Page Faur THIE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, September 22, 1 131174 Pag FurTH MIHIANDALY unay Sptebe 2, 97 KS VESTAL'S VERSION Jerry Ford: The c os get, the less there is JERRY FORD, UP CLOSE: rounding the, then, newly-ap- AN INVESTIGATIVE BIOGRA- pointed Vice-President. As the PHY, by Bud Vestal. New York: first of an expected flurry of Coward, McCann and Geoghe- words about Ford, it covers in gan, 214 pp., $7.95. time only up to the early months of 1974. By JAMES HIPPS The book is clear, evenly written and commends itself UD VESTAL has made the with an interesting narration of mistake of showing Gerald Grand Rapids politics in the Ford as he really is. Despite pre-Ford 1940's. Its major weak- the aura of competence in ness is Ford himself. For there which Vestal attempts to cloak can be little depth in a biogra- Ford, Jerry remains, in Jerry phv of a man as limited as is Ford, Up Close, the same un- Gerald Ford. Vestal offers distinguished politician he has enough information to allow us been for decades. to answer the question asked by Vestal, a long-time friend of his last chapter: "What kind of Ford, began this book to fill President would Jerry Ford the gap of information sur- be?" It can be said that the aghast. Eisenhower at the time had planned a state visit to Ja- pan. But the enraged Japanese students, encouraged by a mem- ber of the Japanese Diet (Con- ergress) who helped lead the Eisenhower's visit cancelled. Someone (described in the to see book as "a former Michigan Congressman") got the idea to go to Japan at their next elec- very qualities inherent in Ford I tion and try to defeat the mem- which made him a valuable ber of the Diet who encouraged Vice-President for Richard Nix- the students to demonstrate on make him an unsuitable against Eisenhower. This was President for the United States. done with the aid of the CIA Vestal describes Ford as be- dirty-tricks division. The main ing loyal, trusting, and obedient. instrument of their success was Ford is unimaginative, too. ("In money. Jerry it was, like an appendix, BUT WHAT OF Jerry Ford? a little-used facility.") Ford is Vestal says, "Ford ought to seen as being just the sort of have known about it, consider- man to help Nixon out in the po- ing the circumstances. If he litical arena, a man adept at did know, he probably enjoyed following others' leads. I the fact that the CIA could win one victory, however in-j BUT HE IS too adept. Vestal significant." includes brief sketches of How could anyone have, Ford's entanglement in the thought this would presage by Winter - Berger affair and his so many years Ford's recent tragicomic production to im- remarks concerning the CIA? peach Justice William 0. Doug- Yet the parallel between this las. Both are examples of incident and the CIA involve- Ford's misguided political in- ment in the recent Chilean tentions. coup is staggering in its im- Of Jerry's involvement with plications. Robert Winter - Berger, Vestal' Thus Vestal shows Gerald admits, "He was naive, he had Ford to be a man of great loy- been gulled." He had been alty and a man with a deep conned by a smooth-talking in- love of country. He is a man fluence peddler who capitalized whose honesty is legend. Yet on Ford's desire to help his the Presidency requires more. party financially. In return, Vestal, in measuring Ford Ford became dirtied in a $125,- for the Presidency, says look 000 deal to buy an African am- at the inheritance. Richard bassadorship. LESSING'S IDEALS A voice of hope in a despairing world A SMALL P E R S 0 N A L In 1957 Lessing's optimistic VOICE: ESSAYS, REVIEWS, idealism may have sounded like INTERVIEWS, By Doris Les- an echo of the 1930s. But she sing, Edited and introduced ' has never been a romantic or a by Paul Schlueter, 171 Pages. self-deluder. G i v e n her full New York: Alfred A. Knopf, awareness of her times, her 1974. activist stance of the 1950s ap- By ALICE HENKIN pears to have been a visionary B I Eanticipation of the mobilized de- JN 1957 Doris Lessing wrote terminaition of the 1960s. "A Small Personal Voice," In more recent essays in- the title essay of this collec- ; cluded in the book, Lessing re- tion. Aware of the modern con- turns frequently to the theme of! fusion of standards and uncer- responsibility: the refusal to re- tainty of values, and cognizant linquish 'old-fashioned morali- of the existentialist dilemma ties' in succumbing to the pres- intellectuals were then confront- sures of modernity. If in the ing, she nevertheless rejected! 