OPINION
Net>raskan
Tuesday, March 1,1904
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jeremy Fitzpatrick
Rainbow Rowell . .
A dean a Left in . . .
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I 1)11 OKI \l
On the clock
Budget cuts to be big nemesis for Smith
Dennis Smith officially takes over as president of the
University of Nebraska today. He assumes control of a
university system ready for leadership and direction.
Smith will have many lessons to learn about Nebraska in his
first months in Lincoln. One of the most important is about the
visibility of his new position.
Smith avoided publicity in the months after his selection as
president. His desire to stay out of the limelight is understandable,
but it will not work in Nebraska.
Things may have been different in a large state like California
where Smith worked as an administrator at the University of
Califomia-Irvine. The University of Nebraska is the major institu
tion in this state. As the president of the NU system. Smith must
daily be the spokesman for the university.
Smith takes over as president at a time when NU has been
struggling to deal with budget cuts and infighting among the
colleges in the system.
As the NU Board of Regents' unanimous choice for the job.
Smith has credibility and support as he begins. The people of
Nebraska seem ready to work with him.
NU also should be receptive to his presidency. The chancellors
at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, University of Nebraska
Medical Center and the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln are
relatively new. Smith will not have to work against old alliances.
He should be able to forge strong tics with all the chancellors.
But it is no mistake that Smith’s office is located in Lincoln.
UNL is NU’s flagship campus and is the focus of higher education
efforts in the state. While it is important for Smith to be president
of all NU colleges, he should not forget UNL is the strength of the
university system.
Smith’s most difficult challenge will be protecting NU from
budget cuts that threaten the institution every budget year. Critical
legislators have increasingly targeted NU for cuts when money
becomes tight. Smith must steer NU on a “one university” course
to protect it from cuts that can come when the university appears
weak or divided.
Budgetary success or failure will be a significant measure of
Smith’s success as president. If he can protect NU from major
reductions in funding, he will ensure that higher education can
continue to prosper in Nebraska. If not, the quality of Nebraska’s
education — and Nebraska’s future — will suffer.
Because Smith has been reluctant to discuss his plans as
president before he assumed the office, no one really knows what
he will do in the months and years ahead. Smith’s intentions have
so far been expressed only in broad generalities.
Now is the time for Smith to come forward and tell the state
what he plans to do as NU president. He has had since November
to consider his plans and, he should have some idea of what his
priorities as president will be.
Previously, Smith declined to elaborate on his intentions, saying
NU should only have one president at a time. But he is the presi
dent now, and now is the time for him to establish and announce
goals for NU.
I M IOUI \l I’m M \
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the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of
its students.
I i 111 u mi n \
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Ncbraakan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448
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CHRIS B WKS
Return to mistrust is not needed
The Cold War is over. The
United States, as the chief
banana, now has nothing to
fear from other nations. Russia is a
capitalist dynamo and our ally. The
New World Order is a peaceful dream
come true.
Well, maybe not. The Russians arc
on the road to free markets, but their
economy resembles ours in the 1930s.
Noone can make anything because no
one can afford to buy it. Crops rot in
the fields because it costs too much to
bring them to the cities. And the re
cent incident involving Aldrich Ames
shows tension still exists between our
two nations.
Ames was a CIA agent who was
arrested last week for selling secrets to
the Russians. According to the FBI,
Ames was recruited by the KGB in
1985 and continued to work for the
SVRR, Russia’s new spy agency. Dur
ing this time, he was allegedly paid
over $1.5 million for information on
which Russian agents were recruited
by the United States. There were re
ports that several of the agents were
caught and killed.
I was shocked. How could someone
trained by the government and tested
for loyalty on a regular basis become
a Soviet spy? His own father, Carleton
Ames, was a CIA agent who was
supposed to ferret out moles in the
agency, though he never found one. It
turns out that Aldrich Ames was not a
very good agent.
The younger Ames was known in
the CIA for his lackluster performance
and arrogance. He blew his first big
mission, which was to recruit agents
in Turkey. After that, he was resigned
mostly to pencil-pushing duty. Ap
parently, his $70,000-a-year salary
and desk job weren’t enough.
