Wednesday, March 6, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Success and Scandal
Success and corruption have often gone hand in hand in the arena of high level politics. Watergate is one example. Another example may be found closer to home.
The most successful Democratic political career in the history of Kansas will come to an end when Robert B. Docking steps down at the close of his fourth term as governor.
Docking's announcement Saturday night to retire from politics seemed to come as a surprise to many Kansas Democrats. It also put an end to speculation that Docking would run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Bob Dole.
The governor said his decision was in the interests of his family. Undoubtedly the indictment of his brother George Richard ("Dick") Docking by the Shawnee County Grand Jury could be considered a family affair. On a side and the governor's campaign treasurer since 1966. The indictment alleges that he participated in a conspiracy to commit bribery. The governor's former appointment secretary,
Richard Malloy, is under indictment for the same charge.
In addition, 23 architects and members of architectural firms have been indicted in connection with the alleged conspiracy that concerned the awarding of a $55 million contract for the expansion of the KU Medical Center. The court also awarded a reward return for $30,000 of campaign pledges for Docking's 1972 re-election.
Although Docking denied any knowledge of the so-called conspiracy, the charges tend to place his administration in a poor light. How would he be to knowledge of what would certainly use him to be in a worse position.
As things stand now, Docking's decision for retirement will help to quell talk of political scandals in Kansas. His is the wise move of a man who has been a party leader for many years.
Now, if the national leader of the other political party would only take heed and follow suit, there will be a real integration of integrity within our political system.
—Linda Doherty
By ERNEST CONINE
The Los Angeles Times
Kissinger, Nixon Need Victories But Rush to Detente Threatens U.S.
The situation is remarkable. In its utimate implications, it is also deeply intricate.
On the one hand there is Richard M. Nixon, a lonely and discredited president, hostile to the people he peachment. On the other hand there is Henry A. Kissinger, his secretary of state—a maker of miracles and, according to the oil, the most admired man in America.
Some of the domestic proposals that the President has submitted to congress have real merit. His blueprint for a national policy on immigration is it patently obvious, however, that no domestic program, however well conceived, is going to recapture the hearts of the American people or assure him of a degree of security. He thrown too dark a shadow. And, Watergate aside, a democratic congress would not allow him to chalk up that kind of triumph.
Kissinger is, in fact, the only success symbol in an administration tarred by failure; his foreign policy achievements are no less than what has going for him. Herein comes the rub.
Whenever you pick up a newspaper or turn on a TV set, Kissinger seems to be getting on or off an airplane—in Cairo, Jerusalem, Moscow, Mexico City, London, now Damascus. On the world stage, he comes as though the indispensable man, a businessman, knows how to squeeze positive results from the most unpromising situations.
No. If Nixon is to have any chance of
Free Food Inexpensive for Needy; It Costs Them Only Their Dignity
WASHINGTON—If they proved anything in California two weeks ago, it is that don’t do to be an unlittle welfare bureaucrat. Those who seek only to serve, for the most altruistic reasons, sometimes wind up with such damage as the most callous bureaural.
No doubt some of those who were involved in the distribution of food purchased with money paid to ransom Patricia Heiser also were among those who provided organisation is dignity-destroying welfare systems.
By WILLLLIAM RASPBERRY
It was disgusting in the first place that there should have been Americans hungry enough and hopeless enough that they would submit to such animalistic treatment.
Yet, there they were, tossing food packages into clamoring crowds, as though they were slopping so many hogs. It was as disgusting a scene as you'll likely see on news in a long, long time. And hardly less disgusting because it was largely inevitable.
It was disgusting that the food distributors had so little regard for the people they allegedly sought to help that they quickly assumed a posture of superiority, a posture from which they were dealt not with people but with “the poor.”
It was disgusting that the poor people themselves so willingly assumed the other side of their story.
permitting themselves to be treated like— nothing.
And yet who couldn't have predicted it all? Only those who suppose that what is wrong with the welfare system is the heartlessness of its agents, the inefficiency of its delivery system or the amount of its largesse.
