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OPINION
Page 4 Wednesday, November 5, 1980 The Michigan Daily

Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan

Higgins

I

Vol. XCI, No. 54

420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board

Will America survive?

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ug~o1HE DA\W'

IT'S A DIFFERENT America this
m morning.
Yesterday, the Democrats still con-
trolled the presidency and the
Congress; the liberal ideal still
flickered. Today, Ronald Reagan and a
host of his fellow Republicans have
taken over. The light is dimming fast.
We can only pray that President.
Reagan (the words still catch in our
throats) will prove far less reactionary
than candidate Reagan has been. If we
are to survive in a world on the brink of
destroying itself, moderation will be
requisite.
It is very difficult to resist the tem-
ptation toward melodramatic despair.
We frantically search for some solace,
some historical precedent that
provides hope that all is not lost.
Reagan, in his thank-you speech last
night, attempted to provide that hope.
America has survived wars and
depressions, he said. We can make this

country great again, he said.
We do despair at the thought of
Ronald Reagan determining our fate.
Yet, perhaps a question even more
appropriate than "Can America sur-
vive a Reagan presidency?" is "Can
America survive its own rightward
shift?"
The majority of people in this coun-
try, by their overwhelming support of
Republicans in every conceivable.
race, have demanded a shift to rigid
conservatism. They want to trash ar-
ms limitation treaties, strive for
nuclear weapons superiority, deny
women equality under the Con-
stitution, and stack the Supreme Court
with conservative justices sure to
erode civil liberties.
They want all this. They've voted for
a president and senators who stand for
a new, backward America.
The meaning of yesterday's vote
only begins to sink in.

LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
'U'should oust CIA recruiters

Tisch is dead, but threats
to the University remain

4

E CAN BREATHE easier today,
on one count at least. The voters
have sent Robert Tisch-the sponsor of
a proposal that could have strangled
this university and closed
others-back to his drain corn-
iissioners' post, where he belongs.
On campus, we can all go back to our
classes, laboratories, and libraries
with assurance that any retrenchment
or cutbacks in University programs
will be gradual and carefully con-
sidered. For the time being, there
seems to be little danger that any
major cuts will be necessary.
But we ought not get too smug. The
1980 Tisch plan, though it was even
more severe than Tisch's 1978
proposal, at one point had a clear shot
at victory. There is obviously a high
level of discontent among the state's
taxpayers, and the defeat of Tisch is
not going to solve that problem at all.
Each year, homeowners have had to
pay higher and higher property taxes,
yet they have not felt that the services
delivered by the state government
have been just compensation. As long
as the citizenry continues to feel ex-
ploited by the state bureaucracy, the
possibility of an even more drastic tax
slash remains.

"Don't take it from politicians
anymore," read the pro-Tisch bum-
per stickers, but the legislators aren't
necessarily the only target of property
owners' anger. To many Michigan-
ders, our own University is an elitist
enclave that deserves to have its.
budget slashed. The average
autoworker just doesn't see what the
University does for him or her-and in
fact, it's difficult to point to many con-
crete benefits that fall on the non-
academic world.
The University must find a way to
show the residents of the state that the
continued health of our academic in-
stitutions matters. The technical
research the University conducts does
not appear to have much impact or
import to a blue collar worker earning
$14,000 a year. What does matter to
that worker is the possibility that his or
her son or daughter can take advan-
tage of higher education to become a
professional, or even an earthshaker.
Quite simply, the University needs to
reassess its reputation-whether it is
rightly or wrongly earned-and to
make the adjustments that will have
the state's citizens defending this in-
stitution as an ally, not opposing it as a
tax-squandering foe.

To the Daily :
We have become aware that
the CIA will be conducting
recruiting interviews through the
Placement Office of the Univer-
sity of Michigan Law School on
November 6. We are outraged! It
is by now no secret that the CIA
has been used as an instrument
of repression in this country and
around the world since its incep-
tion after World War II.
The direct and active role of the
CIA in clandestine operations,
very often involving large scale
intervention in the affairs of
other countries, is a matter of
common knowledge. The links
between the CIA and the shah of

Iran, the Agency's part in the
Chilean military coup in 1973, its
participation in counter-
revolutionary activities in
Angola, Cuba, Vietnam,
Guatemala, and other Third
World countries are extensively
documented and have been
publicly revealed by the U.S.
Senate. The CIA has alsobbeen in-
volved in a number of
assassination plots, one of which
was the assassination of Chilean
diplomat and one-time Am-
bassador to the U.S. Orlando
Letelier and his companion, Ro-
nni Moffet, in downtown
Washington, D.C.

Hands off Daily editors

To the Daily:
The Spartacus Youth League
protests the arrests of Michigan
Daily editors Joshua Peck and
Mark Parrent and calls for the
charges lodged against them to
be dropped immediately. The
Board in Control of Inter-
collegiate Athletics meetings
and all meetings of University
governing bodies must be open to
the public. But that is not enough!
The whole administration, which
is vehemently anti-union and
more concerned with making a
profit than with educating the
students, must be abolished!
Likewise the cops who handcuf-
fed Peck and Parrentand carted
them off to the pokey have no
business on the campus. We call
for all cops off campus and for
the University to be run under
worker/student/faculty control.

