Express and News from San Antonio, Texas • Page 92

April 8, 1973 PART III--Insight Section--tage 9 Social Security Opposed Prof, eftki htrsitj tf Ciiugo is a resfnatd tcoiio- mia Itadimt Mmitr. A surf rising and ligklj (mtrfversial contribution is kis tast gainst Social Sttfritj. aUckfor 30 pars hat htn out oftki nun sacrosanct of lit acrid totos political lift. Htrt Prof. Friedman is imttroiaxd by Ckarlts Pt- tin of tit Mttmify.

Q. Why are you against Social Secarl-. ty? A. For one thing, it transfers money from the poor to the middle class and the rich. For most of those with incomes less than $10,800, the Social Security tax is much larger than the personal income tax.

This year a person making $10,800 or less will pay more than 11 per cent of his income into Social Security half directly, half through his employer -while someone making $40,000 or more will pay less than 2 per cent. In addition, the poor start paying earlier than the rich because they start working earlier and tend to receive benefits for fewer years than the rich. Q. It's not as bad as welfare, is it? A. It's worse.

Bad as the welfare mess is, at least it succeeds in transferring money from the rich to the poor. Society Security does the opposite. In addition, it encourages people to stay on welfare. If someone on welfare takes a job, he not only loses his welfare but has to start paying Social Security tax. Q.

What you do about Social Security? A. I would like" the government to abolish not only Social Security but all the other income supplement or income maintenance programs, such as unemployment compensation and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Instead, I would like a single program that would assist people with low incomes regardless of why their incomes arc low--whether they arc old, unemployed, unskilled, ill or physically or mentally handicapped. Q. But wouldn't such a program, covering all the needy, not merely the old, be astronomical in cost? A.

Definitely not. The programs I propose abolishing cost about $75 billion Where They Stand per year a couple of years ago. If you divided that among the 24.3 million then classified as poor, it would come to over 13,000 per person. Q. Bat won't the result be a program that is more for the poor than the middle class and one, therefore, the middle class will oppose? A.

That's what the opponents of my plan think. They believe Social Security's disproportionate benefits to the middle class was the political price of getting the program enacted and that any program designed explicitly for the poor will most likely be a poor program. What puzzles me is this. Are we really i poor people by saying to them, "Here's a program under which we'll take $2 from you and give you $1 back, and we can get that program passed, but we can't get a program passed that will take $1 from you and give $1 As I have gone through the literature, I have been shocked at the level of the arguments used to sell Social Security, not only by politicians and speciaMnter- est groups but by self-righteous academics. People who would not lie to their children, friends or colleagues, whom I would trust implicitly in personal dealings, have propagated a false view of Social Security.

Q. Can you give some specific examples of what you mean? A. Well, the very name--old age and survivor's insurance--is a blatant attempt to mislead the public into identifying a compulsory tax and benefit system wilh private, voluntary and individual purchase of individually assured benefits. What am I to make of professors at leading institutions, of high-level bureaucrats, of'cabinet and subcabinet officials who compare the future benefits. promised to young workers solely with the tax levied on employees, not even mentioning the equivalent tax levied on employers? They know very well there is no real distinction between the Social Security tax paid directly by the employe and the' tax paid by the employer.

Both are proportional to wage rates. Both enter labor costs. Both are borne equally by the em- ploye. Or what am I to make of high-minded gentlemen protesting in on breath the accuracy of the insurance terminology and objecting in the next to full payment of benefits to persons between 65 and 72 who continue to work, on the ground that their need is less than that of other: to whom the money could be paid? If, indeed, the benefits are linked to "contributions," the need argument is irrelevant. If the need criterion is relevant, then the talk about "insurance," about benefits linked to "contributions," is simply hogwash.

i The Collaborators: Trial or Amnesty? By Jack Anderson WASHINGTON In their secret ae- briefings, the released American POWs have bitterly accused a few campmales of collaboration. The returnees claim at least a dozen POWs, including two officers, willingly collaborated wilh their captors, delivered voluntary propaganda broadcasts, fraternized with their guards and, worst charge of all, betrayed camp secrets to the a Some collaborators even gave information, allegedly, that led to the torture of their fellow Americans. Some of those who endured the torture are bitter aver the leniency shown to the turncoats. President Nixon decided that all POWs had suffered enough and, therefore, that no charges should be brought against them for their conduct in captivity. This has caused some quiet grumbling that the President has granted amnesty to the collaborators while denying it to draft dodgers.

The men were coached before they the combat zone what they might expect if they were captured. At survival schools, they were given motivational training for the prison camp ordeal. They were instructed how to establish a command-and-control system in camp and how to utilize the available POW skills for the common good. Although they were told to anticipate excruciating mental and physical abuse, they were ordered to hold out. The secret dcbriefings indicate that the overwhelming a i of POWs were absolutely heroic.

