Oregon daily
emerald
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Care
Inside
Thursday, November 15, 1984
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 8H. Number 5.5
Professor blasts American ‘liberals’
Dr. Joseph Ioffe
By Paul Ertelt
Of the Kmerald
U.S. military strength is the key to
freedom for the Russian people, but
American liberals are thwarting that
quest for freedom, a Russian emigre and
political scientist said Wednesday.
Dr. Joseph Ioffe, who left the Soviet
Union in 1977 and now lives in Min
nesota, blasted American “liberals”
from American Catholic bishops to
former President Richard Nixon at a din
ner at Eugene’s Black Angus Restaurant.
Ioffe was a economics and political
science professor in his native Crimea,
which he calls the “Russian California.”
“Crimea in terms of politics is second
to Moscow. It is the summer home of the
Soviet government.”
Ioffe said he gained first-hand
knowledge of Soviet military strategy as
an adviser to Soviet leaders Nikita
Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev.
That strategy includes subverting one
nation at a time, while at the same time
gaining nuclear superiority. Supporters
of the nuclear freeze movement are help
ing to bring about that superiority, he
charged.
If the Soviet Union can surround the
United States with bases and then
threaten it with a superior nuclear force,
Americans will surrender, he said.
The Soviet Union “learned something
in Vietnam; they learned an important
lesson; they can undermine America by
using the American people.”
As a youth, Ioffe said he embraced
Marxism, but now he sees socialism as a
failure economically and morally. He
considers American free enterprise the
best economic system.
Ioffe said he did not fear a nuclear
holocaust, because both the Soviets and
the Americans know a nuclear war
would be suicide. He also rejected the
idea that the Soviets would initiate a
nuclear war if backed into a corner by the
United States.
“There is another holocaust which is
for teal... that is the communist
holocaust,” he said.
Ioffe said the Russian people don’t
believe in communism, and he predicted
that they will overthrow the communist
regime sometime in this century.
But those efforts are thwarted by
Americans who appease the Soviets and
do not support governments that are
fighting them. Though he admitted that
some anti-communist countries, such as
South Africa and Chile, do oppress their
people, he said we should still support
them as the lesser of two evils.
Right-wing dictatorships are a local
problem, not an international problem,
he said, and cited Spain as an example of
a right-wing dictatorship that eventually
embraced democracy.
Ioffe apologized for Minnesota, the on
ly state carried by Democratic presiden
tial candidate Walter Mondale. He said
Reagan possessed the main criterion for
being a good American president.
“I believe a good American president
is one who makes the Soviets unhappy,”
he said.
Nixon, on the other hand, initiated
detente, which, Ioffe said, contributed to
the Soviet Union’s advance. Ioffee said
he disagreed with a recent statement by
Nixon calling for dialogue with the
Soviets.
Talking to the Soviets accomplishes
nothing, and Reagan should not be
faulted for not meeting with a Soviet
leader, Ioffe said.
Atiyeh pushes employment, tourism plans
By Diana Elliott
and Cynthia Whitfield
Of I he Knwtald
Gov. Vic Atiyeh was in Eugene Wednesday to an
nounce two new programs designed to help ease
unemployment and promote more tourism in the state.
In Harris Hall Atiyeh pushed a unique program
that would place the unemployed in food service jobs
and distribute excess restaurant food to the hungry.
Hot Foods. Inc., which originated in Portland less
than a year ago, is designed to screen, train and place
disadvantaged individuals in food service jobs.
“The Beauty of the program is not so much that
they come off.welfare, but that they feel better about
themselves,” Atiyeh said.
"Our program "provides the employer with a
motivated and dependable worker who has some basic
skills," said Paul Mimmelman, president of Hot Foods
and manager of the Westin Benson Hotel in Portland.
One more chance
to change the sign
People will have one more chance to offer in
put on the fate of the "statement of purpose" sign
in the EMU lobby at an EMIJ Board meeting today
at 4:30 p.m. in Room 214 EMU.
The board has raised the issue briefly in
previous meetings but has declined formal
discussion of the sign's fate in order to give the
public a chance to voice concerns on the subject.
The sign raised the wrath of many students
last year who believed the sign’s language was
sexist because the word "man" appears in a
neuter sense throughout the statement. Although
many students, including former ASUO Presi
dent Mary Hotchkiss, proposed that the sign’s
wording be changed or removed altogether, last
year’s board voted to keep the statement intact.
Removal of the sign may be inevitable,
however, as remodeling plans for the EMU’s se
cond floor include changes to the wall area on
which the sign is painted, board members
indicate.
The EMU Budget and House committees will
also make presentations at the meeting. The
public is invited to attend the meeting.
Participants are referred to the program by several
agencies such as the State Unemployment Division and
other government programs that find jobs for
unemployed youth and the handicapped.
It s almost too good to be true,” Mimmelman
said. “The employers get tax breaks for hiring through
this program, and they get an employee who wants to
work and thus will stay around longer
“And the employee gets a job in an industry where
there is potential for upward mobility.” he said.
Onrp nartirinantc Kaup
been screened. Hot Foods trains
the employees for food service |gj
work.
“Of 187 people who have
graduated from our training
program, 125 have been
employed,” Mimmelman said.
“And half of those employed
came into our program as
welfare recipients who needed
basic skills training in order to
secure jobs,” he said.
Another branch of Hot
Foods is a project that
distributes food donated by the
food service industry to the
needy. The staff at Hot Foods
prepares the donated food and
distributes it to agencies that
help the disadvantaged. Mim
melman said.
The Lane County Private
Industry Council has recom
mended that Lane County adopt
a similar program, according to jfl|
Laurie Swanson, director of
Lane County Employment
Training.
The program is currently
beine oreanized and will ha imnl^mt
of the year, Swanson said.
Swanson said a program that will retrain the
unemployed is a good idea for Lane County where the
wood products industry is faltering.
"We want to develop a labor force that will meet
the needs of the diversifying community," Swanson
said.
The Lane County community will be very repon
sive to a program like this, Swanson predicted. And she
is confident that once the program gets underway, in it
will be successful.
“I’m extremely impressed with the way local
businesses have donated time for employment training
in the past,” Swanson said. “They are really concerned
about the needs of the community.”
Earlier in the day, Atiyeh unveiled the state’s new
promotion strategy designed to attract more visitors to
the state before over 300 people at the Governor’s
Tourism Conference held in the Hult Center.
“The theme line is ‘Oregon you are more than
welcome,’” Atiyeh said. “We’ve got to shed the image
Gov. Vic Atiyeh
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welcome here.”
The governor stressed the
importance of tourism to the
state’s economy, noting that in
1983 visitors spent $2.03 billion
on pleasure and business travel.
Expansion tourism is an
important part of Oregon’s
economic development, Atiyeh
said. The new plan calls for ex
tensive advertising in
newspapers, magazines, radio
and television in targeted areas
across the country. Tours
designed to fly business groups
and travel agents to the state
and familiarize them with
Oregon are also planned. •
In addition, an Orson
Welles-narrated video slide
show to help promote the area
will travel across the state and
be presented to travel agents
and trade shows.
California is targeted to
receive a large dose of welcome
to Oregon advertising. A recent
survey revealed that 42 percent
of all Californian’s think Orego
man s aon i warn visitors.
To facilitate involvement with the program, com
munity members are invited to enter a state contest by
submitting promotional advertising ideas. Entries
should be sent to the Oregon Travel Division of the state
economic development department. People can also
help by just being friendly and helpful to tourists they
come in contact with, Atiyeh said.
The program was presented to Atiyeh through the
Department of Economic Development and will go to
the Legislature for budgeting.