The sad part of this case is that if
Ames was spying, he wasn’t doing it
for ideological reasons — he was a
red-blooded capitalist through and
through. He did it for the money.
Sadder still, many Americans are
shocked at this incident. They as
sumed that the Russians had stopped
I’m not trying to justify the
actions of Aldrich Ames. He
should be tried for his
traitorous activity. However, we
should not punish the country
of Russia as a whole.
spying on us. Now many, including
Kansas Senator Bob Dole, arc asking
for retaliatory measures against Rus
sia.
The world of “spooks” is an excit
ing and dangerous one filled with
double agents, secret messages, and
switching loyalties. This has not
changed. We still have agents in Rus
sia and probably even in most coun
tries that are our allies. Our govern
ment is always in search of a little
extra intelligence, in times of peace
and war. The Russians arc no differ
ent.
I’m not trying to justify the actions
of Aldrich Ames. He should be tried
for his actions. However, we should
not punish the country of Russia as a
whole.
President Clinton urged Congress
this weekend tostand against pressure
to cut aid to Russia. Last year, the
West pledged $44 million to help the
failing nation. Much of this money is
for disarming missiles pointed at us,
while most of the rest is to help the
transition to capitalism.
This money is needed. An angry,
armed Russia stuck in a depression is
a much bigger threat to us than one
that spies on us. Besides, as Russian
Col. Gen Mikhail Kolesnikov said,
there was no real damage done to the
United States.
Ames purportedly exposed Rus
sian turncoats to the Russians. While
these men executed by the Russians
sacrificed themselves for us, this is
part of espionage. We can’t afford to
punish the entire nation for what our
spies do.
Though it looks unlikely that we
will cut aid, other measures have been
taken already. We kicked Aleksander
Lysenko, a “counselor” at the Russian
embassy, out of the United States this
weekend. He was reportedly the lop
Russian spy here. This follows the old
Cold-War policy of tit-for-tat that we
have been working to abandon. We do
not need a return to those days.
It is unfortunate that we did not
discover Ames’ alleged activities soon
er. All the signs were there. He paid
cash for a $540,000 house. He just
bought a new Jaguar. Even the neigh
bors spoke of strange people visiting
his house.
This falls in a long line of CIA
bloopers. Several agents have been
discovered in the past to be working
for the enemy for 20or30 years. While
it would clearly be difficult to catch a
double agent immediately, we could
have a better record. The U nited S tates
needs to improve its own house-clean
ing but should not be surprised that
some of our spies have sw itched sides.
That’s the nature of the spy game —
deception, deceit and misplaced trust.
The Russians should make a for
mal apology for the incident, and we
should both move on. The Clinton
administration should not succumb to
fighting old demons now that the world
is looking more peaceful. Neither
country needs the other as an enemy.
Banks li a junior international affair*
major and a Daily Nebraikan columnist.
I M I Ks KM III I lH io|<
Propaganda
Today there is much propaganda
against gay people being disseminat
ed by fundamentalist religious and
conservative groups. They portray gays
as perverted, deviants and weirdos.
They circulate videotapes that show
extreme examples of homosexuals’
behavior. They say gays are a threat to
the nation’s social and political order
and use scare tactics to bring in dona
tions.
It would be just as easy to review
the history of heterosexual conduct—
the Roman orgies, gang rapes in Mas
sachusetts, prostitution, Tailhook, the
Hillside Strangler murder*, etc. —
and use these as examples to discredit
all heterosexuals. If I stacked the deck
and showed only the outrageous and
offensive moments, 1 would be doing
exactly what the critics of gays are
doing.
There are millions of gay people in
the United States. Most do not engage
in flamboyant San Francisco-styledis
plays of their identities. Rather, they
tend to avoid calling attention to them
selves because of the penalties society
imposes on them because of their dif
ference.
It is not “perversion” when a gay
person acts according to his or her
nature. The perversion occurs when
people force homosexuals to be het
erosexual. The truth is that gays have
been, and continue to be, oppressed
into the unnatural lifestyle of pretend
ing to be straight.
William Stosine
Iowa City, Iowa
I