TM
Summer Daily
Summer Edition of
T HE ICH IGAN DAILY
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Saturday, July 21, 1973 News Phone 764-0552
Senate move proper
THE SENATE took a much needed step yesterday in the
limiting of presidential war-making powers. Though
it was faced with the threat of another Nixon veto, the
Senate passed the bill by a decisive 71-18 margin.
The proposed new law would limit to 30 days the
period in which a president can commit American troops
without congressional approval.
But the senators were remiss in their failure to ap-
prove an amendment offered by Sen. Thomas Eagleton
(D-Mo) that would prohibit covert operations by civilian
organizations.
The Senate bill is still a much stronger version than
one passed earlier by the House. That bill, which extend-
ed the limit to 120 days drew the threat of presidential
veto.
THE LEGISLATION now goes to a joint Senate-House
committee to find a compromise version suitable to
both bodies. Then comes the showdown with President
Nixon.
Even usually stauch supporters of the President, like
Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott (R-Pa) have warned
that they would vote to override a Nixon veto on this bill.
The Senate and House must not be deterred in their
stand on this bill by the threats of the President. Too
often in the past has the Congress bowed to such pressure.
Nixon's recovery
PRESIDENT NIXON emerged from the Bethesda Naval
Hospital yesterday after his week-long battle with
viral pneumonia. And although we are always glad to
see someone recover from an illness, his words make us
wonder if he shouldn't have stayed in a little longer.
As he emerged from his confinement, the President
lined up his aides and nurses to give them a speech about
how well he is doing and how anxious he is to get back
to work. But, his words about Watergate were not so
encouraging.
"LET OTHERS WALLOW in Watergate. We're doing our
job," said our leader.-
But one wonders whether that job will be to with-
hold the White House tapes that are essential to the suc-
cessful completion of the Ervin committee's work. He is,
whether he admits it or not, wallowed in Watergate.
Press Secretary Ron Ziegler said that the decision
about the tapes will be announced on Monday. We cer-
tainly hope that President makes the only logical choice.
AS A POSTSCRIPT, a letter from a little boy wrote to
the Presidentthat he too had viral pneumonia. The
little boy severely told the President to eat vegetables
for a full recovery. We may add that unless the President
releases the tapes he may wind up eating much more
than that.
1NOW, C~wFENTALLe 5PAKwG-..,.
-'
1 -
/1M-!1 R'
Resiliency and patience
UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT ROBBEN FLEMING, a gentleman and a born administrator, has weath-
ered without trouble the storms -of the radical sixties. Although Vice President Agnew once called
Fleming "soft" on student protestors, the President proved able to outlast the turmoil.
President Fleming: an ideal liberal
talks about the ''and the. sixties
By REBECCA WARNER
To the undergraduate mind,
nothing could be more imposingly
symbolic of the administrative
mysteries than the person of Uni-
versity President Itobben Fleming.
Enshrined behind an intimidat-
ing array of glass doors ad well-
dressed receptionists, Fleming
holds court on the second floor of
the Administration Building, a
modern-day fortress gracefully de-
signed to keep the rabble out, in
case of emergency, and the good
guys - our President and his
men-safe upstairs.
Fleming himself represents a
breed of liberal American gen-
tlemen who are insulated enough
to preserve the charm and gentil-
ity of a less threatening age. Nei-
ther salarynor prestige could pro-
duce a Fleming, but the closed
world of high level University ad-
ministration seems to have mark-
ed him with the stamp of his well-
furnished surroundings. Any ob-
server watching him chair Regents
meetings or humor the press would
say he was born to be a university
president.
Fleming has spent his life as a
lawyer, labor mediator, professor
and finally as an administrator. He
appears to be comfortable with
power, self-assured, and able to
create an overwhelming air of
well-being.
In fact, in the course of an hour-
long interview with the President,
I began to feel that everything was
taken care of, not only in the Uni-
versity, but in the whole world as
well. Outside the air conditioned
the generation that preceded them.
