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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 1976)
"\ -editorial Arena changed The controversy surrounding the Portland State University's newspaper's, The Vanguard, decision not to run CIA ads has moved from the arena of the PSU Publications Board to the office of the state attorney general. The board has agreed to delay action pending an opinion from state Attorney General Lee John son on the Vanguard's right to refuse advertising. The implica tions of such an opinion could affect every newspaper in the state. Newspapers have traditionally attempted to screen advertis ing copy for inaccurate, false, illegal or misleading content. A responsible newspaper has an obligation to protect its readers from deceptive advertising. Newspaper advertising managers regularly exchange information on suspect advertisers through the auspices of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. This implementing of advertising guidelines is considered a proper function of editorial policy. The board s contention that it can dictate advertising policy to the Vanguard is further undermined by its own guidelines. These guidelines state that the editor “is responsible for the quantity and quality of advertising for the Vanguard." In fact, the board Chairer David Smeltzer admits that the editor is responsible for advertis ing. At this point the CIA itself enters the picture. The Portland CIA representative claims that he was not "putting pressure on anybody" when they fired off letters demanding clarification of advertising policy. These letters were sent to the Publications Board and PSU Pres. Joseph Blumel, as well as to the Vanguard ad manager. Smeltzer, however, claimed that the federal gov ernment was threatening a suit to force placement of the ads. The board's disregard of its own guidelines and the threat of governmental pressure are serious but are really sidelights to the center controversy. At the heart of the issue is the right of a newspaper to exercise an editorial policy free from government restrictions. Any attempt to influence this freedom can only have an adverse effect on all citizens. k---' Letters Agreement broken Although we were received with great seriousness, I am a disap pointed member of the University of Washington swimming team which competed against the Oregon team last weekend (Jan. 17). My disappointment was due to the breaking of an agreement be tween the two coaches to score the meet on a combined (men’s and women's) basis as Oregon persisted in keeping a separate tab of the men’s points on the lighted score board. To my further amazement, in the morning Register Guard the meet results were a ‘Washington” victory of 65-48 — which was the score of the men's team only. In addition, the men’s events were the only events appearing in the paper s meet summary. At Washington, we take pride in our representation of a combined collegiate program. I would like to see Oregon give greater recogni tion to women's swimming. Irene Arden University of Washington Box opened Nuclear power and nuclear weapons technology are insepar able as pointed out in your editor ial, “Homemade Bombs” (Emerald 1-29-76). Although breeder reactors will not be ready to export for 20 or more years, weapons material (plutonium) is generated as a byproduct in reac tors such as Oregon’s Trojan facil ity on the Columbia River near Portland. The Trojan will generate about 550 pounds of plutonium per year, enough to make perhaps 20 Hiroshima-type explosives. Although backyard bombmak ing is probably an oversimplifica tion, the plausibility of unauthorized bomb making has been demonstrated. A nuclear explosive was successfully fabri cated and exploded by India about two years ago with the use of plutonium obtained from a reactor supplied by Canada. Although Page 4 Pandora's box has barely been opened, the proliferation of nuc lear explosives is likely to be ac celerated by the export of nuclear fission power. Argentina has the capability of following India. Once ex-President Nixon promised reactors to both Israel and Egypt. West Germany has sold the tech nology to Brazil and Iran has ar ranged for the purchase of reac tors from the US. Already Kadifi has students from Lybia studying nuclear engineering at Oregon State University. The very high toxicity of plutonium-239 is very poorly un derstood and appreciated by the general public. One microgram (one 453 millionths of a pound), an invisibly small quantity, can pro duce lung cancer in experimental animals. When breeder reactors are used internationally, it is pro jected that plutonium will be ship ped in quantities as great as 300 tons per year. Essentially, irrever sible environmental contamina tion may result from this poison which has a half-life of 24,400 years. R.G. Wolfe Chemistry Dept. Take back The thing that disappoints me as far as UO students and Univer sity politics is that the majority of the students here have given up their role as evaluators of our soc iety and, equally important, as in itiators of action against injustice, corruption, oppression, inequality and censorship, just to name a few. They have capitulated to the illegitimate authority and seem to be content to sit back and let someone else make the deci sions. We need to question the legiti macy of the authority that controls such a large part of our environ ment. If we are sheep, we will be grazed until fat and lethargic, and then butchered to be devoured by our shepherds. But if we are human individuals, we