magazine editors: marty porter tony schwartz contributing editor: laura berman Sunday miagozifle inside: books in review-pages 4 & 5 Number 7 Page Three FEAT October 28, 1973 FURES. A week of Washington madness: in a daze By DAN BIDDLE WASHINGTON TUE, OCT 23, 12:00 P.M.: "Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who haven't been to Washington before, that modern, curvaceous-looking com- plex coming up on the left of our aircraft: that's the Watergate, that you've heard so much about." * * * THE OFFICES of the Committee to Re-Elect the President still exist in a building on Pennsylvania Ave., about half a block from the White House. In the lobby stands a fountain, a perfect hollow cylinder of water flowing flawlessly out of a round hole in the ceiling. On closer inspection, it is in fact a cylinder of shiny wires with water trickling down a few of them. It creates the eye- pleasing illusion of uniformity. The base of the fountain is ringed by plastic plants. The people in CREEP's offices have no answers. Even the office doors have no indication of what, if any- thing, is inside. rHE SECRETARY smiles, stops smiling, and speaks. "I'm sorry, Mr. DeVan Shumway is our press representative, and I'm afraid he's tied up all morning." What does she mean by that? "Well, I'm not really looking for any kind of news story. Can I just take a look around and chat with anyone who's not too busy?" "NO, I'M SORRY. We're all pretty busy." In one corner of the office a bald- headed guy is doing a crossword puzzle. "Now, let's get this straight. This is the Committee to Re-Elect the President. If I'm not mistaken, he's already been re-elected. How can everyone still be so busy? Can't I just chat with somebody?" "No." "Can I talk to you?" "No." "ARE YOU prohibited from saying anything?" "No, I'd really just rather not say anything." "Oh. Well, thanks anyway. Can I just take a look around?" "No. You Shumway in "Thanks." might try calling Mr. the morning." * ~* * IT WAS a week so chock full of reversals, turnarounds, contra- dictions, and paradoxes in the na- tion's capital that it wouldn't have been surprising to see people walking backwards down Pennsylvania Avenue crashing into mailboxes and tele- phone poles. Appropriately, the widespread ad- vance to the rear was consummated by the President of the United States. The President awoke early Thurs- day, looked out upon his lush gardens and saw that it was a lovely autumn day. Clay-faced secret servicemen crisscrossed the White House lawns in perfectly symmetrical patterns, filling the air with the October sound of f a 11 e n leaves crunching beneath leather boots. The agents frowned at the small clusters of rosy-faced dem- onstrators hovering outside the fence. PRESIDENTS, it is well known, must take decisive action, and Mr. Nixon moved swiftly and decisively to make the day rotten. It didn't take long, either. At dawn, White House staff dropped dire hints that America was in the midst of a full military alert, a procedure last employed during the Cuban missile crisis. And God knows none of those days were any fun. The contradictions multiplied like rabbits or Wang calculators. On Wednesday, White House mouthpiece Gerald Warren told re- porters that the President would not give a speech as planned, but would hold a press conference Thursday in- stead, because the Arab-Israeli crisis was taking up too much of his time. Warren was "pleased to report that (Middle East) matters are calming down." ON THURSDAY, Dr. Henry Kissin- ger, Secretary of State and Pro- fessor of American foreign policy, announced that' things were boiling up, not calming down. Hence the alert. The Russians, he said, appeared to be preparing to send troops. At the heart of the matter, said Dr. Kissin- ger, were some suspicious-looking Soviet transport planes. Later that day it was learned that nearly eight hours before the alert began, U.S. intelligence-of question- able quantity these days-found the funny Russian planes to contain harmless cargo. The contradictions spread with the intimate rapidity of a social disease. BUT THIS was no unprecedented ill- ness. The reversals were not, as it were, conceived the week before. Witness: Many months ago, President Nixon called for the appointment of a spe- cial Watergate prosecutor with "a free hand" to seek the truth about some recent scandals. Then last Sa- turday night, he cancelled the special prosecutor, Archibold Cox. Mr. Cox, it seemed, had attempted to slip his "free hand" into the President's pocket. But give Mr. Nixon the benefit of the doubt. As White House spear- carrier Bryce Harlow told the House GOP leadership Thursday, "Does a free hand mean that the Special Prosecutor can' put a stiletto under his coat, walk into the President's office, and kill the President?" Certainly the President did not mean to allow that. Such permission would have placed Mr. Cox above the law, and that's something nobody gets away with. IN ANY CASE, Mr. Cox apparently reached too far, and the Presi- dent cancelled him. Having made turnarounds the order of the day, Mr. Nixon went on with what could only be described as a reversal rampage. He cancelled Elliot Richardson, William Ruckelshaus, and the entire Watergate prosecution team. A slew of respected administra- tion men were suddenly out of jobs. Some were led to believe that the President had cancelled