The Raleigh Register from Beckley, West Virginia • Page 4

4--Raleigh Register, Becfcley, W. Va Tuesday Afternoon, June Thought For Today We have no expectations of getting eight hours of work- a day from our labor if we get up to four or five hours a day feet this is a substantial improvement. Bornett, chairman Union Pacific Railroad. You're Out Of Step, Melvin Defense Secretary Melvin Laird has done everything but fall down on the floor and threaten to hold his breath unless Congress agrees to support the administration's plan to modernize "offensive strategic Never quite having gotten into the spirit of the arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union, Laird insists we need all kinds of new weapons systems to make sure we are better at making peace than our enemies are. Without the new weapons, he says, he can't support the Exit Von Braun-And An Era Wernher von Braun's acceptance of a job with Fairchild Industries, effective Saturday, July 1, epitomizes the U.

S. space program's loss of glamor. Although he never held a higher post than deputy associate administrator with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, von Braun always was the most celebrated figure in the agency. As a New York Times reporter noted (May 27, 1972), he is "one of those rare engineers with charisma." By the same token, NASA was for several years one of the few government agencies with charisma. Its success in catching up to and then surpassing the Russians in manned space flight captured the public's imagination.

agency's finest hour came on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 astronauts successfully landed on the moon. It was a proud moment for von Braun in particular. He had directed development of the world's most powerful rocket the Saturn used successfully on all manned moon missions to date. Von Braun claims that exploration of outer space was his objective even when he was building the V-2 rockets that Nazi Germany rained on England toward the end of World War II. "We felt a genuine regret that our missile, born of idealism.

joined in the business of killing," he told a New Yorker interviewer in 1951. "We had designed it to blaze the trail to other planets, not to destroy our own." Von Braun, who turned 60 in March, may have felt that NASA offered no further challenges. The Apollo moon program will be terminated in December, and the only manned space mission definitely scheduled for the next several years thereafter is the 1973 Skylab project. The space shuttle will be operational before, the end of the decade at the earliest. Thus, von Braun leaves NASA at the height of his career--a goal to which many government officials aspire but few achieve.

(R.L.W.) Advice in newspapers can--theoretically, at least--tell one how to do everything from' arrange a wedding, play a bridge hand or come out well on investments. There's no sense in pretending, however, that one doejsn't come a cropper, once in a while. Take the California paper, for instance, in which this exchange was noted in a column by some adviser named George: "Dear George: I built the birdhouse from your stupid blueprints and it's not only too big--it keeps blowing out of the tree. The reply: "Dear Furious: Sorry, I sent you the sailboat blueprints by mistake. If you think you're mad, you should see the letter I got from the guy who sank i Times Or Mayonnaise Writing from New York, the United Press International reports that is food editor, one Jeanne Lesem, is compiling a book of rhymed recipes not for kitchen use but for what they will tell her about people.

We haven't seen it, but would add our own suggestion: "If it looks so bad as to make you retch-up, Just cover the whole concoction with ketchup." That will tell you a whole lot about people, too. -Nashville (Tenn.) Banner Brace Presiding Over Democratic Convention Will Be Fun? WASHINGTON A Democrats, never noted for quiet, may have assured the worst convention turmoil in their history when they threw their party doors wide open in a broad reform move. The party is properly proud that it has made way for significantly greater a i i a i as delegates--of women, blacks and young people. In this sense, the proceedings which begin at Miami Beach July 10 will be conducted by the most balanced, representative body ever to choose a Democratic presidential nominee. If the percentages hold in the delegate-selecting still to be done in these closing days, more than 85 per cent of the delegates who turn up in Florida will be newcomers to the national convention scene.

Putting it the other way, the repeaters--people who have attended prior conventions--will constitute 15 per cent of the total convention roster, at most Healthy thing, right? Get rid of a lot of parly dead wood, infuse the affair with new vigor and spirit, liven up the whole business. Who can deny the proposition? Who can argue, furthermore, that it won't be interesting to see a convention populated by upwards of 35 per cent women, 20 per cent young folks, and some 15 per cent blacks and other non-whites? Nevertheless, this great new mix does indeed promise chaos inside the hall. These new people are not just going to Miami Beach to pick a presidential candidate. From all preliminary signs, they have a good deal more on their minds. They know the uses of the arena, and there is none bigger than a national convention hall caught for days in television's glare.

