Opinion
Jana Pedersen, Editor, 472-1766
Eric Pfanner, Editorial Page Editor
Diane Brayton, Managing Editor
Walter Gholson, Columnist
Paul Domeier, Copy Desk Chief
Brian Shellito, Cartoonist
Jeremy Fitzpatrick, Senior Reporter
Search given clout
Change will prevent future debacles
A year ago, the NU Board of Regents made a mockery of
its selection process for a new University of Nebraska
president.
After letting a search committee go through the motions of
choosing four candidates to present to the regents, the board
rejected those names and added a fifth member to the list —
then-interim President Martin Masscngalc.
After the other candidates withdrew from consideration,
Masscngalc was chosen to fill the post on a permanent basis,
giving rise to the view that the regents intended to hire him all
along.
As a result, the board came in for heavy criticism. Many
Nebraskans demanded that future searches for top administra
tors be conducted in a more aboveboard manner.
Last week, the regents moved to answer that demand. The
uvjaiu uctiucu uiai iuiuil 1^1
, v , k officials must be filled from lists provided by
-- - search committees.
9(11$ The move is both politically expedient and
gf| administratively sound.
Most importantly, it gives the search
commjuccs a purpose. No longer will mem
bers have to fear that the regents will supersede their selections
with a personal favorite.
The regents still will keep final power over the choice, said
Dick Wood, NU general counsel.
If they don’t like the list of candidates provided by the com
mittee, they can reject it and ask for new names. Or, they can
disband the committee and create another one. The board’s role
thus moves from selection toward confirmation.
In future searches, if the regents reject the names provided
by the committee, the move won’t be seen as purely political
the way last year’s debacle was. The board no longer will be
able to make specific selections before the final candidates are
presented. It only will be able to conduct a general process of
selection by rejection.
Regents Chairman Don Blank said he approved of Friday’s
move. He said it will make search committees “feel the weight
of responsibility” for the lists of candidates they provide.
The change docs more than just add responsibility. It gives
the pluralistic search process a purpose.
— E.F.P.
-LETTERS tTh°e EDITOR
Gun control not answer
to ending mass murders
Il seems that once again the Daily
Nebraskan editorial staff has decided
that the best way to stop mass killings
is gun control. Let’s not forget that
the largest mass killing in U.S. his
tory was committed with less than a
gallon of gasoline and a single match.
Why doesn’t the Daily Nebraskan
support a ban on gasoline or matches?
In Monday’s Daily Nebraskan,
opinion page editor Eric Pfanner
correctly states that the recently de
feated anti-crime bill, while not ban
ning the guns used by George Hen
nard in his recent Texas killing spree,
would have banned the high-capacity
magazines used in these guns (“Need
less Death,” DN, Oct. 21). Pfanner
implies lhaia ban on these magazines
would have at least reduced the number
of victims.
What he fails to say, and perhaps
even fails to realize, is that Hennard
was in the cafeteria for several min
utes and changed magazines several
limes. Smaller magazines would not
have prevented him from killing
people; they would have only made
him change magazines a little more
often.
Gun-banners like Pfanner have
already had their way in several U.S.
cities. Perhaps he can explain to me
why the two major U.S. cities with
the most restrictive gun laws, New
York and Washington, also have the
two highest crime rates.
I can explain it. It is because crimi
nals in those cities know that they
have nothing to fear from armed, law
abiding citizens. They know that the
only risk they have is from police,
who cannot act until a crime is al
ready in progress.
It is a shame that firearms that
carry permits arc so hard to obtain in
Texas (and impossible to obtain in
Nebraska). If someone in Luby’s
Cafeteria other than Mr. Hennard
would have been carrying a firearm
and would have been able to shoot
back, perhaps the only death would
have been Mr. Hennard.
Brian Allen
senior
mechanical engineering
president, UNL Rifle Club
-LETTER POLICY
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Activists victims of FBI war’
To determine who wins a war,
someone must count the bod
ies. And one of the worst jobs in
that business belongs to those who
must tell the families of those fallen
that their loved ones died bravely.
A tougher dilemma is how to tell a
family that its loved one has been
killed in an undeclared war or has
been incarcerated because he or she
refused to accept the role of a second
class citizen.
In 1915, when Thomas Dixon’s
novel “The Clansman” became D.W.
Griffiths’s motion picture “Birth of a
Nation,” America was a place where
racism was considered to be a re
spectable political position to em
brace.
The film portrayed African-Ameri
cans as lustful, deceitful and danger
ous people who were taking over the
post-Civil War South.
