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futures past
itie fi gan taij
Eighty-one years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Space shuttle: WPA for the seventies
by davc ehudwin
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
TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1972
NIGHT EDITOR: ALAN LENHOFF
Promises and
PESC
WHEN THE Program for Educational
and Social Change (PESC) emerged
at the end of the fall term, its organizers
were fairly confident that the program's
innovative approach would be well re-
ceived at the University.
Increasingly over the past year, Uni-
versity administrators had been turning
away from their traditional preoccupa-
tion with financial problems to float sug-
gestions for revitalizing the educational
experience at this campus.
In the literary college, for example,
newly-appointed Dean Frank Rhodes
pledged to upgrade undergraduate educa-
tion - through innovative experiments
that the college had been reluctant to try
in the past. And in the larger university,
President Robben Fleming suggested ma-
jor innovations that would permit many
more people to make use of this campus'
vast resources.
Both administrators urged the faculty
to join them in devising experimental
new approaches to education. And they
certainly should have been pleased when
late last year, a small group of profes-
sors, students, and members of the sur-
rounding community initiated an exper.
imental program that would test a new
and different concept of the classroom.
Rather than restrict their courses to stu-
dents officially enrolled in the Univer-
sity, the PESC professors invited members
of the community to attend their courses.
But oddly enough, no sooner had classes
begun last week when Allan Smith, vice
president for academic affairs, told the
literary college that the community mem-
bers should be barred from the PESC
classes, unless they officially enroll as
students and pay the appropriate tuition.
The effect of this measure would be
to squelch the new program completely.
And at a time when the University's high-
est administrators are trumpeting the
need- for experiments in new approaches
to higher education, such a move makes
no sense at all.
THE PROGRAM itself is grounded on
educational principles that have al-
ready been accepted by virtually all of
the nation's colleges. Recognizing that
America's academic communities are
composed largely of people with similar
socio-economic backgrounds, many edu-
cators have questioned the value of stu-
dents and professors merely interacting
among themselves and their books. 'More
and- more in the last few years, classes
have been taken out of the rooms, away
fronm the blackboards, and into the com-
munities where the educational resources
are to be ultimately applied.
To the organizers of PESC, a reversal
of that process is the next logical step.
People going from the campus into the
community often appear paternalistic,
inviting the resentment of the communi-
ties with whom they are trying to ,inter-
act.
PESC proposes that the classroom itself
be a forum for interaction, not only to
enhance the experience of the regular
students, but to permit others access to
what has become a middle class monopo-
ly on knowledge.
No one is sure PESC will be successful.
The small group of faculty members that
have elected to participate in the pro-
gram - 13 out of a faculty of 2,600 -
simply want a chance to find out. The
instructors involved are willing to vol-
untarily increase their input of time and
energy to accommodate the increased en-
rollment. And they also plan to work out
suitable arrangements for students who
might object to the inclusion of the pub-
lic auditors.
MOREOVER, PESC could be carried out
without being a drain on the Univer-
sity's funds. A lecture on "History of
Economic Thought" costs the same
whether there are 30 students in the class
or 40, and the extra teaching time that
might be required in some courses is be-
ing volunteered by the instructors.
Recognizing that it will have some ad-
ministrative costs, PESC has asked the
literary college's executive committee for
$4,600 - less than one-tenth of the LSA
funds budgeted for "innovation." But
should the request be refused, PESC is
prepared to finance itself or find the
funds elsewhere.
Thus, the University has nothing to
lose, and much to gain through this pion-
eering experiment. It is unclear what
great principle Vice President Smith
hopes to illustrate by blocking PESO, but
he should consider whether it truly com-
petes with the wiser thoughts of his col-
leagues:
"If the University of Michigan is to be
the leader which it says it is, we ought
to be sufficiently confident to experiment
with new programs which will permit
those students. who are dissatisfied to
pursue different avenues." With those
words, President Fleming urged the fac-
ulty last fall to be receptive to innovative
experiments outside traditional degree
programs and student-teacher relation-
ships.
