Page 4-Wednesday-June 16, 1982-The Michigan Daily
Brezhnev sa ys
Soviets will not'
us nue is
Fromstaffandwirereports
The Soviet Union announced yester-
day that it would not be the first to use
nuclear weapons in Europe and invited
the United States to assume "an
equally precise and clear obligation."
"Should a nuclear war start, it could
mean the destruction of human
civilization and-perhaps the end of life
itself on earth," Soviet Foreign
Minister Andrei Gromyko said
delivering a dramatic message from
President Leonid Brezhnev to a special
U.N. session on disarmament.
WHILE THE Soviet Union had
proposed a renunciation of the first use
of nuclear weapons, Brezhnev's an-
nouncement is the first formally com-
mitting his government to the policy,
Sovietsources said.
The message, read by Gromyko,
elicited sustained applause. Brezhnev
said the Soviet Union was "guided by
the desire to do all in its power to
deliver the peoples from the threat of
nuclear devastation"
The Soviet leader said if other coun-
tries took the step "that would be tan-
tamount in practice to a ban on the use
of nuclear weapons altogether."
PRESIDENT Reagan, who ad-
dressses the special session tomorrow,
said at a news conference last month
that no "useful purpose is served in
makingsuch a declaration."
In April, Secretary of State Alexan-
der Haig said the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization has consistently rejected
such Soviet proposals "Which are tan-
tamount to making Europe safe for
conventional agression."
Adopting a policy against using
nuclear weapons first "would effec-
tively withdraw the American nuclear
umbrella over Europe," the State
Department said at the time.
UNIVERSITY experts on interna-
tional affairs agreed that the Soviet an-
nouncement would draw negative reac-
tions from the Reagan administration.
Political science Prof. Harold Jacob-
son said that U.S. officials may be op-
posed to a first-strike ban.
"The policy is likely to be viewed as
restraining to us, but not to them, in the
sense that our military strategy (in
Europe) depends on first strike,'' he
said.
DAVID SINGER, a political science
professor who teaches several courses
in Soviet affairs, said that "Americans
want to be able to use tactical nuclear
weapons in the event of Soviet success
with conventional forces (in Europe)."
Singer, however, called the announ-
cement "exciting, interesting, and
promising."
"I think it is a very important move
symbolically," he said, "if it is followed
up by a Soviet move to redesign their
forces you have really got something."
He said that the Soviet statement
would not be effective unless it was
backed up by Soviet efforts to disman-
tle first-strike weapons.
Singer said that serious arms reduc-
tions would only come very slowly
unless the U.S. "picked up on the prin--
ciple" of a first-strike ban and began.to
dismantle first-strike weapons.
In Brief
Compiled from Associated Press and
United Press international reports
High court upholds illegal aliens'
right to free public education
WASHINGTON- States must provide free public education to children of
illegal aliens, a divided Supreme Court said yesterday in a decision that ex-
tended many of the constitutional rights enjoyed by American citizens to
families that live illegally in the United States.
By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that a Texas law allowing "undocumented"
children to attend public schools only if they paid tuition was uncon-
stitutional.
The decision was hailed as a civil rights victory for the millions of people
who illegally live and work in this country.
Woman dies in train derailment
EMERSON. Iowa- The Amtrak passenger train San Francisco Zephyr
rounded a bend at 76 mph just outside this flooded city yesterday and hit a
"wall of water,"killing one woman as it jumped the tracks.
Sixteen people were hospitalized and 150 suffered minor injuries, mostly
cuts and bruises.
Mills County Sheriff Ed James said 400 volunteers, some of them in boats,.
helped rescue the 200 passengers inside the 12 cars of the train that derailed
after the tracks were washed out by floodwaters 3 to 4 feet deep.
Terri Thomas, 19, of Santa Maria, Calif., was dead on arrival at Mon-
tgomery County Hospital in nearby Red Oak, according to Allen Pohren,
assistant hospital administrator.
Zephyr engineer Joe Schwartz of Omaha, Neb., a 30-year railroad veteran,
said he and another crew member had been talking about the water along
the railroad right-of-way just before the train bound from Chicago to Denver
jumped the Burlington Northern Railroad tracks about 3 a.m.
Volcker reaffirms tight money
WASHINGTON- Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, vowing to
stay on a tight-money course to combat inflation, told Congress yesterday,
"I don't see any place for those interest rates to go but down." But he
wouldn't predict when the drop might come.
Resisting mounting calls in Congress for an easier money and credit policy
to lower interest rates, the head of the nation's central bank insisted such a
move would only send interest rates higher in the long run as lenders braced
for a new burst of inflation.
Volcker told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, "we are making
remarkable progress" in lowering inflation and that interest rates will fall
once lenders come around to believing inflation will stay down.
"I think these interest rates are extraordinarily high," he said. "If we do
the right things"-namely keep a tight rein on credit growth and reduce
huge budget deficits-interest rates have nowhere to go but down, he
testified.
."But when?" demanded Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.).
"I won't attempt to be more precise," Volcker replied after a long pause.
Whistleblower wins court suit
WASHINGTON- Pentagon whistleblower Ernest Fitzgerald, fired from
the Air Force for telling Congress about multibillion dollar cost overruns,
won a promotion yesterday and $200,000 in legal fees in a settlement of his
suit against the federal government.
U.S. District Judge William Bryant approved the settlement which had
been agreed to by Fitzgerald and the Justice Department. It resolves a suit
filed in 1976.
In a telephone interview, Fitzgerald said, "I'm very happy" to be able to
get back into major weapons acquisition matters from which he said he has
been "exiled" since 1968.
"I'm essentially going to pick up where I left off when I was so rudely in-
terrupted when I committed truth on the C-5."said Fitzgerald, who got into
trouble for blowing the whistle on a $2 billion cost overrun on the giant tran-
sport plane project.
Pope defends 'solidarity'
during speech in Switzerland
GENEVA, Switzerland- Pope John Paul II, using the word "solidarity"
47 times in a 65-minute speech, spoke out in defense of workers' freedom
yesterday, condemning attempts to block formation of worker-run unions.
Addressing the U.N. International Labor Organization at the Palace of
Nations, he called for "a new social order of solidarity without frontiers" to
promote workers' well-being. He asserted workers have a fundamental right
"to freely form or join an association of their own choosing and to run it."
An ILO official who requested anonymity said the pope's frequent use of
the word "solidarity" was a thinly-veiled reference to his native Poland and
"a nice tactic."
The pope spoke in French from the same podium where Lech Walesa. the
interned leader of Poland's suspended Solidarity labor movement, ad-
dressed the ILO conference a year ago.
In an apparent reference to the government-labor confrontation that led to
martial law in Poland six months ago, the pope condemned attempts to
outlaw unions, but also spoke against "uncompromising opposition" to
government authority.
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