4r £frchjan Dailij Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan 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 oll reprints. FRIDAY, JULY 25, 1969 NIGHT EDITOR: MARCIA ABRAMSON Nixon and gun control HE NIXON administration has put its faith in the glories of tradition and all of us may suffer for it. Two spokesmen testifying yesterday before a Senate subcommittee informed the legislators that Nixon is opposed to the gun control legislation now pending before Congress. According to' these spokesmen, "The registration and licensing bills represent a distinct departure from previously held concepts of the federal role in firearms controls and would launch the federal government into an area traditionally considered tha province of state and local governments." The legislation before- Congress calls for a system of national registration of all guns and licensing of their owners. Under this legislation persons such as ex- convicts, alcoholics, and drug addicts would be prohibited from owning guns. It should be plain to anyone that the argument put forward in this testimony is sheer absurdity. In essence the reason- ing is that if the federal government has never done something before then the, federal government must never in the future do it. But even if a tradition or a states' right did exist which might be used against such legislation it would be no reason to prevent its passage. The arguments for national registration of firearms have been presented many times over the last five years and they are compelling. The tragic list of assassinations this country has compiled and the growing number of gun murders in recent times are argu- ment enough for the adoption of a na- tional law of this kind. Only through such a national law can any sort of adequate control begin. The loopholes and incon- sistencies which allow individual states to deal or not deal with gun control would only perpetuate a frightening and unex- cusable situation. YET THERE are significant reasons 'to indicate that merely controlling the ownership of guns may be entirely in- adequate to limit the death and injury caused by guns. Only yesterday the news. services noted the killing of one and the wounding of three more innocent people in the state of Michigan. Most disturbing is the fact that the men who used the guns in these cases would not have been kept from doing so by the legislation pending in Washington. The reason is that the men who did the shooting were police. Yesterday in Grand Rapids a Green Beret just back from Vietnam was shot and killed by a police officer who thought the gun he heard discharged was directed at a fellow officer. In fact it had been discharged by that officer. The victim of this "accident" was entirely innocent-he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The same is true of three innocent by- standers who were wounded yesterday when police opened fire on a crowded Detroit street while pursuing two escaped convicts. BUT THESE are only two incidents of the misuse of firearms by police. The Algiers motel case, the shootings during the People's. Park disturbances in Berke- ley, and countless o t h e r examples stretching back into the past speak of the way in which police shoot first and ask questions later. Some have suggested that police mis- use of guns is a substantial argument, against the passage of any form of gun' control legislation. If the police are going to have guns then people should have them too-if only to protect themselves from the police. It must be admitted, in light of the increasing police-caused vio- lence in tlis country, that such an argu- ment has a certain degree of merit. But in the' interest of lowering the incidence of killing, rather than raising it, another course might profitably be followed. In- stead of limiting federal gun control leg- islation to the populace at large, it should be applied, even more stringently, to police. Policemen, subject as they are to situations of high stress should meet high, nationally establisled, standards of mental stability. JT IS APPARENT that the Nixon admin- istration, in backing away from even the registration law now before Congress, is ignoring the painfully obvious.. -CIfRIS STEELE M....JAMES WECHSLER..... Adlai Stevenson IT IS WHAT Adlai Stevenson might have deemed wry circumstance that Monday-the fourth anniversary of his death-coincided with the publication of an explosive memoir by Norman Cousins called: "How the U. S. Spurned Three Chances for Peace in Vietnam." The document, appearing simultaneously in Look magazine and the Saturday Review, covers some ground that has been touched upon in explorations of fumbled opportunities during the Johnson-Rusk era. But it offers a good deal that is new-including events in which Cousins was personally involved-and cumulatively it is a shocker. It deserves to be pondered in full. Meeting with UN Secretary General U Thant in October, 1966, Lyndon Johnson stressed his hope that Thant would help to promote peace talks. Thant replied