The Courier from Waterloo, Iowa • 28

'-r jr- J. ty Wednesday May 11, 1983 D-4 Uloterloo (Courier km AvH-HAl HERE'S THE PROBLEM! Cut big benefits for ex-presidents lM Ceaiey News Semes Vr-WI Va i JSb. MONEY? jS. flw' rTjfvTj j's Courier editorial i i n.i...- A World law movement is revived By PAT ORVIS (c) Chlcajjo Sun-Times UNITED NATIONS World Legislative Bill Number One, declared a news release that crossed my desk last fall, has been enacted into "world law" by the Provisional World Parliament. The act outlaws nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass death and destruction and creates a "world disarmament agency." The World Media Association, in a more recent letter, invited me to apply for a "global press card." Not since the "world federalist" and "world citizens" movements that followed World War II have so many voices called for world citizenship and an end to the man-made barriers that separate peoples.

"World" movements of the 1940s 1 PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION PROGRAM r-i iU fti'x UUl jfU.U hhri XZZA iMmmjmm a raw mm Political scene WE DON'T think that anyone would disagree with the thesis that we owe a debt of gratitude to the men who have served as President of the United States. That goes without saying because it is probably the hardest job in the world. Yet a survey by U.S. News and World Report gives the strong impression that we are overdoing it. The cost of the three living ex-presidents and the libraries of seven former White House residents is now costing the government more than $26 million per year.

Each of the three ex-presidents gets a pension of 70,000 per year. Because of his long tenure in the House and military service, Gerald Ford gets about $100,000 per year from the government. Jimmy Carter has been getting about $150,000 per year which will drop to $96,000 in July because thirty months of transition period have gone by. SOME LEGAL but exotic expenditures have been paid by the government, like $4.99 to wash one of Gerald Ford's cars. Then there was $500 to open one of Richard Nixon's cabinets after the key was lost.

Carter charged $12,000 to pay for an Oriental style rug for his office. It is a far cry from the time of Harry Truman. When Truman left the White House he was so short of cash that he had to drive himself back to Missouri. Presidential commemorative libraries cost $14 million per year. There are now seven of them.

Costs range from $806,000 this year for the Price-fixing law is hazy Herbert Hoover Library to $2,073,800 for the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Tex. And another one is to be built this year for Richard Nixon, probably in San Gemente, Calif. We think we have more than enough libraries now and that they are a bit of an ego trip. THE COST of Secret Service protection for former presidents and their families has risen from $49,507 in 1964 to $12,074,720 this year.

That, of course, includes the widow of President John F. Kennedy and his children. Ford's office budget for this year is $249,000, plus $55,698 for an office next to his home near the 13th hole of the Thunderbird Golf Club in Palm Springs. Nixon spent $236,902 for office expenses last year. Sen.

Lawton Chile. of Florida, a critic of the spending, has introduced a bill to reduce it over a period of years. It would be heartening if the ex-presidents would come out in support of this bill. But maybe that's too much to expect. All three of these men has wealth of their own.

Ford has accumulated some by his writings, as has Nixon, who also earned money on TV. Carter was moderately wealthy when he took office. Bob Case DES MOINES For the life of me, I can't understand the logic of those who want to retain in the Iowa Code the unfair Cigarette Sales Act of 1949. Believe me, I've tried, because there are lawmakers for whom I have the highest regard who support the law. It's the statute which provides a built-in profit for cigarette dealers.

Not another law on the books tells a wholesaler or retailer he must charge a certain minimum price for a product or subject himself to a possible 30 days in jail and a $100 fine. Thanks to a maverick senator from Waterloo, Dick Comito, the impact of the law was partially blunted two years ago by removal of the state cigarette tax from the formula used to determine the minimum legal price of cigarettes at the wholesale and retail levels. Lobbyists for the tobacco industry have been fuming ever since, and at the same time they have been working quietly to get the so-called Comito amendment repealed. Well, they got the Senate to go along with the special interest deal last week, and they're expressing confidence the House will do the same thing this week. And it's a "must-do" bill to which they got their repealing amendment attached.

