Page Fou r
THE SUMMER DAILY--MICHIGAN DAILY
Wednesday, May 9, 1973
Page Feur THE SUMMER DAILY-MICHIGAN DAILY
Sumue al
and TfHE MICHIGAN DAILY
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Wednesday, May 9, 1973 News Phone 764-0552
AmeVdia ViCtory
4 S A SEGMENT of the new media, we feel great pride
when others in our profession are honored for their
achievements in news coverage. We t1us applaud The
Washington Post for receiving the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for
its coverage of the Watergate affair. Yet the importance
of this award goes beyond mere pride, or even Watergate,
for it .igmiies a major victory for the i ews media in its
battle with the Nixon Administration.
In moths past., the Nixon Admini tration his been
actively attemptin oia prevent soy ifavorable news
from being issued from governmnt agencies, as well as
trying to discredit any onlavorable news concernling
President Nixoii ind his crew. Vice-President Agnew,
speaking for the President. tias frequently and firmly
spoken out against ti1e news media, charging that it was
run by , small elite who were trying to alter public
upillnitn,
Kent Stare and Watergate:
An ironic parallel
By JAMES WECHSLER
ON MAY 4 three years ago Na-
tional Guardsmen opened tire
on the campus of Kent State Uni-
versity, killing four students and
wounding nine others, one of whom
may never walk again. The blood-
bath climaxed a series of student
protests across the nation o v e r
President N i x o n ' s chilling an-
nouncement of the U.S. "incurson"
into Cambodia.
This anniversary is tinged with
nusual ipoignsncy and irony. Mr.
Nixon had pnrtraved the CamfOd-
ian action as desigsetl 'to pro'ect
ir Iesnhoi are in Vietnam and.
in guarantee the success i>f i~e
thirs inssd Vietnamtition ero
grn.' Na, tith the Vie,' itm
a thirsts:i ostensitite cOtrnied,
ie rmii of US. hnmhs user tins
iso is u hess icr and emure iii-
i, tissut ci cc before.
'l nt- ttle tie 'is"m-and-nt r 'r"
\Sini ratisi that recatted with
ida Ioofeess to the Kent trgedty,
tes lilt resisting pdens for a pruuid
esness exposed oin wide front
iid its spokesmen pleadingf i r
d r~ nl flr~p fo t rnzxp:
State issue alive; clearly he feels
that is the only way he can me-
morialize his daughter's terribie
death. A pending suit launched
against the Justice Dept. during
the tenure of John Mitchell ac-
,uses that agency of "wilful c(s-
a hint of Presidential resolve to
seek punishment for those who had
shot down the students."
Subsequent inquiries and disclos-
ures dramatized the contempt for
both justice and truth that has gov-
erned the Administration's response
merv in toeraiinc.err rtan '
VONE E ltl CENTL Y.we have sE'tn journalist-ith jailed ors is its rank wh o were binge
or threatened with imprisonment for refusing to re- f:iJhfiul to "' cause."
vesd confidential tews sources. Such intimidation, en-
couraged by the President, has caused many of these OVER A TELEPHONE f r m
P itsburgh recently, Arthur Kraise,
sources ti o'dry up''. This has included, reports column- whose attractive, gentle daughter,
ist. Jack Anderson, many of those from the White House Allison, was one of those slain, said
S'HE WATERGATE affair first surfaced into the public icith mingled grief and bitterness:
eye last June whenspersoins were arrested attempting 'After I read Henry Kisinger's
to burglarize acd bug the Democratic National Head-glea for compassion for the people
involved in Watergate, I wrote hm
quarters. The Washington Post then began to investigate asking him to tell me how this
the involvement of the Committee to Re-Elect the Presi- Administration defines compassion.
dent (CREEP) in the Watergate affair, despite adminis- I reminded him that this govern-
tration criticism and President Nixon's statement of ment killed my daughter and ouher
June 22 last year that the White House had "no involve- kids, and has never even been will-
ment whatever in this particular matter." ing to convene a grand jury to in-
48 IT NOW stands, the credibility of The Post, as well vestigate the crime. I asked him to
as that of the news media in general, remains high, tell me how I can have comas-
while that of the Nixon Administration has sunk to an sion --except for the people i
all-time low, being killed in this war.
The Watergate affair, still unfolding, promises to ."I haven't had an answer."
greatly affect our country, both positively and negative- On the day before the fusillade
ly. It is reassuring though that one of its positive effects in which she was entrapped, Alli-
will be the strengthening of freedom of the press in this son Krause had placed a flower in
country this is what The Washington Post's Pulitzer a National Guardsman's rifle and
Prize symbolizes. murmured: "Flowers are better
President Nixon, in finally conceding the importance than bullets." That night she tele-
of an open press last week, humbly told a group of press phoned her parents to express ds-
personnel: "Just keep giving me hell when I'm wrong." may over spreading campus lash-
We will, Mr. Nixon, and thank you for your blessing. es,
If HAPPSNE -t> WHILE T WAS OUT 11 WAS P RPETRATEP 19 MN WN ITH
WIN NING THE PEACE A 91'TORY OF THAT
..., UT THAT'S _ s RTF :of THING-
-lIAT I PUACEP 11
NO
)(CU t Hi$! 1 OFFI C -..
