Wisconsin State Journal from Madison, Wisconsin • 10

A (dovn-home legislator Wisconsin State Journal Friday, May 23, 1980, Section 1, Pag 10 Ritchie's legacy W3 Former Rep. Myron Wackett, R-Watertown, who died Saturday, was a man who never lost his perspective on life. Although he rose to the co-chairmanship of the Legislature's budget-writing Joint Finance Committee from 1967-71, he always considered his time in the Legislature a public service rather than a job, and lamented the trend to a full time Legislature. Wackett, 68, ho died of cancer, retired from the Assembly in 1976. But unlike many legislators who retire or are defeated, he did not return to the Capitol as a lobbyist or appointed official.

In fact, he rarely returned at all, even as a visitor. Rather, the down-to-earth man that he was, he returned to the Standard station on the main intersection of Watertown by then owned by his son, Rob and concentrated on brake overhauls. Wackett began operating that station in 1933. He said his only ambition in retirement was to paint his house, teach his grandson about auto brakes and do a little fishing, something his 30-year political career had prevented. While in the Legislature, Wackett typified the type of lawmaker who has become rare at the Capitol the part-lime lawmaker, lie recalled that when he was elected to the Assembly in 1952, one didn't have a choice.

The Legislature paid $100 a month, and the sessions weren't long, either. The legislature convened in January of odd-numbered years, debated for a few months and then adjourned for the biennium. Gradually, the salary grew and so did the length of the sessions. Wackett didn't much like it, but he tolerated the changes. Rut he also observed that the public-service motivation for serving in the Legislature was largely gone by the middle 1970s.

He said that lilMTal and Wackett could be defeated by a Democrat, lie recalled that he shared the Democrats' conclusions at the beginning, but quickly found in the 1972 campaign that the Whitewater students weren't "liberal" like L'W-Madison students. He was re elected easily. In his last couple terms, although still a member of Joint Finance as he had been since 1901, Wackett was more a father figure than a real power. Majority Democrats on Joint Finance tried to ignore him, although he usually didn't let them. But when he rose to speak in the Assembly, usually to chide younger members for some silliness, the chamber was hushed.

Much of that was respect for a man who had never forgotten where he came from and had not forgotten why he was in the Legislature to serve the people. Omernick correction On April 21, this column made reference to Rep. Raymond Omernick. RWittenberg. The statement that he co-founded a group of armed gun-slingers to terrorize the local populace is corrected.

There was no intention to assert that Omernick organized the group for that purpose. Jim Wahner's back When Assembly Majority Leader James Wahner, D-Milwaukee, resigned from the Legislature in January to take a federal job in Chicago, many of his friends imagined they wouldn't be hearing much about him soon. Wrong. Wahner is Midwest head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which is handling the processing of the Cuban refugees at Fort McCoy. He's back.

Douglas Ritchie, Madison superintendent of schools, program-mod his departure. He reached an agreement with the School Hoard in the early 1970s that he would retire in 19ho! Ritchie thought 13 years in his demanding job was enough for him, for the school district. This ability to look ahead and plan ahead was a hallmark of his administration. Kven in farewell interviews, he was more inclined to dwell on unfinished tasks than on those already completed. When pressed, he would single out the development and changed format of the middle schools as the major academic improvement during his tenure.

Rut in the same breath he would say that slowness in incorporating girls' athletics into the system was an embarrassment to him. Ritchie acknowledged that "second guessing" by an increasing number of educational "experts" through the years was a testing experience. Rut he defended his policy of keeping his door open to any caller at any time as of paramount importance. ''It heads off problems and provides a sounding board," he said. He is deeply appreciative of Madison's "excellent" teaching staff and programs, but, in leaving, couldn't avoid looking ahead toward needs to expand summer school and programs for the talented, with more emphasis on reading and writing.

"They'll be in the 1980-81 tit Douglas Ritchie budget," he promised. Like other superintendents, Ritchie took inordinate heat in outlining plans to close schools as a necessary response to sharply declining enrollments. He accepted that thankless job without wavering in his documentation and explanation of why schools had to be closed to ensure continuing quality education for all students. Ritchie served 13 years in a position where the average tenure in systems the size of Madison's is about three years. He served the students, the staff and the public well.

And he left on an upbeat note, saying: "If I were looking for a superintendent now and had a chance to go to any community, I'd pick Madison." We appreciate his service, his legacy of good education and his epilogue. Benefits comparison Britain, France punish U.S. vrs Fixed incomes Category Present New Average single $289 $330 Average couple 493 563 Average widow 271 310 Average disabled 323 370 Maximum (retiree) 572 653 for you ai Wackett at his station. State Journal photo. was by defenders of the Western alliance.

