Portland Observer, August 18. 1982 Page 3
EDITORIAL/OPINION
I he current dispute between C om m issioner
Margaret Straehan and H um an Resources Bu­
reau D irector Erm a H epburn undoubtedly has
roots in e arlier fears that C o m m issio n e r
Straehan wanted to remove Hepburn and C E T A
program director Joe Gonzales through civil ser­
vice procedures. W hile these procedures are in ­
stituted to provide a just process fo r fillin g gov­
ernm ental p o sitio n s, abuses occur fre q u e n tly
enough so that continued fears o f tra d itio n a lly
excluded groups are understandable and watch­
dogging is rational and prudent.
Q uestioning fro m the press and the com m u­
nity o f the possible underlying motives in under­
ta k in g c iv il service re fo rm is le g itim a te even
when the C om m issioner leading the charge is a
progressive whom we have praised as an advo­
cate for government social responsibility.
However, even giving her the benefit o f any
doubt and assuming com pletely pure motives in
Strachan’ s attempt w ith Commissioner Lindberg
to bring added accountability to the civil service
process, there is little doubt that Strachan’s o f ­
fice was very recently seriously considering firin g
Erma Hepburn.
W hile Straehan “ does not discuss personnel
matters w ith the press,” it is obvious her s ta ff
discussed such m atters w ith a m em ber o f the
m ayor’s staff, seemingly no less a breach o f her
em ployee’ s confidence. A n d i f Straehan or her
s ta ff assunted such a discussion w ith the
M a y o r’ s s ta ff w ould rem ain c o n fid e n tia l, then
she a n d /o r her s ta ff evidenced great naivete.
That the M a y o r’ s ch ie f aide went d ire c tly to a
close friend o f H epburn’ s on Commissioner Jor­
dan’s staff speaks fo r itself.
What appears b a fflin g at this point is what the
“ discussion,” as Straehan calls it, between her
and H e p b u rn is a ll a b o u t. A c c o rd in g to
Straehan, she has never said Hepburn was inca­
pable. O f course, absence o f p u b lic challenge
does not necessarily s ig n ify co n fid e n ce . B u t
there have been, a p p a re n tly , no m a jo r d isa ­
greements between them on the directio ns the
H R B should be going in times that try all human
service managers’ skills and com m itm ent. A n d ,
according to Straehan, H e p b u rn understands
that her c iv il service re fo rm attem pts are not
aimed at Hepburn personally, but at m aking the
award o f C ity governm ent positions based on
merit rather than politics.
So where are the problem s between the tw o
aggressively outspoken women that necessitate
“ d iscu ssio n ” between them and a tte m p ts by
Strachan’s o ffic e to involve the M a y o r’ s o ffic e
in firin g the woman the M ayor himself appoint­
ed fo r whatever reasons?
O b v io u s ly , there are problem s between
Straehan and H epburn that w ill not be publicly
discussed. But any merit-related problems C om ­
m issioner S traehan has w ith E rm a H e p b u rn
could be dealt w ith in the c iv il service w ritte n
exam and interview process which has begun. It
is most u n fo rtu n a te and disappointing that the
" f a i r c iv il service process” C o m m issio n e r
Straehan sought fo r H e p b u rn and o th e r C ity
employees was not viewed as the process th a t
alone w ould provide fairness and dem onstrate
integrity in perm anently fillin g the H R B D irec­
tor position. Instead, Strachan’ s o ffice fostered
the very thing she is supposedly seeking to avoid,
playing politics in fillin g positions and betraying
the personnel confidences her employees and the
C ity have a right to expect.
M aybe we’ re naive, but nonetheless, we are
h o p in g th a t Straehan and H e p b u rn b u ry the
hatchet, not in each o th e r, b u t in co m m o n
groun d m u tu a lly searched fo r and discovered
between them.
Lebanon: One Jewish viewpoint
Last w e a k w o ran th e firs t in ­
s ta llm e n t of excerp ts fro m M a r ­
tin P e r e t i's " L e b a n o n E y e w it ­
ness." an article w h ic h appeared
in / he New Republic. A u g. 2, 1982.
This w e e k 's e x c e rp ts c o n c lu d e
the article.
