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Eighty years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Frishmani:
Voice of the
Pentagon?
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, FEBRUARY 23, 1971
NIGHT EDITOR: CARLA RAPOPORT
The costs of Briarwood
CITY COUNCIL is in the process of mak-
ing a decision that could have a
dramatic effect on Ann Arbor's future.
A week ago, Council passed for its first
reading a request to change the toning
of land near the intersection of State
Road and I-94 to allow the construe-
tion of a new shopping center, three times
the size of Arborland, to be called Briar-
wood. In two weeks, Council will hold a
working committee session on the pro-
posal, with a public hearing scheduled
for March 15.
In consideripg the new center, Council
should not let itself be overwhelmed by
the arguments presented by the develop-
ment's backers. The Taubman Corpora-
tion, a Southfield firm involved in devel-
oping Briarwood, has prepared a report
that exaggerates the local market and
underestimates the new center's effects
on the city.
By 1975, Taubman expects that s a f e s
at Briarwood will reach $71 million. But
a large portion of this business will be
sales drawn away from downtown Ann
Arbor. As Briarwood develops, some down-
town stores will move to the new center
while othhers close or curtail plans for
expansion. Predictions of new jobs and
tax revenue are also misleading because
they fail to consider the decline likely to
occur in the central business district.
LAST WEEK Mayor Robert Harris ack-
nowledged the threat Briarwood pos-
es to the downtown area and admitted
that the city "presently lacks the plan-
ning staff and the capital funds to
handle" the accelerated rate of change
Briarwood will produce. However, Harris
added he would oppose the .center only
if Ann Arbor's refusal to accept it will
guarantee Briarwood will not be built -in
Washtenaw County during the next ten
years.
It seems unlikely the developers would
build the center outside Ann Arbor. Sew-
ers and utilities in the city are more ad-
vanced than similar faciliites in Wash-
tenaw's County's townships.
In deciding on the zoning change for
Briarwood, the Council should also con-
sider the environmental impact of the
development. Briarwood's three million
square foot parking lot will sharply in-
crease runoff of gasoline, oil, lead a n d
dangerous carbon compounds into a creek
which empties into the Huron River.
These additions to the river can only
worsen the river's pollution and reduce
benefits from a $3 millioon flood control
bond issue Ann Arbor voters approved last
November.
If Briarwood is approved, it will be-
come necessary to make additions to sev-
eral city roads and to increase S t a t e
and Waters Roads to six lanes, so as to
prevent the acute traffic congestion like-
ly as a result of vehicles going to and
from the new center.
As hundreds of cars congregate around
Briarwood, they will inevitably add to the
city's air pollution. The widened roads
will increase drainage problems by cov-
ering large amounts of land with con-
crete. Altogether, the city's costs for road
and drainage improvements is estimated
at $3 million.
YF ANN ARBOR would develop a viable
mass transit system, some of these
costs might be reduced. But Briarwood
would make this eventuality even more
unlikely than it is at present. Briarwood
would draw shoppers into one corner of
Editorial Staff
ROBERT KRAFTOWITZ
Editor
. JIM BEATTIE DAVE CHUDWIN
Executive Editor Managing Editor
STEVE KOPPMAN .. Editorial Page Editor
RICK PERLOFF .. Associate Editorial Page Editor
PAT MAHONEY ...... Assistant Editorial Page Editor
LYNN WEINER ........ Associate Managing Editor
LARRY LEMPERT . ... Associate Managing Editor
ANITA CRONE .. ..... .........Arts Editor
ROBERT CONROW .Books Editor
JIM JUDKIS .... .........Photography Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Tammy Jacobs, Jonathan Miller,
Carla Rapoport, Hester Pulling, Robert Schreiner.
W. E. Schrock.
COPY EDITORS: Rose Sue Berstein, Mark Dillen, Sara
Fitzgerald.
DAY EDITORS: Linda Dreeben, Alan Lenhoff, Art Ler-
ner, Jim McFerson, Hannah Morrison, Gene Robin-
son, Geri Sprung. Debra Thai.
