1
J
editorial
o
TV exposure
The televised Watergate hearings once
again are underway and the select committee
has begun trugging through the muck and
mire which surrounded the 1972 Nixon
campaign.
It is a wonder the hearings resumed. The
seven-member probe team and its staff of
attorneys have been under intense pressure to
rnlt the hearings and turn the job over to the
courts. By not doing so, the committee has
asserted its mandce to disclose fully the
campaign's abuses vernment power.
The committee has been attacked
indirectly by President Nixon in his "let
others wallow in Watergate" statement.
Arizona Sen. Barry M. Goldwater has said the
"television spectical... holds the United States
government up to criticism and ridicule."
Vice President Spiro Agnew, in typical style,
has referred to the hearings as Sen. Sam
Ervin's "rain dance in that Washington
committee room." Even Nebraska Sen. Carl
Curtis and Rep. Charles Thone have called for
an end to the congressional probe.
All these statements ignore the fact that
the hearings are a legitimate government
function, aimed at exposing abuses of the
democratic process. While the courts have
served their role by dealing with those who
have broken the law, they cannot perform the
more important task: showing to the public
the entangled scandals and violations of ethics
which are the "Watergate mess."
One of the most erroneous attacks on the
committee thus far has come from Thone. On
an Omaha television news program he said "I
have traveled all over my district. And people
are saying 'Can't you get that Watergate stuff
off the television. ..and into the courts?' I
agree." Thone went on to say that the
hearings are damaging our national image
overseas.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In an Associated Press story published Sept.
16, a foreign correspondent said the hearings
are improving the U.S. government's image
with other peoples. The probe has sparked
renewed interest in American internal affairs
and the democratic process.
It would seem that Thone, a man who
won much support in the last election because
he had remained fairly independent of the
Nixon administration, has fallen victim to the
President's propaganda. While Nebraskans can
expect Curtis to belch forth the GOP line,
they should be able to expect better from the
First District Congressman.
Michael (O.J.) Nelson
HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
nilr..
,n (14! fl llMill it 1
"
Columnist accused of conservative rhetoric
By Chris Lyford
Chris Lyford is a junior majoring in
history and former editor of the
Doane College Owl.
"Thus, like Communist and
Socialist governments everywhere, the
Allende administration labored under
the delusion that it knew more than
the people it ruled and was beyond
reproach." This generalized, simplistic
approach by John Vihstddt's column
(Daily Nebraskan, Sept. 19)
concerning Chile's recent military
takeover is typical of conservative
rhetoric. It assumes that all socialist
reform is evil. It assumes that a
Socialist government evolves, not from
a public mandate, but by political
design. It assumes that all Socialist
reforms automatically result in
economic ruin, which fails to explain
the mess we are in under the
conservative Nixon administration's
multiple-phased policy. And, it
assumes that any alternative, no
matter how corrupt or dictorial, is an
acceptable "last resort". In Chile's
case, Vihstadt says that the takeover
by a facist military dictatorship is' "a
manifestation that Chileans had finally
had enough."
Allende's downfall cannot be
attributed largely to inherent
weaknesses in domestic policies.
Vihstadt points out that most of
Allende's programming never went
into effect, that opposition efforts "to
arrest or impede many of Allende's
socialist schemes" were highly
successful. One of Allende's most
important undertakings, his plan to
achieve a more equitable return from
Chile's foreign-owned business
concerns, falls into this category.
It was the foundation for financing
ALRMABET STEW
:i vs Si
i ) V v
fKs I
much of Allende's social programs, but
the Chilean legislature blocked
repeated efforts to legally institute it.
Facing the possibility of losing its
exceedingly high profit margin, the
foreign business circle within Chile
began to force legislative defeat of
Allende's domestic program. The most
celebrated example of this kind of
overseas meddling in another nation's
affairs was provided by America's
giant conglomerate, International
Telephone and Telegraph (ITT).
Already under UN suspicion for
attempting to finance political
opposition against Allende in the 1970
election, and later revealed to have
approached CIA officials with a
proposal to illegally oust the Marxist
president, ITT sought to funnel huge
sums of money in support of
anti-Allende candidates for the Chilean
legislature. So, there is substantia
evidence that the legislature's
opposition to Allende was
representative of overseas coporate
interests, not the people's will. It is
important that President Nixon, who
originated the U.S. government's
intense anti-Allende stance received a
huge campaign contribution from ITT,
almost 5500,000.
Vihstadt also ignores a major
development now taking place in Latin
America, a development historically
commonplace to that region. A heated
arms race currently is in full swing
between Argentina, Brazil, and Peru.
All three nations have ordered many
ships, planes and electronic
components from Europe and the
United States.
Allende opposed this kind of
ego-oriented arms race. He repeatedly
rejected military demands to increase
the size and scope of Chilean armed
forces.
This helps explain the brutal
swiftness of the military involved in
Chile's coup and the crackdown on
political dissidents, the decree against
long hair, the banning of political
parties, the replacement of college
professors with military instructors,
the firing of local governors and
mayors and their replacement by
military officers, and the foiced
detention of thousands of political
prisoners.
No one knows how many citizens
were gunned down in this last resort
which Vihstadt said was "a
manifestation that Chileans had finally
had enough."
Apparently, Nixon wasn't appalled
by this situation either-the United
States was one of the first nations to
extend diplomatic recognition to
Chile's new fascist junta.
QUOS
opinion
Vihstadt again issued a typically
sweeping statement that "India's
Indira Ghandi may well be the next
leftist leader to go the way of Salvador
Allende" (Daily Nebraskan, Sept.
26). Vihstadt rattles off employment,
agricultural and price-index statistics
to prove what India and the whole
world already knows a completely
uncontrolled population growth rate is
a threat to any nation's health and
well being.
But does this enter the minds of
conservative observors? Of course not.
In their opinion, India's problems
result from the insidious policies of a
"leftist" regime. What Vihstadt and
others ignore is that for years
statistical data on India reflected only
a tiny cross-section of India's
sweltering population.
The answer to India's impoverished
plight lies not in politics, but in
medicine and sociology. India's only
hope for reversing her present
condition rests on effective birth
cont-ol.
Vihstadt calls his column the
"Different Drummer", but there is
nothing different about it. His
philosophy is filled with the same old
worn-out conservative
rhetoric-rhetoric based on a
need to find a scapegoat for our social
ills rather than facing them squarely.
Rhetoric requiring continuous
paranoia toward any thought or
change in the status quo, for
conservatism thrives on what Franklin
Roosevelt termed as "standing still on
the same old spot and (therefore)
never run the risk of getting lost." All
of this, of course, is at the expense of
millions of impoverished people who
must remain so within the quagmire so
loved by those who fear responsible
social change.
page 4
daily nebraskan
thursday, October 4, 1973