Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 4

Impact Is Tallahassee democrat John M. Tapers Publisher William M. Managing Published Daily at 277 N. Magnolia Tallahassee, Florida 32302 1 1 4A July 27, Kennedy's Talk Didn't Cover Up the Cover-up By MALCOLM B. JOHNSON Believe every single word in Sen.

Edward Kennedy's TV statement about the Defenses Are Wrong Fire 1ledocre Teachers Phillips Editor Malcolm B. Johnson Editor ne sim aoesn cover up the cover-up. followed his "instructions" and told nothine even to others in their earlier party after he left them standing on the beach as he impulsively and dangerously swam to the other shore for a change of clothes and a period of soul-searching. If he were still in a state of shock when he plunged into the water and almost drowned, why did they let him go alone? If he wasn't, what can he say except "indefensible" to his failure to report the accident to the proper authorities when he reached the other bank? The inescapable conclusion, then, is that the three of them and who knows how many of the others spent the rest of the night tidying up for the scandal that was sure to break along with dawn. Let someone else find Miss Kopechne.

A Splendid Show This abandonment of a dedicated disciple of the Kennedys may not strain the idealism of others who serve and sanctify the clan, but it is likely to erase much sympathy from the minds of those who sit back and think on this one politically pertinent critique of the case. The Senator on television Friday night presented a splendid performance no doubt utterly sincere of contriteness and penance, with a decent show of chivalry for the good name of Miss Kopechne. He seemed to be more mature, more his own man, more forceful a personality than we have seen in him before. Indeed, he seemed to speak with more appeal than either of his brothers before him. In delivery, it must rank with one of the better of its kind.

And his implied offer to resign if the people indicated that's what they want was a wise and proper course for a man caught in his predicament. Even some of us who have not been admirers of the Kennedys could come close to sympathizing with him in his despair and be willing to let the case against him rest where the court put it guilty as charged, with sentence suspended. If he had only left those two lawyer friends out of it, and claimed he had lost his head for nine hours until he came to on his own, we would have been prepared to assent if the people of Massachusetts responded: "We still want you to be our Senator, Teddy!" Political Tragedy First But the implied confession of cover-up by Kennedy, and Markham and Gargan who undoubtedly will back his story, is too much to swallow for most of us who may be asked sometime to vote for him for President. He has not been as candid with us as a candidate for President should be. And the cover-up was not confined just to that tragic night.

It continues to this day. There is no validity to the Senator's explanation that he remained silent a week because his case was before the court and it therefore was improper for him to discuss it. Nothing was before the court all that time except the gaps which only Kennedy, or tedious detective work, could fill. He could have told his story any time he preferred as he finally did, on his own impulse, several days before the docket called for it. He told us nothing on the evening of Friday, July 25, that he could not have told us and should have early on the morning of Saturday, July 19.

The plain implication of it all is that the political tragedy was weighing at least as heavily on their minds as the personal tragedy, and they needed time to calculate, if not to contrive, the best way out. By their judgment of the priorities to apply let the people judge the Senator's qualifications for continuance and advancement in American politics. jwcLimc uiuwiuug yuu wm ana It onlv amDlifies the fart that this asnirant leader of our nation (and, later, two friends in full possession of their faculties) left that young woman under water for nine hours until others discovered her while they reckoned the political consequences tor tne senator. Agree that they tried desperately to save her; but (again in deference to the politics of it) they chose their own amateurish efforts in preference to calling experts at saving and reviving lives who were at hand, available through nearby telephones. Johnson it is for this apparent placement of politics above conscience, under stress, that the people of Massachusetts and all America are entitled to judge the public future of the last of the Kennedys.

He has invited that judgment. The Senator has satisfied his obligation to the law of Massachusetts by pleading guilty to the statutory charge of leaving the scene of an accident, and by receiving the minimum penalty for the crime within the judgment of the court. There is no other charge against him in the courts, and there is not likely to be because none is indicated in any evidence that has been disclosed by private or public investigators. Nobody believes the Kennedy car was driven off that bridge deliberately. We have seen no reputable evidence of intoxication of either party, nor of reckless driving.

