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Tuesday, September 20, 1977
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unagged editorials represent the opinion of the Kansas editorial *st.*; Signed column represent only the views of the writers.
Krueger had to go
Robert Krueger, state architect, has resigned. Kansas won't miss him.
Kentucky Kansas was Krueger was assistant director of the state architect's office from January 1972 until May 1973, when former Gov. Robert Pickling appointed him to head the office. Krueger was supposed to clean up the building scandals that had plagued the office. He failed miserably in his attempts to do so.
The staff of State Sen, Norman Gaar, RWestwood, prepared a report last summer on construction of state buildings. Many of those buildings, the report stated, were approved by the state architect's office despite their serious architectural flaws.
KRUEGER PASSED the buck by saying that he had taken office after problems in the buildings had occurred and that the problems simply weren't his fault. The report concluded otherwise. On 12 of 15 specific construction problems, according to the report, the state architect's office did not notify the state attorney general's office — making legal action against shoddy contractors impossible. Krueger was notified of many of the problems and either failed to act or acted belatedly.
KU was supposed to open its new law school building last month. It didn't. But last spring, Krueger enthusiastically told the Kansan that the building would be done on
time.
On Feb. 17, Krueger said, "The building should be completed on time — there is every reason to believe that there will be no delay." Just a week later, he said the May 23 deadline for the building's completion had been pushed back to June 7. Why? "Bad weather."
THE EXTENSION, he said, had been granted Feb. 3 after consultations with officials from the University, the contractor, the Kansas Board of Regents and, most importantly, the state architect's office. Either Krueger had a faulty memory or he wasn't telling the truth on Feb. 17, just two weeks after the Feb. 3 extension had been granted.
The law school contractor, Casson Construction of Topeka, eventually received a financial present from Krueger, who extended the completion deadline to July 13 against because of the state's supposed terrible weather. Casson could finally be the July 13 deadline. Krueger finally decided to fine Casson for each day after he gave the building wasn't done. He should have levied the fine much earlier. He should have levied the fine after May 23.
snubbs, to forget the law school building for a moment. The office also approved construction at Wesco Hall, construction that included a design error by a mechanic<sup>1</sup>.
engineer. The error resulted in inadequate ventilation, forcing the intake and relief air openings to be enlarged, partly at state expense.
AT BOBNSON GYMNAISIUM, according to the report, Krueger's office approved a faulty roof that was only partly replaced and also will need complete replacement.
And at the KU scholarship halls, the report states, a 1,223 foot steam line leaked when it was installed. It never has been used. Again, thank the state architect's work.
office.
KU's by no means alone in suffering from an autorestaurant in the state architecture's office. Wichita State University has been subjected to leaky pipes, sloping floors, windows that fog and walls that fall apart, brick by brick. The report indicated that fixing the flaws would cost more than $600,000. Repairing the Life Science Building bricks, held together by faulty mortar, would take $497,000 of that amount.
and that the problems at the Life Science Building were evident in late 1973. Krueger didn't begin to seriously investigate the problems until March 1975.
WHY WAS the state architect so slow in starting an investigation?
According to the report, "The delay was because the state architect's office believed the problem was caused by weathering, rather than by a failure of the mortar. There was reason to suspect that the mortar was failing, however."
At WSU's McKnight Arts Center, the state architect's office approved a crosswalk that twice has been struck by trucks. At Clinton Hall, a leaky roof caused $10,000 in damages to the inside of the building. Fixing the roof will cost $18,000.
will cost $2,000.
Cheap, boody and unprofessional work characterized the WSU construction. And what was Krueger doing? WSU's president and business administrator repeatedly issued written protests about the construction. The state architect's office, however, still approved the poorly built facilities.
What did Krueger have to say about the numerous examples of his office's in-competence? Why, he merely promised to do better work in the future.
doubled.
He's future run out on Krueger. He resigned last week, saying his "patience has been exhausted." The state's patience also has been exhausted. Krueger is gone. But his legacy remains in the crumbling campus buildings that he leaves behind.
buildings. Gov. Robert Bennett should carefully consider choices for Krueger's permanent replacement before appointing one. Maybe this time Kansas can get the right man for a big job.
