Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 106

53ieArisonapmlnSfar i Founded 1877 I Michael E. Pulitzer, Editor and Publisher TUCSON. SUNDAY, MAY 6, 1973 dot oat1 Worse Than Watergate Publish Or Perish Holds Danger For Education Even more serious than Watergate, it seems to me, is the deception of the American voters by the rigged public opinion polls, the counterfeit political advertisements and the phony telegrams all of which, it develops, were carried out by some of the same characters who staged Watergate. It is bad enough to seek an illegal advantage over one's political opponents, as at Watergate, but it is far worse, I believe, to practice fraud on the American electorate by claiming support for the President's decision to mine Haiphong Harbor or to bomb Hanoi "support" we now learn was manufactured. What makes these developments more serious than Watergate is that they're tied directly to the office of the President.

This is not norman cousins a matter of a few professional saboteurs who are hired by a political party to burglarize or bug the opposition. The phony telegrams, the phony polls and the phony advertisements were addressed directly to the President. They were used as the basis for a statement by the White House declaring that the American people were rallying behind the President's policies. I see little difference between stuffing ballot boxes and stuffing public opinion. Both are crimes against the representative form of government.

A free society, by its very nature, is vulnerable to all sorts of political skulduggery or sabotage. There is almost no way of ensuring that the political process can be protected against knavery or even thievery. In the end, the survival of that process depends on the integrity of the persons who seek office under that system. Henry Kissinger has been roundly criticized for asking people to be "compassionate" about the men caught up in this tragedy. He may well be right.

Even after the President's television explanation to the people, I have the saddest feelings about Richard M. Nixon. rating a professor or instructor on the number of books or articles he has written or how many research grants he has gained for the University of Arizona. Publishing or research are of great value, of course, and have their place on the campus. But some professors, even after they have published successfully, have found that the real challenge on campus is in teaching, in direct contacts with students that too often become impossible under heavy requirements to write or research.

A graduate student at the University of Arizona left an Ivy League university because he found his professors there too involved in publishing or research. He called them "super-stars" in his letter to the campus newspaper. He wrote, "My initial interview at Arizona was like a refreshing breath of clean air. The department members wanted to know what line of research I was interested in, so that they could assist me. Not once did anyone push me in a certain direction.

The availability of faculty for consultation came as an even greater surprise." The University of Arizona already is a center for much important research. There already are noted authors among the faculty. But there also are some 27,000 students who need the best of teachers. That fact should not be forgotten as the university seeks to elevate its position among the nation's great schools. THE MILWAUKEE ifesfcaU.

WO 'None of this rehabilitation pap for us just keep locking 'em up and sending you the hill, right, little Dr. John P. Schaefer, the young, ambitious president of the University of Arizona is seeking to upgrade his faculty. To accomplish this he has established an advisory committee on promotion and tenure. According to Dr.

Schaefer, neither promotion nor tenure will be granted as readily as in the past. There is little to be argued within this philosophy; where there is room for dispute is the president's call to the faculty to "publish and prosper." The phrase is Dr. Schaefer's coinage, but it rings more truly of the old faculty bugaboo of "publish or perish." Schaefer wants to raise the level of the university by having faculty become better known nationally and even internationally through their writings and their research. There also is, in addition to prestige, the winning of financial grants for research projects. When Schaefer told the faculty that "only those individuals who indeed give every indication of great promise for the future will gain promotion and tenure," that was one thing.

But when promotions and tenure hinge on research or publication and not on teaching, that is something else. The basic role of a university is challenged by the "publish or perish," or even Schaefer's "publish and prosper," philosophy. It still must remain a basic fact that the greatest percentage of a 27,000 student body is on campus to be taught, to be educated. The quality of teaching, thus, should not be subordinated by Too Many President Nixon has presented a tax reform plan to Congress which, while it does offer certain significant improvements in taxing systems, and must generally be considered a step forward, does not truly tackle the key problem of closing the numerous loopholes through which major moneymakers escape with hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Proof of this is the fact that the overall fiscal effect of the President's proposal would be an annual loss of some $300 million.

The Treasury Department says it would earn another $800 million by closing loopholes, but pay out roughly $1.1 billion in new tax credits. Even conservative estimates of potential income from a really effective war on loopholes, puts the figure into the billions annually. The President offered solace to the elderly on fixed or low incomes, and those for whom the annual filing of tax returns is too great a mental strain. Yet another "short form" of the dreaded 1040 is offered, as are tax credits for the elderly and a modest credit for parents whose children are in non-profit private schools. It is hard to fault this, with the exception of the tax credit to private school tuition.

This places the government in a position alarmingly close to subsidizing parochial schools a violation of the Watergate From Abroad He began his political career by using unethical tactics against Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas. He came close to being dropped from the presidential ticket in 1952 because of slush-fund allegations. He survived these episodes and became President, being re-elected by a profoundly impressive margin. But Watergate has put his historical position in jeopardy. His television talk was compelling and sensible, and it may well have bought him a little time.

