Tuesday, Feb. 26, 1963 University Daily Kansan
The Week in Review
Page 3
Disasters Overshadow the East-West Conflict
It was a week in which newspaper readers were reminded that natural disasters, unconnected with the conflict between East and West, could become the chief preoccupation of a people. It was a week in which minor incidents on the sea and in the air became major incidents.
The people of the city of Al Marj in Libya - population 12,-000 - were cleaning up after two earthquakes that crumpled the city and killed at least 265 persons. The town was shattered, and stories of the disaster filtered through, bit by bit, to the outside world.
Newspaper readers could shake their heads and comment briefly on the tragedy, but the distance of Libya and the distinctions between Libyan culture and American culture tended to diminish the story. Our preoccupations tend to be much more with local affairs, events in Washington, and what editorial writers call the Cuban threat.
THE CUBAN threat was summed up most significantly in the firing by Cuba-based MIG planes on an American shrimp boat. The student of history knows how rapidly earlier American administrations would have moved in to discipline the Cubans, but disputes between nations no longer are so easily solved. Late in the week, former President Truman was writing, in effect, that sooner or later we must discipline the Cubans.
But now and but how? Cuba remains our biggest political problem, a domestic as well as foreign policy matter. The President has ordered the armed forces to take all necessary action to prevent a recurrence of the rocket attack by the MIGs. And the incident came just a few days after the Russians had sounded conciliatory about the removal of several thousand Soviet military personnel still based in Cuba.
The Russians promised the forces would be withdrawn — or at least part of the forces — by mid-March. But this did not lessen the anger of many Americans in respect to the MIG attacks. At his news conference, President Kennedy sounded tough, but not tough enough of course for his critics, who are found in both parties.
WHAT SHOULD THE United States do? Cartoonist Bill Mauldin of the Chicago Sun-Times had a sketch last week entitled "Brinkmanship," which showed a Republican elephant trying to push a Democratic donkey off a cliff. Is that representative of the Republican position today?
The Cubans, not surprisingly, have denied that their warplanes attacked the shrimp boat. And a statement late in the week accused this country of sending a naval vessel into Cuban waters and violating Cuban sovereignty.
Our position on Cuba did not become voiced without a Russian, as well as a Cuban reply. Rodion Malinovsky, Russian defense minister, informed us that an attack against Cuba would mean a third world war. The trouble with these foreign problems today is that no one knows for sure — it could mean a third world war.
THEERE WAS a tentative move late in the week that was related to the Russian-Cuban threat. The United States and Great Britain reached understanding on a plan that would accelerate creation of a joint nuclear striking force for North Atlantic powers. The plan will go to the 15-nation North Atlantic Council for discussion.
And as pacts were discussed and threats voiced, a non-governmental organization of some importance, the Federation of American Scientists, published a statement urging the administration to state a policy that this country would never launch a massive attack except in retaliation. The
federation observed that the U.S. has never enunciated such a policy.
anti-Communist Socialist party of Mayor Willy Brandt was elected by landslide proportions, capturing 89 of the 140 seats in the city's parliament, and shutting out the Communists.
Much of the week's big news concerned hemispheric developments. Our U.N. ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, started off the week by stating on his television show that the 17,000 Russian troops in Cuba do not constitute a military threat to the United States or to the hemisphere.
The disarmament negotiations are still taking place at Geneva, and the Soviet Union is holding to its position of three on-site inspections a year. This is regarded as an ultimatum by the United States, and therefore unacceptable. The talks continue, and nothing sounds much different from a year ago.
SEN. J. WILLIAM Fulbright of Arkansas, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined Stevenson in ridiculing the Republicans for making a political issue out of the presence of the forces in Cuba. The two singled out Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, Sen. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, in their comments.
captors ready to surrender to Brazil. There was still another boat whose fate was being discussed in the news — the Marine Sulphur Queen. A vessel searching for debris found six explorer mechanisms.
For a final item from the newspapers, consider the proposal of James Reston of the New York Times. His suggestion is that the Republicans offer up Barry Goldwater as a sacrificial lamb in '64. The lamb might turn into a victorious lion of course, but Reston suggests that the time has come to test the rightwing thesis that the G.O.P. continues to lose elections because its candidates are too liberal, and too indistinguishable from Democrats.
The United States had a Latin guest, President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela, whose projected state visit was behind the hijacking of the Venezuelan ship. The President greeted Betancourt with words of praise — "You represent all we admire in a political leader."
This was the week of the shrimp boat. The week before it was the hijacked Venezuelan freighter, the Anzoategui, which finally was anchored last week in Brazilian waters, with its pro-Communist
AT THE National Press Club, the Venezuelan said his government is stable despite Communist subversion. He said the Communists had failed to have much impact on either farmers or industrial laborers.
It would be specious to say it was a bad week for Communists; who knows, it might have been a week of successes. The general interpretation is that communism suffered a significant defeat in West Berlin, where the strongly
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