et S 4igan aitfly
Eighty years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
friday noring
Stories you might have missed
by da-siel zvwerdling
f 4,
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.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 1971 NIGHT EDITOR: LYNN WEINER
Sk,
ECOLOGISTS were surprised to
read a report, published Jan-
uary 15 in the Los Angeles Times,
that eleven days of gushing crude
oil from Union Oil's Santa Bar-
bara platform in Jan. 1968 and
months of continued leakage
thereafter "d i d almost no per-
manent damage to animal a n d
plant life or to the beaches."
The report noted that although
some sealife like algae were ob-
literated, this was really due to
an increased number of people on
the beaches. Investigators also
blamed a decrease in sealife on
heavy rains in the Santa Barbara
area, which they say washed pes-
ticides on nearby orchards into
streams, which carried the toxins
into the ocean.
The $150,000 investigation was
funded by the Western Oil and
Gas Association.
* * *
THREE DAYS after the report,
two Standard Oil tankers collid-
ed in San Francisco Bay, pouring
two million gallons of oil over a
fifty m i l e stretch of California
coastline. Only three per cent of
the birds covered with the gook
are expected to survive. But not
everyone is very worried. Dr. Ar-
nold Schultz, a University of Cal-
ifornia consultant to the Alyeska
Pipeline Company (which is build-
ing the Alaska pipeline), told the
campus paper, "The water w a s
pretty polluted anyway."
* * *
IF YOU READ the Detroit News,
you're living in the world of U.S.
government newspeak: it's as if
President Nixon himself lays out
the front page.
Yesterday afternoon's top lead
read: "Pullout of AF combat un-
its in '72 is planned." The story
began: "All U.S. Air Force com-
bat u n i t s are to be withdrawn
from South Vietnam by the end
of 1972, leaving only advisers and
technicians, if the air war is suf-
ficiently Vietnamized by then,
military sources said today."
Now, that might be interesting
if the government hadn't b e e n
saying the same thing for more
than a year. If you had glimpsed
the New York Times, The Wash-
ington Post, even the Detroit Free
Press yesterday, you would have
seen another lead story: White
House sources announced t h e
President will request "new crash
program" for military and eco-
nomic aid to Cambodia; and Sen.
John Stennis, following a briefing
with Melvin Laird, said the U.S.
may be sending ground troops to
Cambodia after all - "relaxing"
the Congressional ban.
The Detroit News ran the Sten-
nis-Laird story on page 18. Far-
ther down in the front page lead,
the News merely added: "Mean-
while, the sources said, the United
States is conducting the heaviest
bombing campaign of the war in
Laos and Cambodia . - .
"The sources also left open the
possibility that even after all
American squadrons are pulled out
of Vietnam, the United States will
continue to provide air support for
its allies in Indochina from bases
in Thailand and f r o m aircraft
carriers of the 7th Fleet.
"The sources said that up to
500 U.S. warplanes from the Air
Force, Navy and Marine Corps b re
making daily raids on North Viet-
namese troops and supply routes
in Laos and Cambodia."
WHAT AN enterprising lad, 10-
year-old Donald Sasen of Spring-
field, Mass.! He didn't make the
Boy Scouts last year (he's too
young) but did "his civic duty",
last week according to the As-
sociated Press, when he turned in
his babysitter for smoking pot.
Here's how it happened: last
year. Donald smelled a burning
joint at a state police demonstra-
tion in a county fair. Then, he
saw an anti-marijuana ad on TV.
So he knew for certain that "the
babysitter and her three male'
companions weren't smoking plain
old cigarettes in the bathroom
Saturday night."
Donald pulled an undercover
job. He paid his 9-year-old brother
Joseph one dollar he had earned
shovelling snow, to grab the cel-
lophane bag filled with weed, on
the bathroom medicine shelf.
Brother Joseph was scared, so
he gave the dollar to brother Mi-
chael, only 5. Mike snatched the
bag and gave it to Donald, who
ran lickety split to a drug store
and called the police. The law
came! Narcotics officers, who
busted the pot-smoking young-
sters for "a variety of narcotics
laws violations."
When Mrs. Madeline Sasen re-
turned home, she was surprised.
