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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 30, 1963)
PAGE HERALD AND NEWS, Klamath Falls, Oregon Friday, August 30, 1963 NOTHING SPECIAL It's Still a Long Way to Heaven jdii&iwL (paqjL fwajBsssans-'' IW. B. S.I Let's Do Some Stocktaking Would it be completely corny to suggest at least a partial return to old-fashioned sim plicity and morality as a possible way out of our current problems? Would it be a confession of horse-and-bfgy thinking to wonder if too many of us aen't racing our motors when we ought to 6e hitting the brake a bit? Sure, we are living in the space age. Sure, everything today has to be fast, fast, fast. Sure, we have to realize that times have changed, and so have social customs, philoso phies and values. But does this mean that we have to work so hard to make so many things so compli cated and so breathless and often so de vious? Would it really be in the national and in ternational disinterest to try to state things in such simple and forthright terms that they cjould be clearly understood by one and all including even the man in the street? Would it be utterly primitive and in fla (Montgomery, Ala., Advertiser) Like many people, the Federal Govern ment finds it hard to throw anything away. According to the latest count by the General Accounting Office, the United States had in storage 6,000,000 cubic feet of records. Government Printing Office, apparently feeling that many of the documents are sup erfluous, is suggesting that Federal agencies If i HOLMES By IIOLMKS ALEXANDER WASHINGTON - President Ken nedy's nuclear treaty now threatens to tail him in two fields where, unhappily, he has failed before his credibility and his judgment. lie has led us to believe that the suspension of above-ground testing couiu be militarily and scientifically justified at no ad ditional peril to the national safe ty. He has sent his administra tion spokesmen to Capitol Hill with slickly prepared testimony that bore the evidence of collab oration and ghost-written unani mity. Secretary Rusk, Secretary Mo Namara, Atomic Energy Chair man Seaborg and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Taylor, each in turn, swore up and down that tlie risks were minimal and tho advantages manifest. But I do not think anyone could listen, as j have done, to General Curtis LcMay, the Air Force Chief of Staff, and to Dr. Edward Teller, the nation's foremost nuclear physicist, without feeling that the President's case for the u-cuty is little else than a political ap peal to Russia and to "world opinion." As a proposition f o r military and scientific sufficien cy the treaty has reached the brink of unbelicvability. The treaty asks us to accept nuclear parity, when what we need is superiority and prefer ably supremacy. It asks us to swallow the theory, voiced by McNamara and blasted by Tel ler, that we can go underground and successfully test the compon ents of the unimaginably complex nnli - missile defensive system without ever trying tho system in tho atmosphere as a whole. It asks us to believe that the President after making him self the author and advocate of this partial disarmament pact, and the hawker of all the hor rors of nuclear weapons could, after so doing, creditably use nu clear threats and nuclear arms in a short-of-war action to deter, for example, a Red Chinese invasion ol India. It asks us to believe, as Teller pointed out, that we can deny atmospheric, anli-mis-sile weapons to European allies who arc faced with Russia's nu clear arsenal, and yet not ex iled tlie NATO alliance to he blackmailed by fear. Kennedy's plausibility as a wise treaty-maker lay In a near-shambles before the LcMay-Tclier tes timony. And his judgment did not look much better. In the promotion of tin treaty he seems to show himscU more as tlie po litical campaigner whoso fluffs and mistakes will be forgotten grant violation of the Madison Avenue image to try to sell things on the basis of actual need, common sense and cold facts instead of status symbols, nonsense and hot copy? Would it be reasonable to current custom to try to simplify things rather than to com plicate them? To make them comprehensible rather than unfathomable? Would it be crude and unsocial to ap proach our personal, civic and even national problems from the angle of "What is the RIGHT thing to do?" rather than from "What's the SMART way to handle this?" or "What's in it for ME?" It has become the accepted custom in this country, and elsewhere, to do every thing bigger and faster and more and more in the self-interest. It might be interesting and refreshing to see how many of our tough problems would move toward a solution if plain talk and friendly understanding were substituted for doubletalk and dedicated confusion. Anyone for giving it a try? Paperwork Explosion ALEXANDER Treaty Of Bad Choices tomorrow, rather than as tlie leader who is making decisions that must stand the unrelenting proof of time. For his form of presentation has left many Senators and ob servers with the impression thai he demands a cabinet and a mil itary staff who will sing for their suppers. His political approach has given credence to Teller's ac cusation that our atmospheric tests of 12 were stopped short of tlie need to surpass Russia's advantages slopped nt a point where public and "woiid" opinion might go against the administra tion. The President has denied this serious charge, as he might be expected to do, and his adminis tration witnesses have backed him up. But the tests were feeble compared with Russia's. They are said in military circles to have been "psychological" rath er than scientific. They were not satisfactory to General LcMuy, among others, whose job is to win our wars. In these circum stances, as in