The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 4

THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION For 101 Yean the South's Standard Newspaper Reg Murphy White: Georgia In Racist Column REG MURI'UY, Editor JACK TARVER, Preaident Like it or not, most national political observers have written Georgia into the racist vote column for now. Will WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1969 PAGE 4-A The Cynical Approach Latest proof of that is in the brilliant new book by Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1968: "The Old South is that region of the United States now in fullest revolt against the direction of the federal government of the United States. Over the past twenty years since the campaign of Strom Thurmond in 1948 at least five Southern states haye shown that they will, under any leadership, at any opportunity, under any banner, vote against the directions which national Republicans and Democrats both share. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana are the core they will vote, and have voted, against black people in any national election, for anyone, simian, unwashed or demagogic.

To them, theoretically, should be added the state of South Carolina, held in line for Nixon in 1968 only by Strom Thurmond. Georgia, too, is now probably locked into the racist bloc." Does the state deserve the designation? In national elections, it probably does. It has voted, in the past three elections where the entire state participated, for Sen. Barry Goldwater, Lester Maddox and George Wallace. One can argue that those votes don't necessarily prove racism.

However, there will have to be more votes for candidates other than those men to convince the national political analysts. White makes an even more disturbing point in looking at what has happened throughout the South. "The Democratic share of the vote has shrunk to 31.1 per cent. Of this 31.1 Democratic percentage, more than two-thirds, in the election of 1968, were probably Southern blacks. If the trend-line continues, the Demo-erotic Party may disappear as a national party which can rouse loyalties in every section of the country." His judgment may be hasty.

Many pundits wrote off the Republican party in 1968, and it controls the White House today. Nixon could become a one-term president under the grinding pressures of world affairs. One cannot argue, though, that the Democrats are vigorous in national campaigns in the South now. The moribund party structure will have to be revived on something other than the grand natural alliance of workingmen that always supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his heirs until President Lyndon Johnson came along.

White points out the Democrats "could become a party dominated by Northern labor unions, big-city minority blocs, and ideologues who control the new campus proletariat." If it does, it can blame only itself. The Democratic party has to address itself to its salvation as a national force, broad enough to draw many kinds of support and strong enough to reject the racists. Georgia Democrats must go the same way. They have no business being in the racist column. mond of South Carolina spew out the updated, button-down-co'lar modern Southern Republican version of racial hate.

And, he has let these views stand in the South, in effect as the of the Nixon Administration because President Nixon himself has never spoken out in clear voice at the policy level. Top officials within the Nixon Administration have sooken in a variety of accents. Sometimes, Secretary Finch seems to speak out forthrightly, insisting that there will be no "softening" of school desegregation policies. Again, Attorney General John N. Mitchell, author of the GOP "Southern strategy" speaks with a different emphasis.

It's clear what such "Southern" strategy means, so clear that Mitchell was faced last week with protests from roughly half of his own department's civil rights attorneys, protests aimed at the apparent easing of federal policy on school desegregation. One week, the Nixon Administration will announce a sweeping federal court suit to implement school desegregation in all of Georgia's public schools. Then, both Finch and Mitchell ask a federal court to delay desegregation in 33 Mississippi schools districts. What will it be next week? Is it any wonder that local school board members are in a state of confusion? That many who have put heart, and guts and effort in working out fair and reasonable desegregation plans feel almost despair when the Nixon Administration again seems to pull the rug out from under them? The Nixon Administration has pursued a low-grade brand of sorry partisan politics on the school desegregation issue. This nation deserves better than that.

Racial discrimination in this nation has for at least the last 15 years-been the most controversial and difficult social issue of our time. The Nixon Administration has chosen to play a dangsnus, even cynical, kind of partisan politics with this issue especially with the complicated problems of school desegregation. It was announced in Washington this week that U.S. Justice Department lawyers will file suit against ninejndividual school systems in Georgia, The reason? Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Robert H. Finch asked such action, declaring that these school districts had filed plans with HEW for the elimination of the Negro-white dual school system this fall and then changed direction at the last minute.

(Just to add to the good gray confusion which the Nixon Administration spreads in these matters, it turns out that there are only eight school systems involved. Federal officials used outdated information in first listing one of the nine.) The systems involved are those in Clinch County, Coffee County, Dodge County, Emanuel' County, Franklin County, Rome (city), Telfair County, and Wheeler County. Heard County was listed at first, apparently in error. Well, let's be clear about it. Why have even eight school systems in Georgia tried to renege on school desegregation plans? The answer is simple and straightforward.

