| Show King's Fading Dream Needs As Blacks Are Sent Back Into 'Slavery' Re-Empha- br z$alt 17alit eltitittur Saturday September 2 1989 Moms Newspapers ST PAUL MINN — "I have a dream" Martin Luther King Jr told a rapt audience of 250000 at the Washington Monument 26 years ago this week White America listened to his dreams and forgot as we always have the centuries-lon- g nightmare that made them necessary When a Dutch ship traded its cargo of 20 Africans for a few tons of tobacco in Jamestown Va 370 years ago the nightmare began By 1776 750000 slaves composed about a quarter of our population Black Codes for bade slaves to be parties in court suits or to strike a white person even in States imposed heavy fines on those teaching a Negro to read write or spell Many northern whites felt moral outrage at the idea of slavery but rarely viewed blacks as equals As Abraham Lincoln told a group of Negro leaders in 1862 "There is an unwillingness on the part of our people harsh as it may be for you free colored people to remain with us It is better for us both therefore to be separated" He reluctantly issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 not out of high moral purpose but because the North had suffered a series of military setbacks The Civil War freed 4 million slaves and for one brief moment with the assistance of federal troops the 13th 14th and 15th amen-dent- s and the 1875 Civil Rights Act Negroes became full citizens of the United States Evincing an astonishing lack of malice uneducated and landless former slaves and radical whites fashioned a unique form of biracial By David Page 14 Section A Inconclusive Combat Not News Cost US Vietnam War Defeat Diehard critics of American journalism's performance during the Vietnam War have lost another skirmish and this time it is at the hands of the US Army srecifically the Army Center of Military History A report done for the center by William M Hammond finds "it is undeniable" that despite flaws in war reporting "the press reports were still often more accurate than the public statements of the administration in portraying the situation in Vietnam" Most importantly the Hammond report concludes it was rising casualties in a war with a strategy that caused the American public to stop supporting the war "not news coverage" For that matter the study rejects the fondly held view by media critics of the miliperiod many of them Vietnam-ertary and diplomatic analysts that nega tive news media coverage of the war was responsible for erosion of public 'support and the eventual US withdrawal "What alienated the American public in both the Korean and Vietnam wars was not news coverage but casualties" the study concludes "Public support for each war dropped inexorably by 15 percentage points whenever total US casualties increased by a factor of 10" it said The center's study blames the Johnson administration's strategy as the chief cause for the diminishing pub413-pag- e no-wi- n a no-wi- lic n support "Given the restrictions and limited goals Johnson had adopted" for prosecuting the war including "no extension of the ground war to North Vietnam no invasion of Laos or Cambodia no action that would induce Communist China to enter the war the practical initiative rested with the enemy" Hammond wrote "He could choose when and wheretg fight" As the author explains further "If American or South Vietnamese forces delivered a serious blow" the enemy "could withdraw into his sanctuaries to mend and regroup All the while his herents could hide among the South Vietnamese subverting the military and civilian bureaucracies and preparing for the day when the United States would tire and withdraw" Hammond also attributes much of the erosion of public support for the war to the fact that President Johnson at least two and his advisers forgot " common-sensrules of effective propaganda: that the truth has greater ultimate power than the most pleasing of bromides and that no amount of massaging will heal a broken limb or a fundamentally flawed strategy" These were two rules that in concert American journalists and the American public did not forget The American journalists Tote photographed filmed and broadcast the truth The American people meanwhile were far more perceptive than the Johnson administration hierarchy they collectively recognized the stupidity of deliberately allowing a disciand reasonably plined enemy to claim "King's X" and retire to his sanctuaries in the north Laos or Cambodia to "mend and ad- e well-traine- well-equippe- regroup" The results were inevitable When the American public recognized it was being lied to and fed a diet of platitudes calculating the amount of light emanating from tunnels and when they tired of seeing 58000 of their fellow countrymen die under a strategy clearly benefiting the enemy they revolted — almost literally — and demanded an end to the farce