'Rap session' held to let off steam
U.S. soldiers' role in Vietnam discussed
To help students "let off steam" about the Southeast Asian war, a Vietnam "rap session" was held Monday in the Military Science building.
Participants in the session, which was spearheaded by Wallace V. Nicholson, Olathe junior, discussed such topics as the role of the American soldier in Vietnam and what he experiences there. Attending the activity were former soldiers who served in
Vietnam and who are now students at the University of Kansas.
Nicholson said he was a member of the Green Berets, fighting and undercover unit in Vietnam. He said many soldiers in Vietnam feel the war is unjust because it is undeclared—one that could be won in a matter of months if the United States were to declare all-out war on the North Vietnamese.
He said most Americans, including United States congressmen were unaware of the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other undercover organizations. Even now, he said the CIA is operating in the United States and the FBI is working overseas.
Many South Vietnamese, Nicholson said, do not even know what country they are in or what the United States is.
"They just want to be left alone and live in peace," he said.
Atrocities against war prisoners
Foreign policies discussed
A discussion on the topic "Asia and the United States" was attended by approximately 40 students in Blake Hall Monday. Bob Demeritt, assistant instructor in Eastern Civilization, was leader of the discussion.
The discussion centered mainly on where to draw the line in U.S. involvement in foreign states' policies, and many participants in the discussion also sought an answer to the question: "What is communism?"
No attempt was made to give a definition, but Demeritt referred to communist manifestos and other literature on the subject and warned against generalizing and confining communism to the prevalent systems in the Soviet Union or Red China.
Demerit stated that Red China had listed the United States and the Soviet Union as its worst enemies and he used this as an illustration of the difference between communism practiced in the two countries. Most of the students who voiced their opinions seemed to agree that it was impossible to define communism because of its different practices in various countries.
One student said "Americans think communism is bad, because that's what they've been told all their lives, just as Asians have been told that capitalism is bad. But just as democracy in the United States was not enforced, but happened through an evolving process, the Asian countries must also go through this evolving process. Communism may just be a step in that process. Who says that just because they become communist now they will stay communist forever?"
Tim Williams, junior from Hong Kong, said Americans should consider what it would be
like to have Chinese Forces all over the United States the way American forces are now all over Southeast Asia.
Demeritt said that from reading Communist literature from Communist countries, "you will find that all they say is, 'leave us alone.'"
Williams said he did not doubt that the Cambodian government had asked the U.S. for military support, "but just because the government asked for it, doesn't mean that it's what the people want. Who is the U.S. helping?" he asked, "the ruling clique or the people?"
The subject of ecology was brought into the discussion by one coed who said that it would be easier to fight pollution "if we didn't have all these other wars to fight." She also stated that the U.S. had no right to say that it was better for Vietnam to be divided than united.
Voter awareness stressed
Michael Glover, Lawrence senior and Democratic candidate for the Kansas House from the 39th district, talked to students interested in grass roots politics Monday in Fraser Hall.
Glover said the most important thing that had to be done in Douglas County was to get people registered. "We have to make the people politically aware," he pointed out.
He said if everybody voted in the 39th district a Democrat would probably be elected. The problem, he said, was that more Republicans usually registered and voted than Democrats.
Glover said support was needed for James DeCoursey, who faces Larry Winn for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from the Third congressional district in November. He said DeCoursey was a peace candidate and needed the support of the young people.
Glover said he felt the three largest issues in the upcoming November elections were the revolution, the black-white issue and ecology.
The winner in the revolution, he said, would be "the person with a mind turned on to politics."
He said he believed in the
ecology issue but he felt that the race issue was more important.
"We shouldn't take the freedom of choice away from the black or white," he said. "You can't force integration by law." The races should be allowed to separate in order for them to see how much they depend on each other, he said.
If elected, Glover said he would introduce to the state legislature the Massachusetts law which forbids residents of that state to serve in an undeclared war.
Art relationships topic of Humanities lecture
The final lecture in the 1969-70 Humanities Series will concern relationships which exist between the art of East and West. It will be given by Klaus Berger, retiring professor of art history, at 8 p.m. Thursday in Swarthout Recital Hall.
Berger has been a member of the KU faculty since 1950. After his retirement this spring, he will attempt to complete his fifth book about art history. He has published nearly 70 articles in art journals. He has lectured about art throughout the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Russia and Japan.
Berger was born in Berlin and became a U.S. citizen in 1944. He
He has been awarded Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships and research grants by the American Council of Learned Societies. In 1926, he worked in Leningrad and Moscow as an American-Soviet Cultural Exchange scholar.
BONN (UPI) — A 20-year-old apprentice who was fired without notice by a company manager who thought the youth's long hair was untidy was awarded 200 marks damages by a West German court.
was educated in the Universities of Munich, Heidelberg, Berlin, Gottingen and Ecole du Louvre in Paris.
Coming May 15, 16
TOM JONES
SUA Popular Film
7 & 9:30 p.m.
Woodruff Aud. — 50c
Court solaces long hair
May 12 1970 KANSAN 5
Matinee Daily 2:30
Evening 7:15 - 9:15
Varsity
THEATRE ... Telephone V13-106
THEATRE ... Telephone V1 3-1065
are committed by both sides, he said. The Viet Cong will withhold food from their prisoners, torture them or just kill them. Yet no one in the United States ever hears about it, he said. American military men also treat some prisoners inhumely, he said.
Nicholson told of one instance in which a group of Viet Cong were taken up in a helicopter by some U.S. intelligence officers. The prisoners were told that if they didn't talk, they would be thrown out of the helicopter. Nicholson said the officers even threw one of them out to show the other prisoners they weren't kidding. He said the others talked immediately for fear of meeting the same fate.
One student, who said he was a former U.S. Army soldier, said the soldiers who, during combat, objected to U.S. involvement in the war were not allowed to voice their opinions. If they did protest the war, he said, they were imprisoned for five years. He said that although he did not serve in Vietnam, he had helped dissenting soldiers to voice their anti-war opinions.
The student said he was eventually informed by some army officers that if he didn't discontinue his anti-war activities he would be sent immediately to fight in Vietnam.
Another former soldier said the cerdibility gap for body counts had become greatly widened. An example of this, he said, was the battle for Hill 881 a few years ago. He said that he was driving the trucks that took bodies away from the war zone. The army news services in Vietnam reported
about 150 Americans were killed in the five-day battle, he said. Yet, during that same battle, he said that his unit counted nearly 2,000 dead U.S. troops.
TONIGHT
JEAN-LUC GODARD'S ALPHAVILLE
with Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina
Tuesday, May 12
One showing only 7:00 p.m.
Woodruff Auditorium
KU Film Society
Non-Members $1.00