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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1971)
World News N. Vietnam prisoners to be repatriated SAIGON AP—The government is going ahead with its plan to release North Vietnamese prisoners of war on Friday although official sources reported only 13 of 660 eligible POWs have agreed to repatriation. The prisoners, sick or suffering from wounds, have until Thurs day to change their minds. It was not known why the prisoners were refusing repatriation, but one source said Monday: “Maybe they simply are standing by their original orders to remain in the South until victory is achieved. Maybe they’ve gotten orders through the grapevine to stay.” The prisoners are being in terviewed by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Under terms of the Geneva convention no prisoner of war can be forced to return home. The South Vietnamese government proposed the release of sick and disabled prisoners in a communique last month and the North Vietnamese government agreed last week to accept all patriots who wished to return home. American officials have ex pressed hope the repatriation might lead to a release of some of the U.S. prisoners held by North Vietnam. Because of this, some sources said, U.S. officials here have exerted considerable pressure on the South Vietnamese govern ment to carry out the release as originally planned and on schedule. One U.S. official said, however, it wasn’t exactly pressure, but it was pointed out that we could sit around again for a long time while waiting for North Vietnam to agree to anything as positive as this.” The government originally offered to repatriate 570 prisoners because that was the number of sick and wounded North Vietnamese held at Phu Quoc Island, the largest POW camp in the South. But sources said when the government began to ask the prisoners whether they wanted to return they found only a few who answered yes. At Bien Hoa, the second largest POW camp, only about 12 volunteered to return, one source said. ‘‘When that happened the call went out to find any and every prisoner who might fit into the category of ‘sick and wounded.’ ” The number of eligible was changed from 570 to 660. News Roundup from AP reports ROANOKE, Va.—The wreckage of a chartered plane carrying Audie Murphy, America’s most-decorated World War II hero, was found Monday on a mountaintop near here and state police said six bodies were recovered. State Police Lt. Marvin Kent said the bodies were “badly mangled” and a medical examiner would be sent to the scene to try to make identification. Numbers still visible on a portion of the tail of the twin-engine plane, however, matched those on the aircraft that Murphy, 46, and several other businessmen boarded Friday in Atlanta, state police said. BOSTON—Hundreds of Vietnam veterans, dressed in battle fatigues and carrying toy rifles marched silently Monday from Bunker Hill to Boston Common, after retracing Paul Revere’s route in reverse to “spread the alarm” against the war in Southeast Asia. The demonstrators chanted “Bring ’em home, bring our brothers home,” as they filed onto the Common. Then they broke their plastic rifles in half and began what they called the “celebration of life.” Their march to the Common followed a Sunday night bivouac at Bunker Hill. Former U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, told the crowd: “This is a bearing-witness to life and what we want to be manifest as the true spirit of America . . . one that cannot be ascribed to the ‘silent majority’ but those who wish to go on record for the course they want to set for America.” YUBA CITY, Calif—The search for gravesites along the Feather River was shifted to a new ranch Monday, the day of a special Mass for the 23 transients found buried in fruit orchards here and for the man accused of murdering 10 of the men. In addition to the regular Memorial Day services in the 14,000-member community of Yuba City and its sister town Marysville across the river, a special Roman Catholic Mass was planned at St. Isadore’s church. The Mass was in memory of the slain men and Juan Corona, in jail charged with 10 of the killings. Police search office Stanford University newspaper threatened PALO ALTO, Calif.—In early April 100 Chicano students marched into the offices of the Stanford Daily, Stanford University’s student newspaper, and demanded that a long statement they had prepared about a campus dispute be carried verbatim in the paper. Less than a week later, four Palo Alto and two Stanford policemen armed with a search warrant entered the daily offices and hunted through drawers, desks, files and wastebaskets in pursuit of photographs they believed to have been taken of a recent sit-in that ended violently. Last week two anonymous phone-callers threatened physical injury against the paper’s staffers if the name of a student arrested on a dope bust appeared in the paper. These three incidents—among many ranging from cajolery to coercion—are typical of the pressures the youthful reporters and editors of the 15,000 circulation campus paper have learned to live with in recent months. Most Stanford students have abandoned