The Delta Democrat-Times from Greenville, Mississippi • Page 4

editorials Making a bad point It may sound contradictory, the truth is that there is both much secrecy ia government 'today and too little. Far too much information which is not vital to security or embarrassing to innocent people is locked away behind iron walls of classification which deny it to the general public. Almost any bureaucrat or politician can contrive to have a document, report or study classified and removed from circulation. The government's warehouses are bursting at the seams with "secrets" which should not be hidden from the people. At the same time, Congress continues to make it abundantly clear that there is virtually no sense of restraint in Washington today when it comes to leaking information which should not be released.

The furor over CBS newsman Daniel Schorr's deliberate leak of the House intelligence committee's report on the CIA, a report the House refused to issue precisely because of concerns about its i i a i a i a security, is a case in point. i responsible is the congressman or staffer who the verbatim transcript over to Schorr. The television newsman only yesterday 5 Yean Ago--1961 Circuit Court Judge B. B. Wilkcs was expected to rule today on the state highway commission practice of purchasing right of way for future use at a hearing brought by landowners involved in U.S.

61 relocation project lawsuits. On a motion by the highway department, Judge Wilkes ruled today the hearing will not involve the need for a two-lane highway, but only the additional right-of-way taken for eventual expansion to four lanes. 15 Years Ago--1961 a Charles said Saturday that the federal government approved the city's request for $107,076 improvements. The Board of Aldermen will discuss Ihis week whether to accept or reject the grant which would pay 30 per cent of construction costs of the proposed $349,790 project. is thereafter answerable for having made it available to the New York weekly, the Village Voice, in the name of journalistic conscience.

Whether he or the Voice violated national law is being studied by Justice Department attorneys. Whatever happens to Schorr and the Voice, we expect nothing will, the controversy has insured the death of any lingering hope for a meaningful congressional, oversight role in monitoring the CIA and other U.S. intelligence operations. The CIA's defenders have been saying all along it is impossible to trust any congressional committee for a moment with any truly vital piece of security information, and someone has confirmed it. Some congressman or committee employe could be counted upon, whenever a particular intelligence operation violated his personal standards or ideological bent, to spread it all over the front pages of whatever journals would print it.

Given a free press, such space would not be difficult to find. As a matter of common a i a intolerable. Once a clandestine- operation or intelligence effort is. approved by whatever authority has democratically sanctioned responsibility, no person or persons should be allowed to subvert it without penalty. Put a a a decision-making by leak is no more acceptable than any other form of decision-making without accountability.

Two considerations must enter, into whatever restraints are finally voted for America's intelligence efforts. The first is that nothing should be done- which violates national law and policy or be carried out without express permission from the top. The second is that no one should be allowed to' impair national security without facing severe legal consequences. The more promiscuous of the a i leaksters are apparently hellbent on throwing' the baby out with the bathwater. What they are really doing is making the task of controlling clandestine operations and opening government up to closer scrutiny infinitely more difficult.

LURIE'S OPINION look NO LUCK WITH THE LEAK UP HERE, HENRY-- HOW'S ifWWll THERE?" Angolans want US ties WASHINGTON--The victorious communist-backed forces in Angola have sent a surprising secret message to Secretary ot State Henry Kissinger, requesting talks with the United States. In the appeal to Kissinger, the pro-Soviet MPLA leaders made the astonishing promise that they would ask Cuban and Soviet troops to leave Angola once the civil war is over. The urgent message to Kissinger was delivered to the State Department by Mark Moran. foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Tunney.

D-Calif. Moran spent eight days in the Angolan capital of Luanda talking with lop MPLA leaders. Both and Moran are a i a a communication. Although the message is quite specific, they recognize it could be an exercise in propoganda rather than genuine diplomacy. The State Department is also skeptical.

A rapprochement with the' MPLA, of course, would be an admission that the past U.S. policy toward Angola was wrong. Kissinger and Company, therefore, may be merely trying to hedge their past mistakes. Tunney feels the MPLA's offer of a detente at least is worth exploring, even if it should lead nowhere. The four-page message to Kissinger was delivered in the form of an aide memoire written by Moran, setting forth his questions and the MPLA's answers.

