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Show r i ffihuiw fake Saturday Morning, February 2, FirM Section 1974 William Raspberry 1 Ouster for Nixon No Conspiracy 4 President Should Remove Limits i iigton I'vst There is. we are being told, WASHINGTON a liberal conspiracy to get rid of President Nixon. The proof that the conspiracy exists is the fact that every new bit of damning evidence against the whether it is President, directly linked to Watergate or not. is used to buttress , f demands of impeachment. ,,, .,. The proof that it is a liberal conspiracy is the fact that f the demands often come '. from individuals and groups whose politics are left of Mr. Raspberry center. Columnist WillLm Buckley Jr. said it again recently, alleging a politically motivated attempt to "enemies on the part of Mr. Nixon's formulate a high crime or misdemeanor of w hich The It now appears that the House udiciary Committee can become the vehicle for accomplishing that imposing task. Whether it is done smoothly or after prolonged, bitter controversy depends to a large extent on President Nixon. ment inquiry would be a precedent which could haunt other presidents unless they too were the object of an impeachment investigation. Any precedent Mr. Nixon now sets by turning over documents and. tapes or testifying in person before the commitee, would be invalid for any lesser purpose than some future impeachment proceeding maybe a hundred years hence. the investigation to a close but he said that the with Judiciary cooperation Committees impeachment inquiry would be guided by precedent and his desire not to erode presidential authority. He thus set limits on what information he would willingly provide. The committees response was to unanimously adopt a resolution asking that full constitutional authority for the impeachment inquiry, including subpoena power, be given the committee by the full House of Representatives. The subpoena would require and testimony of any the attendance person." his In light of several prominent officials interpretations of the Houses Impeachment power, the tentative conclusion seems likely to be sustained. In that event the President will only be hurting his case as well as delaying and prolonging the Watergate affair by The House is expected to grant the refusing to cooperate completely. request and the committee will begin seeking All the Americar people really care about presidential documents and tapes immediatenow is getting the truth and getting Waterly. Short of a miracle the committees gate and the question of impeachment over requests seem certain to run afoul of the with. Any White House refusal to cooperate Presidents limits on what he will surrender. fully, no matter how lofty the motivations, We can appreciate Mr. Nixons desire not will be seen as new presidential obstructions to compromise future Presidents by setting in the way of full and honest disclosure. The precedents which might someday be cited as Judiciary Committees impeachment inquiry justification for superficial prying by political may be Mr. Nixons last official opportunity enemies or the curious. But we find it hard to clear his name. The opportunity should not to believe that acceding to demands of the be lost for the sake of nebulous principles of House of Representatives during an impeach- - doubtful application. Commendable Mileage doesnt make any difference. Ive had troubles continually (with the car). Its too damned big. So complains Salt Lake County Treasurer Sid Lamboume about a 1971 Chrysler Newport, owned by the county and driven by him as his official automobile. He wants the county commissioners to buy him a smaller car, either a Ford LTD or a Chevrolet Capri. Mr. Lamboume is to be commended for seeking a smaller and presumably less costly auto. His request to the county commissioners ought to set an example for all public officials. There, unfortunately, has grown up in America a precedent that says top public officials, and particularly the elected ones, must be provided with costly, majestic autos, at taxpayers bought and maintained expense. These cars have become status symbols, reminiscent in many ways of the scepters of royalty or the golden chains of lesser officials in European countries. Instead of crowns or ornate staves, high level American officials drive publicly financed big cars, as their symbols of authority. This is not to oppose using public monies to provide reliable and comfortable transportation for high level public officials, both elected and appointed. Carried to its ultimate absurdity that argument would require that. Step-Dow- n policemen provide their own cars and firemen supply their own hoses. Yet, comfort and reliablity can be purchased at less than luxury car prices. Mr. He can do Lamboume seems to be saying his job and serve the people who elected him just as well in a small or moderate size car as he can in a big