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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, December 14, 1967
Man's contributions to '6'
Peaceful technology eclipsed war
By Fred Shock
Events of the year 1967 reflected collective life on this planet for what it always has been—a delicate balance of human achievement and degradation.
But the things which made this year so individually unique had little to do with the Vietnam war, or civil rights demonstrations, or the celebrator of the 50th year of Communism in Russia.
Rather, the proud moments concerned man's great advances in technology for peaceful purposes, the inevitable developments of a collective race which has discovered how to extend itself far beyond the limits of the human body and even of the world.
We found ourselves flying the mammoth Saturn V rocket, orbiting sophisticated new satellites, hedge-hopping the moon
Political dissent
Politics, 1967-style, brought a continued decline in the fortunes of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, dissent over the war in Vietnam and emergence of several Republicans as prominent contenders for the 1963 presidential nomination.
By Joyce Grist and Sam Neff
On Dec. 31, 1966, the President said in a news conference, "The nation can afford to continue as we have to fight wars on both fronts—domestic and Vietnam." As 1967 nears its end, the war continues, but the domestic war, such as the war on poverty, has been pushed aside.
A division among Senate Republicans over United States policy in Vietnam became evident last May 2 in reaction to a white paper released by the Senate Republican Policy Committee. The paper asked, "What is our national interest in Southeast Asia and to what lengths are we prepared to go in support of this interest? Must we really be behind the President?" Sen. Dirksen reaffirmed support for Johnson, with Sen. Tower and Rep. Ford agreeing. Several other senators agreed with the paper.
The Vietnam issue caused a split in the Democratic party this year which culminated with the recent announcement by Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., that he would be a candidate for President of the United States on a platform of opposition to the administration's Vietnam policy.
The 90th Congress convened Jan. 10, with 64 Democrats and 33 Republicans in the Senate, and 247 Democrats and 187 Republicans in the House. The Senate had 35 new members, including Edward Brookes, the first Negro since the 1870's to be elected to that body.
In the House, the seating of Rep. Adam Clayton Powell was blocked, pending investigation of his conduct. The House voted March 1 to exclude Powell from the 90th Congress.
The President sent the Civil Rights Act of 1937 to Congress on Feb. 15, and the 25th Amendment became part of the Constitution Feb. 19. The amendment specified a procedure for performance of the presidential duties if he should become disabled.
The Senate Select Committee on Standards and Conduct held bearings on the financial activities of Thomas J. Dodd, D-Conn., March 13-17 and unanimously recommended that the Senate censure him. On June 23, the Senate voted censure of Dodd, charging he used his office to obtain and use for his personal benefit funds received from the public through political testimonies and campaigns.
Two other political breakthroughs for the Negro were Thurgood Marshall's appointment to the Supreme Court, and Carl Stokes election as mayor of Cleveland—both Negro 'firsts.'
Several controversial governors elected in 1966 took office this year. They were segregationist Lester Maddox in Georgia, Ronald Reagan, ex-actor, who was sworn in as California's 33rd governor and Mrs. George Wallace in Alabama.
In presidential politics, Gov. George Romney announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination, the Patriotic party announced its selection of George Wallace of Alabama as its candidate at a July 4 convention in Kansas City and speculation began on who would be the Republican's "back-up" candidate if Romney failed in next spring's primaries.
As the year ended, President Johnson was still trying to persuade Congress to pass his 10 per cent surtax charge, and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was resigning to accept nomination as President of the World Bank.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
Big planes, computers
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with the unmanned Surveyor spacecraft, communicating with laser beams, lighting our cities with nuclear energy, making plans to fly to Mars and transplanting hearts from dead bodies to those of the living.
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We started building planes to carry 520 people, more than live in some small cities, at more than 2.000 miles an hour. We perfected the computer to the point where it is now possible to analyze the imponderable in milliseconds.
But we still could not shed the bonds of human weakness, so the wars of man raged on—for six days in the Middle East while Israel flattened the United Arab Republic, and for the 265 days of 1667 in Vietnam.
Soviet Communism did celebrate its 59th birthday, bpt with a discreet announcement that Russia was now able to rain nuclear bombs on the U.S. from outer space.
Russia and space bombs
In the United States our great involvement in the complexities of everyday life led to a kind of mental and economic neurosis.
Our tax dollars flowed into Vietnam at the rate of two billion dollars a month. At this stage the staggering expenditures have produced little more than a stalemate with the Viet Cong, and thousands of dead American and Vietnamese soldiers.