1950's, Lessing's sympathies and the acceptance of despair and energies anticipated the trends' disgust as a cowardly betrayal of the 1960's, her vital perser-! of individual responsibility. She verence in asserting certain! insisted instead on an active values and beliefs in the rela-! committment to one's beliefs. To tively apathetic 1970's is an ef- Lessing, socio - economic and fective s t a t e m e n t of herI political structures were insep- strength and integrity. arable from morality. Socialism A Small Personal Voice is di- represented "a rejection of hun-' vided into three sections: "On ger and poverty," and, "a de-! Her Life and Writings," "On sire for goodness and compas- Other Writers," and, "On Af- sion." Within her idealistic de- rica." While the categories are sign, the writer figured as an organizationally useful, they are "architect of the soul," able to slightly deceptive, obscuring the! strengthen "a vision of a good volume's unity as an illumina- which may defeat the evil . . ." tion of Lessing's life and mind. Nixon left behind him a nation devastated in spirit and in sub- stance. Ford, according to Ves- tal, could not do worse than did Johnson or Nixon. But the point is that in extraordinary times a nation needs extraordi- nary men. It is irrelevant that Ford could do no worse than Nixon. But it may be tragic if he can do no better. In JERRY FORD, UP CLOSE, Bud Vestal claims to have written "an investigative biog- raphy." But as a veteran Grand Rapids reporter, Vestal may have known there was not much to be investigated. James Hipps is an economics ntjor at the University and a ieteran of Capitol lill. SARAH HERSHEY, Pianist NANCY WARI NG, Flutist in a JOINT RECITAL} SATURDAY, SEPT. 22 AT 3:00 P.M. at the UNION GALLERY 7 - ".rl n i A Ir'I I/-'A N. I K IInK I The incident involving the im- peachment of Douglas seemsj another case of Gerald Ford's being manipulated. It occurs after Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr.,, and G. Harrold Carswell were both rejected by the Sen-' ate as Nixon's nominees to the POSTHUMOUS VOLUMES Dumas: Sweet lyrics of a murdered poet ARK nF RONF..r,_ Henrv Du- high court. Both Attorney Gen- ' Hl" urauvraneryi eral John Mitchell and the mas, New York: Random House, 1974, 139 pp. $5.95 White House were furious. And PLAY EBONY PLAY IV- Ford was annoyed to have the ORY, Henry Dumas, New, liberal Justice Douglas writing York: Random House, 1974, articles such as "Redress in' Revolution" (whichhadsbeen 134 pp. $5.95. printed in a magazine including By MARNIE HEYN photographs of nude women) while Nixon's conservative ap- JHENRY DUMAS was shot to pointees were discarded. death by a New York city With his first speech attack- policeman in a subway stationI ing Douglas in 1970, the Jus- when he was 34. Reason: "mis- tice Department, under Mitchell taken identity." That senseless happily fed Ford any informa- incident is a tragedy for the tion they felt was suited to the people he loved - black peo- assault. Robert Hartmann, ple - and for literature and ; r l r I st FLUOR, JVIR.AIUt\N UI Included are selections from: REISENSTEIN HEI DEN PISTON SCF CF BR -UBERT HOPIN ZAHMS NO ADMISSION CHARGE LECTURE.. Professor URIEL TAL of the HEBREW UNIVERSITY will lecture Monday, Sept. 23 at 4 p.m. Aud. C-Angell Hall TOPIC: "Religious and Anti-Religious Roots of Modern Antisemitism" Sponsored by Judiac Studies Committee and Dept. of History MONDAY evening-8:00, at HIL L E L-1429 Hill St. Prof. Tal will lecture on "Jewish Self- Understanding and the Land and State of Israel." B'NAI BRITH HILLEL FOUNDATION 1429 Hill I Ford's administrative aide at the time, said, "We may have been used" and noted that "the White House certainly was not uninterested." Perhaps without the interest shown by the White House. Ford's concern with humanity as a whole. Dumas had a flair for under- standing and using language like Orwell, a knack for tellingI stories like Mark Twain, and an ear for lyrics as sweet