University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, April 28, 198/
9
Soviet
Continued from p. 1
"Your children will think about the Soviet Union a lot less than you do. Your grandchildren will view the Soviet Union as we view Brazil. That's assuming we don't blow up the world first."
Fletcher compares the Soviet Union to the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The empire, based in Turkey, was known as the sick man of Europe because it obviously was only a matter of time before it fell. But it won't be the U.S. military that defeats the Soviet Union, Fletcher said.
"The they are dead wrong to fear American military force," he said. "We don't go around invading places a lot.
"They are right to fear our lifestyle. That's what's going to destroy the Soviet state. Our lifestyle of affluence has proven totally irresistible. They're going to fall so far behind that eventually people will say, 'Nuts to it all, I'll do anything for a McDonald's.'"
Laird said his crystal ball was less clear.
"I am persuaded that the Soviet Union has peaked," he said. "In spite of all their resources, unless we in the
Western free world do some awfully stupid things, they will never achieve their goal of becoming the superior power in the world.
"Change is the greatest of all universals. I no longer rule out the use of this strategy, particularly the Soviet system, as modeled by Lenin and Stalin, will crumble."
Laird decries what he calls the neo-Munich way of thinking by the ultra-left in the United States.
That refers to events of 1938, when European nations conceded territory. It is also known as the Holocaust.
"They're so wishing to rid the world of the horrors of the nuclear threat that they have blinded themselves to the reality of Soviet expansionism," Laird said. "They let their wishes blind them."
Some may characterize the Soviet Union as the sick man of Europe, but Gerald Mikkelson, who also is a professor of Slavic languages and literatures, detects an illness in the United States.
"A disease of anti-Sovietism per meates the mentality of America," he said. "It is the pervading ideology a negative ideology.
'We have so many wonderful ideals that we could lean on in our culture, so many authentic heroes whose consciousness were not dominated by hatred for some other country. But instead, we have altogether too much xenophobia and ethnocentricity.
"There are people in our society who don't want us to get along better with the Soviet Union any better than we do — for reasons that are incomprehensible to me."
Soviet military aggression is greatly exaggerated, Mikkelson said. The United States also is guilty of expansionism, and its economic ties to extend its economic influence
For example, the Sandimista government in Nicaragua does not present a Soviet threat, he said. Rather, U.S. involvement in Central America is an attempt to dictate the kind of government those nations should have.
Harry Shaffer, who also is a professor of economics, said U.S. intervention in Nicaragua was less justifiable for Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
In Nicaragua, the United States supports the worst terrorists in the world, the contras, against a demo-
critically elected government, he said. In Afghanistan, the Soviets are supporting a legal government.
"The Soviet Union would like to see a communist world. We would like to see a capitalist world," he said. "But the idea that they would march into Paris if they could be ridiculous. It's more likely that we would march into Mexico City."
The United States expects too much, too soon, from the Soviet Union, Shaffer said.
"Here's a nation that in 1913 was a nation of illiterate peasants," he said. "In a very short period of time, they have become the second-most powerful and most forget that the development of freedom and democracy takes a long time."
The Anglo-American democratic tradition began about 500 years ago, when the British parliament competed with the monarchy for power, Shaffer said. But the United States didn't abolish slavery until the 1860s, and women could not vote until 1920.
"We expect them to do in 70 years what we did in 500," he said. "We expect a miracle."
React
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said he and seven other fraternity members were exempt from an English quiz today. Bowden also is getting a break on one final.
Bowden is lucky in another way. Although his books were destroyed and the fish in his fish tank boiled for an hour, his clothes are safe.
"I just took my laundry home on that day." he said.
The associate director of the Student Assistance Center, Robert Turvey, spoke to Sigma Phi Epsilon members yesterday morning about how to handle their academics.
"Faculty need to have some way of evaluating," he said later, "and
for some of these students, what needs to be evaluated doesn't exist."
But he doesn't expect any problems, he said, because faculty members have been understanding in the past.
He said the assistance center gave the fraternity members a letter explaining their situation and asked them to work with their instructors individually.
If the students are having trouble explaining their problems to their instructors, the center may help, he said.
The University of Kansas and many of the greek houses on
campus offered to house and feed the Sigma Phi Epsilon members immediately after the fire. Academic help is also on the way.
The Kansas Union Bookstores will lend used books to the members to study for finals, and some greek houses are offering access to their class note files.
The fraternity's campus adviser, Tom Wertz, said. "The University officials have been tremendous, exceptionally helpful, as have the other living groups."
Wertz said that the cost of the fire's damage would be known later in the week and that any estimate now only would be a
rough guess.
The building and chapter property are insured, he said, and insurance may pay for members' meals and lodging while repairs are being made. Regardless, the company will pay for expenses the temporary expenses, he said.
Jones said most members' insurance covered their personal losses.
But, he said, "I know of several who lost substantial amounts and are not covered."
The fraternity will meet with its alumni board tomorrow to begin planning repairs to the building, he said.
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