The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 8

SAXUaDAi MUn.m.tu, Jcui 8, 1972 GEORGE FRAZIER 'Mxfjf MJcujtL atjjyum ffAuadturX Tt The chess match (yawn) is set i goodnight; A THE ACADEMIC VIEW By Death penalty an era ends Editorial reservations by The Globe toward the Supreme Court's decision on capital punishment occasion surprise. But there should be no dismay. We should be thankful even for small things, and there is cause to rejoice mightily that the Court, notwithstanding its present composition, was able to deliver a decision which represents one of the most progressive achievements in its history in giving legal recognition to the dawning of a new moral consensus in the national and world community. A week earlier hardly any constitutionalist of substantial reputation would have predicted that the Court would do more than nip at the edges of the institution of capital punishment. Yet the effect of the decision, however indefinitely framed and gropingly arrived at, must be to permanently eradicate capital punishment as a significant feature of our legal system.

In a work of this dimension, where the Court has midwifed a constitutional value reflecting the profoundest political, moral and spiritual intuitions, it can occasion no concern that the justices should The lil'rv Me While I wouldn't for the world want anyone to get the impression that there is trouble in the kingdom of Kay Graham (cf. "Truman Capote party in honor of), I'd be remiss not to report that there have been certain problems at her Washington Post and lewsweeK. nai uu Time neglects to mention in its story of Osborn Elliott's return to the editorship of Newsweek is that it was occasioned, at least in part, by the tendency of Kermit Lansner wno succeeded and is now supplanted by Elliott) to give the news weekly too sharp a turn to the parochial, making a national magazine a little too Manhattan-oriented. Apparently, last week's cover story on Joe Papp brought things to a head. It's an interesting situation and, obiter dictumwise, I must say that there is reason to believe that the ounanaer nem jiuic a mou Iowa," Harold Ross's "little old lady from Dubuque" loves to read about New York.

Certainly The New. Yorker, New York magazine, and Women's Wear Daily have sizeable audiences outside the effete East. As for Missy Kay's other cause for concern, it is as it damn well should be, the Stvle rjaees of The Washington Post, a. section that has had five editors in three years and may soon have its sixth. A lovely, elegant conception (with its own, virtually autonomous chain of command), it gets more and more off -target.

As a student of the section, I'd say that the present editor just isn't a newspaper-, man, least of all one with a sense of style. How does that grab you, Missy Kay? Since most of you have probably never even heard of Politics Society, Boston University Journal, and 1 1 1 A 1 -1 j.ovei, pernaps a wora or iwo scoui-them are in order. All three, if not exactly esoteric, are specialized, scnoiany, ana expensive u.u.J. $2.25 a copy; Novel, $4.50 a year for three issues; a quarterly, $2.75 a copy. But from time to time, B.U.J, does run things of general interest, e.g.

Karel Holbik on the Peace Corps (Vol. XX, Nos. 2 and 3). As for Novel, it's for people interested in fiction andor in becoming a writer, while seeks, in its own words, "to transcend the sterile 'behavorial- anti-behavonar debate" a lot of transcending, that and to promote "undersupported areas of research," emphasize "the use of lucid English in its articles," and examine Robert Lynd called 'some out-, rageous Or am I going' too fast for you? This has been a rewarding week, so mucn so, in fact, that lest I omit anything, I better be brisk and business like like this: In Rolling Stone (Jujy 20) Jon Landau's revealing interview with Paul Simon; Stu Werbin on Elvis; a look, very New Journalism, at Latin music in New York by Michael Stephens, a young Irishman; and Jerry Wexler's moving reminiscence of Clyde Mc-Phatter. In Boston magazine for July: "Did the Herald Have to a beautifully-written and (except for the assertion that Rocky Paoleta never took a picture) entirely accurate account of the defunct paper by one of its old hands, David Mehegan.

The way he writes, Mr. Mehegan should be much sought after by the magazines. He's very, very good. In The New York Review (July 20): I. F.

