I 14e £irytgan Dadi Eighty-one years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 i Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in al reprints. FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1972 NIGHT EDITOR: JAN BENEDETTI } On strike. End the wart The not-unique story of Hunyh Tan Mam By MARNIE HEYN IT's not a long story. It's not even unique. Hunyh Tan Main lived twenty-six years. He attended medical school. He was elected student president 'of the Medical College of Saigon University. Then he was elected to bigger and better things- president of the Saigon Student Union, president of the Vietnam National Student Union, chairperson for the Provisional Student Representative Board for Vietnam. He chaired the Fourth Annual Vietnam Student Congress in August, 1970. He, along with more than a hundred others, was ar- rested there, placed in a tiger cage, blinded by lye, beaten, deafened by blows to the head, and crippled by sodium pentathol injections com- bined with electrical charges applied through electrodes. He began a Fast to Death or Freedom, along with others. He was released through demonstrated public sentiment. IN NOVEMBER and December of 1970, he helped draft the, Peo- ples Peace Treaty. On May 27, 1971, he and others were indicted for treason and rebellion. He was imprisoned and tortured. He was released when a civil court overturned a military tribunal's conviction and sentence of death. He was arrested again on January 5, 1972, beaten and tortured because he refused to sign a confession of being a Communist. On March 23, 1972, ten student leaders were indicted for treason and rebellion. One young man slashed his wrists and died in the courtroom. The other nine dipped pens in his blood and signed a declaration vowing resistance until death. On April 5, 1972, a National Student Strike began in South Viet- nam. Students in Hue and Da Nang are still on strike. ON APRIL 14, the Provisional Revolutionary Government an- nounced that Hunyh Tan Main died under torture on or about April 10. We cherish not how long he lived, but how well. He is mourned. He must not be forgotten. Marnie Heyn is a former Student Government Council inember and long-time activist against the war in Indochina. Much of the information for this article came front Provisional Government sources in Saigon. 4 WE STRONGLY urge students on this campus to join in a nationwide class strike today to demonstrate op- position to President Nixon's expand- ing air war in Indochina. Students must inform the govern- ment that its plan for a military vic- tory in Indochina will be met with stiff resistance at home. The bolstering of Saigon's saggingg forces and corrupt government with American resources must end. In the past year, many students have turned away from the anti-war effort, instead focusing their energies on con- sumer and ecological pursuits. These movements are important, but recent developments in Vietnam have given a sense of urgency to the anti-war criess It is time to return our attention to the war. IT IS DIFFICULT to account for the malaise that has overcpme Ann Arbor. Like Berkeley, and other cen- ters of anti-war activity, Ann Arbor has seemed quiet and embittered. But mass anti-war actions this week at Harvard, at the University of Mary- land, at the University of Wisconsin and at other universities are encourag- ing signs that student activism is re- turning. We hope it is. Certainly the President and his coterie of policy makers could use a loud and firm reminder that the students of this country are against his war - in even greater numbers than ever. IF STUDENTS merely boycott their classes, the strike will not be a suc- cess. Workshops and discussions are planned throughout the day, with a rally scheduled at 1 p.m. on the Diag. Thus, it is most important that ev- eryone come to cgmpus today - to show renewed commitment to an anti- war effort that has been tragically weak in recent months. -THE SENIOR EDITORS - f -a 7 [MS7 III n~e S S: Leae u alne -we'e ging "OThe ntep-sysgneav-eus alone LivingrendoUn-g employment . . ,. Letters to ThDal The war, the phones andyou SUPPORT THE strike today but there is something more that you can do - Project Overload." -It won't shut down the Pentagon and it won't wipe GE off the face of the earth. But it will scrape the nerves of the peo- ple whose business it is to grease the air war in Indochina. And if you join in, it could put some steam in the- anti-war, movement. A vast communications network brings together ITT, IBM, General Electric and all the rest. And we can use our phones, which are hooked up to the same system, to tell the makers of war products and war policy that we disapprove. Just dial O, the area code and the number and tell the operator its person- to-person or collect. It doesn't have to cost you a penny, and it's FUN. TOLD A state department secretary that I was calling person-to-person for Secretary Rogers because I was con- cerned about the air war. She said she was, too, and mentioned the similar calls she had already answered yesterday. I called the products division of .one Congfress: big defense contracting firm and asked for the explosives division - collect. They accepted and we talked about cluster bombs, machine guns and anti-personnel gravel mines. If 'you're lucky the secretary will ask why you're calling and you can rap about the war until someone hangs up - all at no cost to you. Here are the names