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Monday, February 4, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Little Gray Men
Gerald Ford, the new vice president, is without a doubt a gray political personality. He may finally turn out to be competent in a low-key, bland sort of way, even a comforting hand while the President's mask melts horribly before the television cameras and his eyes burn strangely in his transformed face.
But the perpetual featurelessness in American politics raises certain questions that, in their urgency, far outweigh Ford's character and qualifications, assuming that these are somewhat less than brilliant. It is also bili-litating effects of grayness that this country continues to rebel, both in criminal and in constructive ways.
There is not enough electricity in the air in the rec room; the youngster suddenly leaps up and slaughters the neighbor's rabbit. Manic urban youths throw an old newspaper vendor down on the sidewalk and jump up and down on him before they can choose religion, encounter groups, or seek out establishment-busting intimacy.
But whatever methods one chooses to combat the American drag, what often results is a high that is manic in nature. At times, it can be too violent; at other times it is shallow, primitive and incoherent.
The manic boom town lights of Phoenix and Houston even seem to glitter in the prose of some of our best recent writers, strongly suggesting just how widespread the desperate American high really is.
Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe.
John Rechy, Hubert Selby Jr., Jack Keroau; the dark side of each might have transmitted the sort of consciousness in which words like *love* or *crystallize*. It is not terribly easy to find European counterparts.
Some sociologists believe that multiple murder are set off by the dulness of much of American life. One anthropologist developed the theory that the multiple murderer, who appeared in the United States shortly after World War II, rose to protest against conformity and the drains of primitive social society. Like a primitive infant, he put on leopard skins in order to gain enough strength to break the backs of goats, the multiple murderer may want to re-establish contact with his animal force.
Thus, a politician of great influence may spread a nasty poison simply by being a personality without impact. Nor should the next president be the precise opener, because he can easily run the streets who would delight in replacing the human heart with a vast electric generator.
If Ford becomes president there may be gray rainbows everywhere; and millions will ride them, and many waving their hats, perhaps more book-like ofgarish sadism and weird distances than is really tolerable.
Cynics will sport in the vacuum, the butter and eggs boys will sell tickets, as always, and real national happiness, a compound of intimacy and constructive effort, will simply go by-bye again.
—Jerome Lloyd
Energy Crisis Aggravated By Shrewd Oil Companies
Special to the Washington Post
By DAVID C. MARTIN
(The writer is a Capitol Hill reporter covering energy legislation.)
WASHINGTON—When persons who pay 50 cents for a gallon of gasoline bear Ralph Nader say that the world is "drowning in oil" and read reports that heating oil inventories are running 30 per cent above last year, they begin to wonder whether they've been had.
The so-called energy crisis is the product of a set of economic events and circumstances that the oil companies shrewdly, but legally, turned to their adversaries. The role of the consumer while the administration helpedys played the role of middle man.
These happenings have remained largely hidden behind the veil of the Arab oil embargo. But, as William Simon has so frequently stated, there would have been shortages anyway—perhaps not serious enough to force contemplation of rationing at a later date, or a year-round daylight saving time, but guaranteed the oil industry its record profits.
AT THE START of the decade, oil companies were experiencing a profitless boom. The world's thirst for oil was producing record sales but profits were falling. In 1970, the profits of 28 integrated oil companies were reported down 1.9 per cent while sales this disconcerting year increased. The industry blamed the Reform Act of 1699, which reduced the oil depletion allowance from 27.5 per cent to 22 per cent, and on gasoline price wars waged by small, independent dealers; a one cent change in the price of gasoline means a $1 billion change in revenues). Matters took a further turn for the worse in August 1971 when the economic program announced his Phase I economic program, and the price of petroleum products at this point
It was during these worrisome times that the industry let fall the first warnings of a potential oil shortage. It was announced, for instance, that the reserve capacity of several big fields in Louisiana and Texas—main oil-producing states—had perhaps fallen below 10%. Companies didn't mean that their geologists had made a mistake in estimating the size of the oil fields. What they were saying was that the price of oil wasn't high enough to
finance the extraction of all their reserves
A reflection of an oil reservoir. When the American Petroleum Institute figures the American Petroleum Institute at 38 billion barrels of reserves of oil at 38 billion barrels, it is not surprising, as the term seems to indicate, the amount of oil that has been discovered. The industry's definition of "proved reserve" is that amount of oil which is recoverable, "under existing economic conditions."
