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Page 4 Wednesday, March 20,1985 The Michigan Daily
ed ns h Uny M
Edited and managed by students at TheUniversity of Michigan
The factors in negotiations
4
Vol. XCV, No. 133
'1
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Remember the BAM s trike
FIFTEEN YEARS ago today, the
Black Action Movement began its
campus-wide strike that effectively
shut down the entire University for
much of the next two weeks.
The strike was set off the day before
when the regents announced a goal of
10 percent black enrollment without
addressing any of BAM's other goals
such as increased financial aid and
improved support services for
minorities. Before the strike ended on
April 2, as much as 60 percent of the
student body had stopped attending
classes.
The echoes from BAM resound even
today, and ought to be a source of
shame to the University ad-
ministration. The most frequently
noted part of the University's pledge to
improve conditions for minorities at
the University is the promise of 10 per-
cent black enrollment by 1973. That
they failed to fulfill that numerical
goal is obvious; less noted but equally
grievous is the fact that the University
has not yet created a suitable en-
vironment for minority students.
Minority students face unique ob-
stacles in dealing with a bureaucracy
the size of the University's, yet no
special support services have been
established to aid them. Increased
minority admissions will be to no avail
if those new students enter a hostile
environment.
To its credit, the University took a
major step forward in addressing the
issue last year when it appointed Niara
Sudarkasa as Associate Vice-
President for Academic Affairs in
charge of minority recruitment and
retention. Sudarkasa has already
released the first of three reports
dealing with minority recruitment and
retention and the regents have agreed
to significant increases in financial aid
to minority students. Unfortunately,
the University will not address the
question of an unreceptive environ-
ment until the release of Sudarkasa's
third report sometime next school
year.
Equally unfortunate has been the
University's unwillingness to discuss
Sudarkasa's recommendations
publicly. Because minority enrollment
is a concern of the entire University
community, it can only benefit from
public discussion. By refusing to en-
courage that discussion, the ad-
ministration has ignored an important
source of input and has treated the
problem as an administrative one
rather than an environmental one.
It is ironic that 15 years afterward in
spite of the administration's promises
to the BAM strikers, the conditions
facing minority students have not im-
proved. As the anniversary of the
strike continues, the administration
should pay heed to its promises and
students and faculty should recall that,
increased minority enrollment and
improved conditions for minorities are
their concerns so long as the admin-
stration fails to take action on them.
With the current arms control
negotiations taking place in Geneva, ex-
perts across the political spectrum have
speculated on the purpose and chances for
success of the current talks. University
Prof. Raymond Tanter, who has worked
as a senior staff member in the Middle
East office of the National. Security
Council, and as the personal represen-
tative of the Secretary of Defense to the
Vienna Troops Reduction Talks and to
the Conference on Disarmament in
Europe, spoke with Daily staffer Adam
Martin on his views of the current talks.
The first part of their conversation ap-
peared yesterday.
Daily: What is the relationship of the MX
missile to the Geneva talks?
Tanter: I think that the likelihood that the
Soviets would agree to reduce their SS-18s and
SS-19s (heavy, accurate ICBMs) depends on
whether the U.S. has something with which it
can trade, that is the SS-18s and SS-19s won't
be reduced unless the US has the MX.
D: Then the current U.S. arsenal isn't
enough to threaten and induce the Soviets to
trade?
T: I think this a proven assumption because
the administration had the Minuteman III
(the U.S. triple-warhead ICBM) up against
the SS-18 and SS-19 in the last five negotiating
Dialogue
sessions, and the Soviets didn't buy that. In
fact, the administration went further and said
it would trade areas in which the U.S. was
strong-bombers and cruise missiles-again-
st areas in which the Soviet Union was
strong-the SS-19 and SS-18. But the Soviet
Union didn't buy that either. Perhaps they'll
buy the reduction of the MX, but I think
they'll use Geneva to kill MX, to undercut
support for weapon systems.
