Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 22

Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, August 16, 1972 22- Section 1 I A Forum for Ideas, Analysis, and Diverse Opinions GMthiiVets Bob Wiedrich Tower Ticker 4 4 Informer and an By John Kifner TALLAHASSEE, Fla. The government's case against six members of the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, charged with plotting an assault on the Republican National Convention, appears to rest primarily on the testimony of an informer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who had estab-lished a reputation as one of the antiwar group's more militant and vociferous members. The informer is William L. Lemmer, 24, an ex-paratrooper who had been the organization's Arkansas-Oklahoma regional coordinator and who testified fore a congressional bearing that he had once been offered a psychiatric discharge from the Army. Veterans who knew him, and Lem-inert estranged wife, Mary, say that be had a history of instability.

The veterans say he had frequently urged Mr. Kifner a reporter for The New York Tttnea. Nicholas von Hoffman Boggs. Tbey bad learned the hard at a cost of hundreds of men in border clashes with Soviet troops. For the U.

S. to disarm itself while Russia kept its storehouse of weapons would be a calamity. It would be the worst disaster the world has known, Chou declared. He also expressed fear, according to Boggs, that once the delicate nuclear balance was disturbed the U. S.

S. R. would strike out at its Chinese Communist colleagues, And, Chou continued, if the U. S. got itself into a militarily weakened condition, the least it could expect would be nuclear blackmail and at the worst, World War m.

Once Chou made his point that the U. S. must not permit Russia to become the, dominant world power, he lapsed into his native tongue. Boggsf said the Red Chinese premier demonstrated an affection and admiration for the American people, but also offered the friendly criticism that they were too permissive in their modern day society. It was one of those intimate moments that sometimes happen when men of power sit down to discuss the state of the world in which each is seeking to attain the best advantage for his particular political philosophy or national interest There is little doubt President Nixon did achieve some real measure of understanding during his a 1 with Chou, despite the use of interpreters.

So, it doesn't really matter what language was used. But in the case of Rep. Boggs, his pointed query unexpectedly stripped the wily Chou En-lai of the impassive facade he had managed to maintain thru an apparent language barrier. No matter how distant they may appear, world leaders, after all, are human beings. And.

when something touches a raw nerve, they react like everyone else. In Chou En-lai's case, the raw nerve Just happens to have been Russia. On the Beat: Wish happy birthdays to Arlington Park Theater star Lois Nettieton, Bin Centos Jr. of Chez Paul, and Jeaa Paul Weber of the Flying Frenchman. And congratulate Loop Atty.

Arthur Main Sr. and his Roth on their golden wedding anniversary today. Al Bernstein defines a politician as someone who doesn't permit the facts to influence his judgment During hours spent both in public and private 'with Premier Chou En-lai last February, President Nixon always suspected the Red Chinese leader at least understood English. But not once during the President's historic visit to the China mainland did' Chou ever speak with any American, even in light hearted banter, except thru an Interpreter. There was reason enough to suspect Chou was hiding a linguistic talent behind an inscrutable facade.

Several times, Nixon and others -stunt Chou reacting to something said fn English before the remark could be translated into Chinese. On other occasions, Chou seemed to; give himself away by bursting into laughter or smiling while interpreters were still groping for the right words. Chou, however, kept them guessing right to the end of the Nixon visit. Whether he spoke English was one of the unsolved mysteries of the mysterious Far East It remained for House Democratic leader Rep. Hale Boggs of Louisiana to unravel that secret some six months later during a 10-day visit to Communist China with his Republican counterpart, Gerald Ford of Michigan.

And here is how Boggs related that story about a week ago to a group of freshman members of Congress at a stag party he hosted in his Maryland home: According to Boggs, he and Ford spent five hours with Chou En-lai, discussing a wide range of topics thru interpreters. Chou never uttered a word in anything but Chinese. At some point, tho, Boggs unwittingly touched upon a subject apparently so sensitive with the Chinese Communist boss that he was provoked into answering with an urgency that could not await an interpreter. Boggs asked what Chou thought would happen if the United States were to start down the path leading to unilateral disarmament, leaving Russia to play with its nuclear hardware as it Chou moved forward to the edge of his chair. His face became flushed.

He began gesticulating, finally placing a firm hand on Boggs' chest to emphasize the intensity of his words, as he cried out-in English: "Never! Never! Never!" Did not the Americans know what plans the Soviets had in mind for them, he asked? The Chinese had learned of the Russian capacity for perfidy, Chou told Vernon Jarrett Coal's Old Kentucky Home ers the vice president of the South-East Coal Co. South-East Coal does no strip mining, but tunnels into the earth for the high-quality product indispensa- 1 ble for the manufacture of steel. Laviers speaks with the voice of industry, be still enjoys a reputation for running one of the safest and most socially responsible outfits in the area. He points out that Eastern Kentucky was almost empty of people until the turn of the century when the railroads moved themselves and tens of thousands of people in to mine coaL "We always had a wage economy," he says. "The farms never supported a large number of people.

