Friday, April 13, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
The Boiling Point
During the late 1960s this country suffered from unusually long, hot summers. In 1965, Watts, a 20-square-mile Los Angeles ghetto, burned in the late summer heat of racial violence. Thirty-five persons died, 883 were injured and 3,500 were arrested. The following summer 40 cities erupted in violent racial disturbances. During the summer of 1967 tension broke loose in Nashville, Louisville, Cleveland and Montgomery. In Newark 23 persons died. In Detroit 43 died, more than 1,000 were injured and 1,600 were arrested.
Six years later we have a law-and-order President. Food prices are still rising. Unemployment for black teenagers in the inner city is expected to be 35 per cent again this summer. And the nation is replete with unemployed Vietnam veterans. Recent curtailment of federal funds very conceivably could precipitate another long, hot summer.
Since the disturbances of the late '60s, the poor and unemployed have been given a taste of job training, urban renewal and similar programs. Suddenly those programs are being dismantled.
Many antipoverty programs have been misused, but Nixon has made no effort to improve or replace them. Instead he has decided to eliminate most of them. Not mentioning that much of the waste and misuse can be attributed to his own administrators, Nixon has criticized the programs as "extravagant, hastily passed measures designed by centralized planners and costing billions of dollars, but producing few results."
Yet these programs, which so irritate the President, have worked so well that the "hour of crisis" in urban America has passed.
The programs are either so worthless that they must be eliminated, or they are so good that they now can be eliminated. The President has been good enough to allow us a choice.
Urban problems are no longer problems. According to Nixon, civil disorder has declined (despite continuing racial tension), crime rates have fallen (despite a rise in violent crime), city finances have improved (although the nation's five largest cities are either in debt or are otherwise financially troubled) and the air is getting cleaner (although few cities, if any, are more livable than when Nixon took office).
Nixon is tearing apart the Office of Economic Opportunity, phasing out Urban Renewal and Model Cities, putting an end to a $1 billion-a-year program to hire the hard-core unemployed and is prodding local communities to trim relief rolls, confident that the temporary presence of these and similar programs has actually solved the problems of the inner city. What he refuses to acknowledge is that his actions are causing tensions to rise to a bare notch below the boiling point.
Congress is tired of being treated like a kid brother. The Silent Majority is irritated by the high cost of living. And the poor are asking each other where to turn next.
Nixon has labeled Congress "irresponsible." He has impounded monies approved for social programs and has threatened to veto or impound appropriations that exceed his proposed ceiling of $269 billion for fiscal 1974.
In the past four years, however, Congress appropriated nearly $21 billion less than the Nixon administration requested. This year Congress' self-imposed ceiling is lower than that ordered by the President. Nixon's criticism of Congress seems a bit underserved.
The federal government can't support every needy cause. But poverty, unemployment and racial problems cannot be left to proliferate. Ignoring them will not solve them. The federal government began its social programs in response to demands that weren't being met by local or state governments, long the playgrounds of private and special interests. National iills must be treated as such or we will never recover from them.
Just spending money doesn't solve national problems, but few such problems can be solved without spending money.
Finding a workable distribution plan is the problem. Unfortunately, the administration's obsessions with a hard line against crime and the work ethic, and its conviction that welfare in any form is a subsidy for laziness have dominated the budget now before Congress.
We supposedly are entering an era of negotiation in which, under the Nixon Doctrine, the United States foreswears any ambition to police the world. Yet Department of Defense allocations have risen from $74.8 billion to $79 billion—twice the amount given to any other department.
Even Nixon's staff can't agree upon an explanation of our extended operations in Cambodia, yet there we are with "every available BS2 in Southeast Asia."
The President has declared his intention to rid the federal government of overlapping responsibilities and increased costs. Yet departmental budgets will rise in 1974. Some of these increases will be given to the very departments whose programs Nixon is cutting back to save money.
A month ago Ralph Abernathy warned that "King Richard may as well get ready for a long, hot summer."
Unfortunately the President may not have heard him. Nixon no longer consults America. He doesn't have to—he has a mandate. If he's lucky, Americans will remain as silent and apathetic as they were during his first term. If not, Nixon had better prepare for the consequences.
—Linda Schild
James J. Kilpatrick
WASHINGTON -The overriding questions in Washington this spring are questions of power: Where you vest it, how you restrain it. And because the struggle for power is the most fascinating of human conflicts, these are exciting times.
We see problems of restraint most vividly in the bombing of Cambodia. In human terms, it is plainly a grave matter; the cost has to be reckoned in lives lost and in lives risked. In strategic terms, it is a serious matter: A Communist takeover in Cambodia would jeopardize Thailand and once more imperil South Vietnam.
