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Cannikin: The insanity of a nuclear test

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by pat mahoney ..

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.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1971

NIGHT EDITOR: SARA FITZGERALD

,.l

The Kent State petition

,THE PETITION DRIVE initiated by two
Kent State University students which
1s intended to get President Nixon to
convene a federal grand jury to investi-
gate the May, 1969 massacre is an inter-
esting venture although it may not ac-
complish much.
These two students, one of whom is
a grad student and a leader of K e n t
-State's Young Republicans, are attempt-
ng to get a couple of hundred thousand
=signatures to convince the President to
-,+onvene a federal grand jury. What it
sounds like is an attempt to cure a dis-
ease by sticking the patients in isolation
and hoping the sickness will go away. It
doesn't do much more 'than add to the
confusion.
Several questions come to mind when
the issue of petitioning for a federal
grand jury comes up. Of course, there
is the obvious question of why is all the
attention paid to the Kent State shoot-
ings and little paid to those at Jackson
State, where several students were killed
in an incident occurring there that very
spring. The obvious answer is that the
students at Jackson State were black
while thgose of Kent State were white.
In a word, racism. But racism is a com-
mon factor of everyday life in America.
One shouldn't have expected anything
else.
ACTUALLY, if anyone were to spread
publicity about and demand investi-
gations of the Jackson State massacre, it
would have to be the blacks themselves.
But is that logical in face of the fact
that, every day, wherever black people
exist throughout the world, they are fac-
ed with the inhuman ramifications of
white racist exploitation and oppression?
How is it possible, also, to work towards
an end to that situation when you are
engaged in a daily publicity campaign for
someone to "investigate" that repres-
sion?
Blacks have been engaging in such
a campaign for years, with the adver-
tisements aimed largely .at a white aud-
ience who have largely ignored the cam-
Fpaign and simply engaged in making
the workings of oppression trickier.
Blacks have begun to look at themselves
more closely and are becoming less in-
volved in publicity campaigns and more
involved in "nation building."
But let's look at the Kent State peti-
tion campaign. It sounds very. nice but
how feasible is such a proposition? It
seems unlikely that the . President will
x respond affirmatively. There's simply no
I
Changing attl
RECENT ACTIONS by the University to
deter rape by increasing security
around campus are commendable, how-
ever women must take the responsibility
I to delve farther into a problem from
which only they suffer.
The freedom to walk alone at night
without fear is a basic need of all peo-
ple, and the University may ease some
of the tension women feel with its newly
installed flood lights, its plans for a fence
to separate the forested Arboretum from
University housing and its busing plan
which is scheduled to begin servicing the
Hill-University Terrace area early next
week.
These security measures, though, will
not wipe out the apprehension which pre-
vents many women from going where

Editorial Staff
ROBERT KRAFTOWITZ
Editor
JIM BEATTIE DAVE CHUDWIN
Executive Editor Managing Editor
STEVE KOPPMAN .... .... ... Editoriai Page Editor
RICK PERLOFF .. Associate Editorial Page Editor
PAT MAHONEY .... Assstant Editorial Page Editor
- LYNN WEINER Associate Managing Editor
LARRY LEMPERT .. . Associate Managing Editor
ANITA CRONE ................... Arts Editor
JIM IRWIN .. .... .. Associate Arts Editor
JANET FREY .... ..............Personnel Director
ROBERT CONROW ............ .... Books Editor
JIM JUDKIt. ..... ......Photogral l v Editor
Sports Staff
MORT NOVECK, Sports Editor
JIM KEVRA, Executive Sports Editor

