4
Thursday, February 1, 1973
University Daily Kansam
KANSAN comment
tatorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
An Honorable End
During the past four years, President Nixon has been the object of a considerable amount of vituperation concerning his handling of the Vietnam War. To believe some accounts of the President's actions would be to believe that the White House was occupied by Mephistopheles himself. The President has been asailed as being unethical, immoral and inhuman, but the pinnacle of this idiocy was reached during the past few weeks when my myopic colleagues leveled their vitriolic pens in assaults upon the President's conception of honor with respect to the December bombing of North Vietnam.
These assaults seem to be based on the conception that the United States can do no right and North Vietnam can do no wrong. This is ludicrous. The United States has made more progress in restraint in dealing with North Vietnam than could ever be deemed reasonable.
Bombing that small country brought her back to the negotiating table in Paris. The strong indications that President Nixon would not hesitate to escalate the war brought about the cease-fire.
During 13 days of around-the-clock attacks, more than 80 per cent of North Vietnam's electrical-power capacity was destroyed. Approximately 25 per cent of her petroleum and gasoline supply was wiped out. Virtually all military installation was hit at least once.
Her industrial capacity being systematically destroyed, Hanoi had
little choice but to return to the peace tables to negotiate seriously and sign a peace agreement. The armistice has been signed and the United States is now withdrawing her forces. Whether Saigon can cope with its new independence will depend on how much she values it.
Why wasn't this done years ago?
One, because delicate negotiations with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China had to be completed so that these allies of North Vietnam would help, rather than hinder, our attempts to disengage from this conflict. And, two, previous administrations had failed to accurately assess the determination of the North Vietnamese to win.
As it stands now, the United States and North Vietnam are on the threshold of a new era of productivity. President Nixon should be congratulated for holding his position when there was tremendous pressure from the public to abandon it. He has done a splendid job.
The purpose of bombing military installations in North Vietnam was to destroy the enemy's capacity to wage war, thus forcing his return to negotiations. President Nixon, being a careful, calculating man, weighed the possible courses of action and concluded that peace could not be accomplished through strength, but through the willingness to use it. The signatories of representatives of both the United States and North Vietnam stand as the proof that Nixon's actions were the correct ones.
John P. Bailey
Induction Ifs
On the heels of the signing of a Vietnam peace accord, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced that the military draft had ended. He said that the United States' announcement contained almost as many as ifs as did the peace accord.
Laird attributed the feasibility of ending the draft to reduced manpower needs in Indochina, and to a Defense Department evaluation that volunteers could man the military at an acceptable level.
My hope is that the Defense Department evaluation was correct. The termination of the draft, five months ahead of schedule, ends the uncertainty of thousands who are now in the lottery, and thousands of others who still hold 2-S deferments. In Kansas induction of an estimated 50 persons this year was canceled. The monumental lurp
But the ifs of the proposal still lurk in the background.
One if is the continuation of the lottery for men who turn 19 this year. Selective Service officials
announced that a stand-by lottery would be conducted. In case the draft is reinstated because of a lack of funds, it could be in the lottery could then be drafted.
A second if is the President's ability to reinstate the draft at any time under current law. In July Congress will vote to determine whether this presidential power will be renewed.
World conditions don't seem to warrant renewal, for the era of national emergencies, requiring instantaneous increases in the size and intensity of military forces by the President, has passed. Congress can act swiftly enough.
The end of the draft, even though tempered with its is still preferable to continuous induction and the uncertainty that accompanies it. A final end to the draft can be best guaranteed by avoidance of military commitment, such as our protracted commitment in Vietnam.
Steven Riel
WASHINGTON—Until the man got on the air and said the words, until he made the announcement that on the 19th hour of Jan. 27, the planes carrying him was a black, joking suspicion that he might have one more doublecross in him. He could have gotten on the tube to tell us North Vietnamese torpedo boats destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Part of it is him, Nikon. After what he and Henry Kissinger have done, there are some who retch at the notion that they should be thought of as peacemakers. It will take time for us to learn to moderate our feelings toward our officials. For the better part of a generation now, many millions of Americans have been taught anything connected with the White House, as war criminals.
He didn't, so take the peace and run. He said it is peace with honor, but by this time the rest of us know that peace is honor. Yet, for men who hate this war, the most the great and green fact that the war has stopped doesn't elicit joy. Partly this is so because after the blood bath of the last four years, relief and thankfulness are as happy an action as a same person can feel.
