i
Eighty-Six Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
US plans to anne
Thursday, March 25, 1976
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
US Cuba threat utter foly
THE REFUSAL BY PRESIDENT
Ford and Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger to rule out an Amer-.
ican invasion of Cuba in the event
of a Cuban involvement in a Rhodes-
ian war was an arrogant, dangerous
gesture. That the Administration is
even considering a war on Cuba -
that it would even threaten such an
attack -- is an irresponsible flirta-
tion with disaster.
Not since the Bay of Pigs invasion
of 1961 has a U.S. administration
considered as a serious possibility a
war which would likely escalate into
a confrontation of superpowers. And
it hardly takes a stretch of the imag-
ination to picture the USSR defend-
ing Cuba with armed force.
What can Kissinger and the Ford
Administration hope to gain by an
invasion of Cuba? The obvious goal
of Kissinger's threat of force is to
throw fear into Fidel Castro, to
make him stop the Cuban military
actions in Africa which are appar-
ently gaining the Communists re-
spect in the Third World.
THE CUBANS ARE consistently on
the right side in their armed sup-.
port of struggling African factions.
In Angola, they backed the MPLA:
the group with the longest standing
as a force for independence from
Portugal, the group which made the
strongest commitment to a progres-
sive socialist program ,and the only
one of the three rivals which was
not fighting with the aid of troops
from racist South Africa.
And in the Rhodesian confronta-
tion, the Cubans are massing to
fight for the speedy overthrow of a
minority white government in favor
of black government.
Kissinger apparently wants to
draw the line on the falling dominoes
of countries becoming.friendly to
the Communists.
THE QUESTION OF whether a
country like Cuba should inter-
vene in foreign conflicts which do
not directly affect its security is a
difficult one indeed. The fact that
the Cubans are preparing to back
the Rhodesian opposition -- which
should rightly win - weighs heavily
in their favor.
But Kissinger is on very shaky
moral ground in using a threat of
force to try to stop Cuba. America,
TODAY'S STAFF:
NEWS: Dana Baumann, Elaine Flet-
cher, George Lobsenz, Cathy Reut-
ter, Jeff Ristine, Tim Schick, Rick
Soble, Bill Turque, Mike Yellin.
EDITORIAL PAGE: Marc Basson, Steve
Hersh, Jon Pansius.
ARTS PAGE: Kevin Counihon, J e f f
Sorensen.
By ROGER GALE
(PNS) - As the U.S. cuts back its
military commitments on foreign soil,
the annexation of the 14 Northern Mari-
ana Islands will give it a new home base
for expanding military installations, and
booming American investment in the
Pacific Basin.
This first legal acquisition since 1898
splits the UN-mandated Trust Territory
of Micronesia, sparking strong criticism
from the UN Trusteeship Committee and
representatives of the other two Micro-
nesian island chains. Critics say the se-
cession of the Northern Marianas to be-
come a U. S. commonwealth will cut off
the richest part of Micronesia and vio-
late the UN-guaranteed right of self-de-
termination for the whole territory.
(Micronesia, three island chains, was
taken over from Japan by the U.S. after
World War II and has been administered
as a UN mandate. The mandate expires
in 1981, when the territory is supposed
to become independent. Of the original
10 trust territories created after World
War II, only Micronesia and Namibia
(Southwest Africa) remain under foreign
control.)
The secession was approved by 78 per
cent of the Northern Marianas' 5,300 reg-
istered voters in a U.S.-sponsored plebis-
cite last June. The House of Representa-
tives passed an annexation bill in July
and the Senate followed late last month.
Several steps remain before the new
status is implemented in 1981, including
the drafting of a constitution for the com-
monwealth.
UNDER THE AGREEMENT, the peo-
ple of the Northern Marianas will be-
come U. S. citizens and will be self-gov-
erning except in matters of military and
foreign policy.
U. S. interest in the area has always
been military. Guam, the southernmost
Mariana island and a U.S. colony since
1898, showed its strategic potential dur-
ing the Vietnam war, when B-52 bomb-
ers based there made daily raids over
Indochina.
Army Lt. Gen. James Hollingsworth,
until recently commander of U.S. forces
in Korea, told PNS in an interview that
B-52s from Guam would participate in
any new Korean war. The Marianas are
closer to the North Korean capital of
Pyongyang than to Hanoi, and they are
within easy flying range of the USSR's
Pacific military headquarters in Vladi-
vostock.
Vital as Guam has been to recent U.S.
military strategy in the Pacific, the is-
land is only 30 miles long. And accord-
ing to former Secretary of the U.S. Air
Force John McLucas, has "limited space
and facilities."
THE PENTAGON NOW wants to build
a $300 million naval and air base on the
island of Tinian, 100 miles north of
Guam and one of the Northern Marianas.
