Ell Eiciian OW11; Eighty-Five Years of Editorial Freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan 1 l ICAYT l s woken . t X. VT" ILL DBE IFSC TRY-. 7. . Wednesday, September 10, 1975 News Phone: 764-0552 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104 il,+, trt4l III%,{ C-" 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. it-c. P16eIF S I ST iMY. t ~ i ~ T, G)JlG f lKg, 631 rioY - -I A~ ?E.D '4~* ~* a lpY7 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. (I I