I admire Jody Powell. He's got guts.
Admitting that he did a "dumb" thing last week when he leaked erroneous information about Sen. Charles Percy, R-11, wasn't easy to find, which is that concentration on regaining people's trust through honesty and peasant customs.
Powell's confession admirable
Everybody knows an obnoxious, belching person like Billie. Everybody knows a spolied brat like Amy. Everybody knows the feeling of carrying their own luggage and dressing in jeans. Everybody knows the delightful curiosity of a juicy rumor.
cuphaspice
Passions that is Powell's big crime. He became too relaxed, too loose. He snitched without knowing. He spread a rumor, and responsible press secretaryes don't do that, no matter how down home the administration is.
tion 18.
Last week, Powell called
Lake Miller, Washington bu-
ter chief of the Chicago S-
un-Times, and leaked accusations
that Percy was involved in
Lance-like abuses of airplanes,
money and facilities during the
1972 campaign.
The accusations, however, were proved wrong, and Powell emerged as a press man of National Enquirer status.
SEN. SAM NUNN, D-Ga., called Powell's mistake "prosecution by leak."
cution by leak.
Sen. John Heinz III, R-Pa., called it a "dirty trick."
Rick
Tbaemert
Editorial Writer
Bob Dole, R-Kan., called it "a cheap shot," and said, "It is all too reminiscent of another era of enemies lists and dirt tricks.
Even Powell himself called it "an inappropriate, regrettable and dumb thing." And although Powell said "It was a legitimate subject for a reporter to ascertain the facts, he neglected the ethics of reporting and reported on him with two cents worth of smut.
Powell also said he thought the conversation with Miller was a "between you and me" conversation not to be reported.
Although such off-the-record talks are not unusual, and leaks are as common as peanuts in Plains, Ga., Powell hinted at incompetence by giving a conversation slip and asking him to be wary of a press secretary who doesn't realize he's leaking a story.
NEWSPAPERS SEEM to be wary of Powell's capabilities, too. Although Powell called several newsmen about Percy's apparent pitfalls, nobody printed them except to turn the story on him. New York reporter said Powell often leaks stories to them "but it always turns out to be it wrong."
Such a statement makes one wonder what other tidbits were uttered from Powell's lips. Aips are part of Bart-Lerier-Ray affair, perhaps.
Perhaps there was something to Powell's leaks. If so, Powell could have learned the creet way to leak his information. Even a school girl with a crust on the football team told me that he was not art of inconspicuously letting him
know. Maybe Powell never had a childhood crush.
Or maybe he just hust'it out the mustard as press secretary. But give Powell more credit than that. Apparently Carter does, because he accepted Powell's assessment of the incident and said nothing about having Powell resign.
In a complex communication system in which leaks are prevalent, rumors are strategic and
scandals are sensitive territory, there are bound to be breakdowns and mistakes.
When Powell shot off his official mouth, he could have covered up his tracks, or perhaps have found a scapegoat. Instead, he accepted his imperfectness, admitted his error and apologized just as anyone else would.
would.
Maybe that's why I still like
the guy.
Carter's secrecy proposal inadequate
FOUR OTHER agencies— bureaucratically speaking—
A new proposal by President Carter may stop some of the bureaucral maneuvering by governmental agencies to withhold information from the public.
Then again, it may not.
Under the proposal, 10 governmental agencies would completely lose their authority to classify information as "secret" and others would have their classification authority reduced.
The proposal, drafted as an executive order by Carter, would wrest classification authority from the Department of Defense and Communications Commission, the Civil Service Commission, the Department of Health, Education and Economics Board, the Federal Power Commission, the National Science Foundation, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the State Science and Technology Policy.
Dave Johnson
Editorial Writer
would have their powers of concealment reduced. The Labor Department's power to classify information "top secret" would be cut to keeping the Company Private Investment Corporation would have its authority reduced from "secret" to "confidential," the Agency for International Development from the Export-Import Bank and the Export-import Bank from "secret" to "confidential."