and numbers of some folks who might be interested in discussing their business with you: -Henry Kissinger: 202-456-1414; -Harold Geneen, chairman, Interna- tional Telephone and Telegraph: 212-752- 2000; -Frederick Borsch, chairman, General Electric: 212-750-2000; and -James Binger, chairman, Honeywell, Inc.: 612-332-5200. There are other peo- ple you should taglk to as well, including your friends. BUT BY the way, don't call General Westmoreland at 212-545-6700. He won't be back until Monday. ARTHUR LERNER Editorial Page Editor Strike! THE RECENT BOMBING of North Vietnam is an outrageous act against the peoples of Indo- china and America. We deny the legitimacy of the present govern- mental processes which serve the interests of corporate and military elites in blatant disregard of hu- man life. It is not enough to say that we object to the war but can do nothing. At this crucial time we cannot allow past frustrations in dealing with the war machine on national and University levels to dictate a course of inaction. Now is the time for massive protest against re-escalation of the war. In this election year President Nixon cannot ignore a show of strength directed against his foreign policy. As students at the University. it is particularly important that we direct our protest against the Uni- versity as well. For it is the clas- sified research conducted under the auspices of that institution which has enabled the Pentagon to shift the emphasis of the war to the air and perpetuate new and more horrible crimes against the people of Indochina. There is no such thing as a non- partisan institution. This univer- sity is actively involved in the perpetuation of the war. As student representatives from the LSA governmental body we -Support the strike that has been called by students, faculty. administrators, employes of the University and the community at large in conjunction with the Na- tional Student Strike on Friday, April 21; -Support the closing of the, University until the complicity is ended; and -Strongly support and encour- age efforts to bring about an im- mediate end to all U.S. involve- ment in Indochina. -LSA Student Government April 20r Don't strike! To The Daily: WEDNESDAY NIGHT THE LSA Student Govt. Executive Council passed a resolution pur- suant to U.S. involvement in the Indochina war. We members of the L.S.A. Executive Council op- pose this resolution. We view the purpose of LSA government to be an agency which acts on behalf of legitimate stu- dent interests. We deem the pas- sage of political resolutions to be totally outside the scope of proper LSA government activity. Furthermore, as the representa- tive body of all literary college students, we oppose the notion that the LSA Student Government has the right to take political stands (with which many liter- ary college students may dis- agree). As for the resolution itself, we find ourselves in substantial dis- agreement with most of its con- tent. We oppose a strike of the aca- demic community to protest U.S. involvement in Indochina. Quite apart from the moral status of the involvement, we must oppose the notion that University services should not be available for those not in sympathy wit~h the strike. Politicization of the University, for whatever goal, is wrong. Additionally, we believe, con- trary to what the resolution states, that the bombing of North Viet- nam was not an escalation of the War. It was clearly a response to a dramatically increased North Vietnamese reign of terror and destruction in the South. We also favor an end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. We be- lieve that U.S. troops should come home as quickly as possible, with due regard for their safety. How- ever, we recognize that we have a right to speak only for ourselves, and not for the entire body of literary college students. Therefore, we, who constitute fully one-third of the literary col- lege student govt. Executive Coun- cil, must make our opposition to this resolution known. -Alan Harris Stuart Weiner Patrick Heller William Crawforth Mark Wood April 20 *' SARA FITZGERALDs.r f Niton: Conducting Saturns and SAMs RICHARD NIXON is a magnificent conductor. With the wave of his baton, the maestro draws out the crescen- does, puts the trumpets at forte, the violins at pianissimo and muter a too-tinny media. After years of practice, he knows just how to put the pieces to- gether - like sending up Saturn rockets to the moon while he sends bombs over North Vietnam. On February 5, 1971, the headlines roared with the news that the Apollo 14 mission had landed safely on the moon. The same day the United States confirmed that it had provided air support to the South Vietnam invasion of Laos. And last Sunday as network television's best assumed their spots in their paneled anchor rooms at Space Center, Houston, U.S. journalists in South Vietnam were blocked from the besieged city of An Loc. MORE IMPORTANT, while Richard Nixon assumed a no-comment stance on the current action, we were diverted by one more example of the all-American exploit. Admittedly moon shots aren't what they used to be. