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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 22, 1971)
Che Battalion Cloudy, may ram Vol. 67 No. 14 College Station, Texas Wednesday, September 22, 1971 THURSDAY — ' loudy to part ly cloudy. Intermittent rain- showers, thundershowers. Wind southerly 15 to 20 m.p.h. High 77, low 68. Saturday — Lincoln, Nebraska, kickoff time-—Partly cloudy to cloudy. Northerly winds 10-12 mph. 56°. 40% relative humidity. 845-2226 rade ANS Value Senate passes bill to extend the draft _ Bill Leonard, vice-president of Columbia Broadcasting-System, speaks of “The Selling of the Pentagon” and how it was made. Students and faculty had opportunity to discuss the documentary and the ethics of it with Leonard. (Photo by Joe Matthews) W m WASHINGTON <A>)_After months of delay the Senate passed and sent to the White House Tuesday the bill extending the military draft until June 23, 1973. Passage of the bill by a vote of 55 to 30 came with surprising suddenness after the Senate by just one vote had invoked its antifilibuster rule to limit de bate on the measure. President Nixon’s signature, expected promptly, will enable the Selective Service System to resume draft inductions halted when the old law expired last June 30. Another major section of the legislation calls for a $2.4-billion military pay increase intended to improve chances for creating all volunteer armed forces by mid- 1973. Under the compromise reached by the House-Senate conferees, the effective date for the in crease was set as Oct. 1. But the compromise — not subject to amendment on the Senate floor —was adopted by the conferees and approved by the House well before Nixon announced his 90- day wage price freeze on Aug. 15. His action leaves in doubt whether the increase can be granted at the date specified or will have to be deferred until after the freeze ends Nov. 14. The Senate’s action was a major victory for the President and a defeat for antiwar sena tors who had held out for some thing stronger than the meas ure’s call on Nixon to negotiate an end to the Indochina war as quickly as possible. That provision was agreed to as a compromise by Senate-House conferees after the House refused to accept the Senate’s amend ment by Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., that called for total U.S. withdrawal from Indochina in nine months if U.S. prisoners are freed. A new effort is expected now to attach that proposal to the $21-billion military procurement authorization bill, on which the Senate resumed debate following passage of the draft measure. The end of the draft debate, which has occupied more than half of the Senate’s time since early May, came within minutes after proponents of the draft measure succeeded by the barest of margins 61 to 30 in mustering the two-thirds vote needed to lim it further debate. As the defeated leaders of the campaign to delay the draft, Sens. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, and Alan Cranston, D-Calif., huddled on the floor, the Senate moved right into the vote on the bill itself. Tuesday’s action on the draft bill, while not expected by Sen ate leaders until Thursday at the earliest, had been expected since last Thursday’s 47 - 36 vote on which the Senate refused to send the draft bill back to conference. The measure includes a $2.4 billion military pay raise, au thorizes President Nixon to drop undergraduate deferments start ing with those entering college this fall, extends procedural rights of draftees before their local boards and limits induction to 130,000 this year and 140,000 next year. senes Lecture-discussion to open with Proxmire Speaks for CBS Leonard defends Pentagon film “Nowhere does the record ever ser i° us ly challenge the program’s j basic intentions—the intentions 1 that the Department of Defense spends millions of the taxpayers’ W I dollars each year promoting both W | its activities and its political A | points of view," said Bill Leonard, • " vice-president of CBS, in defense of the controversial documentary, “The Selling of the Pentagon,’’ Tuesday night. Bill Leonard is supervisor of CBS’s program series that in cludes: the CBiS Report: “Hunger in America”; INQUIRY, “The 4 :Warren Report”, and “60 Min utes”. “To add to that, the Depart ment of Defense, since the first viewing of the program, has not stopped any of its promotions despite a President’s directive to executive agencies to put an end ise to inappropriate promotional ac tivities,” Leonard said,” nor has it curtailed any of its broadcast ing, advertising, exhibits or films.” President Nixon, on Nov. 6, 1970, sent a special memorandum to the executive agencies criticiz ing what he called “self-serving and wasteful public relations ef fects.” He directed an end to what he described as “inappropri ate activities” and ordered a “cur tailment” of the activities in ques tion. “That’s what the shouting was all about.” “The freedom of the American press is the very fundamental thing that we are all being ques tioned about,” Leonard summed up. “It is evident that profiles of Pentagon answers to pro-Penta- 250 U. S. planes hammer positions above the DMZ SAIGON (-fT)—An armada of 250 U.S. planes swarmed .over North Vietnam Tuesday and de livered one of the heaviest raids in the North in the past three years. The supersonic jets flew . through antiaircraft fire to bomb surface-to-air missiles — SAM — and gun sites, supply depots and truck parks in a six-hour attack from daybreak to noon. The U.S. Command