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Show a!)r nlt Lake Srilmnc Wednesday Morning Section May 29, 1985 Page 10 A Gorbachevs Opinion of Talks Reflects Star Wars Fears It is not surprising that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev pronounced the first round of Geneva arms control talks completely fruitless. First meetings seldom amount to more than a feeling out of the other side's position, temperament and will. But thats not the only reason. What, then, can be expected of the second round beginning Thursday? As things now stand, the outlook for significant arms control progress is dismal. A fundamental change in the way one or both nations perceives the role of nuclear weapons in a do-or-d- ie confrontation is virtually unthink- able today. But until such modification occurs, there isnt much to negotiate at Geneva. The Geneva talks are more than a series of negotiations aimed at reducing the numbers of nuclear weapons in both U. S. and Soviet arsenals. With the introduction of President Reagans Strategic Defense Initiative, (SDI) the old Nixon and Carter treaties known as SALT I and II were outdated. They sought to control the numbers of weapons deployed but neither nations basic nuclear war strategy became a crucial factor in the success of those bygone negotiations. With SDI, also called Star Wars, all that changed. SDI put at risk basic Soviet reliance on a first or preemptive nuclear strike while at the same time enhancing the existing U.S. policy of reliable and massive retaliatory capacity. Mr. Gorbachev says nothing can come of the Geneva talks as long as the United States is pushing ahead to perfect the SDI. Thats because progress on SDI translates into reduced assurance that a Soviet preemptory strike would be successful. Even a less than perfect Star W7ars defense might so blunt a first strike that Soviet strategists presumably would be reluctant to launch one. As a result, the better SDI begins to look, the worse the Soviet first strike strategy appears. The Soviets must either sidetrack SDI through bargaining, which seems unlikely; greatly increase acquisition of missiles and warheads in order to neutralize whatever real or imagined effect SDI might have on the success of a first strike, or make radical changes in longstanding nuclear war precepts in response to the SDI factor. Under such conditions, serious negotiation on reduction of nuclear forces is out of the question. Mr. Gorbachevs completely fruitless appraisal of the first round of talks at Geneva should prove apt for the second series, too. Beyond Academic Freedom . The place where American youngsters first learn about their country being the land of the free and the brave may itself lack both freedom and courage. Public schools can be platforms of arbitrary controls and convenient compromise. Touching on this situation recentan assistant professor of educationly, al administration at the University of Utah observed that too much confusion exists over what is academic freedom in the public schools. And thats frequently just a tip of the iceberg. Ann Weaver Hart, referring to the academic freedom issue, called for a clearer undestanding on just how much of what subjects public schoolroom teachers are entitled to disclose. Currently, she contended, an elementary and secondary teachers freedom to instruct can vary from school to school, from community to community. It causes difficulties, she explained, because commentary and curricula allowable one place can cause dismissal somewhere else. As Professor Hart concedes, these conditions usually stem from the large amount of community funding, and, therefore, control and influence traditionally imposed on public school systems in the United States. But, as she also points out, no such drastic swings in tolerance are likely when the concept of academic freedom is applied to higher education, much of it publicly financed and managed. Beyond the difficulties encountered by school teachers is the unsatisfactory example being set for their students. Not every graduate from a public high school seeks a college or university degree. For countless American young people the most formative introduction they will ever get to the actual meaning of freedom is in public school. It ought to strengthen rather than cheapen their idealism. For instance, in Utah it is not uncommon to hear from high school journalism advisers that they are required by their supervisors or by faculty pressure to prevent any accounts unflattering to the school or the community from appearing in the school newspaper. Certain advisers have claimed their principals must give permission for any articles published in the school paper. All such practices violate this countrys free speech guarantees. Nor does the contradiction and hy- pocrisy escape youthful notice.-Taugh- t in classroom about individual liberty and responsibility, alert school age students may see around them these very values being abused, ignored and sometimes deliberately demolished. They reach adulthood aware of the nations solemnly proclaimed principles, but reluctant to espouse them. At the college level, enthronement of academic freedom tends to buttress a better understanding and acceptance of other acknoweldged freedoms. And academic freedom is supported by the notion that the fullest examination of any subject, even if that includes ideas and concepts not popularly accepted, is the most reliable path to truth. Academic freedom makes as much sense for elementary and secondary education as it does for college and university instruction. All the freedoms ought to be on display at that point where this nations young people first learn of their countrys highest purposes and aspirations. On tangible display, in faculty and administration action as well as adherence, not merely in text books and bulletin board mottos. i mean it Brother Reagan, just one choruscallof and then Til heed the Let the Good Times Roll . . Anthony Lewis Prisoners Swap May Prove Menacing New York Times Service Not many deliberate acts of a sovereign government carry implications as profoundly perplexing as Israels decision to exchange 1,150 Palestinian prisoners for three captured Israeli