The Tinian base would complement the
massive facilities already on Guam-
reducing the need to secure approval for
military operations from foreign nations
hosting U.S. bases.
The annexation agreement includes a
0
x Pacii.
legislative body for the whole Trust Ter-
ritory, rejected an offer of common-
wealth status similar to the one now
being implemented. The Congress in-
sisted on independence or significant au-
tonomy.
The rejection came at the end of five
years of intensive U. S. economic and
educational development - including a
Peace Corps blitz of the islands - under
a plan outlined by a Kennedy-appointed
commission. The commission, headed by
Harvard Business School professor An-
thony Solomon, had projected approval
of commonwealth status as the culmina-
tion of the development drive.
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'This first legal acquisition since 1898 splits the UN.
mandated Trust Territory of Micronesia, sparking criticism
from the UN Trusteeship Committee and representatives
of the other two Micronesian island chains. Critics say the
secession of the Northern Marianas to become a U.S. com-
monwealth will cut off the richest part of Micronesia and
violate the UN-guaranteed right of self-determination for
the whole territory.'
naamsasgss ..iagessasamaangseA .ssm ... r.mas
islands
were promised significant economic
benefits from annexation. These includ-
ed seven years of development aid and
land rent totalling almost $154 million,
as well as eligibility for federally fund-
ed welfare and employment programs
and food stamps.
The cash payments alone average
over $10,000 per person and are expect-
ed to provide improved roads, schools
and health facilities as well as jobs.
Kissinger
50-year renewable lease by the Pentagon
on 18,182 acres of land on Tinian.
With, U. S. direct investment in East
Asia rapidly increasing - to $12 billion
in 1975 - the Marianas offer an attrac-
tive home base for American firms do-
ing business in the region. As a U. S.
commonwealth, the islands would pro-
vide U.S. military protection, stable po-
litical surroundings, inclusion in the dol-
lar zone and a familiar social environ-
ment.
And the Marianas - equidistant from
Tokyo, Hong Kong and Manila - are at
the center of a communications network
extending over the whole Pacific;
WITH AMERICANS AND Japanese
seeking island paradises, a growing tour-
ist industry invites U. S. investment. A
new international airport has just open-
ed on the Mariana island of Saipan, and
Pan American and Continental airlines
have recently opened hotels there, hop-
ing to attract some of the 240,000 tour-
ists who visited Guam last year.
But U. S. interests don't necessarily
match those of the 115,000 inhabitants of
all three island chains of Micronesia. In
1969, the Congress of Micronesia, the
A new effort to secure a legal U.S.
status in Micronesia began in 1972-this
time through negotiations with a newly
formed team of representatives from the
Northern Marianas alone. In the pre-
vious negotiations only the Northern
Marianas, whose economy has been
dominated by U. S. military installations
since World War II, had supported clos-
er ties with the U.S.
HEADED BY EDWARD Pangelinan,
an attorney representing slot ma-
chine interests and a speculator in Tin-
ian land, the new negotiating team
agreed on a proposal for a Common-
wealth of the Northern Marianas sepa-
rate from the rest of Micronesia.
Four-fifths of the electorate voted in
favor of annexation last June. But critics
charge the wording of the ballot was bi-
ased. UN Charter provisions for such
plebiscites stipulate that voters must be
offered the choice of independence. But
the ballot allowed only approval or dis-
approval of the commonwealth plan,
with no alternatives suggested.
Already the most developed of the
2,100 Micronesian islands, the Marianas
MEANWHILE, AS THE U.S. Congress
was voting to acquire the Northern
Marianas, delegates from the Caroline
and Marshall Islands - the rest of Mic-
ronesia - met in a U.S.-funded constitu-
tional convention last summer and fall to
draft a constitution for a federated Mic-
ronesian nation.
Despite the cultural differences and
distances separating the islands, conven-
tion chairman Tosiwo Nakayama was
confident the constitution would work.
The very fact thatsthe convention had
accomplished its task "shows that Mic-
ronesia has a way of solving its prob-
lems," he.said.
Even without the economically more
advanced Northern Marianas, the pro-
posed state of Micronesia has a valuable
resource in its oceans. Foreign vessels
now take an estimated $75 million worth
of fish in Micronesian waters, and under
the proposed UN law of the sea, the is-
lands could collect $10 million annually
in fees.
Butthe new state will be fragile -
and some feel it will be vulnerable to
attempts to incorporate it into the Mari-
anas commonwealth. In a complaint to
the UN late in November, the Interna-
tional League for the Rights of Man
charged that the separate vote had vio-
lated the right of the people of Micro-
nesia to determine their own future. Ac-
cording to League counsel Jose Cabra-
nes, separation of the Northern Mani-
anas would make it "difficult if not im-
possible for the other island groups to
survive as a unit."
And in a report prepared for the Car-
negie Endowment for International
Peace, James F. McHenry described the
separate agreement with the Marianas
as "contrary to international law and
international practice."