Many of these newcomers, then, will be bent on doing their thing. Given their inevitable variety as people, that means this convention is in for a great many "things" new to such a gathering. When it is time to shape a final party platform, we will hear, too, how these demands should--in their view be cast in hard type with full party sanction. The proposals may all have been well-aired in committee hearings beforehand, but in this ferment of new delegates there is likely to be little regard for rules which may say enough is enough. There will be plenty of shouting and clamor, and possibly a little storming of the rostrum.

Minnesota's state party convention got its full taste of that in mid-June. Again, judging from what has already happened in the states, nothing will be too sweeping or too outlandish. Minnesota now has a party platform plank endorsing "marriage" among homosexuals. What will all this do for the image of the Democratic party and its 1972 presidential nominee? Watching Americans may just decide it's a great show, and be unaffected in their voting. Or they may decide that a party so ridden by chaos should not hold the White House.

Whatever else it does, it ought to make the fellows who preside over this coming convention overwhelming, automatic choices for Men of the Year. They'ft earache award every minute they're up there. I 'Now We Con Kill Everybody On Earth; He Can Only Kill What's Uftr treaty President Nixon negotiated with Moscow, Congress should remind Laird that (1) he ranks below the President, who has not associated himself with Laird's position but did most strongly associate himself with the treaty: (2) increase in defense spending would do less than wonders for the credibility of our support of the treaty; (3) he is, in theory at least, a civilian whose job it is to keep a rein on the military careerists' addition to weapons accumulation. Major General Barnes Accused Colonel Claims Superior Gave Order To Salute Duck NEW YORK (UPI)-One of the things that most infuriated him in Vietnam, says retired Lt. Col.

Anthony Herbert, was a general's insistence that a snappy military salute be accorded a duck waddling around an imported flower garden. A man of action, Herbert says he "just crept up on him (the duck) one night in true Ranger fashion and wrung his Goddamn neck. Then the sergeant major and I sat down and made four duck sandwiches out of it an ate them." Herbert, who retired under fire in March after 24 years in the service, made the allegation in an interview published in the July issue of Playboy magazine. One of the most decorated men in the Herbert was relieved of his command after he charged his commanding officer, Maj. Gen.

John Barnes, and Col. J. Ross- Franklin with covering up war crimes. The Army dropped the charges. Although Herbert was exonerated, he said his retirement was forced by Army harassment- Herbert said Barnes adorned the duck with dog tags and the duck "just walked around Barnes' imported flower bed.

He had fly flowers up from Saigon and he planted them in this barren plot." "Ypu may find this too much to believe," Herbert said, "but General Barnes actually insisted that we salute that duck. Of course, I refused. It was a symbol of all that silly crap in Vietnam." There was no immediate comment from Barnes. Maj. Winston H.

Sun of the American Assistance Advisory Group on Taiwan said in Taipei that the accusation against Barnes was "incredible." "Not only do I personally find the duck incident incredible but also any man who has worked for Gen. Barnes knows this is something he woufd never do," Sun said. Herbert said helicopters regularly delivered pizzas to troops behind the line. Once, he said several of his men were wounded. He could not get a helicopter to evacuate them.

So, Herbert said, told the people assigning helicopters that he wanted several pizzas. A "pizza choppper" arrived immediately, and he ordered it to take the wounded men away. Barnes "bitched at me for making unauthorized use of a pizza chopper," Herbert said. "My men should at least have been in critical condition, he told me. Christ! Maybe he was peeved that I hadn't paid for the pizzas." Report Planned Prior To Election lader And His Raiders Are Watching Congress (UPI) -Ralph Nader said Monday his investigators have undertaken a comprehensive study of Congress --individually and collectively --and will issue reports prior to the November elections.

Nader, the consumer advocate, said the investigation would be the most exhaustive ever focused on the nation's lawmaMng body. He said it was not politically motivated and was intended to give voters a better idea of what members of Congress do and why. "We are focusing on their professional lives, uieir talsnts and their deficiencies --how responsive -they are," Nader said, adding there no intention of probing into their private lives. Nader was interviewed on the NBC-TV Today show. About 800 summer volunteers and others who work in a variety of Nader organized groups are taking part in the investigation.

Nader himself is taking a major hand, an associate said. "We want to dispel some nmhs," Nader said. He explained that one myth his investigators want to dispel is that congressmen are lazy. Most congressmen "work quite hard," he said, "but what they 31 snd about" is sometimes questionable. He said the material would assembled both in summary form and in separate cover for distribution to voters at region-, al or state levels.