Stone on what's-his-name and Jason Epstein on Edmund Wilson (although by far the best remembrance of our finest critic is Wilfrid Sheed's, which was in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review) In Monster Times (Vol. 1, No. 12): practically everything, but particularly the stuff on the planet of apes. And, finally, in (MORE): Ethel Reed Stramchamps's informed and saucv "Why We Can't Say (that last word laundered by me). Now, if you will excuse me, the July 15th Craig Claiborne Journal has arrived and I must into the kitchen.

1 George Frazier is a Globe columnist. EDITORIAL POINTS The Wright Brothers never dreamed that the airplane would become a flying shooting gallery. Mr. Nixon fights communism in Vietnam, while coming to terms with it in Russia and China. The MBTA costs so much, it would be cheaper to buy roller skates for everybody.

Even in a rainy summer a base- Vi fall t1ott Anrti i rrV rr orv a get its manager fired. r' Returning power to the people is a good idea, providing 200 million persons can agree on what to do with it. i Bobby Fischer, the chess demon, is slender. This should encourage all those who do their best work, sitting down. Babysitting isn't -the exact word.

With an active child; it's hot their early inability to agree even on the shape of the table and the lighting. It is fitting that most of the arrangements were made for them by their seconds, as in old-fashioned duels. Mr. Fischer, it has been said, has acted in the best tradition of American athletes in demanding, and getting, more prize money than he had agreed to in the beginning, with the pot now raised to the nice level of around $300,000. Well, if you're going to play chess for money, we always say, you might as well make it worthwhile.

We just hope the British chess enthusiast who put up an additional $125,000 out of his own pocket gets his money's worth. On your marks, Boris and Bobby, and may the best man win. But remember, the one who douses the lights when the other is making his move will be disqualified. sharks The sharks must give up their choice diet of lobsters and crab for mackerel and herring. What's more, they will be deliberately fattened up so that they lose interest in eating each other which will put a crimp in the style of the fast-swimming blacktip.

All of the captives are dwellers of the inshore ocean. And, although the Aquarium hopes to replace those who died and to widen its catch someday to include the great white shark, the pelagic or deep water fish have an even worse time in captivity. Unused to barriers, they bang into tank walls, have nervous breakdowns and finally give up the fight for freedom and life. This isn't to say that the three-year old Aquarium should give up its plan to have the largest indoor collection of sharks in the country or to say that the captors, curators and Boston Police did not do all they could to welcome the fish from their traumatic journey. It is simply to point out that, for one planeload of sharks, getting there wasn't much fun.

sale company undoubtedly wants this transaction to serve as a prelude to more sales of other commercial jets to sprawling China. There are less tangible but quite pleasing aspects of the situation. The Chinese have always seemed quite sensitive to the appearances of any given event, and it now seems they are willing to use American aircraft in their domestic and international air service. Standing by itself, it suggests that they expect continued improvement in our relations. In this country, the license is a further winding down of the restrictions on trade based on military evaluations of the strategic usefulness of a given product to a given potential enemy.

This country never has quite gotten over the Pearl Harbor fever and a sometimes irrational recollection that during the 1930s we sent Japan scrap iron which they shot took at us in the 1940s. It is the eradication of that disease that could be the most important aspect of Boeing's hoped-for sale. Gov. Wallace be wheeled backwards down the ramp to guard against accident. Mr.

Wallace wanted it otherwise, and otherwise it was. What this determination may mean at the convention is speculative. But as he ticked off the busing and other issues on which the other Democratic presidential candidates and the platform committee had vainly sought a compromise that would be satisfactory to him, an observer had to conclude that there is still ample strength in his wracked body to insist, if he is so moved, on all or nothing. The governor now speaks more softly, even more nearly winningly, than he formerly did. But despite the many efforts, some of them almost obsequious, that opposing factions have made to win his support, Mr.

Wallace seems as determined now as heretofore on being his own man. The drama, perhaps a breath-catching one, will come when he is wheeled, as now seems to be his intention, to the speaker's rostrum at the convention. It will be an emotion packed moment. Experienced observers will await the event before attempting to assess its impact on the delegates. The world championship chess match at long last is set to start Tuesday, and one wonders how even the greatest of chess enthusiasts, by now, can really much care.

