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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 1973)
Amnesty issue part of [ the problem of peace By DAVID E. ANDERSON WASHINGTON (UPI) — In the aftermath of the U.S. disengagement from Indochina, Americans anil be watching with interest to see if President ffRtyn stands by his campaign pledge to “never” grant amnesty to the tens of thousands of young men who refused service in the war. The emotional issue of amnesty is certain to again be debated in Congress and throughout America as the United States completes the task of ending its Indochina involvement, withdrawing its remaining servicemen from the soil of South Vietnam and receiving its prisoners of war. There now are an estimated 500 draft resisters in federal jails and perhaps as many as 70,000 other men living abroad in self-imposed exile because they refused to accept service in the war. ( Analysis In the heat of last fall’s campaign, the President took a hard line on the issue. “Don’t worry about that amnesty — never,” Nixon told an Ohio family whose son had been killed in Vietnam. It was one of the dramatic moments of the campaign which saw Nixon bury in a landslide his Democratic opponent, Sen. George McGovern, who advocated an amnesty once the war was over and U.S. prisoners were returned. Nixon also said during the campaign: “It is time to draw the line on this issue once and for all. There will be no amnesty for draft dodgers and deserters after the war.” The President’s campaign statements con trasted with a remark he made in a television in terview in January, 1972. He said at that time that he would be “very liberal with regard to amnesty.” ! Nixon’s campaign stand obviously was a papular one. There are many who think it just plain wrong that any kind of forgiveness be granted those who violated the law and refused to fight for their country. Perhaps the most emotional argument against amnesty is that it is unfair to those who fought and died in Vietnam — and to these who spent some of the best years of their lives in prison camps. But those on the other side of the issue will make a fight of it. Antiwar groups have pledged themselves to work for amnesty. Sen. Robert Taft Jr., R-Ohio, is one member of Congress who has taken a middle ground on the question. Last year he introduced legislation which would grant amnesty “under certain conditions” to persons who failed or refused to register for the draft or refused induction into the armed forces. § Taft at the time he offered his bill cited American casualties in the Indochina war and said, “we should not grant amnesty to draft resisters without requiring them to undertake service to their country.” I Taft, a supporter of Nixon, suggested that young men currently imprisoned or in exile should be released or allowed to return if they agreed to i serve the United States—either in the military or in :j a form of alternate service—for three years. “We must decide whether it is more in our in- $ terest to have them spend their time in jail and in \ bitter exile or to offer them a practical course of j amnesty,” Taft said. 3 It is a decision that apparently will have to be j made in the coming months. But it also is a decision i in which the President would have to play a role, 3 and he remains on record with his statement of 3 “never.” j A difference in priorities Nixon budget opposed WASHINGTON (UPI) — President Nixon Monday proposed a $268.7 billion budget and at least a two-year moratorium on tax increases, and challenged Congress to stay within those limits or take full blame for inflation and higher taxation. Some Democratic lawmakers immediately attacked the President’s fiscal priorities, claiming they would sacrifice the well-being of “the common man” to big business and the military-industrial complex. Most Republicans hailed it as the tight purse-tending the nation needs. House Speaker Carl Albert, D-Okla., contending that the President would end the “humanitarian government” dating back to New Deal days, said in a statement: “It is a big-business budget that leaves | the common man out.’’ “The President proposes nothing less than the \ systematic dismantling and destruction of the great social programs and' the great precedents of j humanitarian government inaugurated by Franklin Roosevelt and advanced and enlarged by every Democratic president since,” said Albert. Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott told reporters: “If Congress busts the budget, it will invite vetoes, and if the vetoes are overridden, it will invite impoundments.” Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield said he agreed with the President that the government should keep a tight lid on its spending, “but I think there will be a difference of opinion as far as priorities are concerned.” UPI Roundup I Agnew arrives in Guam i AGANA, Guam— Vice-President Spiro Agnew arrived in Guam Monday en route to South Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries for post-war discussions with then leaders and a possible role in greeting returning U.S. prisoners of war. Agnew’s next stop was Saigon. Agnew issued no statements and did not meet newsmen on his arrival on Guam, which officials described as a rest stop. His mission is to take him to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. The first official meeting is expected to start Tuesday with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. And the peace goes on SAIGON — Despite a cease-fire agreement, the Vietnam war raged on today with Saigon reporting 426 separate battles and at least 371 battlefield deaths during the first 22 hours of a technical peace. The number of clashes, Saigon said, was higher than at any time during the war itself. No American casualties were reported among the dead or wounded. The United States still has 27,000 servicemen in South Vietnam!, but under the terms of the peace treaty signed Saturday in Paris, they will leave within 60 days. i