one. The county treasurer has executed a meritorious course reversal. It ought to be emulated, particularly in a time of gasoline shortfalls, by his colleagues across the country. If they would, it would be a sacrifice in keeping with the principles of high public service. Bill Vaughant Orbiting Paragraphs Tilly believes that gasoline conservation should be left voluntary but with some good strong laws to enforce it. Anybody can make mistakes, which is why we have "erase" buttons on tape recorders. The difficulty in harnessing windmills to produce energy is that no one knows when the wind will blow. Cant some sort of executive order be issued? French Prove Need for Monetary Unity From The Portland Oregonian action of setting the franc free from Common Market nations agreement to tie their currencies together has resulted in de facto devaluation and another setback to hopes that European financial systems would be unified by 1980. More important, it hinted of incipient panic among major industrial nations who may see competitive devaluations as a way to get a slightly larger share of a world trade market that seems certain to diminish as soaring oil prices soak up foreign Frances exchange. Unless forestalled soon by international agree- - The Grant Cartoon ments, the mentality could throw international mechanisms that finance trade back to their deplorable state in the 1930s. Although the French move signals an almost turnaround in the repute of the dollar (European currencies have plummeted more than 13 percent in value against the dollar in the past 10 weeks), there is little reason why the United States can afford to be smug. The American dollar was enjoying steady gains even before the energy crisis came into international prominence. Two devaluations and a superior record in fighting inflation were beginning to give the United States a competitive edge over other industrial nations. But. the shift was gradual, taking more than two years. However, the oil crisis accelerated the shift in currency values because, as badly as the United States is hurt by higher oil prices, most nations with whom we trade will be hurt far more. Their trade balances will be worse than ours because they are more dependent on imported oil than we are. Why, then, shouldnt the United States revel in the renewed strength of the dollar? The currency realignment expresses recognition by France that the forthcoming recessions in Europe and Japan are likely to be much more severe than in the United States. t ! It means that France has begun an independent fight to safeguard its share of in ie. national trade, and others may follow to safeguard their positions. i I - V A Matter Of Time ( The reality of the oil crisis is that competitive devaluations threaten worldwide depression. Even if the dollar regained all of its former prestige, the United States could not prosper during a world depression. The need for common policies, rather than separatist action, was never more evident. it Mf These enemies, he said, begin with the concluthat the incumbent must be removed from office and they look for a crime to hang him on. Buckley is right, to a degree I suppose, but he makes it sound a good deal more sinister than it strikes me. What I see is that some of us (not all of us either liberals or conspirators) have concluded, as Buckley suggests, that the President ought to be removed from office, and some are working to make sure it happens. sion "For him its a For me write-off- ! its a rip-of- f! How come? And not because he wasnt our choice for President in the first place, either. For his entire first term, for instance, even while he was shillyshallying over school integration, killing off the poverty program and offering us G. Harrold Carswell for the Supreme Court, there was not the slightest hint of a move to remove him from office. i' i Political Opposition The Public Forum Make em Stop drive is Editor, Tribune: Our making headway. We are beginning to envision the time when, in the not too distant future, the air will be free from auto exhaust fumes and snelter smoke pollution, and our streams and lakes clean and pure, our watersheds and landscape clean and unpolluted, and the cloud of smog hovering over out cities only a memory. But in our dream we are overlooking the most deadly polluter of them all, the tobacco smoker. He will still be with us when other polluters have vanished unless we do something more than we are doing to curtail this needless and deadly source of pollution. A recent srvey made at one of our leading universities revealed the astonishing fact that smokers add more deadly pollution to the air in our metropolitan areas than all the automobiles and smelters combined. Knowing the devastating effects of tobacco smoke on both the physical body, and the of the smoker, and the health of those around him, why do we continue to permit the tobacco trusts to seduce our young