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Show Horror ary DESERET NEWS SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH We Stand For The Constitution Of The United States As Having Been Divinely Inspired 12 A EDITORIAL PAGE. SATURDAY, AUGUST By BOB HORTON 16, 1969 With weapons seen and unseen, the United States has been preparing secretly during this decade for a kind of war where chemicals and germs kill man, his animals and crops. THE SPIRITUAL CRISIS Training In Morality Has A Place In School Over the years this page has objected that the schools were neglecting a goal of American education of the character moral young people. shaping This week that observation and its accompanying recommendation that much greater emphasis be given to moral education, were borne out by a report from the Thomas Jefferson Research Center in Pasadena, California. Based on a research study by the organization, the report concluded that: The increasing lawlessness, violence, and campus disorders threatening the disruption of our society can be directly traced to the failure of our schools to instill character as a part of the educational process. With schools across the country about to reopen, careful attention should be paid to the report, entitled Return to Responsibility, if Americans in general and educators in particular are to avert a repetition of the mistakes of the recent past. Much of what's wrong with society, reports Frank C.' Goble, director of the research center, can be laid at the doorstep of generally accepted theories of behavior. Freud's theories and those of many psychologists are based on the belief that man is at the mercy of his instincts and environment, and cannot be blamed for his actions. As statistics have shown, these theories have obviously failed to cope with our modern social problems. But the centers research project uncovered a number of individual pilot programs that were successfully' dealing with specific social problems, and it seems these program? have one thing in common: All these programs, Goble reports, start from the prem-mis- e that people are capable of and that no too to is be overcome. great problem If America is to meet the spiritual crisis confronting it, there must be more emphasis on this philosophy of individual responsibility anu self betterment, particularly in the schools. Why particularly in the schools? Because, while the home and church also have vital roles to play in building character, the school has the major job of "civilizing the young. Extension of the years of schooling and proliferation of activities are keeping many youngsters out of parental sight for most of their waking hours. He ; can the schools go about doing a better job of inculcating in the young the traditional virtues of good citizenship, honesty, sobriety, industriousness, sense of duty, regard for the rights of others, respect for duly constituted authority, and the like? An example of what can be done is provided by Montgomery County, Maryland, where the junior high schools have courses designed to strengthen respect for policemen and encourage lawful behavior. Despite the Supreme Court rul'ngs forbidding formalized prayers in public schools, those very rulings pointed out that courses in history, art, music, English literature, and geography are incomplete without including information contained in the Bible. The history of religions and studies of comparative religions also are perfectly legal. Certainly there are no bans against revamping social studies to emphasize the moral factor in human relationship. Americans have a horror of anything that smacks of indoctrination. But as one pediatrician has noted: If we try not to indoctrinate our children, they think we mean morals are not important. Since moral decay has brought on the downfall of civilizations as well as individuals, nothing is more important than shaping the moral character of young people. once-domina- nt six-ye- ar non-profi- t, non-politic- al -- school-linke- d Open Firemen's Hall Because the historic Salt Lake Firemens Hall complete with some of the oldest fire fighting apparatus in the is allowed to remain locked up year after year, its West not only a loss to local residents, but the citys tourism potential also is Located in the Memory Grove area near other major tourist attractions such as the Capitol, the restored Council Hall, the pink marble prayer chapel, and the DUP Museum the Firemens Hall could be helpful in getting tourists to extend their stays in Salt Lake City. This, after all, is a major goal in the state tourism program. As envisioned several years ago in a plan of the Salt Lake Firemens Relief Association, the facility was also to have been an educational tool for telling the story of past and present fire fighting to Utahs school children as well as to visitors. The plan, however, which called for opening, refurbishing and staffing by association members, received no positive support from the City Commission, though it would have cost the city little money. By standards