So, as far as the law is concerned, the case is closed. The investigation is complete. The Other Court Not so in the court of public opinion. There, too, the Senator entered his plea of "indefensible" to his failure to report the accident and threw himself on the mercy of popular judgment Let us, then, overlook all rumors and suspicions about what happened up to the moment his automobile left the bridge and overturned in the water. The Senator got out.

His passenger didn't It is fully understandable that he was in an irrational state immediately afterwards overcome, as he said, by "a genuine emotion, panic and shock." Any of us might have been. What he doesn't tell us is how long it continued before he gave up diving into the water and walked past other inhabited houses to get his friends, Paul Markham and Joseph Gargan, who took up the diving. They must remember, if he doesn't. And this is where the whole Kennedy story must face the test of whether they were more inspired to save the Kennedy political future or continue trying to find that young woman's body even though it seemed to them hopeless resuscitation. Sen.

Ted Kennedy may have stayed in an irresponsible state of emotion, panic and shock for all those hours until he got dried out, dressed, called Miss Kopechne's parents and finally walked into the police station to report an accident he apparently already was aware they knew about. Tidying Up But it is hard to believe his friends, who had not been in any accident, were too shocked to report it nor ignorant of his legal obligation to do it. Both of them are lawyers, one a former U. S. District Attorney.

Of course, the law of Massachusetts doesn't require them to report somebody else's accident. But a paramount concern for the spirit of the law and their friend's plain obligation to it would dictate at least advising him in his distraught condition to do what the law required. Instead, according to the Senator, they Green and Grassy These NEA standards, upon examination, boil down to five years of college and three years of teaching experience. Apparently the association believes that every teacher who has served his stint in college and who has been able to get some school to hire him three times is going to be good enough so that he will never need to be fired. Tommyrot.

4 Argument Filthy Lucre Just as Dr. Johnson described patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, so do the teacher organizations seek sanctuary in lack of money every time someone criticizes their output. It's a regular knee-jerk reflex, as monotonously predictable as the aroma of pot in a hippie pad. Mr. Selden says it with magnificent irrelevance: "As long- as teachers are underpaid and overworked, school systems cannot be selective." In other words, "If we had plenty of money, there would be no problem attached to the firing of teachers." AS I VIEW the battlefield now that the smoke has cleared, Mr.

Brown is camped in sole possession of it. Very, very seldom is it that I agree with the Ford Foundation about anything except the weather. This is one of those times. And as for letting the kids in on the teacher-evaluation process, why not get their opinions? After all, they're the ones in the best position to know how good a teacher is. Speaking personally, if my pupils had been convinced back in my classroom days that I was a crummy teacher and had said so, I would have found another occupation in a hurry.

Like maybe being a newspaper columnist. Fortunately nobody ever criticizes him. Too Great For Family BY ART BUCHWALD WASHTNGTONThe impact of Apollo 11 will be with us for the rest of our lives. Probably no one has been more affected by it than our children. In my family, for example, the children now refer to their mother as Mission Control.

One girl is Eagle, the other girl is Columbia and the boy has taken the name Tranquility Base. This is how the conversation has been going on the house intercom system since the flight: "Hello, Eagle. This is Mission Control. You still haven't made your bed." "Roger, Mission Control. I seem to be having some trouble with my hi-fi record machine.

Can you advise me if I can play it manually?" "Affirmative, Eagle. But do not repeat do not turn on your hi-fi machine until you have made your bed." "You're coming in loud and clear, Mission Control. I'll make the bed after breakfast" Buchwald "I said to make it now. You're programmed to make your bed and then eat breakfast. By the way, I seem to be having trouble communicating with Tranquility Base.

Could you check and see if he is out of bed?" "Hello, Mission Control. This is Eagle. Have made contact with Tranquility Base, but he says he doesn't want to get up. He told me to blast off." "EAGLE, THIS IS Mission Control. Inform him that if he doesn't get out of bed this minute his father will be up there and fire off several rockets south of his equator." "OK, Mission Control, I read you." "Mission Control, this is Columbia.