President Richard M. Nixon has permitted Southern Republicans to encourage the idea that he is really a firm segregationist at heart. He has let men like Sen. Strom Thur Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly wmm Jack Anderson Do-It-Yourself Bombs iuii.ii..iiii.'i..'iwg i nn "i WASHINGTON Despite strenuous efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, it has now become possible for any nation to possess the atomic bomb. Even a renegade group such as the Black Panthers or Minute-men could piece together a nuclear warhead and a missile to launch it.

All it would take is a little cash and an unscrupulous scientist. Indeed, a dropout from a hieh school science class could orobablv construct a crude atomic in a basement or backyard garage. All the instructions for a homemade bomb, complete bomb with scale drawings, are available in a number of scientific publications. Joseph Kraft Domino's End In Vietnam with sucn a weapon, wasmng- Thank God for San Diego ton could be blown right out of the Potomac Valley. Guerrilla forces could paralyze the government.

Enough nuclear material to build 3,000 atomic bombs is now floating around unprotected. The Atomic Energy Commission is -Avh Leo Aihnuin HONG KONG-As in a slow leak the life is gradually going out of the myths, fancies, and delusions invented to sustain the Viet Twist Cnll Uor desperate Dest to Keep USl 11 Cr track of these dangerous inere- is so far in the cellar it must think the Braves are at the top of the totem pole. We have faith that the Braves will battle their way of fifth (now fourth) place. They just need a little encouragement and some major league pitchers. Meanwhile, we commend to them for purposes of adaptation that old salve Georgians have been using for generations: Thank God for Mississippi.

(Re-printed by popular demand) On the off chance that you have missed one of the tragedies of our time, turn your attention for a moment to the baseball summary on the sports pages. You will find that our Braves rest uneasily in fifth (now fourth) place. And you will find that they excel only in terms of the San Diego Padres, an expansion team which nam war. And after two weeks of travel around Southeast Asia, it is plain to me that even the most prestigious of the legends, the domino theory, is on the way to being killed dead. Chestelle umsider, tirst, wnat nas'been happening in Thailand.

Presi I had reason to call Myron H. "Tommy" Thomas at Gordon Foods. A pleasant feminine voice an I swered. (Most telephone' Drinking Water voices are i am warm and cheerful, a few are cold and-' With the latter even a local mended for acting in unity to attack a problem of concern to each. There are now 50 water supply systems in the nine counties of the Atlanta area, and 37 different sewer systems.

Planners long have advocated there be coordination of these systemsfor the regional good. The governments to the south and west have made a start. great demand for "peaceful purposes" chiefly for use in nuclear reactors to generate electricity. As a result, an entirely new nuclear manufacturing industry has sprung up, completely private and competitive. Every day fissionable materials are processed in these plants and shipped by truck and plane to all parts of the country.

About once a month, nuclear materials are flown overseas on commercial airliners. The routine is fraught with risk. Risk No. 1 These private plants are poorly guarded and loosely staffed. Only in rare cases are employes given more than the most perfunctory security check.

Risk No. 2 Few controls are enforced over nuclear shipments. Truck drivers aren't required to follow any prescribed route. They are not armed. There is no checking in.

The priceless nuclear loads are handled no differently, essentially, than baby food or bottled beer. Parenthetically, truck thefts cost the industry $600 million last year, almost double the losses in 1967. Risk No. 3 As for the air shipments, anyone familiar with current events is aware that airline hijacking has become distressingly frequent. Processed uranium is 60 times more valuable than gold, temptation enough to attract professional smugglers.

As yet, there is no evidence of an organized black market in fissionable materials. But given the high stakes and the inadequate controls, the emergency of a black market is almost inevitable. call stays long distance.) But the answerer at 1 Its methods, however, consist primarily of accounting procedures. The AEC keeps watch over the total nuclear mass by taking periodic inventories. But the results depend largely on figures submitted by private manufacturers.

Several months can pass before a theft is discovered much too late to stop delivery to a foreign power or underground group. Two mysterious disappearances have already shaken the scientific world to its very roots. In September, 1966, enough material to build six A-bombs disappeared from a processing plant run by the Nuclear Materials an Equipment corporation at Apollo, Pa. Officials later claimed that most of the material was recovered. Insiders have told this column, however, that some of the material could have been diverted for weapons manufacture.

Also in 1966, a worker at the Bradwell Atomic Plant near London stole $25,000 worth of combustible fuel elements. Fortunately, he was caught in the act of tossing them over the security fence. Until a few years ago, the federal government maintained a careful monopoly on nuclear production. However, fissionable materials have now come into dent Nixon visited Bangkok a month ago. While sticking firmly to existing American security commitments to the Thais, he was equally firm about plans to wind down the Vietnam war.

The Thai reaction was not to clutch desperately at the American commitment. On the contrary, the President had barely left, when Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman began telling visitors that the American troops sent to Thailand in support of the Vietnamese war effort would have to be pulled out. "We didn't ask to have them here in the first place," he told one American. "You asked to have them here. Now there is no need for them.

