a OPINION Page 4 Tuesday, November 9, 1982 The MichiganI Daily Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Vol. XCIII, No. 53 Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Sinclair ISA ~f I~NW U KNOW~ THE~ M~OST 1I 4mPLOY m N FIR E PUT TE U1 tau T4(ONOW 1ATRR -IT6 APMII 5- CAPON WILL NOT WAVIlVER R IOM T IECOURS~E NE OAFE E7. jo 0 Class reunion T HE CLASS OF '72 gathered for a reunion this weekend and all the old favorites came. Class clown Ronald Ziegler was ,there. So was Charles Colson, most likely to run over his own grandmother. The class couple, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, were invited, but only Haldeman showed up. The guest of honor was, of course, Richard Nixon- most likely to succeed. The reunion, held in downtown Washington, D.C., was for those in- volved with the 1972 landslide election of President Richard Nixon. "It's not a Watergate reunion," said one of the organizers. "We're just going to get together and tell stories." And what stories they could have told-tales of skullduggery, fraudulen- ce, and deceit that only a group of ex- convicts could,muster. But the Nixon gang has already told its story in the endless series of books that capitalized on the Watergate Staying away ,v aF OR THE FIRST TIME IN months, the United States has agreed to meet with the Soviet Union in Madrid A to continue negotiations on East-West cooperation. A breakthrough in the Cold War? Hardly. The latest U.S. position is only a continuation of the Reagan ad- ministration's hostile policies toward the U.S.S.R. As the administration acknowledges, the new U.S. position will result neither in a new agreement with the Soviets nor in any, actual negotiations. The problem is that the Reagan ad- ministration, while technically agreeing to resume negotiating with the Soviets, said it would do so only un- der a number of new conditions. Among these are de ands that the Soviet Union stop jamming radio signals from the West and that the Soviet leadership allow free trade unions-two demands which the Soviets will not accept. The United States is, in effect, calling for negotiations it doesn't want. The actual call for negotiations was necessary because of pressure from :the European allies, administration sources say. Nevertheless, the ad- ministration had convinced those allies that, because of Soviet actions on Poland and in other areas of the world, real-life negotiations are not desirable.. Hence the conditions. break-in. For the reunion, they decided to forego the sordid past and stick to selective nostalgia. Those specialists at cover-ups spent the entire reunion covering up all memories except those of past achievements. Smiling through a weekend of reminiscence, however, cannot ob- scure the truth for either Nixon or the nation. Time has - not erased the memories-the Class of '72 was an in- sidious, petty bunch who did their best to make a mockery of the American political system. Instead of paying the price for their actions, they seem to be reaping the spoils of their misdeeds- without admitting that they did anything wrong. It's not.that the Class of '72 doesnt deserve a reunion. It's just that they deserve a more appropriate setting than the plush confines of the Marriott Hotel. Perhaps the introspective austerity of Alcatraz would do. from Madrid The administration's position con- tradicts the very spirit of the Helsinki Accords, which the Madrid talks were supposed to update. The Reagan ad- ministration acts as if it alone opposes the Soviet Union's shameful op- pression of human rights. It acts as if the notion of talking with the Soviets is useless because the Soviets are com- pletely unreasonable. The U.S. position is a dismal misreading of the purposes of negotiations and of the intentions of those wanting to ease hostilities bet- ween the superpowers. The Reagan administration has no monopoly on op- position to Soviet oppression. Everyone outside the Soviet Union- with the exception of a few political fringe, groups-vigorously condemns the Soviets for their record on human rights. The difference between Reagan and many of these people is not in per- ception of the Soviets, but in the an- swers they propose. For Reagah, the answer to the Soviets is continued self-righteous hostility-no matter what the costs. But that answer is wrong. The answer to Soviet oppression is not an arms race, or draft registration, or any one of a hundred different tantrums the administration has thrown. The an- swer lies in Madrid-at the negotiating table. 1,,ToFU LF'(LL- kf E MANPART7 Tr TE hMFCW AJ FOPi. GAVE US So C LEAFW Ij Tt199 FE RN (