OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
October 14, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
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Calendar change
It is unlikely in these austere times that an academic proposal affecting all Board of Regents institutions could have almost all benefits and no drawbacks, but such seems to be the case with one currently being considered that allows Kansas universities to change their school year calendars.
Under a proposal before the Council of Chief Academic Officers, each university could choose to delay or accelerate the start of classes, as long as all followed a set format of two-semester years with a semester at least 16 weeks, or 80 class days, long.
William Hogan, associate executive vice chancellor, says the proposal could allow students to earn more money during the summer. And it really would. In fact, many KU students, under the present calendar, are forced to pass
up summer jobs that require a longer work period. Hogan figures that if the University began the school year after Labor Day, KU students could garner an extra week's wages of $3.3 million, based on minimum wage rates.
Hogan also says a longer summer break would save money for the University of Kansas in energy bills for residence halls and campus buildings, besides enabling everyone to avoid steaming, unbearable classrooms and offices that put Death Valley to shame. Right again.
From all appearances, this looks like a proposal that it's fully worthwhile. Right now, it still has to wander through a dense maze of bureaucracy that includes approval by the Council of Chief Academic Officers, the Council of Presidents and the Board of Regents. Let's hope it finds its way out.
Missile protests
Yesterday's anti-missile demonstration in West Germany can be expected to be repeated numerous times as December's deployment deadline for the new cruise and Pershing-2 missiles draws closer and no agreement is reached in Soviet-U.S. arms talks in Geneva.
in Western Europe.
In West Germany thousands of anti-missile demonstrators opened a 10-day campaign of civil disobedience, rallies and blockades to protest the missile deployment in their country. Police had to carry away 1,000 protesters who sat in the roads to block traffic to the North Sea harbor at Bremerhaven, one of the largest American supply depots
Leaders of the demonstration told a news conference that the demonstration was justified because the United States was preparing to wage an aggressive war and cited American involvement in Central America as well as in Europe as evidence of an aggressive military policy.
Europeans have a right to be fearful of further deployment of missiles on their soil. They are caught in the thick of an aggressive military buildup between two world powers, who now are in the midst of a new Cold War that has serious ramifications for the stability — and longevity — of the world.
Critical to democracy
The media-event status of Sen. Edward Kennedy's visit to Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Va., underscores how intolerant this country has become. Beyond the good manners and the good-natured remarks between Kennedy and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the conservative college founder, the exchange demonstrated that individuals with different points of view can meet on common ground and hear one another. That is a rare occurrence.
Although Kennedy's visit came about by accident, all parties rose to the occasion. Kennedy's remarks, although forceful, would be unexceptionable in a tolerant society. He pointed out that the Moral Majority could become a persecuted minority and that religion properly appeals to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state. He expressed hope for an America where neither fundamentalist nor humanist will be dirty words but fair descriptions of the different ways people of good will can look to their souls.
"The more our feelings diverge,
he said, "the greater is our obiga-
tion to grant the sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other side."
That granting of sincerity and essential decency is precisely what the audience of 6,000 appeared to do for Kennedy. He spoke without condescension or scorn. In return, the audience paid attention.
Even though Falwell had told the students he expected good behavior, even though the students knew the pressure was on and that the public would be watching, the audience's behavior at Liberty Baptist presented a sharp contrast to the confrontations which have occurred on college campuses and in other arenas in recent years.
Disagreement has become so personalized, disdain so common, disrespect so cacophonous, that it is sometimes all but impossible to hear — really hear — what anyone is saying. Kennedy's visit to Lynchburg and the student behavior there serve as a telling reminder that the ability to listen and a willingness to respect differences are critical to democracy.
Boston Globe
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LETTERS POLICY
A lesson from Vietnam U.S. involvement not carefully planned
Gen. P.X. Kelley, the Marine Commandant, goofed the other day when he momentarily confused Lebanon with Vietnam as he testified before a congressional com-mission. But was he completely wrong?
The answer is emphatically yes if he thinks there is any resemblance between the two countries. Others are equally deluded when they identify Central America as another Southeast Asia.
Yet in one crucial respect the Vietnam analogy is not far-fetched. Our policy makers deepened our involvement in Vietnam with almost total disregard for the complicated realities of the area — as their successors seem to be doing today.
There was considerable knowledge and wisdom about Asia in Washington during the early 1950s.
Author
STANLEY KARNOW
For example, a consultant to the State Department, Raymond B. Fosdick, predicted that the "fundamental antipathy" between the French and Chinese Communists would eventually bring them into conflict.
when the Truman administration began to underwrite France's war against Vietnamese Communists to "contain" Chinese communism.
Fodrick's forecast proved uncannily prescient. But along with other contemporary experts he was ignored, in part because senior leaders, full of bitter memories of the 1930s, believed that anything less than a firm stance in Southeast Asia would have amounted to a repetition of the shameful capitulation to Hitler at Munich.
Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk recalled in an interview not long ago the celebrated evening in 1933, when as a Rhodes Scholar, he witnessed the Oxford Union's vote not to fight "for King and country." The experience, he told me, instilled in him the conviction that "aggress-
sion" had to be stopped everywhere, and he afterward applied it to Vietnam.
There had been some evidence that Ho Chi Minh, though an avowed Communist, was primarily a nationalist who would pursue his own course regardless of the Soviet Union's dictates. State Department specialists urged the possible difference between communists and aliens to be explored and perhaps exploited. But Secretary of State Dean Acheson spurned the suggestion, asserting that "all Stalinists in colonial areas are nationalists."