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Juanita Anderson. Ken
Cohn, Mike McCarthy. John Mitchell, Kristin Ring-
strom. Chris Parks, Zachary Schiller, Ken Schulze.
John Shamraj, Gloria Smith. Ted Stein. Chuck Wil-
bur,
Sports Staff
Ann Arbor. Providing adequate, regular
service to both the downtown area and
the Briarwood center would put a great
financial strain on the city bus system.
Although the developer has offered a
subsidy to mass transit, the amount is
totally inadequate compared to the cost
to the city of the new line. Briarwood
has clearly been planned for cars, as is
evidenced by its vast parking lots.
A few people may avoid the traffic
p'roblems by living within walking dis-
tance to Briarwood, since the retail
shopping center is only Phase I of the
Briarwood plan. Projections for the se-
cond and third phases envision ten of-
fice buildings and 434 apartment units
by 1980. One phase at a time will be
submitted to the city for approval, with
no guarantee that the latter two phases
will ever be built.
Even if all three phases are built, it
is doubtful that the center will comply
with the city planning department's
"Guide for Change," a program for con-
trolling growth in Ann Arbor. As an alter-
native to suburban sprawl, the new plan
recommends four district centers. Each
would have a core shopping area sur-
rounded by residential neighborhoods.
Altogether, the costs of building new
roads, providing extra city services, clean-
ing up new pollution added to the Huron
River, and subsidizing the Ann A r b o r
Transpoortation Authority are likely to
exceed the tax revenue gained by the
city from the Briarwood development.
Other economic effects oof the center on
city residents must also be considered.
Ann Arbor's black community is likely
to be hurt by the withdrawal of retailers
from the nearby downtown area. In the
southern part of Ann Arbor, Briarwood
may raise land values so much that the
costs of buying land for parks and low-
cost housing may become prohibitive.
School taxes are likely to rise as the
Board of Education finds it must pay
exorbitant prices for land to accommo-
date schools.
There are other crucial effects to con-
sider.
During the past ten years Ann Arbor's
population has risen from 67,00.0 to 99,000.
Such a rapid increase has taxed the en-
vironment by adding to the demand for
water, the number of cars producing air
pollution and the amount of solid waste
discarded. Building Briarwood would only
put another strain on the environment.
After providing conservation education in
the public schools for a decade and host-
ing-an environmental teach-in last year,
Ann Arbor should realize the ecological
consequences of Briarwood in terms of
air and water pollution.
IF COUNCIL cannot muster the courage
to turn down the zoning request for
Briarwood, in the face of these compelling
ecological and economic objections, it
may find itself unable to have more than
a minimal influence on the future course
of the city's growth.
-PAT MAHONEY
Assistant Editorial Page Editor
Insulting
homosexuals
BLACK STUDENT Union president Dave
Wesley this week described the Office
of Student Services policy on discrimina-
tory job recruiters as a "faggot proposal."
To exacerbate m a t t e r s further Mr.
Wesley chose the open hearing before the
Regents to make his remark, a hearing
attended by upwards of 300 people, many
of them homosexual.
Wesley's comment must be viewed with
great concern, not because he has reser-
vations about the policy but because he
used a sexist insult similar to the racist
insult "nigger" to try to make his point.
Mr. Wesley must be aware that the
Regents are quite as unfriendly towards
homosexual activists on campus as they
are towards black activists and as a mem-
ber of a massively oppressed minority
group he must equally be aware of the
pain that can be caused by such ill ad-
vised comments.
Mr. Wesley is entitled to his opinion on
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of five
articles concerning the issue of American
prisoners of war in North Vietnam. The rest
of the series, by the author of a Pulitzer-
prize winning article on the My Lai tragedy,
will appear later in the week.
