4
Tuesday, November 27, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
People's Battle Ends
The decision by more than two-thirds of Congress to override President Nixon's veto of the bill to curb presidential war powers represents an end to the frustrating and often violent struggle during the Iraq war, an executive branch of government and the people of the United States.
Sen. John Tower of Texas and other Congressmen seem to think that the bill is an attempt to "kick the President while he is down." Other Congressmen, such as John Stennis of Mississippi and Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, say that the bill isn't intended to restrict the presidential war powers, but rather to allow Congress to share in a decision to commit troops to battle.
Tower is correct, in a sense, that the war powers bill is aimed at Nixon. It is aimed at and is the result of all the "wartime" administrations—those of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon—that perpetuated an undeclared war, that caused an increase in the amount of destruction to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, more than any other factor, added to the credibility gap between the people and the government in the United States by attempting to cover up military "secrets."
The war powers bills is important for its limitations on U.S. military forces in the region, and the limitations take power away from the military-industrial complex.
often blamed for perpetuating the Vietnam war, because it must now be able to persuade an entire nation of the need for military action.
Congress hasn't restricted executive war power to a harmful degree. The President still has two months in which he may send troops into battle without congressional approval—plenty of time to prove the wisdom of his actions.
This aspect of the bill would tend to open up military secrets that aren't vital to national security, such as those at issue in the Pentagon Papers case. The secret bombing of Cambodia could no longer be used, and secret if the bill was strictly applied. And the faith of the people in the honesty of the government could be partially restored.
The effect of the war powers bill won't be as great as many desire. It is unlikely that Congress wouldn't uphold a presidential commitment of troops after it had been made. However, the war powers bill does not contain the power of one man to destroy in war and distribute it to the Congress.
Possibly the most important aspect of the war powers bill, however, is that the President must report the details of a military commitment to Congress within 48 hours.
—Carol Gwinn
The Energy Solution
By MIKE CAUSEY The Washington Post
WASHINGTON—I have a solution to the energy crisis so beautifully simple that people either laugh or stare stupidity (because they didn't think of it) when I tell them.
We all know the problem. We're using too much fuel in the winter and too much fuel in the summer.
Rationing will do little more than make a lot of people mad and create a flourishing black market. Turning down the thermostats won't help anybody but sweater manufacturers and makers of four-way cold tablets.
My suggestion: move everybody in the United States north of the 45th parallel from May to September. In winter we would all live in quaint quondest huts south of the 45th parallel.
The summer capital of the United States under the 45-34 plan, would be Bismark, N.D. It's a nice place, and, I understand it could use the business.
COME WINTER, we could bundle up all our congressmen, judges, officials and families and head south. Logical sites for the capital include Key Biscayne, Fla., or San Clemente, Calif., where there's already considerable federal investment.
Transportation would be a problem, but just twice a year. Trains could move a lot of people, and the rest could drive up and back. Tres would be removed upon arrival to discourage unnecessary junkets once we are in place.
Settling 220 million Americans along the Canadian and Mexican borders would bring
us all closer together. Vacations wouldn't
problem because there would be no place to
go.
Bicycles would be used in flat areas. People in the mountains would be told to stay put because they would have the best view.
Farmers could plant and harvest twice a year in the two-zone plan. The military wouldn't have to issue summer and winter water. Farmers would always be spring wherever we were.
CHILDREN WOULD BACK the plan since it would mean year-round school. That would put an end to I-am's got-nothing-to-do rule and all young people during vacation time.
Businessmen who now spend weeks on the road on trips and at conventions would be able to take the wife along because trips and the restricted zone would be shorter and duller.
Animals within the uninhabited zone could graze, climb and chew their cud without fear of harassment from humans. The buffalo might even return.
If food were to become a problem, we could get all the wheat we needed from Canada. If the Canadians wouldn't give it to us, we could threaten to move into their neighborhood. We could similarly persuade the Mexicans to be helpful.
Some nitpicker will probably find something wrong with this idea but I do not. It I'm braced for the probability that George Shultz will Kill or Kid or like that will try to take credit for the plan when it is adopted. But you'll know better.
