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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 1969)
World/national news Search for scrapegoat begins Americans avoid moral liability for My Lai By RICHARD HARWOOI) and LAURENCE STERN The Washington Post WASHINGTON—America has been depicted in the annals of pop sociology as a violence-prone society. We had the violence of the frontier—the cowboy and Indian stuff. There were the gangland wars of the 1930’s, still celebrated in film and song. The murderous couple Bon nie and Clyde are high camp. On the activistic fringes of Opinion the new left violence has been woven into the theology of protest politics. Yesteryear’s bookworms are today’s window smashers. Yet nothing in the American experience prepared pub lic opinion for the revelation of what was unleashed against the villagers of My Lai in South Vietnam 18 months ago. The mass executions by a small group of American soldiers touched a new threshhold of public outrage that was unbreached through years of B-52 bombing raids against Vietnamese population and terrain. Even the weary and angry “Grunts” who are fighting out the butt end of this war have told newsmen they Panel demands annual income By WILLIAM WAUGH Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (A5)—The White House confer ence on Food, Nutrition and Health heard Wed nesday persistent demands for a $5,500 guaran teed income and for President Nixon to get food to “America’s substantial number of hungry peo ple.” Many of the 3,000 conference participants, divid ed into 20 working panels, are clamoring for quick liberalization of the food stamp and commodity programs as an interim measure to meet the needs of an estimated 20 million hungry people in the United States. As the conference picked up steam toward its closing session Thursday afternoon, several eth nic and other groups took independent action to try and dramatize their demands. The Mexican-American and religious caucuses joined forces in calling for participants to fast for the remainder of the conference and to turn in their $18.30 in daily food tickets provided by the conference to be given to some charity. ALMOST IMMOKA1-WE RE FOR POOR’ The Rev. Ralph Ruiz of San Antonio, Tex., said, “in my mind it is almost immoral for us to be spending $18.30 for food when the participants are here representing the poor.” Jean Mayer, the conference director, told a news conference the fast was “a very regrettable thing. No way can the money be saved by turning in the tickets.” He added that it was done without discussion with conference officials “as to whether it could serve a practical purpose.” At a news conference called by the National Welfare Rights Organization, the Rev. Ralph Aber nathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Con ference criticized the President’s speech at the conference. “You, the President, are responsible for coming to the conference grinning like a Santa Claus and delivering a bundle of used second hand toys,” he said. All seven task force groups which had studied the pre-conference panel recommendations, banded together and issued what they called an "action statement." •THE NO. 1 REMEDY It stated that the “No. 1 remedy for hunger and malnutrition" is an adequate cash income of $5,500 for a family of four. It listed long-range priorities but called for emergency action by the President. It proposed that Nixon declare a na tional emergency and among other things reduce the price of food stamps. A number of the 20 panel sessions running con currently have adopted resolutions calling for the higher minimum income. Nixon had asked the con ference to support his family assistance legis nation which would provide a $1,800 floor for a fam ily of four supplemented by $720 in food stamps. Mayer disputed the idea that the guaranteed income should be the first priority of the confer ence. "1 have a strong feeling the first priority is doing something about hunger and malnutrition now," he said. "This is more important than what can be done through Congress." The present food stamp program came in for considerable criticism. Hill STnith. chief counsel for the Senate com mittee on hunger, said a bill to liberalize the food stamp program is bottled up in the House Agricul ture Committee. find the incident at Pinkville inconceivable and disgust ing. A grisly dimension has suddenly been added to this war—one that is evoked by such place names as Lidice, Guernica, Katyn Forest and also Hue. Now that the story is out there will be much howling and recrimination. Young mobs have already stormed the American embassy in London. There will undoubtedly be picketing of the White House as though this were Richard Nixon’s massacre. On the other side, there will surely be the accusation that the story was surfaced by the Communists in Hanoi and fellow travelers in Washington, to harass the war and/or peace effort. It will be pointed out darkly that those who surfaced the story and photographs of the massacre received payment from Life Magazine and other heavy-tipping media. It will be said that the crime was committed by men of warped character and low military discipline. And that, indeed, may be partially true. PINKVILLE ON AMERICAN CONSCIENCE That all is beside the point. The fact is that Pinkville will weigh heavily on the American conscience just as it has cast a dark shadow on the individual consciences of the men who were there—those who did the shoot ing, those who kept quiet and those in higher channels who kept a lid of silence and secrecy on the event. There are many soldiers who have fought with courage and restraint in Vietnam—a place to which they ‘. . . or abridging the freedom of speech or the pressV^or the right of the people peaceably to assemble . . Agnew coloring book By DAVID R. BOLDT The Washington Post The recent attacks by the vice president haven’t been totally bad news for that small coterie “within the geographical and intellectual confines of New York City” who control the na tion’s media. For Grosset and Dunlap, Inc., book publishers, of 51 Madison Ave., the congressional controversy over the veep’s declama tions was a great chance, they figured, to get in some promo tional mileage for their recently released satirical “Spiro T. Agnew Coloring Book." This week they sent a copy of the 48-page papercover book to all members of the House and Senate, together with three “jumbo” crayons, and an introductory note that begins: “There’s more than one way to color the news . . Now the mail has been coming back from the congressmen, and the reviews, the company concedes, have been “mixed.” ", . . Transcends the bounds of satire and achieves bad taste . . .’’