said fight er-bombers launched 200 bomb ing strikes in North Vietnam’s southern panhandle, concentrat ing on an area from the demili tarized zone to about 35 miles north of it. About 50 other aircraft sup ported the strikes. These includ ed jet fighters flying protective cover, electronic planes to jam the radar guidance systems of antiaircraft guns and SAM mis siles, rescue planes and helicop ters, and reconnaisance planes to take photos of bomb damage. The U.S. Command said all of the American planes returned safely to their bases in South Vietnam and Thailand. Pilots reported light to mod erate antiaircraft fire but said they encountered no SAMs. The U. S. Command said the raids were' ordered because of a recent increase in North Vietna mese missile and antiaircraft fire at unarmed U. S. reconnaissance planes over North Vietnam and at American aircraft attacking in Laos near North Vietnamese territory. In addition, sources said, the raids were prompted by heavy North Vietnamese attacks across the DMZ last month against al lied frontier defenses. A large North Vietnamese troop and supply buildup has been reported recently just north of the DMZ. Moreover, South Vietnamese field commanders say that more than half the 15,000 to 18,000 North Vietnamese troops once deployed in the region immedi ately below the DMZ have pulled back into North Vietnam in re cent weeks. The pullout came in the face of incessant U.S. B52 raids and a 13,500-man South Vietnamese ground sweep of the sector. The 200 strikes Tuesday also could have been aimed at catching some of the retreating North Vietnamese troops and equip ment. The U.S. Command described the raids as “protective reaction strikes against military targets in North Vietnam constituting a threat to the safety of U.S. forces.” They constituted the 60th so- called protective reaction attacks this year. These attacks are usually undertaken when a U.S. plane is fired upon or when it detects North Vietnamese ground radar is tracking in preparation for firing. Most of the protec tive reaction strikes have been by two or three planes. gon questions can and does show that CBS News in its production of ‘The Selling of the Pentagon’ made errors,” said Leonard. “As charged, it edited some answers selectively and out of sequence, but the comments, as edited, were not essentially at odds with the tones of the broader remarks from which they were taken,” Leonard said. “The role of the media is alert ing the public to the creditability gap in the government and the reactions of the government to this kind of broadcast journalism are the issues in question in “The Selling of the Pentagon.” “That about says it all where “The Selling of the Pentagon” is concerned as a broadcast,” said Leonard. “It doesn’t say it all as far as the larger principles in volved in the investigation of the broadcast and the demands for the particular out-takes by Con gress. At CBS’s refusal to pro vide those out-takes, a vote was taken in Congress deciding that we were not in contempt in re fusing to provide the out-takes.” “Again, the explanation of the first amendment of our constitu tion is being tried.” “Whether the documentary is fair or not is up to the individual, I thought it was,” remarked Leonard. “When you read this fall that Congress is considering bills, to be known as ‘Truth in Broadcasting Bills’, I think it will have a familiar ring.” “This documentary was thought up in an indirect way,” Leonard added. “We assigned a man to find to what extent government agencies were using funded money in producing propaganda - type programs that were being used to convince the public that spend ing was justified.” “It turned out that the agency that really rated a story was the Pentagon. The real money was tied up in the Pentagon.” “When we, the head of CBS and myself, decided to do this documentary, we told the pro ducer to research the subject only in a very candid manner and he did. He tells the story without any ‘secret information’ or ‘hid den sources’.” “ ‘The Selling of the Pentagon’ is laid out as anyone could see it if he wanted to,” Leonard said. A cooperative lecture-discus sion program on “Science, Tech nology and Public Policy” will bring speakers such as U.S. Sen. William Proxmire and Dr. Rob ert R. Gilruth to A&M during 1971-72. Supported by a $2,000 grant from the Sperry and Hutchinson (S&H) Foundation, the program will focus on major political and social issues raised by scientific and technological developments. Public-free lectures and select ed-faculty seminars in the five- speaker series will begin Oct. 22. Proxmire will speak that date on “Politics in Science: The Envi ronment and the SST.” Gilruth, director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, will be here Nov. 15 for a lecture on management of large-scale technology in govern ment. Cooperating in the Science, Technology and Public Policy series are the Great Issues and Political Forum committees of the Memorial Student Center, the Sea Grant Program and Political Science Department. Matching funds contributed by each go with the S&H Founda tion grant in support of the pro gram. Dr. Paul P. Van Riper, political science head, is series director. Political Forum, chaired by Paul Turner, will cooperate for Proxmire and Gilruth presen tations. The second two speakers will be under auspices of Great Is sues, chaired by George S. Dru- gan III. Topic areas will be prob lems of genetic engineering and the university response as it re lates to science and