And what better place to experiment
than in the literary college, whose new
dean has spoken, at least publicly, of his
great enthusiasm for trying new ap-
proaches to undergraduate education.
"The great advantage of experimentation
in a place as big as Michigan is that you
can experiment and still preserve our
flexibility to change if it's not success-
ful," Dean Rhodes said after he was ap-
pointed last spring.
WITH SUCH statements coming from
the highest levels of the University,
it is baffling to understand, the hostile
attitude displayed by administrators to-
ward PESO. One cannot help but feel
that the failure of Fleming and Rhodes
to put their weight behind the new pro-
gram makes their public statements rath-
er empty.
If the administration sincerely wishes
to try new approaches, it should recog-
nize that PESO is an experiment that can
only enhance our understanding of edu-
cational change. If anything, the Uni-
versity should look upon the initiators of
the program with a certain pride, and
neutralize any efforts to squelch this ex-
citing experiment.
-ROBERT KRAFTOWITZ
Editor
ONCE AGAIN President Nixon
demonstrated a questionable
sense of domestic priorities when
he gave the go-ahead two weeks
ago for development of a $5.5 bil-
lion manned space shuttle system.
One cannot be quite sure wheth-
er this new space program is an
election-year Christmas present
for the sagging aerospace industry
or a means to continue the United
States' wasteful practice of having
spacemen do the jobs machines
could do better at a fraction of the
cost.
In either case, this massive al-
location of resources would be
more productively spent elsewhere,
both to stimulate the economy and
to capitalize on what practical
benefits we can get from space, if
these are Nixon's true goals.
The shuttle system proposed by
Nixon is "an entirely new type of
space transportation system de-
signed to help transform the space
frontier of the 1970s into familiar
territory easily accessible for hu-
man endeavor in the 1980's and
'90's," according to the President's
statement.
The shuttle will consist of an
airplane-like orbiter, about the
size of a DC-9, attached piggy-
back to an unmanned booster. The,
manned orbiter, which will be able
to carry a payload of up to 32
tons, will take off like a rocket,
travel in earth orbit like a space-
ship and return to earth like an
airplane.
UNLIKE PREVIOUS U.S. space-
craft, the orbiter will land on land,
instead of the oceans, and most of
the components of the space
shuttle will be reusable for up to
100 missions. With his usual hy-
perbole, Nixon says that the
shuttle "will take the astronomi-
cal costs out of astronautics."
First of all, there is some doubt
whether the project will save any
money at all. Space agency offi-
cials estimate that shuttle launch-
es will eventually only cost $10
million apiece compared to as
much as 10 times that amount at
present.
What they do not emphasize is
that $5.5 billion in development
costs, $300 million for new facili-
ties for the program, and $250
million for each additional orbiter
and $50 million for each added
booster beyond two flight test ve-
hicles are not included in the $10
;million figure.
Thus the cost of operating the
system will be much higher than
the use of present equipment when
these additional development costs
are added in.
Supporters of the space shuttle
say this large initial investment
will be recouped through the large
A Neu
propping up the aerospace indus-
try with a make-work project.
No myth, the military-industrial
complex must be kept going. As
important segments of it become
over-inflated, it is not surprising
when Nixon bails out Lockheed
and now plans to keep the other
aerospace companies s o 1 v e n t
through massive infusions of gov-
ernmen tmoney on projects such
as the shuttle.
IF NIXON were truly interested
in stimulating the economy, there
are better ways to go about it that
could also improve the quality of
life for many Americans. Tax cuts,
tax credits, and increased spend-
ing in such areas as housing,
transportation and environmental
protection could all increase the
number of jobs, and at the same
time aid the people more than a
new type of spacecraft.
While it is conceivable that
critics of the space shuttle are
wrong, it Will be quite surprising if
the shuttle is not recognized in a
few years as another boondoggle
of a sometimes less-than-wise
government.