soldiers. It was an act arising from the deepes instincts of the sUte but in its remits, menacing to the state. One of the raisons detre of Zionism has always been the pro- Mr ljewis tection of Jews from persecution and danger. That was fundamental, given the terrible facts of Jewish history during the Diaspora. For the first time in 2,000 years there would be a state with the power to protect Jews. Israel has exercised that responsibility without question since its birth in 1948. It has concerned itself with Jewish political prisoners in Argentina and the Soviet Union. It carried out the daring rescue of Israeli hostages at Entebbe. And of course it has been especially committed to securing the release of its own citizen-soldier- s when captured. The redemption of prisoners is a cardinal Jewish precept, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in justifying last weeks exchange. But the precept the deep instinct clashed in this case with other strong emotions. For the three Israeli soldiers had been held by a terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-GenerCommand. And its head, Ahmed Jabril, had exacted a high price for their release in extended negotiations. The 1,150 men let go by Israel included many who were not soldiers captured in battle but convicted terrorists, 380 of them serving life sentences. And 600 were allowed to go to their homes in Israel or the territories it occupies Israelis had been very sympathetic with the three captured soldiers and their families, who met politicians and often appeared on television. But the price paid left many people in an anguishing dilemma. They were for doing outraged at the government something that they, too, felt a compulsion to al do. The dilemma divided even former Israeli chiefs of military intelligence. Shlomo Gazit told Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Never again Times that he was disgusted will Israel be able to condemn any other country which will be blackmail d into freeing terrorists who have killed Jws. But Aharon Yariv said Israel had in fact been negotiating with terrorists for yean despite a proclaimed policy against doing so: This case only takes it an increment farther. Yehoshafat Harkabi, a third former intelligence chief, called the exchange a big mistake" when I spoke with him. We have made ourselves targets for squeezing, he said But Harkabi had a deeper political reason for concern It was that bitterness at the release of convicted terrorists would feed the forces in Israel that want to annex the occupied territories and even expel their Arab inhabitants. The idea of expulsion is pushed by Rabbi Meir Kahane, who is believed to have significantly more support now than when his party won his one seat in the Knesset last year. Right-winfigures in Israel, in reaction to the prisoner exchange, demanded a parb terrordon for Jews convicted of ism or now on trial. They are charged with grave terrorist acts: explosions that maimed West Bank mayors, the indiscriminate murder of Arab students in Hebron, a plot to blow up the holiest mosques in Jerusalem. Harkabis fear, in short, is that the prisoner exchange will help the extremists on both sides. Jabril may be seen by Palestinians as a man who gets things done. And more Israelis may be encouraged to believe that security lies only in force, not in political resolution of the conflict with the Arabs. g anti-Ara- plea- sure from someone elses failure. The business has taken an unexpected turn for the worse and I cant suppress a smile. I know why I feel that way. All of us hate to be out of it, no matter what the latest thing is, and I was beginning to feel out of it because I didn't have a home computer. Now that I've learned that millions of other Americans didnt buy one either, I feel much better. I saw the ads listing all the ways a home computer would help simplify my life and solve all my problems, so, naturally, being an boy, I didn't want to be the last kid on my block who didn't have one. I hadnt bought a new car in several decided I haenough money to buy years home-comput- sI a computer. Week after week I kept going into the places that sold them. The salesmen would start by telling me how I could learn to write my own programs. I listened to all the program talk and then I realized I didn't know what a "program was You just set up your own program the one you need," theyd tell me "Program'" I'd say You see, to me a program is either a show I watch on television or the magazine I buy on the way into the stadium to see a football game so Ill know the names and numbers of all the players Any other use of the word "program" is foreign to me The computer salesman would tell me how I could use my home computer to keep my accounts straight, to save my telephone numbers, to store recipes and to keep our Christmas card list I could even keep track of the people who sent us cards that we didnt send cards to, so we wouldn't be embarrassed again next year. The computer salesmen knew a lot about their particular lines of computers but almost nothing aout any other There has been very little cooperation on standards within the industry. Its as if gas for a Ford wouldn't work in a Dodge. Even when the salesmen knew a lot about computers, they didn't know anything about me They didn't understand, for instance, that I dont have what youd call "accounts." I have money in the bank and I get bills I pay the bills with money out of the bank That's it. There isnt any computer program that would help me. Id be killing a fly with a sledgehammer. As for telephone numbers, I keep them in a small black book that works just fine and doesnt have to be plugged into an electrical socket. As for recipes, I like to cook but I don't use recipes very often. If I need to know something, I go directly to Fanny Farmer or The Joy of Cooking. They satisfy my need for culinary education. I certainly wouldn't start fooling with an expensive computer if I had flour and butter all over my fingers. s for the Christmas card list, we keep last years cards until weve made out next vears. wounds. Israels path to long-tersecurity can lie only in accommodation with the Palestinians, who are mostly moderate people of bourgeois instincts. They