as any spiritual. In these two vol- stream of Western culture.' He seems at home in his skin. "I see with my skin and hear with my tongue" jN THIS line from "Emoyeni, Place of the Winds," Du- mas asserts his vision of per- ception and understanding: that the external world is part of each of us and that we are involved in a dynamic relation- ship with it. In all of Dumas' work there is an immediacy of language that intensifies time and space and persons. He has the ability to move one from the rural south to Harlem with the turn of a page. The sequence of stories in Ark of Bones - eloquently introduced and edited by Eu- gene Redmond - is eerily bio- graphical. The stories are link- ed: each pictures a similar pro- tagonist at various stages of life. The title story includes many of the things Dumas val-I ned highly: the fresh eyes of children, the evocation of earthI and water and sky, the mysti- cism of Biblical stories, the an- ticipation of a finer future. Yet4 its tone is almost that of fa- ble. Dumas' focus gets sharper and nastier. To the child, whites are nonexistent; to the adoles- cent, they are ignorable; but to the grown man, they are clear- ly and deservedly on the firing line. In "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" they are played to death by the music of a mythi- cal instrument called the afro- horn; and In "Strike and Fade" they are swept away like flot- sam before an urban guerrilla upsurge. The alternative fu- Play Ebony Play Ivory that Dumas hits his stride. Verse is a more appropriate medium for the sensuousness of his lan-, guage than the external disci- pline of sentences and para- graphs. IT IS HERE that he best demonstrates his talent for, getting inside a person, a feel- ing, a mythology. His idiom flows from the Fulton Streetl market to Swahili to Chicago jazz to Zen with the ease of any river-born animal.j I been to the factory, even got a card to go to sea j Yeah, I even got a card to merchant the sea Aint there somebody in this city got a job for poor me? The hanging decision must first reject ignorance. * * * . .F i lay in the gutter/i like gin it looks like glass/in golden i h~a thA ilvrsn /t ll IN THE FIRST part this func- tion is apparent. The part ends with a fine essay on "My Father." He was a British bank- er who, seeking an escape from England's narrow convention- ality, moved his family to Per- sia, where Lessing was born in 1919, and then to Southern Rho- desia. She depicts him as a man of complete integrity. He spent his life pursuing dreams of phy- sical space, freedom from con- flicting social convention, and egalitarian ideals: he died dis- illusioned. As for Lessing, hopes can be disappointed, but t h e y must be revived. "On Other Writers" is a sec- tion of book reviews. Several are of books by other European but resident African writers of radical socio-political nersusa- sios similar to Lessing's. She eimyhasizes with Karen Blixen, author of A Deep Dark- ness, who describes "that sweet noble black of Africa, deep rigrkness absorbed through age, like old soot, that makes you feel that for elegance, vigour and vivacity, no colours rival black." Perhaps the most interesting review is "Afterward to The Story of an African Farm," a book by Olive Schreiner written aro'ind 1883. Lessing read and loved this book in her child- hood. and returned to it as an a71lt to rediscover its wonder. She foind the plot inane. But Lessing perceives the novel as deriving its potency from a mixture of journalism, zeitgeist, and altobiogranhy, coining out of a nart of the human con- suioisness which is alw.ivs try- ing to understand itself and to emerge into the light. It was Schreiner's pubescent feminist consriousness which lent the novel its vigor. Lessing quotes and interorets: " 'A little bitterness, a little longing when we are young, a little futile striving for work, a I it t 1 e ppssionate striving for the exercise of her powers-and then we g with the drove. A woman must march with her regi- ment. In the end she must be trodden down or go with it.'" Douglas would never have umes, one of short stories, one reached the floor of the House of poems, published postumous- of Representatives.I ly, the general public will havej access to some of the finest A