Fort Lauderdale News from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 14

14A Fort Lauderdale News, Friday, April 27, 1979 Carter Ponders The Question out Lauderdale News Rhodesia Standi May Be Near Published By CORE NEWSPAPERS COMPANY 11 Hmm Rivor Driv Int, Fort LauBordolo, 11M1 Circulation. 741-4414; CUWIM, 74l-4lll OrhOT William Raspberry Milton J. Kelly Editor F. P. Pettijohn Editorial Director Byron C.

Campbell President And General Manager IT OUR OPINION For the United States and, so far, the United Kingdom, "free elections' has meant not just nonf raudulent voting but a fair electoral process, in which both government loyalists and the guerrillas had a significant role. The rationale for the U.S. position is that, without the participation of the Patriotic Front, the war will continue, rendering meaningless the outcome of last week's elections. Randall Robinson, head of the pro-Africa lobby organization Trans-Africa, fears that unless President Carter reaches a quick decision to continue the sanctions, and then goes public with a full explanation of that decision, the results will be catastrophic. "If one looks at this strictly from the U.S.

interest point of view," said Robinson, "South Africa has already moved to block in southern Africa. They're really pulling back into the lager now, providing the strongest support militarily and materially for Rhodesia, so that you get the white redoubt solidified. "If the United States lifts the sanctions now, it means that we come down squarely into the camp with South Africa, Namibia and Rhodesia. On the other side, you have all of (black) Africa and the Third World. The invitation, then, to the Cubans and the Russians is clear, because the likelihood then is that the war will expand, with the United States on the wrong side." The William Raspberry column appears on the editorial pages on Friday.

WASHINGTON Members of the Carter administration were huddling this week to try to figure out what to do about Rhodesia in the wake of last week's elections there. So far, the administration has plied a neutral, temporizing course between parties to the "internal settlement" and the "Patriotic Front," focusing its efforts on containing the continuing civil war. The pressure to make a move, in one direction or another, is greatly intensified as a result of the elections, which reportedly saw the participation of nearly two-thirds of the country's black citizens. Until now, most of the pressure for a forthright stand had come from congressional conservatives, led by Sens. Jesse Helms, S.I.

Hay-akawa and others, who were pushing for a lifting of international sanctions against Rhodesia. To that pressure is now added the pressure of events. And there is more to come. If the British elections, set for May 3, produce a Conservative victory, it is a fair bet that Britain will move to lift the sanctions, leaving the United States as the lone major holdout in the West. The administration was scrambling this week to reach some policy decision before the British results are in.

The United States had avoided sanctioning last week's elections, even to the point of refraining from sending observers to see whether the elections were carried out fairly. The reason: The new constitution tinder which the elections were carried out was so stacked (an automatic reserve of 28 percent of the parliamentary seats and control of the military, the police, the civil service and the judiciary for whites, who constitute less than 4 percent of the population) that the election outcome, no matter the level or ostensible fairness of the voting, could hardly be called a free election. The wisdom of the administration's course would have been manifest if there had been a low turnout among black voters. But with an estimated 63 percent of the blacks going to the polls, black Rhodesians themselves appear to have endorsed the electoral process. (The Rev.

Ndabaningi Sithole, who lost his bid to become the country's first black prime minister, charged Monday that there were "gross irregularities" in the elections and said his party would "consider the results as not being the verdict of the people." of those irregularities," he said, "these elections will not solve the problems they were designed to solve. Only a completely free election will achieve that LETTERS to the editor Foreign rp Test Carter Should Ask States To Draft Energy Savings Plan PRESIDENT CARTER has lost several energy battles this week, but his defeats are a major victory for the people of Florida and other states with tourist-oriented economies. The House Commerce Committee tossed out most of Carter's suggestions for energy conservation, the most meaningful for Floridians being the rejection of his request for authority to order the weekend closings of gasoline stations. Lt. Gov.

Wayne Mixson last month told a Senate subcommittee in Washington that the proposed ban on weekend gasoline sales from Friday noon to Sunday midnight would take $100 million from Florida's economy and wipe out 29,000 jobs in the state. Officials from Florida and other tourist-oriented states had pointed out that the Energy Production and Conservation Act of 1975 under which Carter submitted his standby conservation suggestions to Congress specifies that "no measures should impose an undue hardship on any sector of the economy." The Commerce Committee obviously agreed that Carter's plan took too great a toll on the economies of certain states. But the victory of those states will be short-lived if meaningful energy conservation measures are not found. The Commerce Committee told Carter he could order thermostats in non-residential commercial buildings and public buildings set at 65 degrees in the winter and 80 degrees in the summer. Clearly, that isn't going to bring about enough energy savings.

There is speculation that the Carter administration will try to get the full House to overturn the Commerce Committee's actions. But that wouldn't be wise the committee's actions were just. Instead, Carter should do what the coalition of tourist-oriented states suggested and what the Commerce Committee evidently supports. The White House should ask each state to draft their own plans for conserving energy. That is undoubtedly the best way to have every American share in the sacrifices that will be needed to save energy.

