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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Oct. 22, 1963
Bug to the Light
I, for one, had hoped South Vietnam's Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu would be able to visit the University of Kansas.
Not that she would have said anything of earth-shaking importance, but, since we're spending about $10 million a week to keep her brother-in-law's government from collapsing, it would have been interesting to hear her apologize (or whatever she calls it) for having interfered so deeply in affairs of state in that Southeast Asian bastion of enforced democracy when she had no business getting her dainty fingers into the political pie.
No, she's not likely to sound apologetic, but I believe she is coming to the United States to try to impress away as well as she can the adverse image most Americans have whenever her name is mentioned.
Madame Nhu is not happy about the idea.
SHE RECENTLY explained that for the next few weeks she will be like "the dragonfly of the Vietnamese song. When it's happy, it stays; when it's unhappy, it flies away."
This is not the first time the talkative oriental beauty has been sent flitting.
In 1954 her family shipped her to a convent in Hong Kong to keep her quiet lest she upset their plans to gain power through conciliation with rival forces. Madame Nhu had been urging a get-tough showdown.
And it wasn't so many weeks ago that the U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, diplomatically suggested to President Diem that his brother, supposedly the country's chief of secret police, and fiery wife leave the country until the crisis in Saigon was over and a fresh understanding between the government and the population established.
Diem flatly rejected that suggestion. Whether a one-woman face-saving excursion across the world to anywhere but South Vietnam was a compromise, one can only guess.
THE BASIC PROBLEM which inspired this diplomatic maneuvering is relatively simple. Most observers agree that South Vietnam has been saddled with a national leader who is unpopular and whose family is detested.
When the Buddhist trouble erupted into flaming personal sacrifices, President Diem refused a policy of moderation and followed his brother's advice: martial law and news suppression. He echoed Madame Nhu in labeling the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk "a murder." Then the Vietnamese students began to riot and government troops arrested thousands of boys and girls.
One doesn't need slanting eyebrows to imagine the reactions of the native population to such injustices as these.
As one interviewer put it, "The Ngo Dinhs are simply despots. Madame Nhu holds no official position other than of member of the rubber-stamp national assembly. Yet she has had far more power than any cabinet minister, and in some ways more than Diem himself.
"If (the ruling family) had sat down to work out ways and means of depriving themselves of popular support, they could scarcely have planned better."
Madame Nhu upset the traditional Vietnamese family pattern with a measure she championed through the national assembly banning everything from dancing to polygamy and divorce.
OF COURSE, IT is possible that conditions today may be improving both domestically and militarily.
Secretary of Defense McNamara returned from his recent tour of the battlefront predicting the American involvement in South Vietnam's anti-Communist guerrilla war would be ended by December, 1965.
But, he also said; "It is entirely possible that the Diem government has alienated an important element in the population; unless the government and population can work together in a unified effort . . . the Communists won't be defeated."
This places the blame for any possible failure squarely on the shoulders of the ruling family; and, should the puppet get out of hand, the U.S. scissors will be ready to begin snipping the economic strings.
In the meantime, however, our government has chosen to live with the entanglement that already has cost us some 125 American lives, as well as billions of dollars.
SO, WHILE McNamara's dust settles in South Vietnam, a group from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a U.N. fact-finding team go to stir up more. And Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu and her 17-year-old daughter come here.
In her own words, her trip "is a sincere effort to determine if freedom of expression is a reality in America."
With some 25 uncensored speaking engagements already planned, I hope this female "dragonfly" will be at least mildly sung by the fascinating flame that is American democracy in action.
— Larry Schmidt
Editor:
Poor Secger
In our years here we have become immune to most of the consistent inaccuracies in the University Daily Kansan. We were not, therefore, surprised when you rose to your usual standards in appraising the Hootenanny performance and the accompanying "protest" by campus folk song devotees. However, we do wish that you would do the honor to Mr. Pete Seeger of spelling his name correctly the next time his name might appear in your distinguished paper.
John Wahl
Mary Pat John
Tim Miller
Ron Jones
Marty Knight
R. J. Smith
The People Say...
Questionable Court Editor:
I gather that the meeting held by the student court to discuss my letter of criticism (UDK, Oct. 18) was in vain, as they could do little more than become abusive, calling my comments "ridiculous." Their other responses indicate that they did not fully understand my letter.