The match was supposed to start a week ago, but the preliminaries unfortunately resembled the hassles to which one is accustomed before, say, a Muhammad Ali fight This has been a little disconcerting to those who had been fooled into thinking that chess was as genteel as, well, ladies' tennis, although, come to think of it, ladies' tennis isn't half so genteel as It once was, either. Maybe that's the rub. It isn't how you play the game, son, it's whether fou win or lose. In this case, the moves started long before the rivals, the Russian champ, Boris Spassky, And the American genius, Bobby Fis-ther, even agreed on terms. They re-lembled Paris peace negotiators in A planeload of The flight of the sharks to Boston last week ended in tragedy as oxygen regulators aboard the chartered DC-9 failed and the coffin-shaped water-beds in which the fish were travelling turned into coffins indeed for two of them.

Five other sharks died shortly after their arrival at the New England Aquarium as a result of oxygen starvation aboard the plane. Perhaps this just goes to show what happens when you get out of your element. Sharks are meant to swim in the sea, not to fly round in airplanes. It wasn't that the six-to-nine-foot passengers needed coffee, tea or milk; they required flexing by two attendants to keep them from stiffening up and plenty of water bubbling with oxygen to cover their lateral gills. I And the survivors: four nurse sharks, two lemon sharks, one blacktip shark and two nonrelated i four and six foot jew fish, have other problems to face in the Aquarium's circular salt water pool.

The Chinese jet I The granting of a license by the i US Department of Commerce to the I Boeing Company to sell 10 jet trans-i ports to China is potentially import-i ant in its own right, representing a transaction of $150 million, but its I greatest significance lies in the in-: dication that Sino-American relations are genuinely improving. I Completion of negotiations for the 1 sale lies in the hands of Chinese and Boeing officials and, as with any commercial transaction, there is always the possibility that the two sides will not be able to come to terms. In this particular case, though, each side would seem to have more jthan just the ordinary motives for being able to agree. The Chinese, I for their part, want to demonstrate to other sellers of capital equipment, including the Soviet Union, that the I Americans have access to their mar-1 kets. This particular sale will not do much to expand Boeing's production i of the 707 Boeing has already i turned out 864 of the planes.

But the The return of The Democratic Convention in Miami Beach will of course be the site of the real drama of Alabama Gov. George Wallace's return, one might almost say, from the dead, following the attempted assassination of May 15. But there was drama aplenty in his first public appearance at planeside at Montgomery's air field yesterday after his discharge 1 from Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md. Although Mr. Wallace appeared much stronger than he had just 24 hours earlier when he read one of I the long responses in the Mass that was 6aid for him at the hospital, one i was struck by the brutal devasta tion that can be visited on a once strong human body by a gun in the hands of a mad man.

The governor's voice was strong, at least as compared to his halting speech a day earlier, and it was surprising to note remarkably his appearance had improved in just 24 hours. The governor's determination to pick up where he had left off eight weeks ago was manifest in so small a thing ai the manner in which he left the ambulance plane to address the friends who had gathered to greet him. His doctors had insisted that he TH-TH-THAT'S ALL, FOLKS! ROBERT W. HALLGRIISG not be of a single mind in selecting the appropriate verbal and conceptual rubrics in which to cast their judgment. It is not surprising that, in interpreting the very imprecise language of the 8th Amendment, a task in which they have almost no benefit from prior judicial delineation, the justices should exhibit a variety of opinions as to the relative importance of the features of shock and revolution subsumed under the unmanageable word "cruel," as compared to the features of inequality suggested by the word "unusual." Nor is it unexpected that some members of the Court should feel more at ease with their feet planted in the relatively rich interpretive history of the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment.

Despite the presence of uncertainties which may require refinement by future litigation, the work of the Court in this case will be durable. The features of unequal application which form the core of the Court's consensus, cannot as a practical matter be corrected by legislation. Nor is there any likelihood that widespread legislative support could be garnered for a At the Shell Saturday evening (1 July) was my first occasion to attend an Esplanade concert since the amplification system was used. In my opinion, it does more to detract from, than to enhance the beauty of the concert. It was more like attending a recordings concert, with the disadvantage of being unable to control the volume.