By the winter of 1972, the country was experiencing its first petroleum shortage in peacetime history, and by September of last year—before the Arab oil cutoff—the country were earning profits 48.6 per cent higher than over the same period a year before.
RELIABLE FIGURES on how many independent service stations have been driven out of business by a lack of gasoline are hard to come by, but it is at least several investigations subcommittee last week that knew of no stations closed because of a lack of fuel. Again, what they meant was that none of the retail outlets that they own, lease or supply directly, closed for lack of gasoline, and the independent Gasoline Marketers of America, which has 23,000 member stations, at least 2,000 so-called non-branded independents closed last year for lack of gasoline. If that same ratio holds for all of the country's 64,000 gasoline stations there were about 4,000 closings that the majors said they didn't know about.
The Administration saw exactly what was happening, as a lengthy staff study by the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee documents. On Nov. 21, 1972, George Lincoln, then director of the Office of Preparedness, wrote a memorandum on a conversation he had before the previous day with James McLane, deputy director of the Cost of Living Council. Gen. Lincoln said McLane told him that the "Cost of Living Department" commission staff have concluded, that they will profit on current prices of No. 2 oil (heating oil) and they know it." Howard Roberts, a staff member at the Office of Emergency Preparedness, stated in a Nov. 27 memo "Justice Service's 18th largest oil company," the油头 was deliberately producing less fuel oil because of "economic reasons."
Crisis Causes Nixon Restlessness
By LOU CANNON The Washington Post
WASHINGTON—He has always been a restless man, this President of the United States, and those who have seen him closely say that he is more restless than ever.
His aides remain loyal to Richard Nixon, or at least to the institution of the presidency. But in their quiet moments some of these aides talk guardedly about his policies and strategies for flying by night when he could maneuver by day. They talk, too, of his penchant for retreating from the retreats he has chosen for himself and of his strange habit of defying the subject matter and of abruptly denouncing his thoughts are out to destroy his presidency.
One symptom of this presidential restlessness is Nikon's present aversion to any detailed discussion of domestic policy. He has never been a man who suffers detail and has always been almost all substantive domestic discussions to his chief of staff, Alexander M. Haig.
When Budget Director Roy Ash arrived in San Clemente for an announced and important discussion with the President on the issue of hiring a new secretary meeting over to Haver and never saw Ash at all. On most days the President saw only Haug, Press Secretary Ronald L. Ziegler, secretary Rose Mary Woods, his wife and husband, ever-present confidante, Bebe Rebozo.
DESPITE HIS DISAVOWAL of detail, the
President made it clear that he was running the show. Though the White House has a long-standing agreement with the news services to inform them of presidential travel, Nixon gave strict orders that they were not to be informed of his many driving trips to and from Iraq. Bluntly warned allies not to make predictive discussions of presidential policies for 1974.
More and more within the White House there is talk of "the Scenario." These are code words used to describe the method by which Nixon will leave office, as in the sentence: "I do not now see the scenario for impeachment."
There is no reason to suspect that his health is poor, and there has been no recurrence of pneumonia which forced him into the hospital for nine days last July. But Nixon abruptly canceled his annual physical examination in December, and he returned to Washington daily staple at White House briefings and it is always turned aside by spokesmen.
This last sentence and many like them vaguely accept the premise that Nixon may indeed leave office before his term finishes. No one will say how or when, but it has not escaped the attention of White House aides in an office as long as he is "physically able."
THESE WHO HAVE seen Nixon closely say that he was often temperamental and ill at ease during his recent 18-day stay in San Diego, where he has been wired toorry windy weather that plucked the trip.
But Nixon's problems are worse than oneweather. In even less troubled times heliked to play the piano in the middle ofthe night, and he has always possesseda restless, driven intelligence that makessleep difficult. There is a persistent belief atthe White House that sleep has becomeeven more difficult.