What all this doublespeak means is that the government would be limited in the extent of what it could shelter.
Carter's proposal is a well-intentioned attempt to open up the executive branch, one of his pet promises during his presidential campaign. It goes some way toward eradicating the
closed atmosphere that pervaded the executive branch long before Nixon clamped his own guidelines on what the government should and should not withhold from the public.
IF CARTER'S proposal can be faulted, it is because it does not meet our enough. In fact, we need an administration admit as much.
A member of the National Security Council staff who helped write the proposal has said, "Take HEW-I can't imagine what they'd do if national security classification had delegated his top secret authority to the assistant secretaries for occupational safety and health, labor management, employment standards, manpower and labor statistics."
and also make sure they And some agencies were let off the hook entirely by the proposal to declarify information
The proposal stipulates that nothing may be classified
unless it meets one of three criteria designed to exclude domestic matters that do not relate to foreign policy or national security, such as the Department of Defense and Department of State are not covered by Carter's new policy proposal. Therefore their jurisdiction are legitimate concerns of national security.
IT IS ULTIMATELY the President's decision to determine what is national security and what is not. No broad proposal, whether from the President or Congress, should surpass that power. The deletion of the Department of Defense and the minister's proposal is due to a valid concern for keeping information secret that could damage our national security if it were released.
keeping confidential files on civilians through the FBI. The Department of Justice must legitimize the role of nationals who are genuine threats to society—society, terrorists, kidnappers, the whole world, and everyone needed to prevent abuses of such surveillance powers.
One agency that was left off the list and should have been included is the Department of Education, which is guilty of conducting wiretaps and
The proposal goes one step further than the Freedom of Information Act, which allows an individual to petition the Justice Department's executive branch. The act, however, has a catch-all loophole that allows an agency to withhold information it deems relevant to national security or the attorney's proposal closes this option, allowing the agencies it covers
Like his predecessor, Carter is trying to open up the executive branch. Now that he has tackled midgets like the National Science Foundation, his next step should be to take on the bigger game of the Department of Justice.
Here she is, gorgeous and silent, Miss America She's our purest fantasy Candid comments cut pay
By BERT PARKS
N.Y. Times Features
N.Y. Times Feature
In my role as master of ceremonies of the Miss Pageant for 23 years, I've been asked many questions by many interviewers about many aspects of the pageant: How has the pageant changed over the years? How much longer do you think that you will be the emcee of the event? Tell me about the unusual events that have occurred in your years as emcee. And many other very unusual questions.
But I think one of the most unusual questions that was ever asked me recently was "What value does the Miss America pageant have for the American people?"
naturally, when you say "value," comparison came immediately to mind. How can I compare the marvelous events to some of the marvellous events that have happened in the last few years? The great advances in science, putting a mind at ease with the space shuttle—and, in the field of medicine, dramatic advances in the quest for a cure for many plastic implants, and many other things.
I WOULD SAY, then, that in the light of all these spectacular events, Miss America becomes a nonevent—it's a happening. And I think it lies a great deal of its charm and so to the American people: Because it isn't an event.
It isn't a big thing. It's the biggest Cinderella story in America. It's what everyone's should be like: The purity, the beauty, the great American Dream can all be vicariously
I think a great deal of the pageant's charm and why it is valuable to the American people is because it isn't an event . . . What a marvelous mental vacation it is to watch a beautiful piece of fluff.
realized watching the beauty of this pageant unfold in its two hours on television.
IT IS FOR ME, as perhaps it is for many other Americans, almost a dreaded event to open the newspapers in the morning. If the man had there will be more of the horrendous, macabre, terrible things that man is doing to his woman; and it never disappoints.
How does one really measure the value of a thing, an event, or whatever? It's all really based on your own personal evaluation of that thing, that event, whatever.
Could it be that we, the American people, are tired of events? What is a marvelous moment, an eventful moment, to watch something beautiful happen, with no message to impart, just a message of beauty and love, if you appreciate and joyeously and a great hope for happiness!
hopes of making it
I would like to think that that is the true value of Miss America.