What we had was an industrial population scattered over several thousand square miles who didn't even know how to farm. Eastern Kentucky was planned, developed, and built as a project; and the industry which moved all these people in, then left its employes-and I might almost say, left them to starve." According to Laviers, it was two actions by the government that ruined the area's ecology. The first was subsidiz- WHITESBURG, Ky. Twice in its history, 48 years apart, the Mountain Eagle, Letcher County's valiant weekly newspaper, has printed the same public notice. The first time was on Oct 3, 1918, and the Item read as follows: "East Kentucky Mountain life Conference Will Meet At Paintsville.

A great program has been arranged and a splendid corps of speakers will be on hand. The conference will deal with the multitudinous problems of schools, roads, farms, and rural churches. Three big, fun days of an upward pull for better things. You cannot afford to miss it, as it is your right here in your native hills where you, can get to it. It deals with our own, not some, other people's difficulties.

Come let us reason together for the common good." As a sardonic comment on how slowly things change in Appalachia, The Mountain Eagle ran the same notice again in 1964. Tom Gish, the paper's editor, might consider running it for a third time, for surely there will be no end of new conferences to discuss the dilemma of the mountains and their people. Once a Prosperous Area In fact the last half century has seen changes most of them bad. In 1918 this was a relatively prosperous area enjoying a wage economy supported by the coal industry; today it is a depopulated region Letcher County alone has about half the people it had in 1950 and those who remain are heavily dependent on welfare. Even some of the peo- pie who live here make sad jokes about how, on the first of the month when the government checks come In, the floor of the bank is covered with those yellow envelopes.

It appears that the single largest source of employment is the welfare-antipoverty industry. That is only fitting because a case can be made to show it was the federal government that ruined the area's economy in the first place. This is the argument propounded by Harry Lavi- ing the perfection of the Diesel engine and its mass production, the second was building the Big Inch Pipeline from Texas to New Jersey, thus enabling the American home to switch from coal to natural gas as its heating fuel: "We had a tripod a three-legged stool-and then, bang, bang, we lost heating and the raflroads." None of this was inevitable. The government might have put its money into the perfection of technologies using coal as a fuel That, Laviers remarks, is what the electric utility people did. Tbey developed generating plants that could practically burn dirt; that is, the low-quality coal found near the earth's surface.

It became economic to burn almost anything and this gave rise to the strip-mining industry. Done Better In Europe There is polluting coal farther down in the earth; in Europe where the coal industry has been nationalized for all intents and purposes, a far safer technology has been developed for mining, it, but none of this promises to benefit Eastern Kentucky. As long as coal must be mined by companies that have to maximize their immediate profit at the expense of the people and the land here and the air elsewhere, aU will remain as it is. The coat industry could be socialized. Nor would the federal government have to do it It could be taken over by states or even counties that could mine coal with profit and without destruction.

What we have now is a free-enterprise industry and a socialized people. That is what all the conferences and antipoverty efforts amount to the dole and much talk about quaint quilt-making cooperatives. Quilts, pot holders, hand-carved -wooden birds, and other phoney native handicrafts won't save this area. But its coal, gas, and oil win. That's what made it, that's what ruined it, and that's what can make it again.

Msm StAaM eda sibjbj rsjravejs) sissjnsJfff violent or disruptive acts oh the group; and that his activities had led to a number of arrests in the past The veterans contend that the con-, spiracy the, government describes did not exist The Justice Department, as is the normal procedure, declined comment on the case. Lemmer, who is apparently under the custody of the FBI in one letter, he speaks of being in "protective hiding" was not available for comment The indictments, handed up by a federal grand jury here on July 13, charged six veterans, all in their twenties, with conspiring at a meeting in Gainesville, on May 26, 27, and 28 to disrupt the Republican National Convention, which is to be held in Miami Beach next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The six are: Scott Camil, John W. Kniffin, William J. Patterson, Peter P.

Mahoney, Alton C. Foss, and Donald P. Perdue. The indictment charges that they conspired "to organize numerous 'fire teams' to attack with automatic weapons, fire and incendiary devices police stations, police cars, and stores in Miami that the alleged conspirators "would fire lead weights, fried' marbles, ball bearings, 'cherry' bombs, and smoke bombs by means of wrist rocket slingshots and cross bows," and that they planned to "disrupt communications systems in Miami Beach." The six veterans have not yet been arraigned. Last week, Judge David L.