They organized the camps, aided one another and submitted to terrible torture. But most men reach a limit to the pain they can endure. Still, they would give their captors phony information and sign deliberately absurd propaganda statements. Only a few refused to take orders from their superiors and collaborated instead with the North Vietnamese. In one camp, the turncoats formed a "Peace Committee" that actively supported the enemy cause.

As their a they were given special privileges and taken on tours of Hanoi. The collaborators were shunned by their fellow prisoners who resent seeing Anderson is a Pulitztr Prize winning columnist. His weekday column appears in the San Antonio Express. them come home now to the same warm welcome as the other POWs. Although the Defense Department is bringing no charges against the collaborators, anyone in the service can swear out complaints under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Some of the angry returnees want to file their own charges. This raises a question that has been nagging the military since the Korean In both Korea and Vietnam, men signed war-crime confessions and propaganda statements under terrible duress. Under our system, no a obtained by coercion or duress can be used as evidence against a man. Yet in the Pentagon a brass-bound generals still clung stubbornly to the name-rank- and-scrial-numbcr concept. This is still the rule, only slightly modified, that is supposed to guide captured Americans.

Unofficially, however, there is far more tolerance for those who break under the strain. Thus, it is recognized unofficially that a man can be driven to sign false state- ments and even furnish military information. What is the difference whether he collaborates voluntarily or coercion? Should it be official U.S. policy a man must submit to torture before signing an enemy statement? Once again, these questions are under review in the Pentagon. Maj.

Gen. Andrew Evans who now heads the Rlili- a Advisory Command in Thailand, has probably contributed more than anyone to an understanding of the POW's ordeal. An Air Force colonel during the Korean war, he became one of the war's most celebrated captives. He came back determined to impress upon the Pentagon what happens to a man reduced to a state, half animal, half human, battered with lies until the truth is wholly unreal. "We think of giving our lives for our country as the.

ultimate sacrificfe," lie said. "That's not so. Death would have been the easy way out." Three times during his ordeal, Evans faced execution. Once he was prodded in the black with a gun and ordered to confess or die. He refused to sign.

After 24 hours to re- consider, a gun was pressed against the nape of his neck. "I prefer to die," he declared again. He was granted another 24-hour reprieve to think it over, then was marched up a hill and stood against a tree facing a Chinese firing or you'll be shot," he was. Warned. Evans recounted after his release: "I knew it was my last night and I was glad.

I said, 'No, get it over But the firing squad never fired; without comment, his tormentors led him to a fate even worse than death. For weeks, he was tortured ruthlessly, relentlessly, until his emotional control began to go. He recalled tears in eyes during the incessant questioning. "I kep 1 begging them to kill me," he said. Despair gradually gave way to apathy.

"I reached an absolutely impassive stale. I showed no emotion whatever during the rest of my capture. I was purely animal, living from meal to meal, and not really caring whether I got the meal. I would eat because it was something to do." The Meat Boycott By Art Buchwald It was the fifth day of our meat boycott and the family was silting around the dining room table wiping up the gravy from the cheese and turnip casserole that my. wife had prepared for us.

You could see the pride in the children's faces. They had survived almost a week without meat--and they knew they had a great blow for lower food prices. "I don'l even miss meat," my daughter Jennifer said. "I don't even miss i my daughter Connie agree. My son Joel said, "The voice of the consumer has been heard in the land." "Then you all agree," I said, "that boycott are th6 best way of showing our discontent over high prices." Everyone agreed.

"The reason 1 raise the question," I said "is that the telephone company is thinking of doubling the price of a call from 10 to 20 cents. This would be an increase of 100 per cent and I think if they do it we should boycott the telephone system." The family looked at me as if I had gone mad. "Boycott telephone company?" Jennifer said. "But how could 1 talk to my friends?" "You could write them letters," I suggested. "No one writes anyone letters any-more," Connie said.

Buchwald is a nationally syndicated humorist. His weekday column fears in the San Antonio News. Education, Shops and Thong Sandals By S.I. Hayakawa I A Liberia. 1 am very proud of what San Francisco State College Accomplished for education in Liberia during the 10-year contract we had with the Monrovia Consolidated School System.

I visited the system headquarters and the William V. S. Tubman High School. There I met many of our Libcri- an alumni who hold responsible positions in teaching and administration. Classrooms in the high school are large and airy.

Students are somewhat older than American high school students, since so many of them begin their schooling late. They are neal and handsome in their uniforms white shirts and blouses, maroon trousers and skirts. It was striking to see tall slim girls carrying books on their heads, the way African women normally carry baskets of vegetables. Carrying on the head certainly does things for a woman's posture! I found a serious academic atmosphere such as is often missing in Ameri: can high schools, as if the students were conscious of their responsibility to become leaders in a nation irT which only 10 per cent are literate. Along with an adequate library and audio-visual facilities, the high school was a well-kept museum of African art and artifacts, as if to remind the students that, while they are a i many new and foreign things, there are values in their traditional culture to be remembered and cherished; In villages throughout Liberia, there are little a stores run by Lebanese.

