The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 15

13 The Eoston Globe Tuesday, Ju'y 13, 1971 ART BUCIIWALD POLITICAL CIRCUIT By DAVID NYHAN A prayer for tourists Tax hopes brighten; Cabinet shapes up Vvw, 1 LA Given his druthers, Sargent appears willing to go beyond state borders for his help. He brought Welfare Comr. Steven A. Minter from Cleveland. When he swore in Gold-mark yesterday at the State House, Sargent obviously was pleased with the youth, coolness and artful dodging Goldmark displayed.

Narcotics is a big problem, said Goldmark under a reporter's' questioning, but no, he couldn't say it was more important than welfare spending. No, he doesn't feel the New York residency requirement should be adopted here, but he will have to reserve judgment on the residency recommendation made by the Legislature's welfare investigating committee. "This is your last chance to get out of said Sargent before administering the oath. After all that business about upholding the constitution, Sargent delivered his last piece of advice: "Just be careful, Peter." And careful Peter was in his first official moment in what the governor himself calls "the toughest of the cabinet jobs." Goldmark avoided the mistake of publicly ranking his priorities, hailed Minter by saying, "I don't think you can ask for a stronger partner," and, with a wisdom belying his 30 years, admitted that no, he hasn't had any experience with the controversial welfare flat grant system. Sq the House votes today on a tax program that will probably be eaten up by increases in the incredible welfare load by this time next year; Goldmark comes to work today trying to figure out just what "Human Services" should mean in Massachusetts; and at the State House, the vacation is over.

David Nyhan is a Globe State House reporter. LONDON According to The Times of London, the Greek Orthodox Church has just issued a new prayer asking the Lord to protect the Greek people from tourists. The prayer, which is to be said by monks and nuns every morning and every evening, goes like this: "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on the cities, the islands, and the villages of our Orthodox fatherland, as well as the holy monasteries, which are scourged by the worldly touristic wave. "Grace us with a solution to this dramatic problem and protect our brethem who are sorely tried by the modernistic spirit of these contemporary Western invaders." Now it's only fair if the monks and nuns are beseeching the Lord with anti-tourist prayers, that the tourists get equal time. So I have written a prayer for tourists which they must recite when they get up in the morning and) go to bed at night.

It goes like this: "Heavenly Father, look down on us Your humble, obedient tourist servants, who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, mailing buying souvenirs and walking around in drip-dry underwear. "We beseech you, Lord, to see that our plane is not hijacked, our luggage is not lost and our overweight baggage goes unnoticed. "Protect us from surly and unscrupulous taxi drivers, avaricious porters and unlicensed English-speaking guides. "Give us this day divine guidance in the selection of our hotels, that we may find our reservations honored, our rooms made up, and hot water running froni the faucets (if it is at all possible). "We pray that the telephones work, end that the operators speak STANLEY KARNOW Here we go again TRB IN WASHINGTON Nader, Common Cause A week off in peak summer heat never hurt anybody, as the Massachusetts Legislature proves by virtue of the fresh tans sported by mem-bers coming back, to reality yesterday.

Today the House has a chance to show its appreciation for the time off provided by the leadership, and votes on the third version of, a tax plan proffered by Gov. Sargent. The lobbyists, who make good money counting noses, even sunburned noses, feel this package $233 million in increased income and business taxes will pass this time. The insurance companies still oppose the surtax provision but themselves suggested the net income tax portion of the bill as it effects them. So the legislature's vacation may have put it in the frame of mind to try balancing the budget.

While the legislators frolicked, Gov. Sargent winnowed down his cabinet choices. He is halfway through his allotted span of ten-stout-hearted bureaucrats. Installed so far are Charles E. Shepard in Administration and Fi-J nance, Alan Altshuler in Transportation and Construction, Mrs.

Mary B. Newman in Manpower Affairs, Richard E. McLaughlin in Public safety, and Peter Goldmark in Human Services. Regarded as sure bets for appointment next week are Chairman William I. Cowin of the Department of Public Utilities in Consumer Affairs, and Charles H.

W. Foster in environmental affairs. That leaves three of the secretariats still open Educational Affairs, Elder affairs, and Communities and, Development. The rontrunner in the last post is still Paul Ylvisiker of New Jersey, but he reportedly has reservations about the staffing situation. The cabinet as outlined to date is very much of a mixed bag Shejisrd the career employee, Registrar McLaughlin the veteran Democrat, Al-( ghuler the academic, 'Mrs.

Newman the woman and the defeated Republican candidate, and Goldmark the new face from New York. Still to be determined is whether Sargent will name a black to the cabinet. Several have been suggested, such as Archie Epps of Harvard for the education job. As the cabinet openings dwindle, the governor's options also shrink. The appointment of Mrs.

Newman, for instance, may dim the chances in Elder Affairs of William Weeks, the former state senator who may try to repeat his unsuccessful primary challenge against congressman Hasting Keith in the 12th district GOP primary next' year. ROBERT A. JORDAN our tongue, and that there I'J no mail waiting from our children which would force us to cancel the rest of our trip. "Lead us, dear Lord, to good, inexpensive, restaurants where the food is superb, the waiters friendly, and the wine included in the price of the meal. "Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand.