Roger Gale, former chairman of the
political science department at the Uni-
versity of Guam, is a regular contributor
to Pacific News Service.
Ford
after all, is probably the leading, in-
tervener in foreign conflicts.
And to threaten one "foreign ad-
venture" is retaliation for another is
a backward kind of eye for an eye
foreign policy.
The most chilling aspect of Kis-
singer's stance is that a stand-off
with Russia could be the result. Kis-
singer may be willing to brave such
a confrontation as a last ditch effort
to salvage America's waning prestige
in the Third World.
THE MOST CONSTRUCTIVE ap-
proach, which seems to escape
Kissinger repeatedly, would be to
back in the future popular national
liberation movements in the tradi-
tion of Vietnam's National Libera-
tion Front or Angola's MPLA.
But with Kissinger at the foreign
policy helm, the days of American
support for this kind of movement is
far off on the horizon. For the pres-
ent, we're back in a kind of cold
war.
And in cold war, the possibility is
always present that all hell will break
loose.
Editorial positions represent
consensus of the Daily staff.
HEALTH SERVICE HANDBOOK:
Exercising to avert heart disorders
By SYLVIA HACKER
and NANCY PALCHIK
GARWOOD
QUESTION: My father, who
is 46 years old, recently had a
serious heart attack. Do you
think I should start an exer-
cise program in order to help
me stay well?
ANSWER: We have consulted
Dr. Edmund Whale, a Health
Service staff physician knowl-
edgeable in this area, who notes
the following:
To answer this question one
must first determine what risks
are involved, and then what is
a reasonable treatment for
these risks. In fact, children of
young (under 50 years of age)
heart attack victims should be
carefully evaluated and a plan
formulated for them. The evalu-
ation should include a test of
blood fats (cholesterol and tri-
glyceride levels), blood pres-
sure, body weight and history
of cigarette smoking. Since
males are more prone to heart
attacks than females (at least
until age 45 to 50), sons may
need stronger treatment re-
commendations than daugh-
ters. The treatment.plan which
is formulated may consist main-
ly of precautions such as:
don't start smoking cigarettes,
or be sure to have your blood
pressure checked annually.
However, if high levels of fatty
substances are found in the
blood, if the blood pressure is
high, or if the person is very
overweight, there may be strin-
gent dietary prescriptions and,
at times, medication prescrip-
tions.
So, you ask, what about exer-
cise? Exercise may aid in gen-
eral relaxation of stress and in
general heart and lung fitness.
People who are more fit physic-
ally have a strong tendency to
have lower cholesterol and tri-
glyceride blood levels, and the
blood level of cholesterol may
be the best single predictor of
the likelihood of subsequent
heart attacks and strokes. If
one does undertake an exercise
program it probably should be
done at least three times per
week. Details should be work-
ed out with your medical ad-
visor. In brief, exercise may
be beneficial in helping to fore-
stall untoward cardiovascular
events, if you like to exercise.
If not, concentration on other
factors such as diet and weight
control may be enough.
QUESTION: When I was up
in the gynecology clinic getting
treated for vaginitis, I heard
the nurse say that there were
so many cases of venereal
warts lately that there was
hardly any time left for treat-
ing ordinary vaginal infections.
What exactly are venereal
warts?
ANSWER: Along with the re-
cent upsurge in the incidence of
genital herpes (discussed in this
column on 11/13 and 1/28), we
are now in the midst of seeing
more of another charming sex-
ually transmitted disease known
technically as Condylomata
acuminata. In lay terminology
(pardon the pun) this simply
means genital or venereal
warts. They are caused by a
virus which is similar to the
one responsible for common
skin warts but are transmitted
by vaginal, anal or oral-genital
intercourse. They appear more
frequently in uncircumcised
males than in circumcised and
the most commonly affected
areas are the glans and fore-
skin, the opening of the penis,
the shaft of the penis and the
scrotum, in that order. If anal
intercourse has been part of
one's sexual repertoire, warts
may appear in or around the
anus as well. In women, they
most commonly appear on the
bottom part of the vaginal open-
ing, but the vaginal lips, inside
of the vagina and the cervix
can also be affected.
Genital warts appear about
one one to 3 months after the
infecting sexual intercourse and
their physical appearance de-
pends somewhat on the part of
the genitals affected. In moist
areas they are usually pink or
red and soft with an indented,
cauliflower - like appearance.
They can be single or multiple
and groups of moist warts can
grow together to form a single
large tissue mass. On dry skin,
such as the shaft of the penis,
they are usually small, hard
and yellow-grey, resembling or-
. dinary skin warts on other parts
of the body. They tend to grow
larger if kept moist by vaginal
or urethral discharged caused
by diseases like vaginitis or
gonorrhea. Also, for unknown
reasons, pregnancy seems to
stimulate veneral warts to grow
quite large. If the warts are
small, a medical person can re-
move them rather easily by
one or two surface applications
of a specific chemical. Howev-
er, if they are large they must
be removed surgically and this
is generally done under a local
anaesthetic. In some extreme
cases plastic surgery under
general anaesthetic is neces-
sary.
