The Michigan Daily - Sunday, October 7, 1984 - Page 3

Politics stall probes

into

Salvadoran

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP)
- Although death squad killings have
trailed off since President Jose
Napoleon Duarte took office four mon-
ths ago, he faces serious obstacles in
trying to get investigations into four
murder cases involving the slayings of
'23 civilians.
Duarte and Attorney General Jose
Francisco Guerrero are at odds over
who should carry out investigations in-
to the killings, including the
assassinations of two American labor
advisers in 1981 and the Roman
Catholic archbishop of San Salvador in
1980.
GUERRERO, SAYING his judicial
branch should do the probing, has an-
nounced he will investigate a special
commission Duarte has established to
examine the four cases.
Duarte, a moderate Christian
;Democrat who was inaugurated June 1,
has made the probe of the killings one of
;his top priorities.
Guerrero's decision to investigate
Duarte's commission is indicative of
the problems Duarte faces on human
rights issues, even from within his own
: government.
:"THAT COMMISSION is not going to
*do anything," Guerrero said in an in-
terview at his office.
Even top government aides
acknowledge there is only a slight,
chance Duarte will succeed in his at-
tempt to solve the four cases the com-
mission is charged with investigating.
Despite this, the aides say the

message sent out by Duarte's for-
mation of the commission - and by his,
own denunciations of human rights
abuses - has contributed to a substan-
tial decrease in violence by rightist
death squads that are blamed for the
majority of the 53,000 civilian deaths
during the civil war.
"THERE IS only a minimal chance
there will ever be justice in these
cases," said a high Duarte aide. "Our
intention is to prosecute those respon-
sible."
The aide, who spoke on condition he
not be named, added, "But there is no
way that (Guerrero) is ever going to
send some scared little prosecutor out
to bring in an army officer."
Guerrero said he plans to conduct his
own investigations into the deaths, but
complains his budget has been cut so
much that gasoline for prosecutors'
cars has to be bought on credit.
DUARTE AND Guerrero are curren-
tly fighting over the control of some $3.5
million in U.S. Agency for International
Development funds for a Judicial
Reform Project.
Duarte wants the project carried out
by his Cabinet, but Guerrero says it
should be under the judicial branch.
Conservatives took control of the
judicial system last June, in a post-
eleptoral political deal among the four
rightist parties that control 34 of the 60
National Assembly seats.
THE FOUR cases Duarte has or-
dered the special commission to in-
vestigate are the March 1980

murders
assassination of Archbishop Oscar Ar-
nulfo Romero in his San Salvador chur-
ch, the January 1981 slayings of two
American labor advisers and a
Salvadoran land reform official, the
February 1983 massacre of 18 Indian
farmers in Sonsonate Province, and the
killing this past August of the daughter
of a Christian Democratic leader.
But only the last case appears to
stand a chance of leading to a
prosecution.
Investigations into the Romero mur-
der had barely begun in 1980 when the
judge in charge of the case received
death threats and left the country. It is
unclear how new evidence could be
brought to a case whose clues have
been cold for four years.
GUERRERO SAID the attorney
general's office is looking into the case,
in which his close friend and far-right
political leader Roberto D'Aubuisson,
has been implicated. Duarte defeated
d'Aubuisson in a May 6 runoff election.
Guerrero, in the interview, said he is
"impartial" in the case, adding "I am
absolutely sure that Roberto had
nothing to do with this."
While an army colonel has admitted to
ordering the attack on the 18 peasants
in Sonsonate, court prosecutors have,
not subpoenaed him to testify. Three
civil guardsmen accused of having in-
formed on the victims to the army are
in jail.
Despite heavy pressure from the
United States for an indictment of
higher-ups in the Jan. 3, 1981, murders
of Michael Hammer of Potomac, Md.,
and Mark Pearlman of Seattle, and
Salvadoran land reform leader Rodolfo
Viera, gunned down at the Sheraton
Hotel, two former National Guardsmen
corporals are the only individuals in
jail.
Skepticism is so high about Duarte's
commission, which is scheduled to have
five members, that several lawyers
have turned down offers to join, accor-
ding to a lawyer close to Duarte.
The commission's only known mem-
ber, coordinator Benjamin Cestoni, has
refused requests for interviews.
Despite all this, human rights abuses
are on the decline, if the statistics of
rights groups are any indication.