Eagle has stolen my only clean pair of stockings." "Columbia, this is Mission Control. Let me speak to Eagle. Hello, Eagle. This is Mission Control. Did you really take Columbia's only pair of clean stockings?" "Roger, Mission Control.

But she took my only clean pair yesterday. Why should I give her back hers today?" "Because, Eagle, Mission Control says you should. I will try to find you a clean pair in the laundry. Now, tell Columbia I want her down to breakfast right away." "Mission Control, this is Columbia. Eagle just socked me in the eye." "Eagle, I told you to give her her socks and leave her alone." "You always take her side, Mission Control." "That will be enough of that, Eagle.

Did you manage to get Tranquility Base up? I still am unable to make contact with him. Tell him to start communicating immediately." "MISSION CONTROL, this is Tranquility Base. What's all the excitement about?" "I want you to brush your teeth, make your bed and come down for breakfast. Is that asking too much?" "OK, Mission Control, OK." "And you're going to get a haircut today, too." "What for?" "Because I'm not going to have an astronaut of mine walking around like a zombie." "Are you finished, Mission Control?" "No, the President wants to speak to you." I talked into the speaker. "I want you to know how proud I am of each and every one of you, and for the fantastic contribution you have made to all mankind.

Now, you've got 10 seconds to get your tails down here for a breakfast landing: nine eight seven six five four three I LETTERS to the EDITOR Our work toward improvement apparently has been productive we did have a definite increase in participation by the pupils from the first of the year to the last from less than 3,000 per day at the beginning of the year to about 5,000 daily at the end of the year. We'll be doing the same things when school gets underway in September. We invite the adult public, incidentally, to daily confront the fare which their children eat. Beginning with the new school year we'll have a public dining room at the central kitchen (3403 Tharpe St.) where parents and other interested adults can come unannounced to eat what the school students are eating that day. We need the help of everyone in making the lunches from the central kitchen as good as they can be.

F. W. ASHMORE Superintendent of Schools Sfaff Stuff TV newscaster missed the word rnunt uhpn he said Senator Kennedy had disposed of the court against him "in two words guilty." ed Those light poles painted gray alongside the new Magnolia Drive widening project are going to improve the landscape. Much less obvious than the old treated black ones. mj Common reaction to the moon voyage: "I can't make one gadget work.

How can all the gadgets in those space vehicles be made to work?" gw By DR. MAX RAFFERTY Even in our brave new world of dropped-out and drugged disinhibition, there are certain things which just aren't done. Chet simply doesn't argue with David. Liz simply doesn't two-time Richard. Eldridge simply doesn't pay for his own bail bonds.

Uncle Sam simply doesn't balance the budget. Hollywood simply doesn't censor its own filth. And so on. But recently a Ford Foundation official has done the unthinkable and has spoken the unsDeakable. Dr.

Curies Brown has actually Rafferty dared to suggest that "mediocre" teachers be fired, and that students have a hand in firing them. To render the blasphemy even more hair-raising, he came right out and criticized the nation's teacher associations for "protecting mediocrity." Brown, formerly a teacher and superintendent and presently the foundation's program officer, blasted his profession for not taking seriously its oft-announced intention to control its own quality: "As evidence, I offer the situation in New York City, where out of a teaching staff of about 50,000 men and women, one almost never hears of a teacher being dismissed because he is not a good teacher." He wound up accusing teacher associations of being "much more interested in protecting mediocrity than they are in ridding their ranks of people who simply should not be teaching," and contending that school children themselves should have a say in whatever firing might occur. THE ENORMITY of this heresy is reflected in the anguished asininity of the profession's reply to Brown's barrage. The counterarguments may be classified roughly as follows: 1 Argument Ad Hominem The riposte here is the old tried-and-true personal insult. David Selden, president of the AFL-CIO Teachers' Union, answered Brown's charges by attacking Brown: "He spoke like a true school superintendent and a program officer." How's that for a crushing rebuttal? 2 Argument Non Sequitur "The problem is not with the firing procedures," declaimed Mr.

