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Wednesday, May 1, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Vern's Biased Politics
"I have a prejudice against marijuana just as I have a prejudice against liquor." Atty. Gen. Vern Miller told a journalism class at the University of Kansas last week. "There's no way I'm going to change my thinking about that."
It's possible that Miller, hero of law and order and scourge of petty crime, didn't know what he was saying. Certainly the audience of journalists could appreciate the essential impossibility of pure objectivity. But for the attorney general, and possibly future governor, to admit that he had a prejudice ("preconceived and unreasonable judgment or opinion held in disregard of facts that contradict it") concerning public issues was a telling slip that revealed the bias of his brand of politics.
But the man has an aura of self- assurance and seems quite cocky about his role of villain for a minority of people. He greeted his audience with, "It's good to be back in Lawrence during the daylight," and concluded with, "If a guy is going to blow his mind, that's his business. But if he gets caught, it's mine."
Miller and his defenders have often hidden behind the smoke
screen of declarations about the equal enforcement of whatever laws are on the books. The presumption is that Miller has a kind of omniscient detachment and does not make the laws, but simply enforces them. The defenders would argue, "Don't blame Vern for enforcing the laws, blame the legislature for passing them."
But, as Governor, Miller would certainly be forced to abandon the policeman's role and make judgments about the advisability of legislation. Even now as attorney general, Miller admitted that he is often as involved with legislation as the Governor's office. Thus, Miller is partly responsible for the existence and quality of laws and should be held accountable for them.
Miller's dedication is undeniable.
"I have a strong feeling about doing whatever needs to be done," he said. "If as Governor, Kansas needs me to jump out of a trunk, you'll find me in a trunk."
If he is to succeed as Governor, however, Miller would need to demonstrate that he is more than just an honest and hardworking cop. His admission of prejudice connected with public issues, such as liquor-by-the-drink, will not help him.
Bill Gibson
Reader Responds
Israeli Fears Another War
To the Editor:
“In a business-like atmosphere.”That was Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko's answer to the question about why he didn't appoint secretary of State Henry Kissinger had gone.
And that's the way I, as an Israelian, feel. All Israelis were and still are very thankful to our only supporter (with the exception of America)—the United States of America.
Last October's war showed us that even though Israel just celebrated our 26th anniversary, we are still very dependent on the United States. The war not only showed us what we lost, but it declared aim of the Arabs to erase the dust on the globe otherwise known as Israel.
I don't think anyone doubts Israel's desire for peace or the will of the Arabs to "solve" the problem. I hate to be pessimistic, but even Egypt's President Sadat declared after the disengagement along the Suez that peace with Israel was only a cease-fire.
What I'm afraid of is the idea of the "business-like atmosphere" which will lead to disaster for Israel. How can we be sure to prevent this from happening from the disengagement? For Kissinger, the goal is an improvement in the relationship between the United States and the leading Arab nation, Egypt, and for Israel to be able to win the goal is the first step to the next war.
Raphael Goldman Tel Aviv freshman
Means to Restrain Nixon Offered
(Les Aspin is a Democratic Congressman from Wisconsin.)
By LES ASPIN
The Los Angeles Times
In the months between impeachment by the House and conviction or acquittal by the Senate, the conduct of our country's foreign policy has raised some particularly nettleless problems.
based on what has already happened—President Richard Nixon's apparent exaggeration of the seriousness of the October crisis, Leonid Brezhnev's visit last year during the Watergate hearings and most recently, Nixon's use of a trip to George Pompioni's funeral to conduct what many saw as a rally for himself—there can be no more impetuous political pillar than an unequivocal impeachment politics. The only real question is how far Nixon will go when he is really up against an impeachment trial.
What will happen during an impeachment trial if Nixon creates an international crisis in order to rally public support for himself? Or worse, what happens if we really do have a confrontation with the Soviet Union, and when Nixon announces it to the nation
one believes him? One possible solution to this very real problem is a concurrent resolution introduced in the House of Representatives not long ago. The president, after an official and regular briefings on the international situation by the secretary of defense, secretary of state and director of the White House, also calls for the leaders of both houses of Congress.