O f course, there are Israelis who
(Jicin't want action from Jerusalem,
even il taken solely in Israel's inter
ests. “ I was one o f th e m ,“ said
C lin to n B aily “ I was dead set
against this w a r.“ Bailey
is a
pro m in e n t A ra b is t; lie teaches
courses on Palestinian nationalism
and Uedoin c u ltu re . H e's been a
butt under the saddle o f successive
Israeli governments, having become
a tribune lo r the nom adic Hedoins
displaced by m odernization
A
Lebanese m unicipal o ffic ia l told
me that Baily (now serving a s .. ad­
visor
in southern l.ebanon|, was
particularly sensitive to questions o f
Arab dignity, "which is why he made
sure that the adm inistration o f the
city was quickly given over to the Leb­
anese. We had not really had it fo r
six years."
I h a t ’ s the story I was to ld by
Lebanese a ll over southern Le b ­
anon, in the big cities and (he small­
er towns, by C h ristians and M os­
lems, by people o f a ll classes and
educational levels " I had thought
that the I’ l 0 had fought for a foot­
hold in Leban on," Bailey told me.
“ Not till I came here and spoke to
the Lebanese themselves did I real­
ize what the P LO had done here,
that they had established a strangle­
h o ld ."
I hat is the great untold story o f
the last sis years. It unfolds in every
encounter w ith a Lebanese, even
from those few still sympathetic to
the plight o f the Palestinians. Every­
one has his own grievance his own
mnnones. The simplest is that the PLO
endangered everyone’ s lives by m ak­
ing southern Lebanon a target o f the
Israeli m ilita ry . But it rarely stops
w ith that. The P LO , it turns o ut,
was not a guerrilla army in a friend­
ly sea.
Khalil, a 25 year-old Moslem who
had just left West B eirut, to ld me
MHI »
that his brother had been killed by a
sniper shooting from a Palestinian
stronghold. Jabber, slightly young­
er, said that his fa m ily ’ s car had
been confiscated by a PLO faction.
Hussein said that his sister was con­
stantly being accused o f being an Is-
riie li spy: “ N ot tru e ; she resisted
some Palestinian’ s advances.” A h ­
met said, “ They got their way a l­
ways by showing the pistóle!; if not
the pistolel, the Kalashnikov." Tou-
lek his brother called him Tommy
said, "T h is was our land and they
ran it as if il were th e irs.” I heard
similar complaints dozens o f times.
. The P L O ’ s behavio r in the
south does not quite fit the neat im ­
age Us propagandists convey to the
press. C onfiscations, harassments,
young people forced in to the m ili­
tias, schools closed, rapes, molesta­
tions, commandeering o f licenses,
passports, services, offices: this was
the s tu ff o f everyday life in the web
o f the P L O ’ s “ s ta te -w ith in -a -
state." A doctor in the former PLO
"p ro te c to ra te ” o f Sidon reported
that the PLO regularly sacked hos­
pitals and doctor's offices for medi­
cal supplies. “ We couldn’t keep our
ambulances. The local popula tion
s u ffe re d .” So much so that whole
villages and (owns were evacuated,
sometimes leaving only (he aged and
the in firm . The Shiite village o f Ar-
non, fo r example, in the far south,
near B e a u fo rt, or Rihane fa rth e r
north.
I spent some time in others. A i-
chiyc is one. It was a M a ro n itc
village o f maybe 3,(XX) people, emp­
tied save fo r 30, maybe 40, since
shortly after a PLO massacre that
took 75 lives. I have before me the
names o f com parable tow ns w ith
com parable recent histories: B rih,
Kaa, Jdaidet Baal beck, Kaddam. There
is a sim ilar list o f L ebanese towns
shot up by the Syrians. No one pre­
tends that the massacres were one­
sided—Maronites shed the blood of
Moslems, too, rivers o f blood. Even
Pcre Boulos Oncid, Aichiye's may­
or-priest, admits that. But he still
seemed stunned by the w o rld ’ s in •
difference, and even the Pope’ s, to
the P L O ’ s "ra p e o f my native v il­
lage. I am happy to be back. Ten or
fifte e n la m ilie s re tu rn every day.
Maybe with the grim lessons o f the
past behind us we w ill be able to live
better with our neighbors."