Rules For Shah Must Be Considered Now THERE APPEARS to be some sentiment growing in Washington for the notion that the United States should offer sanctuary to the Shah of Iran. He was a despot, the reasoning goes, but he was our despot. He stuck up for the United States when things ELECTIONS I 1 nwm jim mm Great Purposes, Good Times Striking Strikers Slapped Supporters I have been an avid Striker fan since their first game. We only had 5,000 people there and the Strikers need 15,000 to break even. For three years, we have struggled to build a team and gain fans.

We are getting 14,000 people and what happens the players decided to follow a person that has- nothing to lose and everything to gain. I really feel sorry for the team. I know everybody in the stadium that night loved that team and could not believe this was happening. I think the players who were in that game did a super job and played their hearts out. The players who striked have set back soccer three years in Fort Lauderdale.

The fans have been slapped in the face- Vincent Jelicks Fort Lauderdale Article Saved Life Some time ago your paper published an article by someone (I owe my life to the party) about choking and what one could do. You read it, but unless you have reason to try it, you may not believe it. Recently I started to choke on some sweet syrup. I was alone, and was losing consciousness. I remembered the article said "If you are alone, bend over a kitchen chair pressing with all your strength." It worked.

The liquid ran out of my throat and I was able to breathe. There is another method if you have help. But this is for one alone, as I am. I know if I hadn't read and remembered, I would not be here to write this. As you literally stop breathing you don't have time to experiment and speed is essential.

Don't panic, act. I want to thank your paper and whoever wrote the artc'e- Ruth Pennman Fort Lauderdale Discharge DOT Blunderers Like most other Broward residents, I was astonished to learn the other day that a major portion of the county's urgently needed highways are now in serious jeopardy because the Department of Transportation made a $56 million "error." If the report is true and I have seen nothing to contradict it I think it demonstrates an inexcusable and outrageous example of administrative incompetence. All of those who are responsible for this kind of "sabotage" to the development and welfare of the county should be immediately dishonorably discharged and I have written to Gov. Graham, (and our legislators), urging him to take such action before they perpetrate more disasters. Earl Lifshey Fort Lauderdale Fifty Years Of Surviving In The American Century Smith Hempstone got tougn in tne Middle East.

The White House, which has insisted, in so many words, mat it doesn't need the hassle, has been pressured now into saying. 1 i rit i I inai it win give me anan a visa when it normalizes relationships with whoever's running Iran for the moment. Perhaps that is the humane and decent thing to do. But con- WASHINGTON Turning SO is supposed to be one of those landmark moments, a watershed in one's life. Having survived for half a century the riptides and whirlpools of life, one is supposed to have slipped into more placid psychological waters, to be able to view the world and one's self with a degree of objectivity and detachment absent in one's more tumultuous years.

Maybe. But having climbed this mountain the other day, I'm not so sure. I feel a little older, but not much wiser. I do note they're building the stairs a little steeper these days, and the print in the telephone book is smaller. My guns spend more time in the rack the dogs complain about that and my skis are used less frequently.

Winters seem colder, and martinis stronger. One has been condemned, as the Chinese say, to live in interesting times. Which means there has been an infinite opportunity to get one's fool head blown off. My age-group came of age as World War II was ending. We lost a few of our more adventurous spirits in that conflict, more in Korea and a sprinkling in Vietnam.

Some came back broken in body, others in spirit. Most of us just came back, aged a little by what we had seen and done, and took up again the strands of our several lives. For a time, the bond of our war made us brothers. But then we drifted apart. We remet the girls we had left behind, miraculously grown into women, married and set about the pursuit what? The usual things, one supposes: fame and fortune, power and privilege, service and self.

All things seemed possible. The stage upon which it was our destiny to play our little walk-on parts was a mighty one, compassing the whole world's spinning orb. For our time was the kernel of what historians one day will call the American Century: it began with the fall of Havana in 1898 and ended with the fall of Saigon in 197S. In those days, there were giants in the earth, and American ideals and American Lj sider these problems. Suppose few' the Shah decided to join the number of affluent Iranians who The Shah Of Iran It is most difficult in have settled in Sea Ranch Lakes.

power reached into the farthest corners of the globe. We tried to do good and, if we failed, we did better than most. If we learned anything along the way, it must be that the difference between success and failure, however gauged, is slight. Life is a business of narrow margins, a game of inches, and it's better to be lucky than smart. We were fortunate in having anteceded both the drug culture and the chic of vertical polygamy.

While tobacco, booze and stress took their toll among us, few of us really addled our brains and most of us have lived out our lives, for better or for worse, with the partners we chose for this difficult journey. While most of us pursued more or less prosaic paths, managing to avoid either great success or terrible failure, some of those with whom I grew up have led singular lives. One has been on the far side of the moon. Another is president of a vast publishing empire. A third is a U.S.

senator. A fourth is in a mental home. None, as yet, has gone to jail. Ours may have been the last generation that believed it could change the world. Now the ideal seems to be to endure it, to be, as they say, laid-back and mellow.

