Letters to the Editor

"Double Standard in Vietnam"

TO THE EDITOR:

As one of those "other Dartmouth men" whomRobert J. Misch '25 was impelled to tel "what we are doing" in Vietnam, and as an active duty historian with full access to the facts and with personal (not secondhand) experience in the area, I would like to rebut his mishmash of distorted hearsay published in the April issue.

Thank God we have developed effective weaponsof which the "mini gun," napalm and thefamily of cluster bomb units are examples. The onlThe only trouble is that largely as a result of effective enemy propaganda we are so restricted in their use that U.S. lives are often wasted.

The mini designed and is used primarily for the breaking up of VC night attacks on friendly villages and outposts. It has been very successful and very many allied and U.S. soldiers are around today because of it. No helo gunner in his right mind would hose down a. rice paddy on the chance that the enemy might be there. If he did, he'd very shortly find himself without bullets since a light helo can only carry a couple of minutes of ammo for such a rapid fire weapon. Incidentally, it's hard to hide from a helicopter in a rice paddy. The stuff doesn't grow that high and the water is shallow. So either the VC are there or they aren't.

Contrary to all the outcries napalm is not used against villages (where general purpose bombs would be far more effective) but againstdug-in enemy positions such as trenches and bunkers. It is not this "most jingoist nation on earth" but the "peace loving"communist enemy who incinerates villages and villagers. See Time 12/15/67 for the "cold-blooded monumental murder" of 252 unarmed montagnard villagers, "almost all women and children" in Dak Son by VC flamethrowers.

The cluster bomb (CBU series) is the best thing that has happened in a long time for the pilots who are charged (within such an array of severe restrictions that they must carry into action lists of all the things they cannot do) with the reduction of North Vietnam's capacity to sustain its aggression against the South. Those pilots daily face the most formidable anti-aircraft defenses that have ever existed and the CBU is a potent weapon against enemy gun and missile sites. This is the reason for the communist outcry against it - which Mr. Misch and others have helpfully picked up and are repeating.

Forward Air Controllers are among the bravest and most competent men in the field. Their very purpose is the accurate control of bombing and artillery fire so that only the identified target is hit and as little else as possible. They risk their lives in light, slow, vulnerable planes at tree-top altitude for just this purpose. It would be far easier and less hazardous simply to plaster an enemy area with bombs or shells, but the tight "rules of engagement" with which we have saddled ourselves will not permit it. Even around Khe Sanh, jet planes circled until their fuel was nearly gone, unable to drop their bombs until an FAC was available to control them.

This "most jingoist nation on earth" has in fact broken all historical precedent in the restraints it has imposed on its own combatant forces - a contributing factor, if not the cause, of our failure to gain a military victory by now. And while we voluntarily restrict our actions and our weapons, the enemy is restrained only by his capabilities. He can, and has, scooped the brains from the skull of a dead U.S. Marine and replaced them with an armed grenade in the hope of killing medical personnel who process the dead. He can, and has, herded villagers into a pagoda, firing at the FAC overhead from its window, and then pulled out while the resulting airstrike demolished it, enabling him to point out the atrocity to the world. He can, and has, systematically murdered or kidnapped 35,000 civilians to date, not including the 1000 killed, wounded or abducted in the futile attempt to smash last September's elections, nor the 1000 "executed" by bayonet, shooting and burial alive during the week he held most of the city of Hue.

"We are all in such a bind" because enemy (active and potential) propaganda has sold us on a double standard whereby all his actions are accepted and all our counteractions, especially our most effective ones, condemned.

Commander, USN

Staff, CINCPACFLT (12)

The Brig "Dartmouth"

TO THE EDITOR:

Congratulations to the Class of 1907 for donating Ruth Edwards' painting of the brig Dartmouth to the College!

Your readers may be interested to know that in addition to being commemorated on a bronze plaque in New Bedford, the Dartmouth is memorialized in the inscription "Dartmouth, Beaver, and Eleanor," painted across the lintel of the first-floor front of the Pacific Club building at the foot of Main Street on Nantucket Island. This building, once the Custom House, also served as the counting house of William Rotch, whose brother Francis, of New Bedford, owned the Dartmouth.

The Dartmouth, having discharged whale oil and cleaned ship, sailed with a cargo of tea from England on October 19, 1773. She arrived in Boston on November 29, and followed within a few days by the Beaver and the Eleanor. A fourth vessel, the William, made a bad approach to the coast and was wrecked on the "back side" of Cape Cod, and so missed the Boston Tea Party, which took place on December 14 1773. (See The Sea Hunters, by Edouard A. Stackpole.)

Pennsylvania State University

For "Positive Action"

TO THE EDITOR:

From The Undergraduate Chair in the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE of April 1968:

"He [Chris Kern '69] also turned up the fact that the current policy is aimed at 'flagrancy' - the open use of drugs and the attraction which comes with such use."

Now there's a paragraph for you! I'm not a trained logician but the corollary is pretty strongly implied; that where there is non-flagrancy there is non-policy. Or, to take it one step further - "as long as you keep it out of sight, policy will ignore your use of drugs. Just don't create an attraction!"

What's come over our College in the almost 23 years since I matriculated? There's the Carmichael thing; and the Wallace thing; and the Band thing; and the Parietal thing; and the "we want a deciding voice in our affairs (social and academic)" thing; and, now, a Dope thing. And a lot of other things (big and small) that appear all too frequently in the pages of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE.