his avowed plans to reduce unemployment as well. Thus observers' heads were already spinning like weathervanes when the President announced he would release the Watergate tapes. This came after months of subtle and blatant indica- tions that Hell could both freeze and thaw before anyone would ever see those tapes. Cox fired Richardson resigned BUT HELL apparently did both and was back in full heat by the middle of last week. The President announced a television speech. Then he cancelled it. He announced a press conference, but before you could say, "Say what?" the conference was re- scheduled and actually happened. For all of 38 minutes. Ah, but we should have known. When Warren announced the press conference, he said, "Now don't make a crisis out of this. All it means is he doesn't have time to write a speech." Alas, everybody knows that it takes longer, particularly for Nixon, to pre- pare a press conference than it does to write a speech, for it means con- frontation-with what he later called "the most outrageous, vicious, dis- torted reporting I have ever seen." WHEN YOU walk into a crowd like that, you better not have your zipper down. "But Mr. Warren," said a mystified Daily reporter, "Can't it be inferred from this that the President has chosen a press conference as a more successful means of lessing public furor than a speech?" "No. The correct inference is that he doesn't have time to write a speech." BUT HE fooled 'em: The press con- ference didn't take long to pre- pare. And it only lasted 38 minutes. Meanwhile, the people of the na- tion, like pimples on the posterior of progress, picked up the flip-flop in grand style. By Friday morning, at least 16,000 voters had written, called, or telegraphed their representatives to declare outrage at the events of the weekend and demand Mr. Nixon's impeachment. Less than 1000, by the best estimates, sent messages of sup- port for the President. AP Photo Capitol Hill was flabbergasted. Last Sunday, a group of duly elected Con- gressmen were attending a NATO environmental conference in Ankara, Turkey. They called House Speaker Carl Albert and asked if the reports of trouble back in the states should be taken seriously. YOU BETTER believe it," Albert an- swered, his voice quivering. "You guys better hurry on back here, we might have to vote on impeachment." Congress was finally backed into earning its pay. No one had seen a landslide of public sentiment like this -and this was the final, crucial turn- around - since the re-election of Richard Nixon in 1972. What was once a mandate was rapidly evolving into a manhunt. Hav- ing once sought passionately to ex- tend the presidency of Mr. Nixon four more years, the people now seemed ready to cancel him, once and for all. UAC Daystar The hassles of rock promo in A By STEPHEN HERSH NOT EVERYONE who sponsors rock concerts comes out dripping with diamonds and driving a Mercedes. UAC Daystar, unlike most college promotion groups, gets no financial compensation from the University. But they put on one of the best con- cert series in the country, outdoing most schools that can throw away tens of thousands of dollars on shows a year. Promoting concerts in Ann Arbor is a business rife with hassles and frus- trations. Take what happened to the group last summer, a classic tease: Daystar was offered the Allman Bro- thers and the Grateful Dead for a concert at the football stadium, be- fore the bands were offered to Wat- kins Glen. With one or two stadium shows per summer, Daystar could gather enough money to carry such unlucrative but attractive events as With all the problems that Daystar encounters in rock promoting in Ann Arbor, it is amazing that they put on any shows at all. If they're not dealing with innumerable financial woes, t h ey must harangue with greedy, money hungry managers and t h e ir tempermental performers. us two years ago," she says. During his encore, after the check had been handed over to his road manager, he destroyed the keyboard of our rented piano with a hammer. Rod saidhe did it because he didn't like that piano. We're still trying to get him to pay for it." He must cater to the personal idio- syncrasies of the artists. Freddie Hubbard wouldn't perform until he was provided with a bottle of Martel cognac. But the real troubles for Daystar are financial. If five dollars could be added to each student's tuition for Daystar's benefit, it would be possible to put on those unprofitable but tasty shows, and ticket prices for students could be held to a maximum of two dollars. That would take a student referendum, though, and it doesn't seem likely considering the sorry state of SGC. The possibility of summer stadium concerts is still open also, IT'S ALSO DIFFICULT to deal with performer's managers, who gen- erally take whatever they can from Daystar. The Moody Blues' manager, Jerry Weintraub, did Daystar a "fav- or" by giving them the group. Wein- traub offered to compensate Day- star only for the expenses in putting on th eneert. nvstar's orivinator past two years the Commander's tick- et sales haven't equalled the cost of putting on his show. Daystar's annual jazz concert is also taken for granted, but jazz shows are also consistent fin- ancial bombs: Dorm dances have also cost the organization money: But Day- star has been able to provide funds to several grouns that underwrite nor- U<:; ..