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. But then the conductor doesn't have to worry. For after all, the war's gotten pretty boring too. But he keeps throwing in new trills and flourishes anyway. And we get moon rovers, golf shots for the Sunday enthusiast, and comic banter routines - all in new-and-improved moon-to-earth color each time. His planning goes beyond the war though. We'll all remember how we sat in front of the tube on a hot Sunday night in the summer to / hear the master himself proclaim the plans of his wage-price freeze. SO IT SEEMS that the North Vietnamese have no need for a CIA or highly developed intelligence network. For, like soldiers. of old, they can plan their attacks - not by the movement of the moon - but to it. Helping executives fight the freeze By PETER MUNSING [F YOU ARE disillusioned with the American political pro- cess you may be wondering why I am writing this article. After all, the news of the creation of another tax break for large cor- porations will bring a response of "So, what else is new?" Except that this is potentially the largest single loophole in American tax history, averaging about one billion dollars per year, and it may stimulate some to work actively against Nixon in the Fall. But above all, it is too good an example of Mur- phy's law in action to go untold. The story begins in 1969, when the proposal to create the DISC (Domestic International Sales Corporation) was sprung upon Congress in a rider to the Tax Reform and Relief Bill. Natter- ing nabobs of negativism have claimed that el Presidente was starting to pay back his contrib- utors so that their phone service wouldn't be cut off due to lack of funds. Anyway, the proposal became bogged down in the Senate Fi- nance Committee (SFC) where panderers of pessimism such as Sen. Albert Gore (D-Tenn.) felt that IRS was creating another tax loophole. Then it tried to sneak in the back door in 1970 as part of the Trade Bill, but failed SFC 2, DISC 0. HOWEVER WITH THE un- stopable momentum of a wart- night cleaned out their files. Since no one in the White House could understand the proposal, it was decided not to stifle it." The proposal was to allow the establishment of a DISC a dum- my subsidiary through which any corporation could funnel its exports. Setting up a DISC entitles a corporation to a 50 per cent tax break on its export sales pro- fits, though according to Har- vard Law School Prof. Stanley Surrey export profits "would very often include manufactur- ing profits . .. The DISC money is simply made available to the companies and the Treasury will ask no questions on how it is spent." This is because the only re- quirements regarding the 50 per cent break is that the money be spent on "export-related activi- ties" which includes loans to the parent companies-naturally in- terest free. Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisc.) pointed out that "The funds can be used by large manufacturing companies who are presently ex- porters, for purely domestic ac- tivities where the favored com- panies are able to compete with tax-free DISC money against companies not so favored." IF THE COMPANY is smart, it will combine the DISC with a Swiss or Panamanian tax-haven subsidiary and reap even greater benefits. thus avoiding a law panies to lower prices or in- crease advertising and thus create Jobs. In answer to the question of loopholes, its supporters pointed out that the tax break was ac- tually a "deferral," neglecting to point out that as the deferral was "indefinite" in length by the time the company paid back the government the actual cost to the company would only be $20 on each $100 deferred. AS FOR THE EXPORT and job creating potentials; studies by two large corporations sub- mitted to the Treasury Depart- ment prior to passage of the bill showed that the creation of a DISC would have little if any effect on the amount of exports and the amount of promotion. Studies by the SFC also showed that the expected rise in exports was largely unfounded. Even if the companies did lower their prices, it's like sell- ing certain public offices on the basis of the bribes to be obtain- ed - you'll get a large number of applicants of limited public service. Exports could be great- ly stimulated without any of these gifts simply by devaluing the dollar but that might make us a pitiful giant. The bill was onposed by Sens. Church. Fulbrivht. Hart. Hartke. Kennedy. McGovern. Monodale, and Muskie. It was smoorted by Sens. Eastland. Goldwater. Grif- fin, McClellan, Stennis, and Thurmond. Need I say more? next year they would probably continue this policy, because there would only be a one per cent tax advantage (read in- crease in profits) from DISC and this was really too insignifi- cant an amount to lower prices. And to think he worked for two long years to get a 10 per- cent tax advantage. WHEN ASKED AFTER the panel discussion whether, in view of the lack of a govern- ment watchdog, it would seem that he and the top five or six people at Ford could get incre- mentally richer, he replied that while this was a complex issue, if he had to give a nutshell answer, yes, they split it up. Sure, there are only so many bonuses an executive can get in a wage freeze year, but there are other ways of spending the money besides loans to the par- ent company. There's export promotion, such as a chalet at Gstaad where clients can have confer- ences. There are company cars and company jets. There's even tax deductible contributions to various charities, not to mention aid to urban areas such as San Diego. All cynicism aside. as Sen. Fannin (R-Ariz.) said in de- fense of DISC: "We are not just talking about increasing exports -we are talking about saving the companies that are export- ing. TO WTHITC I can only add