What they showed us is that feeling sorry for people really doesn't help them very well. They are not going to have a biobase Liberation Army may have genuine concern for the plight of the poor. But it seems never to have occurred to them that they are always at fault, rather than in cash is in itself an indictment.
It says that the donors know better than the recipients what the recipients need. That is what we say when we make people understand that our donations stamp or public housing. We make sure that they don't fritter our charity away on something we think they shouldn't have—just as we sometimes buy a bum a sandwich or him the 30 cents to buy what he wants.
They showed us something else that we should have learned by now: that if you treat people like animals, they tend to behave like animals. The prisons are full of the evidence of that truth, and so were the streets of the bay area last weekend.
There were some pitiful attempts to recoup some measure of dignity from the fiasco. Several of those who had waited for the free food chose to vent their anger and
disgust by flinging the food back at the distributors. One man annoyed me greatly with his loud complaint that he had "been standing here three hours." But then he said, "Don't you like it when he had carried whatever he was to get, so he wouldn't have to think of himself as a burn. It was tragic and heartening and disgusting to see, on television, a crowd of people trying to figure out just how much of people they should trade for a couple of meals.
I remembered when I was a small boy in Mississippi, and a white man, for laughs, threw a handful of coins among my playmates and me. I picked up a nickel, realized what was happening and didn't know what to do. To keep it would complete the indigency, to throw it down the stairs, or to put them on the ground and I didn't have the nerve to throw it back at the animal who had thrown it in the first place.
Their ransom demands triggered a process that almost inevitably led to what they saw on TV. The big hurdle is the first one to be overcome, and the man purchased with another man's anguish.
It occurred to me that maybe if I multiplied my remembered indigently by a factor of a few hundred, I might close some windows and see what news two weeks ago should have felt.
It also occurred to me to wonder what members of the Symbionee Liberation Committee were involved.
redemption, he must be able to claim greatness in the area of foreign policy. He should have to have scored a historic breakthrough in U.S. relations with China, that it laid the foundations for genuine detente with the Soviet Union and helped achieve the goal of ending the nuclear arms race.
Unfortunately for both the President and the country, this idyllic picture of U.S. Soviet relations is threatening to come unraveled.
But see no evil, hear no evil. Nixon simply cannot afford to admit that he and Kissinger may have been bad. Neither, for that matter, can Kissinger.
the appearance of a new step forward in detente and arms control, even if he has to
Now Nixon is planning to go to Moscow again. Even the most stupid Kremlin politician is aware that the American president is aware that Russia is trying banded—that he simply must take home
A president in such a precarious position has no business going to Moscow at all. His vulnerability to Soviet manipulation is simply too great.
But what about Kissinger? He is a smart man, with his head screwed on straight. Surely he can be depended on to dissuade the President from striking superficially attractive but dangerous deals in order to make himself look good at home. Or can be?
The danger is that Kissinger will become a captive of his own success, just as Nixon is to Donald Trump. He'll never be able to keep his sword in place.
UCLA basketball team that won 88 games in a row, Kissinger cannot sustain a setback without people cluck-clucking that he is on a path to history's greatest diplomatists, after all.
He is no more anxious than Nixon, no judges, to concede that Soviet interest in detente may have been a sham. He, too, has a vested interest in the appearance of new successes. It doesn't seem that he has the authority to prevent a prudent point and tell the President that he cannot cross it without lifting the balance of power dangerously in favor of Moscow.
In short, Nixon is down and Kissinger is up, but they share a common interest in making people believe that the world is a bigger piece than it really is. That is good news to the man in the Kremlin, but of worrisome consequence to the American people.
Senator's Report
1974 Session Poor for Consumer
This is the last of a series on the 1974 session of the Kansas Legislature by State Sen. Paul Hess, R-Wichita. Hess is a law student at the University of Kansas.
A great amount of legislation has been considered by the legislature this year. New issues arose and old issues surfaced for debate by both houses.
One new act under consideration is House Bill 1898, the Motor Vehicle Inspection Act. It does not comply in response to the Federal Highway Safety Act, and does not comply with the provisions of the Federal act, Federal Highway funds exceeding $8 million dollars will be lost by the state.