tho question of what side deals may have been discussed with Khrushchev, Kennedy stands in need of credibility rating which was not high when the treaty w a s Letters To Solomon If I may bo permitted to try and put into words my views of the ponding catastrophe which is hanging over our beads like the "Sword of Damocles," which is llio rules promulgation of t h e American railroads. They are using tlie modern "Frankenstein" automation to force the public to dance to the tune of the "Pied Piper of Wall Street." J. K. Wolfe, who has been instrumental in the brainwashing of the people with the big lie of "fentherbedding." The weight and speed of opera tion of a present day freight train makes the safe operation by one man a virtual iniossibilily, no matter how competent aiid well trained lie may bo, or bow many remote controlled safely factors are involved, there is stiil the human clement to consider. Now (lie temporary solution to the entire deviously contrived sit uation is lo he laid in the lap of Congress, which, no mailer how well intent ioned, is expected In come up Willi a settlement worthy of Solomon in all Ins glory al tliough tlio wrties directly in volved have been uiwible In arrive at any progress in over four years. screen their records more closely before send ing them to storage. This is not likely to stem the avalanche because the GPO has just proud ly informed Congress that due to new labor saving devices, it has doubled productivity ' during the past nine years. If the trend continues, Khrushchev will not find it necessary to carry out his threat to bury us. The nation will bury itself, under millions of tons of paper and microfilm. broached and has not been recent ly improved. Finally, taking the promotional ballyhoo as a whole the Ameri can University address with the Munich-music of appeasement, the Harriman mission, the Mos cow spectacular of the signing ceremonies it is evident that the President is very close to mak ing the one big, conspicuous blun der that his knowledge of his tory must have warned him to avoid. He has encircled tlie Sen ate with choices not unlike those which Woodrow Wilson laid down on the League of Nations. Tlie present Senate, faced with this over - publicized nuclear treaty, can do three things all of them very bad. To ratify the treaty would be to compound what many Senators regard as a dreadful mistake in Presidential judgment to reject the treaty outright would leave the American image, like Venus do Milo, maimed though still sym metrical and valid. To revise the treaty with reservations that Russia would probably refuse to accept seems the least of the evil." at hand yet. even that would precipitate a far worse cri sis than the one we had before Kennedy undertook this radical and ill-conceived remedy. The Editor It appears that the present slaughter on tlie highways could lie greatly reduced if the rail roads were made to furnish an adequate number of passenger trains based on our exploding population inslead of allowing them to operate with their greatly reduced personnel in order lo add to profits which arc already fab ulous. If this wnoc controversy is to bo settled by compulsory arbi tration then we will have taken the first long slop down tlie road which leads to socialism or fas cism. Over a long period of years labor and management have built up a mutually satisfactory system of arbitrating most of their differences which has up to now been a source of pride to all concerned. Now nt Uie last minute tlte pattern of long years is all to be scrapped nt the sttoke of a pen and we arc to bo left al the mercy of I he dictates of "Wall Street" praying for a "Moses" to lead us out of tins man made wilderness and in some manner get another "Magna Carta" lor the man in the street. 11. D. Lindsey 4MB Cleveland Klanwith Falls. Ore. Lngr. S. P. By. fir. yffefi IN WASHINGTON Test By RALPH de TOLEDANO The catch-phrase on Capitol Hill among those who strongly favor a test ban treaty is thai, after all, it's "a matter of judgment." Tlie President, Secretary McNamara, and some scientists are flatly cer tain that the gains of a treaty with the Soviet Union outweigh the risks. Dr. Edward Teller, father of the H-bomb, those mem bers of the military who have not been afraid to speak out freely, and other witnesses feel that the risk to the nation is far too great. You pays your money, etc. It would seem that where such great and vital differences of opin ion exist and where the adminis tration frankly states that the treaty accomplishes little except as a "first step" caution would dictate that the Senate reject the treaty. If it does nut Uneaten America's national survival, then little is lost by not ratifying. If it does put us in jeopardy, then we cannot play games with the future. This is a point which some Sen ator will perhaps make. But there is another question. If we are relying on the judgment of those who favor the treaty and relying blindly on it then it is pertinent to ask. "How good was their judg ment in the past?" I call as my first witness Dr. Norris Bradbury, director of the By SYDNEY J. HARRIS Have you ever thought of the utter impossibility of describing someone you are particularly close to, or especially fond of? It simply cannot be done without sounding vague, stupid, insipid and quite superficial. When an out-of-town friend the other day asked me what my middle daughter is like. I sudden ly became banal and tongue-lied, mumbling something like, "Good sport . . . tall for her age . . . swims like a fish . . . nice kid." But if we are asked about someone we dislike or resent, the words come tumbling out of our mouths almost faster than the brain can form them. We know (or think we know ' exactly why certain personalities offend us: we are mostly in the dark about