monday, december 5 1977
page 4
daily nebraskan
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The Nebraska Legislature should trod care
fully as it winds its way through the mine field of
post-secondary education.
A legislative committee, headed by Sens.
Jerome Warner of Waverly and Frank Lewis of
Bellevue, probably already realizes what it has
stumbled into. It is holding hearings across the
state to determine public opinion on legislation
ending duplication in post-secondary education.
In other words, the committee is looking at
cutting some programs at some of the state-supported
colleges and NU. The idea is not to have
the state pay for the same program twice.
That idea is good. But cutting programs at
some schools is like pulling teeth.
Local interests do not support cuts in local
schools. This is especially true of NU's little
brothers, the state colleges, some of whom are
fighting for their lives. -
Indeed, NU is not anxious to be forced into
cutting certain programs either, although offi
cials say they generally are pleased with pre
liminary suggestions.
The arguments against cuts are almost as good
as arguments for eliminating duplication.
Each school or technical community college
serves its area for the most part. Some students,
like those out at Chadron in the western part of
the state, may not want to come to Lincoln for
school. It's the old big school syndrome about
getting lost among 22 ,000 students.
They want freedom of choice to go where they
want. So, they would prefer keeping as many
programs as possible at local colleges.
NU is not without its complaints. It does not
want to give up some less-than-four-year pro
grams that do not lead to bachelor's degrees.
Let's be honest. For each school the simple
economic fact is more students, more money.
Cuts which eliminate some programs-and some
students-are opposed in the interests of the
institution. It's hard to fault a school for sticking
up for itself.
However, in the interests of the state, some
cuts are indicated. Some duplication is necessary,
but some can be eliminated.
Where should the cuts be made? We hope the
Legislature's committee comes up with some
good options. Of course, we have our ideas,
too ...
Maybe we're biased because we think NU
serves the state with its complete education.
Maybe we-'re biased because we don't think it's
all bad that students are exposed to thousands
not hundreds-of ideas and can learn from that
experience.
We dont think it hurts to travel some to get
to Lincoln. And it's not bad to get away from
home sometimes.
Of course, we're biased . . .
letters
to the editor
Raphael Zariski asserts (Daily Nebraskan, Dec. 2)
that the (Palestinian Liberation Organization) PLO
wants to destroy Israel and perform genocide on the
Jews.
Actually, the PLO wants to establish a secular,
democratic state in Israel. This would be a state in
which the interests of both Jews and Palestinians are
represented.
Zariski, like other Zionists, immediately pounces
upon this and exploits the guilt of Americans and
Europeans. To gain sympathy he concocts the charge
of genocide.
But it is the foreign Zionists who have been mass
acring the native Palestinians.
In Deir Yasin, more than 200. Arab civilians were
murdered by the Irgun, led by Menahem Begin.
Yes, the same Begin who now leads Israel. Begin even
boasted about the operation.
In Kafr Kasim, Arab civilians were again rounded up
and murdered by Israeli border police.
And, of course, there are the air attacks reminis
cent of Nixon's bombing of Vietnam. The Israeli's
logic seems to be that if you kill more. Palestinians,
there will be less of them to return their country.
If there is a Jehovah, and if he is just, Israel will pay
for these crimes.
Krishna Madan
Cronkite, doing his job, stumbles into diplomacy
New York-He didn't think anything of it. On Wednes
day of that week, there was a report that President Anwar
Sadat of Egypt said he wanted to go to Israel to negotiate
a peace settlement. As Walter Cronkite read this in his
office, he remembered the first time he had interviewed
Sadat, in January of 1971 .
"I would like to go to Israel," Sadat had said.
Cronkite jumped. He thought he had a major news
story. When, he asked Sadat, would you to to Israel?
"As soon as there is peace," Sadat said.
"Oh," Cronkite said.
Now, on this Wednesday in 1977, Cronkite was un
impressed with Sadat's, latest statement. But two days
later, as he was preparing his CBS news story for Friday
night, Cronkite found himself dealing with a story of how
Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin had beamed a tele
cast at Arab countries and asked for the meeting with
Sadat.
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"We can help each other," Begin said. "It will be a
pleasure to welcome and receive your president."
The gentle words came at a time of violence. Palestin
ians had set up Russian rocket launchers on bare rock
covered hills in Lebanon and fired down into the Israeli
town of Nahariya, killing three people, one of them a
mother reaching for her children. Immediately, Israeli jets
dived at Palestinian camps in Lebanon and killed scores
of people, including what seem to be prime targets in the
Middle East: women and children.
Peaceful speeches
Yet no one took the peaceful speeches of Sadat and
Begin seriously. Diplomats have taught the world that
these things are impossible. There must be orderly
methods of setting up such conferences, the diplomats tell
you.
If people are killed while orderliness is being followed,
then this is simply the price one pays for the necessity of
conducting orderly diplomacy.
But it was a new story, Walter Cronkite knew. The
trouble for him was that he thought it would be happen
ingover the weekend, when he wasn't on the air.
'When I finished on that Friday night," he recalls, "I
assumed that somebody would get to Sadat by Saturday
and ask him about what it would take for him to go to
Israel, and Sadat would give one of those 1971 answer?
and that would take care of the story. But on Saturday,
nobody went to Sadat. Then on Saturday night, Bud
Benjamin, the producer here, got on the phone. He lined
up Sadat for an interview on Monday.
