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Kennedy: no
future in past
By ARNOLD SAWISLAK
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Once again, the
question: Is Teddy Kennedy running for
president in 1980?
Obviously, a number of conservatives
think so. Tbe Massachusetts senator’s de
nials notwithstanding, the Kennedy
phobes of the right are in full cry.
The approaching 10th anniversary of
Chappaquiddick may have something to do
with it, but the more immediate cause
seems to be the announcement of five
Democratic congressmen that they are
going to try to start up a draft Kennedy
movement.
In a recent edition of Lester Kinsolving’s
Washington Weekly, which carries a
number of conservative columns as well as
stories, it says the mainstream media won’t
touch, Kennedy was the subject or men
tioned in three articles and an advertise
ment.
Chappaquiddick was brought up in three
of them — twice in connection with matters
that had nothing to do with the 1969 inci
dent.
Example: In an ad for a group seeking
reinstatement of the Senate Judiciary sub
committee on internal security, the head
line asks: “What do Mary Jo Kopechne and
the Senate’s internal security unit have in
common?” Below Kennedy’s picture, the
ad says “Answer: Both were the victims of
the actions of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.”
This is political knife work of a particu
larly blunt and rusty sort. But it probably is
a mild example of what will be in store for
Kennedy if he really does decide to run for
president.
Just about everybody who hated John
and Robert Kennedy, plus anyone who
hates Teddy Kennedy for himself, will be
busy looking for new ways to inject Chap
paquiddick into the campaign.
(Injustice, it should be said that the Rev.
Andrew M. Greeley, in a column review
ing possible presidential Democratic can
didates, doesn’t raise Chappaquiddick. In
stead he excoriates Kennedy for being in
favor of more spending, more government,
“more harebrained social programs, more
of everything that the people have made
clear they don’t want.”)
There is no need for a discussion here
about the relevance of Chappaquiddick in a
Kennedy campaign. There is no need be
cause relevant or not, the subject will be
discussed.
What may not get discussed is energy,
inflation, taxes, unemployment, strategic
arms limitation, detente, China policy and
other issues facing the country and the
world.
In 1884, the United States went through
what has been described as the dirtiest
political campaign in its history. Republi
can James G. Blaine was accused of being a
crook who sold out his public trust for pri
vate gain; Democrat Grover Cleveland a
philanderer who fathered an illegitimate
child. Cleveland won by 23,000 votes.
There could be another such campaign
coming. If Kennedy seeks and wins his par
ty’s nomination and the Republicans begin
drumming on Chappaquiddick, the Demo
crats almost surely will try to find some
thing in the record of the GOP candidate,
whoever it is, with which to retaliate.
Veterans
next
victims of Congress
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — During Vietnam
Veterans Week, an overdue recognition of
the unfulfilled obligation of this country to
those who fought in our most recent and
most unpopular war, much attention was
directed toward legislation aimed at the
special problems of many Vietnam vets.
News reports noted that the Congress,
after years of delay, was on the verge of
passing a bill which would provide easily
accessible out-patient psychological coun
seling, alcohol and drug-abuse treatment
for the troubled veterans of the Indochina
At long last, the orators said. Congress
and the nation are beginning to recognize
thier debt to some of the victims of that
tragic chapter of our history.
What the oratory neglected to point out
— and what, I confess, I learned only by
chance — was that the Vietnam Veterans
bill has been made the vehicle for a further
dip into the federal Treasury by a set of
congressional politicians.
What has happened is this: As their price
for approving the special treatment for the
psychologically damaged Vietnam vets,
members of the House Veterans Affairs
Committee have demanded from the Pres
ident and the Veterans Administration veto
power over all significant future VA hospi
tal and medical facility construction.
As Elizabeth Wehr wrote in the Con-
gresssional Quarterly article which alerted
me to this clever dodge, the House has
been “cool” to the special help for Vietnam
veterans and has stalled its enactment, de
spite the fact that the Senate has approved
this needed aid four times since 1971.
“What finally got the counseling pro
gram moving this year,” she wrote, “was a
1978 compromise worked out” by Sen.
Alan Cranston, D-Calif., chairman of the
Senate Veterans Committee, and Rep.
David E. Satterfield III, D-Va., chairman
of the House veterans subcommittee on
medical facilities and benefits. In return for
House backing of the Senate package,
Cranston agreed to support the demand
from Satterfield and his House colleagues
for a direct voice in the location of the VA
facilities.
Under the new bill, no VA hospital con
struction of more than $2 million and no
lease of more than $500,000 a year could be
made without specific approval from the
House and the Senate veterans commit
tees.
In debate, Cranston, who has been push
ing for help for the Vietnam vets, made it
clear he was not the one who was “power
hungry.” He said, “I did not start this. It
began on the House side...”
Ostensibly, the purpose of the provision
is to “insure the equitable distribution of
medical facilities throughout the United
States.” A House committee aide predicted
the authority would be used mainly to
block unneeded construction, but VA offi
cials said congressional pressures were al
most always to expand facilities in the
members’ districts. Several senators were
unkind enough to say the real purpose was
to add VA hospitals to the list of pork-barrel
projects members of Congress can divvy up
each year. The precedents that were cited
for the new procedure — the construction
of federal courthouses and office buildings,
river and harbor and gloow-control projects
— confirmed, rather than rebutted, that
suspicion.
