Page 8-Friday, July 13, 1979-The Michigan Daily
Sen. Basil Brown admits
he's a reformed alcoholic
Military adviser
denounces SALT
LANSING (UPI) - Sen. Basil Brown,
the volatile Senate "dean" whose drunk
driving escapades became a political
legend, quietly told reporters yesterday
he is a recovering alcoholic.
I feel great," said Brown, who has
served in the Senate for 23 years - the
longest of any of his colleagues.
"I HAVEN'T felt better physically or
mentally in years."
The Highland Park Democrat, who
has undergone extended hospital stays
for alcoholism and heart disease,
seemed subdued and there was little of
the tension which often has marked his
dealings with the news media. But he
insisted his experiences will not alter
his flamboyant style.
"I'm the same old Basil Brown," he
promised.
"It isn't going to make a change in
me ... I haven't been born again, even
though I may be living for the first
time."
THE 52-YEAR-OLD Brown suffered
a heart attack in May, shortly after the
most recent in a series of drunk driving
arrests.
Brown was treated for heart disease
in Lansing and Detroit and then
checked into Brighton Hospital for
three weeks of alcoholism treatments.
He said he is continuing treatment for
both and the prognosis is good.
The Senate Judiciary Committee
chairman came back to work to vote on
key bills such as auto insurance reform
despite a doctor's advice to stay home
until mid-August.
BROWN, WHO started drinking at 15,
said he tried for 10 years to come to
grips on his own with the problem.
These efforts included spotty attendan-
ce at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings
and the use of an anti-alcohol drug.
"I always thought in my attempt to
deny the disease. .. that accepting
medical treatment was the thing that
separated me from the other guy," he
said.
Brown called his treatment at
Brighton Hospital "an educational ex-
perience."
"I was amazed at how ignorant I was,
how ignorant most of the world is, about
this disease," he said.
Saying he has not had a drink in "a
couple of months," Brown credited the
AA program with giving him the
strength to fight the habit on a one-day-
at-a-time basis. He also thanked his
family and friends for standing by him.
Despite his dedication to the AA
method, Brown said he does not intend
to launch any reform campaigns in a
legislature where drinking is a common
facet of day-to-day business and
recreation.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The chief
military adviser to the U.S. delegation
at the SALT negotiations denounced the
arms control treaty Thursday as one
that "establishes the conditions which
threaten our security for years to
come."
S"This treaty does not meet minimally
acceptable standards," Retired Gen.
Edward L. Rowny told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
ROWNY SERVED on the SALT
delegation for six years as represen-
tative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He
retired from the Army when the
negotiations ended and joined the ranks
of critics urging rejection of the
agreement.
He testified on the fourth day of
hearings on SALT II, a day given over
to opponents of the treaty.
The retired general said that based
on his experience negotiating with the
Soviets, he believes a stronger treaty
from the U.S. standpoint "was - and'
still is - attainable."
HE INSISTED that if U.S.
negotiators had persisted in their Mar-
ch 1977 proposal for sharp reductions in
the most powerful missiles on both
sides, that the Soviets would have
agreed. The proposal submitted by the
Carter administration was flatly rejec-
ted by the Soviets who refused to con-
sider ita basis for further negotiation.
Rowny's statement was challenged
by Sen. Edmund Muskie (D-Maine),
who said, "You are saying that we
could have had a better treaty if he had
tried harder. . . You are saying it was
so evident to you, it should have been
evident to other negotiators . . . It
ought to be based on something better
than a person's gut reaction to per-
sonalities."
Muskie kept insisting that "I want to
blame somebody . .. I want something
tangible." But Rowny was unable to
cite any evidence other than his ex-
perience to support his contention that
the Soviets would have accepted
tougher U.S. proposals.
Rowny served on the SALT
delegation for six years as represen-
tative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He
retired from the Army when the
negotiations ended and joined the ranks
of critics urging rejection of the
agreement.
HE TESTIFIED on the fourth day of
hearings on SALT II, a day given over
to opponents of the treaty.
Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence
Committee -began closed hearings on
whether the United States can verify
Soviet compliance with the provisions
of the treaty. That committee's findings
will have a critical role to play in
whether the treaty is ratified.
