Wilson’s behavior affected by health
- rresiuent
Woodrow Wilson’s behavior was
affected by decreased blood flow to
the brain during his oft-criticized and
ultimately futile campaign to have
the United States join the League of
Nations, a historian says.
Records that were never made
public show that Wilson was disabled
by illness during the critical period in
U.S. history after World War I, said
Princeton University history Profes
sor Arthur Link, editor of a series of
volumes of Wilson’s papers.
“It is one of the great tragedies of
the 20th century,” Link said in a re
cent interview. “The man who was
most responsible for building support
for the idea of a League of Nations
was struck down just as his leadership
was most needed. And he was struck
down by events over which he had no
control.”
The 64th volume in the series, to
be published in February, will reveal
for the first time detailed medical
records kept by Dr. Cary T. Grayson,
Wilson’s personal physician.
Grayson’s sons allowed Link to re
view the 70-year-old papers in May.
Link said the records, with analy
sis by medical experts, explain
Wilson’s poor performance in the
months leading up to his devastating
stroke in October 1919.
Wilson, a Democrat, was presi
dent from 1913 to 1921. He died in
1924.
He won the 1919 Nobel Peace
Prize for his peacemaking efforts
involving the League of Nations after
World War I. However, he failed to
win U.S. support for the league, which
fell apart before World War II.
Wilson failed to get the Senate to
ratify U.S. membership in the league
because of what Link said was an
uncharacteristic unwillingness to
compromise. The Senate wanted
guarantees that the United States would
not be subordinate to the votes of
other nations in case of war.
“In his normal, healthy state, Wilson
would have found compromise with
the large group of moderate Republi
cans.” said Link.
Instead, Wilson was robbed of “his
ability at leadership, of his normal
shrewdness and deftness, of his mar
velous management skills,” said Link.
He would lose ms tram ot thought,
and get confused. He would contra
dict himself, and eventually, blow his
cool.”
Against medical advice, Wilson,
then 63, took his message directly to
the people with a speaking tour of
Western states in September 1919.
The decision to go over the Senate’s
head angered the very lawmakers
Wilson needed to court.
“The decision . . . was not only
irrational but in the circumstances
was bound to be futile,” Link writes
in the forthcoming book.
Dr. James F. Toole, director of the
Stroke Center of the Bowman Gray
School of Medicine in Winston-Sa
lem, N.C., and Dr. Bert E. Park, a
Springfield, Mo., neurosurgeon, ana
lyzed the medical records for Link’s
book.
Toole wrote that the records indi
cate Wilson suffered from a disease
of the carotid arteries in the neck,
which hindered blood flow to the
brain, and hypertension, which wors
ened his condition.
Park wrote that Wilson likely
continued to suffer episodes of inter
'.
Brian Shellito/Daily Nebraskan
Wilson
nal bleeding following a 1906 stroke.
Link said the records should lay to
rest the theories that Wilson’s prob
lems were psychological.
“His failure in leadership instead
derived from the ravages of disease,”
Link said. “History has judged Wilson
as if he were a well man during this
period.”
Walesa leads early Polish election returns
WARSAW, Poland - Lech Walesa,
who united Poles in their struggle
against communism, led in Poland’s
first popular presidential election
Sunday but appeared headed for a
runoff, according to state TV exit
polls.
The Solidarity chief had 41 per
cent of the vote, a 2-to-1 lead over
Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki
and political unknown Stanislaw
Tyminski, according to the polls. The
polls indicated Mazowiecki and
Tym inski each had 20.5 percent of
the vote, far ahead of the remaining
three candidates.
It was a stunning setback for
Mazowiecki, a former Walesa ally
who instituted unpopular economic
austerity measures after taking Po
land’s first postwar non-Communist
government.
Pollsters questioned every 20th
voter at 404 polling places around the
country, or up to 15,000 people. The
results were issued on nationwide TV
minutes after the polls closed at 8
p.m. (2 p.m. EST).
The poll indicated that farmers,
who rcpreseni 40 percent of Polish
society, deserted Mazowiecki en
masse.
Only 4 percent of the farm vote
went to the prime minister, according
to the poll. Farmers have been angry
at the abolition of guaranteed prices
for their produce under the govern
ment’s shock economic reform plan.
If no one wins 50 percent in the
vote, a runoff must be held between
the two top vote-getters Dec. 9.
At Mazowiecki national headquar
ters in Warsaw, a spokeswoman said
Walesa seemed far ahead in several
areas around the country but that
supporters were not discouraged.
Walesa himself expressed optimism
after voting in Gdansk with his wife,
Danuta, and their second son, 18
year-old Slawek.
“I voted for the candidate who is
supposed to win,” he said, smiling.
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Cold War’s end also means U.S. aid
to anti-communism efforts will decline
WASHINGTON - Much like the
Cold War itself, the U.S. effort to roll
back communism under the Reagan
Doctrine appears headed for obliv
ion.
In the wake of the new East-West
agreement on vastly reducing con
ventional arms in Europe, what passes
for superpower tension these days
results from the continuing U.S.-Soviet
competition in remote Third World
conflicts.
