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Campus "Unrest" demonstrations and consequences, 1970-1971

1971-11-12 American Report: Review of Religion and American Power Page 1

American REPORT 
REVIEW OF RELIGION AND AMERICAN POWER 

VOL. II, NO. 7   NOVEMBER 12, 1971

China Notebook 
Thoughts On Ending The Absurd
The China vote at the U.N. ends what Le Monde accurately called "the end of a long stalemate, and corrects an absurd situation...."

U.S. Strategy:
Talking to journalists, reading the verbatim reports coming out of the debate, plus hearing stories of the U.S's strategy, it appears that a fundamental mistake was made by the Nixon Administration. It tried to turn the issue of inclusion and exclusion of the two Chinas into a for or against the U.S vote. One European diplomat was reported as having said that the U.S tried to turn it into a "worldwide plebiscite for or against the U.S." It didn't work, Despite all the U.S. arm twisting - and apparently it included the White House itself - members of the U.N were not swayed.  

Two Chinas?
Another fundamental error in the U.S. strategy was that Taiwan itself supported a one China policy. Mr. Li of the Taiwan delegation, speaking before the U.N., said, "The pro-Peiping delegations have much to say about the indivisibility of the Chinese nation. I am in complete agreement with them  on this point... even under conditions of a divided country the Chinese people have always been one and indivisible in their loyalty to a common heritage. When the opportunity presents itself, the Chinese people have never failed to reunify their country 
[Cont. p., col.]

Special Supplement 
Kent State 

On August 13, 1971, 15 months after four students were killed and nine others wounded at Kent State University by Ohio National Guardsmen, Attorney General John Mitchell announced that the Justice Department was closing its books on the case. 
The case may be closed for the Attorney General but the events surrounding Kent State remain a vital issue of the families of the killed and wounded and for thousands of American citizens. 
The Kent State tragedy and this Administration's attitude toward it symbolizes, in may ways, the essence f the American problem. In  this issue American Report, in a special 24 page supplement on Kent State addresses that problem.

Tower News Service
Supporters of the People's Republic of China demonstrate outside the United Nations. 

Pyrrhic Victory On The Bolovens

by T.D. Allman 

VIENTIANE (DNSI)- In a process that one diplomat here has called "escalating upstream while you de-escalate downstream," Laos had had to pay an increasingly high price for the Nixon Administration's decision to fight rather than negotiate its way out of the Indochina war. 
As the ground war in South Viet Nam has declined in importance, the struggle for control of the Laotian and Cambodian access routes to South Viet Nam has increased to the distress of both small nations. 
The latest part of Laos to be sacrificed to the test of wills between Hanoi and Washington is the Bolovens plateau, a 5,000 foot highland that rises like an island above some of the most important infiltration routes of Indochina.To the west of the plateau lies the American and Thai dominated Mekong valley. To the east of the plateau lies the Ho Chi Minh Trail and Se Khong River valley down which the North Vietnamese are expanding a major infiltration route into Cambodia. 
The situation in southern Laos and on the Bolovens has been deteriorating seriously ever since the outbreak of the Cambodian war, when North Viet Nam began reinforcing and expanding the Ho Chi Minh Trail and moved to protect it by seizing the plateau - which long had served as a base for C.I.A clandestine raids against communist supply lines. 
Over the last five months, American backed efforts, largely unnoticed, to retake the plateau and restore Laotian morale and the C.I.A. bases, however, have turned the Bolovens into the most costly battle in the Laotian war since the disastrous Government defeat at Nam Bac in early 1968. 
The Government side so far has suffered about 2,500 casualties, an enormous number for a country with a population of only about two million. Even more important, the attempts to retake the plateau have led to some of the most total violations of Laotian neutrality yet. The U.S. organized offensives have involved Thai and even Cambodian troops as well as the full arsenal of U.S. planes "military attaches," and C.I.A. "case officers"
The unnoticed costly little war in South Laos recently gained notoriety when the United States, in an extraordinary display of involvement here, in effect stage managed the Government reoccupation of the plateau's only town , Paksong. 
In the end, the Paksong operations bogged down like previous attempts despite round the clock intervention by U.S. planes and the numerical superiority of the Thai and Laotian troops. The main Government column stalled for weeks at a bridge 11 kilometers west of Paksong, by now deserted and of little military value.
Then deus ex machina, the United States intervened to give 
[Cont p.3, col. 1 ]