And you can take them out as soon as possible." A few days later, in the midst of the confused debate about the secret contingency agreement between Bangkok and Washington, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, in a not untypical mala-propism, raised doubts as to whether he even supported existing American commitments to Thailand. Once again, Thanat did not clutch desperately for American support. On the contrary, he seized the The battle for good drinking water grows more tense almost by the day in many of America's metropolitan areas. Atlanta is no exception. Latest evidence is the concern of suburbs to the south and west over adequate supplies of unpolluted water.

Population projections say those areas will need by 1988 three times as much water as they are using today. That will mean around 45,000,000 gallons a day. City and county governments to the south and west are planning together. Studies of needs have been made. U.S.

officials have given preliminary approval for the governments to present a specific plan for a federal grant. The Chattahoochee, one of the great rivers of America, is close at hand, ironically, but by the time it serves Atlanta it is not pure enough for other water systems in the metropolitan area. Additional sources must be found and utilized. The governments of the counties and cities to the south and west are to be com Dreiv Pearson Drew Pearson, whose column appeared on this page, has gone on at 71, a victim of a heart attack. He was a gentle man who stung the mighty with the power of his investigative ability.

Mr. Pearson in his reporting on Washington and national affairs made uneasy the sleep of any in government who would take advantage of the public trust. His was not an easy job. Denounced by Presidents on down, Mr. Pearson also was widely praised, for standing up against wrong and beating the daylights out of it.

We'll miss him. Calf In Cox Pulse of the Public occasion to call for prompt withdrawal of all American troops based in Thailand. And he forced -he pace so that the negotiations f-re to begin next week. A similar pattern has shown itself in the Philippines. On President Nixon's visit last month, he declared publicly that in view of the winding down of the American presence in Vietnam, the "special relationship" between Manila and Washington would also have to be readjusted.

President Ferdinand Marcos did not blanch. On the contrary, he actively welcomed an adjustment in the "special relationship." And the other day, when the new American Ambassador Henry Byroade arrived in Manila, he was received, in marked contrast to his two predecessors, with a great show of favor and good feeling. What has been happening in Bangkok and Manila is -crucial to the domino theory, for Thailand and the Philippines lie at the heart of dominoland. Both countries are close to Vietnam and could hardly get out of harm's way if the aggressors there moved on to new game. Both are already prey to internal guerrilla insurgencies supported by North Vietnam and Communist China.

So what's the matter with Bangkok and Manila now? How come they're not screaming their crazy heads off about the reduction of American troops in Vietnam? Why instead are they pushing for a thinning of the American presence on their own soil? Don't they believe that if Vietnam falls they must also automatically go over, like domi-nos? The true threat to the small states of Southeast Asia lies in internal -veakness, in regimes so unponular or ineffective as to be vulnerable to local insurgency. The right remed.1 is to build up the internal cohesion of the present regimes, chiefly by advancing causes with a nationalistic appeal. And the fact has not been lost on such astute politicos at Messrs. Thanat and Marcos. On the contrary, they are now playing the nationalist card with a vengeanca.

Thanat is positioning himself to get the credit for having moved out the American troops. President Marcos, in the midst of a hot campaign for reelection, is getting known as the man who can reduce Filipino dependence on the Yankees. As to the domino theory, it had its uses once. The regimes in both Bangkok and Manila made a good thing economically out of renting parts of their country to the Johnson administration. Now that deal is over, and the theory is carelessly discarded a quaint fantasy that did harm only to those gullible enough to believe it.

Driving West DeKalb Taxes Must Go Up The State of Alabama, pushing concrete eastward, has opened 1-20 all the way from Birmingham to Oxford, which is about 100 miles from Atlanta, give or take a yard or so. Also near the Alabama end of 1-20 is the new high-speed automobile race track at Talladega, where cars already have been clocked at more than 200 miles per hour. All this activity to the west has caused a motorist who had iust the food firm was friendly, no chip on her shoulder. I gave her my name. "Oh," she said, "you're the man who writes the funny column." "I hope so," I replied modestly.

"What's your name?" She said, "You won't believe me when I tell you." "You can try." I suggested. "I'm Chestelle Mellie Dodd Blessett Fowler," she told me. "I've no idea why my mother called me that." (I wouldn't know either, but baptizing the young lady must have taken a lot of water.) "Are you an Atlanta native?" I asked. "Born and raised here," Chestelle said. (By that time I was calling her Chestelle.

"After my daddy had four girls, he said, 'I might as well move to town, looks like I'm not going to have any boys to help me with the In the city the brood became seven, one more girl and then two boys. Chestelle Mellie Dodd Blessett Foster has been on the Gordon switchboard for 21 years. NO SOUSA! Lee Furman noted that in the Legion parade no band played a Sousa march. No "El Capitan," no "Washington Post," no stirring "Stars and Stripes Forever." The generation gap? Speaking of bands, Leon Smith reports New Hampshire Legionnaires 1 't bring theirs to At'anta so they hired the R. E.