But it hasn't separated him from the case. He is still not out of danger. People can still be expected to ask questions as the Watergate investigation deepens. So long as that investigation continues, the involvement of White House officials is bound to reflect on the President. As Richard Nixon himself the leader of any organization must accept the responsibility for any wrongdoing inside it.

To say that the President did not know what was happening inside his own family is not an adequate defense. Why was the President not informed? Rather, why was he misinformed? The President tells us he was kept from the truth. Are not the American people entitled to know who kept the truth from him? As the President said, both he and the American people were deceived. But the President knows who it was who deceived him. Are not the American people entitled to know who deceived them? The President made no mention in his talk to the nation about the rigging of the public opinion polls or the counterfeit telegrams and advertisements.

He spoke of corrupt political campaign tactics and said he would do everything he could to eradicate them. It is to be hoped he had in mind not just the bugging by one political party of another but the more serious crime of stealing from the American people their most important political possession the integrity of the free-election system. The effort to restore that integrity and here we can all agree with the President becomes one of the greatest needs confronting the nation. coverage as a cub reporter in Pennsylvania, that names on cemetery tombstones were listed in some voting rosters; also the horror with which I learned of bribery and ballot-stuffing by boss-run city machines. The West Germans, struggling to rid themselves of the guilt complex bequeathed by Hit-lerism, were appalled by the high-handed way a defense minister locked up investigative journalists.

As for the Italians: the leftwing "Paese Sera" concedes that Watergate "is truly scandalous" but adds: "In Italy the same things happen often." Only one leading democracy, Britain, has remained comparatively unspotted. The famous Profumo affair, a few years ago, astounded the British not because it disclosed a gaudy private life in higher political echelons but because a junior minister lied to the House of Commons. In many lands where democracy is hallowed, scandal has festered below the administrative surface. Some of the immorality, both real and fabricated, adduced in France during recent years, would seem unbelievable even to Watergate-dazzled Americans. The crucial danger of the unfolding tale of sordid U.S.

machinations is that it could weaken the institution of the presidency, debilitate the position of Nixon when his international leadership is urgently required, and change the desired quality of American dynamism into cornmeal mush. Hence the fact that United States society impresses some foreigners with its innate honesty by exposing its own worst faults does not compensate for the loss of prestige and moral authority. Sticking To The Rules An Editorial From Newsday, Garden City, N.Y. Now the judicial branch of government has stepped into President Nixon's quarrel with Congress over who has the last word on federal spending. In Washington recently, a federal judge said it was illegal for Nixon to carve up the Office of Economic Opportunity before Its congressional appropriation for the current fiscal year runs out.

No doubt that's a morale booster for the committed people at OEO, but in fact the deci. sion will probably only delay the destruction of the anti-poverty agency. There's no money for OEO in next year's budget, and if Congress tries to appropriate some, Mr. Nixon will almost certainly veto the bill. And so far neither the Senate nor the House has been able to override a presidential spending veto this year.

That may be regrettable, but at least the President has exercised the veto according to the constitutional rules, and if Congress can't muster the necessary two-thirds majority tn override him, that's that. What concerns much more deeply is the presidential arrr-tion of powers and privileges the Foundin" thers obviously never contemplated when t' drew up the Constitution the power pound funds already appropriated by gress, for instance, or the privilege to testimony before Congress by any employe t. the executive branch. That's why we think it's healthy that the judge in Washington has put a stop to the headlong dismemberment of OEO temporary though the reprieve may be. Escape Is BEAULY, Scotland It is the far northeast of Britain, the bare hills, the forests and moors of the Highlands.

A few miles away, past Inverness, Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746 lost the battle that ended all real hopes of restoring the Stuarts to the throne, the Battle of Culloden. Sir Robert Peel, the great Tory prime minister, visited here in the summer of 1849. He rented a house built by two strange brothers who claimed to be grandsons of Bonnie Prince Charlie. It was on an island in the River Beau-ly, and Peel loved the remoteness. He wrote his political friends letters describing the scenery.

When one sent him some news, he replied: "It was very kind of you to remind me of the existence of a world from which I am so far removed. I am in a spot well calculated to make one forget it." The house is still there, alone on its island, and the scenery remains spectacular. There are deer in the woods and geese and ducks overhead. The wild primroses and violets and anthony lewis daffodils are blooming now, and the moss and heather turning. In the valleys there are new lambs.

The world seems distant, as it was to Robert Peel. For a romantic moment one imagines a life without the sense of crowd and struggle of people and things that most human beings in this last third of the twentieth century feel most of the time. But the idea of escape is an illusion. Much has been preserved in the Highlands, through stubborn nature and luck: the weather and poor soil have discouraged settlement; the great estates, often denounced on social grounds, have turned out to be environmental blessings. But there is no Shangri-la.