If congressional leaders were kept informed almost daily of developing political and military problems around the world, it would be, first of all, unlikely that the President would be able to create or exaggerate an international crisis for his own benefit. It is also true that no leader of Congress, if he had the full story, would abide by a duty to misjudge or underestimate a true international emergency.
This same approach might be taken with some other problems related to national security that might arise between impeachment and the Senate vote. One can argue that it would not that will be on Nixon during the impeachment trial to conclude a strategic
Therefore, I have authored a second concurrent resolution asking Nixon not to sign any treaties for executive agreements and have called for more of the eventuality. A third resolution, asking the President not to make or receive state visits during this period, might also work to keep Nixon from jetting off to Israel if it was necessary to force the sanctions, who would naturally
arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union. Such a feat would guarantee several weeks of favorable publicity for the President, not to mention the fulsome praise of his statesmanship by Russian leaders.
The only problem, as a number of conservative senators have pointed out, is that the Russians may take advantage of the President's predicament to negotiate an agreement with the United States. Even if a SALT agreement concluded during the trial were the best one imaginable for our country, it isn't hard to imagine how easy it would be for those who are opposed to any arms limitation agreement to underwrite public confidence in it.
be reluctant to try anyone in absentia,
virtually to close up shop.
At a press conference the morning these resolutions were introduced, a reporter was sent with three resolutions, at least, couldn't be constitutional. After all, how can Congress order a president, who hasn't yet been sworn in, to take on or sign treaties or executive agreements?
I am afraid I did nothing to allay his fears when I answered, "Yes, if they were laws, they would be." The point I was trying to make was that concurrent resolutions aren't laws—they express the 'sense of law' and give it to people susceptible to that charge. Concurrent resolutions (as opposed to joint resolutions) aren't legally binding, merely advisory.
Then, to take the other objection I have heard most frequently, why bother at all? If concurrent resolutions aren't legally binding, then it's not true that in this case they can do a great deal.
A president on trial by the Senate would be understandably reluctant to contravene the expressed will of Congress. Nixon would, of course, be free to sign all the agreements he desired or to travel underpants, but he would do so, considerable risk. When you are on trial you don't go out of your way to annoy the jury.
A concurrent resolution steers a course between the wishfulness of waiting for voluntary action by the President—such as stepping aside temporarily as Nixon might do under the 25th Amendment—and the possible unconstitutionality of statutory restrainance. Although I don't suppose that the president would be willing to our national security problems during impeachment, I do think they suggest a method that is worth some discussion.
It is important to realize that Mr. Nixon himself established a precedent for a moratorium on diplomatic activities, immediately after the 1968 election, and he did not allow Johnson to not attend any summit meetings or sign any treaties for the remainder of his term in office. Nixon, was, of course, correct in making this request. The tempations on the outgoing president to sign a history-making treaty were considerable—although they are nowhere near as severe as those by bering down harder each day on Nixon.
Congress would now be remiss if it didn't hold Nick to the same standards of forbearance that he urged upon his predecessor.
Media Blamed for Crime Upsurge
By RONALD GOLFARB
Special to the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
in the early 1960s, combustible, social conditions in the ghettos of the nation's cities exploded into major race riots. To the extent that the police and riot detonated the latent, provocative conditions in other cities can never be demonstrated. But the lingering fear of this possibility must have plagued the consciences of many cities in the United States of one major city's largest news told
High College Costs Hard to Meet
The Los Angeles Times
By DONALD BREMNER
How much money can you afford to send to send your children to college?
Well, if you're in the $15,000 a year bracket, around $1,760 a year for each of those two kids who will be at a campus next year. And if you really reaking it in at the $3,000 a year, you should be able to spare about $3,000 a year—or $7,000 a year for the pair.
Who says so? Who seriously thinks that with family living expenses zooming the way they are these days, you can pay out that kind of money without having to hock the family jewels and subsist on bread and water?
