Spring at the 'U': New beginning
By ROSE SUE BERSTEIN but the most serious of students could force an at-
HE BEGINNING of a new term always brings tention span to survive class hours in the midst of a
i so tinealeasant as iathe caae thi , term. For this is the time for adventure, for allowable
As spring term opened, students trickled back carousing, for flexibility.
to Ann Arbor, somehow less fraught with student
solemnity than usual. The first few days were un- ONE DAY LAST week i for example. my room- r
demanding-moving in, relocating friends, absorb- mates andm decided to eiso at dawn and visit fle
ing the sunshine and fresh air. With the advent of farmei's mairket.Duiring the wintei, awakening at
classes, I suspected the festive summer camp at- 6 a.m. is rude indeed, but now it seems a rather
mosphere would dissipate, but that too has managed normal procedure. Walking around Ann Arbor be-
to survive. fore the city's alarm clocks had rung, we noticed
All of Ann Arbor's student population seems caught an unusual flurry of activity. Others like us were
up in recreation, seized by a frisbee and softball awake and alive, jogging, riding bicycles, playing
epidemic, a childish fantasy. Studies are confined tennis.
to the perimeter of the day, leaving the central And, we had anticipated the hardy farmers, known
portion, the prime play time, free for frolicking, for for rising early, for, in our haste to be early, we had
gaiety and froth. neglected to find out whether the rest of the world
would awaken with us, to serve us. Still, it was in-
SPRING TERM begins to settle in, but unlike the vigorating to have travelled over two miles before
routinization that grows with fall term and the our eight o'clock classes, where we also anticipated
dreariness that winter term invites, it brings with the rest of -the class.
it no portent of gloom. Instead, it seems encased in a Other adventures lie in wait; a future of strolls
jello mold, bearing promise of never becoming rigid through the city, picnics in the arb, of carefree sill-
and confining. ness after silliness.
Throughout the year, students lament their mis- This season may be like any other summer, like '
fortunes at being assigned to eight o'clock classes, any other period of lessened formal activity. High
but now, they seem almost popular. In fact, during spirits and lofty resolves inevitably mark the be-
the year one would almost certainly look askance at ginnings of vacations. -
anyone who arrives early to an eight o'clock, since
such a catastrophic turn of fate need not be pro- BUT THIS time, if we manage to omit the pro-
longed. But now, there are too many things to do mises to read two books every day and run three
in too little time and it seems only logical that miles before breakfast, perhaps the spontaneity will
classes should begin at eight. never end, the summer will weather iethargy and
It would be almost tragic, it seems, to sit in a continue to propagate waves of free persons, chasing
classroom and watch one's colleagues rollick on the their separate interests with fewer restrictions than
Diag. Beyond the tragedy, it seems doubtful that any at nearly any other time.


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f f9 e Aftritan Oai1R
420 Maynard Street, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual
opinions of the author. This must be noted in all reprints.
Thursday, May 13, 1971 News Phone: 764-0552
NIGHT EDITOR: ROSE SUE BERSTEIN

China: Nixon ally for '72?

By JAMES WECHSLER
IVUMEROUS INDICATIONS that
Richard N i x o n is grooming
Mao Tse-tung as his surprise ally
of the 1972 campaign are creating
symptoms of panic a m o n g the
President's right-wing adherents.
They should also undermine the
complacency of Democrats.
For what has emerged in recent
days is apparently conclusive evi-
dence that the Ping Pong festivi-
ties were an outgrowth of extreme-
ly private Nixonian approaches be-
gun many months earlier. Even
while Peking continues to decry
the American commitment to Tai-
wan and Mr. Nixon has cautioned
against premature euphoria over
the "new page" in U.S.-Peking re-
lations, it is now clear that real
signals have been flashed.
The thunder on the right is al-
ready audible. The front-page
headline in the current issue of
the right-wing news-letter Human
Events warns that "Nixon's Peking
Diplomacy I m p e r i s Southeast
Asia. Bill Buckley's National Re-
view Bulletin asks, "What Goes
With China?"
The document that gives largest
credibility to the notion that there
is substance as well as gamesman-
ship in the table tennis exercises
is Edgar Snow's "conversation"
with Mao published in last week's
Life magazine and given. inade-
quate notice when it appeared.
AFTER AN exchange in which
Mao indicated his hope for amity
between the "peoples" of the U.S.
and China-especially if the So-
viets remained hostile-and dis-
counted the "possibility" of any
"revolution" here "in the near fu-
ture," there appeared this explicit
overture to Nixon:
"In -the meantime, be (Mao)

said, the foreign ministry was
studying the matter of admitting
Americans from the left, middle
and right to visit China. Should
rightists like Nixon, who repre-
sented the monopoly capitalists,
be permitted to come? He should
be welcomed because, Mao ex-
plained, at present the problems
between China and the U.S.A.
would have to be solved with Nix-
on. Mao would be happy to talk
with him, either as a tourist or
President,
"I (Snow) unfortunately could
not represent the United States, he
said; I was not a monopoly capi-
talist. Could I settle the Taiwan
question? Why continue such a
stalemate? Chiang Kai-shek has
not died yet. But what had Taiwan
to do with Nixon? That question
was created by Truman and Ache-
son."
Amid the conventional jargon,
the words plainly signified that
Mao was eager to do business with
Nixon.
The other revelatory part of
Snow's story consisted of "back-
ground information" that he dis-
creetly attributed to "foreign dip-
lomats in Peking".
According to these sources, nu-
merous messages from Washing-
ton to Peking were deli-zered last
year by "certain go-betweens";
these communications were de-
signed to "assure Chinese leaders
of Mr. Nixon's 'new outlook' on
Asia" Snow added these details:
"Nixon was firmly determined,
it was said, to withdraw from Viet-
nam as speedily as possible, to
seek a negotiated international
guarantee of the independence of
Southeast Asia, to end tne impasse
in Sino-American relations by
clearing up the Taiwan question

and to bring the People's Republic
into the UN and into diplomatic
relations with the U.S."
"The head of one European mis-
sion in Peking, who had already
made one trip to see President
Nixon, returned to Washington last
December. He bypassed the State
Department to confer at the White
House and was back in China inIR
January. From another and unim-
peachable diplomatic source I
learned, not long before my de-
parture from Peking in February,
that the White House had once
more conveyed a message asking
how a personal representative of
the President would be :eceived
in the Chinese capital for conver-
sations with the highest Chinese
leaders .
IT MIGHT BE WRYLY re-
;marked that a Senator named
-Richard Nixon would have had
some sinister things to say about
'any Democratic President who en-
gaged in such secret flirtations
with Mao. But the hard fact is that
.a U.S. - Peking rapprochement
would almost certainly constitute
a domestic political coup (unless it
triggered simultaneous conf-on-
'tation with the Soviets).
The deal can hardly be describ-
ed as sealed. It could be wrecked
-by ambiguities in our Vietnam poli-
cy, by conflicts in Peking, or by
Pentagon pressures.
But the possible political divi-
dends of an accommodation with ,
'Mao are obviously very much on
,Mr. Nixon's mind. Seemingly Mao
is willing-if the terms are right;
there is no reason to believe he
would be inhibited by the thought
that he might be helping to re-elect
Mr. Nixon in the process.
@ New York Post

Choose One: A. East Pakistan, B. Ceylon,
C. My Lai, D. Hue, E. All of the Above