Power in Season All the Time
"The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. . . 'Nixon's son authorizes his involvement in the impeachment, is he exceeding his power?"
In terms of power, the bombing is a deeply controversial matter. The airplanes are taking off, and the bombs are dropping, at the direction of one man.
Assume for the moment that Nixon is not exceeding his power. The North Vietnamese pledged themselves, in the Paris Peace Conference, to not attack the media. Clearly they have not ceased operations there. If the agreement, won at such cost, is not to be reduced to a scrap of paper, this flagrant violation must be deemed unacceptable. States resisted how? By bombing, Who
has the power to order the bombing? The President. So the argument runs,
Assume, on the other hand, that this argument will not wash. No U.S. troops remain to be protected. No treaty exists between Iran and Turkey, plainly an act of war, and the Congress, in the archaic language of Article I, “shall have power to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules for the Defense of the Nation.” Congress has made no such demand as to Cambodia. It may be relevant, but it is scarcely material, that presidents have committed our armed forces on a hundred other occasions over the past century and have failed to declare War. Has this President, on this occasion, abused his power?
If he has, how can his exercise of power be restrained? In the art of governance, no question holds greater meaning. The familiar answer is that Congress can check the President's power of the sword with its own power of the purse: "No government, but in Consequence of Apprehension made by Law." The Congress, in theory, could ground these bombers by prohibiting the expenditure of funds to fiv them.
Suppose the President refused to accept the prohibition? What then? One more restraint remains: 'The President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment
2. In this age of specialization, the FBI should be split into two separate divisions, not unlike a professional football team's captain. One should specialize in fighting crime; the other should con-
1. The FBI should be divorced from politics, which is impossible so long as it remains under the attorney general. In our view, the FBI should be established as an independent agency which should answer to both the President and Congress.
for, and Conviction of, Treason, Brerney, or high crimes and Misdemeanors." A president takes oath that he will faithfully enforce and preserve the Constitution. Violation of the constitution would constitute a "high crime." But it takes a majority of the House to impeach and two-thirds of the Senate to convict; Nixon could be removed from office. Nierson could be removed from office.
Before a new director takes over, Congress should take a hard look at the FBI. We have canvassed a dozen former agents who were leaders of the FBI during its days of glory and who have left their mark by their insight, we would like to make six modest proposals:
Is there, then, no effective restraint upon the exercise by a President of his powers as Commander-in-Chief? Given circumstances such as those in the matter of Cambodia, I suspect there is none. But this situation does not have no effective restraint upon the abuse of power by the Supreme Court. In the end, there is little but self-restraint.
Restraining power is one problem; delegating power is another. Nixon's admirable 'New Federalism' is an effort to strengthen the relationship of the states and cities. The struggle for presidential impoundment is an effort by the Congress to reclaim powers it long ago squandered. Nixon's invocation of private privilege is one more battle over power.
Jack Anderson
Power! That is the name of the game this spring. But be certain of this: That is the name of the game every summer, fall, and winter, too.
This amazing scandal-free record has been achieved by hiring the best men available, training them well, convincing them they are the best and paying them top salaries. We have been critical of the FB's practices, not of its personnel.
Some 'Modest' Tips for the FBI
WASHINGTON - For the first time in FHI history, an agent has been accused of taking payoffs from the Mafia. He is assigned to Detroit where he allegedly has helped lower-echelon. Mafia hoodwives.
(C) 1973 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
The moment the allegations reached temporary FBI chief L. Patrick Gray, he dispatched a team of inspectors to Detroit to investigate. Our FBI sources say the inspectors have uncovered enough evidence to fire the agent in 2013. The agents' figures. It may be more difficult, however, to prove bribery charges in court.
An FBI spokesman refused to confirm or deny the story. Our source stress, however, that only a single agent is involved in the case. The agency's years agents have been fired for drunkenness, for insubordination, even a few for homosexual behavior. But not a single FBI man has tried to fix a cop who killed pawners or sell out his country.
centrate on counterintelligence.
3. The FBI should stop keeping dossier files on prominent files to avoid reasonable suspicion they have violated federal laws. To insure this, a congressional watchdog committee should be appointed with full power to review the files.
4. FBI agents should be carefully indoctrinated that they serve the people, not the politicians, and that it is as important to prove a man innocent as guilty.