Officially, all of the above is steadfastly denied. An aide who recalled that Nixon had physically remain in office as long as物理上仍留在办公室, a reporter. The President looked hale and hearty at his 61st birthday party, the man who really think there is anything wrong with him?
The aide shrugged and permitted a long pause. "Of course not," he said, "There is a lot of people."
It is in the latter sense that some aides have substituted their loyalty to the presidency to their personal loyalty to Richard Nixon. The committee for the Reagan administration substituted the institutional slogan of "re-elect the president," is finally gone but Nixon is rarely "Mr. Nixon" to the men who work for him. The incarnation of the institution has a magic sound, a magic that does not as easily survive when the President is thought to be right but just possibly be something wrong with Nixon; all is well with the President.
ALL IS NOT well. On the California trip the prevailing mood was that this was the lag期。
"WELL OUR SERIOUS SQUEEZE BOTTLED DRY WHEN WE OUT BACK ON CLEAN AIIR STANDARDS AND WE SOLID THE AMBER WARNS OF GRAIN TO EXCEED, NOT MENTION THE OIL DISPENSERS OFFREND FROM BEA TO SUBLING BEA, AND THE PRINTED PLAN WAS LEASED TO KOON, NOT MENTION THE OIL DISPENSERS OFFREND FROM BEA TO SUBLING BEA."
Beach press center is being torn down as part of a restaurant remodeling project, and those close to the remodeling say a new one will never be needed.
Few are yet convinced that Nixon will resign. Many talk vaguely of his not finishing his term but are unwilling to abandon the method of his removal. Some believe that the subject must never be discussed or the possibility of impachment admitted.
Nixon can still be warm and even witty in person. He is still capable, aides say, of behaving like the self-styled "coolest man in the room" when he is discussing foreign affairs. State Henry Kissinger. But he is a man unattached in the crucible of the White House. The picture painted by those close to him who are willing to talk about it is of a private man, but by adversaries. He is depicted as constantly restless and increasingly troubled.
"Anyone would be troubled, really, if he couldn't go out anywhere without attracting hostile pickets and impeachment signs," said one aide. "Nobody likes to hear himself called a crook, least of all the President of the United States."
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Solzhenitsyn Defended by Notable Protesters
BY WILLIAM CLAIBORNE The Washington Post
WASHINGTON-By Jerry Rubin's old standards, the Ad Hoc Committee for Intellectual Freedom (AHCF) would rate a Cenum for its demonstration Tuesday in front of the National Press Building. But the group made its point.
Looking slightly self-conscious and in need of tutelage in the art of protesting, a handful of middle-aged intellectual leaders and media giants staged a midjuged state against the soviet government's repressive dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
There were no shouted obscenes, fusiliates of tear gas, police vans or smashed soft-drink bottles. Missing were the red flags of anarchy, the wall of sirens and the skirmish lines of helmeted tactical squad officers.
FOR THE FOUR occasionally yawning traffic policemen and several hundred downtown passersby who watched it, the protest was a tame affair. But what this crowd was a media event lacked in excitement, it more than made up for in eloquence of speech.
Such personages as CBS commentator Eric Sevick and political analyst Frank Mankiewicz—among others—drew double-takes from the 14th Street lunchtime strollers as they read passages from Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago."
Also among the two dozen who donned red-white-and-blue crepe armbands and protested were Stephen Hess, former Nixon secretary of state, Richard Nixon and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; Harry C. McPherson Jr., former special counsel to President Johnson, and Richard Scaamron, co-author of the best-selling "The Real Majority."
AS IF THAT wasn't enough, the press building happening was supported by commentators Millon Viorst and George F. Gorsuch, who were both nominated by Fichandier, and John D. Koffen, former gadabout of the Republican National Committee and erstwhile editor of the GOP newspaper.
What's more, Wattenerheng opined, "all the gram, all the computers, the gas and oil,
Tass, Watteneren charged in a press conference preceding the demonstration,
"has been in the forefront of this disgraceful act, and has been the man of intellectual heroism (Solzbentzman)."