and deception that marked the conduct of America's only military defeat If American journalism in any of its several forms print or electronic served as a catalyst in that recognition that was because it was doing the job it has always done and generally done quite well — raising hell by telling the truth Ovation for Larry Miller When downtown Salt Lake City's Salt Palace emerged two decades ago that was achieved through public fund-M- g and the investment has proven well worthwhile Now that the arena portion is to be replaced it will be done with private financing and those making that possible deserve this coramtmity's appreciation In confirming he has secured the money — $558 million — to construct an expanded contemporary arena Larry H Miller owner of the National Basketball Association Utah Jazz redeemed a sizable perhaps even daunting pledge It is no mean commitment by any calculation and Mr Miller rates sustained applause for his When it appeared the Jazz could not continue profitably in smaller existing Salt Palace accommodations team owners and operators were compelled to consider alternatives One such choice was: Sell the franchise to buyers in another city eligible to join the NBA Had Mr Miller done that he could have regained some costs of buying and operating the Jazz while simultaneously escaping the perpetual expense of NBA involvement Fortunately for Salt Lake City and Utah he chose even larger responsibilities His interests are here his commitments are here and here is where he obviously intends to make the Jazz a successfully prominent NBA member risk-takin- g Both local residents and visitors who enjoy big league professional basketball ought to be especially grateful But the planned arena will be more than a domicile for the Jazz Built to the most modern specifications it will also host various audience events during the NBA whether concerts ice shows or rodeos and be available as the new location for home games of the International Hockey League's Salt Lake City member the Golden Eagles So the bright prospect is for a bigger Acord Arena replacebetter ment bequeathing to the domestic entertainment cultural and sports industry no less to collateral economic beneficiaries those tangible gains already derived from the predecessor auditorium But in larger measure it reflects local population and prosperity growth anticipating as well a future distinguished by more of the same That would not have been possible without the courage commitment energies and foresight of Larry Miller given crucial advice and encouragement from his Utah financiers principally First Security Bank's Spencer Eccles and Louis A Harris No question but that all this depends heavily on strictly business transactions but in a way which also preserves a priceless asset earning generous returns for the entire community off-seaso- n pre-emine- Another VieNspoint Colombia Aid Reflects Better Policy From The New York Times President George Bush has responded swiftly and wisely to Colombia's cry for help in its war against the drug cartels Ills decision to dispatch helicopters arms and other equipment to Bogota meets an urgent need It could also mark the start of a sound and essential foreign policy on drugs The bulk of the $53 billion Washington is spending this year to curtail the spread of crack i1I be targeted domestically on border interdiction law enforcement and drug treatment The amount allotted to choke the production of drugs in foreign countries is pathetic — only $101 million Of that $50 million less than percent of total spending Inch goes to Colombia Bolivia and Peru supply most of the worlds cocaine The extraordinary news from Colombia draws attention to the imbalance Drug lords assassinated a judge a police chief and a presidential candidate provoking President VirOho Bart() to order mass arrests seizures of drug traffickers' assets and extraditions to the United States Washington rightly recognized the need to help Even before last week's arrests Colombia's pohce bad waged an aggressive campaign to destroy drug laboratories They seized large amounts of corame and the chenucals used to process it 'et the Colombian police ha 1' so lek helicopters that they can only carry out one uper ation at a time 'Just) called for accelerated detivcri of 20 helicopters already on order and found Z65 1 anti-dru- s Press Dispatch d d million in emergency funds to provide an ad ditional 20 along with other military supplies Bush is expected to call for an additioLll $250 million in aid to Colombia Peru and Bolivia when be outlines his drug strategy on Sept 5 The three countries have different needs The Bush strategy thus requires careful calibration Colombia which grows much less coca than it processes and does not retain much income from drugs needs military help to attack drug cartels and laboratories In Peru and Bolivia coca is a major