Two weeks ago, the Senate killed the
House-inspired pork-barrel provision. But
Cranston, anxious to save the Vietnam vets
program, was forced to accept the restora
tion of the odious provision in a House-
Senate conference.
Despite the strong opposition of the Car
ter administration and VA administrator
Max Cleland, chances are that the Presi
dent will have to bow to the pork-barrel
congressmen if he wants a Vietnam vets’
bill to sign.
Next to tipping over a wheelchair, it is
hard to imagine a shabbier way for Con
gress to mark Vietnam Veterans Week.
(c) 1979, The Washington Post Company
Great Moments in
American Jblitics
Ted Kennedy denies for the
1927th time that he will be a
Presidential candidate....
only this time it sticks:
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Sky lab scheme
For as long as I can remember. I’ve been searching for the perfect get-rich-quick
scheme.
Even as a child I was constantly looking for the fast bucks. Like every youthful
entrepreneur, each year I would set up my sidewalk lemonade stand. I never did enjoy
much success in this business. Although my marketing strategy was somewhat differ
ent from the other kids’, I never could figure out why my product wouldn’t sell on those
breezy January afternoons.
But now, thanks to modern technology, I do believe I’ve come up with the perfect
plan that will allow me to retire before I’m 25.
I’m going to sell hard hats.
That’s right. Beginning July 2, I’m going to set up roadside stands throughout the
nation — maybe even throughout the world — and sell hard hats.
Sounds like another losing venture, you say? Not when you stop to consider that July
2 is the day that the 85 tons of metal we affectionately refer to as Skylab will drop out of
its orbit and fall to earth, according to National Aeronautics and Space Administration
scientists.
Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be bare-headed on that particular
Saturday afternoon when I’m washing the car and look up to find that Skylab’s
4,000-pound lead film vault just became my new hood ornament.
Oh sure, I realize that 75 percent of Skylab’s orbit is over water, which means that
chances are three in four that the crippled craft will not hit land. But I never was a
gambling man.
And scientists admit that they are playing a guessing game when it comes to
pinpointing Skylab’s final resting place. The debris that survives re-entry into Earth’s
atmosphere could land anywhere. Imagine this as a new box office hit: “The Lead Film
Vault that Devoured Snook — A True Story.”
“The problem is that we can’t tell you right now in which orbit it is going to fall. Or
where it will come down,” Herman E. Thomason told reporters earlier this month.
Thomason is the chief of the engineering laboratory at the Marshall Space Center in
Huntsville, Ala. He and his staff monitor Skylab around the clock in order to give
NASA some idea as to where the one-time space station will fall.
So I look at my sales venture as a precautionary service provided for the safety of the
world’s population. Naturally, all my hard hats will carry the message, “WARNING —
The surgeon general has determined that Skylab can be hazardous to your health.”
I envision the possibility of headaches that even your extra-strength pain reliever
can’t cure. With Skylab fragments weighing as little as 10 pounds falling to Earth at the
rate of 2,000 feet per second, my hard hats should sell like hot cakes.
But I don’t intend to stop with hard hats. No sir, I’m going to milk this $2.6 billion
falling junkyard for all it’s worth. Commercialism, that’s the name of this game.
For starters, I plan to market a new line of Skylab commemorative t-shirts. One of
my favorites has a picture of Chicken Little saying “The Skylab is falling, the Skylab is
falling!”
I will also have a selection of Skylab bumperstickers, including “Honk If You
Sidestepped Skylab” and “Skylab Dodgers Do It Gladly. ” And for those of us who have
to dodge debris between the Red and Rio Grande Rivers, there is this favorite: “Skylab
and Longnecks — No Place But Texas.”
Some people might want to decorate their homes with Skylab memorabilia. For
them I will have a Skylab poster on sale. One shows a young man, obviously under the
influence of his favorite glaucoma medicine, staring in disbelief at Skylab’s 5,000-
pound fixed airlock shroud and saying, “Heavy, man, heavy.” The other is a picture of
Dolly Parton standing beside two of Skylab’s 2,700-pound oxygen tanks. The caption
on this poster reads, “Look at the size of those jugs!”
In addition, I will have on hand an assortment of Skylab ashtrays, neckties, plates,
earrings, pillows and drinking glasses. And my first 1,000 customers will receive
absolutely free a commemorative plaque with the inscription, “I survived Skylab —
July 2, 1979.”
“Frankly, I will be happy when this is all over,” engineer Thomason said of the
Skylab ordeal.
Yes, I’m sure you will, Herman. In the meantime, could I interest you in a pair of
Da-Glo Skylab cufflinks?
David Boggan
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By DAVID E. ANDERSON
United Press International
It used to be called “mixed marriages”
when a Protestant and Roman Catholic wed
and often both partners were ostracized if
not excommunicated by their respective
religious communities.