These are not the answers of a spokesman who can later be repudiated. They were given to Moran directly by MPlJV's Prime Minister Lopo Nascimento, Defense Minister Iko Carrera and general secretary liicio Lara. Moran told the MPLA leaders bluntly that Americans feared once the communist forces had digested Angola, they would threaten "the stability of neighboring countries such as Zaire, Zambia" and South Africa. The MPLA leaders hedged their remarks about white-dominated South Africa, but they promised not to move against Zambia and Zaire. "We will have our hands full in Angola," suggested one MPLA leader.

The Tunney aide found the Angolans seemingly willing to seek an agreement on the Gulf-run oil fields of Cabinda, which'are now in MPLA hands. They also indicated some forms of coaltion govermont was likely in Angola. Their main complaint to Moran, curiously, was not that the U.S. had provided millions in arms aid to defeat them but that the U.S. had impounded two Boeing airliners paid for by Angola.

i The U.S. has been dealing behind the scenes, meanwhile, with the hated South Africans, who backed the rival UNITA faction. Last October, Zaire's President Mobuto Sese Seko met at his home with UNlTA's Jonas Savimbi. A i American i i a probably a CIA man, was present. He promised Savimbi military aid, but no troops, through Zaire.

In December, the same mysterious American showed up with Savimbi in Zambia for a meeting with President Kenneth Kaunda. They told Kaunda that UNITA needed more assistance from South Africa. Savimbi kept referring to the mystery man as his American friend. With U.S. approval, Savimbi then flew to Pretoria for a meeting with South African officials and came back more military aid.

Nixon's sleazy 'summit' Rjchard Nixon's decision to visit China next week is a sleazy act thoroughly typical of the qualities which earned him the sobriquet Tricky Dick. It expresses once again his lifelong vendetta against the American people and their government. For the visit could have no foreign policy -besides perhaps fortifying Chinese misconceptions about relations between Russia the Western countries. But the domestic political impact is bound to weaken President Ford and promote further division in the Republican party. The starting point is the Chinese misconception.

Ever since the military skirmishing with Russia on the Sino-Soviet border, Peking has been trying to embroil the United States and its European allies in the kind of global. hostility with Moscow which marked the 1950s. To that end the Chinese keep repeating the dubious formula that the Russian military concentration in the East is only a feint to obscure a military thrust in the West. To the same end. the Chinese have consistently showered maximum honors upon Western opposition leaders whom they believe to represent the spirit of confrontation with Moscow, supposedly abandoned by government now in power.

Thus Franz-Josef Strauss, the Christian Democratic leader, was invited to Peking and treated to a visit with Mao in order to underline the views that the German government under the Socialist regime of Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt was too soft on the Russians. For the same reason, Britain's Conservative leader, Edward Heath, was given the same treatment after he was ousted from office by the Labor government of Harold Wilson. The Chinese, almost totally ignorant of the details of Watergate, have put Nixon in the Strauss-Heath class. Ever i i i a a resignation in August 1974, they have been making it known that they would like him to visit Peking and to meet again with Chairman Mao. So the invitation itself is an old story.

It is only Nixon and his contemptible flacks who connect it with the current Chinese leadership struggle. What his visit can do, however, is to give added currency to a mistaken notion that has gained widespread i i a particularly among conservative Republicans. That! Is the notion that under President SFord the United States had suddenly gone soft on the Russian, abandoned anti-Soviet forces--including China--and let detente become a "one-way street." In fact, President Ford has pried from the Russians--in the Vladivostok understanding on arms control and in the long-term grain deal--concessions Nixon never could have wrested. China and other anti-Soviet countries have tended to decline in importance because of internal divisions, weak military forces and the obvious recession of the danger of war. If there is a flagging in the American effort, it is mainly due to the suspicions of executive discretion in foreign policy engendered in the Congress by Nixon's lies about Vietnam and Watergate.

But these truths do not serve the demagogues now opposing Mr. Ford. Ronald Reagan and further down the line former Texas Gov. John Connally argue a failure of leadership. Nixon's China visit will have as its chief and only consequence the fortifying of their argument against detente.

