Ell Eiciian OW11;
Eighty-Five Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
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Wednesday, September 10, 1975
News Phone: 764-0552
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104
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Why was this man fired?
IN A LAND increasingly ruled by
technocrats and managers, many
of us have come to cherish our pri-
vate homes as the one final place
where we can do and act as we please,
answerable to no one and nothing as
long as we don't impose unfairly on
others.
Closer to home, the University com-
Health hazard
[ILK DRINKERS of the campus
beware.
In their never-ending search for
the All-American boy, Army ROTC
has taken to making their pitch on
one side of Wilson's "Mellow D" half-
gallon milk cartons.
Unreliable Defense Department
sources have it that the advertise-
ment was designed to produce a hyp-
notic effect, triggered by one eight-
ounce serving, which induces an ir-
resistible urge to run down to North
Hall and sign on the dotted line.
munity has long considered itself a
place where people of all kinds of life-
styles, disciplines, and beliefs could
coexist peaceably and learn from in-
teraction.
For nearly a decade the people who
run the dorms have tried to maintain
an attitude of concerned tolerance
toward their residents, and the gen-
eral rule has been that people should
feel unrestricted in their lifestyles so
long as they don't infringe on others.
But judging from recent events,
climaxed by last Thursday's dismis-
sal of West Quad Resident Advisor
Steve Kelly, that tolerant policy may
now be extinct.
KELLY WAS FIRED by West Quad
Dorm Director Leon West after
Resident Director Philip Royster
claimed he saw Kelly with his hand
in a bag of marijuana. Also, accord-
ing to Kelly, he was fired on the spot
without benefit of a hearing or an
opportunity to respond to the charges.
At this time it has not been estab-
lished whether in fact Resident Di-
rector Steve Kelly was fulfilling the
requirements of his job at the time of
his dismissal, but comments from hall
members indicate that he was.
In any case, neither he nor any
other University employe should have
to live with the threat of unilateral
dismissal without provision for de-
fense.
It's a safe bet that on any given
day a significant number of Univer-
sity faculty and staff park their cars
illegally in University lots. Yet how
many staffers have been, or should
be, fired for such a transgression.
Steve Kelly lost his job for an al-
leged act which the city considers
roughly equal in sinister intent to
parking in a loading zone. The na-
tiire of his action has for years been
,^°nd and widely practiced within
community.
PROM THE information on the case
now available, it is apparent that
Kelly is not the person who should
have been called to task. By imply-
ing a character flaw where the vast
majority of dorm residents believe
none exists, and dismissing a valued
staff member for the most asinine of
reasons, the West Quad directorship
has displayed a flagrant disregard for
the privacy and personal rights of
residents.
If the dorm directorship had hud-
dled in some dark corner and debated
the issue, they couldn't have planned
a more surefire way to start the year
on the wrong foot.
A man's rights have been blatant-
ly violated. Whatever inconvenience
the action places on Kelly's personal
life, dorm residents will suffer con-
siderably more from the dismal prece-
dent it has set.
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IWHAT 1M I.W 6
Conspiracy:
Was Sirhan hypnotized?
By BILL TURNER
MONTEREY, Cal., (PNS) -
Sirhan B. Sirhan was a kind of
Manchurian candidate hypno-
programmed to shoot Sen. Rob-
ert F. Kennedy, says Dr. Ed-
uard Simson-Kallas, a clinical
psychologist and hypnosis ex-
pert who conducted extensive
tests on Sirhan in San Quentin
prison in 1969.
Kennedy was gunned down in
cording to Dr. Simson, make
this a real possibility.
ONE IN THE RECENT pres-
sure to reopen the investigation
based on independent ballistics
evidence of a "second gun." On
August 12, the Los Angeles
County Board of Supervisors
voted unanimously to support
re-opening the case and two
days later Superior Court Judge
Sirhatt
the Robert F. Kennedy murder,
including his programmer. "Sir-
han still has the answer to the
problem. That's why he's in
danger," Dr. Simson warned.
"The answer to the Kennedy
case is locked in his mind some-
where. It can be found."
A BLUE-EYED NATIVE of
Estonia, with a Beethoven-like
halo of grey hair, Dr. Simson
examinedrSirhan in the summer
of 1959 shortly after the young
Palestinian emigree was lodged
in San Quentin's death row.
