Summer Daily
Summer Edition of
T1HlE MICH IGAN DAILY
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Thursday, July 26, 1973 News Phone: 764-0552
More mlita
FACH YEAR, there are new stories on the varied ways
in which the military squanders money on weapons.
In a speech before the Senate, Sen. William Proxmire
(D-Wis.) detailed the most outrageous tale of waste yet.
The Navy threw away over a million dollars on an effic-
iency study.
The Navy hired a private consultant, A. T. Kearney &
Co. to study ways to reduce costs in the Mk 48 torpedo
program. The consultant found that direct labor costs
could be reduced by 19 percent and that overhead could
be reduced 23 percent through more efficient manage-
ment.
Unfortunately, the Navy did not coordinate its nego-
tiations with the contracting company, Gould, Inc., to the
Kearney study and thus could not benefit from the mil-
lion dollar study.
As PROXMIRE SAID, "You might say the Navy tor-
pedoed its own study ... The Navy, after paying the
expense of doing a should-cost (efficiency) of one of its
largest weapon programs, has demonstrated how to waste
money while seeking ways to eliminate waste."
The primary purpose of a should-cost study is to aid
the Government in negotiations with the contractor be-
fore a contract is awarded.
The Navy began its negotiations of the first Mark
48 production in May 1971 and completed them in June
1971. It was not until shortly before the negotiations
were to begin that the Navy negotiator was given copies
of the preliminary results of the should-cost studies.
Unfortunately, however, the Navy negotiator con-
cluded that he could not use the preliminary results in
the negotiations because, among other reasons, there
had been no early coordination between the consultant
and him, and because the contractor, Gould, Inc. knew
more about the should-cost studies than the Navy.
hAD THE NAVY been able to use the results of the
study during the negotiations with Gould, Inc. the
contract price might have been reduced by millions of
dollars.
The Navy failed to coordinate its consultant's study
with other efforts to evaluate the contractor's price pro-
posals, failed to inform other Pentagon officials of the
study's recommendations for eliminating inefficiency in
the contractor's plant or of the corrective actions the
contractor agreed to take, and failed to monitor and re-
port on the contractor's progress in making the improve-
ments.
A S PROXMIRE COGENTLY STATED, and to which we
can only agree, "If the Navy has consciously planned
to sabotage its own should-cost study, they could not have
done a better job. Somebody up there likes fat."
Blockade on Cuba has hurt its
economy but bolstered its spirit
By ALAN KAUFMAN
Twenty years ago today, a group
of 150 young Cuban men and wo-
men who were outraged by the
gross violations of the Cuban con-
stitution of 1940 committed by the
Batista dictatorship made an arm-
ed attack on the Moncada bar-
racks. The aim of this attack was
to show the Cuban people that they
could end the Batista dictatorship
and restore democracy to Cuba if
they united and fought for their
rights.
Although this particular attack
did not succeed, and the Batista
government killed 70 of the rebels
while they were in prison (with-
out even a trial) and tortured vir-
tually all those who were not kill-
ed, the spirit that motivated the
rebellion lived on. The 26th of July
movement continued growing, un-
til the Batista dictatorship was
finally overthrown on January 1,
1959.
That is why July 26th is a major
Cuban holiday - a revolutionary
holiday. Celebrations of the twen-
tieth anniversary of this event are
taking place throughout Cuba to-
day, and also around the world.
The world-wide celebrations are
taking place because in the lands
of socialism, in the newly liberated
countries seeking to overcome the
underdevelopment caused by im-
perialist plunder, and in the minds
of many in the capitalist countries
who look to a better future, the
Cuban revolution represents a most
important victory in the struggle
for liberation and socialism.
However, the struggle of the Cu-
ery hour of isolation undergone by
the fraternal people of Cuba-is an-
other 60 minutes of shame for the
hemisphere."