So just as he betrayed all his colleagues in office, Nixon is now betraying the man who pardoned him. His actions can'only foster a deadlock in the Republican party between Reagan and Ford, which will serve to promote the candidacy of the man he really wanted to succeed him as President, his old hero John Connally. if The tough new question "NANCY I THIKK THEY'LL APPRECIATE HY TRADITIONAL COSTWE." Page 4 11 odd Ing Carter. Publisher Mrs. Betty W.

Carter, Publisher Tuesday, Feb. 17, 1976 Hoddlng Carter III, Editor John Gibson, General Manager Sallle Anne Gresham, Managing Editor Subscription Rales Delivery by carrier 45 weefcLy 13.75 monlh Molliubicrlplloos D1S Zone Monlh 1 3 S3.7S 300 4 3.10 5 400 6 425 4.JS I iOO Published aflernooni Monday Frkfay artd Sunday morning! by the Publlitilng Company al 9tl N. Broadway, Member of Urviled Press International whkh iJ entllled exclusively lo Inc tor rerubUcallon of all ol The local news prlnled in 'his newspaper at well 01 all UPl dispatches. All news and advertising conTent of Delta DefnocroMrmes it copyrighted end reproduction or use il pfotiiblied. Entered at a second ekm malter ol Ihe Poll Office.

Greenville, urvJer Act Ol March 1179. All carrieri, dealers ooddiitributori are independent contrackxiol Ihe Delto Democrot-Tlmei. Advance poymenl It mode ot the Telephones: 335-4561 (news); 335-1155 (business) Cleveland bureau, M6-6S46 (dews) MJss your paper? Telephone 3784761 between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday or between 7 a.m.

and noon on Sunday. 1 Mall ripl payable Rote by reoveit on icnes: 3 yeor. MANCHESTER, N.H.--A novel and encouraging element has appeared in the voters' scrutiny of the 1976 presidential candidates. For the first time that this reporter can remember, a strong consciousness seems to have developed that coping with Congress is an important ingredient of presidential leadership. The cult of personality that has enveloped the modem presidency has tended to focus attention on that office as if it were an isolated part of our political system, instead of an integral part of a governmental structure with both a legislative and executive branch.

One did not hear candidates for the White House in the 1960s, or in 1972, asked probing questions about their ability to push their programs through Congress. But that question is being raised frequently with both Democratic and Republican aspirants in 1976, and that shows a perceptiveness on the part of the public that is as welcome as it is overdue. As a pro-Reagan salesman's wife in Bow, N.H., said the other day of Mr. Ford, "He's all right, but he seems to be hogtied by Congress." That view is not without foundation. Congressional Quarterly, in its annual voting study, found Mr.

Ford's position had been sustained on fewer roll calls in 1976 than any President since Dwight Eisenhower In 1959 and the polities In David Broder Watergate-weakened Richard Nixon in 1973-74. Mr. Ford's answer to the question of coping with Congress is two-fold and contradictory. On one hand, he assails the lawmakers for irresponsibility in exceeding his budget or refusing his Angolan aid requests, and. on the other, he asserts that he can work better with them than a "stranger" to Washington like Reagan.

The voter interviewing in this state suggests that Mr. Ford is not particularly persuasive on either point. Reagan also has a two-ply answer, and it comes through more plausibly to the Republican voters. First, he says that if he is the Republican nominee, he will campaign as a "team player" for the election of more i a to Congress. acknowledging that the Democrats vill control the House and Senate, he says he will use the same tactic he in a i i a Democratic-controlled California legislature for seven of his eight years as governor: He will "go over the heads of the politicians to the people." Whether this is an adequate response is questionable.

The Congressional Quarterly studies show an increasing pattern of partisan voting in Congress--a i proportion of roll calls on which the parties took opposing stands and a greater cohesion within each party on those issues. Given Reagan's plans for radical restructuring of domestic programs, a pitched battle with Congress would seem inevitable. Nevertheless, his account of his struggle with the California legislature on state welfare and tax reform a a i a that--given his ability as a television performer--he could fulfill his promise to be "the first President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt" to focus public opinion on Congress and, as he says, "make them.fed the heat, even iT they don't see the light." What Is hopeful about his discussion is the recognition on the part of Republican voters that electing a President of their party only the start of the battle; that the game of budget-balancing and governmental reorganization will be won or lost in the halls of Congress. Robert Yoakum I was fatigued the Winter Olympics, bill, when I read about the surprise appointment ot Hua Kuo-feng as Acting Prime Minister of China, my journalistic juices began to flow. After a few days of research and reflection, I was' able to work out a scenario explaining the mysterious move.

