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University Daily Kansan Friday, March 2.1962
A Nebulous Committee
The controversy that has arisen in the last few days over the role of the Civil Rights Council (CRC), the Human Rights Committee (HRC) of the All Student Council and their relationship to each other has been and still is the subject of much heated discussion.
The whole controversy was ignited by Chancellor Wescoe's statement last week referring the CRC to the Human Rights Committee, which he said would handle problems connected with discrimination. The CRC's reaction was quick and angry. They drafted a resolution saying that the Chancellor had violated their rights as students and questioning the University stand on discrimination.
THE CHANCELLOR'S stated reasons for referring the CRC to the HRC is that the HRC is the official student body for dealing with matters of discrimination and that all such matters should be taken to it. This position adheres to correct procedure.
But it should not be forgotten that the CRC has done much in the anti-discrimination fight. It is an active group that is attempting to do something about discrimination. Considering this, the CRC made one point that is entirely valid and relevant concerning the HRC. It said the HRC has not been meeting its responsibilities or functioning as it should. This is entirely correct. The HRC was formed last spring. Its lack of activity since that time is notable.
The chairman of the committee, Brian Grace, said that the committee presented a petition to the All Student Council last semester calling for the curtailment of sit-ins and similar activity. He also noted that the problem being dealt with by the CRC at the time-discrimination by Lawrence barbers--was solved before the committee was able to act.
YET IF THE committee wants sit-ins and similar activities ended, it should take definite and positive action of its own.
Several members of the committee have said that the inactivity of the committee has been due to a lack of anything to work on. This argument is not even worth considering. There are problems that need to be dealt with, but they are not going to be considered if the committee does not meet its obligation of investigating them and gathering relevant information on them. No one is likely to hand the committee all the facts and opinions on an issue wrapped up in a neat little bundle.
Grace has indicated that the committee will meet next week. It is hoped it will also begin functioning. Several committee members have made general statements regarding the course of action that should be taken. It will be interesting to see if they follow up on those statement and begin acting on problems of discrimination.
-William H. Mullins
Comment on an ROTC Display Editor:
Anyone who has used the Military Science Building for a between class warming station the nast few days has probably noticed the Army ROTC display case at the west end of the main hall. This case contains four photographs of soldiers in combat and a sign which reads: "After all the missiles and bombs have been used, the final decision will be made by the ultimate weapon, the soldier with his rifle." I think this display should be somewhat disturbing to anyone who sees it.
THE STATEMENT quoted above is made with some rather questionable assumptions. Most atomic physicists would seriously question whether there will even be any soldiers around "after all the missiles and bombs have been used" or if some do survive the blasts.
whether they'll need anything except a shovel.
It seems foolish to be making post-war preparations as if a nuclear war were coming. We must concentrate 100 per cent on avoiding such a war! If anyone remained after a nuclear war, they alone could figure out what to do next. If Man decides to unleash his missiles and bombs, this will be in a tragically real sense his final decision.
Don Warner
Topeka junior
**
Criticism for the Vacation Schedule Editor:
While recently scanning my calendar in search of a much needed break I made a startling discovery. I found that the members of the calendar committee have an unusual sense of humor. Expecting to find a spring vacation around Easter time, I found instead that
the spring vacation has been scheduled to cover April Fools Day. Surely when the students return to classes on April 6th they will be greeted with a lusty, "April Fool!", you just missed a week of classes."
I FIND IT hard to believe that the Easter holiday, with all its deeply significant religious associations, can be completely ignored by those who make calendar decisions. Easter Sunday is a day when families should be together to strengthen the family bond through combined worship and observance of the meaning of Easter. Also, other members of the family are free from responsibilities during this religious weekend and rightfully expect their families to be united for whatever activities they may wish to undertake.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
Never before have I known this all important weekend, including Good Friday and Easter Sunday, to be completely overlooked and ignored. This must be an April Fools prank by the normally conservative calendar committee. I hope and pray that Easter still means something and hasn't fallen to the level of Washington's birthday or some other non-descript observance.
"FRANKLY ID RATHER ADVISE FRESHMEN- THEY'RE NOT SO SET IN THEIR WAYS."
