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Friday, November 3, 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Confused Electorate
It is now only a matter of days until the country selects the man who for the next four years, will lead it politically and philosophically.
That man will need 270 votes in the electoral college to claim the office of president. Those votes will represent the product of the most successful campaign in U.S. history—and certainly one of the most perplexing.
On one side of the party fence, winners became losers overnight. On the other side, an incumbent who looked vulnerable in the beginning wrapped himself in the presidential mantle, remained above the nasty business of politics and reversed his fortunes.
Richard Nixon, a man hardly anyone admits to liking, seemed little more than a year ago to be a sitting duck on several issues, notably Vietnam and the sagging economy. But Nixon has shrewdly exploited the stature of his office to ignore most of the issues.
All this seems to have left the electorate confused, frustrated, sometimes angry—but mostly bored. Neither of the candidates has
been able to know whatever potion it is that makes an exciting campaign. At least, that is what most of the columnists, pollsters, commentators, and editorial writers and other opinion-brokers tell us. It makes you wonder, just what does produce an exciting campaign. I have a notion that an "exciting campaign" would probably be a flashy exercise in media politics involving charismatic candidates.
Perhaps the political expectations of the nation demand such glitter. Certainly, this year, there is no lack of issues. And the differences between the two candidates are striking. They represent two disparate philosophies of government. We must wonder just what issues will move the oligarchy if they are moved, bored with the Vietnam war, the Watergate affair, shady wheat deals, undisclosed campaign funds, the Eagleton affair, erosion of civil liberties—on and on.
It may be that the public is an uninformed captious boob, expecting more than it deserves and getting less than it needs.
—Thomas E. Slaughter
Reconciliation Unlikely
The recent scandal aroused by the words of Sen. George McGovern involve his claim that he will not be the first to call for a reuplification of America under the probable leadership of Richard Nixon. According to Spiro Agnew, this refusal of a defeated candidate to support the winner is unprecedented in modern American history.
Although McGovern's words hints unsportsmanlike behavior, there is justification for his attitude. To begin, politics this year is not a game. It is obvious that whichever candidate is chosen, there will be a run. Unlike many presidential elections, the choice offered the American people is more than one of personalities.
Nixon and McGovern seem to be looking in almost opposite directions for the road this country should follow. Because this election is one of issues (although personalities lapse into the public), there is also possible for either candidate, if he truly believed in the positions of his own platform, to submissively follow the other's leadership. Throughout the campaign each candidate has made it clear that he thinks the other's proposed way of
leading this country is outrageous.
A big man does not follow an outrageous
plan.
McGovern has not been a man who passively agrees to a set of circumstances simply because they are not as bad as he cannot be expected to smile and nod his head at the words and actions of Nixon because he won a presidential election. McGovern will still be the man pursuing the ideals he advocated before the election in his own politically fumbling manner. He has committed himself so much to it that he cannot do otherwise.
Although previous defeated candidates may have assured their new president of support to reunite the country, it seems to me that that is all they did. I do not recall Nixon giving much praise to J. F. Kennedy in 1960 or Barry Goldwater enthusiastically endorsing Lyndon Johnson's actions in 1864 or Hubert Johnson's efforts to persuade people to abide by the decisions of President Nixon in 1968. Perhaps McGovern is being more houstest than his predecessors by telling Americans that he will not support his opponent if he wins instead of quietly proving it after the election.
—Mary Ward
WASHINGTON—There was a startling sequel to our publication last February of the Dita Barda memo, which linked the set, and that is untrust causes with an offer to indicate the Republican convention.
The names of White House aides Colson and Peter Flanigan appear in the documents, our sources say. There's reason, indeed, to believe that Mr. Flanagan has cates of documents which ITT shredded last spring to keep them from falling into our hands.
Angryly, they accused ITT of holding out on them. The conglomerate, not wishing to antagonize the mighty SEC, asked to provide additional confidential memos and letters. Sources who have had access to these documents say they contain incriminating data about House Intervention to get a勿耐 antitrust settlement for ITT.
The same sources tell us, however, that the incriminating documents "were immediately filed by the SFC." Hunt is secretary to the SEC.
When we asked SEC Chairman William J. Casey about this, he would say only: "I am not going to comment on the matter. I hunt the investigation; 'no documents have been kept in a safe under my control.' We asked whether the documents had been locked up under someone else's control, 'I am not sure' he said of the documents." He said cryptically,
Meanwhile, Harley House Commerce Chairman Harley Staggers, D-W. Va., formally requested the ITT documents from the SEC. This put Casey on the spot, since he was appointed by the President but the SEC is an arm of Congress.
He put his loyalty to the President first and refused to deliver the documents to Congress. This angered Staggers who supersoned Casey up to apologize. The SEC chairman, Joseph H. A. Sydney Herlon, Jr., spent an hour closed with Staggers.
