Laird Wilcox—figure of controversy
By JAY COOPER
Who is he?
Different people know him as different things.
Bert Carlyle, publisher of the Topeka Pictorial-Times, knows him as " . . . (editor of) . . . one of the most left-wing publications I have ever seen . . ."
Henry Haideman, Little Blue Book publisher in Girard, Kan., calls him "the most ardent civil libertarian I know."
ROBERT B. DePUGH, national leader and founder of the right-wing, para-military Minuteman Organization calls him a "... professional leftist agitator. ..."
Marquis Who's Who in the
LAIRD WILCOX
Midwest lists him as an editor and publisher.
At KU Laird Wilcox is known as founder of the Wilcox Collection in the Special Collections department of Watson Library.
THE WILCOX Collection consists of 800 files of political literature and extremist political propaganda. The Minutemen, the John Birch Society, the Communist Party, the Patriotic Party and the Socialist Workers Party are represented, among others.
Wilcox, who was a KU student until June 1966, and was a member of several student organizations including SPU, SDS and chairman of the SUA Minority Opinions Forum, has a critical opinion of the New Left and the present SDS organization.
"I'm pretty disenchanted with the New Left and SDS," he said. "Most of these kids are in the movement for personal reasons—many of them just to shock people. Very few of them are really, consistently committed to participatory democracy.
"There's also the peculiar notion that Viet Cong atrocities are somehow less unjust and painful than ours and that the United States bears the sole responsibility for the war. I don't expect the New Left to be perfect but I would like them to know what they're doing."
THE FUBLISHER Wilcox writes the Kansas Free Press, described on the masthead as "a newsletter dedicated to controversy and freedom of expression . . . not controlled or subsidized by any group or organization."
As to why he is involved in the KFP, Wilcox says, "I'll probably never be able to give a satisfactory answer to that question. I
will say, however, that there are certain principles and values I feel very strongly about, such as freedom of speech, and I get satisfaction out of doing what I can in their behalf."
The KFP was founded in September 1963, Wilcox's first semester as a KU student. Originally, there were five students involved with it. Studies and other interests narrowed that down to one—Wilcox—by the end of the school year.
In summer of 1964 the KFP had a fund-raising campaign to help Henry Haldeman, who was appealing a federal conviction for allegedly sending obscene books through the U.S. mails.
WITH $1,500 the KFP collected,
Haldeman was able to go on with
his appeal and his conviction was
reversed.
From that point the KFP grew steadily until February 1966, when it was forced to suspend publication for financial reasons. Wilcox plans to resume publication this month.
In January 1966 Wilcox began investigating the Minuteman organization after being contacted by Jerry Brooks, former Chief of Intelligence and Security for that organization. Brooks had become disillusioned and wanted to expose the operations of the Minutemen.
Wileox and Conrad Creitz, a former KU student, spent two months of continuous work, checking leads, taking testimony and so on.
WILCOX SAID, "All in all—including related expenses—we spent over one thousand dollars on the investigation. I'll be paying back loans for the next two years. In my opinion, however, it
was worth it. We are very satisfied with the results."
Depts. vie for space
His investigations reached the KU campus when he identified then SDS secretary, Becky Glaser, as a member of the Minutemen.
This is a story about a story that isn't—eighth floor New Fraser.
Fraser had 8th floor
New Fraser is a building with seven floors and a basement. In about six weeks, three departments will take up residence there.
By JOHN KIELY
The representatives and the university administration hoped that the federal government would pay for the rest of the building.
"The eighth floor story is a simple one," Warriner said. "Simple in the sense that the funds requested from the state legislature were enough to build a six floor building."
Each of the original departments had a representative on a planning committee for the new behavioral science building. Charles Warriner, a sociology professor, was chairman.
When the University administration originally asked them how much space they wanted, and later, how much space they'd need, their answers were always more than the seven floors they got.
However, he continued, "The space the departments asked for would have needed a nine story building."
The planning with these departments began back in 1962. It concerned three departments: psychology, sociology (which then included anthropology), and human relations.
were submitted, Warriner said, the ninth floor was dropped. When the actual amounts of the grants were granted, there wasn't enough money to build the eighth floor. Then ensued the fight for what space was left.
THREE DEPARTMENTS will move into New Fraser: psychology, sociology and anthropology.
Before applications for grants
AND THAT STORY is not simple.
"Few people really understood my position regarding Glaser. I never favored kicking her out or anything even remotely resembling a witch-hunt. I simply felt an obligation to protect my friends and tell people what I had found. She had the opportunity to refute the evidence and to take me to court, if it wasn't true. She did neither.
"When human relations got squeezed out," related their original representative, Howard Baumgartel, "was when the eighth floor was dropped."
He was on leave in India during one year of planning and returned to find, "tense times."
Not until the National Science Foundation (NSF), who were considering awarding a grant to anthropology, sent investigators here did that department get more space.
By these tense times, anthropology had become a separate department. And also by these tense times, recalled anthropology's representative, Robert Squier, his department's space had already been set within sociology's allotment.
As chairman Warriner said, "The committee composed of representatives of each department could not agree entirely on what space would go to whom, and so the decision was made in conference with heads of the administration of the university."
Near the last chapters of it, the departments couldn't decide on the space they'd let each other have.
PSYCHOLOGY'S representative Edward L. Wike, said of the whole affair, "It is a long and a complicated story."
One informed source recalls the planning as a time of infighting, bad feelings, and struggles for space. Or, in terms known to all behavioral scientists, "severe inter-group conflict."
But if they were fighting, they were fighting for badly needed space, space none of them received anyway.
HUMAN RELATIONS will have a couple of specially equipped research-classrooms, where those in the room can be studied through a two-way mirror. But they won't have any offices and, when they are fused
Look into our future and yours
"The real issue, it seemed to me, was that she concealed this from SDS members, and not so much that she was working for an organization diametrically opposed to SDS principles. I think most SDS members behaved immaturity in dealing with the matter, although this has become somewhat characteristic of the organization," he said.
Continued on page 9
"I think the local hippies are getting very careless. We're going to have trouble here pretty soon unless these kids wise up and practice a little discretion for a change. I can think of only two or three people who use drugs who are really mature enough to protect themselves and their friends."
Concerned with KU, and planning to eventually return to it, Wilcox expressed his views on drugs on the campus.
At Ford Motor Company, the electric car, computerized teaching machines, and artificial limbs controlled by the brain are much more than hazy visions. And the man who can help us with these and other better ideas has a real future here.
Why was the weapon necessary? Wilcox explained, "Well, one of the products of the investigation was two bullet holes in my truck."
DURING ONE phase of the investigation Wilcox carried a special deputy sheriff's commission in Shawnee County. As to why, he
DURING THE last few years he has spoken at other college campuses, including Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina.
At Kansas Wesleyan, Wilcox spoke to a non-compulsory student assembly. He spoke on student rights and responsibilities.
said, "It was necessary in order to carry a concealed weapon."
If your major is arts, science or business. If thinking ahead is one of your skills. See your placement office now and make a date to meet the representative from Ford Motor Company.
Dates of visitation:
Feb. 23-
March 10, 1967
Daily Kansas
Daily Kansan Friday, January 13, 1967
SUA POPULAR FILMS
"The Brass Bottle"
presents
with Tony Randall & Burl Ives
7 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.
FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY
DYCHE AUDITORIUM
Admission 40c Advance tickets at Union Information Desk