They are open far into the eve- and the light they provide is a focus for village social life. is startling to see, among all the dark-skinned people, sitting on the counters or running in and out of the shops, the fair-haired children of the Lebanese shopkeepers. The shops carry an amazing range of merchandise. American and a and Swiss a foods, canned fish from Japan and both'Chinas, luggage Czechoslovakia, flashlights and batteries from the U.S. and Japan, cotton prints from England and Japan and Java, dairy products and biscuits from Denmark, children's dresses from Spain.

Dr. Hayatatoa is a noted California educator. There isn't much Liberian merchandise which is an indication of the state of the economy. Why aren't there more Liberians in business? The problem, of course, is that of developing nations anywhere in the world. Commerce in nonliterate societies is almost always dependent on the initiative of literate outsiders who understand about a depreciation, profit margins and all the other mysteries of a money Hence much of the business in Malaysia and the South Pacific is owned and operated by Chinese, in Kenya and Uganda by Indians and Pakistani.

Liberian business is up against many handicaps. Educated Liberians are needed as teachers; they are quickly hired by the government or by foreign companies; they rarely go into business for themselves. Uneducated Liberians fail in business lack of training. Another complicating factor is the cx- family system. Since multiple marriages are common, everyone has a large number of relatives, all of whom free merchandise or extended credit and local custom makes refusal virtually impossible.

Burdened by freeloaders, the hopeful entrepreneur is usually wiped out in a few months. I was lold of a taxi-driver who ran a jitney service between his home village and Monrovia. He found that on trips to and from the city he was carrying an average of two non-paying relatives per trip. He has survived only by limiting his jitney service to trips between Monrovia and other villages. Supporting the little Lebanese shops, there is a substantial infrastructure of bigger businesses, a wholesalers, overseas sources of supply, cooperative buying arrangements and the like, such as the Liberians do not yet have.

There docs not seem to be at present any huge resentment of the Lebanese, nor any feeling that they control an excessive share of the economy. However, one cannot forget Prime Minister Idi "Big Daddy" Amin and his sudden and ruthless expulsion of Asians from Uganda. To forestall such hatreds, Liberians must take greater control of their own No one understands this better than President William R. Tolbcrt Jr. Hence his enthusiastic and steady support of education as the foundation of all national progress.

U.S. Ambassador and Mrs. Mclvin Manfull and I havcbcendiscussing Liberia and her problems. Here is part of our conversation: "There are so many health problems here--Malaria, hookworm. Villagers go barefoot, both adults and children." "Why don't they wear thong sandals, like the Japanese zori? They're very cheap.

They make them in rubber and sell them all over the U.S." "The Japanese do a lot of business here. Why can't we get them to donate a million pair of zori to Liberia?" "Why import rubber zori? Firestone has huge plantations here." "OK. Let's get Japan to send some technicians and get Firestone to donate the rubber and let's get zori on all the people in the villages." So a was our brainstorm. Mrs. Manfull said she would the idea to the Firestone people.

Since the Japanese government is about to open an embassy in Monrovia, I respectfully submit the idea to the incoming Japanese ambassador. "Even if they did," Joel said, "they'd never be delivered." My wife, who never knows when I'm kidding, said, "Are you serious about boycotting the phone company?" "Dead serious," I said. "We've got to bring them to their knees. We've got to bring the cost of a telephone call down, down, down." "I won't do it," Jennifer shouted. "I won't give up the telephone." "You gave up meat," I said.

"Meat is just food," she "The telephone is my life." Connie yelled, "We'd die without the telephone." Joel agreed. "Man has to communicate by phone or his ear will wither away." My wife said, "I'll give up one or the other but I won't give up both meat AND the telephone." "Nevertheless," I a i "if we're going to stick by our principles we will have to boycott the telephone company, just as we will have to boycott the gasoline stations when they raise the price of gas." "Raise the price of gas?" Joel said. "Wtiat am I going to do with my car?" "Keep it in the garage until the gasoline companies sec the error of their ways." "How do I get to school?" Connie said. "Take the bus." "What's a bus?" Connie demanded. "Don't be smart," I said.

"If we're going to give up meat a they raised the prices on us, we're going to give up the telephone and gasoline, and if they raise electricity we'll give up air conditioning." "But we have to have air conditioning," Jennifer said. "Look, prices are going up on everything. Why should we just sock it to the farmer? If we really want our voices heard we've got to sock the phone company, the gasoline companies, the power companies and anyone else who thinks they can horse around with our household budget. I say we're either in the boycott business for real or we get out of it altogether. Now what do you say?" My wife sighed, "I'll order a pork roast from the butcher tomorrow morning.".