4
Tuesday, November 11, 1975
University Dally Kansan
JFK probe needed
When the Warren Commission issued a report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 12 years ago, he had not cracked it. But there were a few doubters.
Today, those doubters have increased tremendously in number and the demand for a reopening of the investigation has grown strong. In fact, a petition to reopen the investigation has counted more than 250,000 signatures on the West Coast alone.
IF THE IDEALS OF American justice are to be heeded at all, reinvestigation is imperative. There are far too many cases where left unanswered in the Warren Report.
Perhaps the weakest point in the report is "the magic bullet" theory. This theory asserts that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots that day in Dallas. The first bullet, the "magic one," struck Kennedy below the neck, went through his neck, struck John Connally in the back, smashed through a rib, went out his chest, struck his wrist and ended up in his thigh. The "magic bullet" was supposedly responsible for seven bullet wounds.
seven butTERMS
THIS THEORY, OUTLANDISH to begin with, becomes more absurd when one considers the following facts:
The weapon allegedly used by Oswald was a 1940 Italian-made, single-shot Carcano that was clumsy, hard-toaim and even harder to reload.
The Carcano had a left-handed
scope. Oswald.was right-handed.
—When three master marksmans attempted to recreate the assassination by shooting at a stationary target, they missed.
—Oswald was no master markskman.
His Marine records show that he was a poor shot.
THE WARREN REPORT neatly skimmed the perplexing questions about Oswald himself. His induction
physical for the Marine Corps stated that he was 5"8' tall, weighed 135 pounds and had hazel eyes. Three years later, another Marine physical listed his height as 5"11', his weight as 150 pounds and his eye color as grey. Could Oswald have grown in three years, or could there have been more than one Oswald?
To add to this confusion, the FBI file on Oswald gave his height as 5'10" and his weight as 165. At his autopsy, Oswald weighed 5'9" tall, 150 pounds, with blue eyes.
THE WARREN COMMISSION also refused to recognize the testimony of several witnesses that Jack Ruby, Oswald's killer, had ties with organized crime. The report maintained merely that Ruby was a compulsive gambler.
Unfortunately, reopening the investigation might be difficult because 17 of the 18 witnesses who testified in front of the commission are dead. The number of others was less than 25, but the deaths of the other 12 were attributed to murder, suicide or accidents.
Despite the loss of eyewitnesses, there is enough evidence to warrant reinvestigation. The flaws in the Warren Report are far too massive to be ignored. The Watergate cover-up might have been successful if it hadn't been for public outrage. Perhaps if public sentiment grows strong enough and people take a closer look at the facts and the unsolved mysteries, the Kennedy assassination cover-up will be unsuccessful, also. Jain Penner
LEE BOWERS, WHO TESTIFIED that he had seen a man shoot from behind a station wagon parked on the knoll, was one of the unlucky 12. Bowers was driving on an open road at moderate speed in what is suddenly swerved and struck a bridge abutment. He was instantly killed.
Contributing Writer
Living safely or not at all
By THERESE MENDENHALL
Not many years ago, scientists discovered a mysterious toy. Now the toy has fallen into the hands of businessmen and investors, cold dead reality. That reality is coming to Kansas.
The toy is nuclear power; the mysteries are dreams of clean, perceptual energy; the reality is real. The toys are victims of violent deaths today and the
poisoning of our children for a half million years.
The scene is Burlington, Kansas.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, (NRC) recommended last week that a construction permit be granted for the plant, which is a joint project of the Kansas Gas and Electric Company (KG&E) of Wichita and the Kansas City Power and Light Company. The NRC will have the hearing tomorrow to determine officially what Kansans think about the plant before deciding whether to issue the permit.
A 1,150-megawatt nuclear power plant will be erected at a site $3\frac{1}{2}$ miles northeast of Burlington unless Kansans are enough at the public hearing tomorrow in Burlington.
James J. Kilpatrick
British crises prophetic
Transportation of nuclear wastes is also unsafe. Spent radioactive fuels are transported on ships, airplanes, trains and public roads in containers that can sustain at most a 30-foot drop. The time will come when one of these vehicles will have an accident and one of the company cars will gallon of the radioactive waste released into the environment would be enough to threaten the health of several million people.
model reactors,but all six of the systems that were tested failed.
A nuclear power plant is a dangerous and unnecessary proposal for Kansas. Elementary questions of safety about plant operation and transportation and disposal of nuclear wastes haven't been addressed. And studies conducted by an independent Kansas organization indicate that Kansas doesn't need the power that the plant would provide.
Transportation is only the beginning of the problem of disposal of nuclear wastes. Radioactive plutonium wastes remain toxic for a half million years, but the containers in which the wastes are being buried last no more than 30 years. So the term "disposal" ensures that radioactive wastes can't be "disposed" of. They must be carefully tended for a longer period of time than man has lived in settled communities.
The most urgent reasons that the NRC shouldn't grant the permit are unanswered questions of safety. Emergency plants are not designed to operate safely. But the primary safety system, the emergency core cooling system, has never been tested in actual use. Aerojet Nuclear Company conducted a series of tests on
On the night of Saturday,
October 25, I organized the
family for a little Italian dinner.
We walked a block or so from
our hotel—my wife, my son
Christopher and his pregnant
wife Gina—and after a while we
strolled back again.
The possibility of natural disaster must also be considered. An average Kansas house contains containers to much more force than they would receive in a 30-foot drop.
