Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • Page 4

PULITZER PRIZE For Public Service Joe R. Seacrest Monoging Editor to the People of Nebraska, and to the Development of the Resources of the 7,1867 Jnumal and Mretsla J0nntal PUBLISHERS Fred S. Seacrest Joe W. Seacrest C. H.

Cere, 1867-1904 J. C. Seacrest, 1903-1942 Jack Hart Associate and Editorial Page Editor Gil Savery News Editor Published by tlie Journal-Star Printing 926 St. Lincoln, 68501. Subscription prices, page 2.

PAGE 4 OPINION PAGE WEDNESDAY, FEB. 4, 1970 EDITORIALS Where the Action Is The forgotten America, the little man, the middle of the road, or whatever title may be applied to that vast part of the United States neglected by the liberals and the intellectuals in the becoming a wooed constituency. President Richard Nixon proved that there is a vast land outside the megalopolises and that people out there can elect politicians. Oddly enough, some of the McCarthy kids too, discovered this political desert and those who went into the peace movement and moratoriums found that the people out there responded when a sensitive nerve was touched. Even though the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has again begun hearings on the Vietnam War, at least temporarily most Americans have taken a wait-and-see attitude.

They believe President Nixon is trying to end the war. The young people who successfully launched the moratoriums are not about to sit back and let their organizations die for lack of action. They are planning to use their influence in other politics and social renewal at home. In the immediate future they are planning rallies on April 15 to advertise ttie amount of tax dollars being drained off by the military. This is an issue which will find some support in Middle America.

There are two groups who are planning to carry on the crusades. One is called Referendum 70 and is a loosely knit coalition which plans to concentrate its efforts on the political approach providing to candidates. The Moratorium group intends to work more closely in the campaigns along the line of the McCarthy workers, and on social issues. More and more the Moratorium groups are reaching into the small towns. Sam Brown, who comes from Council Bluffs, and was a prime mover in the moratorium, says his organizers have found an unexpectedly large number of people who want to get into action.

4 Politics is taking a new turn and both political parties would be well advised to watch the youth who have learned considerable political savvy about how to win friends and influence people. A Quick Transformation Everyone wondered whether the New York Mets could hold their fans if they made a gradual transformation from the fumbling team to a winning club. It was that middle ground of mediocrity which everyone said would strain the loyalty of the fans. The Mets took care of that by making it to the top in one big jump. This is brought to mind by the transformation of Vice President Spiro Agnew.

He got off to a bad start during the campaign with playful or careless remarks The press gave him a bad time. After he became V.P. he came back slugging at the press. Like the Mets, tie got a big following among persons who liked his courage and his freewheeling style. Seemingly now the vice president has made the big jump to statesman.

He meets the press on a higher level, making only a little reference that his mission for a more responsible press has been accomplished. It remains to be seen whether Middle America and the South, where Agnew has his greatest following, will prefer Spiro, the statesmen, to the man who tells it like they think it is. A Persuasive Influence A long time ago, Thomas Paine in Revolutionary times said: are the times which try During the years that Christianity has been undergoing a revolution, the Rev. Dr. Carroll H.

Lemon must have had many occasions to find the truth of those words applied to his times. Dr. Lemon served the Lincoln and Nebraska Councils of Churches for many years, Lincoln for 15 and the Nebraska Council for 23. He is a gentle man whose quiet influence has left a religious imprint on the city and state. It has not been easy, as some of his involvement with the activist role of the church has met with some resistance.

Yet he has never failed to put in a quiet, persuasive word for the things in which he believed deeply. He has had the satisfaction of seeing legislation passed on many of the reform issues for which he worked. Nebraska is a little better because Dr. Lemon cared enough to devote almost a quarter of a century to make it that way. JOSEPH KRAFTS Opinion ABM Debate Revived Washington While practically everybody in Washington was poring over advance copies of the budget last weekend, the President slipped off his hip a decision that is apt to be more important even than the budget.

I refer, all sobriety, to the new, open- ended commitment to the tiballistics missile, or ABM, which the President announced at his last press conference. The latest decision raises fundamental questions about how this country can live with the Communist world. Whereas past ABM decisions were carefuU hedges against uncertainty and Kraft bureaucratic pressure, the present commitment seems rooted in the doctrinaire foreign policy views entertained by Richard Nixon and his chief adviser, Henry Kissinger. And even though talks with the Russians are in hazard, it is hard to see how another full-dress foreign policy debate can be avoided unless the President gives some ground soon. The starting point for all this was the ABM decision made back in 1967 by President Johnson and Defense Secretary McNamara.

