Nice move, Mr. Nixon
The President's recent renunciation of the use of biological and chemical warfare agents may be among the most important pledges this government has given the world or its own people in several decades.
Some scientists argue that the weapons the President has chosen to give up are probably unusable anyway, in the sense that no one can control them or predict their effects. This argument, however may be extended to a great deal of modern warfare, especially nuclear warfare. One has to admit, however that any step down from the heights of hostile insanity is surely a step in the right direction.
This step coupled by the signing of the draft lottery bill and the recent statement from secretary of State William P. Rogers that the U.S. decision to withdraw is "irreversible" should definitely place the President in a better light although he has a long, long way to go.
All of these factors and the signing by both American and Russian heads of government of
the 1963 nonproliferation treaty are intended to expedite disarmament talks in Helsinki. But even if they did not expedite the Helsinki talks they are important in themselves.
The Helsinki talks are finally beginning to pay off. In the past 25 years they have served as nothing but an American-Russian shouting match. At least now we have Nixon and Rogers on one side and the official Russian news media on the other, expressing confidence that although the talks are laborious and difficult they will be conducted civilly and that they have already reduced the world's war fever.
Of course the war in Vietnam has not ended, nor is the end in sight. The Paris peace negotiations appear to be an all-but-abandoned effort. One doesn't know whether Mr. Nixon is trying to civilize the government or shuffle the military around to arouse youthful acceptance and confidence in his policies. But enough has been done this past week to justify the applause the President is always seeking.
Judith K. Diebolt
Off the wire
By United Press International
CARACAS—The late Capt. Henri Valter's last radio message before the Air France jet he piloted with 62 passengers aboard crashed off the coast of La Guaira, Venezuela:
"I am losing altitude and I cannot control the plane."
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NEW YORK—President Nixon's science adviser Dr. Lee A. Dubridge commenting on what he termed a "lagging" interest Americans now have toward scientific research:
"Maybe we should have let the Russians beat us to the moon."
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★ ★ ★
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PALOS VERDES, Calif.—Paul J. Tate, father of slain actress Sharon Tate refusing to
give complete details of a personal investigation he conducted into his daughter's murder:
"You don't go around telling the world what information or evidence you have. You never know for sure whether you have an airtight case."
★ ★ ★
WASHINGTON—The National Commission on Causes and Prevention of Violence reporting on group violence;
"It is true, of course, that group protest sometimes results in group violence. But the widely held belief that protesting groups usually behave violently is not supported by fact. Of the multitude of occasions when protesting groups exercise their rights of assembly and petition, only a small number result in violence."
'We hear that you have the ridiculous idea that freedom of the press includes the right to criticize our administration.'
Readers' write
To the editor:
When I made my initial statements (Readers' write, 17 Nov.) concerning the two articles in the Kansan on the financial plight of assistant instructors, I had a very simple purpose in mind: to suggest that increased salaries for assistant instructors be strongly supported but also to suggest that some of the Kansan reporter's arguments for support of an increase were neither the best nor most convincing. My letter was not intended as an attack on Alan Wallace, Assistant Instructor in English: I do not know Mr. Wallace and have no idea of his competence as a scholar or teacher. I do know that he is not "a typical example of a married graduate student," as suggested by the Kansan reporter, owing to his having been a graduate student in residence for longer than most (six years, to be exact). I suggested, and I continue to believe, that much of Mr. Wallace's financial difficulty results from spreading out his study over so many years. No doubt there are reasons for Mr. Wallace's extended stay, reasons, for example, which the Department of English accepts, but these reasons, whatever they may be, do not detract from his atypicality. In short, Mr. Wallace represents a poor example from which to argue for an entire article. One does not take the worst hardship case he can find and argue that it is typical.
The letters of Roger Laub (24 Nov.), an Assistant Instructor in English, and George Worth (2 Dec.), Chairman of the Department of English, were well-stated and well-reasoned rebattals. Both, I believe, tended to misunderstand the intent of my letter and overlooked my statement of support for a salary increase, but I take this misunderstanding as my fault rather than theirs. (As a matter of fact, Professor Worth and I have communicated in personal letters on precisely the issues raised in my original published letter, and we clearly are much closer in agreement about the problem of assistant instructor salaries than we are at odds.)
I'm not quite sure how to take William Holm's "deliberate exercise in invective," as he calls it, published in the 3 December Kansan. My first impulse, quite frankly, is to be both amused and insulted by it. What shall we do, Mr. Holm? Shall it be poised typewriters at forty paces in the parking lot of Carruth-O'Leary? I truly know of no other way that I can possibly answer your onslaught of inaccuracy and virulence.
A further point; assistant instructors at Kansas deserve a better shake than they're getting. Modest salary increases may be possible over the years. Most faculty members support such increases. Most recognize that the realities of rising living costs make it increasingly difficult for the assistant instructor. I know few faculty members who believe that anyone else needs to be poor just because they themselves were destitute during their years of graduate study. The unfortunate thing, however, is that a few (not many) graduate students on assistant instructorships, because of their long, almost interminable stay in graduate school, are coming to believe that their salaries ought to be absolutely commensurate with their duties. If that takes place, and given the usual educational budget of the Kansas legislature, then we'll all—regular faculty and graduate students—end up at about $5,000 per year. That may look good to assistant instructors at the moment, but I doubt that it will hardly make sense for them three or four years from now.
Robert R. Findlay Associate Professor and Graduate Adviser, Theatre and Drama
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To the editor:
Professor Findlay's comments upon the plight of Assistant Instructors in general and Mr. Wallace in particular might be considered a perceptive analysis of a complex problem, as well they should be. Professor Findlay is a graduate adviser in the Department of Theatre and Drama, and this, in and of itself, should be sufficient to validate his appraisal of the state of graduate study in the English Department. Well might we expect his future comments on other departments, for his notion of collegiate teaching is admirably pragmatic and professional.
Those of us in English who have in fact come to Kansas "to earn a degree" have, it seems, been laboring under the astonishingly mistaken notion that experience and competence in teaching were somehow related to the earning of that degree. (Our Department, to be sure, contributed to this mistaken notion by requiring that Ph.D. aspirants teach for a limited time as a pre-requisite.) But Mr. Findlay has graciously taken it upon himself to remind us that he (and perhaps others in his department) doesn't expect us to be committed to teaching; and this is genuinely reassuring. Some of our students might have expected such a commitment; but they too were mistaken. Mr. Findlay knows better, and we may now, in good conscience, become self-indulgent seekers after that all-important degree for the furtherance of our future careers.
No doubt Mr. Findlay carefully checked his facts, for he seems to understand what is both legitimate and typical. Mr. Wallace's case, however, is, in terms of our department, certainly more typical than atypical; for few Assistant Instructors here indeed manage to earn the Ph.D. in less than six or seven years. Assuredly as a result of Mr. Findlay's criticism this situation will soon be remedied, as our assistant instructors begin to ignore what they had mistakenly considered their responsibilities and govern themselves by a new set of priorities. Such advice is unquestionably helpful and will, I'm sure, be much appreciated.
Meanwhile we await Mr. Findlay's future contributions concerning legitimate gripes and the affairs of other departments. J.M.Welsh, Assistant Instructor Department of English
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN An All-American college newspaper
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 66044. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.