The 16-year-old babysitter was
"the last girl I would have ex-
pccted to do something like that,"
noted the acute Mrs Sasen. "Sh~e
comes from a very strict family,"
THE UNIVERSITY administra-
tion has a remarkable knack for
co-opting political victories by its
opponents and trumpeting them
as its own-especially after it has
bitterly fought against them.
President Robben Fleming won the
year's award for political acumen
when he testified last summer on
national television before the
Commission on Campus Unrest--
boasting how the University had
made a historic commitment to
increased black enrollment. He
forgot to mention that students,
faculty and non-academic workers
virtually shut down the Univer-
sity for a week before the admin-
istration would concede to BAM
demands.
Now the University is stealing
the scene again. Last weet 's Uni-
versity Record, the administration
propaganda tabloid, ran a lively
feature on the University Cellar.
It quotes enthusiastic students
who just love to shop there be-
cause it carries all their needs and
is the cheapest store in town, be-
sides. The article mentions that
the University Cellar was set up
by the Regents-perhaps that's
technically true. But remember
the LSA building takeover, the
early morning riot police bust with
M-16's and dog corps, and 107
persons arrested?
Incidentally, the University
won't even allow its departments
to do business with the store. For
example: When staff members
submit purchase orders for Xerox-
ing, one of the University's largest
clerical needs, they can't fill the
orders with the Cellar which
charges only 4 cents per copy. In-
stead, the administration permits
orders only from its own Xerox
service-at 10 cents a copy.
4
I
ii
Letters to The Daily
"Dress Right . . .!"
Ques ions of inhumanity
SEVERAL RECENT events powerfully il-
lustrate a strain of callousness and
cruelty in contemporary America.
The court martial trial of L i e u t.
William Calley, accused of the premedi-
tated slaying of 102 Vietnamese civilians
at Mylai, has painfully brought to public
attention the inhumanity that American
fighting men in Vietnam are capable of.
The incident has catalyzed the type of
introspection a nation in our position
must undergo, if we are to have any ser-
ious hopes of retaining a belief in the
sacredness of human life.
Calley's defense arguments contend that
the guilt for the massacre must be assign-
ed to others higher up in the military
pecking order. A private in Calley's unit
has strengthened this defense by testify-
ing that Captain Ernest Medina, Calley's
immediate superior, had told the men of
the platoon that they should destroy
everything, including women and child-
ren, at Mylai. Medina, according to the
private, had left no doubt in the minds
of the men that he wanted the target
No comment
COLONEL
former
Wednesday
57.
JACOBO Arbenz Guzman,
President of Guatemala, died
in Mexico City at the age of
village demolished and its population an-
nihilated.
The defense, however, has not been
content with merely implicating Medina.
It has also accused Colonel Frank , Bar-
ker, Colonel Oran Henderson, and Major
General Samuel Koster, the men who
comprised the military chain of com-
mand above Medina, of being fully aware
of the devastation going on during the
Mylai operation, and of giving tacit con-
sent to it through their continued silence.
DOES THE CHAIN of command create
the type of mindless, unquestioning
obedience which made the holocaust at
Mylai possible? Has the Vietnam War
itself so affected American soldiers that
they are incapable of maintaining a hu-
man perspective? Or does the pattern of
this callousness have counterparts in the
United States?
The recent attempt of a Lithuanian
sailor to defect to the United States
brings the lesson of Mylai closer to home.
The incident occurred early in December,
when a crew member of a Lithuanian ves-
sel leaped to a nearby Coast Guard cutter.
The cutter's commander denied him tem-
porary asylum, as he watched a board-
ing party from the Lithuanian v e s s e 1
beat the defector, and drag him off the
ship.
This betrayal of one man's belief in
America's willingness to offer a home
to refugees makes more evident a wide-
spread disregard for the ideals on which
this nation was originally founded.
More recently, a local incident similarly
illustrates this pattern of behavior. The
captain of the steamship Sylvania was
convicted of negligence last week for fail-
ing to help two men who were drowning
when he passed them in the Detroit Riv-,
er last November.