Air Force Academy Challenged. 
NEW YORK - The Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs will be the scene of a large antiwar teach in tomorrow. Now 3 according to four religious leaders speaking for Clergy and Laymen Concerned. Dr. Harvey Cox professor at Harvard Divinity School, has requested in a memorandum to the Superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy, Lieut. Gen. Albert T. Clark; the Commandant of Cadets, Brig. Gen. Walter Galligan; the Command Chaplain, Chaplain Col. John Denehy; and the Director of Cadet Chaplain Activities, Chaplain Col. Mervin R. Johnson that a "mandatory formation for the entire cadet wing" be held on Saturday morning, Nov. 13 in order that a program concerning "The Moral Aspects of the Continuing Air War in Indochina" could be presented. 
Cox, a member of the National Committee of Clergy and Laymen Concerned (CALC) said that he and Dr. David Hunter, Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Council of Churches' Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Director of Interfaith Activities for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; and Sister Mary Luke Tobin, Representative at large for the Sisters of Loretto have been asked by an affiliate group of CALC In Colorado to come to the Air Force Academy to assist in the teach in. 
Gen. Clark was quick to reply on behalf of the academy denying the request. This has, in turn, led to an additional message from the group of religious leaders involved. Hunter, Brickner, and Cox, all members of the National Committee of CALC telegrammed Clark asking that he meet with the Rev. Richard Fernandez national co-director of CALC, as soon as possible to "work out a way for our request to be granted."
In support of the original request Cox said, "We in the religious community have a special responsibility in this time when Pres. Nixon is asking us to accept a strange kind of moral calculus which is best depicted by the term "Vietnamization" Cox maintained. "We are being asked to accept the nation that Americans need not worry about the war in Indochina so long as only a few Americans are dying, even though there are more than 300 deaths a day in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam. We expect the President," Cox continued, "to continue this propaganda ploy in his speech which projected for Nov. 15"
In the letter that went to the 
[Cont p.7 col . 2]

Saving...