By SEYMOUR M. HERSH
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 - I first inter-
viewed Frishman late in-1970, more than a
year after he first began speaking out, in
the San Diego office of Concern for POWs,
Incorporated, an affiliate of a national
POW wives' organization that had been set
up in mid-year.
By then, Frishman - still in the Navy -
was spending most of his time coordinat-
ing the affairs of the wives' group, along
with speech-making and other public ap-
pearances. He was now a key figure in the
prisoner of war movement in America, and
was often being interviewed on television
and elsewhere about his experiences.
Although he had been out of North
Vietnam for more than eighteen months,
Frishman looked very much like a recent
returnee. He weighed 145 p o u n d s, his
weight upon release. Yet his Navy uniform
was still loose-fitting, his shirt collar still
far too big; he had made no attempt to
alter his old uniforms or purchase new
ones.
I told him there were many responsible
persons who did not believe his account of
torture while in the POW camps. "I pre-
fer to keep off tortures," he said. "People
keep on talking about brainwashing, tor-
tures, and things like, that. If people want
to call me wrong about the torture, that's
okay. I don't care if you write about it."
What about the other prisoners w h o
were unable to report systematic physical
abuses?
"The men released prior to my time had
only been up there for a short period of
time." Frishman said. "Their treatment, as
they said, was not all that bad. I had much
more knowledge than the other prisoners
who came out. Now, for the first time, they
(Pentagon officials) had tangible, concrete
evidence what things really were like."
I REMINDED HIM that he had said at
his September, 1969, news conference that
fingernails were pulled out of Commander
Stratton, yet later photographs published
by the N o r t h Vietnamese of Stratton
showed no evidence of such treatment.
"I never said fingernails were pulled out
of Stratton," Frishman replied, speaking
in staccato fashion. "I never said he lost
fingernails. In fact. he was hit in the hand
and lost . . ." His voice trailed off. "The
press said they were pulled out; I never
did."
On other specific points he was equally
vague and contradictory. "I can tell you
this," the former pilot said. "I can get you
bigger stories--if I could get clearance. I
try to keep things in generalities to avoid
any chance of retaliation." Yet he had
been specific about Commander Stratton
and the wounded prisoner who lived above
him.
"I was the one who wanted to do this
(hold the press conference)," Frishman
added. "This has been all my decision. I'm
proud of my country. I think that this is
the best country in the world. Now, since
I've been a prisoner, I've heard both sides
of the story. I'm convinced that Commun-
ism is a real threat to America. It does
scare me, it really does.
"As a prisoner, I was scared, boy, I was.
Scared of Communism. T h e y can't live
with a society like ours. They h a v e to
throw over capitalism."
In Washington, I told a number of pres-
ent and former government officials con-
cerned with the POW question about the
unconvincing interview.
ONE MAN still in the government ack-
nowledged some of his own current doubt
about the Frishman account of life inside
North Vietnam prisons, adding that the
pilot "was under strain when he was re-
leased. He had been interviewed (by the
foreign press) many, many times. He had
played ball (with the North Vietnamese)
the most and therefore was the most torn."
But this official had kept his doubts to
himself.
Another man who was a high Pentagon
official at the time Frishman held his news
conference agreed that much of the lieu-
tenant's story lacked credibility. "I per-
sonally think he's got serious problems,"
the former official said.
"Pretty soon every time he spoke he got
away from what he had seen and felt and
heard and began talking about world Com-
munism." Part of the reason may be guilt,
the source added. "After all, he's out and
the other guys are in there . . . Most of
these guys (the nine men who had been
released by North Vietnam) made state-
inents in support of the Hanoi prosecution
of the war while in prison,"
Told about Frishman's revised account
of the fingernail removal incident involv-
ing Commander Stratton, the former of-
ficial said: "I was less prone to believe that
than anything else." A moment later, he
acknowledged that Frishman h a d "lost
sight of what actually happened."
