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University Daily Kansan
Friday, Feb. 28, 1964
Rock Talk
Predict the winner of Rock Chalk?
Who are the best of these quasi-theatrical human beings? Unpredictable, ever-changing, never-the-same human beings.
How could Cassius beat Sonny?
Could you foresee a Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby? Or five little Fischers all at once?
Would you watch rehearsals night after night? Laugh like a fool at lines only a kid from KU would catch. Wince at six sour notes in a row, then thrill to the brilliance of forty voices-perfect for a moment.
Lights flash like fireworks. Music ricochets.
Costumes whirl. Girls titter and legs criss-cross the footlights blinking cavalcades of color. Excitement stands itself on end. You forget where you are.
Predict the winner?
Someone flubs a line. Lights burn out. The trumpets miss a cue. Two dancers collide.
Guess first place?
More than 200 people at work since before Christmas. Some rehearse ten hours in one day. Grades slip. Romances sprout. Nobody sleeps.
Who?
The cast of characters is a cross between Aesop's fables and the Mickey Mouse Club. There's Froggy the Gremlin and Hugh Hefner,
Gordon Hathaway and Christine Keeler, Robin Hood and Herman Faust, The Old Pro (alias the Sheriff of Nottingham), Alladin and his Lamp, Satan and Frankie Fontaine, Dracula and Vampira. The Lone Ranger and KU's coaches, Dean Emily and "friends." Maid Marian and Wormwood, Howdy-Dowdy and Margaret Truman, and heaven only knows how many others.
Thousands of hours of preparation. Originality, Spontaneity, Vitality. Fun!
Predict the winner of Rock Chalk?
Two nights Hoch Auditorium will be jammed to capacity. Somewhere in the audience will be the official judges. Five each night, ten in all. They'll make the final decision.
But each student will have his own opinion. Not everyone will agree. It doesn't matter.
If you enjoy a good belly laugh now and then . . . if you can let yourself get caught up in the effervescence of satire only students understand . . . if you don't mind a few dull spots here and there (you'll need to catch your breath anyway), if you've got a sense of humor (they even pick on Kansan editorialists)—then, for a good times sake: Go!
You'll love it!
Larry Schmidt
The Nazi Waltz
The People Say...
Editor:
In the Kansas Union ballroom last Thursday the Minority Opinion Forum had a waltz with the Nazi Party. There is an old song which tells how a woman divested herself of various accoutrements "after the ball was over." "Oh what was left of Minnie?" the lyric goes, "after the ball?" After Thursday's waltz, what are left are some questions about KU Minnie's judgment.
KU Minnie blanketed the campus with recruitment leaflets obtained from the Nazi Party. The leaflets contained drawings of a cross, a flag, a swastika; some two hundred words of propaganda; and a photograph of a clean-cut, dedicated storm trooper. "For information," the leaflets prompted, "write: American Nazi Party, Post Office Box ..., Arlington, Virginia." These leaflets were attached to, and completely dominated, Minie's posters; below the leaflets, in small typescript, were given the time and place of the Commander's appearance.
During the ten minutes that I was in the building, I heard the
Nazi Commander refer to one "Martin Luther Coon," and I watched two students guffaw—in sympathy. They were, of course, not representative of the audience.
I do not thing that the Nazi Commander could draw a crowd of two hundred if he came to Lawrence and rented a hall downtown. Because of the exceptional platform and the publicity which the Minority Opinion Forum gave him, he drew twenty-five hundred.
The Jewish and Negro students were not, I imagine, amused by the Nazi Commander's insults. Why was Minnie waltzing with Rockwell? For liberty? for enlightenment? The leaflets might suggest that it was for kicks.
Melvin Landsberg
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Military Ball
In defense of the March 6 Military Ball which was maligned in the recent "protest" which appeared in this column, I feel constrained to make a few remarks about the dance and ROTC in general,
since the argument against the ball was that it was a "fetish" of the "immoral" ROTC program.
As for the dance in paruclar, it is an opportunity for those of us in ROTC to participate in a joint social activity of one of the most honored professions a free man can engage in—that of protecting his freedom. Mr. Miller, who must be grossly misinformed, has slandered the military profession in general and ROTC in particular. It is true that the military has its grimmer aspects — the price of peace can and often has involved war—and all the horror that it entails. But, in the present state of international affairs, a sound military organization, even though it may deal with a grim subject, is absolutely necessary.
I. FOR ONE, look upon my participation in ROTC as a privilege, and do not at all regard the program as smacking of aggressive militancy, as implied in Mr. Miller's letter. As for the Military Ball, I look forward to it as a pleasure well earned, as I am sure some 250 other students do.
John A. Traylor Great Bend sophomore
JFK's Cuban Aggression Criteria Forgotten by LBJ
By Lyle Wilson United Press International
In the matter of Fidel Castro's effort to seize Venezuela, it would appear that the next move is up to President Johnson.
Bv Lyle Wilson
The OAS reported this week on Castro's operation Venezuela. OAS is the Organization of American States. OAS investigators reported that Castro's agents smuggled bazoakas, mortars and machine guns into Venezuela. Object: seizure of the country.
This effort to export communism from Cuba into a South American state invites attention to the ground rules laid down by the late President John F. Kennedy. The occasion was Kennedy's Sept. 13, 1962, news conference. The young President was trying to silence uneasy rumors that Castro's Cuba was becoming more instead of less a menace to the United States and its neighbors.