When the orchestra struck up a crescendo of fortissimo music from Offenbach's Orpheus in Hades, all hell broke loose for brassy, annoying sound. It was my understanding that the Hatch Shell was built to provide the necessary acoustics, has served so for many years. If amplification is to be used, it should be to a minimum, enough to allow some soft notes to carry to the perimeter jof the listening audience. Here, the innovative is not necessarily synonymous with the improving. I hope the experts will see this and correct it.

J. MAURICE NAPARSTEK Ayer MBTA tax A home owner or a tenant in Cambridge, living in a house assessed for $12,000, paid the city tax collector $123.36 in 1971 for the MBTA deficit charged to this city. This year DINGBAT scheme of mandatory death penalties. As the late Justice Harlan pointed out, the present unsatisfactory state of affairs came about as a result of efforts to mitigate the intolerable rigidity of the former system of mandatory penalties a system which not only shocked the conscience but made it difficult to obtain conviction in many cases where they were richly deserved. Should such a scheme be reenacted, it would in all probability be decisively rejected by the Court.

Indeed, the Chief Justice, in his present dissent, suggests that he would prefer outright abolition to the restoration of a scheme of mandatory penalties. It may be that a few fragments of the old institution may reassert themselves in statutes dealing with treason and other narrow categories of uncommon offenses. But any such regressive mutations, without the support of a general habit, may be expected to wither. Fears and reservations, while well intended, should not diminish the general hallelujah with which this decision must be greeted. Robert W.

Hallgring is professor of law at Northeastern University. it appears he will pay $144. The MBTA Board of Directors projected deficit for 1972 indicates that the home owner or tenant would pay $180, but as we know, the 79 cities and towns refused to approve the supplementary budgets presented since December. For that same home owner or tenant, the amounts he paid annually from 1966 through 1971 were as follows: 78.24; 123.36, and, in 1972, the figure could be $144 The 1966 tax was 141 percent lower than the 1972 tax for the T. No wonder the 79 cities and towns have staged the modern party and, like the English of old, the authorities advocate taxation without representation of the 79 cities and towns on the budget deliberations.

PAUL J. FRANK Executive Director Cambridge Advisory Committee Tell freedom Tell freedom how the hot blood ran In the summer of our discontent. The young Defy the mores of our world, in swift bright anger: Thus it has been before. Each generation flung Into the breech, dissatisfied, and reaching out With eager, impatient hands to change their world From what their forebears was. The old men Shake their heads in mremembering their fingers curled Around the staffs of age, umvilling to recall a time When they were rebel, too, and fought for change.

Remember then, this is not mere Nor is rebellion strange Freedom was born from rebel. stock, created from a need To see all men equal and free in deed. CORNELIA B. FURBISH Brighton LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Prison reform I want to praise and thank the Massachusetts Legislature for approving through voice vote Bill 1330 calling for reform in correctional institutions and in our approach toward providing effective rehabilitation to offenders. Now I pray that final approval will come without delay and without amendments that will cut the gut out of the act.

Corrections Commissioner John Boone needs all the support he can get as he tries to implement effective rehabilitation in our prisons- The bill will give Boone an opportunity to invoke new programs. It calls for diagnostic and classification centers which will treat offenders on a more individual basis and separate "real" first offenders from hard-core criminals. They say there are the inexperienced first offenders and those who are experienced but caught for the first time. The latter look upon their sentences as an opportunity to recruit young men as future associates in crime. Through a program called Project Listen more than 25 Heading residents visit a nearby correctional institution on a weekly basis for fellowship.

On our first visit we were all startled to discover these fellows were so much like our sons, brothers, and next-door neighbors. As we- talk with these fellows we find they worry about their families, where they can find a job when they get out, where they can live, is their motorcycle safe, will they be able to make it on the outside If we are to give prisoners social tools, build their selfconfidence, and help them discover that with decision-making comes responsibility, then we've got to effect reform and look to our own personal attitudes toward offenders. Reform doesn't mean changing prisons to community country clubs with complete freedom to offenders. But it does mean changing a system that is not working to one that is working in other parts of the country. And it can work here.

PAULINE DISHMON Project Listen Reading.