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Wednesday, November 8, 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Nixon's Normalcy
Tuesday was a bad day for George McGovern.
The pollsters had told us it would be a are
Nixon victory, but how many of us really
expected this margin? We can only ask what,
in fact, "four more years" really mean.
Nixon will surely take his margin as some kind of mandate to continue the policies he began during his first term. There are those who say, with some justification, that what Nixon did was a positive move. The more optimistic tell us that Nixon, mindful of history's account of his administration, wil moderate his more odious positions. The best guess is that Nixon is still Nixon—the mean, sometimes vindictive, closed man the public has come to know.
This man—the President, as he constantly refers to himself—will exercise his mandate in many areas. He can almost certainly make at least two Supreme Court Nominations for the White House, and seems to be busing on busing, the outcome of which should be settled during his next term; environmental legislation, not one of his note causes, may be cripped; the final disposition depends on whether Mr. Trump term; and social legislation, particularly welfare reform, should be acted on.
Nixon's philosophical view of the presidency will not change overnight, regardless of what optimists may think. His performance in the last four years is the best indication of what is in store for the next four years.
In the light of the Nixon landslide, it is most interesting to note that Nixon did not carry large numbers of other Republican candidates into office. This may shed some light on the type of support Nixon has and on McGovin's problems. I get the feeling that Americans voted not so much for Nixon as against McGovin.
Nixon and his surrogates were to exploit all the negative facets of McGown's campaign while speaking little about the President's plans for the next four years.
What was it in McGoven that turned so many from their traditional party? It may have been his positions, considered radical by some, on welfare, the war, amnesty and defense. More realistically, it probably was his image. That may have been to much for the turbulent frontier of the current Sixties. For a weary America, Nikon represented normalcy.
We can now mourn the passing of the dynamic, idealistic America.
-Thomas E. Slaughter
Kissinger Peace Plan Betrays Early Stand
It's neat, the way the act has gone. Henry Kissinger appeared generous in victory; various acyolates (like Joe Alosp) have praised him for not gloating over Hanoi's cave-in.
Kissinger himself poses the matter this way—that Hanoi at last agreed to separate the military from the political issues, as if America had consistently tried to accomplish this. Kissinger is harking back to his own 1969 proposal of "two states": Hawaii and Washington handling the military within the Saipan negotiating directly with the NLF for the South's future.
One trouble with that proposal was its assumption—which it asked the other side to accept that South Vietnam was a separate state. The Vietnamese an outside aggressor, and the end of "leaders" helped the end.
What Kissinger called for then was a determined disjunction all down the line. Russia should not be brought in at all. According to his 1969 "Foreign Affairs" article, any attempt by Moscow to settle the war would add fuel to the already widespread charge that the superpowers are sacrificing their allies to maintain spheres of alliance.
What else we should avoid, according to the two-track kissing? Why, only three things? No, it's not.
coalition government. He even says it was wrong of Johnson to tie a bombing tail to Saigon's agreement. The result of such acts would be, Kissinger predicted, to make American pressure "wind up being directed against Saigon as the seems obstacle to an accommodation." That looked disastrous back in 1969, although now Kissinger is indirectly boasting of it.
By Garry Wills
On ceasefire, the 1969 Kissinger said "a formal ceasefire is likely to predetermine the ultimate settlement," in the sense that "our involvement in such an effort may well destroy the existing political structure of south Vietnam and thus lead to a Communist takeover."
Of a coalition government he wrote, "The notion that a coalition government represents a compromise which will permit a new political evolution hardly does justice to Vietnamese conditions. To solve the problem of Vietnam by having a coalition government makes as much sense as to attempt to overcome the problems of Mississippi through a coalition between the SDS and the Ku Klu Klan."
So who has backed off, after all? The Hanoi government, or the Henry Kissinger of 1969? Actually, the Kissinger division of military from political settlement was muddled by President Nixon. Far from a disjunctive policy, he pursued one of "linkage," tying nations and
(C) Universal Press Syndicate 1972
problems together. Where Kissinger opposed the entry of Russia into the equation, Nixon strenuously worked for it. Where Kissinger had opposed the involvement of Saigon in withdrawal agreements, Nixon spent years talking of our commitment to Saigon, our refusal to abandon the client to break our word (tell that to Taiwan and give our goal as a political one—to bring about self-determination in Vietnam—thus destroying the neat division Kissinger has imagined.
