OPINION
The University Daily
KANSAN
November 21, 1983 Page 4
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily Kannan USPS-60-640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Fitt Hall. Lawrence, KA 60035, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions. Subscribes to mail are $1 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $3 for a year outside the county. Student subscribes are $3 a semester through the student activity and POSTMATERIAL.SEND. Mail requests to: USPS-60-640.
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Doubletalk
President Reagan's messages to the American people, often noted for their evasiveness and self-contradiction, were recently recognized as some of the best doubletalk in the nation.
The Committee on Public Doublespeak, which has given an annual Doublespeak Award to public figures since 1974, recently paid its tribute for irony to Reagan for his dubbing of the deadly MX missile as the "Peacekeeper" and his condemnation of arming rebels in Central America.
Last December Reagan made a speech to deputies of the Costa Rican National Assembly in which he said: "Any nation destabilizing its neighbors by protecting guerrillas and exporting violence should forfeit close and fruitful relations with any people who truly love peace and freedom."
Officials of the Committee on Public Doublespeak chose this speech as being worthy of the 1983 award because of the CIA's involvement in recruiting, training, arming and directing clandestine guerrilla military operations against Nicaragua.
The award recognizes public officials who have "perpetuated language that is grossly deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing or self-contradictory." The president's
The recent proposal by the Reagan administration to reduce the number of elderly, poor and unemployed who use the federally financed Legal Services program would seem to fit this category as well.
speeches have fit nicely into this category.
While saying that the Reagan-appointed Legal Services board of directors is not out to ax the program, the board's president, Donald P. Bogard, says the eligibility changes that call for denying assistance to those with more than $15,000 equity in a house or $4,500 in a car just guarantee that the truly needy will have access to lawyers.
Critics claim the changes could eliminate the help for two-thirds of the elderly who use the program. But the administration has a reply to those critics: Those with $15,000 in a house or $4,500 in a car can go out and get a loan to pay for a lawyer.
Of course, this misguided belief does not take into account that banks usually hate to make small loans, especially to people on low incomes.
This latest doubletalk comes from an administration that has been trying since its first day in office to shut down the Legal Services Corp. and has succeeded in slashing its budget and paring down its staff.
President Reagan deserves his award.
Travel restrictions
Diplomacy, in theory, is based on compromise. In real life, a bit of show is useful, too.
That evidently is the State Department's view of its mission, in light of its updates on which parts of the country are open to travel by Soviet diplomats and journalists.
The latest travel regulations stem from the mid-1950s, when the United States restricted Soviet travel in response to limits on U.S. travel in the Soviet Union.
The new U.S. rules, according to a New York Times report, reduce the limited area to 20 percent of the country, a level that the Soviets have had since 1978.
But look at that 20 percent: the entire Mississippi River; gambling havens such as Atlantic City, N.J., and Las Vegas, Nev.; the "Silicon
Valley" area near San Francisco; and even Douglas County — though Lawrence is an open city. At least the Soviets won't have to worry about running into riverboat gamblers peddling silicon chips available only in Eudora.
National security is a vital matter, but travel restrictions seem a questionable protection of U.S. interests.
A State Department spokesman said that the United States had repeatedly asked the Soviets to abolish their travel limits. Yet as the department displays diplomatic strictness by retaliating for Soviet restrictions on Americans, it may also show the Soviets what the United States considers as its key geographic areas. Are we in effect telling the Soviets, "I dare you"?
End the overcrowding
Maybe New York Mayor Ed Koch summed up the situation best.
That was Koch's response after 400 inmates were released early from city prisons because of overrowding - as a result, a woman was raped by one of them.
"Idiocy," he called it.
The federal court order to reduce the prison population was something New York officials had little power to stop. And, when the woman was raped, there was little reaction from
There is now a woman who has to live with the ugly realities of prison overcrowding. It will do her no good to hear that perhaps some day there will be no need for the "idiocy" that resulted in the violence against her.
them except: "This is something we expected."
An end to prison overcrowding, though it won't cure all of society's ills, at least might prevent some other woman from the same nightmare.
—Manchester (Conn.) Herald
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff. The Kansas can also invites individuals and teachers to submit polled columns and letters 'can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffier-Flint Hall. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
'The Day After'
ABC movie brings nuclear nightmare alive
The destruction of civilization as we know it through a nuclear exchange is a nightmare that has remained with the world for almost 40 years. With last night's broadcast of ABC's movie, "The Day After", the nightmare has gone beyond imagining what a nuclear war would be like to actually show how it would be.
The nightmare of nuclear annihilation as portrayed in this movie must wake us up to the harsh reality that this could actually happen. We have been lucky so far. The war which would destroy most, if not the entire human species, has not yet occurred. At times we have come close, though, very close indeed
On the morning of Nov. 9, 1979, a computer tape simulating a nuclear attack had gone out as the real thing. All of our intercontinental ballistic missile attacks had been attacked alert. After six minutes, intensive verification procedures, the computer error was discovered. In late 1973, an American computer mistakenly
predicted that a Soviet test missile would land in California. The missile landed instead in Kamchatka. Siberia. An alert went out to all American SAC and US military. A computer error was discovered. More than likely, these two incidents are just the tip of the hook.
iceberg It is reliably estimated that incidents of computer errors triggering nuclear alerts occur every couple of years.