source of income and employment Simply destroying the crop could topple a Bolivian economy that now enjoys only fragile stability Peru is fighting a losing battle with t guerrillas — who would love to fan resentment over Americansponsored destruction of coca fanning Thus any moves against coca farming need to proceed with caution and include a plausible wellfinanced way to help fanners grow other crops A sensible plan would actively help farmers switch to crops Like coffee or oranges Estimates of the bill for such help run well into the hundreds of millions and may exceed anything now contemplated by the Bush administration far-lef- Such a policy can only complement goy ernment efforts to stremthen law enforcement and drug treatment at home It would add a valuable ni4 4 capon to the arsenal And the goal — getting Andean coun tries out of the cocaine business — could well be worth the el putbe anti-dru- -- —T-- They extended educational opportunities not only to blacks but to poor whites South Carolina's public school system for example swelled from 30000 in 1870 to 123000 in 1876 Labor laws strengthened the rights of rural workers white and black alike White America fought back Within months of Lee's surrender at Appomattox the Klu Klux Klan was born In the 1870s White Citizens Leagues murdered thousands of blacks and terrorized millions more In 1877 when : 1- '' - ?A ‘k1411c t i: l' ' - -:--: -- --- ' 7 4tvt- - '1 Oratralbe 7' f ----- ' -- :- An - 0 N --- ' ' F:1 -- 51A: 1! o - ' e -- 7 7-- - i : 4 - - -- 0 -r - - '' 116P"-7- ' I ' '''''4iot — -- s N '' - 1'-- 7 Ztol - $ - self-defen- David Morris an author lecturer and consultant writes for the St Paul Pioneer - 34 c4' - i- Knight-Ridde- r - i- — - - -- 444- ''24111b - - ' - st:ocrzfa-- sis murdered their buses set afire their homes and churches oombed !n June 1963 President John F Kennedy pleaded with his countrymen "It ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to voto in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal" Congress responded by ending legal segregation in 1964 and passing the Voting Rights Act in 1935 At the time less than 1 percent of eligible South ern black voters were registered If this were a fairy tale we would now say "And black and white lived happily ever at ter" Alas that was not to be Enraged that blacks had finally achieved full citizenship White America rebelled Never agin would the Democratic Party win a majority of white votes in a presidential election In 1980 Ronald Reagaa one of those vehemently opposed to the Voting Rights Act rode the IA site vote to victory Three years after the March on Washing ton Martin Luther King Jr was murdered Ten years later the minimal programs fashioned to extend a hand to former slaves were dismantled As educational funds were shifted from grants to loans the percentage of black high scho11 graduates attending college d between 1976 dropped by almost and 1986 Segregation in the schools is as bad or worse today as it was in 1955 The life expectancy of black males has declined two years in a row the first time in American history this has occurred to any group This year the Supreme Court stripped blacks of many of their constitutional protec lions Most ironic perhaps was the courts decision to overturn a Richmond Va pro gram to set aside a portion of its public construction contracts for minorities The court justified its decision to prohibit the former capital of the Confederacy from helping its blacks because said Justice Sandra O'Connor it might lead to "a politics of racial hostility" In February David Duke former grand wizard of the KKK became a Louisiana state representative and may soon run for gover nor The same month an instructor told an conference of police chiefs that by 1995 white supremacists will be the greatest domestic terrorist threat by far Martin Luther Kings dream remains unfulfilled The nightmare continues one-thir- Martin Luther King Jr the federal government withdrew its protection the white south rose again in vengeance Public education systems were decimated Worker rights disappeared Thousands of blacks were lynched Blacks were stripped of their franchise In 1896 for example Louisiana had 165000 whites registered and 130000 Negroes By 1900 the first registration year after the new constitution was adopted there were 125000 whites registered and only 5000 Negroes In 1883 the Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rigbts Act In 1896 it declared segregation acceptable WEB Dubois would later whte -- The slave went free: stooka brief moment in the sun then moved back again toward slavery" s Almost a century later in freedom rides and voter registration drives blacks again demanded equality Again they were sit-in- Enough of This Reminiscing on the Past Americans Should Look to the Future New York Times Service NEW YORK — Do you ever think about 1903? I