.. The Palestinians have always
been hostage to the recalcitrance ol
their leaders. For sixty years a com
prom ise was possible between the
two peoples whose past and lutures
arc inextricably tied to the one land
ol historic Palestine. But no com
promise satisfied 'he A rab leader­
ship— not even the tiny little state­
lets proposed fo r the Jews by the
B ritis h in the 1930s. not even the
p a rtitio n plan o f 1947. The PLO
was form ed, it is urgent to remem­
ber, in 1964, when the West Bank
and Gaza and East Jerusalem were
all s till in A rab hands. Alw ays the
P alestinians were hostage to the
dream o f a map w ith o u t Israel.
T h a t’ s why the leadership never
really p e rm itte d the mass reset­
tlement o f refugees anywhere. Their
homelessness was to fester and ex­
plode; the camps were to be the
la u nchin g pad fo r “ the r e tu rn .”
U N R W A , in itia lly a humanely mo­
tivated opeartion, became hostage
to the refusal o f the Arabs to find a
com prom ise.. . .
The Arabs o f Palestine suborned
their rights to the exiles in Lebanon,
and the exiles chose armed struggle.
The truly enormous caches o f arms I
saw, heavy arm s, fro m the Soviet
Union and North Korea and France
and the U.S. were not being stock­
piled for the social service organiza­
tio n w hich Jonathan Randal now
says ( W ashington Post, July 8) is
the real fu n c tio n o f the P LO . A ll
those weapons.. .held the Palestini­
ans in thrall to the idea o f some deci­
sive defeat o f the Israelis. It was the
P LO which, having chosen armed
struggle, inevitably provoked it, and
was decisively defeated in it. S ur­
rounded and isolated in B eirut, its
fighters are now hostage to the idea
o f dying fo r Palestine. As in Sidon
and Tyre, cities held hostage for six
years, they don’t care who dies with
them, and their partisans don't real­
ly seem to care either-----
Portland Observer
Gllberrv, E ditor/P ublisher
/IZ Williams, Advertising Manager
The Dartm outh Review continued
to insult blacks, fem inists. Native
A m ericans, gays and others. The
editors charged that the “ tires o f
their delivery truck were slashed and
its windows were smashed.” Copies
o f the paper were gathered up and
trashed by black students. A lt. Don­
ald Temple, o f the National Council
o f Black Lawyers, w rote letters to
tw o Review advisers, President
Ronald Reagan and Congressman
Jack Kem p, asking them to co n ­
demn the “ blatantly racist publica-
tin .” On May 11, Kemp issued a let­
ter o f resignation fro m (he board,
declaring that he was “ deeply dis­
tressed” by the "racial steieotypes”
in Keeney's c o n tro v e rs ia l essay.
This public act may have been only
sym b o lic, how ever. “ He sent us
another letter saying that he was un­
der a lot o f political pressure,” stat­
ed the Review's editor, E. W illiam
C attail, Jr., “ but that he was still a
kindred sp irit.”
M a tte rs came to a head in late
M ay. W hen B enjam in J. H a rt, a
student founder o f the Review, dis­
tributed papers in the A lum ni Cen­
ter on May 21, he was confronted by
a black man, Samuel W. Smith, as­
sociate d ire c to r o f D a rtm o u th ’ s
alum ni fund. Smith inform ed Hart
that he was going to “ throw o u t”
the first Review member he saw in
the building. A fight occurred, with
Hart being kicked, punched, and his
glasses broken. On M ay 22, local
police arrested Smith on the charge
o f “ simple a s s a u lt." Tw o days la ­
ter, he pleaded no contest in Hano­
ver District Court, was found guilty
and was fined S25O, o f which S I50
Dai (m o u th ’ s com m itm ent to free­
dom o f expression?”
Somewhat overshadowed, but not
lo st in the exchange o f polem ics,
was the actual condition o f m inority
students at D artm outh. According
to one D a rtm o u th student organ­
izer, a large march was held on cam­
pus last semester which proceeded
to the open trustees meeting. “ The
trustees fel, ambushed,” this source
reports, “ and it was ail they could
talk about the rest o f the weekend.
For once, the students were so well
educated on the issues that the trust­
ees’ ignorance, arrogance and pater­
nalism really showed th ro u g h .” A
D a rtm o u th graduate and p a r tic i­
pant in the Foundation Years P ro­
gram , the Rev. Siddha W ebber,
spoke before the audience. “ A ll the
trustees present had come on board
since Foundation Years was term in­
ated and none o f them had heard o f
it. Students outraged at that roared
back,” the student states.