Earlier this year the SYL was
victorious in beating back an
administrationeattack at the
University of Illinois/Chicago
Circle where an SYL member
was arrested for "trespassing."
This was a precedent-setting case
against-the increasing attempts
of right-wing administrations to
seal off the campus from any
type of criticism, especially from
communists. While the SYL un-
conditionally defends the editors
against attacks by the ad-
ministration and the state,
Peck's anti-communist tirades
against the SYL helped pave the
way for his own victimization.
HANDSTOFF PECK AND
PARRENT.
-Irene Rhinesmith
Spartacus Youth League
November 4

Here in the U.S. it has been
revealed through a number of
Freedom of Information Act suits
that the CIA has conducted illegal
mail-opening campaigns. Bet-
ween 1953 and 1973 more than
215,000 first-class letters mailed
by or to U.S. citizens were
illegally opened and copied by the
CIA. The Agency has been in-
volved in illegal drug testing and
mind control research, using the
resources of universities and
research institutions; has done
extensive spying and surveillan-
ce on college campuses and on
political organizations around the
country, including here at The
University of Michigan; has in-
filtrated national student
organizations; and has collected
files on a vast number of private
individuals.
Even since 1976, at the height of
the post-Watergate movement to
reform intelligence agencies, the
CIA and other agencies have
responded by building a counter-
movement to "unleash" the CIA.
Now, in 1980, with the inter-
national scene in upheaval and
with U.S. economic and political
power on the decline, the in-
telligence scandal of the 1970s is
being papered over to make way
for further expansion of the spy
organizations. The activities and
powers of the CIA have
historically revolved around the
unconstitutional suppression of
civil liberties and the fundamen-
tal rights of people in the U.S. and
around the world.
The presence, of the CIA on
campus on November 6 is an
outrage and an insult. The fact
that the Law School Placement
Office is expending resources and
energy to allow an agency
devoted to repressive clandestine
activity to recruit future lawyers
is symbolic of a much .larger
problem at this university. The
University is effectively con-
ditioning us, as students, to seek
employment with large corporate
firms or government agencies

like the CIA, which can afford to
pay "big bucks."
The University would like to
portray itself as a neutral, value-
free institution where all ideas can
be evaluated equally. This,
however, is precluded by the
overwhelming influence which
international arms manufac-
turers, powerful banks and
finance institutions, and gover-
nment agencies such as the
Department of Defense and the
CIA have, not only via the
training and recruitment of
students, but also by direct fun-
ding of University operations and
research. The intimate relation-
ship existing between the Univer-
sity and the military-industrial
complex makes the University a
defender of the existing order
rather than an agent for social
progress.
So when the CIA shows up on
campus and offers a large salary
with the promise of excitement
and travel, many students jump
at the chance to "serve the
public," especially in these times
when any job is hard to find.
Rarely is the connection made
between the individual job and
the destructive role that the CIA
plays in its protection of cor-
porate interests throughout the
world.
We would urge the University
community to think seriously
about this issue and to demand
that the CIA not be allowed to use
the University as an accessory to
its crimes against the people of
the United States and the world.
-Sherry Estes
Dale Ewart
Dale Fay
Desiree Ferguson
Julie Hurwitz
Rick Kessler
Jody LeWitter
Joel Stern
Scott Sueskind
John valentine
The Coalition to Oppose
CIA Recruiting
November 4


MSA attack off base

To the Daily:
Your editorial of October 21, 1980
concerning the Michigan Student
Assembly and Bradley Canale is
worthy of comment,
clarification, and correction.
Mr. Canale'is not, as you
charge, "meddling in the affairs
of an Assembly that excluded
him." He is standing up for the
basic democratic ideals set forth
in the All-Campus Constitution of
the Student Body of The Univer-
sity of Michigan. In the system of
checks and balances at The
University of Michigan (of which
the Daily is certainly aware), Mr.
Canale is acting as a check,
through the Central Student
Judiciary, to make sure that
MSA and its executives do not
overstep their authority. Mr.
Canale is not attempting to
"disrupt the operations of MSA,"
but rather he is making MSA fun-
ction better, according to the
rules set for it by the students of
The University of Michigan.

Priorities Committee, one of the
most important committees at
the University with student
representatives. Ironically, Mr.
Canale has also been _ recently
appointed by MSA to serve on the
Acting Executive Committee of
the Michigan Union. He has not
been excluded by MSA.
The Daily ties the issue of the
Michigan Union Acting
Executive Committee appoin-
tments to a "minority of disgrun-
tled members of a defeated.
political party." A mistake must
have been made by including this
relationship. If you check the
record, the complaints were
made by students with no connec-
tion to any defeated political par-
ty.
While you are checking the
record, investigate whether MSA
is in fact, dominated by "the
political party that opposes
Canale's." In the divided Assem-
bly, it is important to note who
has the plurality.

World anti-Semitism ugly

To the Daily:
The violent manifestations of
anti-Semitism which have rocked
France, with shock waves around
the world, are an ugly reminder
that anti-Semitism continues to
infect political and psychological
attitudes abroad and, indeed, at
home in the U.S.A. We join the
families and compatriots of the
dead in mourning their loss. We
are sickened by the realization
that, even in this most violent of
centuries, the memory of the
Holocaust has not chastened the
world enough to eradicate the

opinion about some Israeli
government policies or some of
the policies of Arab governments
and movements must not be tain-
ted with anti-Semitism or racism.
In our work on Mideast issues
we support the goals of an Israel
living in security and peace with
its neighbors and the
achievement of national identity
sought by Palestine Arabs in the
context of peace and good
relations with Israel. We seek an
outcome that prizes the humanity
of all the peoples of the Middle
East, that recognizes the

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