4 OPINION Page 4 Tuesday, January 25, 1983 The Michigan Daily 4 Reagan: (Red) scaring the freeze By Katherine Gee and Howard Simon The nuclear freeze movement has become the target of a Reagan ad- ministration "red-scare" campaign. In a throwback to the tactics of Mc- Carthyism, the President is attempting to discredit the freeze movement by branding it as a Soviet front. REAGAN had initially taken a rather conciliatory position on the issue, jaying that he understood the concerns of pro-freeze people although he did not agree with their solution to the problem of arms proliferation. But this past Oc- .tpber Reagan changed his stance. In a campaign speech before an audience of yeterans, the President asserted that the freeze movement ". . . is inspired not by the sincere and honest people who want peace but by some who want the weakening of America, and so are manipulating many honest and sincere people." He was not the first government of- ficial to attempt to discredit the resurgent peace movement. This fall, Sen. Jeremiah Denton went before the {-Senate to attack an event called "Peaceday 1982" and its sponsor, Peace Links. In a classic unsubstantiated smear, Denton claimed that four organizations {advising Peace Links were "either Soviet-controlled or openly sym- :'pathetic with, and advocates for, Communist foreign policy objectives." The organizations he listed included the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Women Strike for Peace, and even the Commit- tee for National Security headed by Paul Warnke, the former U.S. arms control negotiator and Defense Department of- ficial. SEN. DENTON got surprising support from the usually level-headed Washington Post. In an editorial, the newspaper criticized not Denton and Reagan for questioning the sincerity of the freeze movement, but then went on to say that their allegations were basically correct-WILPF was a Soviet front and Women Strike for Peace had links to a second front. The editorial concluded that Peace Links should eliminate such connections if they wan- ted to maintain their credibility. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a strongly worded protest to the Post, warning that their use of guilt by association was dangerously reminiscent of the blacklisting of ,the McCarthy era. The ACLU's letter con- cluded that the Denton and Reagan at- tempts to undermine the nuclear freeze movement through innuendo and red- baiting - and the Post's provisional endorsements of their statements - were a threat to the principles of free association and free speech. The Post published the ACLU letter along with a retraction of their editorial. The editors apologized for r oil sent to help instigate and help create and keep such a (nuclear freeze) movement going." When, asked to document his statement, the President refused to divulge what he termed "in- telligence matters" but added that "plenty of evidence" existed. The next day the'White House press office released its principal source: The Reader's Digest, and he referred also to articles in Commentary and The American Spectator and two gover- nment reports on Soviet activism. The Reader's Digest article dealt with an unverified KGB campaign called "nuclear freeze," the objective. of which is "to secure military superiority for the Sovet Union by persuading the U.S. to abandon new weapons systems." THE QUESTION is not whether the Soviet Union is encouraged by the American freeze movement. What is crucial is that Americans be free to debate this and all other issues openly and on their merits and speak out without being subjected to red-baiting. Apparently, the President has chosen to totally ignore the overwhelming endor- sement which the concept of a nuclear freeze received at the polls this past November, including its endorsement by Michigan voters. We call upon President Reagan and others to join in open debate about the nuclear freeze issue rather than seeking to discredit critics with un- founded allegations that "foreign agen- ts" are secretly in control of what is ob- viously a patriotic and broad-based political movement. During the past decade, great advan- 4 ces have been made in the fight against government disruption and harassment of lawful political activity. The witch- hunting House Internal Security Com- mittee (formerly HUAC) was abolished. The FBI's vicious COINTEL internal spying program was ended (at least formally). The FBI and the CIA were subjected to congressional over- sight and reform regulations. A presidential administration was brought down in disgrace because of its { lawless disregard for political rights. The Freedom of Information Act was passed, exposing many government ac- tivities to the critical eye of public scrutiny. The new attacks on free speech and political liberty by the Reagan ad- ministration and its allies have the all too familiar sound and smell of McCar- thyism. We cannot afford to live again the cruel and costly repression and stifling of free thought and free speech which characterized the 1950s. Gee is president of the Detroit chapter of the Women's Inter- national League for Peace and any implication that the peace groups they mentioned were Soviet stooges, as further research had revealed that they were in fact autonomous, and reaffir- med the right of American citizens to participate in international peace effor- ts without having their national loyalty called into question. THE SMEAR against the nuclear freeze movement was repeated locally in an Oct. 14 Detroit News editorial and a Dec. 12 column by an editorial writer. The writer charged that groups like Clergy and Laity Concerned ("a prin- ciple left-wing church network that in- cludes among its members Detroit's own Bishop Thomas Gumbleton"), the American Friends