Adm. Stansfield Turner, director of
the CIA, was the opening witness before
the Intelligence Committee.
Earlier, Paul Nitze, a former deputy
secretary of defense, said the treaty
provisions "one-sidedly favor the
Soviet Union." Nitze also called the
treaty "wholly ambiguous" and said it
could be used to prevent the most effec-
tive deployment of the U.S. MX missile.
NITZE IS an advocate of the so-called
MPS basing system for the MX missile.
Under MPS, dummy silos would be
constructed to prevent the Soviets from
knowing the exact location of each of
the nation's intercontinental ballistic
missiles.
President Carter is expected to
decide on a missile basing by Aug. 1.
When it is deployed in the mid-1980s, the
MX will be the largest missile in the
U.S. arsenal. MPS is one of the options
being considered.
Nitze, a slight, gray-haired man who
heads the Committee on the Present
Danger, told the committee the MPS
system is the only basing method that
could adequately protect the MX from a
Soviet missile attack. And he testified
that he is certain the Soviets would ob-
ject to MPS as a violation of SALT II.
THE DISCUSSION on the MPS oc-
curred as several members of the
committee pressed Nitze to say
whether any of the steps he says are
necessary to upgrade U.S. strategic
forces would be prohibited by SALT II.
The only one he cited was the MPS
deployment method.
Nitze objected to allowing the Soviet
Union to maintain its force of 308 giant
SS-18 missiles and to the failure to in-
clude the Backfire bomber as a
strategic weapon covered by the treaty.
"I think it's an outrage," he said.
"The strategic balance will move
from a position not far from parity to
one of Soviet strategic nuclear
superiority," Nitze said.
When Sen. Jacob Javits, (R-N.Y.),
asked Nitze if he were saying the two
super powers were about equal now, the
witness replied: "I believe we've slip-
ped off the edge . . . It is on the wrong
side of parity."
Martin Scorsese's 1976
TAXI DRIVER
Manhattan cabbie goes crazy on the night shift in a corrupt New York that
resembles Fellini's Rome. In Robert De Niro's soft-spoken way "you talkin to
me?" winner of the 1976 Cannes Film Festival grand prize. Screenplay by
Paul Schrader. With HARVEY KEITEL, JODIE FOSTER, CYBILL SHEPARD and
PETER BOYLE. In color.
Sat: THE GROOVE TUBE
Sun: Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (free)
TONIGHT AT OLD ARCH AUD
CINEMA GUILD Q30&9:30T i$1.0
Felch Park Entertainment by Orchestra Members
"
Nothing
by William
Shakespeare
OPENS TONIGHT 8 PM
edding aY Wilder
Band Fever ness!
by Alice by Noel by Eugene
Childress Coward O'Neill
1.1 REPERTORY AT POWER CENTER
July 13-22 & Aug. 1-5
Pa.e ",'Cnter.Bo xOticepss" 6p.m.a 763.3333.Mi a e. .p79 Tick. toffice: weekdays noon to Sin
teMigionague 7640450
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The Ann Arbor Film Cooperstive Presents at MLB $1.50
Friday, July 13
THE CONQUEROR WORM
(Michael Reeves, 1968) 4:40 only-MLB 3
VINCENT PRICE'S best "non hammy" role is in this excellent horror film set in
England during butcher Cromwell's era. Price plays a self-styled "witch-
hunter" who is paid for torturing confessions out of accused witches before
they are executed. Director Reeves was considered the most promising British
filmmaker since Carol Reed when he died tragically at age 2$. This is his last
and best film. Not for the squeamish.
PSYCHO
(AlfredtHitchcock, 1960) Ta10:20-MLS3
Often cited as the most frigtening film ever mode, PSYCHO tells of a secretary
(JANET LEIGH) who absconds with $40,000 and comes upon a lonely motel
near a Gothic house inhabited by a strange young man (ANTHONY PERKINS)
and his possessive mother. Need we continue? Will you ever shower again?
If you've only seen it on TV, you've never really seen it. Chilling music by
Bernard Herrmann:
Tomorrow: BLUE COLLAR
_ ,.