don't except when the 1989 news is fall of anniversaries Then I remember what the old folks always said "1903 was a wonderful year- - they always said "And one of the best things about it was looking forward to the even greater wonders coming in 1904" In short America in 1903 was young frisky and full of the joy of life Countries like that don't mope around looking backward They look ahead to Saturday night ' Russell Baker IA And after Saturday night oh boy! — 1904 A whole year of Saturday nights Nowadays America seems afflicted with Many Had Wrong View of Msop He Was an Outrageous Delight Washington Post Service — Too many people made the mistake of taking Joe Alsop the journalist and columnist who died Monday aged 78 as seriously as he seemed to take himself As with the ancestral Alsop house in Middletown Conn with the painted-ocolumns there was a lot of trompe l'oed —deception of the eye — about him Yet the closer you got the less he was just what he seemed Many saw him as a pompous ogre: in reality he was a delight an outrageous delight He could be intimidating and not even his friends were spared the treatment One night at the outset of the Carter years he was roaming a Washington party His quarry was Marshall Shulman the Columbia University professor slated to be Carter's special adviser on Soviet affairs "Ed take me to Shulman" he demanded excused myself saying I did not know Shulman A few minutes later Joe came up with the same demand and again I demurred He glared "Here you are the brains of a great newspaper and you don't know a goddam thing!" To understand Joe Alsop's eminence in Washington journalism of the 1940s and 1950s you must imagine a world in which the impact of television was still minimal and also lacking the sophisticated "investigative reporting" and "news analysis" forms that have so largely replaced the old reporting In that vanished heyday Joe r Alsop combined the authority of the the pundit and the candidate for choice news leaks — roles now increasingly dispersed and specialized When the US Army finally decided to go to war with Sen Joe McCarthy in late 1953 it was to Joe Alsop that someone leaked the Army's bill of particulars detailing the Wisconsin senator's meddling and in behalf of a former aide who had been drafted And not one version only but two — the real one and the one that had been cleaned up for public consumption It was Joe Alsop who with his brother valiantly attacked the shabby dlot of the same period to strip Dr J Robert Oppenheimer the nation's most distinguished atomic scientist of his security clearance In their pamphleteering book "We Accuse" the Alsops insisted that it was a vendetta born of envy and the instinct to penalize Oppenheimer for not suffering fools gladly In fact Joe Alsop was never better never more admirable or valuable than when fighting McCarthyism tong and hammer It was not on the ground that McCarthy was a boórish ignoramus trampling due process and fair play It was on the ground that his domestic witch-hun- t was a dangerous distraction from the serious business of opposing Soviet milihry power and political influence abroad era Joy's Later in the ‘'ietnarn-Watergatapproach would be affinity for the exploited by the Nixon adnumstration's cover-up artists lie compared the Watergate Nixon to the whorehouse piano player who doesn't know what happens upstairs and labeled John Dean the key Watergate vltness - WASHNGTON 0 n super-reporte- favor-seekin- e hard-bitte- 1-4- :'4t::- - "' lk: ' :t tisl14 :i Edwin Yoder 1' v: ip IVi f as "a bottom-dwellinslug" Whatever else he was Joe Alsop wasn't cynical By temperament and taste by training and instinct he was a connoisseur and collector a student of art and art collecting who had strayed into the trade of journalism (which with a mischievous little-bo-y delight he liked to compare to the mortician's) He had the connoisseur's soul but an irrepressible taste for the active life and adventure — and gossip — eclipsed it Passion more than cool analysis governed his judgments on public matters and the passions were generous ones: patriotism and reform and care for the unfortunate as with his great kinsman Theodore Roosevelt Some of those judgments damaged him but they were the errors of a warm heart In the years of his retirement when I got to know him one of his great acts turned on the Miniver Cbeevyish theme that time had passed him by It could be memorable At one of his dinners one evening — it was New Year's Eve — the midnight hour approached Someone suggested that a television set be brought to watch the usual ritlials in Times Square A television set? Joe barely admitted that television existed But after whispered consultations his faithful housekeeper wheeled out a tiny ancient wooden relic of the 1940s with a microscopic screen The strains of "Auld Lang Syme" wheezed Iinnily from the ancient speaker