the magic chemistry that produces not only love but also a sense of closeness and companionship. This strange disparity is nut limited to our feelings about peo ple: it includes things as well. Al though I have little interest in it imself, 1 know that the average fisherman, for instance, achieves a deep spiritual satislaction, from his sport, which has little to do with the number or size ol fish :r has caught. Vet no fisherman can put into adequate words his sense o( "wholeness" or serenity while fishing, and tlie reasons usually given are obvious, trivial and lame. This stammering man, how ever, can explain with voluble ac curacy why lie despises golf, or budge, or driving a car in trallic. Ban Witnesses Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico. Dr. Bradbury is a fine scientist who has worked hard to perfect America's nuclear capabilities. He has been called in to give a scientific and political opinion of the dangers possibly in herent in the test ban treaty. In both areas and 1 realize it is not tactful of me to note it ho has shown himself rather weak at looking ahead in science or look ing back in polities. It should be recalled that Dr. Bradbury was J. Robert Oppen heimer's choice for the post he now holds. In 1954, Dr. Bradbury appeared before the Gray Board, investigating the Oppenheimer case, as an anti-Atomic Energy Commission witness. At no point would he admit what had already been conceded namely that Op penheimer had opposed work lead ing to the creation of the H-bomb on "moral" grounds. Dr. Brad bury himself had been convinced that a thermonuclear weapon the fusion or H-bomb was an impos sibility. "The state of knowledge of ther monuclear systems during the war and thereafter, and really up un til the spring of 1951, was such as to make the practical utility or even the workability in any useful sense of what was then imagined as a thermonuclear weapon ex tremely questionable." he testi- STRICTLY PERSONAL Deep positive emotions cannot be verbalized which is why so many millions of bad love-poems and love-songs are perpetrated year after year. With the utmost ol sincerity (and even with con siderable talent, we become mawkish babblers when trying to convey such feelings. It is no accident that almost every young writer begins his ca reer with comedy and satire and scorn and malicious wit directed against society. Even Shakespeare began this way; the plays in which profound lpve dominates came much later in his career, and it took the summit of his genius to carry them off suc cessfully, as in the incomparable "King I.ear." Music is a greater art than literature to me, precisely because il embraces a wider range of human feelings than the spoken word. I cannot help agreeing with Pater that "music is the art to which all the other arts aspire." for in it (lie form and the con test are utterly the same. The right movement of n Mo zart concerto might make you feel what my daughter is like, but I can only tell you that she is tall for her ago and swims like a lish. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS O On what play is the lib retto ot Verdi's opera "Rlgolet lo" based? A "The King Amuses Him self" by Victor Hugo. fied. What was known in 19-19-50, he said, "wquld certainly per mit one to be very pessimistic," just as the Administration. is pes simistic about the anti-missile missile. Yet from the early days uf the Los Alamos project, Dr. Edward Teller fought hard for the H-bomb. In fact, he fought so hard that Dr. Bradbury eased him out of Los Alamos in 1951. Dr. Teller was not a prophet. But his mind was not blinded by preconceived ideas. Scientifically, therefore, Dr. Bradbury was dead wrong, and belligerently so, about the pos sibility of devising an H-bomb. Politically, Dr. Bradbury showed a blindness which certainly dis qualifies him from passing judg ment on the intentions of the So viets or their capabilities. For ex ample, he was asked a ques tion about Dr. Klaus Fuchs, the British traitor who had already confessed to serving as an es pionage agent at Los Alamos for the Soviet Union: "There seems to be no ques tion that he had a commitment lo a foreign power, does there?" Dr. Bradbury answered: "1 per haps might have a slightly dif ferent interpretation of it. I think it must be said in fairness to Fuchs that he worked extremely hard and effectively for Los Ala mos and this country." Then discussing Dr. Oppenhei mer's membership in "just about every Communist front" on the West Coast U. Robert's admis sion! and contribution to Commu nist causes. Dr. Bradbury re marked in 1954: "I would not like to say that I regard (these ac tionsi as cither right or wrong. 1 say that simply they turn out to have been bad for him to have done at this time." These are odd and fuzzy com ments for anyone to make. But they are particularly interesting when they come from someone on whose "judgment" the Senate of the United States is asked to rely. "Look, Bobby, if you wavtei mere tf your tfuff in the Vhite Houst library, you should have urittcn more books." If what I hear and see of the dismissal of Mrs. Betty Cote as Klamath County librarian is valid, then the incident is another of the most bizarre in a long chain of unfortunate incidents dealing with the library. The library board (those members in on the kill) acted with seemingly nothing more than caprieiousness as the basis for the dismissal. They can't lake all the "credit" for the kill. Oh, no. One member of the county court is claiming that he is personally responsible for her dismissal. (This is not rumor or conjecture he told me.) The record shows that Mrs. Cote did a good job as librarian. As far as I know, even the board and the county court acknowledge this. While 1 don't want to get involved in a matter that in volves