public pol icy. Speaker invitations have been extended. The Department of Political Science, working with Vice Presi dent for Academic Affairs Dr. John C. Calhoun, will arrange the faculty seminars in which each speaker will participate. “These seminars will be devot ed to exploring problems on which scientists, engineers, hu manists and social scientists should be working together, in interdisciplinary fashion,” Van Riper said. “A&M has long been known for its work in the hard sciences, engineering and other applied sciences,” he added. “With re cent expansion of the College of Liberal Arts, new academic ca pacity in the social sciences has developed.” He said interdisciplinary ap proaches to problem defining and solving has become feasible, es pecially in relation to issues and difficulties reflected in current events. Dr. Van Riper referred to the relationship of scientific research to war and the military, the po tential impact of the new biology on population control, future of the supersonic transport and the space program and general prob lems of waste and pollution. Committee formed to handle student consumer complaints The Student Senate has formed a committee which will handle student complaints made against local businesses. The new committee, which is called the Business Relations Committee, is the first one to be established specifically for com plaints, according to Layne Kruse, the Student Life Chair man. It is interested in knowing about difficulties students have experienced with local businesses, such as overcharging, poor serv ice and inadequate wages. Students who have a problem can contact Layne Kruse at 845- 3750 or any other member of the committee at 845-1515, the Stu dent Senate Office. The Business Relations Com mittee first goes to the business in question to reconcile a prob lem. If this step fails and the problem persists, the committee reports it to the Better Business Bureau. If the BBB is unable to help, the committee attempts to publi cize the problem by reporting a story of the situation to local publications. No legal action will be attempted, however. A list of difficulties that stu dents have experienced with busi nesses will be made for other stu dents’ reference. Committee members are now looking into the possibility of having a discount service for A&M students at Bryan-College Station business establishments. The discount service would in clude such things as food, gas and clothing. To promote a better business- student understanding the com mittee intends to give awards to local businesses for having good student relations, Kruse said. 6 Dirty Thirty 9 member says House speaker has dictatorial power By Steve Dunkelberg Staff Writer The Speaker of the House of Representatives presides with dictatorial powers, said Demo cratic Rep. Lane Denton, a mem ber of the “Dirty Thirty,” speak ing to the A&M Young Demo crats Tuesday night. The power that the speaker is granted, Denton explained, gives him the power of dictator over the House. This applies to all speakers, Denton maintains, not just current Speaker Gus Mut- scher. “I am certain there will be a move to unseat Mutscher in the next session,” Denton said. He explained that removing Mutscher would not do very much for reform of Texas government. “You can’t change a very rot ten system,” he said, “by elect ing a new speaker.” Denton stressed that “com plete, open frankness” in govern ment would be the only way Banking is a pleasure at First Bank & Trust. change could be accomplished. Denton said the recent pairing of districts, recently termed un constitutional by the Texas Su preme Court, was “the greatest purge” that has taken place in Austin. Denton claimed it was designed to rid the House of Rep resentatives that fought for “the people of Texas, the minority groups and the students.” Rep. Delwynn Jones, of the House Redistricting Committee, Denton said, started in Lubbock and traveled to Killeen saying he had tried to rid the House of “some of those people” (liberals) by forcing them to run against each other. Denton spoke of “Dirty Thirty” plans in the next election to run a slate of reform candidates for the major state offices. “We hope to put a bunch of new guys in,” Denton said, “and see if they can be more respon sive.” Denton charged the “so-called conservatives” of the House with putting “waste and extra spend ing” into the appropriations bill. Investigation of the request for the two-cent raise in gasoline prices, he explained, showed that no government agency had ever officially requested it. It was just part of a “slush fund.” “We met with Gov. Preston Smith when he had the bill on his desk,” the “Dirty Thirty” member said. “We explained our position and talked to him about his power of line veto.” After the meeting, Gov. Smith told the Legislature to remove the price raise or he would veto the bill. “Everyone who had fought to have it put in,” he said, “sudden ly was against it, and it was re moved. Then, they went home and said they had voted against the price hike.” Denton said he was in favor of a recent bill that would have al lowed a non-voting member of University National Bank “On the side of Texas A&M.” —Adv. the faculty and student body to sit on such governing bodies of the university as the board of directors. The bill never made it to the floor of the House. In reference to the stock fraud case and the banking bills that were involved in it, Denton said there were some “very interest ing developments” coming up. Rep. Lane Denton