"We used to think the reason for
the tension in this country was the
war in Indochina. But in other
countries the same kind of behav-
ior appeared even if those coun-
tries were not involved in Indo-
china. When tensions within a
society reach atcertain level you
will get the kind of confrontations
that characterized that period of
1964 to 1970."
Fleming does not expect a reap-
pearance of mass radical tactics
soon: "You can argue with a lot of
validity that the high tension level
of that period could not be sustain-
ed for any length of time.
President little, he contended. "I
had done of lot of mediating, ne-
gotiation, and arbitration in labor
situations. I knew that the rhe-
toric is almost always higher than
the level of intention of the par-
ties.
"I am deeply committed and al-
ways have been to the right of
people to say what they believe. I
think absurdity is its own ans-
wer."
Behind all this reasonable cop-
ing, one wonders whether the
President can visualize the stu-
dent exercising individual judge-
ment.
'Both the radical left and the radical right
are really totalitarian in nature. Both tend to
use people. People who use one tend to be
quite ruthless.'
While Fleming's comments on
the left were always reasoned, it
was hard to escape the feeling that
his job has forced him to see radi-
cal politics without perceiving
them.
One imagines him peering out
of the Ad. Bldg.hwith a pair of
binoculars at mass activities be-
low, as kindly and objective as a
social scientist. Certainly he talks
about protest as though it were a
natural phenomenon. Uninvolved
and uncomprehending, he fails to
'It was always very noticeable during that
period how little sense of humor students had.
They lost their capacity to laugh at them-
selves.'
-President Fleming
"It was always very noticeable
during that period how little sense
of humor students had. They lost
their capacity to laugh at them-
selves," he remarked. Inathenew
quiet era, "students are more re-
laxed, able to laugh with each
otherandat themselves."
Is this the comment of a peer?
Of course Fleming uses the right
vocabulary - he calls students
men and women and avoids awk-
ward condescensions. But there
seems to be some remnant in his
presidential image of afternoon
TV's ideal Dad, the guy giving
the kid's shoulder a little push and
telling him or her to run along,
because everything important has
already been taken care of.
Like TV's Nowheresville, Calif.,
however, the Ad Bldg. is not the
ideal vantage point for observation
of the real world and its real
problems. Much as administrators
would like to convince us that the
rest of the academic sector is an
ivory tower, their own cloister
seems much more insulated, and
potentially more dangerous.
Maybe it's a bad idea to keep
the University's leader in a glass
case.
Rebecca Warner is night edi-
tor for The Daily.
Letters to The Daily should
be mailed to the Editorial Di-
rector -or delivered to Mary
Rafferty in the Student Pub-
lications business office in the
Michigan Daily building. Letters
should be typed, double-spaced
and normally should not exceed
250 words. The Editorial Direc-
tors reserve the right to edit
all letters submitted.
building, the presidential ethos be-
gan to wear off and I felt some-
what unnerved.
As for the campus as most of
us know it, Fleming definitely
views the -scene through glass.
On the subject of student pro-
test, Fleming said his personal
philosophy has not changed at all
since his bout with sixties radical-
ism.
"Both the radical left and the
radical right are usually totali-
tarian in nature," he explained.
"Both tend to use people. People
who use one tend to be quite ruth-
less.
"I don't subscribe to the view
that students now are apathetic. I
think they are momentarily, at
least, turned off by the methods of
-President Fleming
recognize the connection between
protest tactics and the political
realities which inspired outrage
and rebellion.
As a result, Fleming's theories
on dealing with protest reflect good
sense and the strength of charac-
ter needed to avoid panic, but little
else.
Students must understand that
"there are things we can't tol-
erate," the President asserted.
However, he said, the Univer-
sity's use of police power always
played down the hard line taken
on other campuses.
"You can't send people into a
tense situation with live ammuni-
tion and expect nothing to hap-
pen."
Verbal confrontations bother the