"I thought somebody would get Sadat before that. On
Sunday, still nobody busts the story. On Monday at 9
ajn. I'm right outside there and we have Sadat."
He pointed through the glass walls of his office to a
curved white desk that sat under a ring of tin-hooded
spotlights. Two cameras were aimed at the desk. This is
the place from which Cronkite reads the news to so much
of the nation and, at times, to the world, each weekday
night.
Qn this Monday morning Cronkite sat at his desk and
was about to start a week that would end with Sadat in
Jerusalem.
Cronkite spoke to Sadat on that morning through
cameras that sent voices and images curving through the
sky over continents. But the technique he used was about
the oldest in the reporting business. You have grown so
used to associating Cronkite with that multimillion
dollar voice that you forget that he-was ajmajor newsman
before he knew what television was.
His record is simple: He went to fires and trials and to
wars. He did not leave when there was shooting. And now,
speaking to Anwar Sadat, Cronkite was slipped into what
he calls his "rewrite man's syndrome." You interview a
person, get him to say something, then immediately go to
the man on the other side of the question, and ask his
reaction.
'What's next?'
"1 said to him, 'What's next, Mr. President?' He said
he had to have a formal invitation from Israel. He said
that this perhaps would be arranged through America.
"Then I said to him, 'What are your conditions for a
trip? There goes the story now, I figured. I'll get the same
answer from him that I did in 1971 . And he did. He start
ed talking about the 1967 boundaries and the Palestinians.
I figured, there goes the speculation about any peace
meetings. But I figured I still had a good story. We'd take
these quotes to Begin and get his answer and at the end of
the day there would be no more speculation about a meet
ing of Sadat and Begin.
"So I just said, well, in order to go to Israel you must
have these concessions, and he said, 'On no no, I never
said that. I said that they are the conditions for peace.
They are not the conditions for a visit. Now I used a
word that people have pointed out is wrong. I said, 'What
are your preconditions for the visit?' I should have said
conditions, I guess. What was the difference at a time like
this? Sadat knew what I meant. He said, 'On, I have none.
A way out
"Now I had to ask him when would he come. I figured
this would be his way to get out of it. But when I asked
him, he said, As soon as possible. Well, I knew what to
do now. Let's make specific sense out of this. And right
away. I said to him, "Would you say within a week?' And
Sadat said, Yoj could say that. And I said, 'No, would
you say that? And he said, Yes.
It was then 10 a.m. In New York, which was 5 pjm. in
Tel Aviv. When Cronkite started to put the second half 6f
the move together-get the other side's reaction-he was
told that Menahem Begin was driving from Jerusalem to
Tel Aviv for a speech and would be unavailable until after
the speech. Cronkite finally waited. Begin appeared in a
hotel room in Tel Aviv and his image came into the studio
on 57th Street and Cronkite talked to him. He told Begin
that Sadat had said that he would, if invited, come to
Israel within a week or so.
On the screen in front of Cronkite, Menahem Begin's
figure shook a little.
"Well, if President Sadat is ready to come next week
if he tells me that he will come next week-I will. have to
postpone my trip to Britian, because I am . . ."
It was done. To get out of the trap, Sadat and Begin
would have to chew off their legs.
. Face hanging out
"You can say a thing in print, make a promise and then
weasel out of it," Cronkite was saying the other night.
"But when you make the promise with your face hang
ing out there on television, then you can't quit so easily.
I could see a dozen reasons from Monday of that week
until Saturday for the two of them to back out. But they
had made these promises with their fscs1 vnging out on
television. And then the world became too excited by the
news. There was no way for them to go back."
Cronkite was dressed in a light blue pinstriped suit, and
a red tie. He had his feet on a desk and he was lighting a
cigar. "We just put them on television and practiced lesson
No. 1 in journalism: Ask questions and get reactions to
the answers."
"Do you remember the first time you did it, calling up
a couple of guys and getting a good story out of it?" he
was asked.
TV diplomacy
His mind went back to wire service cubbyholes from
Texas to London. He shook his head. "1 can't remember
one particular time I did it," he said. "It's all I've ever
done, isn't it?" He took a drag on the cigar. "Now they'll
call it TV diplomacy."
Sadat said Begin was speaking through the person re
garded as the most believable of all American figures.
There are many reasons why people believe Walter Cron
kite. You can trust a man with those eyebrows.
He said his back hurt him and he decided to go home
instead of stopping off for a drink. He put on a topcoat
and walked out of the building and stood in the cold night
mist and waved for a taxi.
"I was proud of my questions to them," he was saying.
"They were short and succinct. After that, I don't know.
They can call it whatever they want. To me, it was just a
straight-assed journalism job."
Copyright 1977, Jimmy Brtslin
Distributed by tha Chicago Tribuna-Naw York
Naw Syndicate, Inc.
Ralph is missing
The Ralph comic strip will not appear in today's
Daily Nebraskan. Apparently the strip was delayed in
the mails and did not reach the Daily Nebraskan by
publication time.
Hopefully, the comic strip, drawn by Ron Wheeler,
will arrive in time for Wednesday's issue.