At that time the military services, led by the Army, were pressing for a $50 billion supposed to defend American cities against a Soviet missile attack. They had the backing of important contractors, key Democratic senators, and such Republican leaders as Richard Nixon. Secretary McNamara decided that the best way to head off that pressure was to go for a limited ABM capacity directed against the possibility of an attack from Communist China. Since Peking had only a small nuclear capability, citing China as the threat was a way of holding down the program. Thus McNamara advocated the Sentinel of limited defense at a cost of $6 billion.

Nixon, once in power, seemed to be even more careful. He came out for an ABM system the Safeguard designed to protect this land-based missiles, not the cities. He said there was way we can adequately defend our He intimated that a defense of the deterrent was less provocative than a defense of population because the Communists would regard population defense as an effort to deny them effective retaliation after a first strike by this country. In the latest decision, all these careful restraints are cast to the wind. For one thing, the President now goes beyond defense of the deterrent to the defense that was once said to be so provocative.

To be sure, Nixon has now revived the old argument that the defense is only against minor power, a power, for example, like Communist the properties jpf a defense against China have most of the properties of a defense against Russia. Thus, the anti-Chinese population defense is almost certain to strike the Russians as the first phase of a system directed against them. The more so, as President Nixon is plainly not moving for the internal tactical reasons that animated Secretary McNamara to invoke the Chinese threat. The thrust in the Congress is now toward cutting military outlays, not expanding them as in 1967. With dieir budgets being pared, the services, including the Army, do not want to spend scarce cash on such dubious ventures as the ABM.

Thus commitment is not a compromise pressed upon him, but a heartfelt statement of true belief. Expressed, moreover, with enthusiastic rhetoric. Thus, the system about which Nixon acknowledged so many doubts only a year ago has now become which suggests papal certitude. And the defense against China, which Nixon did not completely buy a year ago, has now become Maybe Nixon really believes all this. Maybe he finds that the situation has changed dramatically that there is a new and more menacing Chinese threat, that there have been important technical improvements in the ABM hardware.

But very few people, either inside the administration or in the Senate, accept that view. On the contrary, they are more and more leaning to an assessment of Nixon and Kissinger that is not at all nice. This assessment begins with the historic fact that Nixon and Kissinger have long been convinced anti-Communist hardliners. Nixon, in particular, likes to flog his opponents for being soft on communism ruled by as he put it in the State of the Union address this year. Kissinger is the leading proponent of the argument that nuclear weapons can be fine-tuned for political purposes that is, applied as threats to achieve diplomatic objectives.

When new in office, this assessment goes on, the President and Kissinger masked their views in order to disarm the critics and win support for a start on ABM. But since then, they have opened the SALT, or strategic arms limitation talks, negotiation with Russia. With those talks joined, the theory concludes, Nixon and Kissinger are now using the threat of further nuclear development, particularly in the ABM, as a club to bring the Russians to terms in the SALT talks. Perhaps this view does an injustice to the President and his chief foreign policy aide. But the burden is on them to make the case.

For Uie fact is that hardly anybody in Washington knows why they are now moving so rapidly on ABM development. (C) 1970, Publishers-Hall Syndicate I Us Begin by Oliphant Public Mind Unsigned letters of opinion are not printed. Letters most effective if brief and signed with name or iniaals will be used only if accompanied by the writer name and address. Use of pen names is not permitted tetters critical of individuals. The Journal reserves the right to condense letters, retaining the point.

No Safety Zone North years, some people in various businesses and employment have always thought their job was in no way connected with the plight be it 0 or low prices for his products. There is no such safety zone, and the tight shoe is beginning to pinch those people, too. The stores are crying, the warehouses are complaining and the big companies are Yet expenses are going When the farmer can no longer hang on, he too moves into town to hope for a job, so more people after those fewer jobs available. They better act fast, for the crisis is here. The plague is working its way upstream.

BEEN THERE Peterson vs Hruska Lincoln Nebraskans may not be the most liberal people in the world but they do possess a lot of common sense. They have the perfect opportunity to exercise that common sense now that Wally Peterson has officially decided to oppose Sen. Roman Hruska. Ironically enough, Nebraskans probably showed some of that good sense in past elections by voting for Hruska. His opposition in 1964, 1958 and 1954 was hardly promising.