U.S. Becoming Nation of Agriculture
Returning to 19th Century Role, Harvard Prof Says
BY ROBERT J. DONOVAN
The Los Angeles Times
CAMBRIGE, Mass. — Is it conceivable that the United States has permanently lost its leadership in industry and technology to other countries and is gradually heading back toward its 19th century role as primarily an agricultural nation?
Prof. Ernest May, director of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, believes this is what he says is necessary more, he thinks it may be a good thing.
As he sees it, the change will take place over decades. The standard of living won't fall as a result. The country may retain its strength as a leading military power. The future of this sector will remain pre-eminent in the world in certain items, such as computers. Increasingly, however, it will import automobiles, television and other industrial and technological products and pay for the services of hotels, buses and other agricultural products.
"WE HAVE BEEN and have perceived ourselves as the leader of the world in technological innovation and industrial revolution." May said in a recent interview.
"That—and quite apart from the apparently temporary energy crisis—is probably over. I think you can see the evidence of this. A Brazilian economist put it to me once: 'What kind of country do you have?' You put a man on the moon, but you have to watch him on a Japanese television set.'
"The capacity of the Japanese in particular, and of other nations, to outdo us in technological innovation and production is not much greater than we will revert by the next century to the kind of role that we were playing in the mid-19th century, with our great strength being agriculture rather than industry. We will need more here we retain our comparative advantage."
"LOOK AT THE TREND in the structure of the American economy. The percentage of the labor force in industrial production is steadily going down. Seventy per cent of the working people are engaged in providing services."
"We have still enormous unused capacity for food production, and world food needs will probably more or less keep pace with world energy needs. You can imagine us over the next half-century gradually going out of certain lines of industrial production that we are not producing that can simply produce it better than we pay for it with food exports.
But may we not yet regain our industrial leadership?
"It is partly this burden of obsolescent plant and equipment. More obviously, it is the position of labor in American society. Labor costs are higher, and the whole workforce is more productive. Industrial labor that doesn't place a premium on productivity or workmanship.
bad analogy, but the analogy can be made with British industry. First the Germans, then the Americans overlook them and in turn are overwhelmed by their own selflessness as efficient as the new competitors.
"My guess is we will not," May said. "In some respects it is a matter of timing. It is."
"People just don't want to do the work, and there is a good question as to why they should. If we can grow corn, cattle and hogs and do that very efficiently and sell them to the Japanese in return for automobiles and TV sets, why shouldn't we?"
ARE WE FALLING progressively behind in industrial leadership?
"It varies from line to line, depending partly on regeneration of plants. In the automobile industry, certainly, foreign makers, particularly the Japanese, are far more efficient and more innovative. They have an even more efficient, relatively non-polluting engine in the Honda." (He was talking about the automobile, not the motorcycle.)
Were we all brought up in a myth about American technological genius?
"Certainly we were very innovative with regard to production techniques. The great American innovation was the assembly of machines, particularly new technology," said May.
NEED ME
May is an outstanding historian who studied at UCLA, his got ph.D. at Harvard University and ultimately became dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, teaching, writing and the directorship of the Institute of Politics here. His most recent book—"Lessons' of the Past"—The Use and Miseuse of History in American Foreign Policy," has appeared this month by the Oxford University Press.
"IF THE CHANGE I am talking about happens," he said, "it isn't going to happen tomorrow. There will be a long, slow adduction." We went through such an adjustment before.
"In the middle of the 19th century, Americans did think of themselves as primarily an agricultural country—as being farmers and farmers, and our ability to produce food and textiles. The change to the conception of the United States as primarily an industrial power took place over more than half a century. People felt the change because it was very gradual.
"The social by-product of the change back wouldn't be the same. One of the things that went on then was the huge movement of the female labor force into factories. The change back, if it takes place, won't require any comparable transfer in the labor force or the population because we have achieved extraordinary increase in female productivity with a diminishing labor force."
"Why should it?" May inquired. "We would sell things to each other, teach each other, write books for each other, play music to each other. We would perform services in other words. That is what most of us do now.
"You can see some of the trend already. I believe I am right that the No. 1 earner of foreign exchange for the United States now purchases the automobile or the industrial product."