A t a subsequent trustees meeting
in June, students “ forced (he ques­
tion o f Latino admissions.” Despite
some concessions, the overall situa­
tio n appears uncertain. Black ma­
tricu la tio n dropped 50 per cent fo r
this September at D a rtm o u th , ac­
cording to one source. Racial and
political tensions, fanned by the Re­
view’ s increasingly obnoxious style,
are h igh. The Review has raised
$100,000 fro m alum ni to continue
p u b lic a tio n . The Jerry F alw ell o f
the M o ra l M a jo r ity was asked to
jo in the advisory board in Kem p’ s
place. As Dartm outh professor and
Reviwe m entor J e ff H art joked, at
D a rtm o u th “ some o f my best
friends are w hite.”
From the Dartm outh Review:
Dese boys be sayin’ that we be
co rn in ’ here to D a rtm u t an’ not
ta kin * the classics. Y ou know ,
H om a, Shakesphere; but I hea*
dy a ll be co’ d in da ground, six
feet unda, and whatchu be askin’
us to learn from dem? We be cul­
turally ’ lightened too. We be tak­
in ’ hard courses in m any sub­
je cts, lik e A fr o - A m Studies,
W om en’ s S tudies, and P o lic y
Studies. A n d w ho be m o u n tin ’
’ bout us not bein good read? I be
practicly kn o w in ’ Roots cova to
cova, t i l ’ my mine be boogying to
da words! A n ’ I be w atchin’ the
Jeffersons on T V t i l ’ I be blue in
da face. Say what, mo-fo? I can't
be blue? Scuse me. Sheet!
—Dartm outh Review,
March 15, 1982
It is not a question o f whether
wom en should be educated at
D a rtm o u th , it is a question o f
w hether women should be edu­
cated at all.
—October 17, 1980
People criticize the British Em­
pire, but look at A frica The only
c o u n try d o in g h a lfw a y w ell is
South A frica , and you know their
policies. In fact, the prosperity o f
an A frican nation is directly pro-
pc.tional to the number o f Euro­
peans th a t are le ft ru nning the
place.
— March 8. 1982
Letter to the Editor
El Salvador swept under rug?
To the editor:
In an outrageous violation o f the
Oregon in itia tiv e process, C ounty
counsel has ruled the M u ltn o m a h
County El Salvador initiative o ff the
N ovem ber b a llo t. The in itia tiv e ,
which is an advisory vote on whe­
ther U.S. aid to El Salvador’s brutal
regim e should co n tin u e or n ot,
gathered 17,000 signatures, over
4,000 more than needed to qualify.
The C o u n ty’ s legal counsel claims
it's not a legitimate petition because
it doesn’ t call for a specific local ac­
tion, but rather offers advice on fo r­
eign policy.
Isn’ t it a m atter o f local concern
w hether P o rtla n d e r’ s tax d o lla rs
and P o rtla n d 's young men in u n i­
form are used to support the El Sal­
vador regim e’ s b ru ta lity ? V oters
should certainly be able to express
themselves on these and other vital
national questions.
The El Salvador In itia tiv e C o a li­
tio n , which organized the p e titio n
d riv e , is asking people to w rite or
c a ll th e ir C o u n ty C om m issioners
soon to protest and call for the rein­
statement o f the initiative. The Coa-
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In the weeks that fo llo w e d , the
p o litic a l s itu a tio n in this “ ivy
league” campus com m unity rapidly
worsened. Even according to the
New Y ork Times, by late M ay a
"state o f divisio n " existed. “ The re­
la tio n s h ip between campus and
paper has turned ugly and violent.”
was suspended.
The incident, and the controversy
surroundin g the paper, prom pted
Dartm outh faculty members finally
to take a stand. On M ay 24, by a
vote o f 113-5, w ith 9 abstentions,
the fa c u lty endorsed a re so lu tio n
c ritic iz in g the Review. The resolu­
tio n deplored “ the abuses o f re­
sponsible journalism ” o f the paper,
stating that it had “ contributed to
an undesirable atmosphere o f dis­
trust and divisiveness. The e ffe c t...
has been to polarize segments o f the
college and to hamper the open and
free exchange o f ideas and o p in ­
io n s.” Classics Professor Edward
Bradley characterized the fa c u lty
resolution as "te p id and toothless,”
because it did not call for any speci­
fic action against the Review. But
the statem ent at least prom pted
D a rtm o u th
President
D avid
M cL a u g h lin belatedly to issue his
first public condemnation o f the Re­
view.