The space shuttle is not the
best way to take advantage of the
benefits of space exploration, is
not a wise way of giving the econ-
omy a kick and is more a monu-
mentto theapoliticalpressures of
an election year than a project
worthy of the support, financial
and otherwise, of the people of
this country.
'
number of flights planned.
But the space agency is quite
vague as to how many flights
there will be, admitting that "to-
tal savings made possible by the
shuttle will depend on its frequen-
cy of use."
MORE REMARKABLY, the Na-
tional Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration (NASA), is not quite
sure for what the space shuttle
will be used. To keep itself in the
manned spaceflight business, the
space agency is building a trans-
portation system without a clear-
ly defined mission.
NASA releases state that with
the shuttle "we will be better able
monitor and predict the weather,
to survey the earth's resources,
improve world-wide communica-
tion, develop improved manufac-
turing processes, enlarge our
knowledge of the, earth and the
solar system, and perhaps even
harness the sun's energy as a
source of pollution-free energy."
But all of these useful applica-
tions of space technology result
from unmanned spacecraft - the
space shuttle will just put them in
orbit and perhaps repair them.
THE RIDICULOUSNESS of the
project is that a large, very ex-
pensive manned shuttle system is
being built to place and operate
unmanned satellites in orbit that
we could launch with rockets al-
ready on hand which, when de-
velopment costs arettaken into ac-
count, are cheaper than the space
shuttle.
If NASA were only interested in
Years
bringing the benefits of space ex-
ploration back to earth, there
would be little question but that
the §pace shuttle is a round-about,
expensive way to do it.
The space agency has pushed
for the shuttle, however, because
NASA needs the excitement and
drama of manned spaceflight for
its public and congressional sup-
port. Without men in space, even
if they are only ferrying unmanned
satellites that really do the work,
NASA, fears further cuts in a
budget that has almost been
halved in the last six years.
EVEN IF there is no space re-
quirement y for the shuttle, some
have argued that the project is
worthwhile because it creates jobs,
somewhat like a space-age WPA
for unemployed technicians, sci-
entists and engineers.
"It is also significant that this
major new national enterprise will
engage the best efforts of thou-
sands of highly skilled workers
and hundreds of contractor firms,"
Nixon acknowledged in his state-
ment.
Dr. James Fletcher, NASA ad-
ministrator. estimates that the
space shuttle project will employ
over 50,000 people in its six-year
development effort
It is coincidental, of course, that
many of the firms and employes
involved are in California, a key
state in the 1972 election, and that
much of the hiring will occur at
the beginning of next fall.
FATTENED BY the billions
consumed by Project Apollo and
cru ise
the Vietnam war, the aerospace
industry has come on hard times.
Its services are little needed be-
cause of the "winding down" of
the war and the space program.
Instead of allowing the aero-
space industry to pare itself down
to size, Nixon has rather chosen
the politically expedient route of
in a New
York cab
HEW sexism:. No hope
By TONY SCHWARTZ
P INIONED behind the wheel of
a bona fide New York C it y
medallioned taxicab this N e w
Year's Eve, I emerged stuffed to
the gills with that city's rich and
unpredictable folklore, brimming
over with lurching memories and
a bit more savvy about the ups
and downs of holiday frivolity.
The night shift brought me back
to my garage at 5:00 a.m., bleary-
eyed, reeling and some $135 weal-
thier. I had time to wonder at
the unabandoned, often artificial,
celebration which takes place on a
night which has no more inherent
cause for festivities than the end
of a supper each evening.
TENS OF thousands of strang-
eirs converged once again on Times
Square to watch a small ball drop,
signalling the new year. To the
hustling cab driver, these legions
translate into paradise; concentrat-
ed crowds all in need of trans-
portation.
With this in mind, I found a
fascinating microcosm of t h e
Times Square crowds far more in-
teresting than the whole. I could
identify with the fascinating de
facto convention of New York's
slippery and clever breed of hust-
lers. The same men who stand on
varied street corners throughout
the year, rough-stubble-of-beard-
creeping-on-chin, are suddenly one;
a mellifluous union of force diver-
gent 364 days a year.
