The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 30

B2 S.F. EXAMINER Oct. 6, 1983 jExatntner David E. Halvorsen EDITOR James P. Willse EDITOR Tom Dearmore EDfTORIAL DIRECTOR James E.

Sevrens GENERAL MANAGER Vw- J. f- FOUNDED 1865 Randolph A. Hearst PRESIDENT Editorials A misbegotten strike in Oakland Depend on Jesse Helms, however, to contaminate a serious argument with debating points from the gutter. On the Senate floor he resurrected the Indecent can. 1 ards of the 1950s and '60s about King and the civil- rights movement, including the ridiculous charge that they were inspired by Marxist-Leninism.

We soon forget. But such were the coarse irrele-, vancles with which many bewildered white Southern- ers consoled themselves, 10 and 20 years ago, when Jim Crow was falling apart. To believe that the civil-rights revolution sprang from real grievances, and drew upon authentic American values, was to confess that thdftU! sense of Justice had slept for a century. And that was, for many like Jesse Helms, much too bitter a pllUe i swallow. Silly as these antiquated controversies seem today I think Ted Kennedy was mistaken to say that charges should not be dignified by reply.

Vt Fortunately there is less mystery now than King's alleged "communist" associations, tharikS' to the diligent researches of Prof. David Garrow. Qne or two figures close to King were' long suspected of -communist ties have had them. This subject of Intense worry to President Kennedy andis.vi brother to a point, indeed, that prompted them to authorize FBI surveillance of King. But no "Marxist' 'H Leninist" influence was ever discovered.

As for Helms's charge about King's role in Vietnam protest, the record is there. Dr. King ted himself the rhetorical extravagance of the tljnes once calling the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today," and even comparing ,2 advanced U.S.' weaponry in Southeast Asia to tortures (presumably of the Nazi era) in the concentration camps of Europe." Yes, such things were said in that time of passion ate anger and division, perhaps more pardonably by man who saw the war as a diversion from advance in. civil rights. That such utterances should weigh in holiday debate is a matter of judgment.

At worst they" are period pieces of forgotten wrath. ui im'i But it is not for edifying or searching debate fhau Helms has revived them. When questioned abourjlticf attacks on King, he said: "I'm not going to get any black" votes (in North Carolina), period." There you have it straight. For Helms, it is a matter" of political survival, cost what it may in racial division. 'Divide and conquer has been the Helms way for 85 to Wishlngioft Post The politics of a holiday WASHINGTON Jesse Helms watchers and I am better qualified at this disagreeable art than I care to be- watched his performance in the Senate debate on a Martin Luther King holiday with a sense of deja vu'AU the talk about King's "revolutionary Marxist-Leninist" connections, ail the twaddle about the dollar loss to the economy of another national holiday: It is vintage Helms.

o-'r- It probably has little enough to do with the merits of the matter. Helms faces a tough fight for re-election next year and the polls show Jilm on the ropes. But he has prospered before on negativism. So if only he can galvanize his misguided followers by posing as the nation's savior from a King holiday, he might just save his hide. Vet Jesse Helms, who is a stopped clock if ever American politics had one, is sometimes accidentally right.

He is about half no, make that a quarter right, for the worst of reasons, about the politics of the Martin Luther King holiday debate. In a free vote, unaffected by reluctance to add another black, grievance to a sorrowful list, many senators who support the King holiday would not. It is not that they respect King the less, but because they believe, as 1 do, that national holidays should be strictly for figures, long gone, of absolutely undebata-ble magnitude, Dr. King was a prophet, a man of good works, a thoroughly wholesome influence in American life, and the years may someday ratify the view that he should stand With Washington and Lincoln. But before John Adams and Thomas Jefferson? The time is not yet.

Wise men in the Senate, aware of all this, sought to postpone a showdown. They knew it would pose an unpleasant choice between offending the black community and offending their sense of historical aren't factory hands who begin work when the assembly line starts to roll. Anyone who ever has taught knows the value of that prep-time in setting the stage for the education of young, effervescent minds. Taking the cap off class sizes, another district demand, also strikes us as not in the best interest of the students' educations and it is their education, after all, which is the name of the game. We must hope that the money can be found to avoid this move.

It is no cliche to say that no one wins in a school strike. The distrust and bitterness that are sown among teachers, administrators, parents and teachers can linger and infect the school and the educational process, bewildering and eventually hardening young, formative minds. THE IRONY in the teachers' strike in Oakland would make a cynic smirk. Tuesday's proposals had the teachers asking for a smaller percentage raise 13 percent over twd years than district officials were offering, 14 percent. It is doubly ironic because Oakland's public school teachers are the worst paid among the seven East Bay districts that The Examiner surveyed.