WOULD THE STANDARD of living fall?
What about the Soviet Union?
"Their situation probably is very similar to ours. In the long run their greatest strength probably lies in their capacity to go into production and make it go in making their agriculture production efficient. They aren't pre-eminent in industrial production. In most lines of technology, even with their success in industry, they are an underdeveloped country.
"Speaking of what is in prospect for our own country, you can argue that in the long run it is really the best thing. If you take the classical view that there ought to be an interdependent world economy with people doing what they do best rather than being self-sufficient, we are heading in the right direction."
The Mideast
'Who'd Fight for Such a Thing?'
BY JIM HOAGLAND AND JONATHAN C.
RANDAL
The Washington Post
BEIRUT—Wars have a way of taking notions that in peaceville would be dismissed as clearly absurd and giving their currency as nearly credible theories. The fourth Arab-Israeli conflict has proved no exception.
In fact, this war seems to have gone beyond the normal transmutation—which reflects military secrecy, inadequate training and lack of will. Soviets call "diinformation" and the human tendency to build theories in the dark to explain the mysterious—to break down.
Perhaps because this is also the Middle
East, many observers show a distinct disinclination to accept a straightforward, simple explanation for anything that happens.
In the first few days after the war began on Oct. 6, there were suggestions that the only explanation for the outbreak of hostilities was that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had encouraged Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to start a limited conflict, just enough to end the status queued that had stymied peace negotiations and worked to Israel's sole advantage since the American-engineered caesareit of July, 1970.
WHEN THE FIGHTING GREW on both the Syrian and Egyptian roots, the 'objection' was that the war was not a victory.
carried away with their own success, were no longer content with a limited goal of renewed peace negotiations and that the Israel side should be re-establish the balance.
The considerable Arab armament losses also generated new theories. In armor alone, Egyptian and Syrian losses are estimated to run in the thousands, and the Soviets began a major resupply effort as soon as the war began.
Orders Obeyed Despite Their Consequences
By WILLIAM RASPBERRY
The most elaborate theory spun from these shadowy facts holds that the Soviets pushed the Egyptians and Syrians to attack the million in war material would be destroyed.
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON—Apparently Egil Krogh's defense against charges involving perjury and burglary will be that he was following orders, a defense no more appealing to most of us now than when it was used at Nuerburg.
But those of us who are inclined to make harsh moral judgments, whether of Krogh or of Adolf Eichmann, ought to take time out to read "The Perils of Obedience," an article in the December issue of Harper's magazine.
The piece is based on experiments in authority obedience carried out by social psychologist Stanley Milgram at Aale and Adelaide University. The article sets your moral superiority. (The article is adapted from "Obedience to Authority," a book to be published in January by Harper Collins.)
The learner is strapped in a sort of electric chair, and the teacher is seated before an impressive instrument panel. The student is shocked by a shock to the "learner." The shocks (the teacher is given a sample 45-volt shock just to show that the machine works) are transmitted in increasing intensity as the machine makes an error on a word association test.
THE MACHINE'S INSTRUMENT panel has 30 switches labeled with voltages ranging from 15 to 450, with additional switches for more precise control, shock, moderate shock, strong shock, very
strong shock, intense shock, extreme intensity shock and danner: severe shock
Here's the design of the experiment. Two people one designated "teacher" and the other "learner," are told that they are a parent to examine the effects of punishment on learning.
As Milgram describes it: "The teacher is a genuinely naive subject who has come to the laboratory for the experiment. The learner or victim is actually an actor who receives no shock at all. The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will respond if they are exposed to a situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.
Nor did the vast majority of the subjects seem to take any pleasure in inflicting pain. While some showed only minimal tension, others had much more severe experiment was over, "heaved sighs of relief, mopped their brows, rubbed their fingers over their eyes, or nervously stared at them."
"Conflict arises when the man receiving the shock begins to show that he is experiencing discomfort. At 75 volts, he has a sound hearing, and at 150, he demands to be released from the experiment. As the voltage increases his protests become more vehement and emotional. At 285 volts, his response can be heard clearly and clearly thereafter, he makes no sound at all."