Selden, "It's with the hiring procedures." The assumption here, and it's hardly worth pinpointing, is that if a governmental unit or a private business improves its hiring techniques, it will never have to fire anybody. This has to be one of the most witless, vacuous and downright mentally defective blatherings I've encountered in a lifetime spent tracking down similar imbecilities. 3 Argument Ground-Shifting The National Education Assn. took a somewhat loftier position. It washed its hands while simultaneously wringing them, a neat trick if you've never tried it.

''The teaching profession itself does not hire teachers," its spokesman explained oleaginously, "and some states just don't meet our high standards." GRAFFITI by Leary nP'ih Lm LJ As Our Readers See It He Is a Poor Examole The Secrets They DO Keep THE MEXICANS were the first to smoke Marijuana. The low class Mexicans would get "high" on "pot" then go out and shoot or knife someone This was before these "college kids" were born. I refer to the "low class" because no self-respecting Mexican would touch the stuff. 1 can't quite understand a person whose mind is so blank that they have to alter it with drugs to really get an idea that they are alive. But then I don't understand the man who goes out, gets drunk, goes home and beats up his wife and kids! Are they really so different? What a poor example of manhood! CLIFTON EDWARDS BETTER LUNCHES ROGERS HARLAN'S letter in Saturday's paper about the satellite lunch system in Leon County is so well written and impactful that you can well imagine the concern I feel.

From an administrative standpoint, it is the function of the Leon County School System to serve students a Type A lunch at least possible cost. The key word here is "serve" the lunches must be eaten for the system to be fiscally sound. The food therefore must be something the pupils want. So aside from my personal wish that our children enjoy their school lunches it is essential for the success of the program that they like them well enough to buy. The central kitchen-satellite school system has operated in Leon County one school year only.

We started off with some crippling problems and battled throughout the school year with some problems that tend to make the lunches less palatable. I do want Leon County parents to know, however, that improvement of the system is a definite, specific goal and that we have definite, specific procedures to make the lunches better. One of these is having outside people not in the school system and with no tendency to tell us only what we want to know eating regularly at the satellite schools and telling us what they don't like. By MIKE BEAUDOIN Recently a questionnaire asking all sorts of personal questions of Florida State University freshmen caused quite a furor. There were those non-trusting souls who felt this was an invasion of their privacy.

Not at all. In fact the questionnaire was an excellent educational tool which will certainly better prepare the students for life in this cold, cruel world. There just isn't any such thing as secrecy or privacy I anymore. Suppose, for instance, one of these protesting students gets out of college and decides to buy a car. When he makes application for a loan he'll hava In toll all innlnHintr Vina' I many false teeth he has and all about that incident when' he was seven years old and A got caught riding his scooter -Job down a one way sidewalk.

If he tries to get a loan at the bank or establish credit at a department store, he'll have to tell them exactly how much money he makes, how much he owes and who he owes it to. And how about buying some life insurance? 5 r-C1 In addition to your blood pressure and financial status, they'll want to know whether you ever climb mountains, ride the merry-go-round or attend Go-Go-Girl shows. And just wait until the census taker gets ahold of him. He wants to know which side you sleep on, whether you like bright colored underwear and which side your great granddaddy fought on during the Civil War. Sorry, students, but you might as well forget privacy or secrets, that is, unless you are a girl student! Contrary to popular belief, women can keep secrets better than men.

Women have a reputation of being bigger talkers than men, and they are, but when it comes to keeping the right kind of information confidential they have the men beat. Ask a woman her age, for instance, and unless she's between 18 and 22 you'll never find out the correct answer. Ditto for how much she weighs or what size dress or shoe she wears. Recently a young boy who had heard tales of women not being able to keep secrets asked his dad, "Is it possible for a woman to keep a secret?" Dad quickly replied, "Oh, yes, Your mother and I were engaged for six weeks before she said anything to me about it." make 1 Mb.