—Rep. Barber Conable Jr. (R-N.Y.) “Color it tasteless.”—James Broyhill (R-N.C.) On the other hand. Rep. William Hathaway (D-Maine) said he "greatly enjoyed" the book, and Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D Wis.) asked for more copies, the company said. Los Angeles Times,Washington Post News Service Rep. Thaddeus Dulski (D-N.Y.) brought the debate over the literary merit of the volume to the floor of the House Tuesday when he read into the record his reply to Grosset and Dunlap (which accompanied the book on its return trip to the pub lisher): "In order for me to properly register my disgust for such material. I would have to descend into the gutter with you.” The book is of the same genre that over the years has been used for barbed attacks on President John Kennedy, executives, John Birches, and others, prompting at least one Republican staffer to say. "If you've seen one coloring book, you've seen them all.” did not elect to go—who are dishonored by Pinkville as much as they are by the picket signs outside of the London embassy, saying, “American murderers.” Yet as the details of the Pinkville massacre seep out. many Americans are bound to wonder how to reconcile the mission—saving South Vietnam from Communist aggression—with the slaughter of its women and chil dren. And among those who know this war best it is acknowledged that, perforce, some slaughter of civilians is necessary no matter what euphemism is used to de scribe the process. MASSACRE A SYMBOL Pinkville will symbolize the brutalization that inevitably afflicts men at war. So will the words which former in fantryman Paul Meadlo described that day in an in terview with CBS: “They were begging and saying, no, no . . . and the mothers were huddling their children but they kept on firing. We kept right on firing. They were waving their arms and begging.” Many of us sat in sheltered living rooms—perhaps starting in on a pre-dinner martini as Meadlo’s face showed on the screen—and many clucked at the sheer cal lousness of it all. From the vantage point of those liv ing rooms Meadlo was the American “gook”—the scape goat and the buffer between the torn bodies in open graves at My Lai and ourselves. Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Service lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll|llllllllllll||||||||||||||lilllllll|||||lil|||||||||||||||||||||||l||||llllllllllll|||||!llllllllll!ll|||||||||||||||!lillllllllllllll!llllllllllllllllllllllll!lllllllllltlllllllllllllllllllillllillllllllHlilllillllllllillllllll Nixon opposes detention camps WASHINGTON (A1)—The Nixon administration urged Congress Wednesday to repeal a law author izing establishment of detention camps for use during internal security emergencies. It said repeal of a section of the McCarran Act is needed to put down rumors the government plans to use its provisions to retain war protesters and other citizens with minority views. The position was made known by Dep. Atty. Gen. Richard Kleindienst, who was quoted earlier this year as saying people who demonstrate in a manner to interfere with others “should be round ed up and put in a detention camp.” He was mis quoted, he said Wednesday. Kleindienst wrote Sen. James Eastland (D-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that repeal of the statute “outweighs any potential ad vantage which the act may provide in a time of internal security emergency.” He released, along with the letter to Eastland, another letter to the Atlantic Monthly in which he denied he told the magazine’s Washington editor that he favored detaining demonstrators. He said he was misquoted. The Emergency Detention Act was enacted as part of the 1950 Internal Security Law. It estab lished procedures for apprehending and detaining persons who were considered likely to engage in espionage or sabotage during internal security em ergencies. HERMISTON, Ore. —Residents of the eastern Oregon community of Hermiston appeared today to be taking in stride the news that poisonous war gases will be stored at nearby Umatilla Army de 1 pot. State Rep. Stafford Hansell said, “Storing and moving the chemicals into the depot does not bother me a bit. It is an excellent place to store the munitions.” Hansell, a Republican, owns what is reported to be the nation's largest hog farm less than one half mile from the boundary of the depot. Charles Anson, city building inspector, agreed. “I’m not worried a bit,” he said. “The toxic chem icals have been around us for years at the Army depot. We have to have the germ and chemical weapons to be prepared.” Another Hermiston resident, Mrs. Karl Aichele, sounded a note heard elsewhere in the state after the Army announced it would transfer the gases from Okinawa to the Umatilla depot. “I thought we were going to do away with this type of munitions,” she said. "But I have faith that the Army will have only its experts handle them." she added. Gov. Tom McCall issued a statement in Wash ington saying he would meet with officials of the Army and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to learn what type of chemicals would be stored at the Oregon site. McCall said. "If these findings disclose that the chemicals would be a hazard, I will bend every effort to stop the proposed Army action " Gases to Hermiston Oregon Daily Emerald