My main point was that the court interpreted the laws too rigidly, as if they were absolute and unquestionable (nowhere in my letter do I suggest that the laws be changed, as the chief justice seemed to think). The student court apparently forgets that as the very foundation of the judicial system
is the premise that circumstances of a particular case may make a given law of questionable application.
The student court, in their zeal to play like real lawyers and judges, also forgets that they are operating a court of appeal in the case of traffic tickets, not a trial court. Only a tiny fraction of those issued traffic tickets appear before the court. This small group of people have reason to feel that there are circumstances which made the issuance of a ticket unjust. One fellow, for example, was told by a faculty member that he could park in a zoned section close to Allen Field House because of a class being held there; the faculty member would take care of it if a ticket should be issued. When the student went to have the ticket he received cancelled, he was told he would have to appeal, so he brought it before the student court. The court ruled against the appeal. The student had to pay the fine. My question is, aren't these circumstances in which the student should have his fine suspended? The court thinks otherwise. The rule book says No Parking in zone so-and-so. The student parked there. Therefore he must pay a fine!
A recent graduate of the law school suggested that the court may be afraid to set precedents, or perhaps they have no power to suspend sentence in the case where the law is broken but there are mitigating circumstances. If the court is concerned about setting
precedents and thus tends to be too strict, then it becomes clear that the court is operated as an end in itself, with the interests of the appellants relegated to a secondary level. If the court is not empowered to suspend fines, then its ostensible function as a court of justice is pure fiction.
Lastly, the student court would disclaim any "correlation" to the law students that sit outside. In my last letter I mentioned that a string had been rigged across the sidewalk, apparently designed to harrass passing women students. When I walked by one day last semester, one end of that string was being operated by the chief justice of the student court! No court in the country exists—or could exist—in which the members sit on the steps of the courthouse hooting, hawking, taunting or lifting the skirts of passing wives, girl friends, and other women.
Stephen Goldarb
San Diego, Calif.
graduate student
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"Down, Boy—Not That One—Down, You Dumb Mutt"
Could Be We Need The Mather Approach
This is the scene: Time is running out on the scoreboard. The Jayhawks have momentum on an offensive thrust that has carried them to within a few yards of a touchdown which could win the game. Jack Mitchell sends his ace place-kicker into the game.
The kick is up—one of the most miserable efforts football has ever seen. KU fails to score and another victory goes down the drain.
After the game Mitchell discussed his decision to go for the field goal. "I'm really sick," he said. "I'll live with that decision for a long time. . . If the line of scrimmage was inside the one, it was a poor decision. . . I'm not defending the decision, it was obviously the wrong one."
Sound familiar? Well, it's not the recent KU-ISU contest. It's the KU-OU game of 1960.
THE JAYHAWKS failed to win that one when John Suder's field-goal attempt somehow managed to go straight up, from the one-and-a-half yard-line.
The Jayhawk mentor went on to say, "Under pressure during the critical period of the ball game, we just don't perform." He explained the team's strange performance by saying, "A nervous mother has nervous children." He said the boys had better get used to him because he wasn't going to change.
These could be standard Mitchell statements for almost every KU loss.
Following the Iowa State fiasco, Mitchell said. "The biggest mistake in the game probably was mine after we intercepted that pass in the fourth quarter and had the ball on Iowa State's 38."
Jack takes the rap again. Big deal
If he's covering up for the inabilities of his team, he has no one to blame but himself—he recruits the players. If he's really personally responsible, what's the matter with him?
Of course, two games in a four-year span don't tell the whole story. Mitchell has a winning record. His teams have packed fans into Memorial Stadium in record numbers. These facts speak for themselves.
The question is, why do KU teams with consistently fine material, players who go on to make names for themselves in the pro ranks, fail to do better in the clutch? Why can't Mitchell get more out of his material?
The UDK sports editor pessimistically, yet probably realistically, asserts the Jayhawks will have trouble winning half their games this year.
Isn't there anything Mitchell can do to avoid a losing season? Perhaps not, but I'd like to suggest he try the Chuck Mather method.
Mather was the KU coach before Mitchell. His team wasn't doing well at all, and he announced at mid-season that he was quitting at the end of the year. Guess what? Yep, the team perked right up and won four straight games.
Give it some thought, coach.
Ralph Gage