During the 1960s and 1970s, virtu
ally the only guerrilla fighters were
those operating in anti-communist
countries, often rightist military dic
tatorships.
That all changed under Reagan,
and American conservatives cheered
when Reagan embraced “freedom
fighters” opposing lef tist rule around
the world.
Now, after a run of four years,
much of the Reagan Doctrine’s vital
ity is gone.
In vote after vote, Congress has, in
effect, told the Bush administration
that it doesn’t sec much sense in
maintaining full funding of anti
communist rebel groups when the
Soviet bloc has ceased to exist.
The administration doesn’t dispute
the point, but said continued aid to the
rebel groups gives the leftist govern
ments they oppose incentive to nego
tiate peace.
W hen Reagan took office, the on 1 y
resistance movement receiving U.S.
help was the Afghan mujahedeen. By
1986, United States was assisting the
Nicaraguan Contras, Cambodia's non
communist rebels and the insurgency
fighting Angola’s leftist government.
Even that aid is in peril. In a move
that went almost unnoticed in the
rush to adjournment, Congress passed
an intelligence bill that dealt the
doctrine another blow.
The bill would halt, among other
restrictions, $60 million in U.S. aid to
Angola’s UNITA rebels if the leftist
government agrees to hold free elec
tions and the Soviet Union halts its
own weapons shipments to the Ango
lan armed forces.
It also suspends a $ 13 million covert
aid program to anti-communist reb
els in Cambodia that will be replaced
by a humanitarian aid program. And
it cuts aid to the Afghan resistance to
$250 million, $50 million less than
the administration request. The pro
gram would be cut off altogether if
the Soviets agree to stop sending
military aid to the Afghan govern
ment.
Rep. Dante Fascell, D-Fla., chair
man of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, said he’s not surprised
Congress now balks at administration
requests for aid to rightist rebel groups.
“The Soviets have cut back on
funding of their ‘clients’ around the
world and wc arc responding accord
ingly,” he said. “The Soviets are out
of Afghanistan, the Contras w'on in
Nicaragua, and peace talks arc in
progress in Angola.”
Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., feels
Congress is too eager to shelve the
Reagan Doctrine.
Soviet President Mikhail Gor
bachev may have won the Nobel Peace
Prize, Hyde said, “but he is still pour
ing in $650 million into Angola, and
Soviet advisers arc still very active
there.”
Hyde said he regrets the mood that
“exaggerates the resolution of the Cold
War.”
Peter Rodman, of the Johns Hopkins
Foreign Policy Institute, agreed.
The former National Security
Council aide said U.S. assistance
helped initiate peace negotiations in
each of the countries where the United
States was supporting a rebel group.
“Our strategy ought to be to com
plete the process,” Rodman said.
“Don’t leave them (the rebel groups)
in the lurch. The next phase is a
political accommodation. It makes
no sense to penalize our side.”
Dollar now Iraqis’ currency of choice
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The dollar, the
hated and admired symbol of Ameri
can power, is the currency of choice
on the streets of Baghdad, where U. N.
sanctions have rattled the already shaky
Iraqi economy.
In ever-increasing numbers, Iraqis
approach foreigners, risking lengthy
prison sentences to buy dollars at
black-market rates that have almost
doubled in three months.
And some merchants play the
dangerous game of asking customers
to give them something other than the
new 25-dinar notes bearing the like
ness of President Saddam Hussein.
Western diplomats suggested that
reflects a fear the dinar could lose its
value if Saddam is toppled after a
U.S.-led attack or in a coup.
At official rates, one Iraqi dinar is
worth $3 in Iraq. But on the streets of
Baghdad, one dollar can buy five
Iraqi dinars, and in some outlying
areas the going rate is reportedly six
or seven dinars.
One Western diplomat said some
major figures in the Iraqi business
world are turning vast amounts of
their assets into cash — and lurr ing
that cash into dollars.
Before Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of
Kuwait and the subsequent U.N.
embargo, the country earned more
than 95 percent of its foreign ex
change from oil exports.
Shortages of spare parts, imported
raw materials and foreign technical
expertise have left much of Iraq’s
industry running at only a mainte
nance level, Western diplomats said.
Prices on everything from ciga
rettes to tires are soaring in the mar
ketplace. Cigarettes that just three
months ago cost one-third of a dinar,
now cost 3.50 dinars. Tires now cost
300 dinars apiece, or $900 at the
official rate.
Food is still in abundant supply in
Iraq, much of it smuggled in from
Iran or looted from Kuwait.
Despite official Iraqi complaints
about shortages of medicines, doc
tors in Baghdad say there’s no prob
lem with supplies. Western diplomats
suggest Iraqi attempts to acquire more
medicine in exchange for hostages is
an attempt to bolster stockpiles for
war.
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Injustice: Canada’s Mohawk Crisis:
"Indian Summer of Discontent"
Keynote Speaker:
Dan David
(Mohawk Journalist)
f Date: November 28, 1990 Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: City Union Ballroom Admission: SI.00 for students
S2.00 for non-students
1!PC-Free child care provided in same location. Must call
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