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Monday, February 12, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Shield Newsmen
"In this question, therefore, there is no medium between servitude and license. In order to enjoy the instressible benefits that liberty of the press ensures, it must be submit to the inevitable evil that it creates."
The "inestimable benefits" that liberty of the press provides are being challenged today, a result of the recent Supreme Court ruling that the First Amendment does not protect newsmen from being forced to divulge information or sources. Information gained in confidence by members of the press will no longer be protected from forced exposure in Kansas if the legislature does not pass a proposed shield law.
A bill now under consideration in the Kansas Senate would completely protect persons employed by or connected with the news media from being forced to reveal confidential sources in testimony to a grand jury.
A house shield bill, however,
would provide only a qualified
protection. No reporter or editor
would be forced to testify unless the
party seeking the information could
demonstrate that it was clearly
violating the constitution of law, that it could not be obtained by alternative means and that it was of compelling and overriding public interest.
The senate bill appears superior because, lacking qualifications, it would guarantee that newsmen could continue in their most important task—seeking the truth. Access to the truth, no matter how ugly the truth may be, is vital to our society. Because they live in a democracy, citizens of the United States need to know the truth to
Alexis de Tocqueville
formulate accurate opinions and to make responsible decisions.
Sometimes a news source offers to give a reporter certain information crucial to a complete story only if the reporter agrees not to reveal his identity. Without a shield law, such sources may risk their jobs, reputations and even their lives by giving information if the reporter is later forced to divulge their identity. A news reporter or citizen would jeopardize a relationship with a news source to gain this information. And even fewer could afford to go to jail to protect their sources.
John Stuart Mill, in an essay on liberty of thought and discussion, struck down the notion that truth will always triumph over persecution. "Men are no more zealous for truth than they often are for error," he wrote, "and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either." The real advantage truth has, he wrote, is that it may be extinguished many times, but generally will be rediscovered until it reappears and is revealed under favorable circumstances.
Therefore, we must not put obstacles in the way of those whose business it is to seek the truth. The failure to pass a shield law would make the search for truth almost impossible.
James J. Kilpatrick
—Barbara Spurlock
Sen. Buckley Visits Wonderland
WASHINGTON—Janes Lane Buckley came to the United States Senate two years ago, until that very day, hour, and hour, he attended the office of any sort; he had never even camped before, except to help brother Bill in his quixotic bid to become mayor of New York. The unthinkable: Running on the uninhabitable: Running on the Conservative party ticket, he had won the seat held in other years in luminaries as Robert Kemped.
in the current issue of the National Review, commenting upon the institution of the Senate. He likes it. But after two years, he left. But then, with the grave perplexity of Alice playing grovet with the Queen.
Now Buckley has written a small reflective essay, published
Buckley's piece is certain to become a classic in his field. He is aided by the Senate, but it is the proaches his elders as innocently as Little Miss Mark invading a crap game. What, he wonders, is going to happen? James, that is called a unanimous consent agreement.
Hanoi Plotted Post-Truce Push
WASHINGTON - In secret testimony, Adm. Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told how the North Vietnamese assassinated village leaders in the South, deployed to protect and prevent for "military action" to exploit the cease-fire.
Jack Anderson
His testimony dealt with preparations made in October when the North Vietnamese first anticipated a cease-fire. But he indicated tersely that similar preparations had been started before the final signing last month.
action when the cease-fire was achieved.
Testifying behind closed doors on the eve of the signing, he told the House. Appropriations Committee discussions that in some areas, they (Communist forces) have received instructions to go out with their maximum capability until a cease-fire is signed."
He described how the Communists had reacted in October. "Just prior to the Oct. 31 proposed cease-fire," he said, and he urged the redresses their forces in such a way that they could exploit the cease-fire by such things as assassinating the leaders in the villages throughout the area so the local control of the local governments.
"The heavy resupply of water materials was apparently from Soviet Russia as well as from China. They began to expand their storage areas, step up their production and begin to deploy about 120 tanks and a large amount of artillery and anti-aircraft."
Later, Rep. Elford Cederberg,
R-Mich., questioned him about
the tanks." You said there are 100
people killed by the tanker that
is correct?" he asked.
"Yes sir," agreed Moorer.
"At the same time, they proposed to retain the areas they had captured so far and hold their main force units in such a way that they could reft them and prepare them for further military
"Are those tanks that were there before the closing of Haiphong," asked Cederberg, "and they come down through China?"
"I think," said the admiral, "they could probably have come down through China."
nutuer warfare in South Vietnam" asked Rep. William Minshall, R-Ohio.
He then gave more details about the flow of supplies from China. The North Vietnamese, he said, sent assistance from the Chinese."