But more than that, for many who found war and the men who made it despicable, the smugness of the enemy that he was ending the war—must have been infuriating. In truth, he was forced out because he had next to nothing left to fight with. And if the enemy was sitting on a side, it once sidowed on top of us.
Nixon Forced from Vietnam
The Army had quit on him a couple of years ago. He claims he
Nicholas von Hoffman
This war should not vanish on us without it being written somewhere that the real American heroes were not the ones decorated by this government but the ones detested by it.
The last to crack is the Air Force. They're the moral robots, but they're not all the same -- don't kill anybody. All I do is read these little dials and put numbers in this little book." It finally got around. We had cash in their milts' wings.
in his speech the other night, when Nixon was thanking people for being patriotic and sacrificing, he didn't mention the doctors, the refusers, the defiers and the disobeyers served their country better than those of us who got drafted and went overseas and fought or who stayed home and paid our taxes. It also takes more guts. A man who was doctoral and a doctor who was courtmurdered for refusing an order to train Green Berets, as has much going for him as any POW. More, maybe, because when Levy went to his federal prison camp here in North Carolina States swearing he'd move heaven and earth to get him out. He was alone.
next came the fleet. Sabatage, race riots and desertion. The Pacific fleet was beginning to resemble the last days of the Imperial Russian Navy, with the carrier Kitty Hawk as the American version of the cruiser Potemkin. A seagoing Watts.
pulled half a million troops out—as though he had a choice. He had left them there, by now they would have been in an open state of opium addiction and naked mutiny.
Jack Anderson
WASHINGTON — America's most notorious hate-monger, Gerald L. K. Smith, was featured in the armed forces radio network.
For 50 years, the old rabble-rouser has been preaching hatred against Jews and blacks. However, his "Cross and Flag" largely unread, and his sermons have gone largely unheard.
Now the Pentagon has put him on its overseas network for two weeks, so he can listen to listeners to learn the moderator. Bill Bertenshaw, gave the address where listener could get Smith's literature no fewer than 20.
The old bigot watched his tongue on the military show. Instead of his usual hate-thy-neighbor doctrine, he told in saccharine tones how love would solve the world's woes.
Smith got on the armed forces network through the New Jersey Council of Churches, which had shown it called "Suggested Solutions." The council, apparently, was impressed with a "religious" complex that Smith built in Eureka Springs, Ark.
'Old Bigot'on Military Network
"Let's hope your words of wisdom are overheard by our congressmen," purred the moderator.
- WHEN JOHNNY COMBS MARBORG HOME AGAIN, HURRAB, HURRAB—"
This features a seven-story "Christ of the Ozars" shrine, a "Passion Play" and other Biblical attractions. On the show,
Smith boomed his projects as "the most visited Christian shrine in America" and "the holy Spirit and established these shrines."
His won't be the only investigation. Sen. Jacob Javits, R.N.Y., has learned about the broadcast and has demanded an explanation. And in New York the mayor is also asking Defense Secretary Melvin Laird "how come?"
He had broadcast the program over his own and the Voice of America, but it didn't suffice in samiters, he said, without monitoring it. "We will investigate this," the Broger promised. "It won't happen."
He neglected to mention that a federal road project to the shrine was blocked after the government discovered a weapon. Anti-Defamion League also has reported that his "Passion Play" is anti-Semitic.
Morton's Forked Tongue Documents taken from government files dispute Interior Secretary Rogers Morton's testimony the other day in praise of the Administration's efforts to
Armed forces radio director John Broger, an evangelical fundamentalist, was taken with the religious series and authorized it to be broadcast to the troops overseas. He told us, however, he was warned that the preacher had been included in the series.
But a memo from former Indian Commissioner Louis Bruce suggests a completely different story. "Despite the expenditure of $10 million, no memo," 40 per cent remain in the repositions.
boost Indian employment. He told Congress happily that the number of Indians in industrial sector is one of the recent years from 2000 to 2,500.
statement on Capitol Hill. Not only does the memo show that Indian unemployment is rising at a dangerous rate but also that the government is wasting money on Indian training programs.