It makes permanent the 18 cents per pack tax on cigarettes. Without legislative action, the tax will revert to 13 cents on July 1 and that would cost the state treasury an estimated $17.5 million a year. It will put Gov. Terry Branstad in a real bind, because he knows the treasury can't stand that kind of a hit. It means he probably would sign the bill, regardless of what he thinks about price-fixing.

Again, let me emphasize I've tried my best to understand the logic of those who voted to return to full price- on so he will be in a position to accurately report the proceedings. But reporters aren't the only ones generally in the dark during the closing days of a session. Even members of the Legislature, outside the top leaders, will tell you they're in the dark, too. There is a very real danger involved in the "hurry-up" procedures used during the mad dash toward adjournment of a legislative body. There is no time for anyone to study the final versions of bills as they should be studied.

As a result, there is the possibility that bad bills will make their way through the Legislature. There is one important safeguard-the ability of a governor to veto legislation. Our founding fathers were mighty wise when they decided there ought to be such a safeguard. Special elections A while back a newspaper columnist speculated about the prospect of special Iowa Senate elections due to illnesses of three sitting Republicans. He mentioned Sens.

Merlin Hulse of Clarence, Jensen and Tom Lind of Waterloo. Lind, in his first year in the Senate after five years in the House, has been absent most of the session. Hulse was gone only briefly after being hospitalized. As for Jensen, he had double heart bypass surgery, but amazed his colleagues by the quickness cf his recovery and his return to the Senate. Jensen, 57, on one of his first days back and after he had read the speculation about the possibility of a special election in the district he represents, told his colleagues: "Up in Northeast Iowa, when we put new plumbing in an old house it's good for another 50 years.

"I plan to be around for another 50 years, too!" the public speaks He has memories of Waterloo depot fixing on a product foreign to Iowa and which the U.S. surgeon general tells us is dangerous to our health. Perhaps it would have helped me understand the logic had more senators stood up and explained why they planned to vote for price-fixing. Most of them remained silent during the debate. Now if any of those Northeast Iowa senators who voted for repeal of the Comito amendment want to step forward with an explanation, their views will be made known in a future column.

For the record, the invitation is extended to Sens. Ted Anderson, D-Waterloo; Art Gratias, R-Nora Springs; Emil Husak, D-Toledo; John Jensen, R-Plainfield; and Dale Tieden, R-Elkader. Wheeling, dealing Most signs appear to point toward adjournment of the 1983 regular session of the 70th Iowa General Assembly this week. But a word of warning to those who believe Iowans aren't safe when the Legislature is in session: You can't declare anything as a certainty in the Legislature. As lawmakers push for adjournment, there will be all kinds of wheeling and dealing by legislative leaders behind the scenes.

The leaders always figure such maneuvering is necessary to bring an annual session to an end and I suspect they are right. But it's enough to cause a State-house reporter all kinds of frustration as he tries to figure out what's going WATERLOO-To the Editor: In reference to the article in the May Waterloo Courier by Ron DeChristopher, about the "Railroad Depot" it goes on and mentions the "notorious pagoda style public outhouse," and the permanent architectural record that was made before it was demolished in 1978. The building was built about 1914. and it was our first artesian well. Up to that time the city was getting its water from the river and shallow wells.

It was very important to Waterloo, and we did have epidemics of diphtheria and typhoid fever. The red quarantine signs were posted on many homes. At that time there was a coffin factory at the corner of Clay and Chestnut Streets, and there was a steady stream of wagons carrying coffins to the funeral parlors. My father had diphtheria very bad and my mother would pull the curtains so he wouldn't see them so the pagoda style building really did have a historical significance, and it was the beginning of the Waterloo Water Works as we know it today. LOREN E.

THOMAS 1002 Riehl St. and 1950s grew as humanity recoiled in horror at the human and physical devastation caused in Europe and Asia by World War II. The current groundswell of support for planetary citizenship seems inspired by fear of the dual threat to man's survival posed by the nuclear arms race and the snail's pace of Third World development. "People are claiming the United Nations back from governments," said a political scientist at the U.N. Disarmament Center who asked that his name not be used.