Capt. Burris Wolters, whose operating
license will either be suspended or revok-
ed, explained to the Detroit Free Press
that if he had attempted to pick up the
men, he "would have endangered his
ship and crew in the swift current".
The inquiry board found the excuse un-
convincing. If any rescue attempt was
feasible, according to their decision, it
should have been made even though there
might have been some risk involved.
The importance of these three news
items, strung together because of their
similarity in what they tell us about our-
selves, by now is evident. The Mylai
slaughter is not an isolated act of in-
humanity perpertrated in wartime. If it
were, we could understand though not
condone it in the context of the dehu-
manizing brutality of war.
Thank you
To the Daily:
AMONG THEIR excellent
awards in Sunday's feature, t h e
Daily editors neglected crowning
themselves with the Chicago Tri-
bune "Victorious Tom Dewey" Ed-
gar for their headline asserting,
some time ago, that Mayor Harris
would not seek a second term.
-Edward G. Voss
Jan. 26
Surveillance
To the Daily:
THE FOLLOWING resolution
was passed at a recent meeting of
the Faculty Reform Coalition.
THE FACULTY Reform Coali-
tion strongly supports the recent
statements by University Presi-
dent Robben Fleming criticizing
impending efforts in the county
to establish an intelligence squad
beyond University control which
would operate on this campus.
Nothing will undermine the op-
enness of our community, a n d
erode trust between students, fac-
ulty, and administration more
rapidly than clandestine surveil-
lance of regular campus intellec-
tual and political activities.
We urge the University admin-
istration to take all measures nec-
essary to insure that police ac-
tivities on the campus remain un-
der firm limits and control.
-George Lakoff
Prof. of Linguistics
-Richard Solomon
Prof. of Political
Science
Co-chairman, Task
Force on Dissent and
Academic Freedom
Hospital
To the Daily:
THERE WERE several inac-
curacies in your article last week
about cigarette sales in the Uni-
versity Hospital.
Galens Honorary Medical So-
ciety is not to be confused with
the store that bears the organi-
zation's name. Galens Society is
a group of 40 Junior and Senior
medical students who perform
various service and philanthropic
activities, among which is the an-
nual Tag Day fund drive, the pro-
ceeds of which are earmarked for
projects at the Childrens Hospital.
Money contributed by the Soci-
ety for projects such as student
loans, the Free Peoples Clinic, Inc ,
a foreign study fellowship, e t c.,
comes from several other sources:
individual donations p r o c e e d s
from our annual "Smoker" (ad-
mittedly an ill-advised name for
our spoof of medical school and
hospital life at Michigan), as well
as profits from the Galens Store.
It is true that prohibition of
cigarette sales (a policy that we
have unanimously endorsed f o r
several years) will eliminate a
substantial portion of our income,
but it will by no means curtail our
activities.
In the future, The Daily is in-
vited to contact us for any infor-
mation regarding the Galens So-
ciety.
-David R. Stutz, med. '71
President, Galens Honorary
Mledical Society
Jan. 26
Kunstler
To the Daily:
I WENT to the Daily editorial
office Monday afternoon offering
my services to write on Sunday
evening's program at Hill Audi-
torium. I went out with an appre-
hensive feeling that Kunstler's
talk would be treated with the
same laziness - or ennui in those
so young? - as was Jane Fonda's
talk at the Union Ballroom 1 a s t
December. (She had delivered to
a well-receiving audience an ear-
nest and moving talk, ordered and
cogent. The Daily writer dismissed
it as "hysterical" self-indulgence
of an ego-tripping celebrity.) I was
told I would be gotten in touch
with if something was needed. It
was.
Bad enough that those of us in
Hill Auditorium Sunday n i g h t
should have to sit through thirty
minutes of masturbatory musical
drivvle while Bill Kunstler stood
in the back waiting to talk. Then
in Tuesday's Daily Richard Leh-
feldt devotes one paragraph to
Kunstler and nine to the musical
part of the program, which was,
I agree ,at b e s t incidental. I
wonder, though, why Lehfeldt
complains that Ochs' vehicle, the
protest song, is "virtually a thing
of the past." Are we above it now?
Beyond? Or perhaps only schlep-
ping behind once again.)