And it's hard to define truly what Miss America does for us.
So I hope all Americans enjoy joining with me in viewing a nenevent, a beautiful piece of fluff, two hours of no message, two hours of good news — two hours of seeing another two hours of going back in time to perhaps a time that never was, and that we always dream would be, a time for pure, unadulterated girl-watching and applauding all of the things that connect with that marvelous pastime.
Of course, what it does for me is quite obvious. But I have been privileged over the last 23 years to have seen some 1,250 young men killed in car runsway. That certainly has value for me, and I have a
sneaking suspicion that the same sort of reaction applies to the average American who views the pageant.
Because of the vast kaleidescope of events, Americans have no almost no information no news anymore to load news anymore.
Then it can be truly said that the value of Miss America to the American people is in the fact that they can still appreciate a form of lovely escapism, if you will.
Bert Parks, who is master of ceremonies of the Miss America pageant, also appears on the stage—most recently in the musical "Good News," in summer stock—and does, he says, "a lot of sitting, staring and rocking—by choice."
How nice to get back and to be rendered senseless by beauty and the impossible dream!
Talking with reporters has come to be as much a part of being Miss America as wearing a tiara or walking down that Atlantic City runway. Almost before the sound of Bert Parks' singing has died away, the reigning queen must press American officials, because American usually finds herself facing the print reporters first; then she's off to face a round of television and radio talk show
Any new Miss America can be certain she will be faced with plenty of personal questions. If you have any questions may have a great deal to do with successfully she can measure her performance during her at the top. She can choose her words. Surely.
Susan Perkins of Ohio is Miss America for 1978. She already has talk to the press about the Equal Rights Amendment (she favors it), alimony (she opposes it), abortion (she opposes it) and premarital sex (she thinks that question is too personal).
SUSAN PERKINS appears to be a woman who says what she thinks. She has been a speech writer for the Ohio State Senate Republic caucus, and she would like to see her home in Congress. The $20,000 she will receive for being Miss America will be used to help pay her expenses in law school.
Tawney Elaine Godin of New York was Miss America in 1978. She won the title before definite opinion made those opinions known in interviews.
as Susan Perkins sounds as though she knows her own mind. But she might be wise to take a look at Miss America history and keep her opinions to herself.
Lynn Kirkman Editorial Writer
You see, Miss America's reign lasts for a whole year, not just those two September Saturdays when she walks down the runway to wave to her adoring public.
THE REST OF her time is spent tending to business—making personal appearances at supermarket openings, state fairs, chamber of commerce and conventions of every sort.
When the press picked up her statements, public reaction was decidedly negative.
A Miss America who tends to business well can net a remarkably tidy sum from customers who expect to rake in at least $5,000 this year*
Miss America's public, it seems, wasn't ready for a beauty queen who spends her days on web rights, marriages and sex.
But Tawney Godin said what she thought. And the bookings didn't come in.
soul during the year, preferring to smile all the way to the bank. Benham's earnings reportedly were substantial, and she'll probably retire from her reign in a style to which many of us would like to become accustomed.
Dorothy Benham of Minnesota, Miss America for 1977, learned her business secrets by her behavior. She resilient kept her opinions to her.
PERKINS SEEMS to be indicating that she will choose to emulate Godin rather than Benham. She said she would speak on public issues, even if it cost her some of those bookings. She said sheAmerica's office has her administra-tion car and her carte blanche to talk about the things that were important to her.
"When I feel I have something valuable to say and I want to say it, I will say it," she said.
Such statements have been known to cause knuckle-cracking and teeth-gnashing behind the scenes in Miss Amer-
But maybe things are different now. Maybe Americans no longer want a symbol that represents beauty alone. Maybe they appreciate treasured, too Susan Perkins probably will find out this year.
We wish her well.
But she shouldn't be too surprised if the verdict indicates that Miss America's fans are traditionalists who still prefer their women sweet and smiling—and silent.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Jerry Seib
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