activism this year out of despair, or perhaps mere exhaustion That left the field to small groups of left-and right wing extremists And, from somewhere, anonymous "crazies" have plunged the campus into a state of fear with random acts of sabotage and vandalism Traditionally, campus newspapers have been run by students for other students who are their friends, fraternity brothers or teammates. They have been peculiarly subject to personal appeals and special interest group pressures But in the ascending war of words and weapons on the nation's campuses—and in few places this year has the escalation been more ominous than at Stanford—student newspapers are increasingly caught in the middle of hostile, polarized factions on and off campus In addition to creating anxiety, the growing pressures are raising serious questions of press freedom. On a campus which in a period of weeks has seen a major dor mitory arson, a bombing of the president’s office, a number of gun firings, a bloody sit-in battle and a firebombing of the downtown police station, the Stanford Daily’s offices stand unharmed, looking as casually chaotic as student newspapers have looked for years. But on closer examination, one notices that the windows are taped to prevent shattering in the event a brick should sail through During editorial board meetings, one staffer dismantles the telephones to prevent bugging. For two weeks recently, after the dormitory fire, staffers stood all night fire watches to protect the offices. New reporters are watched suspiciously for weeks to make sure they are not federal agents. Since the police raid, desks and files are kept locked except when in use. For the past year—in anticipation of just such a hap pening - the paper’s policy has been to destroy all negatives not used in the paper that might incriminate demonstrators. Photographers, harassed and attacked at demonstrations, now use infra-red film at nighttime events to avoid using flashbulbs. In general, beneath the everyday hum of activity, most key staffers have learned to function with an abiding sense of paranoia. “We spend an awful lot of our time and energy to devise techniques of resisting severe pressures from a number of political groups on all sides of the spectrum who have far less regard for freedom of the press than they do for serving their own purposes,” said Felicity Barringer, the spunky 30-year old editor, who has sought to steer a liberal-left course for the pap.T amid the shoals of far left and far right extremism “W?e have to care double to ensure the press doesn’t get corrupted.” Miss Barringer’s technique of resisting pressures is a com bination of watchfulness, tough journalistic idealism and, often, ambiguity. “For example, a bomb ex ploded in a black girl’s car recently,” said Miss Barringer, who has sandy blong hair and brown eyes. “Three blacks walked in and said, ‘We don’t want you to print that girl’s name. Tell us you won’t.’ I said, Sorry, I can’t promise; probably we won’t, but there’s no guarantee.’ They were coming in and demanding something—the minute I give a blanket guarantee, in their eyes I have a lot weaker case the next time. Ambiguity is helpful as long as you know in your own mind you are maintaining independence of outside political pressures.” Ultimately, the paper did not use the girl’s name, but that was an independent editorial judgment. Miss Barringer in sists. Under her editorship the paper generally has produced responsible, if not spectacular, journalism. On at least two oc casions when random violence erupted on Stanford’s campus, the paper printed editorials condemning it—thus opening itself to possible physical attack. But even Miss Barringer ad mits that pressures and outright fear created by the random violence have had some effect. "When we have a contact sheet and we have a photo that is in criminating and one that is not, there is an inclination to take the incriminating value of a picture into account in judging its newsworthiness. I don't think we’ve allowed it to make a dif ference. I don’t think we’ve given in to that tendency.” But Edward Kohn, a reporter who has covered much of the campus violence in the last year, believes the paper more than once has buckled under to in tensive pressures He claims that the policy of destroying in criminating negatives—although more than a year old—is more a capitulation to fear than an attempt to assure press access. But most other staffers insist that the paper has not been compromised by extremist pressures. They see as a greater danger the precedent set by the police invasion of the paper’s files. The paper has filed a suit against the police, the assistant district attorney who asked for the search warrant and the judge who granted it. (The police left empty-handed after 45 minutes.) L.A. Times-Washington Post YOU bring the SMILE. . . we’ll bring the CAMERA and the CARDS to avoid delay in REGISTRATION next FALL. Get your I.D. picture taken NOW. during the EXTENDED PERIOD June 1-11 8:30-4:30 A-Z no appointment necessary... YOUR CALENDAR — JUNE PERMANENT IDENTIFICATION with your picture i^or^Er1 a' "" B°"°m - "» Era ■3 •3 •3 ■3 ■3 * * ■3 •3 * ■3 •3 •3 ■3 ■3 * ■3 l
