The Leaf-Chronicle from Clarksville, Tennessee • 6

POe -CIrksvllle Leef Chronicle. Tuesday. December H. Geo rg ia's Carter Vote Crop Thins The Chronicle's Opinion went ahead and plowed their fields fn Chno Sfiop By JACK ANDERSON t7l United Feature Syndicate WASHINGTON-Georgla's dirt fanners angry at their neighbor In the White House, were in the vanguard of last year's farm strike. They have now been placated, at least temporarily, by slightly higher crop proces and a massive Infusion of federal loans.

President Carter's home country, was loaned a -whopping (20.4 million from the U.S. Treasury. The money was distributed to 289 farmers-an average loan of $70,500 piece. Overall Georgia farmers got $385.5 million, almost 8 percent of the nationwide The president's neighbors got some of the biggest payments in the nation, but they were also among the hardest hit. The root cause of their discontent remains, nevertheless, as does the bitterness they feel toward their fellow Georgian in the Oval V.

Faced with skyrocketing costs of Agricultural Movement. Before they were through, angry Bacon County farmers, armed with tanks of anhydrous ammonia, squared off against Georgia state troopers armed with guns and tear gas. We sent our reporter Hal Bernton to Bacon County at harvest time to see bow things were one year after the Lexington-Concord of the American farm revolution. He found the county peaceful, at least on the surface. The local newspaper headlines, for example, revealed nothing more exlctlng than the do-.

lngs of the high school homecoming queen. i A yeo, the militant farmers had issued a call to arms-let each farmer keep half of his land out of production, to force crop prices up. This tactic, never When it came time to plant last spr-tag, Bacon County farmers were convinced that many of their counterparts across the country 'were not going to join them, so they i Whoever holds that events, pot men, make history Is not 1 -reckoning with the likes of Ceng Hsiao-ping. Aimougn nominally oniy a deputy premier, the man who holds and Is so vigorously wielding the real power in Peking these days is visibly reshaping the history not only of his own country but that of the world at large. a ft A i a -o developments that have mark- ed China's emergence as an active participant in that I world during the past year nave been, so far as observers i "outside can determine, largely I i his doing.

They have now i brought China and the United States to resumption of full relations. It. may be argued that this normalization of contact Is a I- development whose time lias i not only come but is past due, by several years. And it may be, as Washington reports I have it, that the timing was I tailored to the Carter ad-! ministration's convenience. But it is questionable that; I this final, longest step In rap prochement- since-Rlchard-Nixon's 1972 initiative could have been taken without the decisiveness of a Teng willing to agree to disagree on Taiwan I from fence row to fence row.

The result of their labors wa discouraging as ever. Farmers with half -jilllon dollars Invested-In. a equipment slaved all their fields, only to find harvest time that they hadn't made enough to pay off their suppliers and the bankers. Only last-minute loans from the federal government-over $10 million to Bacon County farmers alone-prevented a wave of bankruptcies. To make ends meet, most of Ihe farmers have taken second Jobs; at the sawmill or at retail stores 3n town.

One local farmer literacy went to pot He was caught growing marijuana between his rows of corn In hopes of a profitable cash crop. I One thing is clear in Bacon Couji-' ty'fl time of troubles: Despite the ip- iuoivu icuuai ujvucji yuuin Carter has become a villain. "Did you read all the New Year's optimism and apple sauce in the papers by all our leading men and bankers? Same gang every year! Every one either a millionaire or an officeholder. "Just for the novelty, why doesn't one paper print what some poor man saw in store for the coming year?" January 2, 1928 SttKtad mm md by Brvan StarNna. Al rWid rturyrt for Iht WW Rootrt Msfnoriftl.

f- Chapter and Benson had marked money iii their pockets when arrested. The; agents said the bills were given to Taylor earlier in the week by an FBI? Informant who was making payment for a clemency for a prison inmate Obviouslyr the ioremost question; following the arrests was whether Blanton himself had any knowledge? or involvement with regard to the! -alleged bribe-taking. Some of the; evidence released by the FBI in--dlcated that the three aides were? possibly acting with the governor's" knowledge. But Monday of last week Blanton accepted the resignations of Sisk 7 and Benson saying, "The alleged: conduct is absolutely contrary to the; manner In which I have directed the legal affairs of my office to be car- riedout." 1 Ironically, only a week before the 11 governor had told reporters, "YouJ have not found a single person in the; Blanton administration that was a crook (and) the federal govern-! ment hasn't." Taiwan "Nevertheless, there is quiet but strong opposition within th Republican party to making this partisan issue. In fact, one reason; for the president's decision at this" time was that, with the opening oi China to large commercial deals' with Japan, West Germany, Britain! and other industrial countries, many; leading American businessmen? most of them Republicans, were pressing the administration to nor- malize relations with Peking and improve the chances of getting an early! start in the Chinese markets.