The fact that the two sides managed to nverse the traditional order of labor negotiations, in which workers ask for more than management offers, is symbolic of the communications gap that the two have Created through poor planning and faulty logistics, and which contributed decisively to the strike. Each side emerged from its Monday night caucus with less than enough time to maneuver before the strike deadline. Each came out of the next night's ultra-secret strategy sessions on the opposite side of the traditional labor-management stand on wages. Better communication in the round of talks scheduled for last night and, if necessary, throughout the week, would obviate a repeat performance. The irony also suggests that salaries are not the cutting issue, though they must be raised considerably to match the surrounding districts and to attract qualified teachers.

The real stumbling block has appeared to be the packet of quality issues class size, preparation time, transfers and medical and pension benefits. The district, for example, wants to give the teachers $1,300 bonuses in exchange for the elimination of two class-preparation periods. The teachers charge that the offer amounts to a bribe which will adversely affect the students. That is a powerful argument. Teachers Moreover, the district is losing more than a quarter of a million dollars a day in state revenue.

Ninety percent of the 3,500 teachers and nurses, counselors and librarians are pounding the bricks rather than cracking the books, while handfuls are setting up classes in private homes. Hundred-dpllar-a-day substitutes too often are filling the children's days with busy work and, in at least one reported case, television cartoons. Countless single parents and working couples are hurriedly rearranging their and their employers' lives. Worst of all, there are 49,000 youngsters ho are getting less than they need to build the foundations of their futures and far less than we, as a society, owe them. Room for compromise on both sides should be found.

The strike never should have come about, but now that it is here, let's see an end to it in a hurry. jlfeM (Mill niMfv Can this be Ted and Jerry? Editor's mailbox 'Cop-killer' bullets CREDIT Cal Thomas, the communications director for Moral Majority, with bringing off the Kennedy-Falwell coming-together in Virginia. Thomas persuaded the Rev. Jerry Falwell that inviting Sen. Edward Kennedy to whom an MM membership card had been sent inadvertently to speak at the fundamentalist Liberty Baptist College would be a "public relations stroke" of considerable magnitude.

It was that. Certainly it was in the public interest to provide an airing of a monumental disagreement on the applications of religion and politics. The two men are highly visible in their political differences, which are extreme, and each has contributed a good deal of rhetorical excess to advance the doctrine of the constitutency he represents. Tolerance is not the strong point of either extreme liberals or extreme conservatives, and this was a natural subject of discussion for the senator from Massachusetts, since co-existence begins at home. "We sorely test our ability to live together if we too readily question each other's integrity," Kennedy said.

"Dr. Falwell is not a and 'liberal clergymen' are not, as the Moral Majority suggested in a recent letter, equivalent to 'Soviet sympathizers'." The question is, how far are we from coexistence when the Rev. Falwell is called a "Nazi" and heckled during a speech at Harvard University? As distant as when United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick is unable to finish her speech at UC Berkeley because individuals of opposing political views refused to let her speak without interruption. The goal of civilized discourse still eludes us, in too many settings where the heat is supposed to be subservient to the light. But Falwell and Kennedy to their credit, demonstrated the way in which disagreement should be accommodated.

They have given us a short tour on the path to tolerance, and a round of applause is in order. M'e welcome letters from our readers, but only a selection can be used. "Open" and third-party letters are not acceptable. Letters must bear the writer's natne, signature and address; the street address will not be published. We reserve the right to edit letters for style and brevity.

Send letters to Editor's mailbox, San Francisco Examiner, P.O. Box 7260, San Francisco 94120. While symposium organizers were negotiating with the White House, Carter suddenly discovered that the president was on the verge of showing up in the caucus room. He angrily threatened to pull out if Reagan appeared. Carter's reaction was passed to the White House, which responded in kind.

With the president nowhere in sight, Ford and Carter divided discussion duties, appearing at separate sessions. But Carter was still so furious he refused to return for the concluding session. An Examiner editorial buN let to ban right now," Sept. 12 distorted the National Rifle Association's position on congressionally pending legislation designed to outlaw armor-piercing ammunition. Yes, the NRA opposes the bill but so do the U.S.

Justice Department-and U.S. Treasury Department. The NRA adopted its position only after these federal agencies announced their opposition to the legislation. The NRA, Treasury and Justice are against the bill for a single, solid reason: because the measure, as drafted, would outlaw virtually all types of sporting and conventional ammunition. A Justice Department spokesman told a' congressional committee last year that the effect of a ban on armor-plerc ing bullets, in certain handgun calibers, "would effectively deprive firearms owners of the use of their weapons by rendering illegal all presently available commercial ammunition." A Treasury spokesman echoed those remarks before the same committee, the House Subcommittee on Crime.

The problem with the bill, quite simply, is its definition of "armor-piercing bullet." The definition would ban handgun bullets capable of penetrating 18 layers of Kevlar, a synthetic material which is the standard composition of most police bullet-resistant vests. Unfortunately, this definition Includes most, if not all, conventional and sporting ammo. i Even Rep.Mario Biaggl the bill's main sponsor, now concedes there are definitional problems with the bill. To the NRA, Justice and Treasury, those problems are sufficiently severe to warrant continued, opposition to the legislation. Bob ilson National Rifle Association Washington, D.C.

