OPINION Page 4 Thursday, October 8, 1981 The Michigan Daily 0 The world los By Jeffrey Colman Scholarly observers of world politics are apprehensive to use the term "in- dispensable" to describe world leaders. At times of crisis surrounding the death of a major leader, it is natural to feel that the world is ending. Yet somehow, once the air of the crisis is cleared, the fallen leader is replaced and history continues, usually unscathed. If there was a leader in our times who might be described as indispensable to world peace it would be Anwar Sadat. No man in recent years has contributed so much to world peace at such great _ risk as Sadat. The history of his accom- plishments will unfortunately be writ- ten prematurely due to his untimely death this week. ANWAR SADAT was one of those rare leaders with a sense of history. From an early age, he began to believe that he was destined to play a significant role in the history of his country and the world. He spent his life trying to fulfill what he described as his God-given duty to bring freedom, prosperity, and peace to the Egyptian people. For him this historical obligation was not merely a philosophical vision to dream about but a plan of action. From his days as a young officer in the Egyp- tian army, when he was imprisoned for opposing British colonial rule, he demonstrated the willingness to take action toward fulfilling his ideals, even at the risk of great self-sacrifice. AS PRESIDENT of his country, when he journeyed to Jerusalem four years ago and later signed a peace treaty with-- Israel, he risked not only alienation from all other Arab leaders but also his life. Anwar Sadat was no saint. Although known in recent years as a man of peace, he was never unwilling to em- ploy violence for political purposes. He attacked Israel on Yom Kippur 1973, the holiest day of the Jewish year, in order to restore Egypt's pride after its humiliating defeat in the 1967 war. On. several occasions during his presiden- cy, he stifled his domestic opposition through arrest and incarceration, most recently this past summer. SADAT'S PUBLIC career, like those of all leaders, was not unblemished. But his achievements must be seen in the perspective of history. He should be remembered as the first Arab leader to recognize the right of the es a rare, gi v/ \, 1_K t , ~ Q N C N1-AN pAwt fted leader life to fulfill this vision. Few leaders alive today will have an historical record to match this one. PRESENT POLITICAL realities in the Middle East will soon dominate world headlines and history's view of Sadat will be left to future historians. What is relevant now is whether or not the Camp David peace structure will survive one of its architects. Because the Egyptian' side of the peace process was so dependent on the personality and power of one man, the chance of another major Arab-Israeli war may now be more likely. Are Sadat's supporters well entren- 'ched enough in the Egyptian gover- nment and army to continue his policies? Will radicals like the Palestine Liberation Organization, who pre celebrating Sadat's death, become more powerful and threaten remaining Arab voices of moderation vis-a-vis Israel? THE ANSWERS to these questions will determine the degree of peace and stability in the Middle East and perhaps the world in the near future. Even th6 optimist must be weary of the possible consequences of Sadat's tragic assassination. According to Anwar Sadat, however, tragedy must be faced and conquered. He wrote in his autobiography: "Faith means that a man should regard any disaster simply;as a fate- determined blow which must be en- dured. From this stems a deliberate ef- fort to fight away its consequences. No problem should ever be regarded as in- surmountable. There are always solutions to everything." OCT. 6 WILL be remembered as a date of significance on the life of Anwar Sadat and in the course of history. On Oct. 6, 1973, Sadat shocked the world by launching a surprise attack on Israel which set into motion a series of events which dominated Middle East politics for eight years. On Oct. 6,1981, while celebrating this military initiative, he was assassinated; his death may set into motion another series of event whose consequences are unknown. "I realize," Sadat wrote, "that significant events in my life coincided with events %of public, even historic, significance. So apparently destiny has decreed." Colman is a graduate student in the University 's Institute of Public Policy Studies. 0 State of Israel to exist and thrive. He should be remembered as the man of vision who saw the need to break out of the cycle of warfare that brought repeated tragedy to his countrymen and all peoples in his region. He should be remembered as the man of action who sacrificed his power and a6 w 3tcb itgan 4at' Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Weasel By Robert Lence Vol. XCII, No. 25 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials'represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board The beginnings of dialogue l THIS 1s A Q1Q ll MAX r F}ELP "(00?. A Po u.AP$ WOFT*, PLEASE.. V C IMP i i MEETINY YouE ERE !J LAP? .E~r.L YTKBU C N OOL- A r KNOW AGE 1 Vt .$. Jo I (NIrt 41 a -' MOMMY I W1 NT TO PLA"4 5PACE INVAERSBOWT T 1316 FAT MAN IS FMo[C~,&N& Tit 1 MACH+E / h-" GO AWAY LEAVE ME AL-0NE TN15 &AME ISNT FOR AM ATUERS 11 AAA o Aa* C.OUsLPY-N& T A; GROKI'-i 1000 FowlMs! a6 B Y APPEARING before the Michigan Student Assembly Tuesday night, University President Harold Shapiro has demonstrated some interest in student concerns. In his first appearance as president ever before the student government, Shapiro fielded questions from MSA members about military research con- tracts, financial aid for minority students, and the University's affir- mkive action programs. Too often, University administrators misinterpret the best interest of students when making policy decisions. Clearly, it is an impossible task to expect them to have a feeling for student viewpoints when they have little or no contact with students. * Shapiro has at least taken a step toward soliciting student views by meeting with MSA members. Arguably, MSA does not always represent the mindset of the student body-fewer than 4,500 students turned out to vote in the last MSA elec- tion-but meeting with the University ' student government is perhaps the best way for administrators to begin to gauge student input. Unfortunately, many of Shapiro's responses Tuesday night seemed evasive. When questioned about the University's plans for financial aid for minority students, for example, Shapiro cited the University's com- mitment to financial aid to minorities and the University's lobbying efforts in Washington to prevent further finan- cial aid cutbacks. He did not, however, give specific examples of what the University currently is doing for minority students. If the president in- tends to have a viable dialogue with MSA members, he must be willing to give responsible and substantive an- swers to their questions. It is time Shapiro recognizes- the need to solicit student opinions and MSA members have been wise in en- couraging him to do this. But now they face an even greater obstacle: Getting Shapiro to take an active interest in their concerns. 