Barry Goldwater, of course takes' a different view and not for the first! time. For him this is a moral issue! as well as a strategic and constitu-J tional question, and he will fight it If he has to fight alone in effect, to ignore the single major difference that in both Peking and Washington had long been -viewed asirrecon- Having taken China so far in such a short time, Teng loomS1 over the world scene at the i beginning of this new year like 1 an aged Alexander ready for i new conquests: Like the original; he has been a' man in a hurry and for his own very good reasons. Terig is 74. Me has waited a long time to be in a position to put his pragmatism to work in taming a revolution for so long dominated by ideological, wish 'fulfillment He may not have too much longer to see huge, Ray Blanton Another Sorry to foresee its relationship with a China in such -a dramatic state of transformation. Shall this, too, soon pass? History is filled with examples of revolutions that have reversed themselves, often People's China itself already has been a short distance down, the present road, in 1957 when Tse-tung briefly encouraged the blossoming of all those flowers.

China's neighbor and -rival, the Soviet Union, in its own lengthening experience with socialism in practice has repeatedly turned to and withdrawn from the developed nations from which flow so many technological benefits but also Ideological contamination. JULJ Teng, again so far as the outside world can determine, seems to be firmly in control of 'events for the present. And he has clearly touched a responsive chord in the Chinese public, at least the articulate portion of it. The younger generation appears ready realism and turned off by the radicalism it experienced in "Mao's Cultural Revolution, all that sound and fury which ended up signifying nothing for China's practical develop-, ment. But very little is known about China's next generation of leadership, the ranks behind and below Teng.

He and Hua Kuo-feng, the nominal head of state and party, may see.eye to eye as they profess. Or they taay not. With time on his side as Teng's junior by fwo decades, Hua could be quietly biding his time; Opposition there, must be. Otherwise, why co'ntinue the propaganda campaign against an already discredited of Four?" Obviously, somewhere- there are still those in positions of some influence who' resist Teng's changing of revolutionary course. There may be, therefore, many surprises still to come out of changing China.

But even should Teng's influence In the end prove passing, it will nevertheless have Been in itself quite an event. no legal right to convey property (the Canal) acquired by treaty without the express consent of a majority of both houses of the Congress. At that time, a U.S. district court supported the president's action and was sustained by a U.S. court of appeals.

When the issue was then taken -to the Supreme Court of the United States, that court refused to hear it and thus allowed the judgments of the lower courts, to stand. There' have been a number of cases In which the president abrogated treaties on his own authority and others where the president and the Congress acted jointly to terminate treaties, but none of these was of the magnitude of the Taiwan defense treaty, and therefore Goldwater's strongest argument Is that this was a major act of state where good manners and UBHOHSmVf AHA! THE equipment, fuel and fertilizer and with crop prices controlled by others, the beleaguered farmers simply can't make ends meet. Their frustration Isn't helped any' by the realization that everyone else in the food processing chain-suppliers, brokers, food processors, supermarkets-are making money from their labors. If the ball-out money fronT Washington did not placate the farmers, enlther will it please the consumers. For It's costing them tax dollars at a time when the president Is calling upon them to tighten their belts.

Last winter the farmer's frustra-' tlon boiled over Into a national farm strike. One of the spawning grounds of that movement was Bacon County, Ga. In October 1977, tractors rumbled along the country's once quiet roads in one of the. first spontaneous protest demonstration of what eventually became the American '9'i' rvtarsf Charles Benson, an assistant in Sisk's office who handled paperwork on paroles and clemencies; and Fred Taylor, a 15-year highway patrol veteran assigned to security duty with the governor's office, Sisk, a Pulaski native who receiv- ed his law degree from the Universi- -ty of Tennessee in 1965, has been in and out of Controversy during his almost four years as Blanton's legal counsel. In October 1976 the FBI launched its investigation' of Blanton administration clemencies and paroles by seizing records in Sisk's Subsequently, Sisk was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand, jury on more than one occasion.

He -branded the investigation a "witchhunt." In March 1977 Sisk threw his drink on a state legislator and slapped him when the legislator criticized Blanton. In February he got into a row with Nashville police officers who asked to see his driver's license. He gress; the Constitution demands a role for Congress in the abrogation of treaties; any president who would violate the Constitution on such a major matter in breaking faith with the nation's treaty obligations would run the risk of impeachment." It should be noted here that the challenge is hot to the president's right to establish normal diplomatic relations with the Peklrtg govern- ment but to his individual authority to end the defense treaty with Taiwan. But in practical terms it would be hard to reconcile these two positions. -v s- For the Carter administration could not exercise its authority to recognize the Peking government without abrogating the Taiwan treaty.