the privilege and responsi bilities of a public board to car ry out an assignment, there ap pears to be some injustice in this Cote instance. The injustice comes ill that the board told tlie present staff that there would be no deci mation in personhel if and when a librarian was engaged to as sume the top job. This seems to have been clearly understood by the slaff including Mrs. Cote who expressed a desire to work with the new librarian. It would be reasonable and fair, I think, for the board to reconsider their action and extend lo Mrs. Cote an invitation to assume a responsible position on the library staff. It Is obvious that she has won the respect and loyalty of those she has worked with in making the s Klamath County Library a go ing concern. Ignoring the injustice to an in dividual in this instance, it is more discouraging to witness again tlie apparent weakness of Klamath County government structures. It illustrates that capricious- WASHINGTON REPORT . . . Student Conclave Attracts Leftists Uy FULTON LEWIS JR. WASHINGTON The 16lh an nual convention of the United States National Student Associa tion (NSA) is now under way in Bloomington, Ind., and all indi cations arc that the current gath ering will be an unsavory repeat performance of past meetings. The organization has obtained the reputation of being a mouth piece for left-wing student politi cians, and has been denounced and repudiated by moderate and conservative student elements since its formation in 1947. NSA leaders assert that their organization represents the think ing of "more than 1,000,000 Amer ican students," and in years past the group's resolutions have be gun: "We, the students of the United States . . ." This claim is interesting, par ticularly in light of the record. Ot the nearly 2,200 colleges and universities in the nation, only M0 are affiliated with NSA. Of these, only 100 or so even bother It send delegates to the national conventions; and 94 per cent of these delegates acquire their ness, personal spite and unsound business practices dominate tlie thinking of narrow-minded ofli cials. This is something Klam ath County residents liave lived with too long. So long in fact, many people have the conception that nothing can be done about the situation. Something can be done if people will forget their aathy long enough to take some interest in government and those who are in responsible govern ment positions in the county. Speaking about civil rights (quite a few people are) how about this portion of an ordinance passed by the British Parliament in 1770: .All women of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, wheth er virgins, maids or widows, thai shall impose upon, seduce, and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty's subjects by scents, paints, cosmetics, washes, artifi cial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron staves, hoops, high heeled shoes, bolstered hips, or padded bosoms shall incur the penally of the law enforced against witchcraft and the like misdemeanors and that marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void. Now, that's a handy little rule and I wonder how it never came up during the Profuma et al epi sode. A reader who makes a hobby of finance has been examining the shrunken dollar. He says things are not as bad as they seem, because although the dol lar does not go as far as it used to, what II lacks in distance, it makes up in speed. Looking for something in our loot shed the other day brought on the thought that our forefath ers ran a farm with less machin ery than we need to keep a lawn. A hopeless optimist is a fellow who believes a parking space will show up if he drives once around the block. status through appointment, not student elections. Even the student delegates have had little to say about NSA's pronouncements. For ex ample, last year the organiza tion released 83 policy state ments on controversial issues ranging from nuclear testing lo civil rights. Only 28 of these were adopted in the convention. The majority of the resolutions (53' were passed by the 31-member national executive committee, some with as few as 10 affirma tive student votes. Positions taken by the NSA in the past have followed the leftist line with precision. The group has called for abolition of the House Committee on UnAmeri can Activities and for repeal of the Internal Security Act ot 1950. The 19G1 convention condoned the Japanese student demonstra tions against Eisenhower's visit as a recognition "of the right of students to non-violent ly protest actions which they consider un just or undemocratic." The same convention condemned the United States for assisting Cuban ref ugees in attempting to oust Castro. On the 'question of Na tionalist China (Formosa), the NSA has censured "the National ist government of Taiwan for its suppression of academic freedom and human rights." NSA's only concern about Red China is "the absence of formative con tact between the United States National Student Association and Ihe All-China Student Federa tion." This year, as in years past, representatives of every left-wing group in the country have es tablished a lobbying headquarters at the NSA convention, attempt ing to influence student legisla tion. What does the ADA demand? Recognition of Red China; abo lition of the House I r.Amcrican Activities Committee; foreign aid b "neutralist" and Communist dictatorships: and accommoda tion with Castro Cuba. The President has less than a month to redeem one of his most important campaign promises. Swinging through Texas on Sept. 12. I'm. nominee Kennedy prom ised to eradicate all dictatorships bom the Western Hemisphere within three years. That gives Ihe President two weeks in which lo overthrow Fidel Castro, among other dictators still liding high.