of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the opening of the Ijall as a museum would constitute an ideal restoration because both the building and the collection it houses are original and interrelated. Utah Heritage Foundation officers and members have previously acknowledged the value of the fire hall to Salt Lake City history and tourism. Consequently, the building and its contents may figuie in the Foundation's historical survey projects for next year. Meanwhile. Salt Lake City commissioners should acknowledge their unexploited treasure and move to make it available to the public. Further delays only pave the way for loss by deterioration or other means. short-change- d. Afterthoughts . . . There is a wide difference, observed Cato 2,000 years ago, between true courage and mere contempt of life a difference that is not recognized by the desperado, who mistakes for courage his violent actions which merely express his contempt for all life, including his own. a conceited performer reminds one of George Eliots remark : It has always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent like a carrier pigeon. Viewing The cost is always too high for keeping up appearances at the expense of reality; not necessarily the financial cost, but the psychic cost in a loss of genuine sense of identity. A Associated Press Military Writer warfare This chemical biological (CBW) effort is expensive, controversial and almost as and becoming more so hush-husas the development of the atomic bomb in 1945. h Budget figures have been classified, but an AP examination indicates the CBW program has consumed about $2.5 billion since 1960, with little debate in Congress. Some 5,000 technicians are involved in a network of military labs, arsenals and test areas across the country, busily researching. developing and laying away or maintaining ready production lines for gas and germ weapons. t Size of the U.S. stockpile is secret but appears to encompass millions of pounds of agents ranging from relatively mild CS tear used in Vietnam to poisonous gas GA, GB and V nerve agents odorless, materials. tasteless, invisible Biological or germ weapons can't be stored for more than a few days before their living payloads become sterile, but the Pentagon keeps a pilot production line at Pine Bluff. Ark., prepared to crank out weapons upon hours notice. Virtually any piece of military ordnance, from missiles to grenades, can be packed with deadly gases. U.S. forces, trained in ' being able to convert from conventional to chemical warfare, have ready access to chemical weapon stocks not only in the United States but West Germany, Okinawa and possibly other forward areas. The military defends this hidden arsenal as a form of public health in reverse, but the secretiveness shrouding the CBW program has fostered a horror reaction among many people. Why do we need them, anyway, when weve got nuclear bombs and missiles? How did we come to develop this awful capability and how would we ever use it? The name of the game, according to defense planners, is deterrence. Says Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird: As much as we deplore this kind of a weapon, if we want to make sure that it is never used, there should be one lesson that weve learned from history and that is to have the capability ourselves. This capa-- , that bility shoulJ be understood clearly we will never use it first, but we will only use it as a deterrent should some other nation be foolish enough to. This theme is expanded in an interview with one civilian who is closely linked to CBW planning. If we are attacked with chemical weapons it leaves us with three options, this office says. You can go on fighting with just conventional weapons. You can attack him, retaliating with chemical weapons. Or you can attack him with tactical nuclear Protective-suite- d has decided it can, after all, dispose of much of the gas surplus on land. , Finally, a leaky GB gas weapon which exposed 24 men to possible death forced an acknowledgement from the Pentagon last month that U.S. gas weapons are stored on Okinawa and other overseas areas. West Germany has reported officially it has depots with American chemical weapons on German soil. but no germ bombs While Laird has said he wants the chemical stocks maintained, he does question whether all is being done to insure the safety of population centers near major chemical stores. He has requested, and is getting, a National Security Council review of the whole CBW program. Congress in the meantime is getting funded restless, and the CBW program is seven or the years eight past lavishly encountering its first major budget cuts. Proving Ground in Utah, killing thou- sands of sheep on a nearby ranch. The Army, insisting to the last that it couldnt connect the deaths to its nerve gas test, nonetheless paid damages to the ranch. Later came disclosure that the Army proposed shipping 27,000 tons of surplus mustard and nerve gas aboard 800 rail cars for a watery grave in the Atlantic. Under pressure from Congress, the Army