The following Wednesday night, the 28th, terrorists blew the Traitoria Torn to bits; 19 men were killed and a wife of an American tourist had most of her scalp ripped off. Another woman lost a foot. Those who were incarcerated by the authorities will bear the scars for life.
the glory of Drake and Nelson; Diarella and Churchill—and the new socialism has a second-rate appeal to a second-class power. It no longer matters much what England does.
Some people say that all these risks must be taken because man's needs for energy are outgrowing his supplies. But some growers show that a nuclear power plant is needed in Kansas. A study conducted by the Consumer Utility Board, an independent utility group, found that the plant isn't needed. According to a regular trend of power use measured by KG&E for the last 10 years, KG&E will need the next 25 years without the nuclear plant.
WE READ THE NEWS accounts in horror and wonder: Why them? Why not us? There, we said, there but for the grace of God. We saw that papers that the craziest had been setting off bombs in the United States also. Truly it is a mad, mad, mad world, and the fears, worries and preoccupations of easily different from our own.
Nuclear fission is an exciting possibility for the production of clean, dependable energy for the future. But nuclear GAs are rushing a commitment to an underdeveloped idea. If they succeed, they will gain control of the energy market in kansas at the expense of health and curring states.
The threat of terrorism is more pervasive in the cities of the UK than in the cities of the United States. Beafair, there the fear by night is as insidious as fog. But lovely Edinburgh, far removed from the Irish scene, knows bomb scares also. The Irish Republic Army is a generality case of generally boasts of the blame) for these bloody, senseless acts. Whatever sympathy might have existed for the Catholic cause erodes with every bomb that is fired; it is now thoroughly desolised.
A FURTHER OBSERVATION on that point: An anti-American backlash is growing. It is nowhere more severely conceded—that the Irish terrorists are kept in going
God knows the United Kingdom has its problems. Northern Ireland is a bleeding wound that festers and wounds itself, while Scotland's stubborn high. Inflation pinches. The old glory is gone—
All the same, the essence endures. Strength, courtesy, kindness, fortitude—all these are preserved in this amber and in that color, ought to admire these qualities and to emulate them if we can.
significant part by contributions from mould-headed Irish-Americans in the United States. Their contributions, and their swiftly channeled into arms and explosives, it's entirely probable that the bomb that blew up the Trattoria Fiori was purchased from a militia. The newspapers ask why Senator Kennedy doesn't use his influence to cut off the flow of funds. It's a question the senator might ponder; his own experience has escaped death or injury.
Step by step, we often seem to be following the British into socialism and second-rate status; we are experiencing the same aches and pains in health education and the economy. It is well enough, for the moment, for American observers to say, there but for the grace of God . . . We may be walking only a few hours or a few evenings behind.
The public hearing on whether to grant the construction permit opens at 9 a.m. tomorrow at the courthouse in Burlington. If you object to the plan, plant in Kansas, this might be your last chance to make your opinion heard.
(c) 1975 Washington Star Syndicate Inc.
gaze with the same bewigged impassivity upon the comedy and drama of Great Britain, the pigeons flutter and the members sputter and the tides of history flow by.
BRITONS WORRY ABOUT this violence we are worry about crime. We have economic problems, and our bank ora. England's inflation for the past 12 months has been 26 per cent. The rate has been dropping recently, but double-digit increases are indicated for at least another year.
An observation on that point: If you're planning a visit to Britain, double your budget. Hotel rooms, restaurant meals, theatre tickets and all other expenses are cheap. Museums and galleries are still free and it costs only two cents to wander through Kew gardens, but the visitor finds his beige and the green pound notes slipping away like leaves from the plane trees. Paris and Rome, the museums, and are in sight. The prices will go still higher.
For all its troubles, England retains its old charm and its old vitality. The wandering newsman who hits London once or twice a year finds his beat delightful. He spends an hour or two in the Commons, enjoying leisure time with squatters to Trafalgar Square to reflect, every time, upon the amazing resemblance between the Trafalgar lions and the Speaker of the House. They
letters policy
The Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 500 words. All letters are received in person and are according to space limitations and the editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students must provide their name, year in school and hometown; faculty members provide their name and position others must provide their name and address.
'SORRY MY DEAR... BUT IT'S A STACKED DECK!'
Readers Respond
Theory defended
To the Editor:
6) Mr. Schwartz (Kansas, Nov. 6) apparently was not listening to the lecture by Dr. Morris, or his notes lost. Dr. Morris did not call creation a theory, and he did not desire to digify it, but called both "models." Mr. Schwartz also charges that creationists do not know what scientific proof is.
For a summary of a good theory and of scientific proof, let us turn to Sir Earl Popper, a man of great logic and philosophy of science.
"It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.
"Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it."
"Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risk predictions; that is to say, if unlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected results compatible with the theory—an event which would have refuted the theory.
"A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irreliability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice."
"Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: It forbids the things to hapen. The more a theory forbids, the better it be."
By these criteria, evolution is not a good theory because it forbids no scientifically testable
Until evolution or creation meets the criteria of a good theory, the choice between
events. The tests must be actual events, not merely debates or refutations by words alone. The tests must show that evolution fordids, and it can be tested by these events", and then let the creatureists try their hardest to disprove it. The creatureists should be clear to all.
them remains, as Dr. Morris pointed out, a matter of faith and not of science. Until evolution meets the standards of Dr. Popper, the remaining attacks against creationists for using religious arguments or beliefs are not met, and the lack of evolution and are not relevant to the discussion of science.
Mark Finger
Larned graduate student
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