Another kind of warfare continued on the streets of America. The missiles were rocks and bottles. The defense was police clubs and teargas against a minority segment of the Negro population which organized enough to let Whitey know in violent terms that the long-standing customs of prejudice and unfair treatment must end.
Negro riots
The federal government, official administrator of America's design to correct social and economic ills, put into effect a vast octopus of action programs which funneled money into the ghettos, the rural poverty areas and the industries of war.
All the money made us appear to be rich until the English pound was devaluated, and the talk of impending inflation centus surrying home to set one last steak before we switched to lunemast.
selves not always able to do so, and Gallup and Rover began to discover that not all people did like Lyndon B. Johnson and associates.
Primaries coming up
The men who were elected or appointed to direct the business of guns and buten, the police clans and the bureaucrats, found them-
So now the maple sap is beginning to run in New Hampshire. Pefore long, the Republicans will get their first official hint of what those in the state of rolling hills and quaint little houses think about candidates for the upcoming 1938 presidential election.
but it least this much is certain—whoever is handed the reins will find 1668 just a little more challenging than 1667.
That however is to be expected, and if common sense and good reason still prevail next year the coming 365 days might accidentally produce an even greater measure of human achievement than these last 335 did.
Official Bulletin
TODAY
Geological Survey Time Series. All Day. "Computer Application in Earth Science." Big 8 Room, Kansas Union. Kansas. National School. All Day. Kansas Union.
Sociology Colloquium. 3:30 p.m.
Kirson Weinberg, Roosvelt University.
"An Age-Role Theory of Personality Development." 112 Blake.
Japanese Film Festival. 7:30 p.m.
and Sleep Well." Dyche Auditorium.
Lecture. 8 p.m. Charles E. Osgood, U. of Illinois. "The Semantics of International RELations." Forum Room, Kansas Union
American Students Abroad Program, 8 p.m. Meeting of students interested in information is at P-1-P Office., Kansas Union.) 305E, Kansas Union.
Experimental Theatre. 8:20 p.m.
"This Knack."
College Life. 9 p.m. "The Real Christmas." Delta Upsilon House.
TOMORROW
K.U. Miu. Nur School, Safety 12:39 p.m.
K.U. Musa East Room, School of Rilgion
Geological Survey Time Series, All Day. "Computer Application in Earth Sciences." Big 8 Room, Kansas Union, Kansas, Peace Officers National, National
People-to-People Tour of Iowa
race. Leave from Kansas Union 1:15 p.m.
Basketball. 7 p.m. Sunflower Doublebush. Kansas State vs. Texas A&M; K.U. vs. Cincinnati. Allen Field House.
Experimental Theatre. 8:20 p.m.
"The Knack."
By Rue Chagoll
Space, medicine and 'The Pill'
The American space program encountered a tragic seeback early in 1967 when three astronauts, Virgil Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Edward White, died in a flash fire in an Apollo space capsule during a ground test.
A full scale investigation ensued. Since then the Apollo
capsule has been modified to include numerous safety measures, including a quick escape hatch, to make the spacecraft almost fireproof.
It was not until late this fall that hopes for landing an American on the moon in the early seventies began to grow once more. Encouragement has come from
"Didn't Seem To Convert So Well Into A Warship"
MARSHAL HAWKES POST
the successful firing of the Saturn rocket, the launch vehicle which will propel astronauts to the moon and the critical soft landing of Surveyor 4 on the lunar surface.
Although previous Surveyor attempts had successfully landed on the moon, number four was most encouraging to NASA officials since it was the first to land with all instruments intact and functioning. At a signal from earth, Surveyor 4 fired its rockets, lifted ten feet from the surface and settled back to rest again. It was the first successful launching of a vehicle from the moon.
The Russian space effort took a big advance this year when a capsule reached Venus. A parachute was used to land the vehicle, which relayed the first analyses of that planet's atmosphere.
The greatest scientific advances outside the space programs this year came in the field of medicine. Surgeons have obtained increasingly encouraging results in their efforts to successfully transplant vital human organs. Recently in South Africa a transplant of a heart from a young girl who died in an automobile accident was made to a middle-aged man dying of a heart ailment. Nearly a week has gone by since the operation and the patient is reportedly feeling "quite well."
"The Pill" draw a great deal of attention when it went into large-scale production (under 12 different brand names in the U.S.) this year, feeding hopes that it would be available at a price which could be afforded around the world. A month's supply of prescription oral contraceptives can now be purchased for about $2.