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Show IHIaDw AltoaDifflit lit? O new TVTTMl TnT VJILLULI How do you feel about Reagan's proposed budget cuts' tcr c ftj.r j Sigfried Oppenheimer . The space program cutback upsets me to no end. The project I've been working on for years and years will suffer a great setback. i w s m. m x zty n IE IF r Page A2 Wednesday, April 1, 1981 In praise of dimwits; a P.C. mainstay t& -.11 h. I Si It's only fitting that we take time out on this day of gaiety and laughter to pay tribute to the noble fool, a ludicrous figure who has made a mark on history ever since the first fool in Genesis said, "Go ahead. Apples are good for your teeth." In the 20th century in particular, fools have abounded, from the passenger on the Titanic who said, "Blast! Where's the porter with my ice!" to the barroom bully whose last recorded words were, "That Mexican don't look so tough to me!" Park City benefits from the patronage of the skier, the young, the real estate developer and the all-around recreationist, but we have never acknowledged how dependent depen-dent we are on tourist trade from the fool. City officials have estimated that the economic benefits (remember a fool and his money are soon parted) are immeasurable. We owe both resident and visiting fools a debt of gratitude for adding so handsomely to our economy. While the snowfall has been light, the harvest of fools has been plentiful. These faithful friends can be found in great quantities along quaint old Main Street on the weekends. Fools are the first to walk into bars on Saturday nights and the last to leave, once again affirming the old saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The fools around town are not hard to recognize. A fool is the fellow who stands beside the Mountain Metro bus stop and yells "Taxi." Or goes to Adolph's and orders a BLT. Or is satisfied with a hotel balcony overlooking the parking lot. Or breaks a leg at the ski resort getting on the chair lift. Or brings a bar of soap and shampoo with him to the hot tub. Or goes cross-country skiing in avallanche areas with his mini-stereo pack playing Barbra Streisand's "Guilty" at full volume. Or maybe he just has a nametag cheerfully proclaiming, "Hi! I'm Tom Foolery!" The fool is an important part of Park City. But like the physically handicapped, the fool is often barred from many areas because special facilities are not available for him. Park City should immediately commence a capital improvements im-provements program to make the fool feel at home. Large window displays of Pyrite should line Main Street. To help him get his bearings, bold directional signs should be erected erect-ed pointing the way to important landmarks such as "The Sun," "The Mountains." It is said the fool on the hill sees the sun going down but usually not without the aid of an experienced guide dog. ) In addition: Doorways should be fool-proofed with rubber bumpers and stairs should be limited to three flights to avoid confusion. Arrows should be placed on submarine sandwiches to indicate which end to start eating first. Seat belts should be installed at restaurant booths. Mirrors can be placed on the doors of Men's and Women's restrooms to allow the fool a quick double check before entering. April Fool's Day is, like Christmas, a day to be observed not just now, but all year round. When you see a fool on the street, make him feel welcome in Park City Take a fool to lunch today. And make him pick up the check. RB J CI ti OK NOW TOY IT, by Stanley Karnou ltimitenpirettiiye Mepnnit U.S. couldn't have won Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam As a reporter here during the Vietnam war, I suspected that the Communists had infiltrated the South Vietnamese regime as well as the U,S. mission. Now back in Saigon, as this city formerly was called, I have been able to confirm those suspicions. More dramatically, I have learned that these Communist agents included close Vietnamese acquaintances-trusted acquaintances-trusted not only by me but also by American officials, who relied heavily on their cooperation without knowing their true identity. This duplicity is not surprising. In a civil war without front lines, friend and foe are difficult to distinguish. Looking back, however, the discovery reinforces rein-forces my conviction that the United States never could have won a conflict in this alien land, where the enemy was tenacious, dedicated and everywhere. Consider, for example, the case of Col. Pham Ngoc Thao, who until his death was one of the most dynamic and brilliant figures in the Saigon regime's crusade against communism. In reality, Thao was a key Communist Com-munist operative all along. His remains recently were transferred to the Patriots' Cemetery here, but his past role has not been made public, presumably pre-sumably because the present Vietnamese Viet-namese authorities fear reprisals against his widow, who currently lives in Texas. Born into a wealthy Catholic family, Thao