reason why he should. After all, the de-
monstrators had burned down a ROTC
building, hadn't they? In that light, they
could be looked upon as common crim-
inals who refused to respond to "legal"
orders from a "legally" constituted au-
thority.
With that kind of logic (or variations
upon that theme), the President could
refuse the petition and feel perfectly
justified.
(IONSIDER, HOWEVER, what could hap-
pen should the President convene this
grand jury. What good would it do?
The petitions want to fix the blame on
someone, or, as they put it, to "bring
all the facts to light." These facts, no
doubt, are those primarily concerned with
whether the National Guard or the de-
monstrators were at fault, or, to put it
another way, who launched the first
blow.
Affixing the blame on the Guard or
the demonstrators will do nothing to
solve the problem. The question that is
being avoided here basically has to do
with why there was a demonstration in
the first place? What emotions were be-
hind the burning of the ROTC build-
ing? The core of the whole thing rests
on the Vietnam war. After all, that is
what it was about in the first place,
wasn't it?
Since that frightful spring of 1969 there
seems to have been a winding down of
concern about demonstrating or taking
any definitive action against the war. The
war drags on, but when students found
that bullets really kill people, even in
their own home town, nobody wanted to
demonstrate anymore.
Maybe people are less interested in dy-
ing in Hometown, U.S.A., than they are in
dying in Swamp City, Vietnam. In a
way, it's the same war. The corpses may
be a little larger, and, in some cases, a
little whiter, but the "imperialist aggres-
sor" (and that is what the U.S. govern-
ment is) the same, and they play for
keeps.
"Liberalistic concern" or evading the
central issues won't stop them. It's going
to take definitive action by people who
are interested in curing the disease rath-
er than building isolation wards to stop
incidents like Veitnam, or Cambodia, or
anyplace else the U.S. deems it necessary
to protect itself from the "communist
menace' (read: U.S. economic interests)
replacing football as the national past-
time.
-GEOFFREY JACQUES
tudes on rape
they want to when they want to, or the
guilt and shame which surrounds most
rape victims.
Since rape is not a man's problem,
women must work together to combat
some of these psychological undercur-
rents.
UUNDERSTANDING AND awareness
are increasing in 'consciousness rais-
ing groups', yet if this feeling of compas-
sion among women could spread to the
average street walker, the confidence
women have in themselves as a group
able..to combat problems may increase.
Hopefully ways will be discovered
which will rid women of their fear of
dark footsteps, and anxiety that an as-
sailant may be hiding in forested areas.
The Women's Crisis Clinic is one step
in this direction. Besides providing more

protection, it plans to offer counseling
and self-defense training classes.
Yet, even if women do learn to pro-
tect themselves, rape will probably con-
tinue, so efforts must be made to erradi-
cate the 'doesn't happen to nice girls'
stigma.
The belief that only promiscuous
women get raped may have originated
in the middle ages when St. Augustine
declared that rape is a punishment for
non-chaste females.;
TODAY RAPE is to "ravish and carnally
know any female 16 years and more
by force and against her will." The law

IT IS HARD to imagine a n y
activity of the federal gov-
ernment more worthy of cancella-
tion than the underground nuc-
lear blast tentatively scheduled
in the Aleutians for Saturday.
Called Cannikin, the test is be-
ing conducted to test the w a r-
head that is to be fitted into a
Spartan antiballistichmissile or
ABM, which would be a major
part of the Safeguard defense sys-
tem. Both the Atomic Energy
Commission and the Defense De-
partment insist that Cannikin is
needed to test the warhead before
the first Safeguard ABM system
goes into operation in G r a n d
Forks, North Dakota in 1974.
Defending the test on the basis
of national security, the AEC has
minimized implications that might
occur. Important environmental
objections have been dismissed by
emphasizing how unlikely the AEC
considers them to be.
PERHAPS THE most surprising
thing about Cannikin is its loca-
tion. Amchitka island, under which
the test will be carried out, is
in a national wildlife preserve.
Any radioactivity that leaked up
from the underground explosion
would come in the crossroads of
Pacific spawning salmon and
might threaten Alaska's fishing in-
dustry.
Radioactive leakage could occur
anywhere from a few minutes to
several years after Cannikin. One
result of the test will be an under-
ground radioactive lake in t h e
cavity createdtby the explosion,
The AEC predicts that this lake
will remain in the cavity for 1000
years. But it admits that a series
of interconnected rock faults could
bring some of this water to the
surface within two or three years.
Cannikin may also create an es-
cape passage for the irradiated
water from an earlier nuclear
blast on the island.
Amchitka is in the heart of an