The memo is dated October 17, scarcely two months before Morton made his reassuring
On one $3 million contract, for instance, the contractor pocketed a generous $198,000, ada-
tive to the contractor's $274,000 and taxes took $7,000.
Another wasteful project, intended to train Indian police, cost $104 per week for each trainee— almost twice the $3.85 per week
Jan. 29 I took my dog to my night Western Civilization class for protection because of incidents that have been occurring on campus. As I was entering my class in Fraser Hall, a junior teacher instructed the rules to have dogs in the building. Because many people take dogs to class, and I the dog went into the class, with the permission of my instructor. About 10 minutes later the campus police appeared and told me that I was to remove my dog immediately. But the police my dog would not wait for me outside (he is still fairly young and has a tendency to run off) and my class was about to begin.
it costs to train New York City trainees.
President Nixon's firing of top aides has stimulated not only growls but poetry. A "New 23rd Psalm" is now making the rounds of the sub-cabinet. It begins: "Nixon is my shepherd. I shall always want; He makes me happy." He leadeth me beside the still factories. He restores my doubts in the Republican Party . . .
Readers Respond
To the Editor:
Man's Best Friend Ousted
Ode to Nixon
The marchers, the protesters that rabble, they're the ones who served honorably. It will be a long time before you hear anyone else speak to them, and they will continue to repeat that the Movement had no effect on them, that while the peacenets marched they watched the Washington Redskins, but don't you believe it. They were peeking through the curtains.
I asked if the rules could be waived in this instance. The officer was adamant and insisted the dog would have to go. Fortunately a classmate offered to bring my dog home at that time, and consequently the class had to wait for us and stav longer.
Copyright, 1973 hy United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
The officer also suggested that I use the escort service. Although I have nothing against it and think it is a good idea, if the weather is nice at night, I enjoy walking.
Likewise, the late-joinning,
more conventional anti-war sorts
will say that it was your Eugene
McCarthys and George
McGoverns who made the dife-
ference. McCarthy lent the
Movement respectability, is how
the thought is usually phrased.
In this case, the word arround.
The only respectability
in politics is power, and men like
McCarthy got it by hitching on to
the peace movement.
I asked the officer why all dogs weren't ordered to leave. The excuse that was given to me was that our coaches could not check every building they visit a dog to class, he is responsible for what that dog does. So long as
Nothing wrong with that so long as some of us remember that you don't need a U.S. Senator or any sort of official approval to work political miracles. The peace movement showed the power of government even in the bloody foam of a war frenzy.
the instructor does not object and the dog does not disrupt the class, it should be permissible to bring him.
That may be the only useful lesson Vietnam has to teach. Certainly there are millions of us who will be just as marked by it
I do not understand why the law is enforced only part of the time, and if it actually is a law, it will be made up of the time or not at all. Not that many people would bring their dogs to class if it was "officially" permissible on campus or on campus police are, I would think that they would encourage people to take dogs to night classes. If someone has a better suggestion, and a woman of women of this campus in on it.
Karen B. Purre
Lawrence Sophomore
as men like Nixon were marked by Munich and appeasement. Vietnam has gone on for so long that we have come to regard the war there as a species of normality. The thought of an American peace is almost impossible, and the life of people whose adult lives have been taken up with the fury and weeping of Vietnam. How much easier it is for them to see "another Vietnam" everywhere
than for the Nixon crowd to be seeing new Munichs.
A better moral to extract is that as long as you have your A. J. Mustes, your Dave Dellings, Paul Goodmans, Martin Luther Kings, joan Beazes, and all the rest on the enlistment registers of the government can make war, but finally, we can make peace.
(C)
Washington Post-King Features Syndicate
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Kansan Telephone Numbers
Newroom-UN-4 4810
Business Office-UN-4 4338
An All-American college newspaper
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays. Two annual periodicals published: *Aquatic Biology* and *Second Chance Law*. Second chance law published at Lawrence, Kan. 60044. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily indicative of the University.
NEWS STAFF
News Advisor . . . Suanne Shaw
BUSINESS STAFF
Joyce Neerman
Sally Carlson
BUSINESS STAFF Business Advisor . Mel Adams
business Manager Carol Dirks
assistant Business Manager Chuck Goodwell
Chosen was a peninsula straddled by the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, jutting from the Asian mainland. The country bordered China and Russia on the north and was but 100 miles from Japan across the Korean Strait. Mountainous in relief, the small country had brief experiences of flood or drought. Its location between China, Russia and Japan, the three major powers of Asia, made it a likely target for imperialism.