So it is absurd for Kissinger now to say that such division is "exactly the position which we had always taken." Even now, we are not going back to the two-track approach as Kissenger himself enunciated it, precluding, that as did, involvement with Saigon, ceasefire in place and a coalition government (no matter what the two ways, as a party both involved and uninvolved, which involves distrust, record and lying about our belated congratulations.
Jack Anderson
We could have made these concessions four years ago, but Kissinger denounced them then, and Nixon changed the grounds of that denunciation. Now we make the concessions and call them the “Ambassador to our part of our foes.” It looks as if we must he our way out of Vietnam, just as we did our way in.
Images Hide Decent Men
WASHINGTON — Political campaigns, like the comic mirrors at the amusement park, often distort a candidate's image.
I have known Richard Nixon and George MGovern, for example, since they were obscure congressmen fresh from the hustings. Neither is what he appears to the public to be.
Several bruising campaigns have given Nixon the image of a cold and crass and calculating assassination. He is not like this at all.
The real Nixon, as a 23-year-old law student at Duke University, used to carry a crippled stool and stand on the floor. The classmate, Frederick Cady, had been deformed and dwarfed by polio at age 9. Four schoolmates told my associate, Frederick Cady, who remembered young Nixon regularly Cady up the stairs of their boarding house. Some recall that Nixon carried the student in his arms; others remembered that he carried the same classmate locked arms and formed a cradle to lift Cady.
The real Nixon is a warm, rather shy, basically decent human being. He put a black medical student and a black architectural student through college without their knowing that their union and expenses of the United States, the President of the United States, intimates, among them our source, were ever aware of this very private Richard by a very private Richard Nixon.
The President also has the image of a politician who puts politics ahead of principle. On the contrary, the real Nixon is a patriot who would sacrifice his tremendous political ambition for the sake of his country. He demonstrated in 1960 after he left a close election to John F. Kennedy and the Republicans. The gathering evidence of massive election fraud in Illinois and Indiana—evidence that could have thrown the election into the courts. The partisans around Nixon urged him to challenge the election.
When he called upon Kennedy
to pay his respects, Kennedy said, "Well, I guess the outcome is in doubt."
"No." said Nixon. "The outcome is not in doubt. You are the winner."
His biographer and close friend, Earl Mazo, had researched a series of 12 stories on the dangers of personal appeal to him to stop the series. The defeated presidential candidate explained quietly that he would not be a party to such a crisis for the United States.
For the ambitious Richard Nixon, this was a sacrifice second only to giving his life. He was killed in 1968 and his life in 1969 for his country.
George McGovern, likewise, has come out of the campaign with his own image. He has been portrayed radically who can't make up his mind. The truth is that no one in the general is more consistent than McGovern.
At age 24, he denounced those who placed "military pride"
above "human life," who put "financial return" ahead of "human welfare." He has never, in all his political career, deviated from this theme. If he has changed his position on the details, he has never wavered in ornicle.
Indeed, McGovern is such a thoroughly decent and compassionate man that it sometimes hurts him politically. When Tom Fettle was born, his first came to light, sady says to their astonishment and dismay. McGvern was more concerned over the effects of the future upon him than upon him now, he campaigned to had use all their powers of persuasion to get McGovern to drop Eagleton. The long term meanwhile, was politically disastrous for McGobern.
Even now, aides have told us, McGovern is still withholding aspects of the Eagleton story that would help him out of concern that it might hurt his former running mate. Incredible as this
may sound, "in almost swainty" McGvern "is almost saintly" when it comes to putting human rights above of his own political ambitions.
I know the fundamental decency of George McGovern. I have seen his eyes grow misty over the problems of others. Rare among politicians, he has always been as open as the skies over his hometown. He is very inability to deceive has made him an awkward politician when he gives in to his advisers and tries to play pragmatic games.
Does he have radical, left-wing leanings? He is a solid, sound, somewhat simplistic mid-Westerner, rooted in the rugged American frontier of America. A prairie preacher's son, he briefly entered the ministry himself. His favorite scripture, which he often quotes, is *Christ's admonition*: 'When her shall save his life she lose it, when whoor she lose his life for My sake shall find it.'
Copyright, 1972.
by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
James J. Kilpatrick
Economy Is the Real Issue
WASHINGTON—David LawREN, the columnist who is dean of us all, long has cherished a theory that in the absence of some overriding concern, such as the war in 1940, presidential will be decided largely on one issue only, the pocketbook issue.