people into joining the army of new tobacco addicts by flaunting before them on every hand glamorous, pictures of young folks in the popular set dragging on cigarettes in intimate frivolities? C. D. McBRIDE will-toqui- benign inaction. After the unsavory people he has surrounded himself with, he should at least change the spelling of his phrase Operation Candor to Operation Pander. The heads of the international cartel oil companies in their recent hearings explaining that they had to plow most of their profits (up to 60 percent) back into exploration, had all the acting ability of a mortician trving to look sad at a 810,000 funeral! FRED G. DRIGGS Saviour of Europe Editor, Tribune: If America deserts her European allies now, it may mean eventual economic disarter for the United States in coming years. America has the responsibility to insure world economic stability now more than ever before. Europe is counting on Americas help, and the Arab countries are counting on an eventual break between America and her economic allies. Why do ert Europe the Arab powers feel America will desin her critical period? They feel that Forum Rules full-pag- e Old Time Religion it The Paiutes called Barohoini, the Navajos called it Nonezoshi, and beneath the great curve making the chancel there stands an ancient altar built for worship by a people long forgotten. Their successors believed it to be the and passing beneath required Editor, Tribune: Sun-Pat- prayer. A later people with white skin called them savages and heathens for worshipping rocks and sun. They worsnip things like kilowatts, BTUs, and acre-feeand small stone altars, a sparkling spring, and a massive, graceful curve of orange-resandstone are idols revered by modern-daheretics holding to an obstructionist religion. The orthodox believers will desecrate this place as they have destroyed so many other holy places on the Colorado. The stinking, placid pools have reached their sacreligious tentacles into every cort; y i I he can be judged guilty. Seek Crime Later d Another Viewpoint f .' he chooses, the President can fight every committee request. Legal pathways through the impeachment forest are not clearly marked and opportunities for delaying action are plentiful. In the end, however, the committee appears to hold the final trump. Although both the majority and minority counsel for the committee agree that no court has power of judicial review over impeachment actions, it has been tentatively concluded that refusal to provide subpoenaed material could in itself become an impeachable offense. 11 In his State of the Union message Mr. Nixon declared that a year of Watergate is enough. He promised to cooperate in bringing - - On Aid to Impeachment Inquiry The quickest way to end the Watergate affair is to get all the facts bearing on the multitude of allegations out in the open. Wash- ner of Glen Canyon, drowning Gregory Arch, polluting Cathedral in the Desert, and killing the life in places called Little Eden and Music Temple. Now Rainbow Bridge will succumb, as have all other places too few will ever know. The corpse will still be there, for a little while perhaps, to be gawked at by an adoring public in the same class as Stonehedge, but the heart, the life, the creative force that surged here will be stilled. Pe.haps someday a generation as wise as the Anasazi will remove the concrete plug and let nature rebuild some of Gods shrines. Meanwhile those of us who keep the old religion will repair to other houses of worship and fight for them as we fought for Rainbow Bridge. Respecit in pacem, Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld for good reasons on others. Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days. Preference will be given to short, typewritten (double spaced) letters permitting use of the writers true name. All letters are subject to condensation. the American people, unused to personal sacrifice, will put their comforts above the economic life of industrial Europe. The Arabs are banking on the collapse of most, if not all European currencies. If this happens, the oil sword which has been used so skillfully in the past will become even sharper as European currencies devalue, there by increasing the cost to them of already over priced oil. America will suffer very little, compared with Europe, if oil prices again spiral after European devaluations. The responsibility to bolster Europe in her time of crisis has come. Only a united front (as proposed by the Nixon administration), by America and her allies to meet Arab demands can stave off world economic crisis. This united front will mean further sacrifice by all Americans rich and poor. If this is not done, however, America will sink with the rest of the industrial countries choked by the lack of oil. Americas role is clear. We must export, at a to reasonable price, enough oil and its industrial Europe to bolster their sagging