THE NUMBER OF PEACE GROUPS on the center's mailing list has doubled or tripled in the last three years alone, the source said, and now totals 1,400. "Suddenly they were just there," the source said, noting that when the idea of world disarmament was first introduced by the U.N. five years ago it was "dumped as a crackpot idea." "But the idea was growing among the people, and not only in the U.S. and Europe," the source said. "It's world wide, with groups in the Communist Bloc too Yugoslavia, Hungary, East Germany and even the Soviet Union.

It's a real life-and-death concern." There are several hundred nongovernmental organizations that have been given consultative status at the U.N. and work to promote global developments. These groups are also growing in size. Some of the internationalist groups the Interparliamentary Union and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, for example predate even the U.N. The International Metalworkers Federation is another vintage group.

It is currently studying specific industries in several countries to see how they can be converted from military to peaceful uses. The federation's investigation is based on studies originally sponsored by its oldest U.S. and Canadian affiliate, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. In the past 18 months there has been a surge in the formation of international peace organizations among such professions as social actors, artists and physicians. Even the world's legislators are again trying to lead the way to world government after a burst of activity that peaked during the heyday of world federalism in the 1950s and then tapered off.

The 2-year-old Parliamentarians For World Order spearheaded by Candian Parliament member Douglas Roche already numbers some 600 lawmakers from 30 countries, including the U.S. IN WHAT HAS BEEN CALLED "the world's first act of transnational legislation," the world parliamentarians are introducing into their respective legislative bodies proposals for an immediate nuclear weapons freeze and for comprehensive disarmament "under reliable world security arrangements." They also intend to contact every parliamentarian in the world in "a call for global survival." The group has already visited Moscow and Washington. On March 9, former Massachusetts congressman Bradford Morse and former Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda launched an organization of "world statesmen" that will devote itself to such global development issues as unemployment, the unstable world monetary system and the dangers of protectionism. "So many efforts to advance the cause of development have produced so little practical progress," explains Morse, that the group intends to take its case directly to the people. To do so, heads of state, union leaders and actors will travel from country to county explaining development issues.

The Provisional World Parliament which enacted World Legislative Bill Number One in September, is a spinoff of the older World Constitution and Parliament Association. The World Parliament's honorarv sponsors include (among man'v others) former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Nobel Peace Prize winning chemist Dr. Linus Pauling and the mayors of Ottawa and Thinks Case likes betting, lottery bills epoit finds James Kilpatrick CEDAR FALLS To the Editor: It would seem to be a safe wager from the recent track record of the coverage Bob Case has given us on the issues of pari-mutuel betting and the lottery that he is a strong advocate of both. I am more than just a little curious to know what kind of leadership he expects from our elected representatives.

Should they be permitted to simply pursue their political ambitions and apply quick solutions to persistent problems which face our government? Should we not also demand from them that they provide us with moral leadership'' It doesn't happen olten enough that our representatives take the time to debate the moral concerns of the bills they send through Congress. In this instance I want to applaud them for challenging us to see beyond whatever immediate benefits these bills might provide. There are some moral concerns that need to be addressed. Instead I find that Mr. Case is urging us to give them all a resounding Bronx cheer for obstructing what he judges to be God-sends for our depleted state treasury and our stagnated economy.

In that case, would anyone like to place a wager that Bob Case would be willing to defend the value of pari-mutuel betting and the lottery simply on their own merits? AL KUIPER 2006 W. 1st St. Communists seen closing in on U.S. SUMNER To the Editor: In a recent Waterloo Courier article a statement is made that "The Russians believe they are surrounded by hostile neighbors, and they will stop at nothing in the arms race as long as they feel threatened." Aren't we Americans supposed to feel threatened because the communists have taken our many governments all over the world, as close as Cuba, and maybe Mexico soon? They outnumber us in weaponry, but the freezeniks and welfare niks think we're supposed to cut down on defense and put more money into social programs while the communists build up for war. Are there any citizens in Russia lobbying for their government to reduce nuclear arms? HERMAN LENZE Route 1 NEW YORK I have been writing this column for nearly 19 years, and many of the columns have been a joy to write.

