News staff given jail sentence
By KENNETH CUMMINS
Kansan Staff Writer
BROSKMAN STAR WRITE
EL DORADO—Six staff members of the Wichita Free Press,
an underground newspaper in
Wichita were sentenced to 30 days in jail last Tuesday in a trespassing trial in Butler County Court
Ron Wylie, publisher of the Free Press, said the sentence
My Lai massacre called accidental
In spite of the possibility that the My Lai massacre was an individual incident, an accidental by-product of war, the long-range effects of the massacre will be detrimental to the United States, said Chae Jin Lee in an interview recently.
By MARY JACKSON
Kansan Staff Writer
Lee, KU assistant professor of political science and East Asian Area Studies, said that any judgments about the case would be premature at this point because the evidence is not known. He said that even when the trial is over, there would probably be some doubt and some confusion.
Vice-president Nguyen Cao Ky thof South Vietnam had sought further investigations after the first probe had ruled that the alleged slayings did not take place. President Nguyen Van Thieu closed the files by ruling out the inquiry request. The Topeka Sunday Capital-Journal reported him as saying that "it has been classified as an act of war."
There have been rumors that orders had come from someone higher up in the Army echelon than Lt. William L. Calley Jr., who has been charged with the premeditated murder of 109 South Vietnamese civilians in the incident which occurred on March 16, 1968 during the Tet Offensive.
Lee said that should this be true, it would constitute premeditated persecution of a civilian population which would be against a principle established during the Nuremberg trials. He said he wanted to emphasize that he doubted that this was the case.
He said that the rational and prompt ending of the war was the most important thing because an end to the war may be more important in terms of implications than isolated cases such as this one.
Maj. Jerome Durbin, assistant professor of military science (Army), said that he did not feel especially qualified to judge the case because he got the same news as everyone else and that he had no access to inside information other than his background in the Army.
Maj. Durbin said that he did not think there was an established policy or scheme involved and that platoon commanders
Dec. 3
1969 KANSAN 3
Like Lee, Maj. Durbin said that the alleged massacre was an immoral act which differed from an act of war.
were given a defined area of responsibility and what he did is left to his own judgment although he may not be overlooking the particular operations at all times.
Maj. Durbin said that all of the Army ROTC faculty had served in Vietnam. He was a Special Forces BT comander from 1967-68.
He said that the feeling of the AROTC faculty was that they did not believe that they could order their men to carry out such an offensive and that they did not believe that the average GI could do so.
Maj. Durbin said that his attitude would be to wait and hope that the truth would come out in the end.
Maj. William A. Shunk, assistant professor of military science (Army), said that he did not believe rumors that the military was using men as scapegoats to take the blame in such cases was founded in any factual basis.
"didn't come as a surprise. It was what we expected to happen. It was as if the judge didn't listen to the case.
"In the past two years, two other trespassing charges in this court were settled with a $25 fine."
The six persons were arrested Oct. 21 on the campus of Butler County Junior College, El Dorado, for selling the paper. They were charged with trespassing on grounds that they were violating a college regulation against sale of commercial products.
"We expected to be convicted." Carol Bjostad, staff writer, said. "We figured any court that would set a trespassing bond at $750 would also convict us."
Miss Bjostad said that a 1937 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court forbid the passage of any law prohibiting the distribution of the press. The decision stated that the press was not a commercial enterprise.
The others arrested and sentenced were Nick Mork JR, editor; Robin Farrington, art editor; Edward R. Greenbaugm, circulation manager; and David J. Flusher, staff writer.
The staff members were represented by Wichita attorneys Jack Turner and Jim Lawing.
The state's only witness, Edwin J. Walbourn, president of the junior college, testified he approached all six persons asking them if they were college students, if they were selling the
papers and if they would stop. He said they refused to do so and he called the sheriff who arrested them.
Under cross examination Walbourn said the college contracts with a private firm to provide food service to the campus, but he said he didn't consider the contract a violation of the college regulation.
Walbourn also said the Free Press and other papers were available to students in the library but that none were sold on campus.
Turner and Lawing both maintained that the college regulation was "prior restraint on the freedom of speech and the press" guaranteed by the First amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Tragedy spurs charges
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (UPI)— Led by Pete O'Neal, the Kansas City Chapter of the Black Panther Organization Tuesday charged Police Chief Clarence Kelley with withholding information involving the death of a high-ranking police officer's son.
The Panthers claimed the death was suicide instead of accidental and they also charged that Kelley gave 10 hand guns to a member of the Minuteman Organization.
Kelley denied both allegations.
On the steps of police headquarters, O'Neal said Kelley conspired to show the death of the police officer's son was accidental when in fact it was suicide to
enable the youth's family to get
$5,000 insurance money.
O'Neal alleged that the chief of police ordered a colonel to remove records from the file which showed the youth had stolen a book from a drugstore a few days before his death. This, the Black Panther leader claimed, left the insurance company no information which might lead to the conclusion that the death might have been suicide instead of accidental.
Kelley told reporters the records were stolen.
O'Neal also told reporters that he had a signed avidifuit which said Kelley had given 10 hand guns to a former police officer
who was then a member of the Minutenman organization.
The Black Panther leader said the statement was signed by Gerald Harriman who said he saw the transaction conducted. The recipient of the guns, O'Neal said, died during the city's April riots in 1968.
After the news conference, the Panthers walked across the street to the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office. They met an assistant prosecuting attorney who told them to return at 10:30 a.m. Friday with their affidavits and witnesses to present the allegations before a meeting of the grand jury.
The Panthers agreed to return.
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