(The death sentence was subse-
quently negated in the general
moratorium on the death pen-
alty.)
At the time, Dr. Simson was
in charge of the prison's psy-
chological testing program. He
now maintains a private prac-
tice and teaches abnormal psy-
chology at the California State
Universities at Santa Cruz and
San Jose.
His credentials are impres-
sive. On the walls of his office
alongside such momentos as an
o r n a t e Heidelberg Univer-
sity student fraternity cap and
Haitian voodoo masks, are di-
plomas from a bevy of univer-
sities including Stanford and
Heidelberg, from which he ob-
tained a PhD cum laude.
There are plaques attesting to
his being a fellow of the British
Royal Society of Health and the
American Society for Clinical
Hypnosis, among other profes-
sional honors.
DR. SIMSON'S OPINION
that Sirhan was in an hypnotic
trance at the time of the crime
is shared by Dr. Bernard L.
Diamond of the University of
California at Berkeley. Dr. Dia-
mond so testified at Sirhan's
trial in which the defense stra-
tegy was to try to demonstrate
a "diminished capacity" that
under California law could have
reduced the first-degree murder
charge.
In testing Sirhan, Dr. Dia-
mond had found his subject so
susceptible to hypnotic com-
mand that he obeyed an order
to climb the bars of his cell
like a monkey.
However, Dr. Diamond ven-
tured on the witness stand that
thehhypnosis on the murder
night was probably self-induced,
noting that there were many
mirrors on the Ambassador Ho-
tel walls useful for this pur-
pose.
Dr. Simson scoffs at the self-
induction theory as gratuitous,
pointing out that Sirhan was the
ideal Manchurian Candidate.
"He was easily influenced, had
no real roots, and was looking
for a cause," he says. "The
Arab-Israeli conflict could eas-
ily have been used to motivate
him."
DISPUTING DR. DIAMOND
and other colleagues, who tes-
tified that Sirhan was subnor-
mal in his intelligence and a
paranoid schizophrenic, Dr.
Simson says he found Sirhan to
be mentally sound and bright.
He contends that his colleagues
erred under preconceptions that
Sirhan was both guilty and de-
ranged - provoking Sirhan to
turn distrustful and uncoopera-
tive in their examinations of
him.
"They were not in a position
to unlock Sirhan's mind," Dr.
Simson says. "This could only
be done by a doctor Sirhan fully
trusted."
Dr. Simson asserts that dur-
ing his sessions at San Quentin
he attained a high degree of
Robert Kennedy
prosecution used to prove pre-
meditation.
AT HEIDELBERG, Dr. Sim-
son had studied graphology, the
science of handwriting analy-
sis to determine a persons char-
acter. He was struck by the
fact that the reputed Sirhan
nothook was not composed in
the free-flowing, uninhibited
TODAY'S STAFF:
News: Gordon Atcheson, Lois Josimo-
vich, Jo Marcotty, Stephen Selbst,
Kate Spelman, Jim Tobin, David
Whiting.
Editorial Page: Paul Haskins, Doc
Kralik
Arts Page: James Valk.
Photo Technician: Steve Kagan
a kitchen of the Ambassador
Hotel in Los Angeles in the
early morning of June 5, 1968,
moments after claiming victory
in the California Democratic
presidential election primary.
Sirhan was seized on the spot
and subsequently convicted of
first-degree murder in Febru-
ary 1969.
The prosecution contended
that he had acted alone.
.Now, Dr. Simson says, Sirhan,
is in danger of his life from
those who might wish to silence
him. "Whoever masterminded
the Robert F. Kennedy assas-
sination would want to make
sure Sirhan doesn't talk," he as-
serted.
Two recent developments, ac-
J. Robert Wenke ordered new
ballistics tests.
The other is Sirhan's recent
transfer to the Soledad training
facility where security is less
strict than at San Quentin. Cal-
ifornia prison officials say that
no special precautions are be-
ing taken to protect Sirhan.
Dr. Simson explained that
Sirhan's hypnoprogrammed
mind is like a vault, and once
the combination is found to un-
lock it, Sirhan might be able
to name others responsible for
Letters should be typed l
and limited to 400 words.
The Daily reserves the
right to editrletters for
length and grammar.
rapport with Sirhan. "He was
extremely eager to talk to me,"
he says. "He himself wanted
to find out."