The mark of man is on the Highlands now. Electric power pylons march through remote valleys. A superhighway is planned, as an es An Illusion sential step to encourage industry and economic "progress." The deserted beaches of Scotland's west coast are littered with plastic remnants of our unnatural civilization. The meeting of past and future in the Highlands leads to thoughts of the fundamental de- bate over the earth's capacity for material economic growth. It is a debate that has developed since the publication last year of "The Limits of Growth," the study sponsored by the Club of Rome.

The study warned that exponential growth in men's numbers and consumption threatened the collapse of industrial civilization under the pressures of resource exhaustion and pollution. The conclusion has been furiously attacked, notably by economists, who argue that it does not take account of man's ingenious ability to find alternative resources and develop new techniques of production. The critics of the Club of Rome study have dealt with it as though it were the prophecy of some apocalyptic sect, predicting doomsday on the Thursday after next. That makes ridicule easy, but it is not in fact the point. The suggestion is rather that earth's physical limits will gradually put severe strains on the commitment to continuous economic expansion strains of price, supply and human comfort.

And that is happening right now. Consider, for example, President Nixon's recent report on the energy crisis. Nixon took a confident line, saying that America had the energy resources to "create an even stronger domestic economy" if she took bold action. But the reality appeared quite plainly in between the exhortations. The President's report called for higher fuel prices and tax relief to encourage production.

It suggested suspension of some air pollution standards, construction of the Alaska oil pipeline and vastly increased drilling of oil wells in the marginal seas, with all their environmental risk. It urged Americans to be less profligate in their use of energy, developing an "energy conservation ethic." PARIS An aspect of the Watergate mess more considered abroad than in the United States was summarized in the London "Observer," which editorialized: "The way this scandal is now being relentlessly exposed should strengthen America's claim to be the most open society: political skulduggery has happened in many countries but in few could it have been exposed as publicly as now in the U.S." The cynical French humor magazine, "Le Canard Enchaine" concludes sarcastically: "In France this type of thing doesn't startle us. If there were to be a scandal each time the c.l. Sulzberger princes who govern us ordered the police to listen in on opposition leaders, journalists, their own political allies and the various heads of police services, it would never end "Poor naive Americans: going to court just for an electronic espionage affair! In France we know better. Just recently a new center for wire-tapping despite its almost complete illegality was, albeit discreetly, inaugurated' and this, of course, without (to mention only a few) a newspaper, parliamentarian or magistrate even saying a word.

"You have to be American to be scandalized by such small things." The fact is that all contemporary democracies have been tarnished' from time to time by immoral practices. I recall the amazement with which I personally discovered 39 years ago, when participating in my first electoral Loopholes mandated separation of church and state. As to the rest, it is a typically Republican tax package. The reforms it suggests are in themselves the type of general regulation which may be easily skirted by newly devised loopholes. And characteristically, a major new tax credit is offered to one of the biggest of big businesses, the oil industry.

Operating under the rationale of the energy crisis, President Nixon seeks to give a seven per cent investment tax credit to those who sink money in oil exploration with the promise of another five per cent credit on exploration money for wells that become productive. The House Ways and Means Committee under Democrat Wilbur Mills, has been working on its own ideas of tax reform, and it is likely to have even more to say about the final product that will go before President Nixon. Mills' committee has not yet presented its full proposal, but bits and pieces have been dropped and not all agree in principal with the White House. The time-consuming chore of forging an actual bill now lies before Congress. It is likely that the result will be more sweeping in its reforms than the President's proposal, less powerful than is needed, and well into next year when it makes its debut.

"We've been saying for several years that polio immunization levels aren't what they should be, and for the last year we've been hollering really loud." Dr. Witte said mass immunization campaigns work well but the difficulty is in keeping people aware; when they haven't seen polio for 10 to 15 years they don't worry about it. The immunity level is dropping (fewer than 63 per cent of children from 1 to 4 years old have been vaccinated) faster among middle and upper class children who get their vaccinations from private physicians. Public vaccine programs keep the level more constant among low-income children. To repeat, the warning is ominous.

Parents particularly should heed it and help prevent an outbreak of polio anywhere in the country. It Could Happen Again It is an ominous warning that complacency once again might bring disaster insofar as a badly crippling, sometimes fatal disease is considered disastrous. The warning came from an official for the Center for Disease Control who said that outbreaks of paralytic polio could develop in parts of the country. Why, one might ask? How about the famous Salk vaccine which has all but eliminated polio as a-threat to life and limb? Polio outbreaks? Hardly. Well apparently the disease control center doesn't see it that way and the answer is quite simple.

If the Salk vaccine isn't used it can't do the job it was set out to do and has been doing very successfully. Dr. John Witte, head of the immunization branch of the federal disease center, put it in plain language:.