The objective is to get the information into the hands of voters by October so they will be able to better evaluate the performance of Congress members before the Nov. 7 election, Nader said. The reaction from members already approached for information ranges from great enthusiasm to refusal to cooperate, Nader said. But he said profiles would be prepared on every member of Congress. For those who fail to respond, "it will make it a little more difficult," he said, partly because he said the material will' not contain those members' own viewpoints.

'h Ports Burning' Authors Score Again Collins-Lapierre Detail '48 Fight For Jerusalem By United Press International 0 Jerusalem, By Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. (Simon Schuster, S10) Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre have collaborated again on this their third book following the best-selling Is Paris Burning? and Or I'll Dress You in Mourning. 0 Jerusalem is the story of the fight for Jerusalem in 1948 in what the Israelis call their war of independence and could easily be the best book of the three. Jerusalem is sacred to three religions. It is where Jesus Christ was crucified.

It is where the Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven. And for Jews it is the seat of Judaism, the site of Solomon's Temple, the Wailing Wall from they were barred for so many years. In six years of research Collins and Lapierre have amassed from hundreds of sources the story of the epic fight Jerusalem, including the military of Col. David Marcus who gave up a promising Pentagon career to serve as Israel's first general, the stories of individual Jew, Arab and Christian caught up in the war. The two authors are skillful in interweaving the various segments to create graphic and unified story, treating with equal objectivity the: participants --the British, the Arabs, the Jews, and finding good and bad In both.

A flaw--and that appeared i Is Paris Burning? --the use of occasional cliches that add nothing to the word flow. One of the more dramatic chapters is that detailing the secret trip of Golda Meir to Amman in the dead of night to try to reason with King Abdullah and prevent the 1948 War. She wore the black dress of an Arab woman and traveled in a black car whose'chauffeur was Surbati, the king's most trusted servant whose name served as a passport through the frequent sentry checks. Walter Logan (UPI) The Mugging, by Morton Hunt (Athsneum, Slfl) This is the story of one mugging, from onset to the sentencing of the guilty, which is fascinating, but the author perhaps should have left his story tell itself without so much of Ms own interjections, Mystery Bag, i by Ellery- Queen. (World, S6.95) It's the 27th Mystery Annual and it's great fun, one of the best of its kind for those who prefer well-constructed stories to exotica, erotica or tales that are wagged by their surprise endings.

Bug Dust Current Flooding Not lYorst' In Histoiy By WILLS Beefcley librarian Dorothy Amick, a stickler for particulars, says stories such as the one on the nationwide flood situation in- yesterdays Register aggravate her no end. The point that galls Dorothy is that the story (a United Press International report) called the flooding "the worst in TJ. S. history" without in any way qualifying the superlative. In what way, she wants to know, was it the It certainly wasn't, she points out, the biggest killer as floods go.

Dorothy keeps files on such things as natural disasters (and on many other more obscure and unexpected categories of quite useful and surprisingly interesting information) and says there have been dozens of floods that resulted in the loss of more lives than the 122 reported in yesterday's story. The recent Buffalo Creek flood may be one. The known death toll in the Logan county disaster is 118 but seven others are definitely missing and presumed dead. But both of those 1972 flood disasters are nowhere near the record for lives lost. The record, as far as Dorothy's files and sources show, for loss of life in a flood in the United States is still the famous Johnstown, flood of May 31, 1889 in which 2,200 persons perished.

Other U. S. floods that claimed more lives than the current one: March 25-27, 1913 in Ohio and Indiana, 732 dead. 1913 (exact date not listed), Brazos, 500 dead. March 13, 1928, collapse of SL Francis Dam at Santa Paula, killed 450.

Jan. 22, 1937, Ohio and Mississippi valleys, 250 dead. 25,1969, Lovingston, and vicinity, 189 dead. If hurricanes and tidal waves are included as flood disasters (the current flooding was the result of Hurricane Agnes) there are other instances of more lives lost than is the current case. tidal wave resulting from a hurricane (in the days -before hurricanes were assigned names by the weather service) on Sept 8, 1900 killed 5,000 persons in Galveston, Tex.

An Aug. 7, 1915 hurricane killed 275 more in Galveston. A SepL hurricane killed 4,000 in Florida and the West Indies! A Sept 21, 1938 hurricane killed 600 in New England. Hurricane Hazel killed 347 persons in.the eastern U. S.

and Haiti on Aug. 30, 1954. Hurricane Diane killed 400 in the' eastern U. S. Aug.