Don W. Clifford
Wichita senior
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Comment & Criticism
Pringsheim's U-2 Talk
Early in May, two years ago, the leaders of the United States, the U.S.S.R., Great Britain and France met together in the Elysee Palace in France for a "summit conference," as it had been scheduled. At that time Mr. Khrushchev stood up and declared, "As God is my witness, my hands are clean and my soul is pure." The "U-2 incident" had reached its climax.
Khrushchev persistently demanded that President Eisenhower make a public apology for the reconnaissance flight of Francis Gary Powers into the Soviet territory on the first day of May. President Eisenhower accepted his "personal responsibility," as the Chief Executive of the United States, for the flight, and did not apologize.
UPON THE INAUGURATION of President Kennedy, the Soviet Union made its typical gesture of officially announcing that they would forget all about the unpleasant incident of the U-2 in the hope of improving the American-Soviet relationship. Yet the question of the wisdom of the role that President Eisenhower played at the Elysee Palace is still a matter of speculation. And Mr. Pringsheim, instructor in political science, has given a stimulating discussion on this subject at a recent Current Events Forum.
The question which interests me most, however, is not one of whether or not espionage is a well-known fact in history; it is rather a most simple and pragmatic one, namely: How would a "traditional denial." such as Mr. Pringsheim suggests, have affected the national interest of the United States and the peace of the world, had the President adopted such an approach? We can answer this question properly only in the light of the actual circumstance under which President Eisenhower made the alleged mistake.
I think any realistic student of world politics would join me in agreeing with Mr. Pringsheim that "espionage is an international fact of life." In fact the story of espionage is as old as the Old Testament. Thus we are told that Moses sent Joshua, among other men, to spy out the land of Canaan (Numbers, 13, 16-17). It is also recorded that Joshua himself, when he was in command, sent two spies into the town of Jericho (Joshua, 2, 1; 6, 20).
ON MAY 5TH, 1960. Premier Khrushchev told the Soviet Supreme Council that a U.S. aircraft had been shot down in Russian territory. Almost simultaneously, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in Washington reported the missing of a U-2 in the region of Lake Van, stating that it might have "strayed over the Soviet border while the pilot was unconscious because of lack of oxygen." On the 7th of May Premier Khrushchev announced that the incident had taken place in the neighborhood of Sverdlovsk, which is located in the heart of Russia, that the pilot had been captured alive and that the pilot had admitted his reconnaissance duty. The Premier made a public display of the scene and published photographs of the wrecked plane and the pilot. It was in the face of these strong material evidences with which the world's public opinion was thus confronted that President Eisenhower acknowledged the fact and accepted his "personal responsibility."
In Wednesday's Daily Kansan Mr. Pringsheim reiterated his basic view that Mr. Eisenhower's "decision to break long-standing precedent in acknowledging Presidential responsibility for an act of espionage was extremely ill-advised."
D C
He did have two other alternatives. He could have either denied the whole story as another "Communist lie," or acknowledged the flight as a fact and refused to assume his responsibility on the ground that the flight had not been ordered by the United States government. In either event, I believe the consequence would have been considerably worse than it was, for the obvious reason that the world would not have believed what Mr. Eisenhower said. Such an act of conspicuous public lying by the American President would have severely damaged not only the prestige of Mr. Eisenhower himself but that of the United States. Furthermore, such a "traditional denial" would have only antagonized the Russian people; and this was quite unnecessary in view of how little we might have gained by making such a denial.
MR. PRINGSHEIM compares the U-2 with Rudolf Abel and suggests that we should, like the Soviets with their spy, have followed the "correct traditional approach" in denying the U-2 flight. I do not think, however, that his comparison is a very good one, for the simple reason that while the Soviet denial was effective our denial of the U-2 would have been quite ineffective, and even disastrous.
The most serious problem that we face today, as I see it, is the increasing danger of an accidental war. And reconnaissance flights could only add to the danger of sparking an inadvertent war, since radar technicians on the ground do not have adequate means of distinguishing an airplane carrying a powerful camera from an airplane carrying a powerful H-bomb. If President Eisenhower's public acknowledgment of the U-2 incident did in any way contribute to terminating the unrestrained mutual aerial reconnaissance activities of the two nations and to preventing unnecessary hostility on the part of the world's public toward the United States, I am inclined to believe that Mr. Eisenhower did the best he possibly could under the most humiliating circumstances.
Sugwon Kang
graduate student of political science from Korea