By June, several pro m in e n t na­
tional conservatives had spoken out
in defense o f the Review. Its chief
defender was P atrick Buchanan, a
fo rm e r N ixo n A d m in is tra tio n
spechw riter. H is u ltra rig h t views
were too extreme fo r many Republi­
cans. In White House Years, former
Secretary o f State Henry Kissinger
confessed that “ Buchanan was the
resident conservative, deeply wary
o f those whom he suspected o f de­
fle c tin g N ixo n fro m his n a tu ra l
rig h t-w in g o rie n ta tio n , convinced
that a cabal o f intellectuals was con­
fusing the p ris tin e q u a lity o f the
President’ s philosophy, unw illing to
accept that it was in the nature o f
our many-faceted principal to show
a different face to different people.
He was rarely used in N ixo n ’ s fo r­
eign policy speeches— I can remem­
ber o n ly the C am bodia speech.”
This was the public decision to dra­
matically escalate the Vietnam War
into Cambodia, which was followed
by the k illin g o f fo u r student p ro ­
testors at Kent State, Ohio, on May
4, 1970.
In the N ew Y ork Post (June 5),
Buchanan defended the Review as
one o f “ the best-w ritten, best-read
o f the dissenting conservative cam­
pus jo u rn a ls that now d o t the Ivy
League in the age o f R onald Rea­
g a n .” He condem ned the campus
fa c u lty fo r censuring the Review,
and attacked M cL a u g h lin ’ s role in
the process as “ fu rth e r enrich(ing]
the phrase ’ academic w im p e ry .’ ”
Buchanan justified Jones’ racist dia­
tribes w ith the statement, "a fte r all,
the D a rtm o u th Review is not D er
Stuerm er.” The right winger ended
his essay w ith a plea w hich could
have been lifte d fro m one o f N ix ­
on’ s speeches. “ Are we tru ly to ac­
cept th a t, on the Ivy League cam­
puses. . .where w earing the A m er­
ican flag as a lo in clo th was accept­
able ¡and) where shrines were bu ilt
to H o C h i M in h w h ile his tro o p s
were killin g lesser privileged A m eri­
can boys, [th a t] a colum n po kin g
fun at black studies written in mock
‘ Black English,’ ’tests to the utmost’
litio n believes opinion on the com­
mission is close enough that public
pressure can make a difference.
Send m a il to : (Y o u r co m ­
missioner), 1021 SW 4th, Portland,
OR 97201, or call Dennis Buchanan
(West Side. 248-5220), Earl Blumen­
auer (O uter Southeast, 248-5218),
G ordon Shadburne (East C ounty,
248-5213), G ladys M cC oy (N o rth
and Northeast, 248-5219), Caroline
M iller (Inner Southeast, 248-5217).
John Blank
Secretary, Portland Citizens Party
*1 W,À
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Box 3137. Portland, Oregon 97208
•■1/ \/<
On A p ril 24, I spoke before a stu­
dent audience at Dartmouth College
on the necessity to rebuild (he black
and progressive white student move­
ment. During the lecture, I criticized
the racist and sexist articles which
had appeared over the past tw o
years in the D a rtm o u th Review, a
conservative students’ publication.
Specifically I deplored the blatantly
racist polemics o f the paper's presi­
dent, Keeney Jones.
Since Jones was conspicuously
present, someone asked what should
be done about the reactionary publi­
c a tio n . M y response was that
“ Jones and company have the right
to express their opinions,” but that
blacks and progressive students had
the right to demonstrate and organ­
ize to oppose and to defeat th e ir
views. A fte r the ta lk, a number o f
us marched across the campus in a
candlelight vigil in support o f equal
opportunities for minorities at D art­
mouth. I subsequently wrote an es­
say on the situation at D artm outh
w hich appeared in newspapers
across the country.
"From The Grassroots”
N A T lO H â l
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