The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 8

Akron Beacon Journal Founded Apnl IS. 1839 C. L. KNIGHT, June 18, 1867-Sept. 26, 1933 JOHN S.

KNIGHT, Oct. 26, 1894-June 16. 1981 1 TUE MRftNMRUIE DOES ONI W. IT IT TOMTOPROGfOJTE CRIMINALS. DALE ALLEN Editor JOHN M.

McMILLION Publisher DAVID B. COOPER Associate Editor A8 Tuesday, February 3, 1987 3C (5.v Editorials Vital questions remain on Iran-Contra affair 5V iiwa is. tujxnv- i On penalizing drunken drivers made, including one he made to the sultan of Brunei. The affair seems to have been run largely by a select few in the White House using private citizens to conduct various operations in the field. At one point, Mr.

McFarlane misled the secretary of state about the role of Michael Ledeen, a consultant to the National Security Council, who was an important conduit to Israel and Iran. A retired Air Force major general, Richard Secord, and two ex-CIA operatives apparently controlled the Swiss bank account holding the Contra funds. For his part, the President is said to be "pleased" with the release of the report. The committee confirmed that Mr. Reagan neither authorized nor was aware of the diversion of funds to the Contras.

But that seems a small victory. The President presided over the mess, and it's becoming more clear that he was most interested not in an opening to Iran but in the release of the hostages. Oliver North, according to the report, said as much to Attorney General Edwin Meese. The intelligence panel has laid important groundwork for the special select committees on the Iran-Contra affair. It has outlined a chronology and defined the crucial questions: How was the policy made? Where did the money go? And were any laws violated in carrying out the policy? Those questions still need answers, if, in this 200th year of the Constitution, the executive branch is to give a full accounting of what may be the most amateurish and careless endeavor in recent U.S.

foreign policy. DECEPTION and disarray: Those are the two words that stick in the mind as one leaves the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the Iran-Contra affair. Sen. David Boren, the committee chairman, stressed that the report was preliminary. That's to be expected when several prominent players in the affair including Lt.

Col. Oliver North and Adm. John Poindexter either refused or were unable to testify. The report leaves many questions unanswered. But it also fills in many revealing details about a White House foreign-policy operation run amok.

The report offers several examples of administration officials deceiving each other and members of Congress. For Instance, Robert McFarlane, the former national security adviser, testified that former CIA Director William Casey denied that Israel was secretly shipping arms to Iran, even though the agency had evidence that shipments were made. Such information might have alerted Mr. McFarlane to the view that Israel had much to gain from involving the United States in arming Iran. According to the report, Mr.

Casey also had a hand in deceiving Congress. In November, he failed to tell the committee that he had information indicating that funds from the sale of arms to Iran had been diverted to the Contras. In addition, Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state, denied to the panel that money had been solicited from foreign countries to aid the rebels. Later, however, he admitted solicitations were A RECENT trend has surfaced in our courts. Drunken drivers are being exposed publicly as punishment for drunken driving.

Bumper stickers indicating the culprit has been convicted of drunken driv Another view of NASA Looking at lean Ohio budget has never been a harsher penalty than incarceration. Publicly disgracing drunken drivers is an idea that a few judges have come up with in their efforts with no-nonsense, get-tough penalties for drunken drivers. Publicly offending the moral feelings of the drunken driver is assuming the drunken driver has morals. Public demoralizing in 1987 is a lofty idea. But how moral are drunken drivers? Maybe in 500 B.C., in Athens, Greece, the moral penalties might have worked as a replacement for incarceration.

But, in 1987 A.D., when morality is debatable, the idea of publicly shaming someone on the surface appears to be a no-nonsense, get-tough penalty with the objective of keeping the person who becomes drunk out of his automobile. But it doesn't, and it shouldn't be forgotten that current law provides mandatory incarceration for drunken drivers. Socrates himself thrived during public disgracing but submitted to incarceration. In essence, the shock of jail for the drunken driver is the harsher of the two punishments. Judges who impose penalties on drunken drivers should remember that they persuade others by being responsible, but most of all, fair-minded.

Let's get tough on drunken drivers. LARRY T. SMITH Inmate Chillicothe Correctional Institution Crimes against children MICHAEL JOHANYAK'S letter of Jan. 26 was as incredible a defense of institutionalized child abuse as I ever expect to encounter. The notion that "severe" spanking, or any spanking, if applied long enough, will result in "true repentance" exactly duplicates the kind of thinking that characterized that other "Christian" institution, the Spanish Inquisition.