Our gynecology clinic recom-
mends that you might have a
lesser chance of catching vener-
eal warts if you'd take a look
at your partner's genitals be-
fore intercourse. If there are
any suspicious bumps or
growths, take a raincheck until
after you get them checked out.
In the meantime, you might try
some alternative forms of sex-
ual expression such as autoero-
ticism either alone or together.
PHOTO
ens.
TECHNICIAN: Pauline Lub-
PEAN UrsurrE' 4ND JEL.Y SANDWICHN
( d l K s A F t1 ELECI F O
PQ~cn rT
Letters
to
The Daily
Tenants
To The Daily:
THE DAILY news analysis
of March 23 accurately describ-
ed the prospects for more ren-
tal housing construction as
"bleak." I disagree, however,
with some of the analyses by
the Daily and the landlords they
quoted of why this has come
about:
The Daily states that "the
city and the University recent-
ly were unable to secure over
$10 million in Housing and Ur-
ban Development funds." (em-
phasis mine) What the Daily
omits is that the University sat
on a $5.6 million loan at 3%
interest earmarked for construc-
tion of low-cost student housing
from HUD and allowed the of-
fer to expire. Considering cur-
rent interest rates and inflation,
this loan was a gift. Only a
political decision by the U con-
sistent with their do-nothing pol-
icy prevented the construction
of new housing with this loan.
First, rents have skyrocketed
in Ann Arbor since the early
seventies and there has been no
new construction in student
areas.
Second, with the low vacancy
rate in these areas, the land-
lords can charge what they
want: it is a seller's market
and consequently provides no
incentive for new construction
despite great rent increases.
Third, if there are places to
make "better money else-
where," one wonders why Gulf
Oil has significant interests in
McKinley and both 3M and Du-
Pont have ties to Wilson-White.
Apparently, as far as the multi-
nationals are concerned, Ann
Arbor is a great place to make
a buck.
Fourth, the Daily presents an
image of the magnanimous in-
vestor, William Martin, who is
"willing to wait a while to see
if the financial (equation) charg-
es" (sic) What he is saying is
that he and other landlords are
on an investment strike until
housing problems." First, land-
lord-tenant laws in this area are
identical with the laws of the
rest of the city, and to a great
extent, with the rest of the
state. The law which allows ten-
ants to withhold rent in re-
sponse to a landlord's unwilling-
ness to make repairs is a state
law, the 1968 Tenants' Rights
Act.
Second, until this fall, the Ten-
ants' Union has had little if
any impact upon tenants' ac-
tions and attitudes for 2 or 3
years. During that lull in the
tenants' movement, there was
no new construction or change
in investment patterns except
that about $65,000 was invested
in an effort to stop rent con-
trol. While landlords certainly
fear the Tenants' Union, its ab-
sence does not make them any
more benevolent.
Third, the "high risk" status
of investment in campus areas,
and consequently the high inter-
est rates on loans (which ten-
ants...... xvin nn nnna n nra
has close ties to the realty busi-
ness and only small landlords
who don't have the capital (and
tenants) will suffer from high
interest rates.
Fourth, the implication of the
charge that the Tenants Union
"adds to the housing problem"
is that tenants are to blame
for the lack cf new housing and
should passively accept the
landlords' conditions - put up
with bad maintenance andtout-
rageous rents and we'll try to
find room in our hearts for a
new building for you to find a
home in. As I have tried to
make clear, a lack of tenant
militancy has done nothing for
tenants. Tenants should not tol-
erate this kind of "blackmail,"
but should take the matter into
their own hands. An organized
tenants' movement and tenant
unions can reduce rents and get
maintenance and can pressure
the University to build the hous-
ing we need. Far from being
an added problem, the Tenants
Union presents a viable solution
to the housing crisis. We are a
landlords, bankers and the Uni-
versity who are to blame for
this mess must be made ac-
countable directly to tenant
needs.
Jim Henle
For The Ann Arbor
Tenants Union
Support
To The Daily:
THE WASHTENAW COUN-
TY Unemployed Council ex-
presses total support for the
workers at ,Eastern Michigan
U n i v e r s i t y in their
current strike action. The Un-
employed Council, a group of
people fighting for economic
equity for workers without jobs,.
is equally committed to the
struggles of all working people
for decent pay and fair work-
ing conditions. As such, the
Washtenaw County Unemploy-
ed Council is in full solidarity
with the UAW strikers at EMU,
and we endorse their demands
fr an, arntahle conTtracts.
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