"As a matter of fact," he said, "north of the border at Ping Hsing just inside China they receive just mountains of supplies . Then they feed them across the border."
"What is the capability of the North Vietnamese now to conduct
The stocky, grazing admiral was less concerned about revealing this in secret than he had to tell his captain a short answer to your question," he replied, "by saying I do not think that they, as of this moment, have the capability for them to call main force unit action."
"The they are now conserving their resources, protecting main force units which comprise about 15 divisions and simply devoting themselves to harassment and actions of that kind. We find, for instance, that many of the battalions are at half strength, and the effects of the heavy ground fighting since the overtaken allotted their overall capability."
the legislative business as possible on a two-year cycle: Let committees work on bills in the odd-numbered years, affording ample time for hearings and for public education; and let the two houses vote upon the reported bills in the even-numbered years. Such a deliberate pace might not be sufficient for members to return to their States "to listen and to observe."
"I would like to show the committee now some pictures of the POW camps in Hanoi, because there was quite a bit of the effect that they had been attacked. This is not the case."
Moorer showed the congressmen classified pictures of the POW camps in North Vietnam which contradicted reports that they had suffered bomb damage from the B-52 raids.
territory. Of further significance,
they went down in the immediate vicinity of Hanoi, because that was where the concentration of surface-to-air missiles was found.
Referring to the 15 big bombers shot down in the raids, he said, "Five of the crews bailed out in the war." He went down in North Vietnam.
The pictures showed no bomb craters or other damage.
"MIGs did not destroy any B-52s. Neither did anti-aircraft fire. We have only one indication that
In the thickets of the committee system, the junior senator from New York came to appreciate the staggening volume of business that coursed through the building he learned. newcomers have learned before him, the pervasive influence wielded by committee staffs. He discovered that the focus of a bill could dissolve like the smile of a child, and that the mind that bills did not always mean what they seemed to mean.
a B-12 may be damaged slightly by anti-aircraft. I would point out that the SA-2 was designed to shoot down the B-2S. Over 1,000 SAMs were fired during this period. These SAMs are over 30 feet long. The pilots call them telephone poles."
Buckley, "will be enacted with little real examination by most of the senators who will have to vote yea or may on them, and with less than adequate comprehension of what the bill involves." All too often a senator's vote is based on an inadequate summary position, he said, plus whispering to colleagues who may be qualified to the dark. The bell rings for a rollcall, and votes must be cast.
Copyright, 1973.
by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
In Alice's Looking-Glass World, as the Queen explained, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." So, too, with the Senate. Buckley remains amazed at the success of the flash-flood. One day the floor is quiet. The next day some bill comes along that may involve "new programs that will have an enormous impact on American society, on the states, or on the economy, programs that in time will multimillion-dollar commitments."
Buckley is among the most modest men in public life. Respectfully, as becomes a church solitary officer 99 prima donna, he pleads for the assistance of office space. "At the root of most of the problems of the Senate is the enormous expansion of federal activities in recent years." The senator who consciously tries to keep up with the demands that a woman of only seventy has to handle He needs help that the present system does not provide.
"Yet many of these bills." said
Buckley advances a novel suggestion, to place as much of
For all the frustrations—Buckley finds his days are splintered every morning before he has time to look at them—the Senate offers even the new public policy. To be sure, it "is not an institution to which the impatient should gravitate." But the senator who masters his job can feed his ideas "into the nation's informational blood," including, is all in all, "a good place to be." And those who know this quiet and thoughtful senator from New York may agree that it is good to have him there.
Couple Taxes IRS's Patience Ferrets Out Doubtful Methods
(C) 1973 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
By JOHN CUNNIFF
AP Business Analyst
NEW YORK—The merits of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Long's case against the Internal Revenue Service will have to be decided by the courts, but in the meantime Mr. Long is giving them an irritating, frustrating and costly time of it.
Frustrating the IRS is only fair, said Long, a Bellevue, Wash., real estate man, because that same technique has become one of the specialities of the IRS and it should not be so. He's out not only to prove his case but also to restrain the IRS.
"It's all we do," the Longs said in an interview. "It's bad to happen to us today or to you today, but it is worse for it to me."
And so they are determined to make a case for themselves and the pubile.
Ever since he and his wife, a 30-year-old graduate student who specializes in analyzing data, were informed by the IRS more than once, they earned $8,144 in taxes, they have been on the trail of the IRS.
In pursuit of their goal they
already have spent $10,000 of their own money in publicizing the case, in newspaper ads and research, in trips to Washington, in postage for letters to others who have been "clobbered by the IRS" or in digging up information about the IRS from its own files.
Their search into IRS files followed a court ruling in favor of the Longs last September that opened sections of the Internal Revenue Service to public scrutiny. The Longs had been denied the information.