I have no doubt about the sincerity of these perpetrators; in fact, that is what makes their practices so particularly frightening. That these crimes against children are being committed in the name of love makes them no less criminal and they should be condemned for what they are. WALTER D. LEHRMAN Akron YOUR EDITORIAL on NASA Jan. 27 made statements that are not true.

Like when you said Russia is in the lead. This will not hold water. Just because they have more boosters doesn't make the Russians No. 1. As far as their space station is concerned, it is just temporary.

This is about their 15th temporary station since 1970. Yes, they got a jump on us in space stations. However, NASA is not looking to put up another Skylab, but a permanently occupied space station. About NASA's unmanned planetary missions: You can't look at the record Helping IN THE Jan. 2 report headlined "Jewish leaders fight farm problems," Karen Ball of the Associated Press wrote how national Jewish organizations and farm groups are working together to dissipate the hatred directed at the Jews because of the farm crisis.

As a result of this coalition the Jewish community is now working to help the farmers. Ms. Ball failed to mention the role of Women's American ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation through Training). The Jewish Community Relations Bureau of Kansas together with a grant from Women's American ORT has hired a specialist, Carol Smith, to work full time on addressing the farm crisis and rural anti-Semitism in Kansas and western Missouri. Locally, the three ORT chapters in Akron (over 400 members) have been circulating a petition to Congress in support of saving the family farm.

Women's American ORT is 145,000 American women who support the glob Voice of the People ing are mandatory from a certain few judges. In a few other jurisdictions, names of drunken drivers are placed on the local newspaper's front page. But, drunken drivers should continue to be incarcerated because public disgrace and not say, "Well, here, NASA is No. also in the manned part of space exploration, for what NASA does in satellite repair, retrieval and refueling procedures. Three satellites have been repaired and two retrieved.

Refueling them is a proven art. Retrieval of satellites has saved NASA millions of dollars. We proved we can build the station we want to put up there with ease. And the way the manned maneuvering unit works, and the shuttle itself, it's the best manned space orbiter in the world. So I wish you would get the facts right.

ROBERT MAJER Stow farmers al vocational and technical education program of the Jewish people. ORT also functions as a grass-roots activist organization, committed to and advocating principles of pluralism, democracy and individual liberties. SHERRY M. HELLMAN Communications vice president Akron chapter-at-large We welcome your letters and the chance to publish as many as possible. Concise, legible letters on current events are the most Interesting.

We ask that letters be original and bear the writer's full signature, address and daytime phone number. All letters are subject to editing so that we may publish many views. We withhold names only for good reason. Please address your letters to Voice of the People, Akron Beacon Journal, Akron, Ohio 44328. promise to pay whatever the abortion fee is, wait for a promising prospective mother to show up, and offer her full support and birth charges.

It should cost half of what's involved in making arrangements in Latin America. If the mother then cannot bear to part with the child, the adopting couple can offer to help square the whole situation with the mother's parents, be glad they spared a child who was otherwise doomed, and go try again. GEORGE H. ADAMS Akron OU.YOOMNT it Off the track Way to halt abortion GOV. RICHARD CELESTE has proposed a two-year budget for Ohio that may please taxpayers, since no major tax increases are included.

Other groups will be less satisfied because the $35 billion budget would amount to the lowest state spending increase in 24 years. Spending for education will be one point of debate as legislative hearings begin today. The Celeste budget would provide no new funding next year and only a 4 percent increase in 1988-1989. Legislators no doubt will give the schools more money than that, but nowhere near the increase sought by state educators 20 percent for the two years. Since education has been a priority of the Celeste administration, the cutbacks in this budget are getting quite a bit of attention.

The reasoning from Celeste officials is that the budget is tight for everyone, and education, which still gets half the budget money, will have to share the sacrifice. Ohio schools have benefited during the last four years from money generated by a 1983 tax increase. Whether even that money was enough compared to other states is debatable, but the feeling in the administration seems to be that it is now a political question of what taxpayers will support. Celeste officials admit that schools are in for a tough year under the proposal, and they realize that the Legislature will give more to education. There is not much money available in other budgets to transfer to educa Clean water PRESIDENT Reagan has taken his stand on a major clean-water bill by vetoing it.