supplies. Otherwise, separately each industrial community state. will sink back to a The energy that developed this and other countries into industrial giants must now be shared by us with all the worlds people. JAMES W. SMITH Wendover, Nev. Barohoini. HANK HASSELL Editor, Tribune: In this era of sophisticated are getting a little bit enlightenment, the dreary trying to manipulate the masses with their which in their minds would peg the average consumers IQ to roughly that of a moron. ad-me- n It wasnt enough for the Utah Power and Light to snow us with that 11 cents a day rate increase bit, but now the Utah Dairy Assn, is trying to perform a lobotomy on our moronic brains with the subliminal psychology route that milk is only 18 cents a pound instead of 41 cents a quart. (I suggest that everyone goes to the store and asks tor a pound of unsubsidized milk.) But we Jive on in this subliminal land of fantasy and misnomers, led by our President and his who, ii the w.Mte words of J. Kenneth Galbraith, has adopted the economics of Nixon-cmic- n rip-off- si : It is easy to forget how slowly the conclusion was reached that Richard Nixon was a danger to the country. For most of last year, for instance, it was widely suspected that the President was lying when he denied knowing about the Watergate coverup. Benefit of Doubt But he had the benefit of substantial doubt as to any prior knowledge of the Watergate conspiracy, or any personal participation in the cover-up- . The general tone, among liberals and nonliberals alike, was that the President should come clean, get rid of the worst members of his staff and apologize to the people. Impeachment was scarcely mentioned. Since that time, Mr. Nixon has been pursued and enemies but by facts and events, more often than not of his own making. His secretly recorded tapes, for instance, might have been a way to have it solidly established whether the President was lying; but he wouldnt let the tapes go. Not only that, but he fired the special prosecutor who had the nerve to ask for them, and by that act lost two of the most responsible men in his government along with most of his remaining credibility. not by liberal Democrats Si ' I And when he finally had to relinquish the tapes anyhow, two of them turned out not to exist and a third was discovered to contain an 18'A minute erasure that experts indicate was deliberately made. The more he scurried from one untenable s posi- tion to another, pretending candor, going silent, losing his tapes and his temper and doing every- thing he could to keep the facts coming out, the more he took on the appearance of a trapped criminal. No Longer Fit And as a result, some of us concluded that he no longer was fit to be President. The reason we keep waving each new bit of evidence about is that we are sure weve seen the light and want every body else to see it, too. But that is no liberal conspiracy. It isnt the and Humphreys who have been in the forefront of those calling for Mr. Nixon to step down. It is voices like the Detroit News and Time Magazine and Wilbur Mills of Arkansas. Kennedy's and the AFL-CIwhich has been with making possible Richard credited genreally Nixons landslide election victory. Oh, yes, Interlandi Whos a What? Panguitch Moronic Approach There was political opposition, to be sure, and some of us wondered about the sanity of a people who would elect the man to office. But no one that 1 am aware of questioned his right to occupy the office. But the disclosures that followed the Watergate break-iput the Nixon presidency in an entirely different light. What some of us slowly came to see were not just improprieties and repugnant pollicies but an attempt to transform the system into something alien to the American tradition an attack on the country, from the inside. If we were outraged at the allegations of huge cash we were truly frightened by the mindset of a national government willing to deal in enemies lists and secret police forces and subversion of official agencies. Editor, Tribune: Sure, John Wayne knew he would take a ribbing from the students at Harvard, but he went, and went good naturedly. The student body panned him, mostly in fun, but taking satirical aim at his establishment views, wealth and patriotism. i i r.l One seldom hears of poor folk enrolling at that university, let alone graduating. It is assumed the students go by and large on their parents credit. Mr. Wayne knows as much about ethnic minorities as most any of the Cambridge campus residents having had two Mexican wives plus the knowledge acquired working for three decades in numerous films. Then some wiseacre Congressmen griped about army reserve vehicle transportation made available to him. question that people should ask themselves now is: Who sounds like the miniscule minded bigots? GORDON HOLT BEEBE ! 1 $ i A 4 ) Come on, News Bulletin, you cant shock me anymore Im what they can Inured!" 4 i |