MOST EMPHATICALLY. Kennedy said military action by the United States was neither required nor would it be justified by the then existing situation. But the President did not want to appear to be soft on Cuba, so he added this:
"But, let me make this clear once again: if at any time the Communist build-up in Cuba were to:
—"Endanger or interfere with our security in any way, including our base at Guantanamo;
—“Our passage to the Panama Canal;
— "Our missile and space activities at Cape Canaveral:
- in the lives of American citizens in this country;
—"Or if Cuba should ever attempt to export its aggressive purposes by
force or the threat of force against any nation in this hemisphere:
"Or become an offensive military base of significant capacity for the Soviet Union;
—“THEN THIS COUNTRY WILL DO WHATEVER MUST BE DONE TO PROTECT ITS OWN SECURITY AND THAT OF ITS ALLJES”
THE PRESIDENT said the United States would be alert and fully capable of dealing swiftly with any such developments.
"As President and Commander in Chief," Kennedy continued, "I have full authority now to take such action."
These bold words were uttered at a time when Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., was demanding that the administration act to remove the threat of Soviet armed might in this hemisphere. Richard M. Nixon was demanding stronger action, A U.S. naval blockade if necessary, to quarantine Cuba against Soviet arms.
AND SECRETARY of State Dean Rusk was reassuring the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Soviet arms buildup in Cuba was only defensive. Five weeks later, on the eve of the congressional elections, there was a national clamor for action to check the Sino-Russian penetration of the Western Hemisphere. It had become the prime Republican campaign issue.
The Kennedy administration discovered the Russian missile buildup on Oct. 23 and imposed a naval blockade despite Russian threats of an A-war. The nation applauded and the campaign issue of Communist penetration subsided and disappeared. On the basis of the OAS report of Castro's operation Venezuela, that big issue is arising again.
Dailij Hähsan
111 Flint Hall University of Kansas student newspaper
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Mike Miller ... Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Editorial Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bob Brooks ... Business Manager
The Young Man Nixon: "Pride Was About All..."
(Editor's note: The following is the first of a three-part series on Richard M. Nixon. Two other three-part series will follow on Nelson Rockefeller and Brian Kroft. Of the series will be printed before the New Hampshire primary March 10.)
By Mike Miller
NIXON'S FATHER. Frank Nixon, was a jack of all trades. He was a motorman, glass worker, potter, painter, potato farmer, sheep rancher in Colorado, a telephone lineman, carpenter and a roustabout in the oil fields of California. He was born a Methodist, but converted to a Quaker when he was married.
His mother, Hannah Milhous Nixon, came to Whittier, Calif., with her father because of the appeal of the area as a Quaker colony. Her father became an orchardist in the area, but was never particularly successful.
Richard Milhous Nixon was born to a Quaker family in a 2-story frame house on the barren hillside just south of Los Angeles on Jan. 9, 1913.
Nixon has said of his father, "My dad was an individual—he'd go to his grave before he'd take government help. This attitude gave us pride."
For much of Richard Nixon's
early life, pride was about all the family could claim. In 1922, his father bought a gasoline station in Whittier and ran it with the help of his family. When Richard was in high school, he was given authority over the vegetable counter in the station. He had sole responsibility to go into Los Angeles each morning, bargain for his vegetables, and get his display set up before he set out for a one-half mile walk to school.
NIXON WAS REARED in the strict Quaker tradition. The family attended church three times on Sunday and every Wednesday evening. Richard played the organ at the meeting house and taught Sunday school when he was old enough.
He was remembered as a sober, serious and disciplined boy. He attended few parties and his classmates don't remember his telling a joke. His life was oriented around his work and his books.
Nixon had an impressive record. He skipped the third grade and was a good debater at Whittier High School.
His high school debate coach said, "He had an ability to kind of slide around an argument instead of meeting it head on and could take any side of a debate."
NIXON'S MOTHER was away for five years of his childhood. His older brother, Harold, contracted tuberculosis and his mother took him around the country in an attempt to find a more beneficent climate.
Richard M. Nixon
With the money he had saved and was earning from the vegetable counter in his father's store, Nixon enrolled in Whittier College, a local Gunker school, in 1830.
While there, Nixon expanded from his life of work and books. He was elected president of his freshman class and when he was a senior, he was elected president of the student body.
HE ALSO WENT out for the Whittier College football team all four years, but he made the team only when he was a freshman when 11 students went out.
Nixon's football coach remembered him for his spirit more than for his ability. The coach said that although Nixon wasn't good enough to play very much, his enthusiasm and hellering from the bench was an inspiration to the entire team.
When he was graduated from Whittier College, he decided to go on to law school. He accepted a $200 scholarship to attend the Duke University law school in 1934. While there, he was elected president of the Duke Bar Association. He lived in a run-down boarding house with two other law students.
passed the California bar examination.
He practiced law in Whittier until 1942. In January, 1942, he took a job as an attorney with the Office of Emergency Management in Washington. In this capacity, he coordinated the rubber rationing regulations.
He distilled his work with the government because people in the department were "more liberal and left wing than his thinking," J. Paull Marshall, the man who worked at the desk next to Nixon, said.
IN AUGUST 1942 he resigned his job and applied for a Navy commission, although he could have been a Quaker conscientious objector.
He was commissioned a lieutenant (j.g.) in the Navy, and served as a ground officer for the Combat Air Transport Command in the South Pacific.
Reports from the men who served under him describe Nixon the Naval officer as respected and well liked. The Navy helped to further expand Nixon's life. He took up poker playing and dancing, two things which were prohibited in his Quaker childhood.
He left the Navy in January 1946 as a lieutenant commander.