THE
Summer Daily
Siimmr r dilionsof
TH111E; M1ICIflGAN DAILY
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Tuesday, June 5, 1973 News Phone: 764-0552
Postpone U.S.,
SoV&v ieJt s um i
THE UPCOMING summit between President Nixon and
Leonid Brezhnev, scheduled for this month, is of ut-
most importance for the improvement of future rela-
tions between the U. S. and Russia. Yet, with the spec-E
tre of Watergate hanging over the President, such a
summit now seems untimely, and even at this late date,
should be postponed.
The nature of the U.S-Russian talks, dealing with
such topics as further arms control and trade agreements,
makes it necessary that the President is able to com-
."'.....'mand a high level of re-
spect and support. Nixon
currently has neither. In-
b.deed, Nixon's powers have
been considerably weaken-
ed as a result of Watergatei
revelations and heresay.
This loss of power threat-4
ens to continue until the
President can be ade-
quately proven free of guilt
in the Watergate conspir-
acy, and present investiga-
6tions by the Senate and
the J u s t i c e Department
may very well take weeks
or months to do so.
LEONID BREZHNEV: In the meantime, Nixon
Advantage over Nixon operates as a "lame duck"
of sorts; his strength
drained in both domestic and foreign affairs. In Con-
gress, the tide has turned against the President and
both houses are now willing to move against many of
his questionable actions, such as the bombing of Cam-
bodia. It was only last week that Nixon met with French
President Pompidou in a summit which proved frus-
trating to Nixon, as he left with no gains to speak of.
Nixon, in looking ahead to the U.S. - Soviet sum-
mit, is probably quite eager to be able to show some posi-
tive results from his talks with Brezhnev, and he may
even be tempted by a hardlined Brezhnev to pay a high-
er price for gains which he needs so badly for his image.
While the cold war has more-or-less ended, the
United States and Russia still remain adversaries in
many parts of the world. At a summit of this sort, the
stakes are too high to play politics.
WE THEREFORE urge that the June summit be post-
poned, and rescheduled at a later date, in an at-
mosphere more conducive to bargaining, for 'both sides.
Nixon viewed as a tragic figure;
Where is the support and pity?
By JAMES WECHSLER
BY MANY conventional literary
standards, Richard Nixon
should now be widely viewed as an
authentically tragic figure. His
fall from eminence occurred in the
immediate aftermath of his great-
st political triumph. His loneli-
ness is underlined by the maneuv-
ers of many former associates to
salvage themselves; even those
who still seem to be protecting him
have begun to invite rumors of self-
ierving deals. Beyond the immed-
iate members of his family, it is
hard to identify many companions
to whom he can confidently turn
for counsel and comfort.
Some of his most audible detract-
s rs can be found on the political
right, where hedhad long found
comfortable refuge if not intense
fraternal warmth. Such journals as
"Human Events" have made it
plain that they are chiefly concern-
ed about rescuing Spiro A g n e w
from the stains of the spreading
scandal. Agnew himself, while re-
citing the rituals of fidelity, is pav-
ing the way for future expression
of shock and incredulity if his cau-
tiously phrased statements of faith
are confounded by total collapse
Df the President's already shaken
position.
Meanwhile other Republican
spokesmen are increasingly de-
manding that the current inquiries
get to the essence of the matter -
Ithe President's role. Their com-
ments, like Agnew's, are usually ac-
companied by pious avowals of ex-
pectation that he will be excul-
pated. buththey too carefully em-
phasize that the President's re-
election campaign was run by this
palace guard rather than by the
true Republican organization. John
Connally has remained submerged
since he ralliedto the battered
ship of state: he may be already
eyeing the life-boats.
THESE ARE circumstances in
which one might anticipate a cer-
tain wave of sympathy for the soli-
tarv man whose troubles mount
each hoir. Surely he should be
evoking the gentler instincts of
those traditionally drawn to under-
dogs.
But one detects no surge of such
sentiment. Obviously Mr. Nixon
retains some diehard fans in both
the bleachers and some of the
more expensive seats, and his des-
perate resort to the "national se-
curity" slogan may prove effective
for a while in holding back mass
defection.
Rarely, however, does one read
or hear a genuine lamentation
about his personal decline.
Perhaps worst of all, as William
Buckley's National Review h as
pointed out, are the signs that al-
most anything he says in self-de-
fense or counterattack will evoke
"snickers" in a large sector of
the American audience. Even if
there were to be no further revela-
tions - which is wholly implaus-
ible - how can he revert to the
law-and-order rhetoric and the af-
firmation of simple moral virtues
after what has already been dis-
closed? How can any speechwriter
compose a serious address for him
that will not seem crowded w it h
mirthful double meanings?
AS ONE recites his infirmities,
the question persists: why is there
no truly tragic sense about h is
predicament? Admittedly there
were those whose distaste for
him long ago reached such ir-
rational dimensions that they were
incapable of even acknowledging
his steps toward detente with Pe-
king. But there were many others
- as thet1972 election showed -
prepared to concede that he might
win a secure place in history and
dim, if not banish, the memory of
earlier political venalities.
Their ranks are thinned now, and
dwindling daily, and the eyes of
the disaffected are dry. Perhaps
part of the reason is a feeling of
being "had" by a man who, it
turned out, had neither grown nor
mellowed with success, and whose
character suffers from graver
flaws than the common imperfec-
tions.
For at least some, however, the
deeper explanation may be a re-
action to his coldly demonstrated
absence of magnamity toward those
in distress - especially when their
adversity could be exploited for
his own political advantage.
The crudest example during the
1972 campaign and afterward was
his brutal, repetitive assault on
those he shrilly branded "desert-
ers and cowards" - under which
he included every man who had
conscientiously resisted the Viet-
nam war.
Now, as the WatergatehSeven and
the masterminds above them face a
time of reckoning from which the
President himself may not be im-
RICHARD NIXON: Finding little
to smile about.
mone, he hasdiscovered a new
merit in transgressions allegedly
based on dedication to principle.
But on his lips the words are late
and hollow.
POSSIBLY THE ultimate reason
for his failure to inspire the com-
passion for which Henry Kissinger
has belatedly pleaded may be the
unfinished nature of the drama.
Even as so many portents suggests
his final entrapment, he has al-
ready shown his resolve to fight
back with the most primitive wea-
pons of patrioteering and slander;
every tactic of desperation is im-
aginable as long as he remains in
office. That may be why, to so
many, he will be an object of pity
and even elicit manifestations of
sorrow only when he no longer has
access to power.
James Wechsler is the editorial
director for the New York Post.
Copyright 1973, New York Post
Corporation.
I
Letters to
Financial aid criteria
To The Daily:
THE DEPARTMENT of Educa-
tion has long held that a family
has the main responsibility for the
education of its children. They thus
contend that financial aid for a
student must be contingent on the
respeotive parent's income. Even
while the age of majority was
twenty-one, those same regulations
applied to those that were consid-
ered adults. Now, more than ever,
since the lowering of the age of
majority to eighteen, this criteria
should be reconsidered and abol-
ished.
The Daily
The current definition of student
need has made it almost impossi-
ble for students from families with
annual incomes of $10,000 or more
to obtain anything but a fraction of
what is available. This is not to
undermine the necessity of finan-
cial aid for those who do come
from poor families, but instead to
emphasize that parents are no
longer legally responsible for their
college children nor financing their
education; thus the criteria to mea-
sure a student's financial need
should be changed.
--Dale Patterson
June 1
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