that he had made such an effort in 1964 after a talk with LBJ and, according to Cousins, recounted the sequence. He first wrote to Ho Chi Minh urging immediate secret talks as a prelude to formal meetings. Three weeks later, Thant received an af- firmative answer from Ho; Hanoi was ready for secret discussion. U Thant transmitted the news to Stevenson,who hastened to Wash- ington to deliever it to Dean Rusk. Four long months ensued; then, in late January, 1965, after an- other journey to Washington Stevenson was obliged to tell U Thant that the State Dept. was reluctant to begin talks--secret or public- because it feared the Saigon regime could not survive the disclosure that such conversations had begun. A few days later the U. S. bombing of North Vietnam began, finally blasting any possibility of meaningful discussion. The official explana- tion advanced for the bombing-even as Ho's bid was being spurned- was that it was designed to bring pressure on Hanoi to negotiate. "PRESIDENT JOHNSON listened with visibly increasing concern to U Thant's account of the failure of the United States to take ad- vantage of the kind of initiative he was now, in 1966, strongly urging upon the Secretary General," Cousins writes. "He said this episode was a new book to hi'm and that he was hearing about it for the first time. The President turned to Dean Rusk and asked whether he had knowledge of the matter. Rusk replied that Stevenson had not been authorized to reject the negotiations. He did not say, however, whether Stevenson had been authorized to accept them. Nor did he say why the State Dept. had not acted promptly and affirmatively when Stevenson first reported, in September, 1964, Hanoi's willingness to have exploratory talks." In December, 1965-during a U. S. bombing pause-LBJ aide Jack Valenti told Cousins that LBJ's "major objective was to get the United States out of Vietnam under conditions of stability and honor." He was avowedly enlising Cousins' aid (and no doubt that of others) in seeking contacts that might open the door to talks. Shortly thereafter Cousins was fortuitously dining with the Polish ambassador to the UN. who indicated his government's eagerness to sponsor a peace move. A succession of developments appeared to set the stage for a Cousins mission to Warsaw for a private meeting with a Hanoi representative. An error in translation of a letter from Ho Chi Minh abruptly shadowed the project; by the time that was cleared up a decision to resume the bombings was made. We, claimed that the step had been taken because Hanoi had given no "positive response" to the bombing suspension. One year later Henry Cabot Lodge found Janusz Lewandowski, Polish representative on the International Control Commission, willing to serve as an intermediary. Again Ho Chi Minh was responsive; modifying his demand for an unconditional bombing halt, he consented to send emisaries to a secret meeting with U. S. spokesmen in Warsaw. A few days after Lodge received this news, we bombed theout- skirts of Hanoi for the first time; Lodge insisted this was a "military error," But when a final effort to salvage the talks was made, Hanoi was bombed again. Another "error"? ON of course, is a central figure only in the first act; he was dead by the time the two Polish scenes occurred. Yet, reading Cousins' chronicle on the eve of this sad anniversary, old questions poignantly recur. It is surely conceivable that history would have been very different if Adlai Stevenson had been named Secretary of State - the post for which he so frankly yearned and for which he was so eminently qualified -- by John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. The tragedy is that Stevenson - that wise, gracious spirit, whose sense of history was profound - must have been tormented by such reflections in the long months after he left the UN. In ways none of us can know, such retrospect may have hastened the moment when death struck in Grosvenor Squar'e on that sunlit July 14 four years ago. (c) New York Pos - - I DL,, ~"'mL~o~J.~4j~5 "17P~,r _________ :", M To the Editor: LET'S TALK a lit Model Cities prc your staff writers h an example to den importance, or the of defending the em program of the Harr tion. Ron Landsman se as an example of progress program f white residents of t tral area of the cit alive only becaus wrested control of April; an example* whose implementati ened by the perhar alliance between studen'ts and street1 Ann Arbor "economi elite, the oldRepu to polarize the coi thus bring down tl ministration. "No," says Daniel all that, on the f Model Cities, he ass ceived under Mayor sees Harris carryin so-so old-establishn which will leave th faced "far after the safety inspectors rounds," with the the crises of peol which only the radi Letters to, the Edi~tor .d el Cities University have consistently tried council action to discuss." in considerable Model Cities is more than build- that if the b ttle about the ing inspectors. That is why it is tured at that agram. Two of worth looking at