heard recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and cross-countr- y . I dont think anything like a substantial group would want to eliminate our CBW program and leave us naked to our opponents in this field, Rep. George D. Mahon, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said in an interview. Its a very unpleasant business, but we also have ICBMs which can pulverize towns and cities, and kill tens of millions of people, and thats a pretty bad thought, too, Mahon added. Pentagon experts say they got what amounted to a directive to do more in developing gas and germ warfare when the House Committee on Science and Astronautics issued a report in 1959. That report concluded that the United States was seriously lagging in chemical and biological warfare expertise and urged that research be at least trebled from who Rep. Richard D. McCarthy, on the of the turn publicity glare helped Army's Atlantic disposal plan, is one of the chief congressional critics. On the Senate side, Charles E. Goodell, are and Gaylord Nelson, the most outspoken critics of CBW. The issues these weapons raise to Congress and the nation are too serious to let CBW spiral in secrecy any longer, Goodell said. The senators voted this week to ban procurement of delivery systems for lethal CBW agents, prohibit open air testing of nerve agents or any pathogenic biological organism, and guarantee consultation with Congress and foreign governments before deployment of CBW agents overseas. The Senate Armed Services Committee already has stripped $16 million from the CBW budget to halt research of new offensive chemical and biological weapons, but the program has strong support in the ., House. to kill es muscular contraction. There is also the older GA or Tabun nerve gas, a bit less potent, which the Soviets also began stocking after they seized a German poison factory in World War II. The United States has experimented or with psychochemicals extensively LSD-2BZ and but as such incapacitants has not developed one good enough to be a standard weapon. 5 In addition to the G types, the Army has a V series which, though not more deadly than the regular nerve gases, has the military advantage of poisoning their victims through the skin, rendering gas masks useless. defense budget. Military sources report the the level then of $35 million to $45 million per year. Pentagon authorities told a reporter the Soviet Union today possesses a stockpile of chemical weapons five to eight times as large as the United States. Further, the Soviets have stated on sev- e war eral occasions that the next would include all forms of weapons, chemical and biological included. Some of the analysts in Europe place a good deal of credence in this type of thing, a Pentagon planner said. People believe that If a large scale war comes in Europe, then chemicals would be used and they should have gas masks for their people. Chemical agents in the U.S. stockpile range from tear gases like those used by to CS, CN, DM police for riot control incapacitants that put men in a blank-faceto nerve stupor BZ wide-scal- d agents crops and vegetation. The standard U.S. nerve gas is said to be GB or Sarin, which kills man by inhibiting cholinerstease, the enzyme that relaxin Vietnam In the biological area, the Army is concerned with developing hardy strains of disease which would be resistant to an enemy's vaccines. These range from incapacitating maladies as the common cold, influenza and measles, to such lethal diseases of tularemia, smallpox, anthrax and the plague. The Pentagon has withheld CBW spending figures in the past and even congressional experts say some of the costs are cloaked, if not deliberately hidden, in the Recent incidents involving experiments, stocking, and disposal of CBW agents have increased public and congressional concern. weapons. Waj games, or the computerized calculation of conflicts, show that if you use conventional weapons and he uses conventional plus chemicals, then you lose, be said. U.S. forces would have to don protecmasks and suits. As a tive equipment result, he said, troops communicate poorly, maneuver slowly, fight weakly. Responding with chemical weapons forces the enemy into protective measures as well, and both sides then fight on relatively equal terms. Laird says the United States cannot turn to its nuclear missiles to deter a chemical biological attack because that would engage us in a much larger exchange. The U.S. chemical biological program is under review within the government and under attack from without. Recent incidents involving the militarys experiments, stocking and disposal of CBW agents have increased public and congressional concern. Last year, an aircraft laid down a cloud of nerve gas that missed its zone at Dug-wa- y experts man a command post during chemical warfare tests at Dugway Proving Ground. VX. The United States also has spent $190 million for herbicides and defoliants for use CBW spend- -' ing peaked at $355 million in the fiscal year ending last June 30, and for fiscal 1970 the Pentagon