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University Daily Kansan Monday, May 14. 1962
Literacy Test Talks
The present filibuster being carried on by Southern Senators against the Kennedy administration's voter literacy test bill has been going on for over two weeks. The bill would exempt persons with a sixth grade education from having to pass a literacy test to vote in federal elections.
Last Wednesday the Senate voted 53-43 against stopping debate on the bill and 64-33 against a motion to table and thereby kill the bill. A two-thirds vote of the senators present and voting is necessary to limit debate.
The senators backing the bill argue that the literacy tests have been used in the South to prevent Negroes from voting. The major argument of the senators opposing the bill is that it would be an unconstitutional violation of each state's right to decide the qualifications necessary for voting.
THAT SUCH A bill would be unconstitutional is doubtful, since it would only outlaw a restriction on voting in federal elections. Two restrictions on voting have been outlawed by Constitutional amendments 15 and 19. It should also be pointed out that the Justice Department has said that the outlawing of literacy tests as a requirement for voting in federal elections would not be unconstitutional. The final decision on whether or not the bill is constitutional would have to
come from the U.S. Supreme Court, but considering the evidence presently available, it is very doubtful the bill would be ruled unconstitutional.
The stated reason for the proposed bill—that literacy tests are used in the South to prevent Negroes from voting—is sound. A look at records demonstrates this. In 1959, the Commission on Civil Rights reported that there was not a single Negro voter in 16 of the 158 Southern counties where Negroes formed a majority of the population. In addition, in 49 of those 158 counties less than five per cent of the Negroes of voting age were registered. One of the reasons the commission cited for this situation was the flat refusal of registration officials to register Negroes. Other reasons cited were fear of losing jobs and credit and of physical violence.
CONSIDERING these facts, the idea that resistance to the abolishment of literacy tests for voting in federal elections is based on the possibility (and it is a remote possibility) that the abolishment of such tests would be unconstitutional is ridiculous.
What the Southern roadblock amounts to, then, is an attempt to prevent passage of a bill designed to destroy part of the old system of hate and prejudice.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
—William H. Mullins
"OK, IN TH' BACK ROW — LETS HAVE THAT 'GIRLIE' MAGAZINE UP HERE IN THIS BASKET!"
Dissension
The Resumption of Nuclear Testing
This television interview, ignored by the press, throws revealing light on the political versus scientific background of President Kennedy's decision to resume Soviet war efforts. The Soviet do not soon consent to a test ban agreement with inspection and enforcement features. Dr. Ralph Lapp, a distinguished American physicist, was present at the Acheson National Laboratory, consulting scientist to the Bikini Bomb Test of 1946, scientific adviser to the War Department General Staff, executive director of the Research and Development Board, head the Naval Research Bureau of the Office of Naval Research, and consulting physicist to the Nuclear Science Service. John Chancellor and Martin Agronsky, who conducted the interview, broadcasting Company on whose "Today" show the program was broadcast.
—The Editors.
JOHN CHANCELLOR: In all the discussions of President Kennedy's decision to resume nuclear testing in the atmosphere, one of the very important things to understand is why these tests are technically necessary; and to analyze these reasons and other aspects of the situation, we have asked the noted atomic scientist and adviser on these questions, Dr. Ralph Lapp, to come to Washington and talk with us and with Martin Agronsky. Would you like to begin, Martin?
AGRONSKY: Yes. Dr. Lapp, just very quickly, do you feel that tests are necessary — technically, strategically, militarily, in the (interests of) national security, as the President has contended?
Lapp: I do not think that these tests are necessary in the framework that you ask that question. Whether or not they are necessary as a political decision, that's another question, but from a technical viewpoint, I do not think that these tests affect the balance of power between the Soviet Union and the United States.
AGRONSKY: Well, you are contending that they are not necessary for national security and that this is a political decision, if I read you right.
Lapp: That is correct. In my opinion, that is, it is a political decision—I think a fairly easy political decision, too, because you see I think nuclear tests have become power symbols in this age of power politics. So I believe that the pressure upon the President to renew nuclear testing has been enormous.
AGRONSKY: Well, granted the pressure has been enormous, are you saying then, that the President, in setting forth the reasons that he did for resuming nuclear testing if we do not get an effective nuclear test ban agreement with the Soviet Union, did not set forth accurately the reasons for the resumption?
Lapp: Well, might I first of all say, that the President took the very bold step in discussing this problem candidly with the American people. I would make two points. First of all, Dr. Hans Bethe, professor of physics at Cornell, was in charge of the panel evaluating this, and I have in front of me a lengthy analysis by Dr. Bethe of this problem, and, if I read Dr. Bethe correctly, the arguments he gives do not support the resumption of nuclear testing.
AGRONSKY: Dr. Bethe says we need not resume nuclear testing for purposes of national security?
Lapp: If I read this speech correctly, that is what he says. For example—
AGRONSKY: He was appointed by the government to make this evaluation of the Russian's weapons tests.