The guy who sells umbrellas in
front of Bloomingdale's during un-
expected rainfalls, one-dollar-
Vince-Lombardi-wool-hats in sud-
den sweeps of plummeting tem-
perature; the pickpockets from
Penn Station and the luggage car-
riers fi'om the 41st Street B u s
Station; all the hangers-on w h o
hustle "long-stem carnations",
genuine Omega wristwatches in
hidden doorways and tiny animals
which scoot across the sidewalk in
inspiring demonstrations - all
--- AES WECHSLER-
Nixon men consent,
but fail to advise
MUCH OF the somber fascination of the Pentagon Papers lay in their
description of how the nation's leaders stubbornly refused to re-
evaluate where we were going - and why - as we steadily dug our-
selves into the morass of Vietnam. Now the documents on our Pakistan
involvement unfolded by Jack Anderson reveal a similarly tragic exec-
utive incapacity or unwillingness to review the premises of a doomed
policy.
IT WAS, of course, Defense Secretary McNamara's belated anxiety
that produced the inquiry embodied in the Pentagon study. But by the
time he ordered the secret appraisal, the escalation had been long under
way and crucial chances for negotiation lost. Lyndon Johnson at least
tolerated the presence of a "devil's advocate" - George Ball; he also
heard intermittent dissent from Adlai Stevenson and later, more per-
sistently, Arthur Goldberg. But they were far away at the UN and
the rigidities, of Dean Rusk's domino theory (faithfully echoed by Walt
Rostow) invariably prevailed until the last phase.
In the dreary Pakistan exhibits, there is no indication that Presi-
dent Nixon ever exposed himself to any serious debate - or that anyone
around him dared to ask hard questions. The "men on the ground-
led, by Ambassador Kenneth Keating in New Delhi and Archer K.
Blood, former consul-general in Dacca - flashed clear, urgent warning
signals'to Washington for many months. Indeed, a Keating cable in mid-
April spelled out the nature of things to come and the perils of our
pro-Pakistan course.
AS THE decisive hours approached, the sessions of the National
Security Council's Waslington Special Action Group (WSAG) read like
the minutes of a meeting of corporate vice presidents who had been
told the head man was on a rampage. Theirs is not to reason why;
the Presidential decree, nervously transmitted by Henry Kissinger,
is to give their all for Pakistan and even ostracize India's envoy.
Kissinger, so long depicted as the President's foreign-policy wizard
and braintruster, emerges as an agitated flunky who has heard His
Majesty's wrath. Whatever role he may have played in the earlier
formulation of the ill-fated policy (and whether he ever aired any
doubts about it), he no longer bore any resemblance to master strate-
gist; he had become the bearer of the message. At one point, surround-
ed byhbad news, he unleashed his fury at the UN:
"If the UN can't operate in
this kind of situation, effectively.
its utility has come to an end and 4
it is useless to think of UN guar-
antees in the Middle East."
FOR THE moment a scape-
goat had been found. Forgotten or
overlooked by Kissinger was the
refusal of the U.S. and other big.:
powers to respond when U Thant
warned the UN Security Council
last summer of the deepening cris-
is in East Pakistan. Nor would "
Kissinger want to be reminded how
often we have brushed the UN
aside during our unilateral exp'edi-
tion in Vietnam.
Hi otburt reflected t h e
blend of panic and self-delusion
that dominated the meetings even
including the desperate thought of
furtive transshipment of arms.
Gen. Westmoreland maintained the
reputation of inexpert prophecy he Henry Kissinger
acquired in Vietnam.
A later Keating cable demolishes in detail the Kissinger "back-
grounder" of Dec. 7 in which he sought to mute the charge that the
U.S. had been anti-Indian.
