Pago 4 Daily Nebraskan Wednesday, November 28, 1884
Community mourns
e had a family. He had
friends. He had a mind.
He had dreams for the
future.
But after a .22-caliber pistol
killed Ben Wilson, 17, last week
in Chicago, he was only the
"basketball star" who met an
unfair and tragic end.
One Neil F. Simeon Vocational
High School official said Wilson's
death was tragic and surely the
two 16-year-old gunmen didn't
realize they were shooting one
of the nation's top high school
basketball players.
A college basketball recruiter
said Wilson was not only a good
person, he had the potential to
be a good college player.
Several schoolmates, between
sobs, gasped that Wilson was
the greatest high school basket
ball player ever.
Even Wilson's father, fighting
back tears, said, "I dont under
stand it. He was a great basket
ball player."
I am certain that away from
the camera, Wilson's father had
more to say maybe that it
wasn't fair to murder a young
man about to embark on a prom
ising career, or simply to murder
his son. But the statement that
was shown on television revealed
a great deal In essence, the
media showed that it was in-.
comprehensible that someone
would want to murder Wilson
the athlete, not Wilson the hu
man being.
This warped perception of
who and what Wilson was pre
vails in society as well as in the
media The school official seems
to think that the gunmen would
have had secon d thoughts about
firing the shots had they real
ized they wer e about to kill an
American hope, rather than an
ordinary Joe. The recruiter ad
mired Wilson's character, but
add to it his basketball prowess
and Wilson became a far better
person. And students mourned
the school's star athlete and
idol, not their friend.
Scientists fight terrorism
with comic-strip proposals
cientists at the Los Alamos
, National Laboratory have ap
parently been reading comic
strips. They've submitted some
proposals for anti-terrorist devi
ces that seem to have come off
the drawing boards of pseudo
scientific cartoonists.
Jack Anderson
and Joseph Spear
The far-out ideas are contained
in an internal study, "Concepts
for Assisting the Federal Emer
gency Management Agency in Its
Various Missions." Our associates
Donald Goldberg and Indy
Badhwar have seen a copy of the
report sent to FEMA. Here are
some of the wilder proposals:
"Identification of Stressed
Individuals." The study points out
that "a potential assassin enter
ing the White House for a tour or
reception or standing in a crowd
waiting for a presidential appea
rance...is likely to be under stress."
To pick up the signs of what it
calls the "manifold symptoms" of
this stress, the study proposes
development of a sort of "metal
detector" for nail biters, teeth
grinders, shifty-eyed sweaters and
SilifllS (Ok
athlete, not man
The statements reflect one of
society's attitudes: An athlete is
made of better stuff than a D
average student, a drug addict,
or a kid simply trying to survive
on the streets.
Several of these less-famous
kids have been killed on Chica
go's streets recently the same
streets Wilson roamed. These
kids had family and friends who
loved them, who mbs them, who
feel empty as a result of their
loss and who are struggling to
understand the deaths. But did
the national media pick up on
these stories? Did an entire stu
dent body sob and literally
stumble across the gym floor in
hysterics over their deaths?
Probably not. The others wer
en't made of the right stuff in
society's eyes. They probably
couldn't dunk a basketball, run
fast, jump high or flex a muscle.
They could only lend a shoulder
to a crying friend, laugh at Dad's
stupid jokes and pester sis.
Wilson probably did these
same things, but that is not how
he will be remembered. Hell
always be the star, the one whose
death was a greater loss to
society because he may have led
some lucky university to a na
tional basketball title.
Wilson should not be remem
bered in this way. He was neither
greater nor lesser for his athletic
ability. He was a human being,
who like all the other Chicago
youths killed on the streets, died
needlessly.
Wilson's death will always be
a tragedy, but some good could
result if it prods school and city
officials to work together to pre
vent more murders. It's a pity,
though, that we as a society
don't place the same value on all
life. If we did, an angered com
munity may have demanded
action after the first teen-age
murder and Wilson could still
be dreaming of a bright future.
Judi Mygren
Daily Nebraskan Senior Editor
other twitchy types who may be
planning an attack on the presi
dent. The scientists don't say how
the scanner would distinguish
between nervous assassins and,
say, someone whose lunch is fight
ing back, who needs to go to the
bathroom or who simply had a
bad day at the office.
"Human Performance En
hancement (or Degradation) in a
Counter-Terrorist Context." The
idea here is to inject chemicals
into either the food, drink or air
ingested by the bad guys, which
will knock them out.
"For example," the study ex
plains, "hostages and guards could
be overwhelmed by sleep in a
hostage-barricade situation by
some substance in the air they
breathed, the food they ate or the
water they drank. The hazards
inherent in this (hostage) situa
tion could be quickly overcome
without risk of injury or death."