This one hurts. It has to do with what has become known as the Benjamin Report on a CBS documentary involving Gen. William Westmoreland. The report makes it clear that in this instance, CBS News behaved shabbily, indeed indefensibly. Because I was very modestly associated with CBS for 10 years nine years on "60 Minutes," one year as a political commentator in 1980 I vicariously share the pain of Burton Benjamin's indictment.

The affair tarnishes an image of integrity. It has left a stain. The story began in the fall of 1980, when producer George Crile prepared a 16-page "Blue Sheet" proposing that CBS News do one of its 90-minute "CBS Reports" on a long-festering controversy having to do with intelligence reports from Vietnam in 1967. This was the substance of the story that top American military and intelligence officers, under the command of General Westmoreland, deliberately suppressed and altered intelligence reports. The officers had discovered evidence indicating the existence of a dramatically larger army than they previously had reported, but they entered into a conspiracy to conceal this discovery from the American public, the Congress and perhaps even the president.

IN THE BLUE SHEET, the word "conspiracy" appears 24 times and the word "conspirator" five times. In a full-page ad preceding the broadcast in January 1982, the incident was described as a "conspiracy." By definition, a conspiracy is "an illegal, treasonable or treacherous plan to twice interviewed on tape. Because he was a hesitant witness, he was carefully coached so that his answers would be dramatically more effective. Crile kept pressing him: "Make it simpler, George." Allen kept stumbling. "Where am Allen asked.

"What do you want me to say, George?" Crile responded that "It's not what I want you to say," but perhaps Allen could come to the defense of his old protege. "We're going to keep at this," said Crile, "until we get it right until we feel comfortable." Adams also was coached so that his interview, on the air, would have the right "flavor." BENJAMIN WAS COMMISSIONED by CBS News to undertake his investigation. To the network's credit, Benjamin was given a free hand. He did a superlative job of evenhanded reporting. He interviewed 32 persons, read 20 hours of unedited transcripts, repeatedly screened the program itself and carefully analyzed the charges earlier leveled against the program in TV Guide.

His report is a model of fair and balanced coverage. And his report is damning. It is small wonder that CBS News sought to keep it quiet, and divulged it only under court order as a part of the discovery proceedings in Westmoreland's libel suit against the network. The libel case is pending. Ultimately it will be decided under the case law that controls criticism of a "public figure." I leave that to the courts, but in the quite different court that judges ethical journalism, the Benjamin report provides a verdict against CBS News that is loud arid clear: guilty as charged.

harm another person, group or entity." A conspiracy is "a combination of persons banded secretly together and resolved to accomplish an evil or unlawful end." After his long and painstaking investigation, Benjamin reached a measured and regrettable conclusion: Given the accepted definition of the word, a conspiracy "was not proved." In the preparation of the program, Crile relied heavily upon his friend Sam Adams, a former CIA analyst who had become "obsessed," by one account, with the story. CBS News hired Adams as a consultant for the program and paid him $25,000, but Adams never was identified on the air as a paid consultant. Adams was interviewed as an authority. His thesis formed the very foundation for the program. Was the program, as it finally aired, fair and balanced? Benjamin's conclusion: The program was "im-balanced" against General Westmoreland.

Nine witnesses appeared in support of the Adams thesis. Two witnesses General Westmoreland and Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham were seen in opposition, and Graham had only 21 seconds on the screen. Was the program prepared according to the ethical guidelines CBS had established? The answer, plainly, is no.

One witness was George Allen, a former CIA senior officer who had been Adams' boss in Vietnam. He was tUntcrloo Courier (USPS eev-020) VOL. 125-NO. 112 Courier corner Park Ave and Commercial St. Telephone 2t-l00 Basic subscription prices By carrier per week SI by mall (In Iowa) peryear 00; by mall (outside lowe) per yeer 1105.00.

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Special kinds of advertising are rejected altogether. Send address change to Waterloo Courier ton S40, Waterleo, lewa J0704. Correction Cedar Falls mayor Doug Sharp and Goodwill Industries Volunteer Services were recognized for contributing to Project Identify in a letter Monday from Lee Ann Russo. They were incorrectly identified in the Courier. The Courier regrets the error..