Middlebrooks ordered four other veterans back to jail for refusing to testify before the on-going grand jury. Some Striking Similarities The progress of the case thus far bears a number of striking similarities to the government's prosecution of the Rev. Philip F. Berrigan and six other antiwar activists on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry A. Kissinger, the Presidential adviser.

The case was brought by the same Justice Department official who supervised the Berrigan indictment, Guy L. Goodwin, chief of the Internal Security, Division's Special Litigation section. In both cases, the grand jury indictments were brought quickly and both juries remained sitting after handing up the indictments. The government said this was because the investigation was on going; the defense charged it was a "fishing expedition'' to find and compel corroborative testimony. And, in both cases, attention focused on the role of an informer: Boyd F.

Douglas, a convict, in the Berrigan case, and Lemmer in the veterans' case. BUI Lemmer, a pudgy man who has recently cut off the long hair and bushy beard favored by many of the antiwar veterans, enrolled at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville last fan, following his discharge from the Army. One of the first things he did when he came to town was to call Martin Jordan, the leader of the Fayetteville antiwar veterans group and say that he had met him at the group's big demonstration in Washington that spring. "I said, Come on over, I'd like to talk to Jordan recalled, "Because I wasn't mere." Lemmer quickly became prominent in activities of the antiwar veterans at the university. He bad an assertive quality that several veterans described as a "tremendous ego," which led him to tell boastful war stories and claim expertise in a number of fields.

But, there were things that, in retrospect disturbed him about Lemmer, Jordan said. "As long as rve been In the movement, I've never heard anyone speak of such radkalness," be said of Lemmer. When the former secretary of state, Dean Rusk, came to speak st the university, Jordan and other veterans said, Lemmer urged that tbey get lengths of chain and chain toe door shut during the speech. The suggestion was voted down. I Jordan and some of the other veterans cited an incident late in the spring at Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City.

After an antiwar rally, 38 demonstrators were arrested on trespassing charges when tbey crossed onto base property. Checks Court Records In checking the court records, Eric Grove, lawyer for some of the defendants, discovered that Lemmer had been released on his own recognizance without the aid of a lawyer-a highly unusual procedure. Later, in affidavits filed in Federal District Court here, Jordan and Donald C. Donner, another member of the Fayetteville veterans group, would say that Lemmer had told them during tape-recorded questioning that' he had managed to get his release thru his FBI control agent. Jordan said that when be learned of the incident, he called the antiwar veterans national office, which, in turn called Gainesville, where Lemmer was attending a meeting.

It was at this meeting, held in apartments rented in a ramschsckle old frame house by Scott Camil and several other Gainesville veterans, that the government contends that the alleged plot was hatched and that the use of firebombs, slingshots, and cross bows was demonstrated. N. V. TiMH NtM ttnto SyphHis Study Tip of Iceberg I do net agree with a word (hot you toy, but I will defend to the death your right to toy it. -Voltaire Tomorrow The Harris Analysis cautions that the election Is three months away, and that the early ami-McGovern trend is not necessarily Irreversible.

Nick Thimmesch finds Irony In the fact that eaee Nebee Reek-efener tried to politically bry Richard Nixes, Bnt next week Rocky win nominate and praise the President at the G. 0. P. Bob Cromie IK- Viet Nam Nightmare Must End can Board of Dermatology and Syphi-lology and a director of the bureau of Venereal Disease Control of the New York City Department of Health. Dr.

Cave said that while local institutions In the Tuskegee area are implicated in this Nazi-like crime, the federal government thru the Public Health Service is the instigator and the perpetrator of this heinous program. Dr. Cave said the program began in 1932 after the Rocenwald Foundation had undertaken a study of health care for blacks in the South. The study tisclosed that 37 per cent of the syphilis cases in Macon County, had not received any treatment. At that point, the Public Health Service stepped in under the leadership of Dr.

John R. HeOer and set up cost-free clinics. "However, the Public Health Service asked for something in return," Dr. Cave said. "Tbey asked that more than 400 infected syphilitic cases be denied treatment and placed under observation for an indefinite period." They wen to be observed along with 200 blacks who were free of venereal diseases.

All of the guinea pigs were male and the coarse of their lives would be studied until they died. This means that the development of new drugs including the introduction of pen-icilln in 194 was ignored in the Tuskegee experiment. Several Facilities Involved "There Is no excuse for this," Dr. Cave said. "When Dr.

John F. Maho ney demonstrated the effectiveness of even relatively small doses of penidlin, any humane person would have made it available to those men." According to DrCave, both the veterans' boepUal at Tuskegee, the John A. Andrews Hospital, and other facilities thruout the county have been unwittingly involved in this awful thing. Certainly some biopsies were conducted at the VA hospital and certainly su tops les concerning their cruel deaths-were conducted with the possible use of black and white "We don't intend to ignore any institution or any individual who permitted the government to involve them in this revolting Inhuman use of human be tags," KANSAS CITY, Is only the tip of the iceberg in medical experimentation on black and ether poor people," said Dr. Vernal G.