D: What are the ramifications if the MX
does not induce the Soviet Union to bargain
away their forces?
T: Then the U.S. will have MX, and the
Soviet Union will keep their SS-18s and SS-19s.
D: If weapons modernization is one of the
main actors in the negotiations, what is the
future of U.S. weapons modernization?
T: Strategic force modernization is one
side. The other side is strategic defense. You
need the MX missile for example to match
Soviet SS-18s and SS-19s that have counterfor-
ce capability. Without matching counterforce
capability the U.S. has less of a credible
deterrent to prevent Soviet conventional for-
ces from invading Europe, and Soviet limited
nuclear strikes against U.S. military in-
stallations. The justification for the MX is
that it gives the U.S. a deterrent and that it
gives the U.S. a bargaining chip in Geneva.
D: What's ahead for the single-warhead
Midgetman missile?
T: Midgetman is not a replacement for MX or
the Minuteman III. You can't replace
Minuteman with Midgetman. There are 1000
Minuteman III missiles right now, so it would
take 3000 Midgetman to replace Minuteman,
because Midgetman is a single-warhead
system and Minuteman has three warheads
on it. For the same target coverage, you'd
need three Midgetman missiles.
D: What is the strategic rational for the
Midgetman missile?
T: Midgetman is a single-warhead system.
If you have a high warhead-to-missile ration,
you are an attractive target, and therefore
you contribute to instability. In other words,
Midgetman will be more stabilizing than the
current multi-warhead systems. A multi-
warhead missile is destabilizing because it
presents an attractive target to the other side.
The other side can use fewer warheads to
destroy more warheads, and therefore the
other side is tempted to do it. Multi-warheads
missiles are also contributors to instability
because they're large and heavy, and large
missiles are less survivable because they are
more likely to be in fixed sites. A single-
warhead missile is better, because the other
party would have to use one warhead to knock
out, one .warhead. Therefore, the target
"richness" is gone. Secondly, because the
single-warhead missile is small, it can be
made more mobile than the MX or the SS-18s
and SS-19s.
D: What's ahead for the U.S. as far as
cruise missiles and bombers are concerned?
T: The U.S. is moving toward the B1 bom-
ber that carries air-launched cruise missiles,
and to "Stealth" technology, because the
Stealth bomber is less likely to be picked up
by Soviet radar-so it has a better
penetrating capacity. The U.S. Is deploying
sea-launched cruise missiles on surface plat-
forms, and that increases their survivability
because they're hard to target. And the
Soviets don't know which platforms have the
sea-launched cruise missiles. But this is bad
for arms control because you can't verify sea-
launched cruise missiles on platforms around
the world. It would be more stabilizing if both
sides relied on cruise missiles rather than on
ballistic missiles because ballistic missiles
are fast-flying and vulnerable. It takes 30
minutes for ballistic missiles to arrive on
target. It takes 6-10 hours for all other
systems to arrive.
D: How will these plans for weapons
modernization affect the flexibility of the U.S.
in Geneva?
T: Both sides will try to appear flexible, so
neither side can be blamed for the stalemate
that will inevitably come. Still, both sides will
not budge off their original positions.
4
Tanter
...the politics of arms
D: In earlier negotiations, the U.S. was
plagued by bureaucratic problems, in
developing negotiating proposals. Do these
bureaucratic problems still exist?
T: The Reagan administration is in
agreement for the first time with respect to
arms control. I don't think that the
bureaucratic problems are nearly as severe
as they were during the first term. The ad-
ministration's in agreement that SDI-should
not be a bargaining chip, that MX should be
on the table and therefore that MX has to be
funded. -Thirdly, the administration agrees
that the Soviets are going to try to divide
Europe from America.
D: Recently, President Reagan appointed a
new arms control team. Did this surprise
you?
T: No. There are two ways of looking at the
American team. On the one hand it's a team
that can sell any agreement to the Congress
because it's a politically sophisticated team.