Now, such weddings are being called
“ecumenical marriages” and a growing
number of clergy and pastors believe they
can play a major role in the interfaith
movement, especially at the grassroots
level.
“Most of us have been reared to assume
that it’s a ‘mistake’ to marry outside our
own confessional family,” says the Rev.
Timothy Lull, assistant professor of sys
tematic theology at Philadelphia’s Luthe
ran Theological Seminary.
But suppose. Lull asked, the churches
looked at ecumenical marriages not only as
“a tangle of problems but also a set of op
portunities, of strengths and possibilities
which the church might treasure?”
Lull issued his challenge for a more posi
tive view of interfaith marriages at a recent
Graymoor Ecumenical Institute confer
ence on the pastoral care of ecumenical
marriages that brought together Luthe
rans, Episcopalians and Roman Catholics.
In the first place. Lull said, an ecumeni
cal marriage means that neither clergy nor
laity can continue to exist in their “confes
sional ghettos” but have to face an ecumen
ical situation involving real people rather
than the myths and stereotypes of other
faiths.
“It is easy to dismiss theological positions
and even whole church bodies,” he said,
“but it is harder to ignore concrete indi
viduals to whom one must minister.”
And he stressed that “our having to face
regularly and personally persons whose
own lives are caught in the broken ties that
ought to bind the people of God together is
t .R mont
certainly a factor for the long hauli»} ie f ec
ing ecumenical concerns alive at feR a l] ovv
level. jR fro m
In this way. Lull argued, partnf^H$I3.7
interfaith marriage “have a fa!time t
play in the healing of the division Jr,,,,..,,,-,
church — and this roll can be very iff^ra! g ;
even when they attend worship! rencrator
spectators and participate very <pRi rs (
the life of the parish.” g
At the same time. Lull warned 4»nn anrir
not realistic to expect that allc: Rf er g IK .
most of those entering interfaith muR
“will be well informed about theiro«R
and church, let alone al>out the w
features of their spouse’s church.” 1
“Yet they have some motivatioMf
and understand what is happening*
able to explain to one another, to&niR
to friends, and perhaps eventually®
dren, the nature of the faith thate#
holds,” he said.
In this regard, the* Rev. Peter Do#
Roman Catholic diocese of Britlfff
Conn., noted a movement witli|
churches toward what he called'
toral care for interfaith marriages j
Dora said that “the proposal!
grams of Christian nurture be ecill
in nature” must become a “seriou$|
item” for the churches.
Noting that ecumenical couplesij
denied participation in one art
celebration of Holy Communion, I
the couple “is asked to respect!
upon themselves this visible andjj
sign of division between the chure
“However, what must also beij
ered,” he said, “is that they are apnij
sign of hope because within theirn
they have overcome real barriersij
sion and consequently bring a fern
impatience for the consummation!
visible unity of God’s kingdomi
Writing the Editor
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ceptable for publication, these letters must meet certain criteria:
— Not exceed 300 words or 1800 characters.
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fication.
Right to amend questioned
Vance fears Senate will fell Salt 11
By JIM ANDERSON
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The SALT II debate
raises again an unresolved issue that has
troubled U.S. foreign policy since the
founding of the republic: How much power
does the Senate have? How much should it
have?
The Constitution is ambiguous, only say
ing that the Senate should give its “advice
and consent” on treaties by a vote of two-
thirds of the senators present.
The Senate does not “ratify” a treaty. It
simply votes its approval, or disapproval,
and the ratification is done later by the
President.
The Constitution is less clear on whether
the Senate can also change the treaties.
But, despite objections from various presi
dents, beginning with George Washing
ton, the Senate has taken the power to
amend the treaties, or attaching less bind
ing conditions and understandings.
An amendment means that the secretary
of state must go back to the other nation and
get its consent to the change; an under
standing puts forward a condition by the
United States, but it does not require ap-r
proval from the other nation.
The SALT I agreement in 1972 was not
amended by the Senate, but several condi
tions were attached to it, including one by
Sen. Henry Jackson, D-Wash., saying that
any future strategic arms agreements
would have to give equal numerical limits
to both sides. In SALT I, the Soviets were
given an edge in numbers to offset what was
agreed to be an American advantage in the
accuracy of its missiles.
Amendments, or reservations, have
been added to controversial agreements as
an indirect way of killing them, stabbing
the treaty with a stiletto, instead of club
bing it with an axe.
Administration officials fear that this may
be the fate of SALT II; never tested in a
straight Senate vote, but loaded down with
amendments that will unravel the whole
seven years of negotiations.
As Secretary of State Cyrus Vance put it:
“(The treaty) is inter-related and in
tertwined and various parts of it bear upon
other parts. Therefore, to amend any part
runs a grave risk of killing the treaty com
pletely. ”
That warning may have had an unin
tended effect. Some Senators are now bus
ily preparing some drastic amendments to
the SALT II package, as a form of insurance
that it will be rejected by the Soviets, even
if it does get two-thirds of the vote in the
Senate.
The Battalion
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Editor Karen t
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