the facts of its would be lost,I ave used it as history here in Ann Arbor: be able to cont avnsusedeithas Reconstitution, nonstrate the Federal Model Cities legislation kill Model Cti unimpolerta provides for a Model Cities policy Before April is administra- board in each program area, lican caucus, c whose makeup is' defined by the control; had a local government. Ann Arbor to scuttle Mo es Model Cities Model Cities policy board, care- 'Landsman poir a vital social fully and openly constituted from On April 14 for black and active community groups ac- henson, now h'e North Cen- cordingi to a formula provided by moved on scra y; a program City Council, had turned out in moved t scra e Democrats actual composition not at all the would be mor City Hall in way Republicans had envisioned move was tr of good policy it. The area residents on it by line vote, with ion is threat- and large displayed great inde- majority ve ps unintended pendence and a determination to program, inclu some radical be a policy board in fact as well portant . featu people and the as in name. mertnt forathe c and political Sev steps, including the 'Model CitiesE blican guard" election of Ezra Rowry as tempo- mentation of mmunity and rary chairman, flashed a signal in As it evolve hie Harris ad- conservative quarters that it was AnitArbolvt time to "reconstitute" the board, Ann Arbor sti Zwerdling to turns. A sense 'ollowing day. REPUBLICANS reponded by ing has perva erts, was con- calling public hearings to reopen residents who Hulcher. He a question they had decided for- We believe tha g on with a mally some months prior, that is, nent program the formula for constituting the gredient. Not et Le people still policy board. A real estate broker agrees. building and in the area circulated petitions k h "-Waltex make their calling the policy board " unrepre- Car "real crises- sentative." Many members of theChai ple's power- policy board, who had been of- Democ cals of South ficially named to the * board by July 2 and who had put affort already, felt oard were restruc- point, good faith and they would not tinue to participate. , it was clear, would ties. 7, 1969,.the Repub- onfident of Council lready decided thus del Cities, as Ron nted out. ,Councilman Step- in the minority, p the policy board w one; he said that re democratic. The nsparent. A party the new Democratic d the board and the ding as it does un- res of self-govern- residents of the area in the lInple- the program es, Model Cities in ll faces many hard of real policy mak- cded the group of make up the board. at's an essential in- veryone in 'this town r Scheider Yan, Ann Arbor tratic Party' 4 A* * Joe Thompson: I would go back to Vietnam again' AOq By HOWARD KOHN Contributing Editor THE MARINES are rich in tradition, but not so rich they give it away for noth- ing. Recruits in Officers Candidate School at Quantico Bay (Va.), for example, have to shell out $500 for dress uniforms which in- clude bone-handled swords. But bone handles have been scarce for the past few years, and the Marines are making do with plastic handles. In many more profound ways Marine traditions have indeed fallen on evil times. And mpre than anything else, the Vietnam War is responsible. Repeatedly galling to Marine sergeants who drill young shocktroopers are the search-and-destroy strategies of military command. To the drill master who chased the Japanese across the Pacific in defiant frontal assaults, Vietnam has gone to hell in, a political handbasket. "We used to have a saying in World War II that the only good Marine is a dead Marine or a live one - never a wounded one," gripes Sgt. John (Buck) Richardson of Quantico Bay. "Now Marines get picked' apart playing games." Richardson is part of an extreme tough- minded Marine philosophy. But many oth- ers are chafing under a military strategy which has yielded nearly 50,000 wounded Marines (less than 20,000 s h o r t of the World War II total) but secured very few landmarks. Even victories like Hamburger Hill have been empty because of immediate with- drawals. For the 50,000 wounded refugees n o w back home, the criticism sometimes evolves into doubt - doubt whether the bullets and shrapnel were personally necessary or publicly appreciated. ONE OF THE 50,000, Joe Thompson, commissioned out of Quantico as a sec- ond lieutenant, never once saw the enemy he was fighting. Thompson had tried to dodge the draft by teaching in Swartz Creek (Mich.) for a year. But his draft board classified him 1-A and he enlisted last fall. Around Christmas he arrived in Viet- nam. On Feb. 9 of this year he' was am- bushed while leading a patrol' through a deserted village near An Hoa. Shrapnel ripped into his shoulder, groin and temple, tearing out a 4 x 8 centimeter p i e c e of brain tissue. Thompson is now an out-patient at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor, where he re- ceives two hours of therapy a day. He's paralyzed on his right' side. And although he can comprehend words, he can speak only monosyllables (yes, no, but) and com- municates in large left-handed scrawls. "I would go back to Vietnam again," he writes, leaving out prepositions, adjectives and adverbs. For emphasis he shakes his head a n d slowly says "no, no, no" to the suggestion he should be bitter a b o u t his wounds. Whatever doubts he felt before enlisting have been entirely assuaged. DOCTORS GIVE HIM a 50-50 chance for' complete recovery. But his psycholo- gical well-being is a requisite to his phys- ical well-being. He will have to concentrate on patterning new brain cells to re-learn speech and motor skills. Thompson didn't win a hero's welcome or even a conversational medal (except for the nominal Purple Heart) for his trouble. Vietnam tickertape parades attract more anti-war than pro-war fans. And medals are hard to come by in guerrilla warfare. Most corridor-mates share the s a m e status. But they often grouch angrily, in the sultry summer evenings at Ann Arbor's VA. Thompson's wife, Colleen, also has her misgivings about the human cost of Viet- nam. "I can't find any reason to like it," she looks away from her husband defensively. She has been particularly upset by the Marine officers she's met in the past half- year. "All of them seem to be chomping on the bit to be over in Vietnam," she criticizes. "Very few care about the men that have come back home to hospitals." COLLEEN SPEAKS OF t he calculated impersonalism of the doctors and the "I was just relieved he even recognized me after that buildup," she remembers. GREAT LAKES is a yawning brick con- traption which registers 30 wounded Marines a week. Doctors there are rated as some of the best in the military. "The thing is - they're so damn mili- tary," Colleen winces. "They treat an ex- amination like it's drill inspection. "They'never talk directly to the patient. They just talk about him. Joe u s e d to freeze up when they came around." Thompson was at Great Lakes for three months. From there he went to Allen Park (Mich.) for a month and finally to Ann Arbor. During this five-month ordeal, while Col- leen was logging 18,000 miles on her car, the Marines didn't pay her aynthing. "I don't know who is to blame exactly," sh esays, "except that nobody really cared enough about my situation to do anything." THE MARINES have a blissful bureau- cratic explanation for the mixup. When Thompson arrived at Great Lakes he was asked bookkeeping questions so IBM forms could be filled out and pay- ments processed. This isn't usually neces- sary since previous records should be in the files. But Thompson's original forms were still plodding throug the check-in line in An Hoa when he was shot. And his identification papers had been lost in combat. "They wanted to know his Social Secu- rity number and he couldn't remember it. It was really insane. After going through a traumatic experience like that, they wanted his Social Security number . . Later the IBM punch-cards were dis- carded and Thompson signed over his power of attorney to Colleen.' But before she could act upon her power of attorney, the Marines declared her hus- band "mentally incompetent" - thereby nullifying his signature. trustee to again establish herself legally to act for her husband. After that even the Marine doxology doesn't have an an- swer for the continued non-payment. When Thompson was transferred to Al- len Park in June, Colleen also requested her furniture in temporary storage at Quantico Bay to be sent to Ann Arbor. No answer. And no furniture.J Finally she appealed to Rep. Marvin Esch (R-Ann Arbor) who apparently leap- frogged over the payroll lock-in and freed her pay and furniture for the 4th of July. But Colleen still would like to try the Marines on charges of negligence. "Some of the officers I talked to did seem concerned. Some just shrugged. But almost all looked at me with that know-it- all smile . . . that I was a woman and couldn't be expected to understand their military." CAPTAIN Phillip Zeeman of Great Lakes was the first to hear of her grievances. "When I met him he talked right past me. He recited a whole spiel about the, Marines but didn't bother to ask if I had "I think maybe one of the reasons why the military is so gopfed-up is because no women help run it," Colleen ventures. "And I don't mean more WAC's." T E THOMPSON e were married in August. of 1967. Thompson was just about to' graduate from Central Michigan University; and Colleen had finished'a year at Michigan State University. They'd been dating since Colleen's freshman year of high school, She is now working at a library part- time and helping her husband learn phone- tics and isometrics the rest of the time. HE HOPES he'll be able to teach again someday. VA doctors are hopeful, too. "But in order to recover a soldier some- times must first accept his wound and even take pride in it-like a badge of courage," one of the ;doctors points out. "That can make a big difference." "Thompson has never sulked about being hurt." Colleen says. And she notes he's improved noticeably since coming to Ann A .4n.. 1 .