I do not take comfort with the fact that specialists and engineers have traced these errors down within a few minutes of their occurrence. The awful fact remains that you, I and our
neighbors around the globe have been placed within fifteen minutes of total destruction from errors rampant in our defense computers. Should we say how hum and watch our soap operas and football games as if nothing has happened? Have we, to our misfortune, learned to live with fast food and automobiles? I am afraid that a lot of America has learned just that.
The possibility of a nuclear catastrophe resulting from a computer error now extends to probability with the current deployment of NATO missiles in western Europe. Consider that these missiles will be only six minutes away in flight from Moscow. Can we trust the specialist in Soviet Union to evaluate their computer malfunctions within such a short amount of time?
Computer Error? If it is 19 year old can break into a defense computer system with a home computer, what does that say about the security and reliability of the nuclear defense computers? We are living in a climate of extreme international tension. Can one feel secure with such conditions, knowing the risk of damage to a computerized hairstriger? These are harsh but realistic questions that should concern every thoughtful person.
If the Soviets decide to implement Launch on Warning as they have threatened to do in response to an attack, this is the equivalent to Launch on
As Martin Luther King wrote,
"If modern man continues to flirt
unhesitatingly with war, he will
transform his earthly habitat into
an inferno such as even the mind of
Dante can not imagine."
Roger Holden is president of Holden-Gentry Systems line, a firm which designs and sells animation computer systems. He also is president of the Kaneos Film Company, and Meyer its top insider. The Grand Orizz, at the world premiere of "The Day After."
A two-hour commercial for the nuclear freeze
With those last spoken words, the film ends. "The Day After" deals with the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Kansas City.
"Hello? . . This is Lawrence
. . Lawrence, Kansas . . Is anybody out there?"
To say that the film is good or bad is irrelevant. The question should be asked, "Does the movie accomplish its purpose?" If its purpose is to cause hysteria in the general public then the answer is yes. If its purpose is to give people a free movement then the answer is an enthusiastic yes. If its purpose is to support the Peace Through Strength organizations then the answer is a definite no.
When ABC Circle Films came to Lawrence last year to film "The Day After," I thought it was going to be a human drama about
people trying to survive a nuclear war. Unfortunately, that part is just superficial. There is no real focus on anyone. The people just want to survive. The only real drama is in the basement of one of the families.
However, instead of focusing on that, the movie just moves on. Characters seem to die as the script calls for it.
The movie, whether or not it was ABC's intention, is a highly politically motivating film. The
obvious mention of the Pershing II deployment in Europe labels the film as political propaganda. The film has a Soviet official say on television that because of the Pershing II deployment the Soviet Union must take counterattacks against its counterseers include the total blockade of West Berlin and then the invasion of West Germany. THE NATO alliance, on the verge of being overrun, uses tactical nuclear weapons to halt the massive Soviet onslaughter. In essence, the deployment causes the III. That is a political statement.
By having a nuclear war break out from the very start, the movie is a political statement because it implies that the policy of deterence has failed. With that implication a nuclear freeze
is nonverbally insinuated.
The film's airing last night comes only days before the first scheduled deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe. Coincidence*
ABC is making a $7 million, two-hour commercial for the nuclear treeze movement. The company is launching off and running with the film
When Korean Airliner 007 was shot down by a Soviet fighter, the world was shocked and appalled. At the height of the outrage, a friend told me that in two weeks the whole incident would be forgotten. I replied that that just happened, and I forget the atrocity committed by the Soviet Union. I told him. I was wrong.
Victor Goodpasture, Topeka Sophomore, occasionally writes movie reviews for the Kansas.
Reagan's Far-East trip was a morale booster
WASHINGTON — President Reagan was netted by reports that his journey to the Far East to show the flag was more "symbolism and substance," and in terms of con- dition, the assessment has a lot of merit.
But for South Korea and the American troops, it was a big morale booster and worth the price of admission.
Reporters had been alerted in advance to expect no breakthroughs or dramatic announcements. In Japan, the focus of the talks between Reagan and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone was on the trade imbalance, which is about $20 billion in the red on U.S. books.
Reagan apparently pressured for
more trade concessions, warning Nakasone that by next summer there would be more sentiment in address to protect American products.
The president also tried to mudge Nakasone into doing more for Asian defense and taking a greater global
HELEN THOMAS
United Press International
role. That had its ironies: 42 years ago Japan's militarism and expansionism forced the United States into World War II.
In South Korea, Reagan, a strong believer in military build up as a deterrent to aggression, was right in tune with President Chun Doo
Hwan.
There is no question that he heartened American troops manning the barricades.
Reagan reassured Chun that the United States would be ready to fight again, as it did in 1950, if the North Koreans threatened. He added a flourish by visiting the city of Seoul and a mile from North Korean outposts.
Deputy chief of staff Michael
A camera crew hired by the Republican National Committee was very much a part of the picture and was given choice spots to record Reagan's big moments on the trip. The movie will be used during his campaign to stress the president's statesmanship.
Deaver, now in China to arrange for Reagan's trip there, planned the Far East trip for maximum exposure and enough rest time, so that the president would not look too fatigued in the film.
All presidents are actors on a stage, particularly when they are abroad. Reagan carried off the role with aplaethon and was very well known in Israel and the National Assembly in Seoul in the speeches he delivered.
The president came home with what he called the "good news" that "America's partnerships are stronger, and prospects for a more secure peace and prosperity are better today than a week ago."