Forgive us for undertipping out of ignorance and overtipping out of fear. Make the natives love us for what we are, and not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods. 1 "Grant us the strength to visit the museums, the cathedrals, the palaces and the castles listed as 'musts' in the "And if perchance we skip an historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us, for our flesh is weak." (This part husbands). of the prayer is for "Dear God, keep our wives from shopping sprees and protect them from bargains' they don't need or can't afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do." (This wives.) part of the prayer is for "Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us.

Save them from making fools of themselves in cafes and night clubs. Above all, please do not forgive them their trespasses for they know exactly what they do." (Together) "And when our voyage is over, and we return to our loved ones, grant us the favor of finding someone who will look at our home movies and listen to our stories, so our lives as tourists will not have been in vain. This we ask you in the name of Conrad Hilton, Thomas Cook, and the American Express. Amen." Art Buchwald is a syndicated columnist. if they ever were.

The problem of US captives in Hanoi does not exercise the South Vietnamese. Similarly, the eventual shape of the Saigon government is of scant concern to Americans anxious to see their husbands and sons home. Thus the Communists are striving to drive a wedge between the Americans and South Vietnamese by underlining that their interests at this stage in the war are divergent. In other words, they are saying to the South Vietnamese: "You are being killed for the sake of a hand- ful of American prisoners." And they are saying to US public opinion: are being deprived of your loved ones for the sake of the present Saigon regime." 1 Ironically, the Nixon Administration unwittingly provided the Communists with the opportunity to employ this strategy by linking the prisoner issue to the broader question of a settlement in South Viet- nam. Starting last fall and building up through the spring, the Administra- tion publicized the prisoner problem in everything from television com- mercials to football games.

The Pre- sident and his spokesmen repeatedly asserted that the US withdrawal 1 timetable was connected to the fate of the captives. In late April, for instance, Mr. Nixon even went so far as to warn that a US military contingent would remain in Vietnam "until we get our 1 prisoners released." If North Viet- nam is "so barbaric that they con- tinue to hold our POWs," he said, "then we're going to keep a residual force no matter how long it takes." Proceeding with their characteristic caution, they first indicated that they would "discuss" the release of prisoners in exchange for an early US withdrawal date. Then the Viet-cong delegate in Paris issued a firmer offer to free the captives if the United States set a schedule for pulling all its forces out of Vietnam. Now, Le Due Tho has gone a step further with a proposal that the White House will probably feel compelled to reject but at the cost of it own credibility.

tanky Karnoiz is a mist. Hanoi's new POW ploy made-to-order in USA Patriotism or racism? fight tax He doesn't have a suite with an outer office. He doesn't have a secretary. He doesn't have a car. At 37, he doesn't even have a wife.

He is Ombudsman, dedicated and self-appointed, to the American people. Yes, Ralph Nader son of Lebanese immigrants; he now has another little job on his hands, to stop a tax grab of $30 billion. But it is a special kind of engineered by the Nixon Administration itself. It has overtones more important than the money. They involve a constitutional point: who has the right to levy and collect taxes, anyway? Congress or the White House? And there is another point likely to go right up to the Supreme Court: the right of the little man to have "standing" in a court.

Traditionally you can't bring a suit you don't have standing unless you have a direct, economic or similar stake in an issue, not even if you are a taxpayer and you think the government is preparing illegally to give away some of your money. Recently courts have broadened this idea of standing. Now the thing will have a bigger test. Ralph Nader, and John Gardner's Common Cause, and a consortium of other hard-headed idealists have had the impertinence to bring suit against the United States Treasury. Well, so now we come to the big new chapter.

The subject is so crash-ingly dull that just to mention it is a switch-off phrase, so I will try to creep up on it. I am closely associated with two boys, nine and seven, who have recently been given a new walkie-talkie. What is the life expectancy of the outfit? With the judgment of sad experience I would base the rate of depreciation for tax purposes at about five days. And now that we have got into depreciation, the government has guidelines for the assets of 50 groups ranging down from gas and electricity transmission 30 years; railways 14; mining! 10; aerospace 8. As assets depreciate, taxes fall under these complicated guidelines, and steel plants are like walkie-talkies.

Now we come to the Laguna Beach, California, press briefing last Jan. 11. The White House reporters who travel with Mr. Nixon are a long way from home; they are not specialists on technical subjects and the sources on whom they rely are back in Washington. Mr.

Nixon's press secretary Ron Ziegler arrived about 12:20 p.m. with undersecretary of the Treasury Walker (the bane of linotype men because he spells his first name and John Nolan, deputy assistant secretary. They had a statement from Mr. Nixon saying that he had "approved three important changes in the administration of the depreciation provisions of the tax laws. The bored reporters said, "My, My!" They mostly couldn't understand it.

It was about "faster depreciation allowance" or something. And all this dry-as-dust announcement really meant was a tax bonus to big business of something over $3 billion a year for 10 years, or a total of around $37 billion. It was created by executive fiat, like the Vietnam war, without recourse to Congress, in one of the biggest proposed giveaways in recent history. Mr. Nixon was allowing companies to depreciate their assets for tax purposes over a periodshorter by as much as 20 percent over the old 1962 guidelines.