Ambassador Max Kampelman has excellent
contacts, he's a Democrat. Senator John
Tower has excellent contacts, he's a
Republicah. On the other hand you can say
that this type of team suggests the U.S. has
given up on getting an agreement, because it
is not a team that is sophisticated on arms,
trol. Therefore, that the U.S. thinks there will
be a stalemate, and it wants to be in a good
position to blame the Soviets for the resulting
stalemate. Both could be correct.
D: Which alternative seems more credible
to you?
T: Stalemate and blaming the Soviets.
D: In general, most people are concerned
with the death and destruction associated
with nuclear weapons, and the threat they
pose to civilization. How do you respond to
this assertion?
T: The purpose of nuclear weapons is to
provide for strategic'deterrence. Because of
the destructiveness-of nuclear weapons, they
provide a deterrent. The political utility of
nuclear weapons is deterrence. Deterrence is
the political -outcome of the possession of
nuclear weapons. I don't believe nuclear
weapons have a military utility, but I believe
they have a political utility.
Spring and beyond
SPRING IS here now-or so says the
calendar. Today marks the official
commencement of the season of love,
life, frisbees, and ovekall greenness.
For the average University student,
spring is also the time to lay around
outside pretending it is warm. It is the
time to counsel yourself out of suicidal
tendencies and cast aside escapist
drugs of winter and midterms. By this
time, relative success in classes in
decided or at least somewhat assured
by upcoming final exams, and student
are freer to waste time on the Diag, the
streets, and the porches of their
homes.
But spring means more than
blowing-off classes, books, and life in
general, although not much more. It
also sets the stage for the greatest
season of them all: summer. For those
students lucky enough to have to get a
few credits out of the way, there is the
chance to spend a few months in the
Ann Arbor swamp. The humidity and
uncomfortable nights that are just
around the corner often have an in-
teresting, yet predictable effect on the
campus population.
Then when the pressure has, for the
most part, subsided along with. the
snow and ice, students begin to look
forward to the start of classes, the
overcrowded halls of classroom
buildings, and the icy sidewalks
polished daily courtesy of the Univer-
sity grounds department.
It is this constant tendency to look
ahead which gives irony to the cycle of
a college student's life. .
But for now, it is spring. Classes are
almost over, the weather has started
its 180 degree turnabout, and the bars
will soon begin putting their tables on
the sidewalks.
Ain't life grand?
Wasserman
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Letters
Keep organ ized prayer out of schools
4
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To the Daily:
The question of whether to
allow organized prayer in public
schools has come up time and
time again. It is my belief that
organized prayer in public
schools should not be allowed.
One reason for this is that
having organized prayers in
public -schools violates the.
separation of church and state
Religious activities such as
praying should stay out of the
programs of government-run in-
stitutions like the public school
system.
Opponents might argue that-
since the prayers would be stric-
tly voluntary, they would not
violate anyone's religious
in school is that if prayer were
allowed, students would not have
a real choice as to their par-
ticipation. They would feel com-
pelled to join the prayer session,
even if they did not really want to.
Opponents of this view might
argue that students would have a
choice. The prayers would be
completely voluntary, and any
student would be free to exclude
himself from the prayers, for
whatever reason. There would be
no pressure on students to pray if
they did not want to, and those
who wanted to pray would be free
BLOOM COUNTY
to do so.
This argument sounds perfec-
tly reasonable and logical, until
you think about it more deeply.
Even though the prayers would
be voluntary, children would still
feel compelled to participate.
Young school children tend to be
conformists, and would go along
with the group activity in order to
avoid being different. Peer
pressure and pressure to conform
would be very real problems.
If parents feel that praying is
beneficial to their children, they
should encourage them to pray at
home.
- Madeline Borhan4
March 7
Unsigned editorials appearing on the left side of
this page represent a majority opinion of the Daily 's
Editorial Board.
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