UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
OCTOBER 4,1978
Missile plan frightening
In a brazen move, the United States Air Force recently announced that parts of Kansas were under consideration as proposed MX missile sites.
Even before the tragedy of a missile propellant leak at Rock, which killed two airmen, had vanished from the pages of most newspapers, the Air Force's MX bombshell exploded.
The newest toy in the Pentagon's bag of nuclear defense tricks, the MX missile program would require a large area of land where a network of underground tunnels would be built. Periodically, missiles could then be moved secretly from silo to silo in a militaristic hide-and-seek fashion. All of which is supposed to make it difficult for the enemy to pinpoint and destroy the missile missles.
Currently the Air Force is considering northeast Kansas, parts of Nebraska and Colorado as one of seven locations for the MX sites. It's a philling thought.
REPORTEDLY, as many as 5,000 vertical silos would be constructed and 250 of them would be armed with intercontinental missiles and launchers.
However, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Lew Allen Jr. said it was unlikely
that Kansas would be chosen, instead an area in the southwestern United States was more probable.
But that's in no way certain, he said.
Insecure with such shaky assurances, Gov. Robert F. Bennett dashed off a telegram Monday to President Jimmy Carter urging a halt to any further consideration of Kansas as a potential MX missile site.
In the telegram Bennett said: "Mr. President, in plain English the U.S. Air Force is proposing that potentially 8 percent of the entire state of Kansas be removed from civilization, from the citizens of our state and from their productive use of this land for at least 20 to 30 years.
BENNETT SAID government plans indicated that if Kansas was selected, about 186,000 acres of farm and range land would be adversely affected by silo and road construction, and the state's watertable could be lowered.
"I find this proposal utterly unbelievable and inconceivable."
One can only agree with Bennett's assessment of the Air Force proposal, but should add that it is also frightening and needlessly dangerous to Kansans.
Whitey, please tell me Rovals will win playoffs
White Herzog, manager
Kansas City Ro-
Harry S. Trumbo, Sports Complex
Kansas City, Mo.
Dear Whitev:
First of all, congratulations. Winning the American League Western division title three years in a row is quite an accomplishment.
But, as you may have guessed, I'm not writing just to offer my congratulations. As a long-time Royals fan, I have a personal ole.
But watching a third consecutive playoff loss would be, well, rather upsetting.
We want a World Series, Whitley, and after that we playoff, we especially want one this year.
Do you think maybe that you could manage a championship in Kansas this year?" To tell you the truth, I really not sure that I'm up to seeing the Royals lose another championship playoffs
As you obviously know, with each loss of the playoffs, the pain gets worse. But it can't be avoided.
ACTUALLY IT WONT even that bad when the Royals were just a struggling expansion team. Nobody expected them to win, and they got their start from just winning, got a good team and you're expected to win--there probably are thousands of fans this very minute who are biting their fingernails, pacing the hats and sitting next to each other, next to each balla rames against New York.
Losing the first playoffs, in 1976, wasn't that bad. I was at home in Kansas City that first year and I watched the Royals make it to the playoffs. They could pull it off, but they didn't. Watching all those New Yorkers pour out onto the field at Yankee Stadium really turned my stomach. You had to play for feyness as a Chamblee for putting the run that跑了 the Yankees to the
Series—or even Mark Littell for being the owner who allowed that home run.
B I T I G OVER that loss, Whitey. It wasn't really that bad because I knew the Royals would have another chance. And they did.
Again I was certain that the Royals would wipe out the Yankees last year. After the Yankees took the lead in the game, the Yankees didn't stand a chance, I thought. Because the Royals wouldn't dare take it.
But then the nightmare started all over again. In the final game of the playoffs last year, I saw the end coming. It wasn't like the year before. I just had to sit there and watch. I still can't believe it happened twice.
I didn't want to wait another year for a World Series, Whitey, but I did. I still thought you could win again, even though professionals were for Texas or California in
It was a long season, though, and you won again. But now I'm beginning to get nervous. The playoffs are starting and I’m sitting on the edge of my chair again,
'IM NOT ASKING for much. All I want is some insurance that the Royals won't mess up this time—that instead they'll wipe New away. Now, don't that sound reasonable?
Ben Bradlee has become a celebrity in a business that is usually known for more than chasing celebrities. The most famous of these actors is Bradley Bridece, is celebrated for his involvement with Watergate—and then only after Jason Robards portrayed him in the movie "All Grey."
I'm not even going to ask for a victory in the World Series, although I should. But losing to New York three years in a row would just be too much for me to handle.
I just don't want to wait another year for a
Ottis series. Come on, Whitey, tell me we'll
be like that.
But Woodward and Bernstein aside, he is also regarded as a knowledgeable spokesman for the newspaper business.
His discussion led him to what he called the hardest decision he encountered at the Post: to print or not to print.
Bradlee, both the professional journalist and the celebrity, gave his opinions about the 'Power and the Press' in a speech Monday night at the Kansas Union.
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THE POST, he said, doesn't agonize over all stories. Some, such as those involving government assertions of national security, are often easily resolved on the basis of facts.
Bradlee recalled the Nixon Administration's attempts to hide the bombing of Cambodia under a blanket of national security in 1971. The Cambodians knew about the bombing, he said, and if they had known that it was Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union.
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Who didn't know? The American people, and Nixon would just as soon they didn't.
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"The Nixon Administration," Bradleye said, "was scored of the hell that might have been bombed in a conflict and was bombing in contradiction to at least one treaty, and at least 50 public
In this instance, Bradlee said, the press was surely acting in the public interest.
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Bradlee finds privacy toughest call
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HOWEVER, THERE are other stories that Bradlee said caused bigger headaches. The thorniest problem in newspaper publishing is the embarrassing facts?