In their research, the Longs already have revealed IRS procedures and practices that help prevent serious problems. Among them are:
—In contested cases, percentage of tax settled for in 1974 and not paid in 1971. How you fare may depend upon where you live. In Newark, N.J., settlements averaged 50 dollars; in Washington, 24 cents.
—On the average, settlements with individuals were for 34 cents on the dollar in 1871 compared to the dollar on the dollar for corporations.
Smug '50s Bred Social Casualties
WASHINGTON — Things are better for Sandy now, but a few years ago she was describing herself as a 37-year-old virgin with five children. After 17 years and seven months, her marriage
couldn't drive a car; I was terrified to get out of the shower. Some day I wish I could write a handbook for women who get this type of depression. I went to my intermist and he made a pass at
Nicholas von Hoffman
had broken up when her husband married an 18-year-old Miss Doodles.
"I was a basket case," Sandy says of that period of her life. "One day I was afraid I was going to die and another day I was afraid I wasn't going to die... I stayed in bed for a year. I
me. To show you how low my ego was, I was flattered."
apart later. She, by her own estimate, is more fortunate than other women she knows who are in the same fix. Sandy can see no future for herself except money or low-paying, dead-end jobs.
Sandy (not her real name) is a casualty of the early 1950s, the Eisenhower years of togetherness and commercial domesticity. She was born to marry too soon, have too many children and see their lives fall
She points out that, although she gave up a career to get married and put in her whole adult life being a wife, mother and housekeeper, she isn't eligible for Social Security and she now has no readily available job that allows her. Most tangible assets are what she and her ex-husband may realize on a partial equity from the sale of their suburban salt level.
A woman of throat-voiced vitality, Sandy says, "happen to be lucky. I am still good-looking in spite of having five children and I've got my confidence back."
"Lacky" is the word to. In the course of coming out of what she refers to as her trauma, Sandy went through a number of shrinks
At length she lucked into a miraculous young shrink who understood it was her life situation that kept her in a state of mad lethargic depression. He actually made house calls, got medical care and helped her to deal with her unloving children.
who she says were crazier than she and who did nothing for her but give her pills. "I 'want physically activated but I panicked if I didn't have them in the house."
They were reared in the ambiance of Dr. Spock, the Little League and slumber parties, and it turned out that Sandy rues every one of the 20,000 dipens calculated that she had washed.
Griff and the Unicorn
By Sokoloff
Long is an outraged man. He said that the IRS, as a matter of policy, challenges many individual and small business returns, "not because there is a question of them being wrong but simply to obtain additional funds for the IRS."
The oldest son, an unfocused 21 year old, does nothing. After repeated attempts to drive him from the house, she changed the locks on the doors. He still comes around for money. Another son was sent to his father in hope he would come home and help him from becoming a drug addict. Sandy says that one of her daughters is a slob who spends her days washing her hair, cooking, eating what she cooks and never cleaning up after herself; a second daughter went to see her father on a holiday and he kept her. She has disappeared and hasn't been seen by mother with one grade-school child upon whom she still dates, but you get the feeling that one day that child tow will fall Sandy.
The two of them go on together, while Sandy picks her way through the leaver to the kitchen to her to be a procession of alcoholics, sexual impotents, women-haters, mama's boys and playful kiddos "who never held a job and mooch food," I mooch my booze and mooch food."
In doing so, he said, the IRS uses arbitrary interpretations of its rules and then attempts to deny the taxpayer access to those rules. It harasses, and perhaps even threatens jeopardy assessments, he said. That was so in his case. he added.
For the rest, Sandy is a member of one of those parents-withpartners clubs. She hopes she is of the last generation to get trapped by playing model American wife and mother.
Long, long slight and grazing at 56,
owns, rents or manages duplex
houses, most of which were built
in the 1970s so do so, he has set
up corporations
]
(C)
Washington Post-King Features Syndicate
As an officer in the corporations, he has for the past 12 months been a full-time financial month. In addition, he has been deducting such costs as insurance, telephone charges, education, financial publications and the like.
The IRS viewed two of these corporations as personal holding companies, and high taxes because they often are used, in the words of an IRS spokesman, "as incorporated poketbooks," mainly by the
Long said that in restating his tax return, IRS agents had reduced his wages to $150 a month and had denied him many complaints. "In fact," he said, they threatened to seize his property if he didn't agree.
Concerning the threat of a jeopardy assessment, or seizure, the IRS said. "The last thing we try to ever do is set property, make account or things like that. We do it only as a last resort."
Amplification of the details must await a court case, but the basic dispute appears to center on Long's decision as head of the own salary and then use it as a deduction on his corporate taxes.
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