Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 6

6A DETROIT FREE PRESSTUESDAY, SEPT. 27, 1983 Detroit ifrcc Press AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER JOHN S. KNIGHT (1894-1981) LEE HILLS Publisher Emeritus DON C. BECKER President JOE H. STROUD Editor DAVID LAWRENCE JR.

Executive Editor (SPOODOODBD SCOTT McGEHEE Managing Editor NEAL SHINE Senior Managing Editor SCOTT BOSLEY Managing Editor-Features BARBARA STANTON Associate Editor MET AT THE UN The president makes skillful use of a forum he has too often ignored keeping mission, he underlined the legitimately worldwide concern about the superpowers' arms race. And he threw the burden on the Soviet Union to respond in similarly public fashion. The president's appearance at the UN also provided him the opportunity to raise the issue of nuclear proliferation before nations that do not currently own nuclear weapons an important point, since proliferation is potentially a greater hazard to human survival than the competition between Moscow and Washington. But by appealing to UN members to rededicate themselves to the principles on which the UN was founded, the president left himself vulnerable on a number of points. The United States might, as he said, reject as "false and misleading" a view of the world as divided between East and West.

But the president himself has not rejected such a bipolar view, or at least not until very recently, and then selectively. It is he who has analyzed the political strife in Central America and the Middle East as a was better, not the drivers IT WAS inspiring and yet a bit sad: Here and there in President Reagan's speech before the UN General Assembly were glimpses of the force for good that body was intended to be and so seldom has been. As Mr. Reagan exhorted the delegates to return to the UN's founding principles, it must have been obvious even to the most sympathetic listener to what extent Mr. Reagan himself has at times ignored those ideals.

At the same time, Mr. Reagan's use of the forum demonstrated the persistent value of the UN to the United States. At the UN Mr. Reagan was able, as in no other forum, to focus world attention once again on the Soviet Union's curiously un-apologetic treatment of its shooting down of the Korean 007 airliner. He could review publicly the United States' most recent, more flexible proposals to the Soviet Union on arms control.

The Soviet Union, of course, already had these in hand. NATO partners had been briefed as well. But by reporting the status of U.S. arms control efforts to the UN, the president not only reaffirmed that organization's peace- UPI Photo v. The self-serving bureaucratic explanation offers factors that could not lower the traffic death rate by 11.1 percent in six months.

The lack of snow, ice, freezing rain could and probably did. WILLIAM L. STROCK Birmingham I INFANTS Their chances for survival roads, better enforcement, more awareness of highway safety falls flat on any trip in the Detroit area where the roads are cluttered with horrible drivers, unsafe cars, roads in horrible condition, police ignoring slow, unsafe drivers, and where half the drivers are. completely unaware of what is happening on the road they are traveling. Lee Gray in his death row cell IN THE SEPT.

3 article concerning the gas chamber death of Jimmy Lee Gray, I was appalled that his lawyer and the reporters who witnessed his death can realistically state his death was cruel and unusual punishment. I think his death should have been more in line with the manner in which he murdered that poor little three-year-old girl. ROBERT J. RODOCKER Warren continue prohibiting the use of Medicaid funds financing abortions, a law that has been in effect since 1977. Although this week's House action would ban federal support for all abortions, the Senate appropriations bill's language allowing Medicaid payment for an abortion when a woman's life is endangered is expected to prevail in any future House-Senate conference.

Proponents of the ban said that taxpayers who oppose abortion should not be forced to subsidize what they regard as legalized killing. Opponents said that an abortion should not be denied to a Medicaid recipient needing one. A yes vote supported the ban on Medicaid payment for abortions. DEMOCRATS El YEAS NAYS NOT VOTING 'PAIRED Aw from our readers The weather REGARDING the article, "Highway toll falls; cops not sure why" (Free Press, Sept. 14), perhaps if the State Police considered the fact that we had the warmest winter in decades, they could establish the reason for the decline in traffic deaths this year.

The bureaucratic explanation given of better educated drivers now, safer cars, safer Wasn't his crime cruel and unusual? SO THE LAWYER for Jimmy Lee Gray feels his death via cyanide gas was "cruel and unusual punishment." dies gasping; state defends method," Free Press, Sept. 3.) What do the lawyers for three-year-old Deressa Jean Scales say? What? You mean she had no lawyers? She was simply sodomized and murdered. No last minute reprieve for her. Cruel and unusual? I hope so. A slap on the wrist doesn't stop this kind of crime, so the punishment should be cruel.