earthquake zone and the blast of
five million tons of TNT is ex-
pected to generate a shock of ap-
proximately 7.0 on the Richter
scale. Alaskans remember that a
shock of only 6.5 started the Good
Friday quake in 1964. The danger
is that this shock may trigger a
major earthquake. Although the
AEC discounts this possibility, it
admits that ". . . because the un-
derstanding of earthquake me-
chanisms is still developing a n d
is not yet sufficient for exact
calculations ."
THE AEC's knowledge of what
affects its tests have is hardly any
better. In 1964, the agency claim-
ed underground tests would n o t
trigger natural earthquakes except
F under unusual circumstances. By
1970, however, on the basis of
Amchitka blasts and a series of
underground 'tests in Nevada, the
AEC admitted that it had learned
that large explosions invariably
trigger earthquakes.
There will be no leaks of radio-
active material from Cannikin, the
AEC has promised. Its record in
preventing leaks, however, d o e s
little to inspire confidence. Of
over 200 tests in Nevada from Aug-
ust 1963 to June 1971, 17 releas-
ed radioactivity which was de-
tected beyond the limits of the
test site, former AEC chairman
Glen Seaborg said last April.
Even minute amounts of radio-
active material can be harmful. A
study of birth and death records
in Grand Junction, Colo., where
radioactive sands from uranium
processing mills were used in con-
struction projects, shows increased
genetic problems, higher cancer
rated and lower birth rates than
those of the rest of the state. The
sand, called milltailings, was used
by builders as a base for pouring
concrete and as fill material in
and around buildings. Because of
the low levels involved, the ef-
fects of this type of radiation are
seldom immediate, sometimes tak-


Site of the Cannikin test on Amchitka

ing as long as 20 or 30 years to
develop.
OPPONENTS OF Cannikin have
also challenged its importance for
national security. After the Grank
Forks, N.D. ABM installation be-
comes operational, the Defense
Department wil shift its ABM
battle plan for the Safeguard sys-
tem to missiles with smaller war-
heads of a different type from the
one to be tested on Amchitka, ac-
cording to the Federation of
American Scientists. Instead of
providing protection against crude
Chinese rockets, the defense sys-
tem would shift to sophisticated

Soviet vehicles. The AEC, of
course, has denied that the Am-
chitka warhead is obsolete.
And the national security argu-
ment is far from dead. Last week
the Court of Appeals for the Dis-
trict of Columbia, circuit refused
to halt the test because President
Nixon - had approved it and the
court felt it was "in no position
to consider or appraise the na-
tional security aspects of the
test . . ." The suit seeking a tem-
porary restraining order to halt
Cannikin was initiated in August by
six environmental groups and the
Committee for Nuclear Respon-
sibility.
IN ANOTHER SUIT, the en-
vironmentalists sought the re-
lease of documents on the test.
The Appeals Court remanded to
District Court Judge George L
Hart, who had originally dismissed

both suits, the documents case.
Over the weekend Judge Hart ex-
amined the documents with an
AEC expert on call. On Monday,
hes ordered the disclosure of three
documents in full. Parts of four
others and all of seven w e r e
withheld becausethey expressed
opinions necessary for decision-
making in the executive branch.
Judge Hart also followed R gov-
ernment request that the docu-
ments released to the environ-
mentalists' attorney be withheld
from public view.
Even if Cannikin is halted and
eventually cancelled, though, the
United States will still have spent
$200 million on the test. At one
point, the AEC had 700 people on
Amchitka. Perhaps worst of all
though, the nuclear device has
already been lowered one mile
below the island and can no long-
er be recovered.


Letters to the Editor

'!

To The Daily:
AS MANY PEOPLE on campus
are aware, Noam Chomsky was to
have been the main speaker for
the Moratorium Day activities on
October 13.
Only six days before Mora-
torium Day, however, the Ann Ar-
bor Coalition to End the War re-
ceived word from Chomsky thathe
had just received a subpoena to
appear in Boston on October 14
for the federal grand jury investi-
gation of the publication of the
Pentagon papers, and hence would
be unable to come to Ann Arbor
on the 13th. Last week Chom-
sky's grand jury subpoena was
conditionally quashed on the
grounds that there was a reason-
able suspicion that the government
had used illegal electronic sur-
veillance to gather evidence used
in obtaining the subpoena.
Because of the widespread in-
terest expressed by the University
community in hearing Chomsky
speak, the Coalition was able to
obtain a special half-hour speech
taped by Chomsky to the anti-war
movement in Ann Arbor. We have
scheduled the playing of the tape
for Thursday afternoon, Novem -
ber 4, at half-hour intervals from
3:30-5:00 in the afternoon in the