American REPORT REVIEW OF RELIGION AND AMERICAN POWER VOL. II, NO. 7 NOVEMBER 12, 1971 China Notebook Thoughts On Ending The Absurd The China vote at the U.N. ends what Le Monde accurately called "the end of a long stalemate, and corrects an absurd situation...." U.S. Strategy: Talking to journalists, reading the verbatim reports coming out of the debate, plus hearing stories of the U.S's strategy, it appears that a fundamental mistake was made by the Nixon Administration. It tried to turn the issue of inclusion and exclusion of the two Chinas into a for or against the U.S vote. One European diplomat was reported as having said that the U.S tried to turn it into a "worldwide plebiscite for or against the U.S." It didn't work, Despite all the U.S. arm twisting - and apparently it included the White House itself - members of the U.N were not swayed. Two Chinas? Another fundamental error in the U.S. strategy was that Taiwan itself supported a one China policy. Mr. Li of the Taiwan delegation, speaking before the U.N., said, "The pro-Peiping delegations have much to say about the indivisibility of the Chinese nation. I am in complete agreement with them on this point... even under conditions of a divided country the Chinese people have always been one and indivisible in their loyalty to a common heritage. When the opportunity presents itself, the Chinese people have never failed to reunify their country [Cont. p., col.] Special Supplement Kent State On August 13, 1971, 15 months after four students were killed and nine others wounded at Kent State University by Ohio National Guardsmen, Attorney General John Mitchell announced that the Justice Department was closing its books on the case. The case may be closed for the Attorney General but the events surrounding Kent State remain a vital issue of the families of the killed and wounded and for thousands of American citizens. The Kent State tragedy and this Administration's attitude toward it symbolizes, in may ways, the essence f the American problem. In this issue American Report, in a special 24 page supplement on Kent State addresses that problem. Tower News Service Supporters of the People's Republic of China demonstrate outside the United Nations. Pyrrhic Victory On The Bolovens by T.D. Allman VIENTIANE (DNSI)- In a process that one diplomat here has called "escalating upstream while you de-escalate downstream," Laos had had to pay an increasingly high price for the Nixon Administration's decision to fight rather than negotiate its way out of the Indochina war. As the ground war in South Viet Nam has declined in importance, the struggle for control of the Laotian and Cambodian access routes to South Viet Nam has increased to the distress of both small nations. The latest part of Laos to be sacrificed to the test of wills between Hanoi and Washington is the Bolovens plateau, a 5,000 foot highland that rises like an island above some of the most important infiltration routes of Indochina.To the west of the plateau lies the American and Thai dominated Mekong valley. To the east of the plateau lies the Ho Chi Minh Trail and Se Khong River valley down which the North Vietnamese are expanding a major infiltration route into Cambodia. The situation in southern Laos and on the Bolovens has been deteriorating seriously ever since the outbreak of the Cambodian war, when North Viet Nam began reinforcing and expanding the Ho Chi Minh Trail and moved to protect it by seizing the plateau - which long had served as a base for C.I.A clandestine raids against communist supply lines. Over the last five months, American backed efforts, largely unnoticed, to retake the plateau and restore Laotian morale and the C.I.A. bases, however, have turned the Bolovens into the most costly battle in the Laotian war since the disastrous Government defeat at Nam Bac in early 1968. The Government side so far has suffered about 2,500 casualties, an enormous number for a country with a population of only about two million. Even more important, the attempts to retake the plateau have led to some of the most total violations of Laotian neutrality yet. The U.S. organized offensives have involved Thai and even Cambodian troops as well as the full arsenal of U.S. planes "military attaches," and C.I.A. "case officers" The unnoticed costly little war in South Laos recently gained notoriety when the United States, in an extraordinary display of involvement here, in effect stage managed the Government reoccupation of the plateau's only town , Paksong. In the end, the Paksong operations bogged down like previous attempts despite round the clock intervention by U.S. planes and the numerical superiority of the Thai and Laotian troops. The main Government column stalled for weeks at a bridge 11 kilometers west of Paksong, by now deserted and of little military value. Then deus ex machina, the United States intervened to give [Cont p.3, col. 1 ] Air Force Academy Challenged. NEW YORK - The Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs will be the scene of a large antiwar teach in tomorrow. Now 3 according to four religious leaders speaking for Clergy and Laymen Concerned. Dr. Harvey Cox professor at Harvard Divinity School, has requested in a memorandum to the Superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy, Lieut. Gen. Albert T. Clark; the Commandant of Cadets, Brig. Gen. Walter Galligan; the Command Chaplain, Chaplain Col. John Denehy; and the Director of Cadet Chaplain Activities, Chaplain Col. Mervin R. Johnson that a "mandatory formation for the entire cadet wing" be held on Saturday morning, Nov. 13 in order that a program concerning "The Moral Aspects of the Continuing Air War in Indochina" could be presented. Cox, a member of the National Committee of Clergy and Laymen Concerned (CALC) said that he and Dr. David Hunter, Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Council of Churches' Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Director of Interfaith Activities for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; and Sister Mary Luke Tobin, Representative at large for the Sisters of Loretto have been asked by an affiliate group of CALC In Colorado to come to the Air Force Academy to assist in the teach in. Gen. Clark was quick to reply on behalf of the academy denying the request. This has, in turn, led to an additional message from the group of religious leaders involved. Hunter, Brickner, and Cox, all members of the National Committee of CALC telegrammed Clark asking that he meet with the Rev. Richard Fernandez national co-director of CALC, as soon as possible to "work out a way for our request to be granted." In support of the original request Cox said, "We in the religious community have a special responsibility in this time when Pres. Nixon is asking us to accept a strange kind of moral calculus which is best depicted by the term "Vietnamization" Cox maintained. "We are being asked to accept the nation that Americans need not worry about the war in Indochina so long as only a few Americans are dying, even though there are more than 300 deaths a day in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam. We expect the President," Cox continued, "to continue this propaganda ploy in his speech which projected for Nov. 15" In the letter that went to the [Cont p.7 col . 2]