attended French schools in Saigon. But like many Vietnamese intellectuals, humiliated under French colonialism, he joined the Communist-led Communist-led Vietminh struggling for independence inde-pendence against France. When the Geneva accords partitioned Vietnam in 1954, he "rallied" to the Saigon government then being formed by Ngo Dinh Diem. As a communist "defector," he persuaded Diem that he knew how to fight communists, and his influence soared. In the late 1950s, he urged Diem to construct "agrovilles" enclosures into which peasants were forcibly corralled in order to cut them off from the Vietcong. He later designed the "strategic "stra-tegic hamlet" program, which had a similar aim. But both schemes, enthusiastically funded by the United States, actually were devious devices. Or as one of Thao's old comrades told me: "His purpose was to antagonize peasants and alienate them from the Diem regime, and it worked." When I first met Thao in 196i, he was chief of Bentre province, a Communist bastion south of Saigon. He seemed to have gained control over the area. I wrote an article praising his skill at counterinsurgency. Others, among them columnist Joseph Alsop, turned him into a celebrity. In fact, as a former Vietcong leader here disclosed to me, Thao and the Communists in Bentre had reached a covert understanding to make "pacification" "paci-fication" look good. "In that way," the Vietcong leader explained, "we could build up our strength without being molested." - One of Thao's most important dupes during the early 1960s was Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen, the boss of Diem's secret police, whose organization had been created by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. In more than one instance, Thao got Tuyen to release Vietcong suspects. In 1963, as internal opposition to Diem mounted, Thao and Tuyen conspired to oust the regime. Their objectives differed, however. Tuyen, a fierce anti-communist now living in England, wanted a government govern-ment that would wage the war more effectively. Thao. in contrast, was maneuvering to install a junta of colonels that would negotiate a deal with the Communists. A group of generals ultimately staged the coup in which Diem was assassinated. assassi-nated. The morning after, I recall, Thao warned me to expect another coup by colonels under his direction. His plan, a Communist source here says, was to make South Vietnam neutral prior to its eventual reunification with the North. Thao's counter-coup failed, but his clandestine Communist connections never surfaced. On the contrary, his credentials were still so clean that he was assigned to the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, where he could conveniently monitor U.S. activities. Returning to Saigon in 1965, he resumed his plotting, now against the regime headed by Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky. This time, though, his luck ran out. Tracked down by Thieu, he was betrayed by a Catholic priest and captured. Thieu, ironically convinced that Thao was working for the CIA, had him tortured horribly. Thao died without divulging his real identity. His torturer, Thieu's special police chief, is alive and well in the United States. I could mention other cases, like that of my friend Pham Xuan An, who worked as a full-fledged correspondent for Time magazine in Saigon, an unusual position for a Vietnamese journalist. He also furnished the U.S. Embassy-with Embassy-with inside information or perhaps it was "disinformation." For he was really a Communist agent, and he is now a senior official in the adminis tration here. My attempts tosee him have been fruitless. In short, the Vietnam conflict was waged in an environment too complex : and mysterious for" Americans to comprehend which is why, with all their money, material and manpower, the war was essentially unwinnable. Released by The Register and Tribune Syndicate 1981 :'- -; 7 I- John L. Average Any cutback in housing will definitely affect me. The plans I had for new additions will have to be postponed. ill ji-ni'iiiir v fX If Blaze Furry My business has always been on a strictly cash basis. Money may tighten up at my present location, but a move to Washington would solve that problem. R. Van Winkle III The cutbacks aren't going to affect me in the least. Sleep is cheap and that's what I plan on doing for the next 3 years and 9 months. i i I 1 Weekly Special KSK by Jack Anderson ar Calm , low-key Reagan is center of major White House changes i Washington Ronald Reagan is a relaxed, low-key president who has fit into the White House as comfortably as a foot in an old shoe. The appearances, of courseware deceptive: He really stands in the eye of a hurricane that whirls around him. Most of the frenetic activity in the first weeks of the Reagan administration administra-tion has been directed toward reversing the economic tides. This is a little like " trying to make the Potomac River flow uphill. Every White House move has been