Yet no other congressional action was more helpful to the Nixon administration in dealing with our allies. President Nixon would tell the European leaders that if they did not do more for mutual defense, he might have trouble beating back the Mansfield Amendment. It passed in 1973, but the Senate reversed its decision the next day, after requiring Europe to assist us in balance-of-payment difficulties. Then-Senators Mondale and Muskie were supporters. Are there no senators secure enough to risk the charge of irresponsibility to aid the president? The United States seems helpless: our allies will be helpful only when we start to help ourselves.

A fundamental change in our defense budget awaits a new Congress, and a serious redirection of our foreign policy awaits a new administration. But there are specific moves that could be undertaken right away to show that the U.S. cannot be taken for granted by its friends or taken for a fool bv its enemies. arsena use of chemical weapons would be met with fearful retaliation in kind. The deterrent worked.

After World War II, our effort slackened. The Soviets, by contrast, began to produce and stockpile immense reserves of Tabun. a colorless and odorless nerve gas. Reacting to the threat in the 1950s, we once again set about building a deterrent. But following Vietnam, public opinion turned against the idea.

We scrapped our chemical arsenal; Congress forbade the Defense Department to develop chemical weapons. Almost nothing remains today of a deterrent capacity. This is a folly a most dangerous folly and Ichord is right in his effort to remedy the situation. 7 By Reid Beverldge when he was first elected, the idea was that men and women of stature and accomplishment in their local communities ran for the Legislature. (Wackett was mayor of Watertown for four years before being elected to the Legislature).

He argued that many of the young men and women elected in the early 1970s ran for the office because "it paid more than being a school teacher" or because they had majored in political science and wanted a full-time job in politics. Wackett said he thought that was bad. There ought to be more service-station owners than political-science majors in the Legislature, he said. Wackett was quieter in debate the last few years of his tenure than he was in the 1950s and 1960s, when he was in the middle of the "colored oleo" fight, for example. After the Democrats gained control of the Assembly in 1970, they apparently thought enough of Wackett's abilities to mark him for defeat in 1972.

They redrew Wackett's 39th Assembly district to cut out much of the city of Watertown, which was Wackett's power base, and include Whitewater and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Wackett said the Democrats' theory was the students would vote all seaborne supplies to Iran, cutting all oil exports from Iran is, as it has been for 200 days, now. If our allies are discofnfited, we could urge them to direct their protests to Tehran. Two. Rescind the Helsinki Accords.

The biggest Soviet diplomatic victory of the 1970s was the Helsinki Final Act. President Ford at the urging of some European allies and in an excess of detente signed an agreement that assured the Soviets of the "inviolability of borders," which in effect ratified and legitimized the Soviet conquests in Europe. As a sop, we were given "Basket Three" a nosegay of supposed concessions on human rights. Some of us pointed out the Soviets had no intention of keeping that part of the agreement, and for the past four years, they have made a joke of it. However, a cottage industry was created in Washington: a bipartisan, "Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe," designed to complain about Soviet violations of the agreement, and to complain about Communist jibes at our ward their waiting aircraft.

And nothing happens. Members of the. tank crews slump in their seats, dead. The carriers spin off the road; the pilots drop on the tarmac. "There had been no smell, no ominous cloud, not a sign that the shells and bombs detonated in the surprise barrage had contained Soman, a deadly nerve gas.

Masked and goggled troops of the Red army and its satellite forces now move quickly to take advantage of the deadly, invisible miasma of their own making. And while the United States, fearful of massive Soviet retaliation, held back its nuclear weapons, it became clear that Western Europe its industrial and military infrastructure left largely intact for the conquerors' uses was falling." Since Ichcrd outlined that night- 2 When talking about the burden of properly taxes, politicans frequently wax rhetorical in promoting the interests of "persons in fixed incomes." However, the announcement this week of cost-of-living increases in Social Security payments is a reminder that not as many people are on fixed incomes as one might imagine. More than 35 million Social Security recipients will receive a 14.3 percent cost-of-living adjustment in July. That is a healthy portion of the retired persons in the nation. Although Social Security isn't designed to be a person's only retirement benefit, it frequently is a portion of an elderly person income.

The Social Security increase is justified. If any class of people is entitled to be protected against inflation, it is the elderly who have few defenses against the ravages of inflation. They have few opportunities to increase their in- By William Safire N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON Britain and France, our traditional allies, have welcomed Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie to his new job with two swift kicks in the teeth.