Breaking the treaty was a clear condition for establishing normal diplomatic relations with the Peo To Write A Letter Tbe Leaf-Chronicle welcomes letters to the editor, and them based on their clarity, Interest to readers and accuracy. Letters should be 300 words or Jess, limited to one general subject, and bear the, signature, street address, and, telephone number ol the writer. Unsigned letters will not be used. fi.4 lu.y.ji ilWff backward China firmly committed to remaking itself into the modern industrial state he foresees by the end of the century. Which raises a question for the rest of the world in trying JZorn Cob Philosopher Our Old Corn Cob Philosopher says "It looks like Mayor Fulton, who presides as mayor of the city of Nashville, Just south of Clarksville, is headed for a hot seat after he caved In to the politicans and fired Ken Schoen, his able finance director.

Mr. Schoen has never been a politician before. Mayor Fulton has never been anything other than a politlcan" Coldwater's Spinning Congressional Wheels On By M. LEE SMITH T. Wl M.Lee Smith Associate NASHVILLE-The FBI's arrest of Gov.

Ray Blanton's legal assistant and two other aides on charges they took cash bribes to release criminals, from the Tennessee prison system -rocked the state capital recentlyT" Abuse of authority by the Blanton administration has become so commonplace that much of it is now greeted by Capitol Hill veterans without much surprise. But the 'charges involved 'alleged corruption in the immediate office of the governor 1 and were without -question Ihe' most serious of any allegations raised during Blanton's problem-plagued term. Consider for a moment the nature of these charges. State officials in positions of public trust are accused of taking money to turn, loose from prison persons convicted of murder, rape, and other heinous acts. Placed under arrest were T.

Edward Sisk, Blanton's legal counsel; sound bipartisan procedure called at least for consultation if not for congressional approval. This is, however, essentially a political rather than a legal issue, and there is far less support in the Senate and the House for opposing the president on Taiwan than there was for opposing him on Panama. In the first place, the senator is making his objections in the most extreme terms. It' is his contention that since the Taiwan treaty was approved by two-thirds of the Senate in 1955, it cannot be ended except by a similar vote in 1978. He even suggests that any attempt to do so might lead to impeachment of the president.

"No he asserted in a pamphlet published earlier this year, "can terminate a treaty unless he first obtains Ihe consent of Con- by Garry TfUCteau comsm DB6ENEM7BS. mmsHio BBATAFTEK THEMEWED I IKON. 4 i 3 i 3 a 3 -i 3 2 I 5 was in the middle of the controversy surrounding Blanton's decision to fire Pardon and Parole Board chair- man Marie Ragghiantl. Benson is an underling in Sisk's of-' flee who is already under indictment In a state Case for allegedly offering a bribe to another state official In an extradition proceeding. Despite the indictment, Blanton allowed Benson to continue to the office of the governor.

1 In 1974 Taylor was fired by state Safety Commissioner Claude Ar- mdur for fighting "with another. highway patrol officer. He was later reinstated after a grievance com-, mittee reviewed his case. He is considered to be a friend ci the Blanton family and at the time of his arrest was serving as one of the governor's security officers. Although Sisk, Benson, and Taylor should be granted the legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty, evidence released by the FBI appears substantial.

FBI agents alleged in affidavits that Sisk ple's Republic of China, and Carter could not do the one without the other. 1 This will not prevent Goldwater, however, from pressing the issue all the way through the Congress and the courts. He rather enjoys fighting for causes he believes in, with or without supporters, and on this issue he feels that there are fundamental security and parliamentary ques-. tions to be resolved. He will get some support in both parties for his criticism of Carter's procedures.

The Congress has been very jealous of its rights ever since it gave away so many of them during the Vietnam war, and there Is a feeling on Capitol Hill that the president completed his arrangements while the Congress was in recess, precisely to blunt the criticism during the year-end holidays. JAMES E. CHARLET, iHi tdltor and Fubllthtr GENE WASHER i Managing dif or JAMES E. CHARLET SR. Publhhw tmmritut STANLEY COWER Cditor tmtritut, to All By JAMES RESTON i 1971 N.Y.

Timet News Service WASHINGTON Sen. Barry Goldwater, is trying to make a party issue and even a con-9 stitutional issue against President Carter's decision to end the United States's 23-year-old mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, but there is little chance that he will succeed. rHe will, however, force a prolong-: id debate on the issue; for he has the Iespect and affection of the Confess, and he has some arguments Jn his side, but the odds are against im on both Dolifical and. legal grounds. There are no precise precedents tor presidential abrogation of a defense treaty," but a comparable fluestion Was raised during the Panama Canal debate when it was asserted that President Carter had tpOOfJESDURY P'THESESeaWIBh '(tamsimou Hmrws! GfEAi esyprm apse MOACALSKNCP smtNsmcrmAusM.

JN fcsTne W1HHL 4 AfW rvvii 7 I I i MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: The) Associated Prats is xclusivly entitled us lor publication of all news dispatches' credited to it or not otherwise credited in thl newspaper and local new published therein; other republication rights reserved. 1 -TlitintipieieelellL UNOONASSOaATH.MC Htm Verii. CMceee. AHwrte, IMiUt.