Bradie recalled an incident in which a man intent on suicide stepped onto a ledge and killed himself, two headquarters in Washington. Post photographers took pictures that showed the scene.
The vote shows that standards are by no means agreed upon even in the profession.
General Manager Rick Musser
Run it? The Post decided against it—but only by a 13-9 vote.
Bradlee admitted the press sometimes blows one. A man he knew died in a crash last month.
by homosexuals and that bit of information was run in a story about the man's death
Later, he said, he decided there was no legitimate reason to mention the place of the fire.
DRAWING THE LINE between a persons right to privacy and the public's right to know has led to argument before the Supreme Court. But, more often, the courts have asked that police treat whore, where mortal, fallible men writhish under extreme time pressure.
The closest Bradiee came to defining his standards was this: "Private lives are private lives unless they intrude on public life."
Their deliberations have not yielded much. Each case is decided as it arises.
That's not to say that Bradlee or any other journalist who claims to hold high standards is a hypocrite. But the community of journalism usually ends up at the level of those with the lowest standards, not those with the highest.
To do otherwise risks losing out to a competitor.
are not the "best of the press." Even the Washington Post has offended.
His statement poses definitional problems, but he gave the press general credit for restraint.
Journalism is a competitive business—Bradie said as much—and no newspaper can ignore what its competition, including television, is doing. An editor usually runs a story the guy across the street runs, even if it is below his standards.
"The best of the press," he said, "is conscious of its power and anguishes over its power and to use it wisely."
Bradlee, a man who's seen his private life exploited in the press, should be careful not to look too hard at cards. The profession has many such men. But, anguished or not, the press—and not just the supermarket tabloids—invades the privacy of individuals where no issue can be ignored.
That being the case, we should perhaps pay more attention to the professional standards of journalism's rogue and insignificant members of the public pronouncements of men like Braden Lee.
IT'S TOO EASY to say that those that do
No matter that the framework for peace is only half-built. Never mind that the agreement was drawn up in utter secrecy, with the press, Congress and the public barred from the proceedings. Leaders had acted.
WILLIAMSTOW, Mass. The outpouring of hope and enthusiasm following the Eastern agreements laid groundwork for a new era.
Great leadership requires followers
N. Y. Times Feature
This hunger for leadership is one of the deepest cravings of our time. Brought up in the age of titans—of Gandhi and Mao and Churchill and De Gaulle and Roosevelt—or in an age dominated by memories of them, people have felt diminished in a time of dwarfs. Then suddenly a breakthrough that reminds us of the audacity of leaders of
Bv JOHN MACGREGOR BURNS
Why are there great leaders in certain ages and not in others? What is the essence of leadership? Where does it come from? Leadership varies widely from country to country, but some generalizations are possible.
LEADERS are neither "simply born" nor "simply made." Leadership arises out of the most complex psychological and social influences, in the family, in schools, in work groups.
Many great leaders showed few leadership qualities in their early years. Some began to show leadership qualities only in their 8s, as in the case of FDR, or much later, as in their 13s, in the certain leadership skills can be taught, but not its essence.
What is that essence? Leadership is not simply wielding power or manipulating other people. Great leaders engage with their followers, with their authentic wants and needs, hopes and expectations. Understanding those genuine
That is another test of great leaders—a firm and tenacious commitment to certain principles or values. No matter that only a minority of the people share these principles, there are important political establishments of the day laothe and fear new ideas.
Emerging out of revolutionary struggle, they were men of deep experience and understanding, but their ultimate strength lay in their ability to work.
GOING TO JAIL or risking the gallows for what they believe in is a good indication of potential leadership, though it does not guarantee it. Gandhi was in and out of jails for years: Lennin was exiled; Mao would have been executed if his enemies had ever caught up with him; the dictator had ever caught up with "hung separately" if they had not "hung together."
feelings and motives is based on experience, information and intuition. Leaders do not simply follow public opinion polls; they look behind the superficial and shift attitudes to more fundamental needs that lie in the people today and tomorrow.
GREAT LEADERSHIP arises out of great conflict. The 1790s produced a suburb of brilliant statecraft in the United States. Despite George Washington's efforts to keep the government on an even keel men of commitment and hardship, he was defeated by Madison Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, engaged in the most intense political and ideological combat.
Great leadership helps produce major changes, related to the principles leaders preach. Many a president or prime minister has been in the midst of events without influencing the actions of others without intending to cause them. Richard Nixon destroyed
The "bottom line" of leadership is actual, intended change that shapes the day-to-day lives and future possibilities of the workforce.
his own presidency and badly damaged his party while trying to save his own political life.
"THE PRESIDENCY is preeminently a place of moral leadership." FDR said.
Great leadership must indeed be moral leadership. That does not mean simply riding around on a white charger or offering pieties over television. It means meeting the fundamental wants of the people, such as jobs and peace, and then, as people move to higher needs, such as education or aesthetic experience, responding to new needs and expectations. Ultimately leaders and followers are linked in motivation and self-realization; they are truly and fully engaged.
Hence great leadership requires great fellowship. Leaders mobilize the best in their followers, who in turn demand more from their leaders. In the process followers eventually become like Luther King, of John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address, not simply in what they said. It was in what they evoked—a powerful and persisting response that reflected the authentic needs and hopes of their followers. This will be tested and appreciated by Menachen Begun, Anwar Sadat and Jimmy Carter.
James MacGregor Burns, professor of political science at Williams College, is the author of the two-volume biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; a study of Woodrow Wilson and biographies of John F. Kennedy and Edward Kenneth; his book, "Leadership," was published late this summer.