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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, October 16, 1968
Cummins prison shooting defended
CUMMINGS PRISON FARM, Ark. (UPI)—Supt. Victor C. Urban defended yesterday the guards who fired birdshot into a crowd of inmates at Cummins prison farm when they rebelled against pickling cucumbers. Two prisoners were injured and another was possibly blinded.
"It was a proper way to act," Urban said in defense of the guards who fired two shotgun blasts at the group of about 100 prisoners Monday.
"If we had a closed prison with walls, there would have been no hesitation to shoot into the group for this kind of act," the superintendent said.
His 16,000-acre prison farm, where hundreds of prisoners work in the fields, has only a few fences around the main buildings.
Monday's shooting incident propelled the state prison system, rocked by scandal in the past, into Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller's reelection campaign. His opponent, Democrat Marion H. Crank, said the shooting was an example that the administration's talk of prison reform "is a phrase instead of a reality."
Three skeletons were found in unmarked graves at Cummins last January. Pathologist reports were inconclusive, but then Supt. Thomas O. Murton said he believed the bones were those of murdered men. Murton later was fired by Rockefeller's prison board, some thought for his views on the skeletons, and replaced by Urban.
Until recently there were few paid guards at Cummins. Armed inmates guarded unarmed inmates through a trusty system in which at one time a monetary payoff bought a better job or a better bunk. There are still some armed inmates.
Tho may urge softer Hanoi line
Asian diplomats familiar with the Hanoi-Washington talks said that Tho, who left Paris abruptly Monday for top-level consultations, felt his delegation should be given a larger possibility for maneuvering at this critical juncture of the parley.
The parley, begun May 13, has reportedly entered a delicate stage. Both the American and North Vietnamese authorities seemed anxious to make a
PARIS (UPI)—North Vietnam's ranking diplomat, Le Duc Tho, was reported yesterday to have flown to Hanoi to urge a more conciliatory stand at the Paris talks and to combat proPeking "hawks" demanding a military solution of the Vietnamese conflict.
About 120 prisoners refused Monday to go to work in the fields to pick cucumbers. They sat down near a baseball diamond.
About 10 a.m., 22 of the men said they were ready to go to work.
special bargaining effort to break the impasse of their talks before the U.S. presidential election Nov. 5 or before the new administration takes over next Jan. 20.
remaining 100 onto the ball field itself. When they refused to move, Haydis said he fired a warning shot.
Some prisoners said he did not. Then at least two rounds of birdshot, were fired into the group. One was fired by Haydis and one came from a guard. Urban said there were more than two shots, but he did not know who fired them. The sit-down strike was brought on by grievances over the prison medical services.
Tho conferred Tuesday during a Moscow stopover with Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin. The Soviets were believed in most quarters to be advising Hanoi to show moderation in Paris.
Asian diplomats said it may have dawned on the Hanoi delegates they had little or no interest in waiting for another administration which in fact might prove less amenable than the outcoming Johnson government.
Associate Supt. Gary Hydis said he decided to move the
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Russians, Czechs settle treaty terms
MOSCOW (UPI)—Soviet and Czechoslovak leaders yesterday settled basic terms for a treaty providing for the stationing of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia and the withdrawal of most of the Warsaw Pact occupation forces, but delayed signing it until "a later date," East European sources said.
Czechoslovak premier Oldreich Cernik and Soviet premier Alexei N. Kosygin agreed on the text of the treaty at a second Kremlin meeting yesterday, but left a number of specific conditions and details to be worked out by lower-level negotiators.
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