That theory is soundly buttressed in a little monograph that turned up recently in the mail: "On Measuring the Response of American Voters to Changes in Economic Conditions, 1792-1792" by Thomas Senior Berry of Richmond. Va. Berry is an associate professor of economic studies at University College at the University of Richmond. His particular interest lies in economic history.
Several years ago Berry began feeding great mounds of early American economic statistics into a computer. His purpose was to come up with figures that might provide a reliable index to gross national product in the 19th century, a sample of months ago, chiefly for the GNP he began correlating his GNP presidential elections. His cheerful and unpandemic monograph is the result.
Berry developed six economic classifications for presidential years, based upon the average number of votes he received preceding years: boom, brisk, good, fair, poor and bust. He found an absolute correlation at both extremes. In the boom and the bust, he had won always. In the poor and bust years, the party in power always lost. In those years that were in the boom, the fair, other considerations tend to dominate the electoral process.
12. 26 per cent in the GNP this year. This moves 1972 out of the classification of "good" years and into the classification of "brisk." If his calculations are correct, based upon 16 re-election attempts, he should romp home with something between 72 and 74 per cent of the electoral vote and with 54 per cent of the popular vote.
"Three things," he said, "could occur to boost Nikon's share of the vote: an improvement in conditions, a good campaign on the ground and a real challenge to his opponent. Similarly, a sudden and sharp deterioration of conditions, a poor campaign by the Republicans or an especially good campaign by McGovern would tend to detract from the Republican margin of victory. And if these tendencies went to an Iowaixon it would lose, though the odds are heavily against it."
Berry came up with these projections more than a month ago. In the fashion of prudent business, he was careful to put in a few qualifications.
Economic conditions have continued gradually to improve in recent months. Nixon has run a poor campaign, but McGovern has been no ball of fire. Berry's projection looks solid to me.
policy, civil liberties, the recasting of priorities in terms of federal spending. No, indeed. They are interested in their own everyday lives. Are they getting okay? This is the ultimate test.
A correspondent who travels the campaign trail needs no coats of impressions. The American people, by and large, are not deeply interested in the things we see and hear when we are interested in the war, foreign
What about the 1972 election? Berry estimates a growth rate of
Statistics as such are wasted on most voters. It simply doesn't matter in the ordinary view that the unemployment rate is 5.3 percent, or whatever the rate may be, but it seems tough; but the typical head of a household is working; his income is rising, and he's meeting the installments on his car. If he thinks at all of the GNP, he thinks it's the Russian secret service. It seems that correlations make clear, such a voter in the absence of some overriding issue—is not inclined
to vote against the party in power. He may not be especially grateful this fall, but he isn't actively sure. If his wallet were full of cash, he would be a different matter today. But for the typical American, the pocketbook is holding up and the future looks along okay. Presidential speaking, that's all it takes.
James J. Kilpatrick
(C) The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
"It's Mr. Thieu, Tricia! Julie and I have been drafted into the South Vietnamese army!"
Readers Respond
To the Editor.
Channelization Challenged
An environmental impact statement prepared by the Corps has stated that channelization will cause flood and animal plant life in the creek. Other studies show that channelization, by increasing runoff, will lower the water table to cause flood stress downstream.
With the full encouragement of the City Commission, the Corps is preparing to levee 4.3 miles and set up a flood control Creek, a stream that flows into the Kaw a few miles downstream from Lawrence. The channel will replace the present meandering stream bed with a ditch 240-feet wide for the purpose of providing water for the surrounding area.
Unless a loud public outcay is raised soon, the Court of Lawrence and the Crops of Engineers will have moved us one more small step down the road of environmental degradation.
The city favors channelization because the bulk of its funding would be provided by the federal government. Alternative plans with less environmental disruption, such as simple levee construction, would require increased city spending.
The Sierra Club and the Audubon Society have raised the question whether a levee could be federal government footing the water would in channelization. This plan wouldn't cost the city anything more. The city fathers, however, show little enthusiasm for it.
Unless forceful objections to channelization are soon heard, the Corps will go ahead with the procedures for public hearing on the matter will
be at 7:30 p. m. Thursday at Grant School (take Massachusetts north to highway 40, then east 1 miles and north 4½ miles) (Sorry if you are at all concerned about this matter, please attend and state your opinion. If you cannot come, please write to me, city manager, 910 Massachusetts, indicating your feelings.
Rob Earhart Overland Park senior
By Sokoloff
Griff and the Unicorn
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Universal Press Syndicate 1972
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