TM
Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Saturday, June 15, 1974
News Phone: 764-0552
Atom bombs for Egypt, or
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay?
THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT the United States will sell
nuclear reactor capability to Egypt represents the
most foolhardy and dangerous decision In American for-
eign policy in the past decade and paves the way for a
massive rekindling of the touchy powderkeg in the Mid-
dle East.
Although the announcement stresses the capability
will be for "peaceful purposes," the experience in India
shows that a nuclear reactor is only one step away from
a nuclear bomb. India was given the same capability -
and exploded a nuclear device last month.
The announcement also reduces the nuclear nonpro-
liferation treaty to a meaningless scrap of paper. This
treaty, which was signed by the U. S. and limits the
spread of nuclear weapons, among nations is now worth-
less in the light of the new action.
The decision by Nixon and Kissinger can be likened
to giving two children guns and telling them to fight it
out between themselves. Israel has had a nuclear capa-
bility for years. But with Egypt's entrance into the nu-
clear club, the stakes are considerably higher.
IN THEIR BID to get Egyptian oil, Nixon and Kissinger
have traded away any chance for a real peace in the
Mideast. Given the massive hatred between Egypt and
Israel, a nuclear war in that explosive sector of the
world may be a foregone conclusion. Even though Israel
has a nuclear capability, it has not used it for fear of in-
curring adverse world opinion. But with Egypt's new ac-
quisition, such political constraints have been removed
-and a preemptive nuclear attack may be rationalized
by either side with an "if we don't use, they'll use it
first."
The Nixonian rhetoric about "paving the way for a
lasting peace in the Middle East" has now been exposed
as the farce and sham it really is. Any thoughts about
the altruistic motives of the president and his globe-
trotting secretary of state have been completely removed.
For the politics of oil (and all its attendant ugli-
ness) has reared its head. A swap of a nuclear capability
for oil can only be described as shabby - and foolish.
Innocent people may die on both sides because of the
blatantly imperialistic greed of the United States govern-
ment.
THIS TYPE OF IRRESPONSIBILITY in our public of-
ficials - be they elected, as Nixon, or appointed, like
Kissinger - cannot be tolerated. Even if Watergate never
had happened, this alone would be grounds on which to
impeach the president. It should not be in the purview
of any official to hand out nuclear capability, with all its
potential destructiveness, like chewing gum to any child
who grabs for it.
A nuclear capability is not a toy. If you hand some-
one bullets;it will not take long to find a gun to put the
bullets in. The responsibility for any deaths or injuries
from that gun must rest solely with those who gave him
bullets in the first place. The president and Dr. Kissinger
would do well to dwell on that for a while.
-GARY THOMAS
Spring Staff
REBECCA WARNER
Editor
MARNE HEYN
Editorial Director
KEN IN
Arts Editor
GORDON ATCHESON ......................................... Night Editor
JEFF DAY . . ...........Night Editor
MEUYL PILATE.... ...... Night Editor
JUDY UtSKIN............................. Night Editor
JEFF SORENSEN .......... Night Editor
ARARA CORNELl. AssNight Editor
JANET NARSHMAN .................. Ass't. Night Editor
ANDREA LILLY ........ Asst. Night Editor
STEPHEN iiER5NH.... ,.. .......... Asst. Night Editor
DAVID WHITING .Ast. Night Editor
MARC FeLDMAN
Sports Editor
CLARKE COGSDILL ...:...................... Contributing Sports Editor
GEORGE HASTINGS ............................Executive Sports Editor
JOHN KAHLER .................................. Associate Sports Editor
ROGER ROSSITER ............ ............... Managing Sports Editor
JOAN ADES.............. ........ ...Circuation Manager
MARK NANCRAINTfi
Business Manager
KAREN COPELAND. .. .... Display Manager
EMILY MIEN ........................... Office Ass't,
KATHY KELLER.........Office Asst.
CASSIE ST. CLAIR .................................... Classified Manager
TOM GOTTLIEBN.'........................... ...Photographer
KAREN KASMAUSKI .........................Photographer
0 \ 4
INFANTILE INSIGHT
On father
By BETH NISSEN
EVERY TIME a family's first baby is born,
another mother and father are brought into
the world. After the excited calls over long-
distance wires are made, and the cigars smoked
into congratulatory ashes, there remains the
problem of bringing up baby.