Korea's belated introduction to the world was a fitting one. For centuries Korea had been an unwilling participant in belligerence. Before the birth of Christ, China forcibly annexed Korea. In the centuries that followed China and Japan fought for possession of the country. The Sino-Japanese War in 1894 was a result. Russia joined this tug-of-war in the 19th century, and in 1904 the designs of Russia and Japan on Korea precipitated the Russo-Japanese War. Japan defeated Russia and Korea became the spoils of war. From 1910 until 1945, Korea was a territory of Japan, named Chosen by the conquerors.
When five years had elapsed, instead of union of the two sectors of Korea, separation was a fact. The southern zone, South Korea, was headed by the right-wing nationalist Syngman Rhee. The northern zone, North Korea, was headed by the Soviet-trained Communist, Kim II顺序 sovereignty over the entirety of Korea and each remained uncompromising on a settlement of the separation.
The release from Japanese domination that accompanied an Allied victory in World War II did not bring peace to Korea. To the contrary, peace stopped at the Korean borders. The United States and the Soviet Union shared joint trusteeship of Korea at the end of the war, a trusteeship that was designed to last for a maximum of five years. But trusteeship by the two nations only served to generate a schism between the northern and southern zones of occupation.
The border between the North and South had been arbitrarily drawn along the 38th parallel at the conclusion of World War II. Korea was divided almost in half in the trusteeship agreement. The partition established an artificial division of the Korean economy. There were two-thirds of the population and most of the arable land in the country. The North, on the other hand, contained most Korean industry. Steel factories and hydroelectric plants built by the
Korea, Like Vietnam, Bears Scars of Continuing Conflict
Bv STEVEN RIEL
Until 1950 Korea was cloaked in anonymity, a small Asian country out of sight and mind. But in 1950 war came and U.S. troops were rushed to Korea to avert a Communist takeover. Soon Korea lingered on American lips and came into American homes each day with the newspaper. Like Belleau Wood, Saipan and Corregidor before, and, later, Viteman, Korea captured attention as a battlefield.
Japanese were concentrated in the North, which also contained the predominance of the country's natural resources. Timber, mineral deposits and hydroelectric power, abundant in the North, were relatively scarce in South Korea. At the same time, only one-fourth of the railroad mileage in the country was in North Korea.
Because of partition, both halves of the country have suffered. South Korea's economy has incurred huge trade deficits because it has been forced to import large quantities of manufactured products. The North has been hard-pressed to raise enough food for its 15 million people.
But partition was destined to have more dire consequences than economic problems. On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded the South. Each country had been an armed camp for some time, as if in foreknowledge of things to come. In the bitter and bloody war begun in June both South and North Korea were devastated. The South and North were alternately overrun by opposing armies. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, changed hands three times in the fighting. When an uneasy cease-fire ended the conflict, virtually every town, village and city in both countries had been destroyed.
The cease-fire brought little peace to the country. Since large-scale hostilities ceased in 1953, conflict, on a lesser scale, has plagued Korea. The North has continually sent its agents into the South to foment violence. Several groups of the infiltrators have been captured in assassination attempts on Chung Hee Park, South Korean president since 1962. Park also has faced difficulty from internal sources. Student riots, which forced Syngman Rhee to flee into exile in 1960, have been a continuing problem in the South. Park and Rhee before him adopted near-dictatorial policies, leading to office in South Korea. Park declared martial law in the South in 1964 when particularly severe roiding accompanied Korean negotiations for a return to normal relations with Japan. Martial law was declared again in late 1972 pending the revision of the South Korean constitution and reunification talks with North Korea. Park has relentlessly crushed his opposition in the South and has consistently increased the power of his office.
The Korean reunification talks offer hope for the people of Korea. If reunification becomes a reality, the Koreans, for the first time in their recent history, may enjoy a degree of peace that has eluded them for so long. Success of the talks seems to be problematic for the time being, given the history of disagreement between the two halves of the country. Pending progress toward unification among others, when they hear the name Korea, will remember the bloody events of the early 1950s that brought Korea to the world's attention. They may also wonder why such a conflict-ridden country should have borne the name Chosen.