1Z lV most totally unknown to public' alike. FACT: 1 am awaiting a from the Florida Attorney General to see if you have lied about this as you have been known to lie in the past on the gun issue. Fielding Greaves San Rafael Examiner's reply: Florida State Highway Patrolman Philip Black and visiting Canadian constable Donald Irwin were shot to death.inZ Broward County, on 1976, by assailants using 9mnrTe- tlon-coated ammunition. The shooiZ ing occurred while Black juaC checking out a group of pepit sleeping in a car near a Mghwvm Irwin was unarmed. Drugs supply of Teflon-coated biitlcrg were found when the assailaytt were arrested later at a roadbZ The television program abouTSf mor-piercing bullets was broadcast in 1982.

Assistant Attorney General Robert A. McConnell wrote Sen. Moynihan that the Justice Depart-' ment "strongly favortsl enactment-of the armor-piercing bullet pro'" sion and 'Associate Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani wrote Rep. Biaggl that "any further delay (in banning the bullets) is a tragic, mistake. It legislation bans some, bullets which are not strictly ar- mor-piercing, that Is a small price to pay when the safety of la enfdrct-'.

ment officers and others hangs In the balance." Ml Testifying before the House subcommittee on crime last Deputy Assistant Secretary tot Enforcement Robert E. Powis ot Department of the Treasury said, in-part, that "the Issue Is tar triol'e' complex than meets the eye," In that a broad definition of armor-piercing bullets would Include some traditional hunting and sporfc shooting ammunition, and that soft, body armor Is not designed to repci all armor-piercing bullets. "The. problem arises," he said, "in, the, effort to define what it is we wish to prohibit." The BATF and the Secret Service are under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Depart- ment; their representatives accompanied Powis when he testified-. Sen.

John Glenn has chosen House Budget Committee chairman James Jones as a new senior adviser on domestic policy for his presidential campaign. Jones, brings a detailed knowledge of the economy and the president's budget weaknesses to the Glenn operation, which political observers feel has been much stronger on foreign than domestic issues. Jones, 44, is very much in philosophical tune with Glenn; both are more conservative on fiscal issues and more concerned that the Democrats not be portrayed as returning to unrestrained government spending programs than former Vice President Walter Mondale. bullet bills bullet to ban right now," Sept. 12).

FACT: Those testifying against the bills included not the National Rifle Association alone, but also the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Secret Service. FACT: Among the reasons they opposed the bills is that they are so badly written that they would outlaw many other types of ammunition used in handguns for hunting, silhouette target shooting and Other handgun sport. FACT: You say handguns are "rarely used In hunting." Balderdash! Over 25,000 in California alone last year used handguns for hunting. Nationwide, about, 9 per-' cent (nearly 4 million) handgun owners say they use them for hunting.

They are used for game from rabbits to moose and bear, FACT: You are the first to report any police killed by "cop-killer" bullets. At least until very recently, none had been killed with the Teflon coated bullets, and the entire hoax of the name "cop killer" was made out of the whole cloth by an unethical NBC sensation-monger, aided and abetted by the rest of the media and those two well-known political hacks, Rep. Biaggl and Sen. Moynihan, both of New York. FACT: If any police have been killed with those bullets, you and the rest of the media lhare the blame for giving them such wide publicity that every thug In the street now doubtless knows about them, when before they were al Reagan-Carter bitterness WASHINGTON The passage of nearly three years has not diminished the personal and partisan bitterness generated by the 1980 campaign between President Reagan and his defeated predecessor, former President Carter.

Each in turn refused last week to participate in a political symposium when each suddenly learned the other might be simultaneously present. At the time, Carter was already In town for the occasion. The president had tentatively accepted an invitation to attend some months prior. In the end, Carter cut his participation short and the president didnt appear at all. The symposium examining ways to encourage more voter participation, sponsored by the John F.

Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the American Broadcasting Company, was held in the historic Senate caucus room. Former Presidents Carter and Ford were paid to attend a dinner prior to the symposium and discuss the Issue with other political experts during a filmed all-day event. Although Reagan had expressed general approval, specific arrangements for his appearance had not been fully worked out by the day of the event last Mondale, meanwhile, was reminded even at the peak of his successful weekend collecting the AFLCIO and National Education Association endorsements that political fame can be elusive. Despite an unparalleled record of several decades of support for public education in general and NEA positions in particular, he is not quite as well known in the NEA as he might wish. NEA president Mary Hatwood Futrell gave Mondale an effusive introduction when he arrived at the organization's headquarters, and in the process, she conspicuously mispronounced his last name, putting the emphasis on the last syllable rather than the first.

Presumably, however, she can spell it. He'tt Nw 8fie Once again your well-known anti-gun patellar reflex has led you to adopt a position at odds with both the facts and the experts, this time urging passage cf the ridiculous Biaggl-Moynlhan "cop-killer".