The memo was read with considerable astonishment inside the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC had subpoenaed all documents relating to ITT's acquisition of Hartford Fire Insurance, the price in the auction must settle. Yet now in cartons of files, which ITT had turned over to the SEC, could investigators find the Dita Beard memo.
Sternly, Staggers reminded them that the SEC operates under the jurisdiction of Congress and that he had once cited former Federal Communications Chairman Rosel Hyde for contempt for holding back documents.
Nixon's Disneyland Mafia
It started, with me, as a lighter reference. Four years ago I called Nixon's team of Haldenman-Ziegler-Chapin "the kings," and I thought it meant to play off the joking cracks at Kennedy's "Irish
Mafia"—and point a contrast between the two men. Kennedy was a combination of Harvard and old Boston pol. Nixon was a combination of ad agencies and the squarer side of Southern California. The New Frontier had given way to "Frontierland."
Garry Wills
"Bob" Haldeman has long been the underestimated force in
Recent headlines have made the Disneyland Mafia concept both more relevant and more sinister. The University of Southern California now emerges as a new "brain trust"; more like a permanent "hazing" crew out of the Fifties fraternity world.
Nixon's entourage. How conna me more flunky, glad to be such, rank with operators like Henry Kissinger abroad or John Mitchell on the home front? People who think in those terms forget how badly Nixon needs protection. Through the Fifties and sixties, as the president Rose Woods held vast power in the Nixon camp, because she was the Chief Protector. Haldeman is the Rose Woods of the Seventies.
The mystery of Watergate is not its injustice—God knows politics is full of that—but its pettiness. How could big-time operators stoop to gumshoe shenanigans? But the Nixon people only feel at home in the Little League of the spirit. They
Since Protection is not only a need, for Nixon, but a program, the Chief Protector is also a champion of the demands—awesome in the ultimate responsibility, though rather petty in daily performance, and more important in joining wards that can develop—wet Waterates.
have brought the White House down to their level, instead of rising to its own stature of graft or grandeur. These guys even debase the proud name of scandal.
Jack Anderson
Justice Dept. Hides ITT Memos
Consider who they are—characteristic misfits even in their original setting. Crewcut or slick-haired dark operators in a land of blond surf-boarers. Anyone who can take campus letters will be capable of thinking Larry O'Brien's letters worth reading, even at the price of felony. These surfboard rejects use to guard the campus mascot, Tommy Trojan, from the schoolboy tricks he would have to trick tricks of their own. And one look at them is enough to convince you they'll never grow out of that league. Even the trip to China was mainly exciting to Haldeman as a new subject for his home movies; and Ron Ziegler still admires him on his playground on plastic crocodiles when he faces a White House battery of newsmen.
McGovener is on the wrong track when he treats this stuff as a giant form of Evil. What is saddening its is lack of stature, for good or ill—the mean little aimlessness of these goings-on, the satisfaction of little-boy maliciousness.
All this fits the ethos of Nikon himself, whose most characteristic act remains the safe late self-satisfaction kick he took at a demonstrator in Lima, during his trip of infamy there as Vice-President. A Secret Service man had grabbed one demonstrator, was holding him by the arms and had pointed at Nikon later wrote, "I saw I gave his legs go by, I at least had the satisfaction of planting a healthy kick on his shins. Nothing I did all day made me feel better."
So Watergate and the rest is all in the spirit of a "healthy" kick in the shins, the sneaker the better. The mean inspiration, if nothing else, comes from Nixon the secret kicker.
Staggers later told us Causey and Herling had given him the impression they would comply with his request. Instead, they packed off the 34 boxes of FIT paper products in Hunt's safe, to the Justice Department. Not even copies were kept at the SEC.
(C) Universal Press Syndicate 1972
Casey notified Staggerers that the Justice Department had requested the documents. But Staggerer refused to check this out with the Justice Department," he told us. "They said they had not asked for the ITT documents but that Casey knew how he was shipped them over."
This was equivalent to giving the fox the keys to the chicken coop. For top officials of the Justice Department are deeply implicated in the ITT scandal. Staggers has now asked Justice for access to the ITT documents, and they have been ordered to understand the 34 boxes are kept under lock and key where no one can see them."
However, at least one document found its way to us in some of the shredders. In this amazing memo, ITT directs its salesmen to mislead customers about the seriousness of another information leak.
The National Association of Securities Dealers suspended and fined Hampton Management in a subsidiary with $700 million in assets, for cribbing official examinations and incorporating into the manual for prospective salesmen. This meant ITT-
poration."
Before the scandal broke in the newspapers, ITT sent out a confidential memo instructing its
It was also amusing that Lind thought Ray Charles and his group of musicians were "out of place" in Hoch: "I belonged in a night club." At the same time, she liked Della Reese and hailed her as "the saving factor of art." In actuality, the concert would be a five-week concert tour of Europe, and Della Reese is almost exclusively a night-club performer.
Surely the flash of the cameras is as disturbing to those in the audience who are really interested in it, and the clicking is to Charles.
salesmen what to sell customers.