4
Frishman during a 1969 interview in North Vietnam
tONLY AMONG military officers still on
~ ~ duty in the Pentagon did I find anyone
willing to refute the suggestion that Frish-
,.man was less than candid. One Colonel
closely involved with POW affairs, brist-
ling at my suggestion that the debriefing
sessions had been utilized to induce Frish-
man to publicly confess, said flatly:
"Frishman did report instances of torture
that he experienced or heard of."
The officer also acknowledged, however,
that the Nixon Admmistration had made
what he termed "a conscious decision to
publicize totherworld that Hanoi's (POW)
policy is" before the Navy Lieutenant and
his colleagues were released.
Frishiran's information, which was im-
mediately accepted at face value through-
out the country, put to an end a debate
between the Pentagon and State Depart-
ment over the precise nature of prisoner
treatment inside North Vietnam that had
become increasingly harsh.
The military men had long been chafing
Fris man, right, and over the early low-key policy of the John-
fellow flyer as POWS son administration, whose prisoner of war
New recruiting policy.
Step for ward or Fraud?
policies had been handled by Roving Am-
bassador W. Averell Harriman.
North Vietnam's first prisoner was cap-
tured in August, 1964, after the bombing
in response to the Gulf of Tonkin inci-
dent.
From the early days of the air war, the
North Vietnamese had claimed that Ameri-
can planes were indiscriminately bombing
schools, hospitals, churches, and other ci-
vilian targets. As such, the government ar-
gued that the captured pilots were war
criminals for whom the provisions of the
1949 Geneva Convention on prisoners of
war - such as international inspection of
prisoners camps - did not apply.'
Hanoi's legal basis for its position was
centered around its refusal to apply Ar-
ticle 85 of the Geneva Convention which
grants prisoners of war the full benefit
of the Treaty's protection, even if they are
tried or convicted of war crimes. North
Vietnam, along with many other commun-
ist and socialist states, entered a specific
reservation to the article before signing.
The United States has strenuously object-
ed to the Hanoi interpretation.
THE PRISONERS were of great con-
cern to the Johnson Administration.'By
1966, a special prisoner of w a r advisory
committee headed by Harriman had been
set up and was meeting twice a month.
The committee's goals were modest, and
Washington's concern over the prisoners
rarely surfaced in public. The official aim
was, ultimately, a negotiated release of the
prisoners. As an immediate step, however,
impartial inspection of the North Vietna-
mese prison camps by International Com-
mittee of the Red C r o s s (ICRC) was
sought.
One of Harriman's first actions, as he
recalled in a later interview, "was to find
out how we were treating prisoners from
the North captured in the South. I found
out -we were turning them o v e r to the
South Vietnamese, who were putting them
into common jails along with South Viet-
namese criminals."
Eventually, Harriman persuaded the
South Vietnamese to construct a number
of special prison camps, still in existence,
for North Vietnamese prisoners. "We were
trying to clean our own skirts," Harriman
said pointedly, "but there still was a big
question hanging - what happened to the
prisoners after they were captured on the
battlefield and before they got to one of
the camps?"
When some direct evidence of seeming
mistreatment of Americans in the North -
usually via filmed propaganda interviews
with the pilots or photos showing downed
pilots being paraded through Hanoi - be-
came available, Harriman repeatedly ov-
erruled Pentagon attempts to publicly dis-
seminate the material in the United States.
He explained later that he had not wanted
to poison the atmosphere and make it more
difficult for Hanoi to release more prison-
ers and further information about the pi-
lots.
"WE DID NOT advertise the cruelty we
knew existed there because we didn't want
to make propaganda. It was a conscious
decision not to go public," the former am-
bassador said. "We didn't use it to stir up
the American people."
"Don't get the idea that we were soft,"
the former Ambassador added. "We did
everything we could in every way to point
out to the North Vietnamese their viola-
tions of the Geneva Conventions . . . The
reason we didn't have the prisoners talk is
because we didn't want Hanoi to say, 'Ha,
ha, they're using t h e m for propaganda
against us.'"