Now Congress should correct his error by overriding the veto and passing the $20 billion measure into law. The bill, a reauthorization of the Clean Water Act of 1972, is expensive and does contain money for local projects that might benefit individual members of Congress. But the overall effect of the legislation is positive. It would provide money for projects that improve water quality and would toughen controls on many forms of poUution. For this region, some 350 Ohio communities would share more than $136 million to help them meet feder tion, however.

Welfare spending is tight, so the administration will propose legislation that will help streamline collection of child support from deadbeat, absent parents. If the legislation works, it could save an estimated $59 million in aid over the next two years. Some legislators might like to shift some money from the politically unpopular prison funding for use elsewhere. Prisons were a big winner in the budget proposal, getting increases of 12.3 percent in the first year and 19.8 percent in the second. But most legislators understand that the prison construction package passed with bipartisan support is essential, and that a failure to spend now means a much larger cost in the future.

So the tight budget is likely to remain so unless the economy booms and brings in much more revenue. An increase in the cigarette tax will generate some $100 million, mostly for the prison fund. Another $248 million in revenue will come from closing loopholes in other taxes. Yet even if the revenue estimates hold true, tight funds will require tough choices. The Celeste administration and the Legislature probably are correct in feeling that the public would not support major tax increases at this time.

So hearings on the budget will be concerned not with what should be spent but with how to make do with less. That was Mr. Celeste's State of the State message. It appears to have captured the mood of the coming biennium. OK needed al water-quality standards.

And another $55 million would fight pollution in the Great Lakes. The House and Senate overwhelmingly passed this measure twice: Once in October, when the President killed it with a pocket veto, and again last month. Now Congress has a chance to override the veto and is expected to do so. Losing this battle is not the way an embattled President should want to begin the year. But it is Mr.

Reagan who is clearly out of step on this matter. It is not a political issue. Clean water benefits all of us and is well worth the investment that is called for in this legislation. ply of potassium. Some experts are skeptical of the findings that's what experts are for but even the most jaded would agree that fruits and veggies can't do you any harm.

So eat up and be healthy. It's amazing what you can learn from scientific journals. Or from listening to your mother. I'VE JUST caught up with the Jan. 4 Abe Zaidan column on how the Cuyahoga Falls couple adopted a baby.

This is the second case reported recently where an adopting couple from this area traipsed off to Latin America to find an adoptable child. With 1.5 million children being aborted every year in the United States sure-, ly an adoptable child can be found among them. All that is necessary is that an adopting couple go to an abortion clinic, Ml NM UmKt IT IS SAD when a well-known religious figure presents an incorrect concept of God. Oral Roberts is wrong. God does not take lives because we do not give enough money.

God forgives, heals, mends, loves. I do not understand Roberts for making such an announcement. His ministries of healing and service have made a significant contribution to people's needs. He has served Christ well in so many ways. I seriously encourage people to pray for Oral Roberts.

His theology needs to get back on track. DOUGLAS B. DENTON Pastor First United Methodist Chruch Akron Reagan critics IF THESE gallant critics are spending so much time and effort running down the efforts of President Reagan to rectify world problems, they should tell the world what smart people they are and tell us how to do the right thing to correct world problems. It would be appreciated by us common individuals. If so much time is spent just listening to and reading about how intelligent they are, let's see them prove it with good positive solutions.

FRANK JENKINS Akron Destructive ignorance TnE GEORGIA racism filling the headlines is really an indictment of our education system. Probably some of the Ku Klux Klan are high school educated but were never exposed in class to a solid course in race relations. Instead of simply feeling sorry for them, we should redouble our determination to eradicate this most destructive ignorance. ROBERT C. WILSON Stow Mother was right A STUDY just published in the New England Journal of Medicine confirms what most of us learned as children: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

The U.S.-British study concluded that eating an extra helping of fresh fruit or vegetables each day could cut the risk of stroke by as much as 40 percent, by increasing the body's sup A simpler tax form IN REGARD to the W-4 form: that doesn't require a college educa- Even with the changes in the tax tion to complete is in order, laws the W-4 is way too long and GREG S.GRIMES complex. A shorter and simpler form Wadsworth.