Cave of Brooklyn, N. who was appointed by the National Medical Association today to investigate the federal government's Inhuman use of blacks in the treatment of syphilis at Tuskegee, Ala, Dr. Cave was appointed to head the team of black doctors from thruout the country who will leave no stone unturned to discover what sort of experimentation on human beings could have continued over a period of 40 years without disclosure and protest "ft is unbelievable," Dr. Cave said yesterday. "It is unbelievable that it could happen in America in modern times and it is unbelievable that it could happen for so long.

Articles In Journals Dr. Cave said that from the time the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study began in 1932 up to this summer when it was unveiled by the Associated Press, at least 16 articles bad been written about the experiment for various medical journals. It is clear, he said, that the entire operation was maintained at a very low public visibility. At the same time, it must be understood that there is no difference between what place at Tusk egee and what Hitler did to Jews during the 1930s. "The difference was quantitative rather than qualitative," Dr.

Cave said. This is a violation of the Nuernberg code and the Declaration of Helsinki, which ruled against experimentation on human beings purely for the purpose of gaining knowledge, he declared; On second thought, Dr. Cave pointed eat that black people and the poor of ether minorities have been used for years as guinea pigs in hospitals run by whites. In those hospitals that accept large numbers of blacks and othef disadvantaged, the patients often are used for teaching of young doctors and for experimentation. Several black doctors attending this 77th annual convention of the N.

M. A. agreed with Dr. Cave on that point The N. M.

founded in 1855, is primarily an organisation of black physicians. Dr. Cava is a diplomat of the Ameri already has been done to the civilians caught in the deadly crossfire. In no other war in which "civilized" nations took part has less distinction been made between fighting men and noncombatants. Napalm, grenades, artillery, rockets, and other forms of packaged death have claimed a tremendous ton in women, old men, snd children.

The tonnage of bombs dropped on North Viet Nsm alone and Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general, bitterly Insists much of it has fallen on the dikes and on nonmllltary targets already has far surpassed the total mass of high explosives rained down on Germany during World War II. Recollections of Atrocities One remembers Hue, where the Reds committed, unspeakable atrocities; My Lai, where Lt. William Calley acted more like a psychopath than an American officer; bombs tossed into Saigon cafes by the Viet Cong, or the Impersonal trail of destruction and death left by the high-flying B-52s, and the war becomes something that simply must be ended. "We had to destroy the village to save it," an American major once explained In Viet Nam. That's the kind of mad logic the nightmare in Viet Nam has created.

It is long past time for that nightmare to end. war and bring home aU American prisoners before the polls open on election day. Since this is true, it seems probable that the secretary of state, William P. Rogers, would be doing both the country and the Republican cause more good by trying to help end the war now In the summer of 1972 than by arguing over whether it could have been ended four years ago, as Sen. George McGovern, Sarge Shriver, and two former emissaries to the Paris peace table, Cyrus Vance and Averefl Harriman, Insist.

That is, of course, if Kissinger permits Rogers to meddle in foreign affairs. It is difficult to think of anyone who Is being aided by the war at the mo ment, other then black marketeers in Saigon and probably or pro fessional military men, or the defense industry. It has become a war without logic, crazy war which surely both sides would like to be out of. One of the past pleas against American which seems to have faded as our troops began coming home in greater numbers, was that when the Americans left there would be a "blood bath" on the part of the North against the South. Whether this fear Is valid or fallaciousand only time has the answer-it seems certain that nothing either side can now do to the other could possibly equal the horror of what When Richard Nixon was campaigning for the Presidency four years ago one of his most beguiling statements was that he had a plan for ending the war in Viet Nam.

He never quite said what the plan entailed, nor has he done so since, but whatever the plan was it doesn't seem to have been a very usable one. At the moment the best hopes for ending the war seem to rest on the persuasive powers of Henry Kissinger, the de facto secretary of state, and on the speed with which Nguyen Van Thieu can be convinced that for him life would be more beautiful and possibly longer as a former President of South Viet Nam. Winging Back and Forth Kissinger has been winging back and forth to conferences with the North Vietnamese peace emissaries in Paris, snd it is rumored that the presence in Saigon of Thieu and his regime is one of the major stumbling blocks to ending the war and freeing American prison ers. While we are more or less pledged to suppport Thieu snd his friends, perhaps a cub settlement and a villa in Switzerland for Thieu, far removed from the postwar perils of his native land, might ease any possible sense of betrayal. Obviously, as would any practical politician, Nixon is eager 4o bait the.