The decision to publicize Frishman's ac-
counts of prison life changed all that, and
embarked the United States on a new pol-
icy involving a high degree of public re-
lations. Now, more than a year later, Ad-
ministration officials point with pride to
the increasing communication from pris-
oners inside North Vietnam as evidence of
the success of the new approach.
Yet the fact remains that no more pris-
oners have been released by the N o r t h
since Frishman.
@ Reporters News Service
"V
Letters to The Daily
Long hair
By BILL BACHMANN
Daily Guest Writer
Editor's Note: Bill Bachmann is an economics graduate student and
a member of Brain Mistrust, a radical research group.
I AM DISMAYED that the Daily's analysis refers to the Regents' recruit-
ment policy as a "compromise," implying that it was a smaller-than-
desired, but desirable step forward. In reality, the new policy is a shuck,
designed to give people the illusion that the Regent's are concerned about
racism and are really trying to do something about it.
First, the new policy is at once redundant and contradictory. The first
part reads: "No placement services shall be made available to any
organization or individual that discriminates in recruitment or employ-
ment against any person because of race, color, creed, sex, religion, or
national origin."
Fine, So why the second part, which merely applies this general
rule to one type of recruiting supposedly done at the University? "Neither
shall any placement service be made available for the purpose of recruit-
ment for employment in any country where discrimination is legally
enforced on the basis of race, color, creed, sex, religion or national
origin."
The Regents made clear the reason for this second, seemingly re-
dundant paragraph in their verbal explanation of the new policy. They
said that the policy would bar from Placement offices organizations
which discriminate in their interviewing and hiring of University stu-
dents, as well as companies recruiting to fill job positions in South Africa.
In other words, the first paragraph of the new policy is only for show.
Its real meaning is much narrower.
University policy has barred organizations which discriminate in
interviewing and hiring University students from Placement Services
for several years. However, there is no investigative mechanism, and
interviewers can cloak discrimination in any number of excuses. In fact
only one organization, a law firm which refused to interview women, is
known to have been denied facilities under this policy.
To the Daily:
I AM responding to an article
in the Daily (Friday, February 12,
1971) entitled "Long Hair Workers
Face Firing".
First, let me comment on the
store's policies: How long ago did
girls start wearing short skirts?
How long have men worn mous-
taches? Isn't it time food stores,
as well as other establishments
throw out their antiquated, silly
dress codes, as have many Uni-
versities and High Schools across
the country, and start progressing
instead of regressing?
Second, if these policies were en-
forced at the time of actual em-
ployment, why are the people in-
volved working at all now? It
seems clearly evident to me that
if policies are policies at all, they
should be recognized as such at
the proper time and acted upon
accordingly. Why hire "long nairs"
at all? Why not discriminate right
away, instead of waiting until em-
ployees have begun work?
Third, if employees are to be
"neat" and "uniform", why not
have them wear uniforms, or why
not have the men all wear crew-
cuts, or2have all women's skirts
6" or 12" from the floor? Also,
long can be as neat as short hair,
can't it?
Fourth, if long hair interferes ig
with the sanitation aspects of the
food store industry, could nets be
used? There are other chains
which have begun this practice.
Why doesn't A&P have a heart
and re-evaluate its position?
THERE MUST be hundreds of
other possible suggestions many .r
people could and would make, if
you would only listen, Mr. Hart-
mann!!
-M. Pierce
Feb. 16
pF/I
I -
.a
Ethnic
To the Daily:
NO APOLOGIES are in order
for my usage of "often Jewish"
to describe RC i'adicals, as Wil-
liam Jacobs suggests in his letter
in the Feb. 10 Daily. My intent
was not to create a derogatory
context, nor to imply anti-Semit-
ism, but solely to delineate three
common attributes of RC radi-
cals, the other two being parental
wealth and residence, and radical-
ism. The reason many RC stu-
dents have these attributes is be-
cause people of such background
tend to be more talented for RC's
more abstract courses than other
people studying other courses. I do
apologize for what I said about
it
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