FACT WITH current inter- writing in all contemporary, est is that Ford sat on the American letters, and, accord-i five-member Subcommittee on ing to accolades by black liter- Central Intelligence Agency ati, the purest distillation of the appropriations 'from 1955 to black experience in America, 1965. His intimacy with the CIA rural and urban, good and bad. is only hint:d at by Vestal but Unlike many black writers it is enough. who look back toward roots, After President Eisenhower Dumas has transcended the admitted that he had prior ! eclecticism that muddies many knowledge of the use of the U-2 of his contemporaries' work.j photographic spy plane over And yet nowhere does he con-I Russia, world opinion was ' cede anything to join the "main- ({ I AS THE and his STORIES progress protagonist grows, tures; shifts, along. But shift as Dumas' vision and the reader rides it is in the poetry of WANTED: Temporary Parents Homes for Teenagers 1 day to 2 weeks ANY ADULT{(S) CONSI DERED. CALL Ozone House 769-6540 HILLEL SUNDAY BRUNCH Speaker: PROF. CARL COHEN ON THE DEFUNIS CASE concerning affirmative action in the Jewish community. BAGELS--LOX-CREAM CHEESE SUNDAY, Sept. 22-11 a.m, at H I LLEL-1429 Hill St. COST 75c II: ~.I 'L. S I 1 Michigan Bands Presents GEORGE CARLIN on Saturday, Oct. 12 at 8:00 p.m. ?Have a flair for artistic writinq? If you are interest- I ed in reviewing poetry. and music or writing feature1 stories a b o u t the drama, dance, film arts: Contact Arts Rackham Gra NEED A PAR' The new Rackham Stu Office, Rm. 2006 Rac organized to serve your The following positionsc Computer programmer Histolooy tech Full charge bookkeeper Dental assistant See Connie Bell, director, or M Tues. & Fri. 9-5; V 763-0 The 'University is a non-disc employer. STheNlel j ear ie saver swan/ cel4 Oivarl eo- Zes 1hV 1 cught j . . . Olive, a real revolu- Zeus i have caught tionary, knew that the dis- possessed must always work * * * for, and win, their awn rights, their own freedom; yakub lift/i watch/all carry because it is in the fighting, i leg beneath/i tongue/fall- the working, that they grow ing blood and develop and learn their i am butang/dog measure." This is the only article in the Ht rwill be impossible to bile tsb thwm s v HenryDumasaway bookw where Lessing's senti- budget anthologies of Negro ments about the women's move- budet nthloges f "egr"!ment emerge clearly. Predict poets. His language, his love ably, her conception is radical: for his people, and his selfless women have been a dispossess- sense of apocalypse belong be- ed class like others, and most fore every American schoolchild struggle for their freedom. TN HER sensitivities and per- now and for years to come ceptions of the modern world, Lessing bears a similar- Marnie Heyn is :Daily editorial ity to Simone de Beauvoir. In director and a Sunday afternoon The Mandarins Beauvoir doubts the integrity of a "happiness" poet. created through conformity to societal standards of sanity. Lessing also wonders if madness does not have a value as ano- d Students ther level of consciousness apart from the ordinary one and as T-TIM E JOB ? astatement against conform- ity. dent Gov't Employment The very format of A Small Personal Voice, however, is like- kham Bldg., has been Ily to discourage newcomers to employment needs. Lessing's work. Her commen- tary, although well-written, full are available: of insights and occasionally in- LPN's & RN's spiring, is not centered on one Property management theme and is not nearly as Cooks powerful or magnetic as her General office fiction, which is structured on more direct expressions of gut Aarlene Gonik, assist. director sentiment. wed. & Thurs. 9-1 But readers who are already 0109 familiar with Doris Lessing riminatory affirmative action through her stories and novels will rejoice at the book's re- - lease. The articles are well- arranged. They cover a broad range of topics, and together, serve both to illustrate Lessing's extraordinary emotive and intel- lectual personality and to il- luminate her other works. is Back! With lunch at Alice Henkin is a comparative literature and social anthoropo- ogy i a j o r in the Residential College. .,.r.. _.. _... .... .ten _. ..... .... _ .. .. :: 9 . fa. ........... .r..... f , !