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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 1974)
Viewpoint - To end Vietnamese war Peace movement must intensify efforts By JOHN LANIER Alarming evidence has come to light in recent weeks which indicates the Nixon Administration plans to step up efforts to sabotage the Paris Peace Agreement. But there is also evidence that Congress won’t go along with such efforts, particularly if there is continuing pressure from the American people against them. The latest indication of Nixon’s intentions for In dochina came in his military budget request under which official U.S. military aid to the Thieu regime for fiscal year 1975 would double to $1.45 billion. It should be noted that this figure is just for military aid covered in the defense budget, and does not include foreign aid (economic and military) in the foreign aid bill other r elated budget items or hidden and disguised funding. THE U.S. HAS NEVER completely withdrawn from Vietnam and has continued ever since the signing of the Peace Agreement to violate it, principally by backing up Thieu in his refusal to abide by the Agreement’s political provisions. But lately things have gotten worse. Defense Secretary Schlesinger has repeatedly hinted in recent weeks that the U.S. may “have to’’ re-intervenene militarily in the war, presumably by a resumption of the bombing. Nixon will ask Congress for a special supplemental military aid package for Saigon totaling about $1 billion and including a number of advanced F5-E combat fighter planes, more sophisticated than anything Saigon currently has and therefore a major violation of the Agreement. According to Gabriel Kolko, writing in the New York Times, “if the Administration implements all of the con tingencies for which the Pentagon has budgeted, as it often did in the past, at the very least it has assured that the existing bloody conflict will drag on-and the worst we can expect is an escalation to direct U.S. participation in the war.” The U.S. is already spending money so rapidly to replace weapons and am munition Thieu is using up in his offensive operations and bombing attacks that one Congressional source told the Times “we can’t keep spen ding for Vietnam at the current rate and stay within the budget ceiling even with the added StiOO million.” INDICATIONS OF what Nixon is planning can often be seen in the issues he raises and the justifications he established for U.S. actions. For many months he has created and nurtured the myth of a major “Communist offensive” against the Thieu regime, which not only has no factual basis but is also illogical since the PRG has much to gain and nothing to lose by the full im plementation of the Peace Agreement. If there is an offensive at some time in the future, it will be because the sabotaging of the Agreement by Nixon and Thieu have left the Vietnamese people no other choice in their struggle for peace, independence and freedom. By trying to get Americans to accept this myth now, Nixon is hoping to gain greater freedom to support Thieu and sabotage the Agreement. Nixon has also raised the emotional issue of the MIAs, Americans missing in action in Indochina. Judging from the way he used the POW issue two years ago to justify the continuation of the war and increased military action against North Vietnam,this issue is a particularly dangerous one. The issue of the MI As cannot be settled so long as the U.S. and Thieu continue to sabotage the Peace Agreement. There is no evidence that any MIAs are still alive or being held in North or South Vietnam. And so long as Thieu prolongs the fighting the MIA search teams cannot expect to operate behing PRG lines— particularly since it has now come to light that “under an order from the secretary of state in May, 1973, the MIA search teams were instructed to gather intelligence data through agents assigned to each team” (according to Steven Davis, a former top secret documents coordinator at a U.S. communications center in Saigon, L.A. Times, Jan. 24,1974). It is a good sign that the American people aren’t buying this ploy and aren’t jumping on the MIA hysteria bandwagon. THE SITUATION today in South Vietnam is so perilous for the Saigon dictatorship that Thieu must rule by even more ruthless repression, torture, concentration camps and military actions. He is relying on continued and stepped up U.S. military and economic aid to maintain his regime in the face of growing opposition in South Vietnam to his failure to live up to the provisions of the Peace Agreement guaranteeing the freeing of political prisoners, the restoration of democratic liberties and the holding of an election. Thieu is, in fact, attempting to disguise this failure—plus the collapse of the economy in his zone—by stepping up the fighting, claiming his regime is under attack and appealing for more and more U.S. help. On Dec. 30, 1973, 'Hiieu announced “(here will be no general election” in South Vietnam. Such an election is a keystone of the Agreement. Instead of allowing free elections, Thieu pushed a constitutional amendment through his National Assembly allowing him to run unopposed for a third presidential term in the notoriously-rigged Saigon controlled elections. And instead of adhering to the cease-fire, Thieu .has authorized his troops to un dertake “preventative” at tacks against PRG territory. On Jan. 4, 1974, according to the N.Y. Times, “President Thieu called on his troops today to attack the (PRG) in their own territory.” And mi Jan. 9, Thieu ordered his air force to “systematically” attack areas under PRG control. BUT WHATEVER schemes Thieu and Nixon have in mind to prolong the war and maintain the Saigon dic tatorship may be defeated by a rising international tide of opposition. In Vietnam, the PRG has said it will no longer stand for attacks on its territories without inflicting punishing defeats on attacking Saigon forces. The PRG has called on Americans to “react in time against the war-like policy of the United States government aiming to prepare new military ad ventures in Vietnam.” And in the U.S., the mood of Congress increasingly favors a complete U.S. disen gagement. In two little publicized votes at the end of 1973, Congress took important steps to curb U.S. aid to Thieu’s police state. It voted