- TRAT'S
MobN
Tarentum, Pas, Valley Daily News -
". the 'LAW-AND-ORDER' Administration . . . reacted with
cold aloofness to the Kent tragedy, steadily resisting pleas for a
grand jury inquiry...
KRAUSE HAS WAGED a tenac-
anis, lonely battle to keep the Kent
regard of the Constitution" by its
failure to conduct a grand jury .n-
guiry; a government replj trief
is due to be filed in the D.C .Dis-
trict Court within a week.
tn a few days Dean Kobler, the
student who lost the use of t.sh
legs as a result of the son.)t
ings, will present Attornev General
designee Elliot Richardson 'v i t h
petitions bearing s0,00t names irs-
ing a grand jury probe. (The peti-
tions were brushed off during Mit-
:hel's regime.)
IN TIlE PRESENT set , at-
ergate, symbol of a far-flna i on-
spiracy of political sabotage and
espionage, appears likely to doin-
inate any chronicle of the Nixon
era. But the archives of the Kent
State story are crowded with clues
to the moral and credibility gap
now being unveiled.
. Two days after the killings ,I
wrote:
. . . One clung to a faint hope
that the shock [of the deatsl
would elicit some sign of grace
and compassion in high Washington
places. Instead there emerged the
lifeless expression of Presidential
'sadness', accompanied by the self-
serving judgment that 'when dis-
sent turns to violence it invites
tragedy.' Nowhere was there even
Letters to The Daily should
be mailed to the Editorial Di-
rector or delivered to Mary
Rafferty in the Student Pub-
Ilications business office in the
Michigan Daily building. Letters
should be typed, double-spaced
and normally should not exceed
ZNE words. The Editorial Direc-
tors reserve the right to edit
all letters submitted.
to the slaughter ofi inocents.
A newspaper investigation show-
ed that a detailed FBI report, de-
scribing "fabricated" testimony by
Guardsmen, had been suppressed
"and placed under lock-und-key for
75 years." Coverup did not begin
with Watergate.
Five months after the sshostins
a special report by the Presidents'
Commission on Campus Unr-st,
headed by former Gov. Scranton,
declared:
"The rally swas peaceful, and
there was no aplparent impending
violence. Only when the Guard at-
tempted to disperse the rally lid
some students react violently . . .
'the indiscriminate firing of rifles
into a crowd of students snd the
deaths that followed were unneces-
sury,,unwarranted and inexcus-
able."
like the reports of other Presi-
dential commissions in the Nixon
era, this one was treated by the
Administration as if it had. never
been submitted.
NOW, THREE years after 'he
day of horror, David Eisenhower,
in the tones of a young fogy, writes
triumphantly of the calm prevail-
ing on the campuses. Meanwhile,
Arthur and Doris Krause drove
sadly last week to a candlelight
vigil at Kent State. Today, for
them and the families of Jeffrey
Glenn Miller, William K. Schroed-
er and Sandra Lee Scheuer, t h e
three others who perished, there
is the agony of remembrance and
a shared despair about a govern-
ment whose leaders have never
seemed to care.
James Wechsler is the editorial
director of The New York Post.
Copyright 1973 by the New York
Post Corporation.
I ACCEPED THE
WORP OF THE5E
MEN..
13UT TH4AT'S
NlO
Fxcu5EF!
x.L64rr.T THAT THE VEN4OCRAT6
HAVE Pc ' EFTHF.
Su~r-TH-fAT 5.
NO
l
I
Letters to The Daily
I
'0P %xL65 AMr:RCAAND Gap
\\ B1LESFACH'
W4ERV LONE
OF
4 you.
To The Daily:
IT WAS WITH great delight that
I read the article in The Daily
(April 18) about the men from
Delta Tau Delta doing a service
TrHAT s to the unsuspecting motorists who
may fall into the speed trap at
\ N the bottom of the hill on Geddes
~XCI. - Road. Our wonderful boys in blue
regularly is just off Geddes iat Hill
with the portable radar system.
I have always wanted to do just
what DTD id, but lacked the
courage. Geddes Road is governed
by a 25 mph speed restriction until
the city limit sign. I hope that the
efforts Of Mr. Seegel et al have
THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL kept a lot of people from getting
the radar shaft. I also hope that
Daily readers will take note of this
speed trap and pass the word. The
radar speed traps serve no other
purpose than to fill the city cof-
fers, along with the parking ticket
racket.
It is too bed that with all of
the rip-off going on in 'Ann Arbor,
both, on Campus and off, that Ann
Arbor's 'finest" have nothing bet-
ted to do than pull these snake-in-
the-grass stunts, which amount to
little more than legalized extortion.
I again offer my praises for the
DTD. I hope they keep up the gossd
work.
-Jack Wilson
LSA '73
April 18