GEOi By JIM TOBIN 'M GLAD I met Valentine Hubbs. Though we were never pro- perly introduced - a fact I doubt Dr. Hubbs has ever great- ly regretted - I fee that bene- fited from my brief buttcolorful encounter with the distinguish- ed chairman of the Department of Germanic Languages and Lit- erature of this University. Only rare occasions permit the Daity reporter to try on the Wood- ward-Bernstein cloak and dag- ger - pounding on the front doors of Very Important Persons in the dark of night to hur1 crushing questions in a gal- lant journalistic undertaking. And for unique experiences, who can top the comic irony of confronting a prestigious G e r- man scholar with the incredible name of ValentineHubbs, peek- ing out his window, half-clad, demanding in what can only be described as a Bronx ace-nt to know who has had the audacity to knock on hishdoor at the out- rageous hour of 9:00 on a Sa- turday night? And I think Dr. Hibbs and I learned a couple of things about journalism together. But here I should fill you in. ON MARCH 31 I got a call from The Daily. A woman who had declined to identify h e r- self but claimed she was close to the German Department had called and said that a grievance was being filed by same Germ- an teaching assistants over a hiring matter, snarking n small controversy. Since I h -d -over- ed the events up to and includ- the proj ing the GEO strike, it was log- ical that I cover the story. I had' had my fill of the GEO, but I felt a certain jealous possessive- ness about any of their news, and the story sounded fairly easy. I got on the phone. First I called Aleda 'Kraise, acting president of GE' and a TA in the German department. Good source, right? Well, sort of. She told me that a griev- ance had been filed by one George Schober, a German TA and a good friend of hers. on behalf of himself and nine oth- er TAs. Aleda was friendly as she had been throughout t he strike but her implication was clear - "Why don't you j u s t tall George? I really ohouldn't talk about it. I mean, he's the ane involved." SCHOBER told me the sto y. It seemed that nineteen TAs I-ad applied for nine 'summer apt- pointments, and of the ten not hired, all had been strikers. Each of the nine appointees had stay- ed on the job. Yes, Sc'iober told me the story, but with the same non-committal air, with a cer- tain reluctance to discuss or get quoted. Gone was the thirst for publicity which had characteriz- ed the GEO for months. This I found peculiar, especially in a situation that smacked of a chance to zap the administration with the brand-newly negotiated union grievance procedur.. It was time for me to call this vaguely sinister chairman -- "Hubbs", Schober had called him - for his view of the situa- tion. "Hubbs, Valentine. German Dept. Chmn.," the University and The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Thursday, July 10, 1975 News Phone: 764-0552 directory said. 'You've got to beq kidding," I replied. "Valentine Hubb?"I Nevertheless, it was true- a gentleman responded to thatI name at the other end of the line, and he branded the charges1 of discrimination in his depart- ment "completely false." CHAIRMAN Hibbs and I chat- ted for a few minutes. I asked him how the selecti-in of TAs had been made. Let me quote from my story of April 1. .. Hbbs said the nine TAs chosen are the most qualified in the department, though he add- ed 'that doesn't mean there weren't four or five more who were qualified too.' "Hubbs explains that a lst was compiled of the deart- ment's most qtalifiedyteachers. During the first days of the strike, Hubbs then visited the f- fices of all hoe on the list by alphabetical order to.see if they desiredwan appointment. When a TA was absent due to the strike or other reasons, Hubbs proceeded to the next person on the list without making further efforts to contact the absent TA. "I assumed if they weren't around they didn't want to teach,' he declared. 'What am I sipposed to do - chase them all over campus?" I DIDN'T think my instinctive response to that question would have done much for my relation- ship with Dr. Hubbs, so I kept it to myself. We talked for a moment more, then hung up. For the duration of our conver- sation, Chairman xlubbs, while not friendly, was certainly cord- ial. Let me state here that I have no reason to believe that the gentleman to whom I spoke that evening and subsequently quoted in the next day's Daily- was anyone other than Valentne Ilubbs, Chairman t-f our Ger- man Department. Honest. But that conversetion w a s abruptly thrown into the realm of the uncertain and the al- leged on the following Friday, April 4. I had dismissed the Ger- man department story from my mind for awhile, waiting to pick it up again when the first meet- ing concerning the grievance would be held in two weeks. But on that Friday evening I got a phone call from a profes- sor in the German department who did not give me his name. He asked me very carefully if I had talked to Dr. Hubbs, and if my quotes were authentic. THAT WAS easy. I said "ves." He asked me again; I raid "Yes" again and asked, in ef- fect, "Who cares?" Here it became apparent that several people cared very deep- ly. At a departmental meeting that afternoon, Chairman Htuobs, according to this professor and another who called me later to ask the same sort of question, had declared upon being ques- tioned that the quotes in th e story were false,. that he had- never spoke to a reporter from the Daily, that he had never spoken to anyone from 'he press. He charged (or intlat- ed; I'm not sure which) that Professor Ingo Seidler had leak- ed these quotes to me and that they were false. Needless to say, I get on the phone again the next day. I got a lot of impressions 'hat day: of young people fearful for their future, of older, accomp- ished men deeply concerned about the nature of their liveli- hood, of conscience, of fear, of pride. These were only impres- sions: they hid a situation which I never fully understood. I SPOKE to teaching assist- he journalist ants who had not been appoint- in unequivocal terms what h ed who asked me to promise not taken place. His manner itr to utse their names, even when me profoundly: ne spoke w only telling me how long they such quiet, slow dignity, w i had been graduate students; one such wrenching precision t called me back to