is seeking $270 million. The reduction is attributed to the fact that the Pentagon has the chemical production pipeline set, a buildup of stocks and defensive gear has been attained and the only need now is to maintain normal inventory replacements. Production of VX nerve gas stopped in 1957 and production of all nerve agents ceased last year, officials say. In fiscal 1968 the Pentagon spent $3 million on lethal CBW agents: this year no money is requested in that category. The research effort, according to the experts, topped out at $126 million in fiscal 1964. The Pentagon is seeking $88 million for fiscal 1970, but the elimination of $16 million on research of lethal CBW for offensive purposes drops that to $72 million. The United States is not a party to any treaty that prohibits or restricts the use in warfare of toxic or nontoxic chemical agents or of biological operations. Only Five Billion Years To Get On The Stick! I was sitting in those stands down at Cape Kennedy when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins took off for the moon, and as I watched that diminishing jet of white flame bend away into the cosmos it occuired to me that I had better get with it. All that I really . knew about astronomy was that if you say Star Light, Star and so on to. Bright the first star of evening you get your Money! wish, and if you can holler while a meteor is still Money! Money! blazing youve got it made. So I bought Dr. Robert Jastrows book Red Giants and White Dwarfs, and Im a changed man. Also a worried one. You see we have only 5 billion years to get out of this solar system. And its 6 trillion miles (thats 6 million million) to the nearest star. Alpha Centauri, where weve got a slim Chinamans chance of finding a planet we can tolerate. It's not that there aren't plenty of planets mankind would be haopy on. It's just I JENKIN LLOYD JONES that theyre way over yonder. Let the sun be the size of an orange. On that scale the earth is a grain of sand, circling at 30 feet. Pluto, the outermost planet, is another grain of sand 10 city blocks from the sun. On the same scale, the average distance between the stars is 2,000 miles. Our galaxy is thus a collection of oranges averaging 2,000 miles apart, but the diameter of the galaxy on this fanciful scale would still be 20 million miles. Our solar system is about three-fifth- s of the way out on this galaxy and we circle the center once very 200 million years. We look at the galaxy sideways and call it the Milky Way. There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy and if one out of 100.000 of them has a planet that receives about the same elements in its atmosphere as ours does there must be not less than a million bright prospects for human colonization in our own little circle. Not only that, but the Palomar Observatory can see about 10 billion other galaxies. So we have a lot of places to go. ature on the earths surface will rise to about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But theres the distance problem again. The Einstein theory claims that if a physical body ever reached the speed of light its mass would be infinite. Thus, a man traveling that speed would fill the whole universe, winch would be ridiculous for there would be no place to travel. So, suppose we finally discover how to poke along at half the speed of light, or about 93,000 miles a second. Thats still pretty good clip and it would take us 10 years to get to the nearest star and its presumed planetary system. So why go? We've got to go. You see, Jastrow explains, our solar system is about 4 billion years old. Our sun will probably last another 5 billion years. For the first 5 billion years everything will be hunky-dorand then awful things will begin to happen. the sun neas the end of its reserves of hydrogen it will slowly expand into a red giant, like Betelgeuse. It will swell to 100 As times its present diameter and the temper After a time things will be better, for as the sun burns its last reserves of helium, it will turn into a white dwarf and there will probably be a few million years when the temperature on earth will be comfortable again. But long before then all the seas and the atmosphere will have boiled away. The Mariner probes have just revealed that Mars is a hopeless bust, and it won't do us any good to poke around for new homes on Saturn or Jupiter or Neptune because theyll all be in the same boat. They might not bum up during the red giant years, but when the sun goes out like a smashed lightbulb theyve had it. Therefore, sometime during the next 5 billion years Jews and Arabs, Americans and Russians, Pakistanis and Hindus are going to have to quit clobbering each other and get started on the celestial Ark. Mankind will have to bring along so many sandwiches there won't be any room for knives and guns. It's a staggering thought, and that's why this summer I havent been worrying too much about poor Joe Namath having to sell this saloon or the mean things Mrs. Gallagher has been saying about Jackie Onassis. C h. in nun ifflr mm iWin |