and t h e
Panama Canal controversy in January of
1966.
Kennedy's death hastened t h e redi-
rection of- international priorities to
Southeast Asia, for Kennedy would have
felt more responsibility for the projects
he initiated in Latin America than did
his successor.
JN RETROSPECT THE NEW idealism
seemed a political ploy to strengthen
Latin American defenses against the Cas-
tro bogeymen and secure support for
American policy during the Bay of Pigs
invasion and Cuban missile crisis.
s tardy trip
Undoubtedly, reformers in Latin Amer-
ica must feel betrayed by the Yankee Co-
lossus. America seems uninterested in il-
literacy, poverty, economic dependency
in themselves, and only interested in their,
potential for producing violent revolution
that "endangers" American security.
As in Southeast Asia, American policy
has revealed a failure to recognize na-
tional sensitivities. Latins are no longer
satisfied that American political colon-
ialism is nearly extinct. The neo-colonial
economic exploitation is just asrbad. Pan-
amanians resent the American presence
in the Canal .Zone. Peruvians resent
American exploitation of their o i 1 re-
serves. Chileans resent that the Ameri-
can Copper Company is training native
Chileans to assume company control at
a snails' pace.
Latins are also dismayed by American
toleration of Duvalier's fascist regime in
Haiti and political intervention in Santo
Domingo.
And the old antagonisms - tariff bar-
riers, trade restrictions, American invest-
ment and American toleration of reac-
tionary military regimes - now loo m
larger than ever.
THESE ANTAGONISMS were exacer-
bated by the choice of a New York
multi-millionaire with financial interests
in American oil and fruit companies for
a long overdue goodwill mission.,
Latin grudges are not kept secret. Prom-
inent Latin American statesmen told the
President that Rockefeller's "fact-find-
ing" mission was unnecessary. Indeed the
Rockefeller trip is only helpful to reveal,
Latin American attitudes toward the U.S.
Americans are regarded as absentee land-
lords and as such deserve to be hated.
-TOBE LEV
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.MURRAY KEMPTON-
Mailer.., not yet
By LORNA CHEROT
THE SIMILARITIES between the conflict in Vietnam and the Biaf-
ran-Nigerian civil war hold ominous po'rtents if the United States
and other world powers pursue their usual military policies as a means
of settling international conflict.
The Ibos tribe in the Eastern section of the Nigerian federation
seceded when the central government was unable or unwilling to pro-
tect them from their enemy tribes. The Ibos, then, are like the
Buddhists in Vietnam. who were instrumental in bringing down the
discriminatory, repressive Diem regime.
The United States has ignored the six years of shifting political
coalitions, ethnic conflict, and regional jealousies that marked the first
six years of the Nigerian Republic. U.S. policy is firmly committee to
the military government and the idea of "One Nigeria."
AND LIKE THE Vietnam war, the Biafran-Nigerian conflict has
been extended beyond the scope of a civil war. The Soviet Union,
England, France and the United States are all sending some type
of military aid to the Nigerian military government.
The Soviet Union is sending Nigeria MIG jets, and other military
aid in order to gain a foothold in Africa. England is sending weapons
out of fear of losing its "sphere of influence" in the largest African
member of the Commonwealth. France has sent small weapons in. an
effort to spread the gospel of DeGaullism.
The United States is not so much worried about the Soviet military
influence as it is the diplomatic and economic inroads that the Soviets
seem to be making. The, Soviet Union is now buying much Nigerian
cocoa and the Russian-made Moskovich car is becoming more common
in the streets of Lagos.
The Soviet Council of Ministers has also signed a long term agree-
ment with Nigeria, granting it 1$140 million in long-term credits for
economic and technical assistance programs.
The GREAT powers have all entered on the side of Nigeria because
they think Nigeria will win, and they view a grateful African nation
as an asset in making economic inroads into an almost entirely un-
developed continent.
The United States is ostensibly on the Nigerian side to maintain
the idea of "One Nigeria." Actually, the U.S. is more interested in out-
bidding Soviet influence in the same manner it tried with Nasser in
Egypt. So, again the United States is on the side of the status quo.
There is a haunting parallel to our involvement in Vietnam. It began
with misconception, was followed by self-justification, and is ending
in tragedy. Millions of people are dying as the U.S. Is committed to
boundaries imposed by a colonial power.