Service Committee, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom advocated some positions "which would be dif- ficult to distinguish . . . from the party line in Moscow." In the face of the facts, President Reagan is continuing his smear cam- paign. At a recent press conference, the President contended that "there is no question (that) foreign agents . .. were Freedom director Liberties and Simon is the executive of the American Civil Union of Michigan. - FY R I 4 Edie m t tsat atoig Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Sinclair Vol. XCIII, No. 94 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 4 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Watt spouts off again EAR OLD James Watt is at it again. Just when things on the ienvironmental front were quieting *. own, the'secretary of the interior ac- rused environmentalists of seeking the -same type of central control of society as the Nazis and Bolsheviks. 8 In an article in last week's Business Week, Watt said environmentalists :were using their concerns "as a tool to achieve a greater objective." That ob- jective, according to Watt, is "cen- tralized planning and control of society. "Look what happened in Germany in the 1930s," he said. "The dignity of -nan was subordinated to the powers of ,Nazism. The dignity of man was subordinated in Russia. Those are the forces that this thing can evolve into." According to Watt, those who want the nation to preserve its natural resources and fragile ecosystem are really interested in turning the gover- nment into an authoritarian regime. Were Watt not in such an important position with so much control over federal land, his comments would be laughable. Unfortunately, the man is in a powerful position and he knows it. And he skillfully uses these sorts of comments to stir up controversy - controversy that deflects attention from his big business-oriented programs. The secretary knows that he can tolerate personal attacks. But he can't be sure about attacks on his programs. If he shifts the focus of protest from his programs to himself or his comments, the programs will be a little safer. Watt has not gone bonkers, as Gaylord Nelson, the chairman of the Wilderness Society claims. Quite the contrary, Watt is a shrewd politician willing to use every trick in the bag to see his programs succeed. Environmentalists should let Watt spout off. They should ignore his hyperbole and concentrate on their real objective - protecting the wilder- ness from the menace of Watt's programs. 14 4 LETTERS TO THE DAILY: 4 Misrepresenting a grotesque gov't , \ / /riiii, /iir /'dir.,. .. To the Daily: This letter is in response to the decision by the Reagan Ad- ministration to certify that human rights have improved in El Salvador. Mr. Reagan claims the conflict is the result of outside forces; that it is an East-West struggle. This assumes that revolutions are exported like cof- fee and bananas. This anti-communist rhetoric is too simple-minded to describe the civil war in El Salvador. Liberation struggles are home- grown, the conflict stemming from internal economic and social inequities. In El Salvador there has been a repressive elite in power for nearly one hundred years. The elite is composed of the "fourteen families," or the oligarchy, in an alliance with the military. The group composes a mere 2 percent of the population but controls 60 percent of the best land. They grow coffee and cotton and use the peasants for har- military to brutally silence the peasants. The evidence of grotesque government violence glares in the face of Reagan's claims of human rights im- provements. Many human rights groups have shown that the killings con- tinue, while the administration claims that the killings are decreasing. A group of professors from South Carolina in- vestigating human rights abuses interviewed a general from the Salvadoran army who said, "Subversives have no human rights." He further commented, "Take this message to your president: If he expects the El Salvador army to respect human rights as a condition for aid, he can take the aid and shove it." These comments reflect what the ruling elite feels about human rights. In spite of these facts, the ad- ministration continues to misrepresent the situation to the American people. Any American you were to go out and try to bury the body, they would come for you next. For those who are interested in finding out what is really hap- pening in El Salvador and in Cen- tral America, visit the Latin American Solidarity Committee. LASC is a student and com- Errors on review coverage munity group dedicated to sup- port the people in their struggles for self-determination and to counter the misrepresentation of the truth by the Reagan ad- ministration. -Ken Naffziger January 22 To the Daily: I want to thank you for giving front-page coverage to the com- ments made by students at the Regent's meeting concerning the School of Natural Resources review ("NR students protest cuts," Daily, Jan. 21). The review process at the school is at a critical phase right now, however, and any inac- curacies that are in print hurt our credibility as students laying the case for reducing budget cuts. The reporter covering the Regent's meeting inaccurately OW WI riP the famef .tA *.n 4nn C ta.*nfa requesting department syllabi. What I said: "In recommen- ding the shift from a five program orientation to a con- solidated two program approach, did the committee request depar- tment syllabi in an attempt to go beyond a course catalogue analysis of the curriculum? This would have been essential to fairly evaluate an integrative ap- proach and to be able to deter- mine the uniqueness or duplication of effort with other courses in the university. To my knowledge. and TI snkewith five .