B-52s bombJLaos, Cambodia WASHINGTON—American warplanes — including — bombed both Cambodia and Laos Sunday and mnHmiwi the bombing in Laos Monday, the Defense Department said. The raids were flown against Communist positions, but Pentagon sources said North Vietnamese units were not among the targets. A spokesman said all of the raids in Cambodia halted before 7 p m EST Sunday — the start of a unilateral end to offensive military operations by govern ment forces ordered by President Lon Nol. It was the first time since the Vietnam cease-fire went into effect Saturday night that U.S. officials had acknowledged B5% were con tinuing to bomb other parts of Indochina. Abortion decision draws support WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, criticized from many of the nation’s pulpits Sunday for its recent abortion ruling, Monday picked up the support of a leader of American Reform Judaism. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations’ Commission on Interfaith Activities, hailed the Court’s decision, which said an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy was a matter of concern solely between a woman and her doctor, as “wise and courageous.’’ “At a time when many in this country are deeply troubled by the threat to civil rights and individual liberties which they see emanating from other branches of government, this decision should do much to restore the people’s faith in the ability of the democratic process to preserve those rights and liberties,’’ Brickner said. At least one Roman Catholic organization, the Society for a Christian Commonwealth, has called for active op position to the Supreme Court ruling and on Sunday, the controversial ruling was the subject for sermons in many Roman Catholic churches. In Watergate trial Prosecution presents final arguments WASHINGTON UPI— In its final argument to the jury, the prosecution in the Watergate bugging trial charged Monday that two former officials of President Nixon’s re-election campaign diverted thousands of dollars in campaign funds to their own use. After an hour-long argument by prosecutor Earl Silbert, U.S. District Judge John Sirica recessed the trial until Tuesday morning when the defense will present its closing argument. The jury is expected to receive the case Tuesday afternoon. Silbert, in his emotional summation, said evidence had overwhelmingly proved the guilt of G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord. Pointing at McCord, a former CIA and FBI agent, Silbert said: “A former CIA agent. Isn’t it sad? A former FBI agent. Isn’t it sad?” “...He and Liddy were off on an en terprise of their own, diverting that campaign money to their own uses.” Silbert did not elaborate on his charge that the two men diverted the money for personal use, but lie apparently referred to testimony last week by tellers from a bank in suburban Maryland that McCord on three separate occasions last spring made deposits of $10,000 in $100 bills. Hugh Sloan, Jr., former treasurer of the Nixon campaign committee, testified last Tuesday that he gave Liddy $199,000, but did not know for what purpose. Sloan also testified that he destroyed the detailed records of the specific cash disbursements made to Liddy in amounts ranging up to $83,000. He said McCord was in “such sad shape” financially that he willingly par ticipated in the political espionage plot directed at high-level Democrats. Although Liddy was directed by cam paign officials to gather political in telligence, Silbert said, “He wasn’t content to do what he was supposed to do — he had to divert it it, he had to turn it.” As for McCord, Silbert said, “He knew what he was doing. He knew everything he was doing with his experience in security at the CIA. Liddy and McCord are charged with conspiracy, burglary, bugging and wiretapping in connection with the break in at Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel-apartment com plex June 17. At the time, McCord was security chief for the Nixon campaign and Liddy was a consultant to Nixon’s campaign finance committee. Silbert said the original intent to collect political intelligence “began to veer off toward the illegal” in May last year when the conspirators began plotting to bug Democratic Headquarters and George McGovern’s campaign offices. Through it all, Silbert said, Liddy was the ring leader — using an alias, giving orders, and paying bills. “Since when does a lawyer — a general counsel for a major campaign committee have to run around the country to California and Miami and in his own city using an alias if he’s involved in legitimate, lawful and valid activity?” Silbert said. Winding up McCord’s case, attorney Gerald Alch took only 10 minutes to present four witnesses. Peter Maroulis, Liddy’s attorney, took somewhat longer in presenting seven witnesses. Judge Sirica has yet to pass sentence of the five who pleaded guilty to the charges: E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former White House staff member, and Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Strugis and Virgilio Gonzalez, all of Miami. The attorneys for Liddy and McCord made their brief presentations after the prosecution had presented the last of its 51 witnesses since the trial opened Jan. 8 in an effort to prove the two men joined with the other five in a conspiracy to spy mi the Democratic high command. Maroulis suggested that Liddy was being forced to shoulder the guilt while higher officials in President Nixon’s campaign go free. Maroulis told the jurors Liddy had no “guilty knowledge ” of the break-in. Maroulis stressed that the prosecution had carefully sketched a “chain of com mand” in the Nixon campaign in which four top officials—Jeb Magruder, Herbert Porter, Robert Odle, Jr., and Hugh Solan Jr. — authorized and paid for Liddy’s espionage but said they knew nothing about the Watergate affair. “I will bring forth facts that will show there was a line of innocence in this chain of command,” Maroulis said.