too, in their diaspora, want the protection of a state, however small and tied to others. Israels aim, difficult as it is to achieve, should be to give Palestinians a stake in some political order. I want moderation on both sides, Harkabi said. Did he despair? I asked. It is a all hard time for moderates, he said over the world. But there are ups and downs. Its Safe to Probe Death Plot After Andropovs Death New York Times Service ROME On the weekend that Pope John inPaul II elevated 28 men to cardinal cluding the archbishops of New York and Boston prosecutor Ilario Martella brought to trial the second of the men who appear to have conspired to kill the pope on orders of the KGB. The man fired the shot in who 1981 that wounded the pope, Mehmet Ali Agca, was convicted and threatened with incarceration in a jail where he would probably have been murdered by his former employers. He chose instead to sing and to stay in a safe jail, and his testimony is central in the current trial of Sergei Antonov, manager of the Bulgarian airline in Rome, who Agca says drove him to the site of the assassination attempt. If a conviction persuades Antonov to cooperate as well, or if more information that implicates Bulgarian or Russian higher-up- s is deve,r;ed at this trial, most people will rghtly interpret the results as the first judicial condemnation of an intelligence agency for plotting the murder of a world leader. In effect, the KGB is on trial. What makes this case even more disturba ing is that the Bulgarian secret service undertook servile appendage of the KGB this murder attempt at a time that Yuri Andropov, later the leader of the Soviet Union and mentor of its present leader, was the KGB boss. At the time, tyranny in Poland was threatened by Solidarity; the Polish When It Comes to Computer Illiteracy, Count Me In Chicago Tribune Service Extremism seems to me a suicidal policy for Israel. That can be seen in the very action that led to the capture of the three soldiers the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Ariel Sharons hubris, his belief that military force could crush Palestinian nationalism, cost Israel 650 lives and fearful psychological William Safire Andy Rooney Its sometimes difficult not to take . Its apparent to me and must now be apparent to the makers of computers that they were trying to sell a piece of equipment that didn't really have a purpose in the average home. People were properly amazed at what a computer could do but they just didnt need to have it done. I like the convenience of being able to get someplace quickly by flying on an airplane but I dont feel the need to buy one and learn to fly it myself. Thats the way I feel about computers I recognize their importance but I am not interested in becoming an expert in their use. lot of educators are saying that anyone doesn't know how to operate a computer be a computer illiterate. Count me in. educator said anyone who didnt learn to operate a computer would be handicapped. Maybe I'll be able to park in one of those spots reserved for the handicapped right near the door of the supermarket then, because I'm going to be a handicapped, computer-illiterate person. A who will One how pope was the unions inspiration; therefore it was in Russias interest to eliminate this pope. At first, this incredible case was ignored by most of the press, deprecated on background by our CIA in Rome, and ridiculed by many in the West who did not want detente threatened. Suspicion of Russian involvement could be lived with, but proof of the Bulgarian connection in the crime would make it difficult for anyone to do business at summits with a Russian leader who had the popes blood on his hands. That did not stop the investigating magistrate in Rome from following where the facts led. Like an Italian Sirica (a redundancy, but apt), Prosecutor Martella has plod- ded ahead, oblivious to political fallout, determined to show that no man, no group or no power can shoot a human being in St. Peters Square with impunity. Now attention is being paid. Five hundred journalists are here, trying to jam into the courtroom built to resist the Bunker terrorists. Our CIA here, probably on orders from Director William Casey, has wisely shut up; no longer are our spooks passing the word that the murder plot was too unprofessional to be (From the very start, it should be noted, former CIA chief Richard Helms described the use of the Bulgarian agents to hire a terrorist in jail for this kind of job as a classic KGB operaKGB-planne- tion.) Nor can the Russians continue to remain Izvestia has been running a series, Anatomy of a Provocation. Moscow has established a front group to discredit the findings of the Italian court: On the initiative of the Soviet public, the editor of the literary journal Novy Mir, Vladimir Karpov, has formed a committee for the defense of Antonov. Why has this story, so long untouched in the Soviet Union and so gingerly handled at first in the West, now gained front-pag- e legitimacy? How come the Western and Third-Worl- d press hordes are descending on the prosecutors Bunker, and why is the standard Russian propaganda machine being wheeled into line to blur and distort the emerging truth? Because the story is no longer a horror. Yuri Andropov, suspected of ordering the death of the pope, is dead. We are no longer facing what was to so many the unfaceable: what would have been the need to conduct a civilized diplomatic intercourse on matters like arms reduction with a man we were in the process of branding a state terrorist. The KGB's Andropov is gone, replaced by a man who could strike the pose of innocent and say not on my watch. Today it is safe to probe the conspiracy and popular to climb all over the story. No harm can come from the truth. The Russians will claim that so long as no smoking gun is produced to link their former leader directly to the shooting, to suggest his complicity is a provocative slander. The rest of the world will look to see if a clear link to the Bulgarians is established in court. If so, it will be as if the KGB itself is convicted, and spy master Yuri Andropov will go down in history as the man who tried to perpetrate the crime of the century aloof. |