Joe set down his oversized Oriental teacup and covered his face in a characteristic gesture of mock despair "What is that ghastly sound?" be asked "Guy Lombardo" someone said "Who the bell is Lombardo?" be roared Whether this lNLS the usual mixture of reality and trompe l'oeil I cannot say But it was the real Alsop cocking a snoot at modernity or whatever part of it seemed to him vulgar and unsuitable Toward the end of his long luminous career as a columnist he wrote that if he could invention it would disinvent a be television even before nuclear weapons As usual his instinct for the enemy was sound for in many ways it was television — the great leveling democratizing simplifying force — that had flattened out the complex nuanced settings political and social in which the Al sops flourished journalized and ruled There was something prepusterously old fashioned about Joe Alsop but the act was ever stylish and it flowed from high pnociples vast intelligence and a warm heart What a wonderful entertainment it was and bow bard it is to imagine an encore' g 20th-centur- y hardening of the arteries flow else explain this senescent preoccupation with the largely meaningless detritus of the past? This morbid interest in the long ago is reflected in tht: steady stream of anniversary stories svith which the press routinely stuffs us The other day we had not only the 50th pact but also anniversary of the Stalin-Hitle- r the 20th anniversary of the Woodstock musical jamboree If it's not the anniversary of some semi- event it's the death quasi- - or anniversary of somebody famous for entertaimnent Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley are especially popular figures for celebration in the mortuary anniversary department The effect of anniversary stories like these is to make the public feel old and melancholy and old and melancholy often seems to be the way America itself feels at this pass in history People of the Elvis generation for in stance are now in view of the great gray mountain range of 50 51 52 flow can they dwell on the passing anniversaries of his death without being reminded that youth is now far behind them without wondering where the years went and why they went so swiftly without the sad feeling that maybe the best is behind them? Having to relive memories of Woodstock must affect people on the razor's edge of 40 much the same way Hey kids you're not kids anymore you're twice as old as you were back then when you never trusted anybody over 30 and look what's happened to you Forty is knocking on the door squatting in the bed r now just like room and you're an the you were running away from when you went to Woodstock except you haven't sold out of course the way they had Or have you? Such are the grim speculations that inevitably afflict the peace of mind of the mature sentient middle-age- d who are asked to look back and recall the glory of their youth As for each passing anniversary of Miss Monroe's death only a person with the soul of a hangman can fail to dwell once again on the diligence with which America's great moneymaking engines continue to cannibalize her It is one of the greatest of all American horror stories the ultimate nightmare to which fame may lead if you don't watch out You know what? In this country you can become so famous that it isn't even sale to die The anniversary of the Ilitler-Stalipact is unlikely to affect the masses moved by Woodstock Elvis and Marilyn Monroe since for one thing you'd have to be 60 even to remember it and probably 65 or 70 to have known back then in 1939 how ominous it was e That year deep in their and isolation not many Americans realized that a Hitler-Staliagreement to divide Europe between them without a struggle meant that World War II could begin People at age 65 and 70 don't need to be reminded of how profoundly dumb they used to be You can try to laugh it off saying "Boy were we ever innocent in those days" comforting yourself that you've learned everything since then And now full of years you naturally think yourself also full of wisdom Yet being taken back to 1939 being reminded of how easy it was to be unaware that something awful was about to happen to you — well if you have even a little bit of wisdom now you can hardly escape the depressing suspicion that somethmg terrible for which you are utterly unready can shatter your world in an instant All this looking back is the characteristic of a country in old age We have in the past quarter-centur- y started treating the past as cud chewing and it Not that it nourishes us much except in amusement and the melancholy In fart we haie history of World War II so exhaustively that as Paul Fussell says in his new book "Wpr time" we have turned its horror into jolly good fun Young people look ahead to Saturday night Anniversaries go with nodding by the rlre old-time- old-time- n world-ignoranc- n |