carefully calculated. The planning group first called the operation "the 100-day project." They then changed the name to "the initial actions project." pro-ject." Reagan's advisers concluded that the new administration, if it's going to change the economic direction of the country, must establish the momem-tum momem-tum in the early days. They hope to take advantage of the president's post-election popularity and throw the opposition off-balance before the Democrats can regroup from their election defeat. The planning group decided to focus on the economic program, rather than dilute their efforts with several campaigns at once. And Reagan didn't wait for congressional leaders to come to him. He went to them. He even drove to Walter Reed Army Hospital to pay a bedside visit to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Robert Dole, R-Kan., who was recuperating from a kidney operation. . The president presented Dole with a copy of George Gilder's book, "Wealth and Poverty," which has become the economic bible for the Reagan White House. The president talked about the federal budget briefly with the hospitalized hos-pitalized senator, who raised some mild objections in behalf of the farmers of his native state. --The Reagan then asked if it hurt Dole to laugh. Dole said no. So the president, with a broad grin, began to reel off a few jokes. Episodes like this illustrate how the Reagan administration in just two months has changed the prevailing economic views in Washington. If Reagan does win the battle of the budget, meanwhile, he can thank his budget director, David Stockman. He is directing the legislative battle, and he is relentless in the backrooms. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., for example, decided that the outnumbered mem-. mem-. bers of his party should concentrate on a single budgetary item to make a stand. He picked the energy budget, which isn't surprising since he wanted to save a synthetic fuel plant in his home state. A few days ago, Byrd called together all the Democrats on the energy committee for a private, informal session. They decided that the best strategy would be to come up with their own ideas for cutting the budget. That way, they hoped to protect their pet energy programs from David Stockman. Stock-man. But Stockman outflanked them. He simply cut off all government funds for one pet project in each of the Democratic Democra-tic senators' home states. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., discovered that a synthetic synthe-tic fuel plant in his home state was threatened; John Melcher, D-Mont., found federal aid cut off for a project to develop alternative uses for coal; Paul Tsongas, D-Mass., saw a solar energy project endangered. Stockman's fiendish plan worked because the Democrats wanted to stand together. To ensure solidarity, they would have had to save everyone's pet program, and that would have added more than $1 billion to the energy budget. A sum like that would give the Democrats an unenviable "big spender" spend-er" label with the folks back home. So Byrd was forced to retreat and had to content himself with issuing an angry statement. The energy cuts, he declared, de-clared, were Reagan's "Achilles Heel." Watch on Waste: Classified government govern-ment documents reveal that private contractors are ripping off millions of dollars from the Air Force every year. It's possible there is also connivance by Air Force supply off icials. At Beale Air Force Base in California, Cali-fornia, for example, the supply store contract recently came up for renewal. The bids were close, so the Air Force requested a final offer from the two lowest bidders. One lowered his bid substantially and got the contract. An investigation disclosed, however, that the contractor's reduced bid depended de-pended on drastic reductions in the price of two heat pumps. In his original bid, the contractor listed prices of $1,105 and $952 for the pumps. But in his revised bid the one that won the contract the prices were $22 and $18. A reduction like that should have set the alarms ringing in the Air Force procurement office's early warning system. But it didn't. Not until after the contract was awarded did the contractor inform the Air Force that the inexpensive heat pumps he had promised were not available. Instead, he offered two other models costing $1,169 and $1,007 apiece more than the pumps in his original bid. Worse, the Air Force accepted this outrage. t 1981 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Subscription Kutes. $Kuycur in Summit County. $12 u yrur oulsido Summit County Published In Ink. Inc. rsis 37x-7:m Publisher....' ; Ian Wilkinji Kdilin' Uwtina .Moi-iich Advertising Sales an WilkiniJ, Bill Dickson i.eneral .Manager , Terry lloga liusincss .Manager Graphics Reporters Photo Kditor ..'.., . Kick l.aiiman . . Itecky Uideuhmise. I.i lleimos . I)a id Hampshire, Hick Krough '...Phyllis Kubensteiii TvpesetliiiK . . . . . 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