Perhaps 1 shouldn't use tire word "explaining." As with so many news items out of China, the meaning of the bitter quarrel that I believe took place is a bit on the inscrutable side. Hua himself is so obscure that journalists don't even know whether he has a The man who failed to get the top job, Teng the 'senior Deputy Prime Minister who was'host to President Ford recently, once ridiculed people who try to figure out what's going on in China. He called them "readers of onion peels arid chicken feathers." Actually, the task of analyzing China is more trying to read cooked spinach leaves. We sometimes think 1 politicians are tough with one another, but their speeches are love sonnets compared with the''abuse Chinese politicians heap on their opponents. After studying stories of Bother conflicts in China; here is the kind of clash that I imagine taking place at the meeting of the Politburo: Yin: "Comrade teng is become Prime Minister because he has disgraced our glorious democratic i i under of.

the proletariat, must always, advance along the straight a i i a Marxism-Leninism-Mao thought." Yang: "Comrade Yin, who 'owns four bicycles, is obviously bedazzled by reactionary materialism, which feeds on the carrion of capitalist subversion. As Comrade Teng himself has said, "Towers are measured by their shadows; great men by those who speak evil of them." Yin: "The quotation that Comrade Yang attributes to Comrade Teng, is, in reality, an ancient Chinese proverb. This shows the cunning with which revisionist ideological tendencies are fomented by bourgeois bandits and othertreasonable elements." Yin: 'Rats know the way of Comrade Yang, or, as our American visitors say, 'It takes one to know The poisonous Comrade Teng strangely resembles the very enemies of the motherland against whom he pretends to wage war." Yang: "One should not speak of rats. Comrade Yin, when one is like a fly droning around a pile of stinking filth." Yin: strong man will not capitulate to the barks of a. dirty hyena, Comrade Yang, so I shall only a a co-conspirator, Comrade Teng, should insert your maggot-filled heads In the largest orifice of a smelly goat." (At this point a vote was taken and it was announced that Yang had lost the ideological dispute.

Hua Kuo-feng was then unanimously elected as a compromise candidate. Everyone a a except -Yang, i He unfortunately died in an airplane crash a few hourslater.) letters To the editor: Even the most extreme sceptics are going to have trouble ignoring the statements recently made by the Director of National Institute of Drug Abuse a Department of Health, Education and Welfare's i annual report to Congress on marijuana and health. The N1DA has overseen and reviewed over eight years and twenty million dollars worth of research on the effects of marijuana on one's health. Speaking at a press conference last Thursday, Doctor Robert L. 'Dupont stated "There is no question that alcohol and tobacco are causing us far more health problems than marijuana does." He went on to say "young persons are most likely to take up alcohol and tobacco first, and move on to marijuana than the other way around." All the pros and cons have evidently beep weighed by the N1DA, including the brain damage studies done on monkeys in Tulane University, and the studies showing no damage on humans in Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Greece recently.

Doctor Dupont stated that heavy marijuana use can cause respiratory problems and driving under i i operating industrial equipment are ill advised acts, but marijuana lacks the life threatening overdose threat that is associated with alcohol, and lacks the health consequences that is associated with the use of Doctor Dupont also advocated doing away with jail penalties for marijuana users. He said "We do not have to a i imprisonment to discourage use of marijuana." It's time for the Mississippi Legislature to take note of these findings, and re-write the laws regarding possession of small amounts of a i a a We agree i Governor Finch's program to lock the heroin pushers up for good, but let's quit wasting our time busting kids for possession of marijuana. Every year we wait another half a million young Americans are given a permanent criminal record. It's time to stop. Douglas A.

Tims, State Coordinator Mississippi Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.