May I carry some of Kunstler's
words the Daily overlooked. "The
people in power have only one
thing to fear: a population angry
enough to move . . . a Woodstock
becoming political - demanding
that all the empty promises have
meaning or that we start all over
again . . . We must pick up the
power in the streets. . . You must
be at that trial in Detroit. If not
you are lying to yourselves by
being here tonight. When t h e
chains settle around your should-
ers you will have no one else to
blame but yourself. The c h a i n
has started: preventive detention
bill; no-knock bill; exhorbitant
bail; welfare inspectors breaking
into homes: You reach that trans-
cendental moment when the abil-
ity to resist suddenly ends. Then
you are in for the horror that life
can be when it goes mad. We must
stay together - no radical, no
liberal, should be destroyed with-
out us being there in the streets
with our bodies . . . Let no brother
or sister be ripped off by the sys-
tem without a fight. Let them iso-
late out no one. That is how the
Third Reich and Greece and Guat-
emala did it. One by one."
The importance of his referral
to the recent trials (CIA, B o b b y
Seale, Berrigan brothers) is that
he sees them as a "triumvirate of
the future" and is imploring us to
try to stop their bludgeoning
sweep over t h e country. I told
him that CIO Conspiracy T r i a 1
Defense Attorney Neal Bush had
said to a seminar on legal action
a few hours earlier that he pre-
dicted in five years there would be
no jury trials. Kunstler said.
"That may very well be. But I
can't give up now because of
what might be in five years. If
[Bush] is right we'll all go to the
ovens together. But the blood still
runs."
I hope it doesn't run more in
the man Lehfeldt described as'
"slightly stooped, tired, maybe
even aged" than in his reviewer.
Definitely it ran in what Lehfeldt
carelessly called "the somnalent
masses . . . that low-key[ed] eve-
ning. Perhaps Lehfeldt sat it out,
but the audiences gave Kunstler
a standing ovation and his power-
to-the-people salute was met in
kind.
-Mary Hope
Secretary,
Institute for Social
Research
Jan. 26
The Editorial Page of The
Michigan Daily is open to any-
one who wishes to submit
articles. Generally speaking, all
articles should be less than
1,000 words.
Thevigilant viewers
who guard our eyes
By MARK DILLEN
Dirty, Dirty, DIRTY! Objectionable, Objectionable. OBJECTION-
ABLE! Bad Taste. Bad Taste, BAD TASTE! LAST CHANCE TO SEE
THE DIRTY, OBJECTIONABLE; BAD TASTE PICTURES!!!
IT HAPPENED in a public place. City Hall, in fact. On the second floor
in the Ann Arbor Art Association's art gallery. Three photographs on
the wall across the hall from the City Council chambers. Untitled
numbers 1, 2 and 3 by Roger Humphries. On'Dec. 15, the AAAA put
them up but some ladies thought they should have been rated X. They
thought they were dirty.
Ring. The ladies soon started calling in. Just a few, but enough
to matter. "The man has no clothes on!" "The baby is smoking a
cigarette!" "Why, it looks as though those kids are smoking a - a
joint!" "Would you hang those things in your living room?"
Indeed. But what can you do to preserve the moral integrity of
the community? How can you stop the spread of bad taste? Protect
the youth! As the twig is bent . . . you know! Write the papers and call
the radio stations! Mobilize public opinion!
But mobilize they could not. City Administrator Guy Larcom did
nothing about it. "It happens every once in a while," said he. "They're
splendid pictures - every one of them."
INDEED. Three or four ladies come to a City Council meeting. The
mayor wants to reduce the penalties for having marijuana. Leave the
meeting. Take down those pictures - those dirty, objectionable bad
taste pictures.
But look out! Here comes Mr. Larcom. He takes the pictures and
puts them in his office for a couple of days. "They were nice ladies,"
says he. "They said they were just going to take them down to the po-
lice station . . . I believed them. The pictures are back up now."
Send in one more letter, Mrs. Sally Irene Harrison. "Our city is
unbelievable," says she. Those pictures should not have been there ..
it is a shame for the young people of today to be so lax in their be-
haivor."
But what about the other oft-voiced cliches of your generation,
Mrs. Harrison?