Associated Press
Roadblock
Protesters sit outside the Navy's New London, Conn. facility yesterday in opposition to the commissioning of the
Navy's newest Trident submarine, the Henry M. Jackson. Police said 15 of the protesters were arrested.
Peres seeks onore'aid for Israel

-HAPPENINGS-
Sunday
Highlight
Democrats in '84 invite the campus to come together in the Henderson
Room of the League to watch the presidential debate. The gathering begins
at 8:30 p.m.
Films
U-Club - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, dinner theatre, 7 p.m.,
Union.
Mediatrics - Tommy, 7:10 & 9 p.m., MLB 4.
MTF-Popeye, 3, 5.:30 & 8 p.m., Michigan Theatre.
Cinema Guild - The Red and the Black, 7 & 9p.m., LorchHall.
Performance Network - American Buffalo, 2 p.m., 408 W. Washington.
Performances
School of Music - Voice recital, Gretchen Stevenson-Poland, 4 p.m.,
Rackham Assembly Hall.
Rudolph Steiner Institute - "Rumpelstilskin," marionette performance
by Rahima Baldwin and Teri Sherman, 4 p.m., 1923 Geddes.
Speakers
Campus Chapel - Rev. Neal Punt, "Biblical Universalism," 7 p.m., 1236
Washtenaw Ct.
Kelsey Museum - Panela Reister, "Napoleon's Legacy: The European
Exploration of Egypt," 2 p.m., 434 S. State.
Meetings
Golden Key National Honor Society - General meeting, 7:30 p.m., Ander-
son Room, Union.
Miscellaneous
Matthae: Botanical Gardens - monthly lobby sale, 10 a.m., 1800 Dixboro.
Health Services - "Run for the Health of It," 10 a.m., Markley Hall.
Monday
Highlight
President Harold Shapiro speaks to the campus at 8 p.m. in Lydia Men-
delssohn Theatre tonight in his annual State of the University Address.
Films
AAFC-C2/CG-Our Hitler, 7:30 p.m., Aud. A, Angell Hall.
Cinema Guild - Alexandria ... Why?, 7 p.m., Lorch Hall.
Alt. Act. - Country Lovers, 7 p.m.; Six Feet of the Country, 8:10 p.m.,
Praise, 8:50 p.m., Aud. D, Angell Hall.
Performances
School of Music - John Kennedy, Double bass recital, 8 p.m., Rackham
Assembly Hall.
Speakers
Near East & N. African Studies - Brown bag, Jerry Green, "Islam &
Politics: Politics & Islam," noon, Lane Hall Commons.
Matthaei Botanical Gardens - Betty Blake, "My Michigan Rock Gar-
den," 7:30p.m., 1800 Dixboro.
Chemistry Department - Robert Quinn, "Models of Oxidized Heme
Proteins. Synthesis & Charaterization of High-Valent Iron and Ruthenium
Porphyrin Complexes," 4 p.m., Room 1200 Chemistry Bldg.
Meetings
Asian American Assn. - 6:30 p.m., Trotter House.
Turner Geriatric Clinic - Intergenerational Women's Group, 10 a.m., 1010
Wall.
Divisional Research Development & Administration - Wang PC users, 2
p.m., Room 3026 Rackham.
Miscellaneous
HRD - Course, "Mini Grammar," 1 p.m., Room 130-B LSA Bldg.
School of Music - Composers Forum, 8 p.m., Recital Hall.
Hispanic Law Student Services - Panel discussion, Simpson-Mazzoli Im-
migration Bill, 7 p.m., Room 150 Hutchins Hall.
School of Business Administration - Program, "Basic Wage & Salary
Administration," "Managing the Market Research Function,"
"Management of Managers."
ACS/Student Affiliate - Free tutoring in 100 or 200 level chemistry cour-
ses.6 p.m., Room 3207 Chemistry Bldg.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - For a decade, Israelis have been
buying imported cars and splurging on vacations abroad. At
home, the government has been printing money to keep
ahead of its burgeoning debts.
Now the bills are coming due, and Prime Minister Shimon
Peres is headed for Washington to discuss a five-year
economic recovery plan that will undoubtedly include more
U.S. aid.
THE ECONOMY is Israel's No. 1 domestic problem, and
pressing international issues such as an Israeli troop with-
drawal from southern Lebanon and Arab-Israeli peace talks
are taking an uncharacteristic back seat in the coming
American talks.,
Peres, who took office three weeks ago as head of a bipar-
tisan government, has met almost daily with his cabinet to
work out strategy for his seven-day U.S. visit starting today.
Hours before his scheduled departure last night, Peres said
on Israeli television, "There is no use concealing the fact our
situation is very serious. Inflation is like an onrushing tide
and the coffers are empty. But I am very certain we shall*
overcome."
THE PRIME minister said that Israel would solve its own
economic problems, but would seek American aid to help
stimulate future growth.
He said Israel was looking for U.S. investments in Israel's
high-technology and communications industries.
In addition to sessions with President Reagan and five