It should also be unusual in that it might stop someone from risking it. Jimmy Regardless of which side of the capital punishment issue one stands on, there is one indisputable fact: Jimmy Lee Gray is now incapable of hurting any more little girls. If he died painfully, that's a shame. I doubt that his passing was nearly as horrible for him as Deressa Jean Scales' death was for her. If we can save just one little, girl by gassing 1,000 Jimmy Lee Grays, it's worth it.

KEVIN M. CONNOR Grosse Pointe Park fiie rail oalB U.S. House PUBLIC JOBS BILL: The Democratic-controlled House OK'd a $3.5 billion jobs-creation bill, although the chances for passage in the Senate are almost nil. The vote, largely along party lines, was 246 to 178. First introduced in January when the nation's unemployment had reached 10.8 percent the highest since the Great Depression the jobs bill complemented the $4.6 billion emergency jobs and humanitarian aid legislation signed into law in March by President Reagan.

The new public service jobs bill would funnel federal money to local governments in areas hardest hit by unemployment to pay workers repairing schools, providing social services and carrying out other community improvement projects. The administration is firmly opposed to the bill. Though Democrats acknowledged that the bill was mainly a symbolic gesture that forced Republicans to go on record against jobs, they said that it would create useful, not make-work jobs. Republican opponents said economic recovery had lowered unemployment, demonstrating that private sector creates jobs faster than public spending does. A yes vote supported the public service jobs bill.

DEMOCRATS El YEAS NAYS NOT VOTING 'PAIRED (2 Albosta IS Conyers 13 Ford Levin El Bonlor El Crockett El Hertel El Traxler El Carr Dinged El Kildee El Wolpe REPUBLICANS El YEAS NAYS NOT VOTING 'PAIRED Broomtleid El Davis I Purseli I Sawyer Siljander VanderJagt U.S. House ABORTION: The House voted 231 to 184 to contest between East and West, with precious little hope for coexistence and little regard for the regional roots of such conflicts. The president has supported collective efforts on behalf of peace and security, as in the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon and in emphasizing the international nature of the Soviet Union's crime against the Korean airliner. But these moves have come late in his apprenticeship in foreign policy. For the most part, his administration has been characterized by a bipolar view of international events and by unilateral initiatives which often caught even our allies by surprise.

Probably no member of the UN has abided completely faithfully by its original tenets. But "the dream the United Nations once dreamed," as Mr. Reagan put it, will never be regained unless the superpowers, including the United States, endorse its purpose by acting through it, rather than around it. Detroit That's equal to the infant death rate in Honduras, Central America's poorest country. In Honduras, babies usually die because they get infections from unsanitary equipment or living conditions.

But in Detroit, babies are more likely to die from conditions arising during pregnancy or shortly after birth. Many women show up for birth at the hospital who have never visited a doctor or who have seen one only a few times. Apathy and ignorance seem to be as much a part of the problem as poverty. Detroit has major, free obstetric clinics at Hutzel, Ford and Detroit Memorial Hospitals. The challenge is to make more young, lower-income mothers knowledgeable about nutrition and available medical programs.

It's a challenge that must be addressed by local health agencies and the state, by social work and medical professionals and by the federal government in its funding of nutrition programs for pregnant women and children at risk of malnourish-ment. The cease-fire is only difficult road to peace right-wing Christian militia, and that Lebanon's Muslim majority will be granted more influence in the government than they now have. Even if Mr. Gemayel can engineer a reconciliation and the odds against that are high so long as Syria refuses to withdraw from Lebanon, any, agreement will affect only the small city-state area around Beirut. The possibility of a permanent partition of Lebanon remains real.

The presence of the U.S. Marines and the multinational force has kept Beirut and the central government from collapsing into chaos. It has staved off the Druze in the Shuf mountains long enough, it appears, to get the bloodily warring factions in Lebanon to consider coming to the negotiating table. What the Marines cannot do is to sort out the blood feuds and the religious and ethnic factionalism that has ripped Lebanon apart. Ultimately, Lebanon remains a problem for the Lebanese to solve, and the cease-fire that was negotiated over the weekend is no more than a first step on a long march to agreement.

Stop the genocide ON AUG. 29, the attorney general of Iran declared all Baha'i institutions illegal and membership in them a criminal act. Baha'i institutions are strictly administrative, educational, charitable or devotional in character. According to the attorney general, the Baha'is may practice their faith only in strict privacy. In recent months, over 140 Baha'is have chosen death rather than recant their faith as demanded by the Islamic authorities.