When independence was attained in 1960, Nigeria was a colonial
amalgamation of several hundred relatively autonomous tribes, who
had not developed a national consciousness. The Easterners, who were
the best educated, left their crowded homeland and occupied middle-
level skilled jobs throughout the country.
But after six years of an ineffectual government, rank with cor-
e ruption, a group of nationalistic officers-mostly Easterners-held a
le coup in January of 1966. Although General Ironsi was an Ibo his policy
was more nationalistic, and it contained few Easterners.
,r BECAUSE IRONSI'S reforms threatened powers within the gov-
if ernment a counter-coup was held in the fall of 1966. Ibos and Eastern-
ers living in the North-some 30,000-were slaughtered. For fear of
their life, some 2 million Easterners lefe the North lands andreturned
to their original homes, suffering loss of jobs, property, and in many
it cases suffering physical injury.
In a conference at Aburi, Ghana, plans were hatched to. set up
a confederation, which would unite the various tribes. But the Eastern-
'd ers felt excluded from machinations of the government and seceded
setting up the Republic of Biafra.
As a result of almost two years of fighting, the Biafrans have
e suffered widespread starvation because millions of refugees have been
's compressed in an area one-quarter the size of the original homeland,
tt the regular planting season has been disrupted, and Nigerian forces
have cut the Biafrans off from land and sea trade route's.
d Yet, the United States and other powers remain on the side, of the
Nigerian government. All of them remain content to lt the .conflict
n be contested by military means.
r RECENTLY, THERE was a breath of reason raised in the Senate.
't Senator McCarthy put forth a proposal-one that was almost totally
ignored by the American press-calling for U.S. recognition of Biafra, a.
de-escalation of the fighting, and the removal of the influence of the
t great powers in the war.
L_ But McCarthy's plan for a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the
Biafran-Nigerian War is likely to fall on deaf ears in the Nixon admin-
istration. Sources closer to the President like Assistant Secretary of
t. State for African Affairs Joseph Palmer-who is personally committed
- to the concept of "One Nigeria"-will argue that recognition of Biafra
d will lead to the "Balkanization" of Africa and will undermine Britain's
e influence in Africa.
Such arguments are essentially replays of the domino theory and -
d colonial stewardship that mark our thinking in Southeast Asia.
McCarthy's plan really points out that renouncing military solu-
tions to global conflicts like the Nigerian-Biafran war does not mean
e isolationism, as Nixon seems to think. But Nixon and the other great
powers do not appear to have learned the lesson of Vietnam and will
continue ~to send military aid to Nigeria and thus prevent a just and
peaceful settlement of the Nigerian civil war.
i
4
One year later
D NOT UNDERSTAND me too quickly." -
Norman Mailer after Andre Gide.
The mistake - or at least the unnecessary
risk - was not in running for Mayor but in en-
tering the primary, whose rules demand that he
be understood too quickly. Norman Mailer's uni-
que production is the self as work of art, and his
life has been a succession of destructions of a
prior self as work of art and the construction of
a new and better one from the ruins.
The two weeks left do not seem time enough;
whatever happens on thi round, he ought to go
to the general election; there can be no meaning
in this novel if it has to end in 13 days.
We see now that the primary was a mistake
for him, because people do not vote what they
want their city to be in a primary; they vote what
they want their party to be. They are not electing
a Mayor, after all; they are voting either to keep
or to snatch political property. There are no
dreams in a primary, only appetites.
AND YET, EVEN in this worst of circumssanc-
es, Mailer has recovered his dignity; he has lost
that look which haunts and wastes every respect-
able new face in politics, the look which cries out,
my God, suppose I wake up the day after and find
I got only 10,000 votes.
Seeing him at his press conference, you be-
gin to sense what a candidate he might be if he
had nothing to do starting after Labor Day except
to think about being a candidate and to watch all
the others fade and run down while he grows
stronger, more confident, more sure of himself,
growing indeed into the work of art again.
His appearances before the reporters w i t h
James Breslin already rise or sink - depending
on your viewpoint in these matters - to the level
of philosophical discussion. Already I endorse
Breslin for President of the City Council; we have
never had a candidate who approached so clos
to the lipits of specific discussion of the bearabl
reality-
I must wait a while on Mailer; candidates wh
discuss the unbearable reality take a little longe
to absorb; but it would be cause for gratitude I
he'd come around again in October.
"I AM PLAYING WITH children," said Bres
lin grandly. The trouble with this town, he wen
on, is that no one has a memory. Mayor Wagne
had reminded us the other day how' swiftly he ha
moved to stop crime in the subways.