The Los Alamos scientists say
they dont have the capability yet,
"but it is an exciting avenue to
explore." We might point out that
the idea occurred more than 15
years ago to radicals, who threa
tened to dump LSD into munici
pal water supplies.
1fS4, United Feature Syndics!, inc. "
"EMU trv itr- - '
lirkpatrick 's strong nerves, skills
indispensable to United Nations
The maxim "the more cooks,
the worse the broth" does
not apply to the making of
U.S. foreign policy. Too few cooks
produce the bland cuisine of the
State Department's policy cafe
teria That department has an
unreasonably high ratio of inter
ests to ideas, which is why the
Reagan administration needs to
be leavened by Jeane Kirkpatrick.
She has served a four-year sen
tence as ambassador to the Uni
ted Nations. She would like to
pass back through the looking
glass, to a more reasonable world
and a better office.
eorse
However, until such an office
secretary of state or national
security adviser becomes
vacant, she should stay at the
United Nations. Otherwise, she
will relinquish her "seat at the
table." It is the table where the
president, vice president, chair
man of the joint chiefs, CIA direc
tor, secretaries of state and de
fense and gloriously Kirk
patrick deliberate about policy.
The fact that she must, for now,
sit amidst irrationality in New
York in order to retain a role in
Washington's reasoning is just one
paradox in Kirkpatrick's public
life, a life rich in paradoxes.
Here are two more: She is in
dispensable to American policy
making because she is somewhat
un-American. And although her
temperament is said to test the
patience of Secretary of State
Shultz, his temperament is why
she should stay at "the table."
Ronald Reagan is no intellec
tual, but he first insisted on meet
ing Kirkpatrick because he had
read one of her articles. Then he
employed this woman whose intel
lectual gilts and attainments at
least match those of Dean Ache
son and Henry Kissinger.
Be&g&n is an elemental pol
itical force because he is utterly
at one with his countrymen. He is
pure American, to the center of
all his cells. But that'means he is
inclined to indiscriminate optim
ism. In foreign policy, that pro
duces a reluctance, even an
inability, to understand that
problems will not be dissolved by
better communication, that the
Cold War is not just a misunder
standing, that all human beings
are not "basically alike."
Most citizens of tranquil, lib
eral democracies have difficulty
understanding different national
characters, and the radically dif
fent motiv.es and goals of the
world's governing elites. Kirkpa
trick does not. Churchill said,
sincerely and truly, The Almighty
in his infinite wisdom has not.
seen fit to create Frenchmen in
the image of Englishmen." Kirk
patrick has a deeper understand
ing than anyone in government of
the fact that Soviet leaders are
not "like us."
Reagan, unike FDR, does not
relish conflict among subordi
nates. But for an intellectual of
Kirkpatrick's stripe, conflict
civil but sharp is like oxygen:
essential to life. The sainted
Edmund Burke said that antag
onists are helpers because they
strengthen our nerves and sharp
en our skills. At the United
Nations, Kirkpatrick has been sur
rounded by antagonists.
Ilirkpslrick went there with
strong nerves and sharp skills,
and today they are stronger and
sharper. Perhaps that is why many
other foreign policy officials in
the administration are reportedly
not eager to see more of her.
Why? Why does butter avoid a
sword?
Secretary Shultz is not butter.
He is a mature, experienced man.
But Kirkpatrick is a necessary
complement to him. He has had a
"British" career, moving through
a succession of quite different
high offices. (He has been head of
what now is the Office of Man
agement and Budget, and secre
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tary of labor, then of treasury,
then of state.) But "British"
careers are apt to require, as they
do in Britain, the departmental
head to become habituated to
dependence on the "permanent
government."
This is the bureaucracy, with
its inertia and conventional think
ing. Shultz, the quintessential
"government man," is necessarily
dependent on the State Depart
ment bureaucracy that is the part
of the permanent government
most ill-atuned to the president's
professed vision of the world.
Furthermore, Irving Kristol
argues that economists, business
men and lawyers are ill-suited to
diplomacy. Shultz is an econo
mist and businessman surround
ed by lawyers.
Economists think in terms
of rational behavior models. But
in international relations, cost
benefit analyses often are diffi
cult, and such calculations often
are rendered irrelevent by animal
spirits, national atavisms and
ideological frenzies. Businessmen
live in a world of ordered, regu
lated, almost decorous competi
tion. Nations do not.
For lawyers, a negotiated out
come is normally presupposed,
and winning is measured in adjust
ments at the margins of a dis
pute. Relations between super
power adversaries are not so mild.
A capitalist country, where one
person's gain can also profit
another, is apt to underestimate
the extent to which the game of
nations is a zero-sum game, where
one nation's gain 13 an adver
sary's symmetrical loss.
Kirkpatrick is a precious com
modity precisely because she is
not like economists, businessmen
or lawyers.
1-S4 Wssfttogfcn Pzzt WrJtar Group