Haven't your peers contradicted their rhetoric with their acts? For
it must be only a small minority that insists on spoiling everything for
the rest of us law-abiding citizens. Just a few rotten apples that keep
us from enjoying our depravity. Just a few who try to impose their will
on the Great Silent Perverted Majority.
HUMPHRIES' three dirty, objectionable bad taste photographs are
on sale at $30 apiece. If you hurry you can still see them - today is
the last day of his exhibit. After today you'll have to go back to the
Fourth Ave. Adult Bookstore for your fun. But little old ladies beware,
lest you be tempted on this last day to protect the public morals. Be-
side the pictures there is a small card which reads:
"The photographs in this show are the private property of the
artists. Anyone removing them without permission of the artist and
the art association will be prosecuted."
Indeed.
At
4
Arbenz was elected Guatemala's Pres-
ident in 1951. His opposition to foreign
economic interests and his expropriation
of United Fruit Company holdings earn-
ed him the nickname "The Red Colonel"
in the United States.
Arbenz expanded and deepened the
land reform program begun by an earlier
government, broadened Guatemala's re-
lations with Communist nations, and
clashed with powerful interests in Guat-
emala over his plan to build a railroad
from the nation's capital city, in the west,
to the Caribbean coast.
Accused by his domestic opponents and
the State Department of leading Guate-
mala toward Communism, Arbenz' was
overthrown in 1954 by a right-wing mili-
tary coup and a U.S.-backed invasion of
exiles.
SPEAKING TO A New York Times cor-
respondent the following year, Ar-
benz said, "I am completely sure that my
government was following the correct
path. Its program was not invented by
any politician. It was an anti-feudal,
anti-imperialist program, good not only
for Guatemala but for all of L a t i n
America because it corresponded to the
Joe Hill position on radical party
To the Daily:
THE JOE HILL collective wants
to respond to the Daily news
analysis January 27th concerning
the radical alternative party con-
vention. The author of that article
was blind to what really went on
during last weekend's sessions
and misinformed his readers. Be-
sides perceiving the convention
incorrectly he also took it upon
himself to give, by implication, an
inaccurate interpretation of our
collective's position. After read-
ing his article, one might suspect
he attended a different conven-
tion than the rest of us.
The article states that argu-
ments took place "between those
who emphasized the need to bring
new people who are not commit-
ted radicals into the party and
those who insisted the party
should be openly radical in its
stances." This was not the basis
of disagreement and views like
this only distort the real political
question at hand. Similarly. Eric
Chester's statement that certain
people were "trying to close the
party into a very narrow circle."
also serves as a convenient at-
ing the party. Honesty does not
include radical viewpoints being
squelched in an attempt to set up
a liberal front to lure constitu-
ents. It was in this matter that
our collective criticized certain
elements of the convention as op-
portunist. If people are willing to
resort to such tactics then they
should renounce their democratic
rhetoric.
ANOTHER POINT which our
collective feels should be exam-
ined is the question of democracy
among the convention partici-
pants. We believe the party
should democratically determine
its politics and platform on the
basis of the political views of the
convention participants. This can
only be done through free and
honest debate. Some, however,
who had already decided their
stand on certain proposals felt
justified in intimidating any
speaker who did not support im-
mediate acceptance of those pro-
posals. Subtle commentstlike "bor-
ing and irrelevant" acted as an
attempt to discredit opposition
without having to respond to the
ternative. But this must be done
honestly and democratically. The
party should take political posi-
tions that meet the needs of the
people, that present real a'terna-
tives and real solutions to people's
needs.
WE DO NOT feet that all our
political thought must be adopted
by the party. Our participation is
based on the ability of the party
members to freely discuss the
questions at hand. If that dis-
cussion results in us being in the
minority-fine. If we are right--
that the basic needs of people can-
not be met in this society-then
events will prove us so. And if
free discussion is maintained, then
all involved will be able to take a
clear look at those events and
come to the appropriate conclu-
sions. This is what we mean by
developing overall analysis.
And such understanding is the
basis of our unwavering faith in
the people. Free discussion guar-
antees people will reach the con-
clusions which will best serve their
interest.
The crucial auestion facing this
.4'