multipurpose room of the UGLI.
We are hoping that all those
who are interested in hearing the
Chomsky tape will also be willing
to help support the work of the
Coalition through nominal dona-
tions. In the face of widespread
apathy on campus, the Coalition
has worked hard to keep alive the
issue of the war before the people
of this community. The tremen-
dously moving and significant ac-
tion by the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War at the Home-
coming game last Saturday was
made possible mainly by the pro-
longed efforts of the Coalition.
This action was witnessed not
only by the 75,000 fans at the foot-
ball game, but also received wide-
spread press and TV coverage.
The Coalition is also actively sup-
porting the regional anti-war
demonstration in Detroit on No-
vember 6.
ALL OF THESE efforts take
money, and the Coalition has
gone into debt because we felt it
was essential to keep publicly
stressing that the war inIndo-
china is actually escalating, not
winding down. We think that
anti-war sentiment on this cam-
pus is still strong, and we need

your moral and financial support.
-Nancy Singham
Dave Gordon
Nancy Bassett
Don Rucknagel
for the Ann Arbor
Coalition to End the War
Nov, 2
Schenk profile
To The Daily:
CONCERNING YOUR profile of
Becca Schenk, you might check
into her being the first woman
elected to head the student body
of a Big Ten school. Northwest-
ern's Eva Jefferson was elected
president of their student body in
the spring of 1970.
-James McConnell, Grad.
Nov. 1
Letters to The Daily should
be mailed to the Editorial Di-
rector or delivered to M ar y
Rafferty in the Student Pub-
lications business office in the
Michigan Daily building. Let-
ters should be typed, double-
spaced and normally should
not exceed 250 words. The
Editorial Directors reserve the
righteto edit all letters sub-
mitted.

- f
"Let's set it off under here.. . where
it l do some good."

4

I

Us ing tax credits to increase profits

By ZACHARY SCHILLER
OVER a quarter of the plant capacity and
equipment in this country presently
lies unused. At the same time, the unem-
ployment rate continues to hover around
the six per cent mark while our economy
is operating at only 70 per cent' of ca-
pacity.
As part of his proposed remedy to cure
our economic ills, President Nixon has
asked for' an investment tax credit. Such
a credit would cut taxes on business in-
vestments in new machinery and equip-
men, and supposedly stimulate business
and create thousands of new 'jobs.
Most companies, however, have said they
will replace machinery and equipment at
about the same rate they had planned
before the President's announcement of
the proposed credit.
Mosttbusinesses will reap extra profits
if the tax credit is passed, because it ap-
plies to equipment already ordered and to
machinery that would have been ordered
even if the tax credit had not been an-
nounced. The effect of the credit is thus
an increase in profits with no concommit-
ant increase in jobs.
WITH A GREAT amount of industry
already operating well below capacity, most
businessmen have no desire to increase ex-
penditures on machinery and equipment.
For the past two years, there has been a

have overtaken the economy, they con-
tinue to mouth their standard phrase: that
profits have been falling, and that it will
benefit every American to see them rise
again.
THIS IS PATENT nonsense. When one
takes into consideration the allowances
made to corporations for a deterioration
in the condition of their plant and equip-
ment, it is plain that profits have remain-
ed essentially stable for 25 years.
These deductions, called Capital Con-
sumption Allowances in economic circles,
will probably ampunt to $63 billion in
1971; together with profits after taxes,
those allowances have constituted 17.7 per
cent of the corporate product in the first
half of this year. This compares with an
average figure of 18.3 per cent since 1946.
A rapid juggling of such figures may
confuse rather than enlighten the casual
observer; the basic point is that profits
have remained at the same level since
World War U.
And now, while over a quarter of existing
plants lie idle, the Nixon Administration
plans to give corporations a direct subsidy
to buy new equipment. Such a sudsidy will
not create more jobs - it 'will simply in-
crease profits.
The wage-price freeze and its accom-

Jobless at Gary, Ind., unemployment office

Such a policy, while being a boon . to
the corporations, does nothing for t h e

has chosen to freeze wages instead of rais-
ing them. The major corporations were all