Lapp: This is correct. And the second point I would make is this:
that the President began Operation Candor. He told us something about this. But the point was made that these tests were necessary in the interests of our national security, in order that we have a continuing, effective, and credible deterrent. I think the word deterrent is the key to this whole problem, because you see we must analyze whether or not we are building a missile force capable of retaliating in response to a Soviet attack upon us, or whether we are building a force which is capable of carrying out a first strike on the Soviet Union.
AGRONSKY: Well, certainly, we have contended all the way through that our basic policy is that of massive nuclear retaliation. We have never spoken of a first strike force—it's not national policy.
Lapp: Well, this is the Congressional report, Defense — Department of Defense appropriations, 1961, and I find that this is not quite the same. Let me just read this: "In the final analysis, to effectively deter a would-be aggressor, we should maintain our armed forces in such a way and with such an understanding that, should it ever become obvious that an attack upon us or our allies is imminent, we can launch an attack before the aggressor has hit either us or our allies. This is an element of deterrence which the United States should not deny itself. No other form of deterrence can be fully relied upon." I might—
AGRONSKY: That, however, is not national policy—this is—
Lapp: Well, as Mr. Khrushchev would read, "Official Government Publications of the Congress" — it seems to me that the Congress makes national policy.
AGRONSKY: I would also point out that that is an alternative, it is not a recommendation — it is one thing that we should be in readiness to do.
Daily Hansan
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Bill Mullins ... Editorial Editor
Lapp: Well, again I am going back to the man who evaluated these tests—Dr. Bethe—and I'm quoting from him. He said that "there is also no problem about providing suitable atomic warheads for anti-missiles. Many opponents of the nuclear test ban have claimed that it is vital to start testing again in order to develop a warhead for an anti-missile, but this is incorrect. We have suitable warheads" and now understand the conclusion. "Still, I believe that an effective anti-ICBM" defense, I'll put that in, "is not possible." Now that's a pretty strong statement and I think there is something of a contradiction between what is being said technically and what is being said politically.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
AGRONSKY: There is a tremendous contradiction. How can he say that and everyone ignore it? I've not seen that reported, myself. Have you, John?
CHANCELLOR: You've been dealing a great deal with some of the political and some of the strategic overtones of this decision, but what about the technicalities involved in Dr. Bethe's speech? A lot of us had heard that the Russians had made considerable progress in studying the possibility of an anti-ICBM and the inference was that our series of tests might do the same thing. Is that true?
Lapp: Well, Martin, I think there is another point. There is the concept here that because the Russians do something, we have to do it, too, that their military operation is the same as our military operation and, believe me, if the Russian objective is to strike first, they have to have a different kind of arsenal than we do, because to wipe out our hardened ICBM sites, they have to have large warheads to be able to strike at these missiles in the ground.
Charles Martinache ... Business Manager
Agronsky: I should think we would—extraordinary, vociferous response of a minority of one, and it goes completely contradictory to government policy.
you're not going to retaliate but in fact may want to strike first. And if the enemy gets that notion, then he may want to strike first, too.
Chancellor: No, I haven't,
and I meant to ask that—as long
as you brought it up—that is a
speech made by Dr. Hans Bethe of
Cornell—and where did he make
it?
Lapp: Right. I think the President has spoken out on this subject but I think we have to speak out very clearly. For example, Dr. Bethe, in his analysis, says: "It seems to me entirely safe to reduce this striking force to a few hundred missiles." Now this is in contrast to the preparation for thousands of missiles. So I believe, you see, there is a question here which is different from anything we have confronted in the past. In the past you spent so many billions of dollars for national defense and, you say, you'll get proportionally more security. Now we are getting into a situation where if you get too great a striking force—and there is such a thing as too great a force—you may convince the enemy that
CHANCELLOR: Now, we were also told that the evaluation of the last series of Russian tests was concluded, by the government at least, if not by Dr. Bethe, in February.
Lapp: He made the speech early this year.
Lapp. He made it at the—Cornell University.
LAPP: This speech was made in January, but I understand that Dr. Bethe holds to hfs original conclusions.
Chancellor: Gee, that's fascinating.
Chancellor; Well, Martin. I think perhaps we'll be hearing more about this—
Chancellor: And this speech was made—
CHANCELLOR: When did he make it, Dr. Lapp?
Lapp: I believe it is.
Lapp: Right.
LD
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Books in Review
By Calder M. Pickett
Important in the literature of utopianism is this delightful fantasy by William Dean Howells, which the author wrote in the midst of his growing questioning of accepted American institutions. Though it tends to be imitative of "Looking Backward" it has greater humor, and it occupies a literary position in its own right.
A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA, by William Dean Howells (American Century, Hill and Wang, $1.35).
We get a look at utopianism here through the eyes of a visitor from another world, Mr. Homos, who comes to America and views our culture through the eyes of a man accustomed to a more enlightened way of life. As Mr. Homos sees what seems to him a scurrilous kind of civilization he is able to interpolate comments on how his people live.
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This, of course, is hard for Americans to accept, and Mr. Homos ultimately appears some kind of wild-eyed crank (a socialist, too, and that was as dangerous in 1894 as today).