After France's defeat in 1954, the Soviet Union and Chinese Communists were ready at the Geneva Conference to sacrifice their Vietnamese comrades to reach an accommodation with the French. The final negotiations were conducted secretly between the French prime minister and Chou En-lai, then China's Foreign Minister. Not only did Chou En-lai exert pressure on the Vietnamese Communist delegation to accept a division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, but also he sought to make the partition permanent by inviting South Vietnam to open a diplomatic mission in Peking.
Moscow similarly proposed in 1957 that the two Vietnamese be admitted to the United Nations, which would have given each its own legitimacy, like the two Germans and two Koreas. The idea was rebuffered by the Eisenhower administration, which presumably thought that North Vietnam might some day be "liberated."
The Vietnamese Communists, unfeathered by international constraints, embarked on their war for reumission. By 1965, when America introduced combat troops, its armament based on the war that the shear weight of American industrial might would grind down the enemy.
But the Communists were prepared to suffer enormous casualties to fulfill their aims. They lost in the war with France in 1973 — the population equivalent of
10 million Americans. Former Secretary of State James Rusk later admitted that he had "personally underestimated" their will to resist.
Lebanon, El Salvador and other such challenges bear comparison to Vietnam only to the extent that they cannot be sensibly approached by policy makers unwilling to face facts. Each has its singularities, which must be confronted individually and creatively. To see every crisis迎合 as another Vietnam is myopic, just as overlaying the Munich debacle on Vietnam was a distortion.
Gen. Maxwell D.Taylor, an architect of American intervention in Vietnam, confessed to me a few times that he was not interested about the Vietnamese Communists
Lebanon, El Salvador and other such challenges bear comparison to Vietnam only to the extent that they cannot be sensibly approached by policymakers unwilling to face facts. Each has its singularities, which must be confronted individually and creatively.
or the South Vietnamese — not to mention America's capacity to wage a war in Southeast Asia.
"Until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves," Taylor said, "we'd better deal with it, or we're dirty business. It's very dangerous."
His words are not a plea of isolationism, for America cannot recolt from global responsibilities. But one lesson of Vietnam, put simply, is that America must look carefully before it leaps again.
Stanley karnow is author of "Vietnam: A History." He served as chief correspondent for "Vietnam: A Tele-News Service" and Publ. Public Broadcasting Service series.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Service has improved at Watkins
To the Editor:
Fellow students often have criticized Watkins Health Services for being inefficient and not meeting their needs; the doctors have been accused of misdiagnosing illnesses and overprescribing drugs. Such criticisms may have some validity, but recent changes at Watkins may make such problems a thing of the past.
One recent change is that the Allergy and Gynecology Clinics have been separated from the other outpatient services, and it's now possible to make advance appointments at these clinics.
No longer is one required to wait near individuals whose illnesses
may be infectious, and because appointments are scheduled and health records are pulled in advance, the wait itself is shorter.
A second change worth not involving lab services. For instance, if your symptoms suggest a bladder infection, a nurse may order a routine check of your urine and the analysis is done while you wait to see a doctor. Doctors can then use the lab results to make a more definite diagnosis and avoid prescribing unnecessary drugs.
A third difference is that Watkins is now offering contraceptive education apart from that you might receive while seeing a doctor. Classes are offered two times a
week and information is provided on reproduction, contraceptive methods, pelvic exams and breast self-examination.
I do not know who is responsible for suggesting each of these innovations, but the entire staff at Watkins deserves credit for making them work. Undoubtedly, there are additional changes that I am not aware of. I'm impatient with such students' needs, and want to say thanks.
Both men and women are invited to attend such classes, reflecting an enlightened attitude concerning pregnancy and the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.
Rochelle Harris Chicago graduate student
Response to KAL affair aids Reagan
WASHINGTON — The temperate U.S. response to the Sept. 1 Soviet attack on Korean Air Lines Flight 067 created thunder on the right for President Reagan, but may have a beneficial effect on his overall political standing.
White House strategists, who probe public opinion on a daily basis for Reagan's strengths and weaknesses, report that favorable reaction to his handling of the KAL 007 affair may stem a tide of eroding confidence in his foreign policy.
Since the days of the campaign, Reagan has had to contend with what one senior aide calls "the warmonger image" — the view that he is too quick to use military power and the politics of confrontation in response to crisis.
Despite his best efforts, Reagan has been unable to completely shake that tag since taking office. But in recent
United Press International
NORMAN SANDLER
months, the "war and peace" issue has become an even greater concern to his political advisers.
Polls show voters have greater confidence in the Democrats' ability to prevent nuclear war, spend defense dollars with prudence and create an atmosphere of trust between the supernawers.
What was once viewed as a Reagan strength — his 1980 campaign relied heavily on warnings of a weakened America he become a sore spot in his
- has become a sore spot in his appraisal by voters.
But there are signs this problem may be mitigating. "He's gotten a big boost from the way he was treated," said one top ARAe aide down." said one top ARAe aide down."
Reading between the lines,
Reagan's advisers hope that the same restrained reaction that has inturfied one critical issue in her fight can help allay the fears of voters with more moderate views
Reagan's advisers also draw encouragement from the ceasefire in Lebanon and his announced plan to visit China next year. The former is still regarded as a national leader with an election-year trip to China is viewed as a certain political plum.
Still a variable on the Reagan foreign policy scorecard is the outcome of the arms control discussions now under way in Europe.
Although Reagan has boasted the most ambitious arms control agenda of any president, his aides have acknowledged that it "takes two to negotiate." And although significant breakthroughs surely would cause his political stock to soar, any sudden setback to the talks — perhaps even a continued stalemate — could have the opposite effect.