meetings with Secretary of State George Shultz, Peres is
scheduled to talk with Jewish leaders, potential investors and
independent economic experts about what a Peres aide
callled "a new conceptual approach" to U.S. monetary
assistance.
SINCE THE Jewish state was founded in 1948, Israel has
received nearly $30 billion in loans and grants from the
United States. This includes $2.6 billion in military and
economic help in the current fiscal year - the equivalent of
$650 for each Israeli citizen.
Peres "will make clear that Israel itself will deal with the
problems, cutting the budget and lowering the standard of
living of its citizens," said Yossi Beilen, the prime minister's
spokesman. He said Peres would seek a basis of understan-
ding on long-term aid "for Israel's security needs and the
growth of the Israeli economy."
The Israeli economy has been plagued by an annual in-
flation rate of nearly 400 percent and a balance of payments
deficit of $5 billion a year, among other ills.
"This overspending cannot continue. We are obliged to pay
our way," Yigal Hurvitz, a former finance minister and
member of the Cabinet, said in an interview with the
Jerusalem Post.
"We have to live within our means. This is a principle
which ought to be added to the Ten Commandments," he
said, stressing that economic reform should have "priority
over all other issues."

CBS, Westmoreland

r

.-e-

NEW YORK (AP) - For the jury, it's
a question of yes or no. Did CBS
recklessly accuse Gen. William West-
moreland of a "conspiracy" to distort
enemy troop estimates in the Vietnam
War to try to deceive the White House?
For the retired commander of U.S.
forces in Vietnam, it's a question of
honor. Did a television network use
dishonest film editing methods to warp
his side of the story and humiliate him
in a documentary seen by 20 million
people?
FOR CBS, it's a question of freedom.
Can Americans freely criticize the
public actions of their most important
officials?
Westmoreland's libel suit against
CBS, scheduled to begin jury selection
Tuesday in U.S. District Court in
Manhattan, raises more questions than
a jury could ever answer with a no or a
yes and a dollar figure.
Perhaps the biggest question behind
the $120 million lawsuit over CBS
Reports' Jan. 23, 1982, broadcast of
"The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam
Deception" is this: Who lost Vietnam?
CUT TO CBS correspondent Mike
Wallace.
He told his viewers that West-
moreland engaged in a "conspiracy" to
underestimate the nuiber of enemy
troops in 1967 for political reasons - to
fool the public into believing the war
could be won, that there was "light at
the end of the tunnel."
Then came the communists' sur-
prisingly strong Tet offensive in
January 1968. U.S. troops were on the
defensive all over South Vietnam.
TET WAS portrayed as the war's tur-
ning point. Wallace said that once it
became clear the enemy was much
stronger than previously believed, the
public withdrew support for the war
and President Lyndon Johnson decided
not to seek re-election.
"To this day, General Westmoreland
insists that the enemy was virtually
destroyed at Tet," Wallace said, adding