Perhaps that's wiser. But Malcolm Cowley, who at 80 knows something about success and failure, has this to say (in his book, "And I Worked at the Writer's about the striving of generations: "Every age group is doomed to disaster, or at least to defeat in terms of its aspirations, when these are measured against its actual way of life. Some groups are defeated sooner than others, for more predictable reasons, but each in the end reveals some fatal overemphasis, some flaw in calculation, some failure to cope with historical events; or else it will be destroyed by the simple passage of time. The rabbits are eaten by foxes. The foxes die of the mange.

"There comes a morning when the survivors grope among the wreckage, as after a tidal wave, and learned that their world has been swept away with, among other rewards and penalties for being honest, and its fine gradations of respect. A fortunate one whose defeat is palliated by a few lasting achievements, and perhaps by the memory of great purposes and good times." Great purposes, good times and a few lasting achievements. We have had those in full measure and, God willing, may have a few more before the last of the foxes, whichever among us he may be, dies of the mange. And if as the song says, that's all there is, why it ought to be enough. The Smith Hempstone column appears on the editorial pages on Wednesday and Friday.

a democracy to prohibit problems such as picketing and sightseeing that would disrupt the daily life of Sea Ranch Lakes. Without the benefits of SAVAK, it would be difficult to head off plots against the Shah's safety or against those who have contact with him. And who would pick up the bill which would runs into millions of dollars annually for providing the extra security? The questions can't wait much longer. Not only is there a escalation of pressure from the Shah's business and congressional friends, but the Bahamians would appreciate his speedy relocation. It is getting past time for the White House to talk turkey with the Shah about where he could live with minimal disruption to his neighbors and what kind of contribution he would make toward ensuring his own safety within the constraints of democratic law.

One can make a number of concessions for a house guest, but those concessions would be untenable to make when the guest wants to be a permanent Oil Industry Greedy Oil. Our most vital industry, yet the one that with unconscionable selfishness whiplashes the American public. Sen. Henry Jackson, on TV, summarizes it in one word: Greed. In the Eisenhower administration, when Arab oil was discovered, the industry went to Ike, got him to put a 1 percent quota on Middle East oil to "keep this cheap Arab oil from flooding the country." When the big internationals sobered up and realized that the 20 cents a barrel production cost was a bonanza, they got succeeding administrations to increase the quota.

Nixon abolished it entirely. OPEC was started, when the height of foreign flush production, the seven sisters, the big multinationals, tried to chisel down the low price they were paying. Greed. The oil giants do most of their business abroad. Exxon's business is only 26 percent domestic.

They get more for their oil in other countries than they do here. The world price is subdivided so much for the oil, so much for the royalties paid to producing countries, the larger proportion. Royalties paid are tax deductible in the United States, a sweetheart arrangement. For some years American oil production has been deliberately curtailed. There are thousands of plugged wells.

Now that Jimmy Carter has given them the price relief they wanted they will stop throttling the American public and start producing again. Greed. Schlesinger never stopped plugging $1 gasoline. Once he said it would go to $2. Oil companies should tell him: "Well done, good and faithful servant." The lobbyists will continue to control things in Washington.

Syndicated colunists will preach the oil company gospel. Even "citizens" will write about oil company problems. One correspondent recently mentioned refineries. There hasn't been a single oil refinery built in the United States in the past six years. It's cheaper to refine abroad.

William R. Keevers Fort Lauderdale FORT LAU0EROALI NtWl lUICi MM Circulation! HI-4414; ClaurfM: 74MIII; Othar Doaart. 741-4000 Port laudardala Nawt auMlinad ovary wuhnay tftarran Monday ftirouan Friday Fori Laudordaia, Fla. (Fort UudordaM Nam and Sun-Sanrlnol auMlvhod Saturday and lunclay mornam). Tha Nam ButaNna, IM N.

Now a. Ivor Drlvo loot, Cadi MM. taanj-dau annrn aaM at Fort Laudardalt. Make Broward Green SUBSCRIPTION RATE! (ly Carrlar) Dally a Saturday Sunday Sunday I Woak I.I) 11 WaaM It IM Wi JT It. It WooM m.n M.40 FORT LAUDERDALE'S Plant Affair offers people an excellent chance to be good to themselves this weekend and to their environment.

The event features a mammoth plant sale with some million worth of plants and trees available at ii scmnt prices and a lot of free entertainment. Some 180,000 persons are expected to take advantage tomorrow and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both da vs. -ole who do go and enjoy themselves should take a rd plant it.

SUBSCRIPTION RATES (By Mall) U.S. and POSSESSIONS Daily Sunday I Wo I.W II VraoM n.n Ml 41 JO IIDMa tl.N The News welcomes letters to the editor. They should be concise, typed if possible and are subject to condensation. They must include signature, valid mailing address and telephone number, if any. Pseudonyms and initials will not he used.

Because of the large volume of mail, unpublished letters cannot be acknowledged. Utters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, Fort Lauderdale News, 101 North New River Drive East, Fort Lauderdale, 33302. Sunday omy S. 4 SO 11.0 MM Mall tuMcrlpNon aoyahlo advanc. Mamnar af Audit Suraau al Circulation.