But the fact remains that the
blockade continues, and that the
refusal of the U. S. to allow Cuba
to trade with the U. S., in addition
to being an insult to the national
pride of the Cuban people, has hurt
the development of Cuba's econ-
omy.
That is why Fidel Castro, pre-
mier of Cuba and the leader of
the attack on the Moncada Bar-
racks twenty years ago, said at
the May Day demonstration in Ha-
vana this year: "We clearly state
that we won't discuss anything
with the United- States as long as
the blockade exists. And if some-
day it wants to discuss things with
us, it'll first have to end the
blockade unconditionally."
In a speech give in Chile in No-
vember, 1971, Fidel placed the use
of economic blockades and trade
restrictions by the imperialists in
a historical perspective:
"Socialism has been much ma-
ligned and slandered. However,
what did the imperialists do his-
torically? They blockaded the so-
cialist countries, cut off trade with
them. They did that to the first so-
cialist state, the Soviet Union. Af-
ter a devastating war, more than
ten nations intervened in her ter-
ritory, attacked her from 15 or 16
points, and fostered a civil war
that lasted years. Later, when she
had finally won peace and had de-
voted herself to work for 12 or 15
years, she was invaded again and
macy, as is hinted at by the state-
ment by President Torrijos of
Panama.
But the Cuban people can not be-
gin the know the full meaning of
peace and security until the block-
ade is lifted.
The recent agreements between
the United States and the-Peoples
Republic of China and the Soviet
Union, and the overwhelming sup-
port expressed by the U. S. people
"We clearly state that we won't discuss any-
thing with the United States as long as the
blockade exists."
-Fidel Castro
ban people, and their allies, is far
from over. Cuba is still suffering
from the economic and military
blockade which the U. S. govern-
ment has maintained for over ten
years. Not satisfied with this at-
tempt to impede socialist Cuba's
development, the U. S. govern-
ment commanded . all the nations
in the Organization of American
States (OAS) to join the blockade
of Cuba, and barred Cuba from the
OAS. The purpose of this manu-
ever was to diplomatically isolate
Cuba from the peoples and govern-
ments of Latin America.
The blockade is withering, for
increasing number of countries, in
addition to the socialist countries,
are trading actively with Cuba.
The attempt by the U. S. govern-
ment to diplomatically isolate Cuba
is also crumbling, as is evidenced
by the recent words of Panaman-
ian President Omar Torrijos: "Ev-
had to fight a war that cost her
15 million lives. "The same thing
was done to our country - block-
ades, isolation and difficulties of
every type."
We in the U.S. are now getting a
small idea of what "difficulties of
every type" means - many of the
Watergate burglars were leaders
in the U. S. sponsored invasion of
Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs.
In spite of these difficulties,
Cuba has made tremendous pro-
gress in the past few years. Illiter-
acy has been conquered. The mas-
sive infant mortality rate has been
overcome. Unemployment has
been eliminated, and racism has
been outlawed and defeated. New
factories, schools, colleges, farms,
housing developments, fishing
boats, and many other signs of
economic growth are springing up.
Cuba is increasingly respected in
the arena of international diplo-
Fidel Castro
for these agreements, indicates
that the majority in this country
now favors the process of normal-
ization of relations and peaceful co-
existence. The process of normali-
zation of relations would be given
a tremendous boost by ending the
blockadedandbestablishing diplo-
matic and trade relations with
Cuba.
At the same time, the develop-
ment of socialism in Cuba would
be tremendously helped by such
actions. Therefore, as fighters for
peace and socialism, the Young
Workers Liberation League fights
for an end to the blockade of Cuba,
and on this twentieth anniversary
of the attack on the Moncada
barracks calls on all peace-loving
and democratic minded people to
do likewise.
Alan Kaufman is chairman of
Ann Arbor's branch of the Young
Worker's Liberation.
Letters to The Daily should
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Raffertyrin the Student Pub-
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Michigan Daily'building. Letters
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and normally should not exceed
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torsreserve theright to edit
dli letters submitted.
KAIR.
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