"be that as it may," the fighting con-
tinued for seven years until the North
Vietnamese triumphed.
In his court papers, Westmoreland of-
fered a much different history. , He
quotes authors and officials who blame.
the news media for turning a U.S. bat-
tlefield victory in Vietnam into a
political defet at home.
ONE OF them is Peter Braestrup,
who reported from Vietnam for The
New York Times and the Washington
Post and wrote "Big Story: How the
American Press and Television repor-
ted and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet
1968 in Vietnam and Washington."
Westmoreland's lawyers quote him as
writing that "rarely has contemporary
crisis journalism turned out, in,
retrospect, to have veered so widely
from reality."
In an affidavit, former CIA Director
William-Colby said that although the
U.S. won out in the Tet offensive, the
enemy "achieved a critical
psychological victory" because of the
battle's "presentation to the American
public."
And Walt Rostow, Johnson's national
security assistant, said a battlefield win
was "a major political setback for the
U.S. within the United States because of
the way it was interpreted here."
AND ROSTOW further revises
Wallace's version of recent history. He
says he told CBS that Johnson resigned
for health reasons, not because of the
Tet offensive.
Westmoreland also quotes Gen.
Maxwell Taylor's autobiography,
Swords and Plowshares, as saying that
war scenes "recorded on American TV
screens and reported in gory headlines
in the press" had "scared much of the
American public and some of our of-
ficials." Who lost Vietnam?
THE SKIRMISHING continues in
history books, memoirs, speeches,
commentary and now in the courtroom.
The wording of Westmoreland's suit
alleged that CBS libeled him with the
accusation of "a deliberate plot to fool
the American public, the Congress and

prepare J(
perhaps even the White House." But on
Thursday, his lawyer, Dan Burt, said
he would focus on CBS claims about'
Westmoreland trying to deceive the
president and his military superiors,
not the public and Congress.
On Friday, CBS lawyer David Boies
said the change indicated West-
moreland's case was "unraveling."
Burt responded that he was simply
trying to narrow the focus of the case to
his client's obligation to his kuperiors
and the president. In court papers, Burt
has said Westmoreland still plans to
charge that the broadcast was libelous
as a whole.
In CBS' unsuccessful attempt to
dismiss the suit before a trial,, both
sides supported their arguments with
sworn statements from some of the
biggest names of the 1960s.
Westmoreland had former Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara; former
Secretary of State Dean Rusk; the late
Ellsworth Bunker, ambassador to Viet-
nam; former CIA directors Colby and
Richard Helms, and former national
security advisers Rostow and
McGeorge Bundy.
For CBS, there were others
prominent in the '60s: former Sen.
Eugene McCarthy of Wisconsin, who
said support for his anti-war presiden-
tial campaign of 1968 grew after Tet;
former Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, and
one-time Republican presidential
aspirants Paul McCloskey of California
and George Romney of Michigan. CBS
also quotes a book by the ex-president
of South Vietnam, Nguyen Cao Ky.
U.S. District Judge Pierre Leval, who
is presiding over the trial, said in a
written opinion that the case offered "a
rare debate and inquiry on issues of
highest national imprtance."
They include the "appropriate stan-
dards for both military commanders
and press commentators," he said.
THIS WAR of words focuses on a
dispute between military .and CIA in-
telligence experts in 1967 over "order of
battle" reports, a description of enemy
troops strength.

r trial
Westmoreland's military analysts
estimated there were fewer than 300,000
opposing troops; a CIA analyst named
Sam Adams said captured doeuments
indicated almost twice as many.
According to Westmoreland's side,
the dispute was technical. The military
analysts took the classical approach to
deciding who was an enemy soldier; the
CIA wanted to count guerrillas it
believed play a vital part in any
"people's war."
ACCORDING to CBS, Westmoreland
insisted the count stay below 300,000
because of political implications. It ac-
cused Westmoreland of a "conspiracy
.. .to suppress and alter critical in-
telligence on the enemy in the year
leading upto the Tet offensive."
The jury's first yes or no will answer
the question of whether Westmoreland
proves the charge is false.
If the answer is yes, the jury will be
asked if CBS reported the charge
despite misgivings that it was untrue -
with "malice"or "reckless disregard
for the truth."
AND IF the answer is yes again, the
jury will be asked how much the
damage to Westmoreland's reputation
is worth; he is seeking $40 million. And
the panel would decide if CBS also
should be punished; Westmoreland is
asking $80 million on this score.
In CBS' view, the answers to the
questions raised by Westmoreland's
suit should be found "in the court of
public opinion, not a court of law."


World Series to host 'U' performers

(Continued from Page 1)
BAND Director Becher is also looking
forward to the unique opportunity.
"I've never been to a World Series
game before," he said.
The directors and advisors aren't the
only ones excited about the World
Seriesg a mes. Glee Club husines

bleacher creatures. Almost all 225
regular band members plus 40 reserves
will be there.
According to Becher, the band will

work on their pre-game program early
next week to be prepared for the oppor-
tunity. The show will primarily consist
of music played in previous performan-
ces.


I