Countless others have been imprisoned, tortured, deprived of their livelihoods and driven from their burning homes. The Iranian Baha'is have no means to act in their own behalf. Attempts of Baha'is in other parts of the world to publicize these atrocities have not stopped the persecution. The metro Detroit Baha'i community asks individuals from all walks of life to appeal to 'the U.S. government and the United Nations to put an end to the attempted genocide of the Baha'is of Iran, as those steadfast souls patiently wait for the world community to arise to their defense.

ROXANE H. CHANEY Secretary Baha'i Media Committee of Metropolitan Detroit Dearborn Iiileneptvd LvlUrs TEAMSTERS U.S. Dear Reaganites: gHIFTING out of neutral. U.S. Senate STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE: The Senate foiled the Reagan administration's plans to cut the fill rate of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by adopting an amendment requiring at least 220,000 barrels a day, the current rate, to be placed in the reserve.

The vote was 54 to 43. The provision added $1.3 billion to continue filling the reserve at the current rate and $370 million to start construction of a permanent oil storage facility at Big Hill, Tex. Proponents of the amendment said that the United States is vulnerable to an oil supply disruption. Opponents said that increases for the reserve could not be justified given the realities of the budget deficit. A yes vote favored increasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

DEM BIYEAS NAYS NOT VOTING El Riegie El Levin U.S. Senate UN FUNDS: Acting against a backdrop of international tension, the Senate adopted an amendment cutting the U.S. contribution to the United Nations by $484 million over the next four years. The vote was 66 to 23. Proponents of the amendment said that as with the U.S.

budget, the UN budget must be brought under control. Opponents said that the proposal would send the wrong signal to our allies and Third World countries regarding U.S. commitment to world peace and its leadership responsibilities. A no vote opposed the amendment. DEM YEAS NAYS NOT VOTING I Riegie I Levin leed to be improved in THE HIGH infant death rate in Detroit arouses a whole ranee of feelings: sorrow, outrage, despair.

Alleviating it may require doing something about otner reiaiea proD-lems. Yet it is a tragedy that shouldn't happen in a country blessed with Medicaid and free clinics. Whv was Detroit's infant mortality rate twice the national average at 22 for every 1,000 babies born in 1982? And why has the Detroit rate remained hiah while the Michi gan rate and the national average dropped? The immediate answer is the low birth weights among Detroit infants, particular ly black infants a condition directly attributable to poverty and malnourish- ment. Infants born in Detroit also orten suffer from the area's other social problems too little family planning and pre-natal care among teenagers, too much substance abuse, unsanitary housing. But none of this totally explains why so many babies are dying in Detroit.

One census area of the city near the Medical center has a 33 per 1,000 infant death rate. LEBANON one step on a long and FIRST CAME the cease-fire between the U.S. president and Congress, then came the cease-fire in Lebanon. If it holds, the Lebanese truce may give President Amin Ge-mayel the breathing space in which to fashion that elusive creature, a government of national reconciliation between Muslims and Christians. The cease-fire could probably not have come about without the compromise on Lebanon negotiated between President Reagan and congressional leaders last week.

The battle between Mr. Reagan and Congress over the War Powers Act is far from settled, but it should be evident to the players in Lebanon now that the presence of the Marines there has wide backing in. Congress, and for the time takes precedence over the debate about who has constitutional power to keep them there. The Druze who have been besieging Beirut are unlikely to lay down their arms for long, unless President Gemayel can guarantee them that their villages will not be the target of free-lance marauding by the El Albosta Conyers Ford Levin El Bonlor Crockett El Hertel El Traxler Carr Dingell El Kildee Wolpe REPUBLICANS El YEAS NAYS NOT VOTING 'PAIRED El Broomfield Purseli El Siljander El Davis El Sawyer EJ VanderJagt U.S. Senate COAL LEASING: Reversing a position it had taken in June, the Senate voted, 63 to 33, to freeze Interior Secretary James G.

Watt's controversial federal coal-leasing program for six months, until a study of its efficacy can be completed. Watt's program became controversial earlier this year when the investigatory General Accounting Office reported to Congress that Watt had leased 1.6 billion tons of coal in Wyoming for below fair market value. A yes vote supported a moratorium on federal coal leasing. DEM 8 YEAS NAYS NOT VOTING is Riegie El Levin.