It also shattered the claim that the outbreak of hostilities had come
as a surprise to Washington. In fact, Keating noted, he had cabled a
warning on Nov. 12 that war was "imminent."
THROUGHOUT the documents President Nixon never appears per-
sonally on the stage; it can only be assumed that Kissinger faithfully
represented the tenacity, irritation and blindness to reality that cul-
minated in the dispatch of a U.S. aircraft carrier to the Bay of Bengal-
to stand there as an advertisement of American futility and folly.
In a way Secretary of State Rogers is treated mercifully by the
revelations; he is a non-person, which may accurately describe his part
! ' I
-Daiy-David Margolick
D HOLLYWOOD movies often repeat
themselves - in real life, as well as
on the screen.
Thirty years ago, gangster films de-
picted an indignant public calling for a
crusade on organized crime - initiated
by the realization that policemen were
as corrupt as the criminals they were
supposed to apprehend.
The same story, or at least half of it,
emerged again last week in Washington.
IN A REPORT released by Secretary of
Health, Education, and Welfare Elliot
Richardson, an HEW committee blasted
the department itself for sexism in its
employment policies, and recommended
two possible ways of remedying the situ-
ation.
HEW is the sole enforcer of an execu-
tive order prohibiting sex discrimination
in the employment practices of federal
nan 4-".,r n r- ~c n,inn n- 4-1-..n inn n'c. fin
make up 63 per cent of HEW's total we
force.
So HEW is guilty of just what it 1
been charged with preventing. And it
easy to wonder exactly how much
HEW's work to eliminate sex discrimii
tion has accomplished anything when
can't even clean its own house.
UNFORTUNATELY, only half of the
Hollywood story came out of Was
ington. The other half - the happy er
ing - was missing.
Sexism, like organized crime, permea
American society to a. degree seeming
impossible to curtail. Not only do bu
nessmen, unions, and federal contract(
discriminate against women in their ei
ployment practices, but the guilt exter
even to the agency which represents v
men's ultimate hope within the govei
ment for altering this discrimination.
So what do we do now? We can't w
0
AT 8:30 P.M., primed and eager,
hunched down in my yellow Dodge,
I set out on a slithering, snaking
ten hour tour through the crowds;
saw reams of swirling humanity
build slowly to a midnight climax
and then peter out slowly for six
hours following. New York City
reaches an unusual height t h a t
night. The tired gait of those who
battle the urban maze every day
acquires a certain short-lived
bounce.
Seldom is it that the cab driver
in New York City enjoys his work,
New Year's Eve is the exception.
He becomes king, at the helm and
delighted as the daily abuses of
an under-abundance of fares, a
stultifying and inescapable laby-
rinth of traffic, and a car t h a t
drives like a 148,000 mile-old mack-
truck; all these recede into the
past. For 10 or 12 hours he is no
longer the .bitter and abrasive cigar
chomper, cataloguing for e a c h
customer his city's ills in perfect
order (namely Lindsay, cab-driv-
ing and life).
Tonight he scoots up carless
streets bursting with hordes of im-
piness seem hollow as she mourns
the general state of the N e w
York friends she's just visited.
Later I appraise a group of cus-
tomers incorrectly. Four rumpled
toughies get in and name a Queens
destination that sounds as far
away as Ann Arbor. They are
soused and I decline the invitation.
A verbal battle ensues as I drive
slowly down Broadway, and the
incident hovers on violence. My
position on the throne is threat-
ened and I obligingly step down,
suddenly radiant and friehdly. I
finally convince them to get out
when I offer to sacrifice payment
for the 20 blocks already travelled.
A little later four nondescript
young men pile into my cab and
name the Gaslight as their desti-
nation. "Who's playing at the Gas-
light I ask?" "We are," they an-
swer. "Who are you?" I come back
weakly. "The Blues Project." "I
didn't know you all were s t i l1
together." Weaker still.
I AM PERIODICALLY proposi-
tioned, offered dope, even invita-
tions to parties. A sweet-talking
M
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raft
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