Sirhan told the doctor that the
last thing he remembered be-
fore the crime was meeting a
girl in a polka-dot dress and
giving her a cup of coffee heavy
with cream and sugar.
SEVERAL WITNESSES RE-
PORTED seeing Sirhan with a
girl in the hotel but police dis-
counted their stories.
After ending an aggregate of
35 hours with Sirhan, Dr. Sim-
son believed he was on the
verge of at least partially re-
moving the amnesia block.
"If I had been allowed to
spend as much time with him
as necessary, I would have
found out something," he in-
sists. But associate warden
James W. L. Park supervened,
charging that the doctor was
"making a career out of Sir-
han" and ordering him to cur-
tail his visits.
Dr. Simson thereupon resign-
ed his prison post.
Intrigued by his discoveries,
Dr. Simson scrutinized a copy
of the notebook police had con-
fiscated from Sirhan's resi-
dence. It was filled with dis-
jointed entries, many repeti-
tive, that appeared to be the
automatic writing typical of a
person under hypnosis. There
were incriminating passages
such as "Robert F. Kennedy
must be killed," which the
Lettersto the Daily
To The Daily:
THOSE READERS OF the
Ann Arbor News who have been
following the buildup in the
Press for the surrender of the
Panama Canal to Leftist Dic-
tator Omar Torrijos and who
wrote their Congressmen to
oppose De Facto surrender of
the Canal to Panama through
the turning over of the fire pro-
tection and police protection
functions in the Canal Zone to
the Panamanian g o v e r n-
ment must become aware of
the game that our Internation-
alist Secretary of State, Henry
Kissinger, is playing in regards
to Cuba.
Recently, because of the lack
of opposition by our U. S. State
Department towards the con-
tinuance of the Organization of
American States (OAS) eco-
nomic ban against Castro's
Communist Cuba, the OAS vot-
ed to allow each country in
the Western Hemisphere to
style of a person in a trance,
but in a carefully concocted
manner.
Comparing the writing with
known samples of Sirhan's writ-
ing obtained during the San
Quentin testing, he concluded
that the notebook was a forg-
ery. (At the trial, Sirhan's law-
yers had stipulated that he
authored the notebook.)
"Look at the 'P's," Dr. Sim-
son says, "A natural writer
doesn't disconnect his loops.
The notebook is imitation writ-
ing, where you do a jerk at a
time."
Adding credence to Dr. Sim-
son's fear that Sirhan's life is
in jeopardy is the strange death
of Ronald Wood, a former fel-
low inmate of Sirhan 's in the
maximum security wing of San
Quentin.
IN 1974, WOOD offered to
Playboy Magazine for a report-
ed $30.000 what he portrayed
as an inside account of a con-
spiracy learned from Sirhan.
What could Wood have learn-
ed from a man with an amnes-
ia block?
Dr. Simson observes: "Over a
long period of time, in a secure
setting, Sirhan's defensive sys-
tems might loosen. There are
things he might now remem-
ber."
In September 1974 Wood was
ciuietly removed to the Nevada
State prison in Carson City.
A California prison spokes-
man would later say that he
was a "valued informant" who
was transferred for "his own
protection."
Several days after the trans-
fer Ronald Wood was stabbed
to death.
"lie was the first prisoner
killed that year," Dr. Simson
noted. "The execution machin-
ban dictatorship!
HAS MONEY AND the mak-
ing of profits become more im-
portant than human freedom to
our supercapitalists! Early this
spring Senators G e o r g e
McGovern and Claiborn Pell
visited Cuba to pave the way
for recognition of Castro's re-
gime! It is rumored that Mc-
Govern's brother will receive
the franchise for the distribu-
tion of Havana cigars in this
country if and when Cuba is re-
cognized! Where are all the
piouseutterances for human
w o r t h and freedom now,
George!
The American Independent
Party opposes the recognition
of the brutal Castro regime on
humanitarian grounds! It is ob-
vious from the past perform-
ances by ourtState Department
that the Supercapitalists such
as the Rockefellers, the Fords,
and the Carnegies will once
more profit at the expense of
e e ..... . . . . . . .
Contact your
reps-
Sen. Phillip Hart (Dem), Rm 253, Old Senate Bldg., Capitol
Hill, Washington, D.C. 20515.
Sen. Robert Griffin (Rep), Rm 353, Old Senate Bldg., Capitol
Hill, Washington, D.C. 20515.
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