"He flooded the subways with policemen. I
was safe on the subways, but it was hell in th
hallways. You're just pushing crime around. Let'
get in where it comes from, to the conditions tha
produce it."
The discussion wandered that way, aroun
crime and education, and at length matters ar
rived at that point of philosophical abstraction
where one journalist wondered whether Maile
might not be too trusting in his promise to le
people run their own neighborhoods.
It was Roosevelt, Mailer answered, Who con.
vinced us that people were really bad and tha
government alone could save them from them
selves.
"AND ALL WE GOT in the end was the Dept
of Defense. That's why I call myself a left con
servative. The ultimate end of every New Dea
is burning children in Vietnam" of course, h
went on, there are dangers in his proposal. "Hun
dreds of dangers. People who have vitality an
energy are dangerous."
He has fallen back then, against our faint in
different mockery, to fighting on his own tru
ground. If he stays there long enough, he will
you sense, be understood in time.
(c) New York Post
4
ONE YEAR AGO today Robert F.-Ken-
nedy died, after struggling for more
than twenty-four hours following his as-
sassination by a mentally-confused and
deranged Arab partisan. Immediately af-
ter his assassination, President Lyndon
Johnson announced the formation of a
national commission to study the roots of
the virtually unprecedented manifesta-
tion of violence in this decade - a vio-
lence resulting not only in the assassina-
tions of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X,
Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Ken-
nedy - but also in a sizeable number of
urban outbreaks and white terrorist ac-
tivity.
Yesterday the National Commission on
the Causes and, Prevention of Violence
published without comment the work of
a study group assigned to evaluate the
history and foreign parallels of. contem-
porary violence in this country. T h e i r
conclusions, although not unexpected,
tell us, that "we have become a rather
bloody-minded people . . . and are likely
to remain so as long as so many of us
School' election
MONDAY ANN ARBOR voters must
make the decision whether to
support the 6.67 mill proposal nec-
essary to meet a salary and fringe
commitment to teachers and at the
same time fund programs necessary
to maintain effective educational
standards.
It 'is- apparent that Ann Arbor
must accept the responsibility f o r
providing adequate funds for the
schools. Urging fiscal reform - a
polite term for spending less money
to keep taxes down - is both dan-
gerous and impractical. It will only
1 e a d to a declining school system
Which at a later date would have to
be rehabilitated at an even higher
cost to residents than administra-
tors are now asking.
We support the 6.67 mill proposal,
the one-half mill proposal for edu-
cation of handicapped children, and
the $4,950,000 bonding issue f o r a
new junior high.
..,F N
think violence is an ultimate solution to
social problems."
"In numbers of political assassinations,
riots, politically relevent armed group at-
tacks, and demonstrations," t h e study
group reports, "the United States since
1948 has been among the half-dozen most
tumultuous nations in the world." The
United States ranks first among Western
"democracies" in total magnitude of strife
as outbreaks of disorder a r e longer in
duration, though rarely organized a n d
much less disruptive to the stability of
the political system.
While the "most extensive violence,"
from mid-1963 to mid-1968, "occurred in
239 hostile outbreaks by Negroes," t h e
most "consequential conspiratorial vio-
lence h a s been white terrorism against
blacks and civil rights workers . . . and
°b 1 a c k terrorism against whites, mostly
police, which began in 1968."
THE STUDY GROUP 'suggests two rea-
sons why violence pervades American
society while it has diminished in other
countries. "Fundamental grievances have
not only gone unresolved but have inten-
sified in recent years" and 'the "myth of
the melting pot" has obscured the often
intense conflict and competition of a 'my-
riad of ethnic, national, religious, region-
al and occupational groups." Americans
have erected and perpetrated a "kind of
historical amnesia," a product, the au-
thors conclude, of our "historic vision of
ourselves as a latter-day chosen people, a
new Jerusalem."
"The oppressed have s t r u c k in the
name of Justice, the privileged in t h e
name of order, those in between in the
name of fear," Charles Tilly, a profes-
sor of sociology tells us. "Men seeking to
seize, hold, or realign the leaves of pow-
er," he continues, "have commonly en-
gaged in collective violence as part of
their struggle." Governmental repression,
however, only succeeds in the short run.
Their conclusions, then, should serve to
remind us t h a t only three alternative
routes exist: armed overthrow of the ex-
isting regime and a drastic transforma-
tion of the established order, moderate
reform without institutional change, or a
return to our previous state of condition-
ed indifference and apathy toward the
welfare of others.