This inspection act allows the superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol to grant permits for the operation of motor vehicles on public roads. The permit would pay a $25 fee and have the necessary
equipment and competent personnel for these inspections. These permits will be renewed yearly. If an inspection station has reworked, that station can request a hearing.
These stations will inspect braking, suspension and steering systems, tire conditions and all other equipment already installed on the vehicle. You receive an official certificate of approval.
If the inspection finds that repairs are warranted, they need not be corrected at the station that did the inspection. However, if the owner or operator decides not to have repairs or adjustments made, an official rejection certificate will be issued, in accordance with the manufacturer's adjustments or equipment needed for that vehicle to receive a certificate of approval.
The owner has 30 days to make repairs or correct defects. Any violation will be a
Countries Differ on Approach to Terrorism
By JULIAN HARTT
The Los Angeles Times
The cancer of political kidnapping—increasingly epidemic worldwide—finally has fastened itself upon the body politic of the United States, as a collection of newspaper heirs Patricia Hoeffler.
In Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, millions upon millions of dollars have been extorted—in cash, food, tools, school supplies, medicines, ambulances and scores of prisoners have been arrested, than a dozen American diplomats and foreign overseas have been kidnap victims of terrorists. Four have been executed.
"Spot" inspections can still be conducted by members of the highway patrol. If a vehicle does not meet inspection requirements, the owner will have 30 days to repair or inspect the vehicle and document a law enforcement officer that the vehicle meets inspection requirements.
Even so, in an era of terrorism made more proficient by jet-electron-age weapons, it would be difficult to proach upon which all governments agree. Government response to terrorism ranges from total capitulation to unyielding defenses. Some switch from the former extreme to the latter.
At the height of terrorists' success, up to December, 1970, they kidnapped the U.S.
Since March, 1965, Brazilian terrorists have killed 102 persons, most of them from guerrilla groups. The guerrillas struck at will, lattening military posts, stealing millions for their operations, moving the battleshed from the countryside and blacking several Brazilian airliners.
Mexico is an example. When U.S. Consul General Terrance G. Leonhardy was abducted in Guadalajara last May, President Luis Echeverria Alvarez approved payment of ransom, release of 30 political prisoners and the grant of a revolutionary manifold*. But later in the year when guerrillas captured a British consul and a businessman, the government refused all demands. The Briton was accused but the businessman was not.
Any law enforcement officer who makes an investigation of an accident can order that a vehicle involved in an accident shall be escorted and can again be operated on state highways.
The "Brazilian System," as it has been termed by other police agencies, reflects a shift in policy.
Class A mademeaner. After corrections are made, the vehicle must be reshipped by a qualified person.
West German and Swiss ambassadors, and the Japanese consul general in Sao Paulo; they forced the government to give them a brief speech on broadcast terrorist bulletins on radio and TV and to empty jails. But then their titalier leader was killed in an ambush, and the apparent brains of their movement, a French military officer of a heart attack while resisting arrest."
The United States, in the Leonhard case in Mexico, followed its basic policy of not
More important than the cabinet-level machinery is the working committee set up under the direction of Ambassador Lewis Hofferck. It includes representations of all departments or agencies concerned, meets every two weeks and forms an around-the-clock task force in the event of an abrupt closure by a abdication, facilitate a solution—and snort swiftly against the perpetrator after a crisis is resolved.
There hasn't been a political kidnapping in Brazil in three years. Airliner hijackings are nonexistent but that count, one man is nonexistent for 24 years; his girl companion, 18 years.
The change came when Brazil's military-led government gave itself power to take any action considered necessary, made it easier for the army to deny habesha corpus and tried those charged in military courts. Scores were indicted, but not all were noughtily questionable in other nations.
Japan, where contemporary terrorism is relatively recent, applies a flexible response. Cash to meet ransom demands is assembled, high-ranking government figures offer themselves as replacement for large numbers of passengers in hijackings and quiesciate prepare for any chance to seize the terrorists without harming the hostages.