The computer does. Or the people who run the computer. It's all there in a pretty red, white and blue booklet called, "Meeting College Costs in 1974-75: A Guide for Students." The cost is the College Scholarship Service (CSS) of the College Entrance Examination Board.
If you're able to solve your 1040 income tax return, you should be able to follow the steps in the eight-page book, crank your family's income and other financial facts into the formula ad come up with the figure for the "parents' expected contribution."
That's the figure that tells you, in effect,
whether to expect any student as for your class.
It's no secret that thousands of middle-
class Americans think those figures for
“parents” expected contribution” are outandaway high.
"The system is an attempt to measure a family's total financial strength," says James R. Sanderson, Assistant Director of the western regional office in Palo Alto, Calif., at Entrance Examination Board, a nonprofit organization of colleges and universities.
"Since the amount we expect a family to contribute is a blend of income and assets, it's hard to say how they might come up with the money.
In other words, you're not expected to sell your house to raise money for college, but you might well be expected to take out a second mortgage on it, or to borrow money some other way in order to meet your share before you can qualify for scholarships or other student aid allocated on the basis of need.
Many schools follow federal guidelines to determine where the student is truly in grade level.
—the student cannot live more than 14 days during the year with his parents. (Some colleges consider the student meets certain standards and pays his parents fully for room and board.)
Is there any way to get scholarship aid, even with high family income?
- The parents cannot have claimed the student as an income tax deduction for the preceding calendar year, or the year in which he student enrolls.
Yes, some schools offer what they call no need scholarships to students with outstanding academic qualities, or special talent in music, athletics or other fields.
But beyond that is the trend toward independence from their parents by some college-age young people. Establishing and documenting this independence can mean a shift in the financial foot and may be eligible for scholarship aid or loans despite his parents' wealth.
One aid officer at an independent college in the Los Angeles area said only a few there sought independence, while at the University of California at Berkeley, an aid officer said fully 50 per cent of students had financial independence from their parents.
—The parents contribute no more than $600 a year to the student's expenses.
Another way middle-income families could get financing for college costs would be through a national program of loans, with repayment spread over the student's earning life, and geared to his income, say two per cent of his earnings over 25 years.
Suggested by economist Milton Friedman nearly 20 years ago, this sort of scheme for deferring college costs has attracted some support, but has not generally caught on, although Yale has a version of it. But if college costs continue to climb, it could look better and better to hard-pressed middle-income families.
by Sokoloff
Griff and the Unicorn
one that he and his colleagues decided during those touchy times to suppress reporting that the city fathers had developed a contingency plan for a potential race riot. The fear was that the news of this fact led to a surge in the realty which they hoped to avoid.
The problem of "trendy" crime being triggered by its own publicity seems to arise particularly with unusual crimes. About 10 years ago, for example, someone killed a group of student nurses in Illinois. The suspects were arrested and the event. So thereafter, the national news reported that someone in Texas climbed a tower and indiscriminately shot down students at random. One suspects, from examples like this, that there is a suggestiveness impaired in news coverage of crime and spurs twisted minds to action.
dependence, the insatable public curiosity about crime news, especially news of bizarre and unusual kinds of crime, and the positive aspects of much crime news coverage, the fear remains that certain types of reporting encourage, encourage and challenge the decision-makers of the media to consider what the newsworld is to do about this.
media exposure of its infamous pranks with the Heart family.
When an assassin shot down the country's popular young President, the world stopped, shocked by the event and awed by the media's unraveling of the macabre story. Then followed a bloody era in which Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed and George Wallace was wound. A second assassination attempt on assassination was something I assumed was from another age or place; now it is a macabre part of our political process.