NO MATTER which route we choose,
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
A reply on Democratic
.1
open ness
To the Editor:
I WOULD LIKE to defend the
Anji Arbor Democratic Party
against charges made by Tobe Lev
in The Daily of June 3. He suggests
that the meeting to elect the city
chairman was not "open" because
previous knowledge of the issues
was required.
To my mind there were no "is-
sues." The presentation of "issues"
by the speakers at the meeting
was mostly rhetoric used to defend
their respective choices. The real
issues had to do with things like
personal loyalty to one "side" or
the other, various personal
grudges, and (hopefully) some
judgment as to whether or not
Walt Scheider deserved re-elec-
tion, irrespective of his opponent.
It would in fact be difficult for
someone who had only recently
become involved in party affairs to
enter with personal loyalties al-
ready formed. But this does not
reflect upon the openness of the
party as a whole.
AS FOR ITS actual openness,
I can say with confidence that
(at least in Ann Arbor) we Demo-
crats are still in considerable need
of new people to work for our
candidates, participate in party
affairs at the ward and precinct
levels, take part in discussion of
issues, bring issues to our attention
through resolutions, help select
part of it, but still interested in
politics, there is opportunity to
participate. Campus groups rang--
ing from the Young Democrats
to SDS were urged to send repre-
sentatives to the platform hear-
ings to make their views known.
(Only the Tenants Union accepted
the invitation. A long and fruitful
discussion with their representa-
tive led to several changes in the
housing plank which made it more
consistent with the aims of the
Tenants Union.)
This fall, hopefully with the
cooperation of other relevant
groups, we are thinking about
sponsoring a series of evening is-
sues forums. I hope that, among
'other things, these will direct
themselves to some of the sub-
stantial issues that now appear to
separate "liberals" (not including
HHH) from "radicals." These
forums may lead to resolutions
which can then be voted upon in
open meetings.
-Jonathan Baron
Co-Vice-Chairman for State
and National Affairs
Ann Arbor Democratic
Party
Forgetting?
To the Editor:
THURSDAY, June 5, was the
second anniversary of the 1967
titled to such facilities as the Uni-
versity provides for its members.
On Monday, June 2, we re-
quested a PA system from the Stu-
dent Organizations office at the
Student Activities Building. Our
request was duly confirmed both
by the secretary and by Mr. Rinkel
of that office. The next day, Tues-
day, in order to avoid any slipups,
we again went to this office and
again we were assured that the
facilities would be there at the
appropriate time.
At 11:15, Thursday, June 5, the
day of the planned events, again
to be sure that everything would.
be in order, we called the Student
Organizations office, and by 11:30,
we were told that everything "was
confirmed" and that the PA sys-
tem "would be set 'up on the Diag,
in no time."
THE RALLY was to start at
12:0 noon. It didn't. We waited
until 12:15 for the PA and then
began. The rally ended at 1:00.
Still the PA never showed up.
After the planned march, we
went to see Mr. Rinkel in order
to determine why the PA never
showed up. He told us that "some-
where along the, line, someone
forgot."
It is hard to believe, with the
many reassurances that we receiv-
ed, that-someone simply "forgot."
We regret this incident and "hope
that it doesn't happen again.
reality that even Mr. Anzalone
may one day turn the ignition
key in his car and rather than
find himself traveling down the
street he'll find himself traveling
to Kingdom Come. Why? Merely
because some George L. Rockwell
type, a Minute Man type, or per-
haps even a law and order type
disagrees with Mr. Anzalone's
leftist views.
These kind of extreme acts do
happen and will continue to hap-
pen because too many people like
Mr. Anzalone are not "particularly
upset" when some screwball does
his thing with dynamite.
I WOULD 4ALSO like to warn
Mr. Anzalone and others that the
biggest threat to our existence is
the paranoia of the right wing
extremist. Reformists and/or rev-
olutionists, regardless of their in-
tent, should be careful not to scart
these bats out of their belfry be-
cause when they come out flying
they come out looking for blood.
And as our experience has con-
sistently shown these bloodthirsty
devils are often formally sanc-
tioned by the establishment. So,
in our efforts to reform the es-
tablishment we should step with
scrutinized concern and we must
be sure thatour thing is really to-
gether before we make the ex-
treme steps.
-E L. Truitt, Jr.
4
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