But that was, astonishingly, exceptional. Of 40 subjects in the first experiment, 25 obeyed the experiment right up to the most powerful shock available.
SEVERAL OF THE SUBJECTS tried to quit the experiment but lost their resolve in the face of the experimenter's firmness—particularly after he assured them that he was responsible for such injuries as heart attacks or serious injuries.
Princeton, Munich, Rome, South Africa and Australia.
Someone told Milgram that, because the experiments were done at Yale, the subject might have been more routinely aggressive. So he tried it again, with a range of subjects from professionals to industrial workers from the New Haven community. The outcome was the same. And it got worse when it was repeated in
ONE TEACHER a 31-year-old medical technician who had emigrated from Germany handed herself just as you think you would have. When the intensity got up to 210 volts, she turned to the experimenter and said she thought they should stop.
"Many of the people were, in some sense, against what they did to the learner, and to the teacher," she said.
And despite his most authoritarian manner, she wouldn't go on.
But the experiment was constructed in such fashion that it was impossible for a man to guess what the result would be.
"The essence of obedience," Milgram concludes, "is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.
"Morality does not disappear—it acquires a radically different focus: The subordinate person feels shame or pride depending on the situation. It can be formed the actions called for by authority."
What happens to ordinary people that makes them follow orders they find perilous?
Swept away are the objection that the Soviets had to do a complete—and gratis—reft after the debacle of the six-day war of 1967 and the suggestion that Moscow might tire of such largese. Obviously, the argument goes, the arms supplies maintained by the Soviet Union must if goes on, the Soviets will be paid in cash by the Arab oil-producing states.
THE TONE OF THE SOVIETS is one of outraged parents sorely tried by prodigal sons, and there is no amusement in their angry denials that the whole arms-replacement affair is going to prove to be good cash-and-carry business for them.
But then, perhaps the Russians should be excused for not seeing the absurd humor in the situation. After all, their classic book on the Russian dictator is "War and Peace," not "Catch 22."
There are also theories to explain the American pattern of action. Some Egyptians, who believe that the Nixon administration is serious about taking the world order, have argued that the worldwide military alert ordered by President Nixon an intriguing gambit.
by Sokoloff
"Ce result option Unive Proce
The
the sj
that:
"So and b gradi cred comp wiser
Griff and the Unicorn
Five
credit
Univer
questi
V
S I s
Old homes and empty gas tanks in America and Europe are seen in the same way.
"The alert was a prelude," one official whispered confidently, "a prelude to forcing Israel to see reason. This made the U.S. more vulnerable than the Middle East and get involved in it."
"The energy crisis was orchestration, done jointly by the oil states and the American government, to get people to see where the real American interest lies," insists an Arab diplomat—from a non oil-producing country. "It is the biggest俄国的 benefit all our biggest profits out of the price rise that the shortages make possible."
The aura of glamor that surrounds Secretary of State Kissinger, making him highly effective in Arab eyes, heightened the appeal of theater during the recent negotiations.
THE EGYPTIANS have long held that Kissinger would be involved directly in the Arab-Iraeli conflict, and that only the crisis of war would bring him in. The fact that he actually showed up in Cairo was a major plus for Sadat.
Kissinger's performance in Cairo lived up to his reputation. Minutes after meeting with Sadat, he dispatched two key aides to Israel to explain the deal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, conveniently, an Egyptian civilian airliner was standing by to take them to Cyprus.
Against this background, it is not surprising that an air of unreality surrounds the October war and the November aftermath. A Palestinian cafe wafted reacted this way when he was told that one of the principal aims of the peace conference was to prevent an Israeli-Palestinian state, which most refugees themselves have violently opposed.
"It is all a movie. Nobody has been fighting out there, they just made up all those communiques. Who would fight for such a thing?"
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the university, except for special holiday and examination periods. Mail subscription rates $4 for students attending Lawntrues. Kant, 60945. Student subscription advertised to all students. Department advertised offered to all students. Donations required. Accommodations, goods, services and employ
NEWS STAFF
News adviser . Susanne Shaw
Editor Bob Simison
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Manager Steven Liggett