The Margaret Thatcher government in England, under pressure from the Commons, decided that a form of "business as usual" with Iran was preferable to the economic pressure for which the United States had been seeking. The discard d'Estaing government in France, contemptuous of American policy, not only approved sending an Olympic team to Moscow but met with Leonid Brezhnev to help the Soviets launch their post-Afghanistan peace offensive. Our allies whisper that President Carter's zigzagging has caused them to reject U.S. leadership in world affairs, and Muskie's meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko gave silent approval to "divisible detente." What, then, can the U.S. do to remind our friends we are not to be so taken for granted, and remind Tehran and Moscow that American citizens cannot be kidnapped with impunity? One.

Declare economic warfare on Iran. When such actions as mining the harbors of Iran and neutralizing the focal-point island of Kharg were suggested six months ago, they were derided by State Department spokesmen as "charging up San Juan Hill." The Carter men gloried in their patience, and made political capital of "restraint." The same conventional wisdom that said last November that economic and military action was foolhardy, today says the only time to have taken action was back in November. Now, they say, we've blown our chance; the belated rescue mission (which we were told was impossible then) was our spasm of seriousness. Now the Carter men are whimpering to our allies for help in annoying the Iranian terrorists. The time for unilateral and effective economic pressure cutting off Today's mail President Carter comes through additional work or seeking a better source of income as do those of working age.

Cost-of-living adjustments are not justified in union contracts and in other types of wage settlements. They generally are inflationary, with one feeding upon another. Klderly persons should not be locked to a fixed income. That is why they must be protected by periodic adjustments in Social Security benefits. ever twisting in the winds of change.

Don von Rase, Madison First lady Perhaps it is American tradition to call the lady of the White House the country's "First Lady." However, we do not "First Student." What this country needs is a "First (class) President." Criter S. Alome, Middleton. Carter's rescue I don't think President Carter should have tried to rescue the hostages. The chances of rescuing them were very slim because Tehran is a very big city. The helicopters would have to have landed on a roof of a building, and the hostages would have had to have gotten up there to get in.

They would have had a hard time getting out. They shouldn't blame their failure on the helicopters. Debby Rolls, Windsor. William C. Robbins Executive Editor own human rights record.

Its members hold hearings and issue reports and think they provide a great propaganda forum for showing how we were all victimized. Included is a free trip to Madrid next fall; Carter has chosen Griffin Bell evidently bored back in Atlanta to lead our delegation's handwringing. The only way to have an effect is to formally rescind our approval of the agreement guaranteeing Soviet borders, based on the failure of the Soviets to live up to their human rights commitments. That would get more attention in Europe and Moscow than any junketeering Jeremiahs. Three.

Revive the Mansfield Amendment. More than 300,000 American troops sit in Europe to discourage the Russians from attacking the Europeans. Our allies have become accustomed to our faces. For seven years, former Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, introduced proposals to bring many of our troops home. Each year, his troop reduction plan was denounced as neo-isolationist which it mare nine months ago, his grim imaginings have taken on a fresh reality.

Soviet forces have been accused of using chemical warfare in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union has small concern for "civilization." Its chemical warfare forces were estimated last summer at 80,000 to 100,000 officers and men. They train constantly in the obscene art of using poisonous gas at 40 sites in Eastern Europe. Today, says Ichord, the Soviets exceed the United States 35-1 in chemical units, 14-1 in chemical stockpiles and 14-1 in production facilities. These revelations are not new.

After Germany used mustard gas in World War the U.S. plunged into research, development and stockpiling of chemical weapons. When World War II came along, the Western allies were able to warn the Nazis that anv I am tired of hearing that President Carter is slowly but surely destroying our position as a world power. Isn't it really the people who voted for a governor of Georgia (a small state), with noruilional or in ternational expenerft73l know- now, wno are at fatip Carter is the vitv White House and lllcumci in iiut'l. son, Middleton.

Carter is wro Jimmy Carter should never have been elected. He operates on the principle that "it is impossible to underestimate the intelligence of the masses." Come convention time. Carter will find how wrong he is. Sen. Ed-ward M.

Kennedy is neither perfection nor Camelot, but he is presidential timber, not a twig clutching a rose between his teeth and for ink- com ft U.S. needs a chemical By James J. Kilpatrick WASHINGTON U.S. Rep. Richard Ichord, has embarked upon a one-man crusade for a cause abhorrent to civilized people.

He is determined to restore at least some U.S. capacity for chemical warfare. We do not live in a civilized win Id. So the objections of civilized people cannot be controlling in this area. The best way to avoid the horrors of chemical warfare, in Ichord's view, is to be prepared to wage it; and the most certain way to invite subjection to poison gas is to continue our present policies of we-are-holier-than-thou.

Last fall, Ichord sketched an ominous picture of sudden Soviet aggression in Europe. Our tanks rumble into defensive action; troop carriers move toward engagement; pilots run to Wisconsin State Journal J. Martin Wolman, Publisher Robert H. Spiegel, Editor Clifford C. Behnke City Editor i 4.

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