In at least two of those elections, the opposition candidate was frankly a dud. Wally Peterson, a teacher at the University of Nebraska for many years, offers for the first time a genuine alternative. 16-year record is inconsistent. It can never be said that he was always a do-nothing senator. He strongly backed and voted in favor of increasing his salary and the salary of his fellow senators and congressmen from $30,000 to $42,500 a year.

He also voted in favor of doubling the salary of the President to $200,000 a year. At other of the time Hruska has proven to be a strictly negative voice. As a nationally recognized and educated economist, Peterson is certainly qualified to expound on the inflation and monetary difficulties this country is in. Hruska, over the years, has tried little and done nothing to alter the inflation sweeping the United States. One of the big causes of inflation and gigantic government spending is the war in Vietnam and other defense costs.

Peterson wants to lower those costs, yet Hruska has been silent. In other areas as well, Hruska has failed to serve his Nebraska constitutents. He has always supported the interests of oil. The gigantic and unwarranted oil depletion allowance continues with the approval of Hruska. He has also voted against plugging other huge tax loopholes that let the rich off free and make the middle class American bear the load.

Peterson is no wild-eyed liberal and he is no radical. He is a life long Nebraskan, with a wife and two children and with roots firmly entrenched in the state. He is a veteran of the army and over the years has achieved a superb reputation in his work at the University. Nebraskans should ask themselves if Roman Hruska is the type of senator their state needs. JOHN DVORAK Postal Reform Lincoln As the wife of a postal clerk I take exception to some of the views expressed in your editorial for Postal (Jan.

29). Why are you so certain that a corporation would efficiency, improve service and pay better If the mail must pay its way what is going to happen to rural delivery? In view of the fact that Nebraska is largely a rural state this could have far reaching effects, if, for instance, rural delivery was curtailed. Would not many small post offices be closed as not being important enough to keep open? What would the price of first class mail be? Remember it must pay its way and with the borrowing of $10 billion at the going rate of interest, repayment of interest would be almost as great as the reported postal deficit of today. You say, postal ployes can scarcely be blamed for looking out for their own well being, but this is not a very noble criteria for judging such far-reaching A raise was given last July, but even after this raise, inflation caused our purchasing power to continue being down. Since last July the cost of living has been steadily clirnbing so we are increasingly behind.

In the corporation bill, postal employes were guaranteed a civil status for only one year. This is a matter of grave concern to all career people, because if they should be put under Social Security retirement income would be very greatly reduced. Until recent years Sunday work carried no extra pay, and Saturday work still does nol. Would industry accept this? In the past the postal service was always considered to be a service to the people. What has happened to this concept.

JOYCE AMEN Legislative Chairman Woman's Auxiliary to Local 112, UFPC Preserve the Past Fairbury Iowa has an organization to preserve the past in a living manner. Nebraska has no such plan. This concern is to create an industrial area, forgetting that agriculture has been the mainstay of the state. According to the February Living History Farms Foundation will maintain three types of farms on which people will live and work as they did in 1840, 1900 and in the future. We are busily ignoring such a concept.

Nebraska has an agricultural industry which once gave it fame as the site of a world capitol. The last of the group which gave the locale that claim is still in existence today but on Jan. 22 the ancient equipment and tools go on the auction block to be dispersed to the winds. For years the county assessors have looked down on the antiquated equipment. Nothing new ever came into the office but oldsters bring children just to see the old wood stoves still in use.

Without being officially a museum, it was living history in action. routine business brought trade to the area. Our county commissioners could have preserved this as a historical site. The money from the county historical marker fund spent for directional road signs for which there seems to have been no authorization as required by law, could and should have been spent for something more permanent. NATIVE DAUGHTER ROSCOE AND GEOFFHEY DRUMMOND TSixon Ten Years Later of the Richard Nixon of the Khrushchev kitchen debate.

Think of his efforts to embarrass the Soviet leaders with the Captive Nations resolution while on his visit to Moscow in 1960. Is this the man in the White House today? there all but it is not the Nixon of 1960. The world has changed radically. Nixon has changed radically. It what has happened to Nixon that is important.

It is what has happened to U.S. foreign policy during the first year of the Nixon presidency that and R. Drnmmond breathtakingly important. It breaks new and unexpected ground in nearly every direction. The most significant fact today is that the world has radically changed Nixon and that Nixon is pursuing a substantially new course in crucial areas of foreign policy.

It is nearly a 180-degree shift and the full magnitude of the changes become evident only when all the moves Nixon is making are brought into focus. As vice Nixon was the coldest warrior of them all. Today he is acting to liquidate the cold war in atmosphere and in substance at every opportunity. As vice president, Richard Nixon favored sending U.S. troops to Indochina to help the French.