Some observers are calling for strong measures to deal with this growing and frightening problem. California editors were quoted recently as saying that they are working on a bill to the Hearst kidnappers and weren't going to publish everything sent to them thereafter. Would vogush crime end if a federal law was passed for bidding news reporting of potential killings? Or would the lawsuit survive the protective shield of the First Amendment? Should there be serious sentences—capital punishment, perhaps when anyone accompanies acts of violence in order to protect children?
the latest escapade includes kidnappings, ransoms and pausedpolitical demands by dangerous extremist groups of the right and left. Within one month the Symbionex Liberation Army has been catapulted from obscurity to national notoriety through
One wonders about the role and responsibility of the media in all this—is a criminogenic function being filled by the national media coverage of these dramatic events. You can argue that television to do not say a word about extraordinary events which are of wide and natural interest to the public? The media could keep quiet in these cases as it did for awhile with the recent Mexican kudaping, a fundamental job of reporting the news?
It is the press so big and powerful now that it must meet public responsibilities and publish everyone's ideas. Even if the media do not want to be likely that some unidentified crackpot was being inspired and might try for his moment in the spotlight of national news—should editors and commentators play God and pretend to suppress extraordinary news?
What about the positive aspects of crime news, the other side of the same issue? The Hearts corresponded with their daughter's captors through the media and wouldn't have wanted to be preempted from this contact, I am sure. In the Reg Murphy kidnap recently, it was clear that the kidnaper want to see and hear about his escape on the television show. How much did it affect the exposure he wanted? Might it have moved him to more precipitous acts to get the attention he wanted?
Despite the obvious need for media in-
I recommend immediate congressional hearings on this subject, at which time good and careful minds could address this problem. Careful public consideration of the subject could be edifying: the public airing itself might serve as something of a lesson in civic responsibility and conflicts of media administrators facing this problem also could be presented.
As the media becomes larger and more pervasive and people become more aware of this problem, this问题 isn't likely to go away. Without some attention, it is likely to get worse.
Military Double Standards Remain
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Was this a story for me—a mini expose? I decided not. To blow the whistle on such rule-bending would be a one-day sensation in some papers, but the practice would—and perhaps properly should—resume after the publicity had gone by, with the carrier crews, I would be a bastard and could expect no further camaraderie.
The U.S. Navy is officially "dry," as opposed to, say, the British Navy, where sailors get a tot of rum and officers tipple in the wardroom. But no one raised hell about the "brown shoe" fiers partying on evenings before a nonfalty day. I was told that all carriers could be "wet" in flight quarters on such occasions.
BANGKOK—As a reporter 21 years ago, I was on a U.S. aircraft carrier off the coast of Korea while the Korean conflict was in progress. On "replenishing days," the carrier was out of action as supply ships came alongside and put aboard new stocks of fuel, bombs and food. Naturally, no planes were landing or taking off.
By JACK FOLSIE The Los Angeles Times
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So the night before replenishing, the fliers ("brown-shoe Navy," they called themselves) three quilt parties in their cabins, modest amounts of boze were consumed.
destroyer about 1,000 yards off the carrier's beam a sailor had been court-martialled and given a dishonorable discharge—for having smuggled a can of beer aboard during the warships' last liberty stop in Hong Kong. I checked out his diary, and the Navy informed me.
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That, it seemed to me, made the "replenishing eve" party a valid story. Brown-shoe Navy could drink, but a destroyer crewman—black-shoe Navy—couldn't. A double standard in military justice.
What brings these incidents to mind is the presence in Thailand today of another case of a double standard. Not quite as vivid but, in my judgment, worth reporting.
It concerns use of military post exchanges. Technically, only American military and government civilians—and their dependents—are allowed PX to engage in such transactions deemed necessary by the American embassy and military command here to "insure the continued good relations with the host government," some high-ranking Areas are given liberal—but not generous privileges to shop in the American PX.
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So far, no story. Sugaring all allies is a well-established military and diplomatic
But at the same time that the U.S. establishment is bending regulations to accommodate Thai generals and colonels, the Thai wife of an AmericanGI is subject to harassment at the PX checkpoint point. She is asked by a Military Policeman why she has bought, for example, 12 wash cloths. If she understands his question and replies with patience, she may donate (much as an American might donate to a church sale), the MP is likely to smile derisively, make her sign some forms and send her on her way with a warning.
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