will work to protect our rights and establish equality. Equality: we are a nation Duck Soup Oregon Daily Emerald c 1976 While you’re at it...see who paid for Autzen Stadium! a**Sj7*nn. whose founders stressed above all the need for equality of treat ment for all its members; and we are a nation in which one per cent of its population controls 61 per cent of its individual stocks, and in which approximately 10 million of its people live in hunger. We are a nation whose founders stressed freedom of expression, and we are a nation in which censorship and propaganda are used to keep the American public gullibly proud of our national heritage, and ig norant of the realities of our gov erning system. We are a nation of pawns being manipulated and sacrificed by, and for the benefit of, a very few kings and queens and bishops and knights. We must take back our right to determine what we will be. A.K. Stanton Psychology, Soph. Scream a little The grim struggle over who is to pay for one program's inability to stick to a budget has perhaps been resolved. The basic worth of that program has never to my knowledge been questioned How many students does it benefit? Of all the groups which demand by right' a chunk of our incidental fees, the CCDC is one of the smal lest and most expensive. Its basic purpose is not child care, but child care and development, a concern that is no concern of the University’s. I do not question the rig ht of any person to have a child, or as many children as they can support. What I question is why are the students of the University of Oregon supporting something practically useless to almost all of us. How many student-parents are there? Damn few, compared to the number of students. The Drop-In Child Care availa ble in the EMU is more than ade quate for the purposes of keeping a small child safe and relatively happy at the expense of the UO students. I am no more responsi ble for the mental health of a child not mine than I am to feed or clothe it, which, for all I know I may already be doing through food stamps or welfare (when you re going whole hog, you don t pass up any rights') Right to food, for example, and right to have chil dren, both of which require money which many people don t have because they're going to school, which, I ve heard, is another right.' No one has a right' to any thing they can't afford to do When people start screaming about their rights' the person nearest them should do a little screaming about bills. Valerie Wood German-Russian Junior -opinion Fascism dead? N With the death of Spain’s General Franco, can we now say that fascism is also dead? As long as the Shah is alive and able to rule Iran through SAVAK, his Gestapo-type secret police, the re sponse to such a question would definitely be negative. The extent of fascist terror utilized by the Shah's puppet regime was demonstrated clearly in the events of the last few weeks in Iran, the culmination of which was observed in the ex ecution of 15 Iranians a few days ago. As it was reported in the western press quite extensively, in the first days of 1976, ten Iranian patriots were sentenced to death and one sen tenced to 15 years imprisonment. The trial and sentencing which did not take more than a day or two, were done in a secret military tribunal with no journalists or observers present. This, in fact, is a common practice of the Shah’s dictatorial regime, and has been known to us and any student of Iranian politics for quite some time. Being aware of the oppressive nature of the Iranian regime and the seriousness of those sentencings, the Iranian students of various American and European uni versities tried to arouse the support of the Ameri can and European public and possibly put an end to the execution of those patriots. In order to take our case to the public and show how in Iran even the most basic human rights are being violated, we staged demonstrations, long marches, vigils and hunger strikes throughout Europe and America. These activities, although they could not prevent the execution of those patriots, were rather successful This was so because we were V. able to expose the oppressive character of the regime and thereby could earn the support of many Americans and Europeans. We just learned from the headquarters of the World Confederation of Iranian students, which also appeared in the Christian Science Monitor of Tuesday, Jan. 27, 1976, that nine of those 11 Iranians, and another six whose names and "charges" have not yet been publicized, were executed by the Shah’s army. The names of these patriots are now added to the lists of hundreds of Iranians who have been victimized by the ex ecutioners of possibly the most oppressive re gime in history. Of course, these few hundreds are not the only victims of the Shah's SAVAK. The fact is, that there are about 40,000 political pris oners in Iran, many of whom are under severe torture. (This has been verified by the London Sunday Times, Le Monde, The London Economist.) Unlike the claim made by the regime, these Iranian patriots are not terrorists and nuisances devoted to the evil cause of destruction. On the contrary, these Iranians are dedicated to the ad vancement of the lot of their people, to the elimina tion of poverty and oppressiveness of their soci ety, and to the creation of a just society conducive to economic equality and the truest form of demo cracy. It is in the light of these facts that we are seeking further support of the American public. Ahmad Ashrafi Iranian Student Association 7 Friday, January 30, 1976