Today he says never again no more Vietnams. As vice president, Nixon was the leading advocate of the Eisenhower-Dulles era of confrontation with the Communist World. Today Nixon is the leading advocate of the era of negotiation. As vice president, Nixon favored the widest possible containment of Red China. Today he favors the widest possible contact with Red China.

Under the Eisenhower-Dulles policy Nixon shared the view that negotiating disarmament was an idle exercise. Today he sees the U.S.- Soviet nuclear arms talks as meaningful, urgently desirable. As vice president, and later, Nixon strongly approved keeping military superiority over the Soviets. Today he strongly approves military equality with the Soviets for a deterrent on each side. Beyond Dove Plank During the 1968 Democratic Convention Hubert Humphrey rejected the dove-sponsored minority plank favoring unilateral withdrawal of U.S.

troops from Vietnam and after the election President Johnson praised Nixon for on Vietnam. Today Nixon is moving beyond the Chicago minority plank and is carrying out unilateral withdrawal of U.S. troops. Time was when many in the U.S. looked upon Nixon as something of a warmonger.

Today Nixon looks very much like a peacemonger and he does not shrink from the term whether it be praise or epithet. It is plain that the Richard Nixon of 1970 is not the Richard Nixon of 1960. But it would be unfair to conclude that the President has lightly abandoned past assumptions and policies he believed in, that he has become on communism Soviet or Chinese soft on defense and disposed to believe the United States should do little about keeping the world at peace. Adapting to Change The fact is that the world itself has changed substantially in the last decade and Nixon sees himself as meeting opportunities with attitudes and actions relevant to world. This premise he stated explicitly in his State of the Union message when he told Congress: have based our policies on an evaluation of the world as it is, not as it 25 years Nixon is adapting to changing needs and changing times and is doing so with speed and thoroughness.

He is moving with events and shaping them. (C) 1970, Los Angeles Times More or Less Personal American Indian is trying to tell white society Hhank you very but stop helping That was the message a Denver reporter got when he interviewed Indians attending a national convention on alcohol and drugs held in that city last week. Mrs. Patricia Locke, Help a professor and curriculum developer to Indians at the University of California at Los Angeles, explained that the Indians have unique problems and that Indians believe they can solve them better if the white man stays out of the picture. Dennis Banks, chairman of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis said: are responsible for the downfall of the American Mrs.

Locke said there is a conflict of values between Indians and the rest of society in that it is immoral from an Indian viewpoint to more than one Banks added he once quit a job because he motivated to keep it. He said many Indians share this feeling. The desire to do it their own way is commendable and the all-Indian Commission recently appointed by Gov. Norbert Tiemann is evidence that the feeling has extended to Nebraska. It is rather fun to have much ado, perhaps not about nothing, but something as trivial as the new uniforms for.

the Pnntn at House police. I omp at Denver Post editorial White House writer said: a wonder Wilson (Prime Minister Harold Wilson making an official call on Washington) back off in surprise, thinking he was in the wrong country. For the new duds have a very old look, like late Weimar Republic in one opinion and early Lithuania in another. As the old Hollywood line has it, they buckle where they ought to swash office economist is annoyed that the bill for all this finery will come to $23,750. He has a point.

But the aesthetic deflation that bothers us, pretentious silliness signifying nothing. All the world may be a stage, but who said the script was an Over in Iowa there was a controversy over the use of a certain profane word by a professor at the University of Northern Left in reporting the incident the actual word was not used the Dark though hardly disguised and the Des Mones Tribune got an amusing tongue-in-cheek letter from a reader trying to find out what the word was. Here are some excerpts from his letter: tried to call the professor for help but they said he was down at the office trying to explain something. asked the other fellows at the trucking company where I work but they are in the dark like me. I even called up my old army sergeant but he said he had no idea what.the word was might be that this word is like a germ or a virus and if we could identify it we could isolate it All is not lost so long as people can take a little time out to find a humorous side to issues taken seriously by others.

A MOMEISrS THOVGHT John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. by the Rev. Ellis H. Penrod Church of Nazarene Falls City, Nebraska There Oughta Be a Law By Shorten and Whipple ittle galmomell a ig tme easil fRiGHTEKED CHILD SOUTH OF THE POLE OR NORiy OF THE SQUiy POLE) ALL I A6R her oHlV HE'G GONNA EAT me But SUPfDSED t) EXERCIGE A LITTLE CAUTlOKi, INTO THE OF DEATH MARCHES.