Traditionally all the how-to books on success-
fully raising a balanced child have been written
for mothers. The projected image of newborn
babe is usually incomplete without the accom-
panying new mother, cheeks blushed with ma-
ternal pride. Ads for baby products are written
and produced for mothers; fathers aren't usually
shown capable of keeping their sons and daugh-
ter's newborn bottoms drier or spooning strained
beets into their drooling and toothless mouths.
The father has been left little to do except con-
sistently bring home the pablum, and play goot-
chie-goo in the early evening with a well-scrubbed
powdered infant.
The realities of raising children alternate be-
tween joy of discovery and weary drudgery. Be-
tween the Kodak moments of Baby's First Tooth,
First Step and First Word are the backaches of
the hundred-thousandth used Pampers and end-
less heap of spitty clothes, the 1 a.m. whining
and the one misplaced shoe. Almost all of the
unpleasantness is commonly considered the burd-
en of the parent with the womb. Fathers are
expected to share the joys of parenthood, but
are traditionally allowed to keep both hands
clean. The father holds a rather set arrear posi-
tion in child-rearing.
ACCORDING TO our gaggle of learned psychol-
ogists and social behaviorists, a passive father
role has its effects on children. In the past, the
absent father during most of Baby's waking
hours was compensated for by the devoted moth-
er. There has recently been a great decrease in
the status and admiration awarded the profes-
sion of motherhood and children are suffering
from the lack of a strong parent - especially
father - figure.
Fatherhood is much more than contributing
to the baby's genetic structure or the patronizing
gift of a weekly allowance or a hand in the
daily discipline. For either a male or female
child, the father helps shape their perceptions
of their neighbors and themselves.
There is little public and social recognition if
a man is a good father; there is much condem-
nation if he is a negligent one. Most of the
praise for a productive and good child - as well
as the blame for an indigent and delinquent one
- are given to the mother. The father plays an
accessory role, one clearly defined by American
family tradition.
Rare is the father who gets up to fix the
family breakfast in the morning or risks dishpan
hands to help with the dishes. The man who
offers to heat up the Hamburger Helper, go Kro-
gering for the week, or fold a basketful of
and baby
bathtowels is a saint and a paragon husband.
He also threatens the delineated world of divid-
ed His and Her chores, which has consistently
loaded everything but the disposal of the garbage
onto the wife and mother.
MINDS, LIKE the times, are changing. Those
women who feel their Masters degree qualifies
them to do more than watchdog Junior tireless-
ly, or feel the tedium of baby's care more than
they care to carry solitarily, are calling for an
added shoulder to bear the weight of both respon-
sibility and work that automatically follows when
one and one makes three.
Far-sighted psychologists warn of the effects
of early abandonment of a child to the smiling
surveillance of cheery Kool-Aid and Nabisco day-
care centers. Such a price for a mother's freedom
Ideas of inside or outside
personal plumbing should not
determine who earns the bread
and who makes it into sand-
wiches or which parent raises
the child and which one raises
the money. A child is an emo-
tional as well as physical pro-
duct of both parents.
can muddle a child's identification of parents
and home and endow them with as much a sense
of direction and security as an air-shipped suit-
case with no destination sticker.
The idea of child-raising being synonmous with
mothering will have to be changed along with
the diapers. For the sake of the psyche of fu-
ture children, the idea of parenting will have
to take stronger hold. A greater involvement of
fathers in the daily routines of their children
and a dissolving of the rigor mortised roles of
father and mother should both free enslaved
mothers and grow better adjusted children. Ideas
of inside or outside personal plumbing should not
determine who earns the bread and who makes
it into sandwiches or which parent raises the
child and which one raises the money. A child
is an emotional as wel as a physical product of
both parents.
The difference between a father by rite of pa-
ternity and a father by rite of involvement in
their children's growth determines which fathers
get only a $6.00 tie from their children on Father's
Day and which fathers get the loving and grate-
ful emotional ties of their children for life.