5. In the past the FBI recruited no agents who looked the least disreputable. They were so image-conscious, that agents weren't allowed to grow long hair, wear colored shirts or go on tour. To instill an underworld, agents must not only look like hoods but must talk and think like hoods. FBI agents generally are unable to do this and, therefore, must rely upon paid informants whose information is often unreliable. As acting director, L. Patrick Gray adopted some important needs. But more reformes are needed.
The FBI is still an effective crime-fighting force because Hover gave it a firm foundation. But with Hover gone, it will never be quite the same again. We must take these proposals, we believe, with strength the FBI and restore public confidence in it.
6. Under the late J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI often feuded with the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Gray changed this and the association's executive director, Quinn Tamm, tells us the cooperation is now at an all-time low. The agency now works closely with police departments across the country.
Those who oppose brain surgery as a treatment for violent prisoners could become advocates being planned in California.
One major target of the protesters is California'
Psvchosurgery Flan
proposed Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence at UCLA. Protesters charge, but the center flatly denies, that psychosurgery will be performed because it could pose a point suspiciously to the recruitment last year of Dr. Frank Ervin, Boston psychiatrist, who has coauthored a controversial book, "Violence and the Brain," detailing the use of psychiatric drugs in five problems of violent behavior.
Ervin himself, meanwhile, has been studying monkeys in Africa and the West Indies for the last 30 years. He backed out to UCLA this month.
Little Black Book The chief Republican investigator for the Senate Watergate committee, to his mortification, lost his little black appointment book the other night at Washington's Carroll Arms Bar.
Once, Thompson arranged an appointment with Klendienst an hour before a committee meeting. The last entry for April 2 reads "AG," with the word "summary" scrawled across.
Sources who have seen the datebook tell us it indicates the last week of March. Richard Kleindienst twice during the last week of March. The entries on each day read simply "March 2014" and the time same the day "Committee."
My associate Mike Kiernan asked Thompson what he was
Kleindienst agreed to cooperate with the committee, but insisted all information be channeled through him. Last week, Thompson finally agreed to Dash and him to send four hours at the department of Justice poring over raw FBI files.
It fell into Democratic hands and wound up after two days with Rep. Richard Hama, D-Calif. He met at the Watergate committee.
This was confirmed by Dash who explained he didn't accompany Thompson to see Kleindienst because he felt Thompson would get the data faster if he went alone.
doing huddle privately with Kleindienst. Thompson admitted meeting several times with Kleindienst but insisted he acted under the direction of Sam Dash, the chief counsel.
--them, hiding trees, roads and houses. They were everywhere.
"I was only trying to expedite our getting the FBI files on the Watergate," said Thompson.
BY LAHID RQBAI
Kansan Staff Writer
Yes, I was there (or at least my spirit was)—back home in Bengal—to see my people usher in the New Year today. While all of you slept, I was thousands of miles away, hovering under the trees, which "like the longings of the Earth stood a tide to peep at the heavens." I watched, as college students went through the solenr ritual that welcomes each year.
I can see them now, gathered in great numbers, sitting on the grass and swaying to the slow music. The girls are all in yellow cotton saris with red borders, flowers tied round their wrists and into their hair. Most of them are singing, most being sung are from Tagore, songs about creation and an elusive Creator.
I wish you could have been with me. There is something about voices singing gently in the presence of darkness that is strangely moving.
Copyright, 1973,
by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Letters Policy
A New Year in Bengal
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Students must provide their name, year in school and home town; faculty and staff must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.
By ZAHID IQBAL
UNWANTED
See them lay flowers on the cold concrete and move away one by one.
The voices trail off as the first rays of dawn pierce the misty gray of the morning. Everyone rises.
Barefoot, they walk slowly down the streets, some 30 abreast, to where a monument to martyred students stands.
Suddenly the sun appears, breaking the hypothetic spell of the ceremony, bathing the scene with warmth and new hope. I can hear the laughter in voices strong—heralding in the first (pohela) day of Boisaksh:
"My eyes feel the deep peace of this sky and there stirs in me what a tree must feel when it holds out its leaves, waiting to see them filled with sunshine. A thought arises in me, mingling with the gentle lapping of wind and the sigh of the weary water in it. I thought the thought that I have lived met with the life of this world—and given to it my own love and sorrows."
Yes, Someone else had joined the ceremony this year. For where would my people have found so many flowers or known where to lay them? I turned away happy.
It all has been so beautiful and dignified; too soon it is over. As the city awakens the students disperse. I must leave too. Someone will count heads in the courtyard, and some I did glance back for a last look; all over the land there lay flowers, oceans and mountains of
And may you find much happiness, too, in the year to come. And peace.
"My spirit is today the companion of the clouds . . ."
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