The memo was signed by ITT-
Hamilton President Frank
Hamilton has been acknowledged by ITT
Other comments made in the article resembled Don Rickles-type humor. We were too impressed to deserve further comment.
This wasn't true, since an assistant vice president and a regional vice president were directly involved in the scheme. The memo also claimed none of the employees were still employees of the company, although three of the five are still licensed salesmen.
Whether or not one likes Ray Charles's music, his talent deserves respect—not the cheap version of the Kansan reviewer.
Involved in the scandal were Thomas Pulliam, an assistant vice president and sales training director; also Floyd Marceo, a regional vice president. But by the time NASD had learned about the crib sheets and had notified ITT of an investigation, Pulliam had left the company. Three management managers were suspended and, subsequently, were demoted to license salesmen.
"It is likely," said the memo, "that mention of the violations will be made in your local papers and that certain of your clients may have questions about the matter.
Mary Lind then criticized the performer's reaction to photographers. Also because Ray Charles is blind, he is unaware of much more aware of sound, including the clicking of cameras.
"Advise them . . . that only a very small number of Hamilton's field personnel had been engaged in improper activity" Pierson also ordered his salesmen to tell them the extent of the activity had carefully been withheld from all other persons associated with the Cor-
When we reached Pearson at Hamilton corporate headquarters in Denver, he explained that the three salesmen "are not tired, not really employees." They are 4,000 salesmen. We're talking about five people. Certainly that's a small percentage."
Griff and the Unicorn
Ray Charles
Brian Bliggs
Winfield sophomore
Erik Bass
Winfield sophomore
Lynda Myers
Alma junior
Stefanie Pallium
Lawrence sophomore
Kansas City sophomore
Copyright, 1972, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Perhaps the most petty of the remarks was that Ray Charles's "foot tapping and jumping around did little to improve the quality of the show." could it be that Miss Lind was ignorant of the fact that Charles is blind and therefore less likely to awkward to those who can see him? His movements are part of him, part of his rhythm.
To the Editor:
Readers Respond
The review of the Ray Charles concert that appeared in Monday's Kansan was written in poor taste by another misinformed unformured Kansan staff member.
By Sokoloff
Concert Defended, Tenure ...
Universal Press Syndicate 1973
Misquoted
To the Editor:
In the Kansan of Oct. 26, in an article headed "KU Students Lack Vote on Tenuity," credited the professor as quoted twice, and incorrectly.
I told Olson that the students on the College Committee on Promotions voted on matters of policy but not on individual cases. This has become, in her story, my opinion of what should be done.
Nor did I say to Miss Olson,
"Students just can't judge the
faculty. They just aren't smart enough. While I have some
knowledge of the faculty, I judge a faculty member, the doubt isn't caused by an opinion that they aren't intelligent. If the sentences appear in Miss Olson's notes, they must represent her interpretation of what I said, and
W. D. Paden Professor of English
Defense Budget
☆ ☆ ☆
People today have learned to live with the "bomb" because it is ever present, a reality to accept. Their awareness has shifted to another area where many are jumping on the bandwagon. The problem centers on our environment and how to save it. We need to be cunning the ever rising pollution rate. However, with no environment, it will be difficult to accomplish this.
To the Editor:
Awareness in American society has a remarkable ability to shift. After people become aware of a situation, some take action that assumes various forms, and others are apathetic, but at least there is a reaction even if it is not the case. At time, a problem is buried in the shifting of awareness toward another issue.
The government has just appropriated more tax dollars for "defense." A sizeable portion of this sum will be utilized for the development of new weapons systems, even though President Nixon has been publicizing his peace efforts by signing the nuclear Treaty. This expenditure to destroy should be compared to Nixon's recent refusal to sign an antitropical bill.
Nixon is instigating and promoting mass distrust of other nations, yet he travels to China and Russia to promote peace.
Where do our priorities lie? He has the ability to shift public awareness, and he has efficiently succeeded again with little Congressional support.
If anyone in this country can trust Nixon and his latest power quest, then they deserve him. I am not a fan of Nixon. Americans feel toward one
Mark Devaney Great Bend junior
another and the world. I offer my sympathies.
★★★
Last Saturday on the way from the stadium to our car in the parking lot, it was quite a climb up that hill. We are senior citizens and halfway up my wife said she felt faint, so we stopped.
To the Editor:
So much bad is said about our younger generation that when something good happens we should let it be known also.
Thanks, Boys
We think this was wonderful of these boys after seeing their team beaten so badly. Yes, we had on Go-Bi-Red clothing.
Two young men (one of them a bandman from your university) came up and asked if they could help. Fortunately, we did not help. We had to right beside us all the way to the top in case help was needed.
I have attended many games at Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas State and your university, but I have never seen such competition. Thanks for having fine boys. You can be pround of them.
Ralph E. Connell
3102 So. 17th St.
Lincoln, Neb.
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