1' Reagan crack down m II By Seymour Wishman In his recent address before the International Association of Chiefs of Police, President Reagan was quite right to point out that we should be concerned about the innocent victims of crime. Of course we should. And he was right again to point out that the public is outraged when a vicious criminal escapes punishment. Of course we are. But the president's program for halting such abuses misdirec- ts our outrage at solutions which, unfortunately, will not decrease the number of new victims. IN THE FIRST place, his program assumes-as many Americans do-that droves of felons slip through the criminal justice system without ever en- tering the process, and that the fault lies with "liberal" judges, unscrupulous lawyers, or ridiculous technical loopholes in the law. The fact of the matter is that a surprisingly high percen- tage of those who commit serious crimes do wind up behind bars, as America's overcrowded prisons attest. Moreover, the real reason why some vicious criminals escape punishment all to frequently lies with the incom- petence-or even lawlessness-of cops, prosecutors or judges. Ex- cessive liberalism in the system has little to do with its shor- tcomings. Since becoming a criminal lawyer 16 years ago, I have prosecuted or defended hundreds of people accused of serious crimes. In the course of that work I have found a few truths plainly obvious in the matter of crime and punishment: Every .time a defendent is acquitted because of an improperly taken confession or an illegal search, some cop either didn't know what he was doing or arrogantly assumed he could break the law himself. Every time a prosecutor discloses prejudicial information THROUGH AN incompetence or lack or integrity of their own, most journalists rarely point to the responsible characters when assigning blame for a miscarriage of justice. It is thanks, finally, to this shor- tcoming-the media's longtime failure to inform the public of who actually is at fault-that the president now can propose a crime program which will not deter crime, even if it may lead people to believe that it might. The reality is that most judges are not "soft" on criminals; they often are the most eager to punish the guilty. Rather than being brilliant, most criminal lawyers win their cases in spite of their own blunders. And the legal "technicality" that frustrates the -effort to put a monster in prison usually is a fundamental con- stitutional right which has been negligently or willfully violated. A terrible murder case recen- tly concluded in the Northeast demonstrates my point. In the summer of 1967, Plainfield, N.J., exploded in a race riot. As in many other cities on fire at the - time, one of the primary causes of Plainfield's explosion was pent-up hostility between the black community and the police. While trying to contain the riot been charged, proved or defen- ded in the case. In a second trial, George Merritt, one of the two defendants, was convicted after the prosecutor had introduced the damaging written statement of a person who had not testified, and therefore could not be cross-, examined by the defendant. A third conviction of Merritt was reversed because a police of- ficer's report was suddenly, discovered which showed that the only eyewitness to testify against Merritt in his pre-trial had, at least in part, been lying. The newly discovered report had been written just days after the mur- der, and never was disclosed to. the defense counsel over the next 12 years. The point is not that Merritt was necessarily innocent; he may well have participated in the murder. But after three trials and 10 years in prison he still had not been properly convicted by the state. The state failed each time because of a different law enforcement officer's incom- petence. NONETHELESS, Merritt's fir- st two reversals were accounted by the media to mere technicalities. The judge's in- competence in the initial trial provoked no story on why, or how President Reagan's announced plan to crackdown may be attacking the wrong problem. on criminals Sgul ded for so long, whether there had been a cover-up or how often similar mistakes by police sabotage convictions. Journalists have not even examined how such cops, prosecutors or judges manage to get and keep their jobs. And President Reagan doesn't seem to have any interest in these kin- ds of questions, either. Any successful new crime program has to start with a basic understanding of the criminal justice system's present failure: Today that system lacks an ef- fective mechanism for preven- ting incompetents from finding their way into the legal process, accumulating important respon- sibilities, and surviving in spite of the injustices they perpetrate. Cops virtually never are disciplined for conducting illegal searches or extracting coerced confessions. Prosecutors who lose cases because they do not know the law or deliberately violate it usually must account to no one. No statistics are kept regarding convictions which are regularly reversed because judges have misunderstood or misapplied the law. IT IS CLEAR that steps must be taken to attract more qualified people to the law enforcement profession. Some judges who now preside over criminal trials have themselves never tried a jury case as a lawyer. Prosecutors of- ten are new lawyers, just out of school and still in the midst of training. Once they have had enough experience to know what they are doing, they often leave for private practice-that, for in- stance, is what I did. Offering more money to those who want to prosecute or judge no doubt would help improve the quality of personnel. But once hired they also should be scrutinized in a systematic way to assure some quality control. Too many notorious cases, like Merritt's, are simply mishan- dled. I believe that a terrible con- sequence of this official incom- - - - - _ a''