18-19, 195S. Hurricane Audrey kflled 430 -in-' Louisiana and Texas June 1957. In floods outside the United States, the ioss of life ia the current fioodj here is as nothing in comparison to the more disastrous floods. The all-time record, according to the World Almanac, is the 1887 flooding of the Hwang-feo River in China. The loss of life in that" disaster has been put at 900,000.

A 1911 flood on the Yangtze also in China, claimed 100,000 lives. The Worid Almanac lists 17 other flood and hurricane (typhoon)." disasters outside the U. S. in which more than 1,000 persons died including a flood on the Mekong River in South Vietnam in 1964 in which 7,000 perished. Final figures have not yet been assigned to the' tidal waves and flooding of a year or two ago in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in which upwards of half a million may have died.

If other criteria were the basis for the statement that the flooding is the "worst" in U. S. history, the story should have what the criteria were, Dorothy insists. Was it in the depth of the water? the amount of rain? the numbed of homeless? the property loss? the latter, what part does inflation- play in detennming such records? In any case, Dorothy contends, when a new record is claimed, 'record that it surpassed should be reported too. No mention of the- broken record was made in yesterday's story.

It does seem like a bit of record assigning on the part of the-writer and a too uncritical eye on- the part of the editor over desk it passed en route dissemination. understood something- that Muskie and Humphrey That the way you win is to win delegates. -Joseph Napolitan, a political consultant. If spending alone could solve problems which programs; are addressed, there would be no- problems, for spending has beea- there. --Budget Director Caspar Weinberger, noting that spending on social programs has jumped from $30 billion to billion a vear.

Richard Wdrsnop With Brawn And Brain Can Bobby Beat Boris? "Well, I think HI call it a This is Larry icn sinin Championship chess is a contest that calls for prodigious amounts of physical as well as mental exertion. To determine how much energy is actually expended by a chess player in a tournament game, a bio-kinetic experiment was conducted at Temple University in 1970. Pulse, -heartbeat physiological measurements were taken on 12 volunteers during play. The surprising result: Chess is as physically taxing as a strenuous session of boxing or football. Thus, both Bobby Fischer of the United States and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union are keeping their bodies in fighting trim as they prepare for their world championship chess match in Reykjavik, Iceland, starting July The close-lipped Spassky has declined to reveal details of his training program, although it is known he likes to play tennis.

Fischer's daily regimen includes morning calisthenics in front of his television set, followed by swimming, tennis and bowling. By the same token, professional football players find that chess sharpens their mental agility on the field. Ron Johnson and Bob Tucker, both of the New York Giants, are engaged in a marathon match that has been in progress for several years. But Harold C. Schonberg argues in Harper's that chess brings greater rewards: "It is an affirmation of personality.

The game requires i a i a i and creativity--the ability to see, or sense, possibilities hidden to less refined minds." DESPITE THE NEED for brawn as well as brain, chess is regarded with indifference, at best, by most Americans. The game is thought of as boring and strictly for the cerebral elite. As result, the United States ranks about as poorly in world chess circles as It does in international Ping Pong competition. The Soviet Union has around four million chess players who compete in tournaments, the United States only about 25,000. Still, the unofficial world champion of chess in the mid-19th century was Paul Morphy of New Orleans.

Since organized international competition began in 1948, the Russians have had a monopoly on the title. Not only that, all challengers in the final rounds have been Russians, too. Now, Fischer is given a slightly better than even chance of dethroning Spassjcy. But skeptics point- out that Spassky has beaten Fischer in all five, of their previous meet- 5 ings. THE TWO FINALISTS have jousted over a sire for.

showdown match. Fischer wanted 4 Belgrade, while Spassky favored- Reykjavik. A compromise games would be played both cities finally fell through. The -entire match, consisting of a imum of 24 games, will take place -in the Icelandic capital. challenger, Fischer must amass 12,.

points to win, while Spassky only 12 to defend his title. Iceland may seem an odd choice for a championship sporting event: of any kind. But as chess colmnnisf Harry Golombek of -Hie Times of London pointed out, "There is a long tradition of the popularity of chess in that country, -going right-back almost to the beginning the game in Europe." The oldest known European set of chessmen, now on display in the British Museum, is believed have been made" in Iceland in the 12th century, il" Many other countries, including India, China and Spain, also have contributed to the lore of chess. The word checkmate, signaling the end of the game, conies from the Persian phrase shah mat Ap- -t propriately enough, it means "The king is dead." Ulster Democratic Published by BECKLEY NEWSPAPERS CORPORATION, 341 Prince St, (25801) Second Class mail privileges authorized at Beckley, W. and Hinton.

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