Like the United States, the Japanese police, transport and foreign ministries and the airlines have set up an "airport security council" which meets regularly. When an incident occurs, the common strategy is to uphold upon and decisions can be made quickly.
Britain is such a country, where, plagued by the internal terrorism of the Irish as well as foreign threats, the government still feels constrained to rely upon surveillance.
The issue of terrorism in general is dealt with in the United States through a cabinet committee chaired by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. It also includes the secretaries of Defense, Transportation, Justice, Treasury and heads of the FBI, CIA, U.S. Marshals and House domestic counsel and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Helsinki and Copenhagen airports, however, have no security at all, and Amsterdam is so lax that other countries are also rarely alert to planes arriving from there.
interfering with other governments if they wish to pay ransom. But it does not and will not pay for the release of hostages or for the payment of any debt so do everything else to get hostages back.
Griff and the Unicorn
Also, only vehicles with a valid certificate of approval can be registered or sold in the country.
legal search and interrogation without manhandling, in the British tradition.
The Italianse seem to have devised their own unique solution to the problem of terrorism, given in to it. Security in Italy is among the slackest in any nation. It has long been considered a key transit point for Palestinian guerrillas in Europe, and Rome is one of Israel's key listening posts abroad. The Israelis are believed to have tipped off an anti-aircraft weapon by anti-aircraft weapons looking for an El Aljetner at Funicino airport.
The ultimate handling of these five also stresses the matter of a terrorist's fate. They put a hand on the back of the bull, three skipped the country, the others still await trial. Two other Palestinians who planted a bomb on an airline earlier also were granted bail and presumably left the city.
Thus the disease spreads, with all the modern trappings—the 60-mile-an-hour getaway car of the Pretty Boy Floyd days or the 45-degree automatic weapons abound, anti-aircraft rockets are feared momentarily; technology has placed plastic explosives in terrorists' hands—and taken away the innocently open letters containing them.
Thus the challenge is joined in America.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
BUSINESS STAFF
News Advisor ... Susanna Shaw
Editor
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Hal Ritter
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and special occasions. Admission is by a semester, $15 a week. Second class postpaid tuition fee is $350. Annual fee for students $1.25 a semester paid in student activity fee. Advertised offered to all students without regard to race, color, religion, national origin or familial background are not necessarily those of the Universi-
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Business Adviser . Mel Adams
Business Manager
David Hunke
I am very disappointed that the 1974 legislature didn't see fit to pass any of the five Consumer Protection bills which were presented by the Special Committee on Consumer Protection, Senate Bill 631, the landlord-tenant law and the regulate landlord-tenant relations. It dealt primarily with security deposits, retaliatory evictions, and other practices of both landlords and tenants. House Bill 1615, which dealt with standard housing conditions, required of Health to establish rules and regulations for minimum healthful living conditions.
Senate Bill 619 was written to control debt collection. This bill prohibited false representation and harassment by a lawyer or other person in the dispose of the vagueness in the present law.
House Bill 1816, known as the automotive repairman's bill, prohibited fraud, gross negligence and untrue or misleading statements made in connection with required that an estimate be given to customers before any work was done. The charge after completion of work could not exceed the estimate by more than 10 per person written or oral consent of the customer.
Senate Bill 630 allowed an individual consumer to take action against an insurance provider by taking specific practices. Because Senate Bill 630 did not pass, only the Insurance Commissioner of Kansas can recommend court action in this case, which is operating with unfair or deceptive practices.
In addition to consumer protection, the legislature considered reorganizing itself. House Concurrent Resolution 1060, referred to in Section 38, stated that the house be decreased from 125 to 80 members, and that the Senate terms be staggered—one group of 20 running at one time, and the other group of 20 two years ago; however, both proposals were rejected.
An Income Tax checkoff to political parties was killed by the Senate Elections Committee. This would have allowed taxpayers to let $1 of their tax liability to be used by the party of their choice for gubernatorial campaigns.
A new minimum wage law was passed by the Senate, but failed in the House. This would have particularly affected state governments, setting the minum at $1.50 per hour.