And while participation in these things may involve only a small number of inhabitants of the "lunatic fringe," and while student endorsement of these things may come from an only slightly larger group that has always existed to support the "protesters" yet, the College Administration and thepassive majority of students apparently stand by, inferentially lending support by inaction.

I choose to believe that in the "old days' (way back 20 years ago), Palaeop and Green Key would have stopped these "things" in their tracks.

Grantedthat by college age a man is too old to be force-fed a new set of values or be molded into a more socially desirable citizen. Nevertheless, the College can and should establish an environment which discourages "lunatic" self-expression - provides, certainly, some freedom, but within the parameters of goodsense and common decern? And reports in the mass media notwithstanding, decencyremains widely common.

The College certainly must change - to reflectthe changing attitudes of Society. Bill for my money, the Vales of Academ should be slowing this change through Positive action,not accelerating it through inaction.

I literally mean "for my money. The year 1968 would represent my , consecutive contribution to the Alumni Fund. In thatsame time I have put in over ha those years as an ACA and have served severalterms in applicant interviewing, his most recent AF appeal, Elliot Bant asks if Dartmouth is worth one day a year. "For my money" it is not. Not if I have been correctly interpreting what I have read....

Midland, Mich.

Conservative Views Lacking

TO THE EDITOR:

Since graduating from Dartmouth in 1960, I have grown increasingly concerned over the inroads of socialist philosophy into our government and the centers of higher education. Proponents of free enterprise, individual responsibility, and private property - representative components of the system which has effected a release of human energy previously unknown to man and which has erased more poverty, hunger, and disease than any previous system ever devised - are called "extremist." Persons of this persuasion are frequently denied the opportunity to express their views through the mass media and, particularly, at the centers of higher education. Debate is often limited to minor variations of the same liberal point of view. I note with regret a trend in this direction at Dartmouth.

I regard my four years at Dartmouth as one of the great experiences of my life. I am deeply grateful to Dartmouth, and while in graduate school, I began to express that gratitude by acting as a class agent.

However, over the past few years I have watched the parade of leftists invited to Dartmouth who have come unchallenged and unbalanced by any similar representation of the qualified proponents of modern conservatism. Consequently, last year I reduced my alumni contribution to a token amount. Busy at the time with my dissertation, I failed to write in protest. After reading the latest '60 class newsletter, I am compelled to write.

What disturbs me is the following quote from that letter: "A most interesting schedule is being offered by the Dartmouth Experimental College.... Carl Oglesby, the College's first Tucker Fellow, and past National President of SDS, will also teach a course; this term's course in racism will be continued."

Knowing a little background of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), I am concerned that Dartmouth would invite such a man as Oglesby to teach. According to Mr. Hoover of the F.B.I, "One of the most effective means utilized by the Communist Party to reach the hearts, minds and souls of young people is through its 2-year-old youth front, the W.E.B. Dubois Clubs of America. This group, together with other so-called 'new left' organizations such as the Students for a Democratic Society, work constantly in furtherance of the aims and objectives of the Communist Party throughout the Nation."

One may fairly ask whether the quest for "academic freedom" means jeopardizing this nation's heritage of freedom. If not then why is Oglesby invited to teach at Dartmouth? I would not wish to support or send my children to a church that proudly paid the Devil himself to deliver guest sermons, particularly, if there were no rebuttal by a qualified man of the cloth.

It is fine to say that education involves exposure to a variety of views. Unfortunately, recent lists of campus speakers at Dartmouth lead me to believe that all views are not being fairly represented. Why not invite some qualified conservative businessmen, educators, and politicians to speak on campus about the merits of our free enterprise system?

Wilmington, Del.

An Important Article

TO THE EDITOR:

Joseph W. Bishop Jr. '36, Richard Ely Professor of Law at Yale, has an article in the May Harper's which deserves not only reading but re-reading. It is called, "The Reverend Mr. Coffin, Dr. Spock, and the ACLU," the sub-title is "Passions kindled by the Vietnam war have raised new and agonizing issues for an organization dedicated to defending the Bill of Rights."

It is an analysis of the bitter dissent among members and leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union on what kind of support should have been and should be given those indicted by a federal grand jury last January, charged with conspiracy to counsel evasion and violation of the Universal Military Training and Service Act.

This main issue is important and enlightening. It is sad, too, to see the ACLU apparently recasting the most quoted line from Voltaire. But the great secondary appeal is Mr. Bishop's wit and clarity shining on related subjects. For instance, Conscience, that lavishly used defense of almost anything today. Is it a better guide than the U.S. Con- stitution? Haven't people depending on it too exclusively done immeasurable harm? Look at the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Look at the Prohibitionists.

As for The New Clergy, "they say, in effect, what God would say if He understood the situation as well as they do." The writer goes on to explain why the ACLU has been more preoccupied with the liberties of the Far Left than the Far Right. He also gives a masterful accolade to the first ten Amendments, which have so successfully guarded our Democracy.

The wit that in part makes for such delightful and absorbing reading goes from the dry throw-away through the hilarious to the biting. But withal his excellent style and delicious humor, Mr. Bishop has very serious things to say to all of us, and, one could hope, will bring some fallacious and dangerous thinking to saving realities.

(Mrs. Clark Blyth '28)

San Luis Potosi, Mexico