to abolish U.S. police training programs in foreign countries (specifically in South Viet nam ) and to prohibit any form of assistance to Thieu’s police and prison systems. Congressmen who wrote the conference report on the legislation stated: “The existence of political prisoners in South Vietnam is beyond any reasonable dispute. Further, substantial accounts of cases of mistreatment and torture of such prisoners have been authoritatively repor ted.” IN ADDITION, Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield in his response to Nixon’s State of the Union message Feb. 1 called for a complete end to U.S. in volvement in Indochina, in cluding a withdrawal of troops and planes from Thailand. This speech and the two votes indicate Congressional sen timent is strongly opposed to any Nixon re-escalation. Writing of the situation in The Guardian (Jan. 30, 1974), Michael Klare states: “Clearly, the peace and social justice movements in the United States have won a substantial victory in their efforts to cut off aid for authoritarian governments abroad,” and particularly for the Thieu regime. But it is also clear that at this critical juncture—a full year after the signing of the Peace Agreement, with Nixon threatening re-intervention and Congress opposed to such an action—the peace movement must intensify its pressure for an end to all U.S. aid to Thieu, for a release of Thieu’s political prisoners and for peace, freedom and in dependence for the In dochinese people. The need is as urgent as ever because tens of thousands of Indochinese are still dying in a war created and prolonged by the United States. Lanier is a member of the Eugene Peace Action Com mittee. EPAC meets 8 p.m. Tuesdays at the Newman Center, 1850 Emerald. Letters Election Letters Letters pertaining to the IFC elections, scheduled for Feb. 20and 21, are due at the Emerald office (301 Allen Hall) no later than 5 p.m., Friday, Feb. 15. All letters must be typed (or neatly printed), double spaced and not more than 250 words. Because of space limitations, only two letters for a candidate and two against will be published. An additional letter from the candidate is allowed. Please sign letter and give some identification. The issue at hand Now that we are dealing in names, let us continue to examine the German-Russian Department’s handling of the issue of assistant professor Lana Buck’s contract. The eloquent, albeit hasty letter sent to the Emerald by professor Leong, while having a tone of altruistic finality, is screaming out for a few points of clarification. The German-Russian Department, as part of the College of Liberal Arts under Dean Holbo, had decided to reduce by one the Russian faculty and add a position in Scandinavian languages. Apparently, it came as a very unnerving surprise to Dean Holbo, and to both Harry Alpert and Robert Clark that Professor Leong would threaten the University with a lawsuit rather than surrender his position in the Russian Dept, as anticipated. (At this point it is relevant to note that Professor Leong is re-appealing an unsuccessful application for tenure.) IT SEEMS THAT the highly distasteful possibility of being sued has prompted the University 'administration, specifically Alpert and Clark acting through Dean Holbo, to behave as only professional bureaucrats are capable of behaving. Instead of putting their foot down in a firm stance (pro-education, anti-political) on the issue of Professor Leong’s tenure and contract, the department and University administration has attempted to use an escape clause and release a (seemingly) defenseless assistant professor. (It must be noted here that this is a well practiced move, perfected during the great H.P.U.P. disaster of two years ago.) It is time to raise some fundamental questions regarding this situation: Is the University administration more interested in bureaucratic expediency than the scholastic quality of professors? This seems to be the case, although I must admit that as a student, I rather naively assumed that professors were chosen on their professional merits. Professor Buck needs no testament to her professional skill from this semi-literate architecture student; the graduate Russian students have already represented their protest to the threat of her release, and the un dergraduate students are still trying to do so. EVEN MORE BASICALLY, I would ask what the function of a university should be. Should it be an informational resource and a place where a constantly changing synthesis of ideas occurs, or is it to be an unfathomable abyss of Orwellian bureaucracy all too familiar on the Eastern front? As a concerned member of the University community, I must insist that the issue at hand, the attempt to release Professor Buck, be addressed by the administrative offices of Robert Clark, Harry Alpert, and Dean Holbo. I want to add, also, that the students involved in this situation had no part in the decision to release Professor Buck. The University does not exist for the purpose of paying continually increasing ad ministrative salaries! The University must exist within the communication between professors and students, and the students are not powerless to counter administrative dishonesty. Marc Schiff Architecture Misconception Scott Spittal’s letter is an example of a common misconception that today’s anti smoking campaigners are motivated by the “spirit of Carrie Nation” to stop a sinful practice (“Calvinist racist prejudices”) and to protect the smoker from himself (“repressive victimless crimes”). In regard to smoking as a religiously-defined sin, we recognize the right of consenting adults to smoke in private, and in regard to smoking as a victimless crime, we submit that the victim is not the active smoker but the unwilling passive smoker who must breathe the smoker’s effluent (Spittal’s “asthmatic wimp with sensitive lungs,” the true persecuted minority member). SPITTAL STATES that “anyone has a right to request (emphasis added) smokers to refrain if the smoke is choking off their (sic) limited lung capacity.” I suppose he is referring to freedom of speech, for anyone who has tried repeatedly knows that that is a good way to develop chronic hypertension and to get an occasional acute case of bloody lip. Mark Cristy and 29 co-signers (my new legal name) Biology