After seeing the film, President
Woodrow Wilson said it was “history
written in lightning.” This also was
the era when the FBI began surveil
lance of black Americans.
in ms book Racial Mailers, The
FBI’s Secret File on Black America,”
Kenneth O’Reilly writes that FBI
surveillance of African-Americans
began in this climate two years after
“Birth of a Nation” was released.
“Concluding that second-class
citizens would have second-class
loyally,” O’Reilly said, “the FBI dis
missed every black dissident as sub
versive and every criticism of Ameri
can policy as un-American.”
He said that by the fall of 1919, the
FBI had institutionalized and nation
alized its espionage by recruiting
“reliable Negroes” to infiltrate and
inform it of every racial advancement
and black nationalist group in the
country.
The first casually of this war was
Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican founder
of the Universal Negro Improvement
Association. Garvey became a target
because he was a black leader who
rejected the accommodationist ideas
of conservatives and was, according
to J. Edgar Hoover, “the foremost
radical among his race.”
In 1923, Garvey was convicted of
mail fraud and sentenced to five years
in prison. After serving two years, he
was pardoned by President Calvin
Coolidge and deported as an undesir
able alien.
The evidence used to convict
Garvey was provided by four black
men whom Hoover hired to work the
ease. O’Reilly said they were James
Crawford, W. Samuel Noisette, James
Amos and James W. Jones, also known
as “undercover agent ‘800.’”
7a. determine wha
wins a war, someone
ies. And one of the
wecsl whs in that
business belongs to
these who must tell
the families of those
fallen that their loved
ones died bravely.
Satisfied with its operation against
Garvey, the FBI began collecting
information and establishing files on
every well-known black from Jesse
Owens to Jesse Jackson.
By the summer of 1968, O’Reilly
said, the FBI had recruited a 3,248
person informant army. But Hoover
wanted more and local offices were
forced to increase the number of in
formants.
As a result of this push for more
information, the Bureau created its
counterintelligence program — CO
1NTELPRO. This unit was respon
sible for the infiltration of black na
tionalist organizations with a mission
to “prevent the rise of a messiah who
could unify and electrify the militant
black nationalist movement.”
Malcolm X had been the most
likely candidate, but after his murder,
the FBI said Stokcly Carmichael and
Martin Luther King Jr. were the only
serious candidates.
Radical nationalism did not seem
to affect the Comhusker stale. In March
1968,O’Reilly said, the FBI in Omaha
reported no “organized black nation
alist movements in Nebraska.”
However, two years later, Omaha
police officer Larry Minard was killed
when he picked up a suitcase contain
ing a bomb. The bomb was placed in
a vacant house by 15 year-old Duane
Peak, allegedly on orders from David
Rice and Edward Poindexter. Both
men were known for their political
activism on Omaha’s north side. But
a closer look at the ease indicates that
Peak may have acted alone or with
someone other than Rice or Poindex
ter.
According to transcripts from the
preliminary hearing obtained by
Amnesty International, Peak’s testi
mony contained several inconsisten- j
• cies.
Originally, he denied any conncc
_ lion with Rice and Poindexter. But 1
later, he changed his testimony and
implicated them as the men respon
sible for the construction of the bomb
and the order to place it and call the
police to the vacant house.
Furthermore, there is evidence that
police withheld critical evidence, such
as the tape of the 911 call and a letter i
Peak wrote to his mother saying he
was manipulated by the Omaha po
lice to finger Rice and Poindexter.
Both Rice and Poindexter were
convicted and sentenced to life in
prison without parole. Peak served
two years in reform school and was
released when he was 18.
For more than 20 years, no one has
admitted knowing Peak's whereabouts,
despite all the questions that crop up
wncn me ease is aiscusscu.
In 1978 through the Freedom of
Information Act, attorneys for Rice
and Poindexter obtained a file reveal
ing the use of counterintelligence
tactics against them.
A number of civil rights era eases
arc being reconsidered because of
citizens’ demands to look into the
injustices of the time, a recent Asso
ciated Press story said. These renewed
investigations seem to indicate that
most of the country has taken its first
step toward accepting the reality that
it has a problem. The subsequent
therapy sessions will be painful, but
they may heal old battle scars and
uncover the truth.
Out in the Midwest, on the other
hand, Rice and Poindexter, who still
maintain their innocence, arc prison
ers in an undeclared political war on
black activists.
But unlike POWs and MIAs in
declared wars, Poindexter and Rice,
who is now known as Mondo, can be
located. We know where they are but
law enforcement agencies find it very
difficult to locate Peak, even in this
new age of advanced eavesdropping
and technological spying.
Maybe it’s just because they don t
want to have any reason to believe
that a major mistake was made and
that it has taken them 20 years to find
out what really happened Aug. 17.
1970. Or maybe the truth in this in
stance is just another secret file.
(ihoison is a senior news-editorial major
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.