The object of all this high-priced discontent was one Vladimir Vashehcedo, a Washington editor of the Soviet news agency, Tass.
C G S
all the vokka and the Pepsi Cola (traded) stand as little, compared with the sovereign idea that men must be allowed to speak their mind."
WHAIEN ARGUED THAT Tass has tried to "shed its true identity as an arm of the Soviet government," but he observed that in a 1971 trial in London the news agency claimed it was owed immunity as a state agency.
Speaking for the ad hoc committee and stressing that its members represent both the far left and far right political speeches, Ms. Gershon group comprised a relatively sedentary lot.
Seated Sevarred, "This is the first time I've done anything like this since I was in college."
"For many of us, we are learning only today which end of the picket sign is up," he said.
According to the committee's sidewalk fibers, "We are all active in the world of ideas: as writers, artists, scientists, actors ... we are dedicated to the proposition that contemporary world is one that says ideas may not be expressed only and freely."
NO STRONG IS that belief, the group's leaders said, "that we non-demonstrators are not as strong"
While the "non-demonstrators" walked back and forth in front of the entrance to the press building with signs declaring "The whole world is watching" and "Freedom for dissidents," a small group led by Wattenberg went to the second floor offices of Tass.
"I don't want to sound too loof, but this is what we all are trying to do with our lives. I think it's a universal cause," Sevareid said later.
There, according to Sevareid, a chainlock door opened a few inches and a Tass official politely refused to allow members of the ad boc committee inside.
"I don't think you get a situation like this two or three times in a century," he added, comparing the magnitude of the Solzbentyn issue to that of Emile Zola. "There comes a time when you feel better if you do something," he said.
THE GROUP PASSED inside a written denunciation of the treatment of Solzhenitsyn. Undoubted by the Soviet Army, they returned to the picket line outside.
Realism in the cinema, an elusive quality that has been sought with astonishing diligence by many in the film world, seems to be captured in the movie, "The Exorcist."
The movie is based on the book by William Peter Blatty and deals with the subject of demonic possession. Blatty's book is supposedly based on an actual occurrence—the last official church sanctioned case of demonic oppression in 1949.
But "The Exorcist" is neither the first nor the last film to be a spin-off of a successful book. He was one of the people most experiencing during the production of the movie, it would, no doubt, have been delegated to the imaginary land of Great Horror Flicks, soon to be forgotten after the first one.
'Exorcist' Creates Belief
Editor's Note: This is the first of several columns on spiritual topics by Chuck Browne.
During the production of "The Exorcist," an entire house, built for the set, burned down with no apparent cause. Jack was saved by a nurse, but the demon in the movie, died a week after his death.
Frieden is not the only person to become demon-conscious. Since the premier of "The Exorcist" last Christmas, increasing paranormal activity have said they were possessed by demons.
The list of queer happenings is longer, including some occurrences that could be labeled occupational hazards in the film industry. Nevertheless, the peculiar nature of these movies and the effect this movie is having on astonishing numbers of people who have flocked to view the movie, are evidence enough for this writer to concur with the director of "The Princess Diaries" to say, "'Sad,' after all I have seen on this film I definitely believe in demonic possession."
death scene. An actor's five-year-old son was mystically run down by a motorcycle on a deserted beach and remained near him, the scene being consistently turned up maddening, with many frames containing strange images that were not recognizable to the cameraman and director.
craze." According to the Star report, a Dominican priest at Loyola University of Chicago said he knew of at least two girls who were kidnapped and possessed and have now been hospitalized. The priest said he knew of many persons who are seriously frightened or comprised by the film.
In another instance, carpenters in Houston who were renovating a house previously used as a "pagan church," demanded prayers by a priest to expel evil spirits from the premises. The workmen had seen "the Exorcist."
I spoke with an instructor at the University of Kansas who had viewed 90 minutes of the movie before he departed, like many patrons before him. He noted that there were uniform policemen stationed around the perimeter of the auditorium, though they weren't there for the specific reason of law and order. As my friend soon learned, making more in the capacity of carrying out the faint and assisting the nauseated.
When I asked if he thought "The Exorcist" was more than just a movie, he emulated his father's style.