It was like telling the two small boys that a reasonable useful life expectancy of their walkie-talkie was four days and not five and there would be no reprimands if they made it go that long. Ralph Nader was en route to Japan when this happened. But he has a garrison of permanent Nader's Raiders in Washington, mostly fresh out of law school and with a controlled zest for the public interest surpassing that of a Wall Street tax lawyer drooling for a half -million-dollar fee. So Tom Stanton (who gets paid by Nader $4500), and his colleague Sam Simon, on their own initiative immediately filed suit the same day, Jan. 11, pointing out that the Treasury had said nothing about public hearings which are required by law.

The Treasury caught its breath, coughed, and said it had merely forgotten to mention them. It was the first of several coincidences. Mr. Nixon, in his original statement, said that it was "essentially a change in the timing" and Treasury Secretary Kennedy said it just meant a "postponement" of tax payment. "These statements are false," observed Northwestern University tax expert Robert Eisner at the subse-, quent hearing.

Senator Muskie released a confidential memo from John Nolan (like a small Pentagon Paper) warning his bosses that the big tax giveaway might be illegal without consulting Congress. Nolan quickly said that he had changed his mind. It was also shown that last September a presidential task force, led by 'a former member of the Nixon-Mitchell Wall Street law firm, explicitly said that congressional action would be needed. Last week Nader and Common Cause, and a group of carefully chosen" plaintiffs, filed suit here to block fast depreciation. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, for example, claims it has legal "standing" because it competes with private utilities who get the rake-off.

Economists like Walter Heller say the rebate won't help the recovery because the boost will come too late. A big tax loophole for business means that others must pay more taxes. That was the argument Mr. Nixon used in vetoing the school bill a year ago, he called it "painful, but necessary" to save taxes. It was peanuts compared to this, only $453 million.

(c) 1971, The New Republic Paris pin; -pong WASHINGTON The Vietnamese Communists are currently trying to win through negotiations what they have failed to win on the battlefield. For they seem to believe that their strongest trump card at the moment is the sheer exhaustion with the war that has overtaken both the United States and South Vietnam. This comes through clearly in the interview given to the New York Times last week by Le Due Tho, the North Vietnamese Politburo member, who obviously traveled to Paris last month for the express purpose of launching the Communists' new diplomatic offensive. Judging from those remarks in the interview, the Communists are apparently convinced that the American and South Vietnamese peoples are so fed up with the conflict that they are willing to accept different arrangements to achieve peace. For that reason, it seems, Tho put forth the proposal that the dual question of American prisoners and a US troops withdrawal date be separated from the issue of a political settlement in Saigon.

By adopting this strategy, the Communists appear to be taking advantage of the fact that the American and South Vietnamese peoples are no longer joined in a commn cause 'GOOD EVENING Mr. Phelphs and editors of the Times, Post, Globe man, apologized for the incident and said he was sorry it happened. "After all," he said, "we're preaching law and order and non-violence." To Toon and other blacks, these words are about as phoney as a George Wallace handshake with H. Rap Brown. And Bunker himself should realize that his remarks about President Nixon being too far left on his domestic policies does not exactly cast him as a supporter of the black man's fight for equality.

Yet there are those rally supporters who would attempt to prove that the rally has no racism since some blacks are involved. But a black man appearing at any such rally proves nothing except that he has been either totally brainwashed or is completely unaware of where he is really at. If these believers in "God, family and country" were truly concerned about America's future, they would deal with some of the real threats to the nation's survival racism, poverty, injustice and ignorance rather than spend their time, money and energy trying to maintain the false and dangerous impression that America really is beautiful. But there's probably not much anyone could do with people who expose their own weakness by attacking a single black man and then hiding behind the American flag. This5 incident makes Samuel Johnson even more accurate today than in 1775, when he said "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Robert Jordan is a Globe Staff reporter.

It is hardly a secret that many, if not most participants at the annual New England Rally for, God, Family and Country are as racist as they are "patriotic" and last week's incident clearly proved this. With the zeal of football punters, some 30 to 40 men at the Boston rally demonstrated their faith in "God, family and country" by kicking and kneeing a black cameraman, Thurman Toon Channel 7 (WNAC-TV), for merely doing his job. That was sickening enough, but the incident became even more tragic when one of Toon's assailants said he did it "because I am a patriot." Of course, this "patriot" is actually saying that he firmly believes that it is patriotic to be anti-black, and no doubt Toon's other attackers share the same feeling. More than a few others who witnessed the incident were probably a little disappointed that they were not able to participate in the kickfest to show how righteous and moralistic they were, before Toon was hustled out of the rally. These are the very people who cast most, if not all blacks as troublemakers, rapists, rioters and ignorant Communist dupes.

To them, it was no matter that Toon was a professional cameraman on assignment was still black and that was reason enough to go after him. However, it would be unfair to accuse all the attendants at the rally of displaying such racism. Most others prefer to be more subtle and devious. As expected, CoL Lauret.ce Eliot li Bunker of Wellesley, rally chair.