Lee High "Rebel" band, Thomaston, to march for them. BRAINS TEASED: Add to those completing Don Stewart's "ottffss sequence with Olin Miller, Thomaston; Charlie Carruth, James Culbertson, Brian Wirz, Francis X. Flan-nery, Shirley Hall, Martha Greenway, Pat Patterson (Lockheed) and Joel Chinkes, all of Atlanta, and Sp4 Warren R. Sagstuon, Ft. Gordon.

In case you missed the teasers, the letters represent numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. And you cn tack zero on either end. limsned running at a recKiess m.p.n. aiong U.S. Highway 78 in Georgia-to inquire when this state would finish its part of 120 between it (DeKalb) docs not continue to meet the needs of the citizens, then like many others, will have to raise my voice to live in DeKalb rather than to exist in.

tive imagination. Perhaps they were making antimacassars or hangman's nooses for their next object lesson. We have inhibited the police and eased the offender by passing laws which seem to have made a mockery out of our judicial system. Our more famous criminal lawyers get rich with their acrobatics and weasel words and people are free! Perhaps Perry Mason should be defending some of these cases while some of the Bar Association members are on a sound stage with the make-up men and cameras. MARTHA L.

WINSLOW. DECATUR-Mr. J. K. Bradford Jr.

and others apparently don't realize that when the cost of living goes up for each individual citizen as far as the dentist, doctor, food, clothing, entertainment, expenses are concerned, they are bound to rise in our county, state and national expenses too. No person or company is going to do a job, or furnished material to keep up our roads; nor is a teacher, fireman, policeman, garbage man going to be hired by these government organizations, if they too cannot have their salaries raised to meet the cost of living rise. Now, if we are satisfied with unrepaired highways (that ruin our $3,000 automobile investment), little or no garbage collections, inferior police and fire protection, inadequate teachers in our school system, and inadequate school facilities then by all means there should be no rise in taxes to cover these services that involve human beings with needs like everyone else. However, I live in DeKalb County because it is a progressive one, and I feel if it does not continue to meet the needs of the citizen then like many others, will have to raise my voice to live in DeKalb rather than to exist in DeKalb. P.

A. MEYER. Atlanta is 1-85. It is under contract to near Newnan. From there to south of LaGrange, they'll start in the words of the Highway Department spokesman "unrolling the right-of-way" in October of 1971 and let contracts for the highway in October of 1971.

The times quoted are subject to change. If more money becomes available faster, then there possibly could be a speedup. And if there's less money, the opposite condition may prevail. Since we're serving as a kind of Highway Action Line today, we'll report that the highway spokesman says engineers are "very confident" the Atlanta perimeter will be com-, pleted on schedule, by the middle of next month. Delays have set in, however, on 1-75 to the south of town, and it now will be November before that section is completed.

There had been hopes that opening also would come in October, which would have made that month a paving whiz month for the Atlanta area. Atlanta's perimeter which was begun long before 1-20 west stopped at Douglasville is more than 60 miles in length and is counted on to introduce a new flexibility into the city's traffic flow which should take some of the load off the downtown expressways. And that fton't make anybody mad. Atlanta and the Alabama line. Elderly readers may recall that 120 west sort of petered out some years ago near Douglasville, where the end has grassed over and shows no sign of additional ferment.

To be precise, it was five years ago that Interstate 20 came to a grinding halt 30 miles west of Atlanta. It will go on, however. The schedule, says a spokesman at the State Highway Department, is for buying of right-of-way between Douglasville and Villa Rica in April of next year and the letting of contract for that stretch in December of 1970. Nearer the Alabama line there still is discussion of a bypass at Bremen. Buying of right-of-way from the 'Bama boundary to around Bremen will begin next summer, the contract to be let a year later.

The final stretch, between Villa Rica and Bremen will be bought beginning in August of 1971, and the paving contract will be let in July of 1972. Tills timetable means that it'll be around 1975 before one may roll uninterrupted from Point A (Atlanta). to Point (Birmingham). Another Interstate hiding westward from Law and Order? ATLANTA I note that Everett Millican states that "law and order" is the "only" issue in the campaign for mayor. I was not aware that the city is racked by lawlessness and disorder and would appreciate hearing from Mr.

Millican as to just how serious this problem of disorder is fa Atlanta. i STUART MbYERS. Inhibited Police ATLANTA As an agnostic, the erroneous mental picture created by three inmates casually crocheting thpir time away while a fellow prisoner is beaten death is too ludicrous for my ac-.