make abso- I could not help but believe t Itely sure. he had made some fundamet I spoke to teaching assistants decision of conscience, a d, who had been appointed: one. of ion he knew could affect t these abruptly hung up on me career of his titled colleague after a string of nervous, almost others of his :olleagues, po narunoid protestations: "I . . . bly of his own. ,ist don't think I should tse For these were men of a iv talking to you . . . really I . . . conservative bent, which I I don't want to get involved in not condemn here. All, e any way . . . that's really all I'm those decidedly for the stude going to say . ." expressed a keen desire tha I spoke to professors whose leave their crisis alone, *ha comments, ranging in t o n e let the problem stay within from reluctant support to un- confines of their safe, sti sheathed animosity, demonstrat- world to be dealt with is pret ed some sort of taking of sides, that I not take sides in the c a departmental split with one flirt. group standing by Hubbs and And that last plea made the other by the students. think. Would I be taking sid Professor and former Depart- ment chairman Clarence Pott I THINK NOT, and for th was slightly dumbfounded when offer. only simple justificar I told him of the controversy and I was worried that wha of Tubbs' apparent lie. would write might affect the reers of some men. (I r- "THIS PUTS a very strange don't mean to sound meloc light on a lot of things," h, said. matic; I- really felt this x, ad uck vith t h hat hat ntal cis- hi e of iost do ret at t it I .he Pall ate, cor,- es? is I tin. t I ca- mlly Ira- ay.) Letters to non-exclusion To The Daily: THE JUNE 29 Mass Bicenten- nial Festival culminating the 21st Communist Party Conven- tion in Chicago was a high suc- :ess. Over 3,000 olack, white, brown and yellow people from all over the country attended, 10 from Ann Arbor. About half were people of color, and most were young. Leading Csnmun- ists Aneela Davis, Gus Hall and Henry Winston spoke, alog with non-Communist mass ieaders such as Bill Klammen, National Student Association, and A. Sammy Rayner, a former Chi- cago alderman. News of the Festival oenerall:' Ldrew wide interest rnd support in Ann Arbor. However, a let- ter signed by the .i'n Arbor Peonies Bicentennial Coommis- sion did anpear in tie JTune 25 Daily which questioned the right of the Communist Parts jIn use the name, "People's B,,enten- ial Festival".Impli.it in the letter was the idea that the Comminist Party snouild not be included in the fight to preserve aur revolutionary heri -age. This fight must be open to all, incl'tding the Communist Party. It will take the, strengtti of a united mass movement t gte the bicentennial year events a democratic character and to defend those limited demccratic rights that still exist from fur- the Daily ther erosion by the Fords, the Rockefellers, Wallaces, a n d those liberals who go along with proposals for new repressive le- gislation. COMMUNISTS have always fought to preserve and extend :emocracy in the U.S. Henry Winston, Gus Hall and Angela Davis as well as hundreds of ather Communist leaders, have spent long periods in jail as poli- tical prisoners after being fram- ad on false conspiracy charg- es. Communists played a lead- ing role in the fight against the McCarthy terror of the 1950's, a tight which helped to pseserve the right of people today to ex- ->ress revolutionary ideas and to organize. Attempts to generate anti- Communist sentiments and ac- tion within the people's move- ments only harm the 'aovemants themselves as well as the Com- minists. When people become livided and fearful, they are unable to deal with the struggle at hand. A united front is essential. That means unity s comamon struggle for our real neads: for jobs, for peace, against racism, rhose who see socialism as a soution and those who do not, :an still unite in common strug- gle for these immediate needs. -Mary Nash Member of the Ameri- can Communist Party The month-long GEO strike had a deep effect on the attitudes and behavior of both professors and TA's, including those in the German Department. "I must say I'm a little bit shocked. I really shouldn't say anything. I hate to throw this thing into some crazy FBI-CIA light." There was my encounter with Hubbs himself at his home that evening. (Where else but on Easy Street?) I went with ano- ther Daily reporter for a wit- ness, but didn't get much of a chance to talk w'th the chair- man. We gingerly knocked on his door, half angry and halt- afraid. When he peered out, not opening his door, I said, "Dr. Hubbs, I'm Jim Tobin from the Michigan Daily." "So what?" (I deserved that.) "I'd like to ask you why you told your department that we didn't talk the other night when you know that we did." "That's not what I told them," he replied. "I told them you- didn't have the whole thing in the story. Look, I don't wan to talk about anything now. I'm busy." FAIR ENOUGHI. Shaking, we left. But the gentleman by whom I was moved most was the pro- fessor who gave me what I real- ly needed for the story - an ac- tual account of the meeting. This professor, with what seem- ed to be great reluctance, with great care, told me step by .step This was not a queston of slapl- ed journalism, or of one-sided- ness, or of the telling of half- truths. It simply concerned the telling of certain comments made, the noting of a contro- versy. Even as simply this, it could conceivably set in mc'i'o events that could effect people's Alves. But the journalist is not the actor in a situation such as this: he is merely the observer and teller and the telling is good. It does not help or hurt in and of itself; if people judge t h e object of the teller good or bad as a result of the elucidation, so be it. The journalist is respon- sible only for sincerity a r d thoroughness. While that respon- sibility is tremendous by itself, it is not a moral responsibility which so many insist on assign- ing the journalist. Here I cen myself to objections and excep- tions from all sides. Consider my humble theory within the con- fines of my narrow, personal example. DR. HUBBS called me the next day to apologize and ask that I come to his office to talk the situation over. Overtaken by work, I did not. Perhaps now I will. Jim Tobin is a member of the News staff, summering in scenic Birmingham.