Correspondents' Correspondence

...Instead, Japanese customarily bear a situation until they reach a breaking point...

...We have 65 per cent control of vehicle exhaust in America," he said...

...Lesser threats are the loss of one's position on the housing list or on the list for a subsidized vacation...

...Industrial workers, meanwhile, have been faced with new demands for "labor discipline," which can mean, "Shape up or lose your permit to live in the city...

...Differences of opinion, often quite sharp, do exist of course, but they cannot be so easily labeled and have undergone a variety of changes in recent weeks—in the Cabinet as well as among the people generally...

...In separate radio interviews September 5, General Dayan, usually described as a "hawk" in the foreign press, and Foreign Minister Abba Eban, generally considered a "dove," spoke with virtually one voice about not talking peace while the Egyptians improved their war potential...

...Gunnar V. Jarring...

...Although the repealer passed the Senate that same day by unanimous voice vote, the radical Left and black militants remain apprehensive...

...Further, even though the Nixon Administration ultimately supported the Inouye bill (stating that repeal would outweigh "any potential advantage the act may provide in a time of internal security emergency"), its enthusiasm for repeal has been noticeably weak...

...Last year's agency report made the very same point, and drew a negative reaction from Finance Minister Takeo Fukuda (a leading candidate to succeed Prime Minister Eisaku Sato...

...People ask, "Why do we have to help all the Cubans, the Egyptians and the Africans, when we don't have enough for ourselves...

...Nothing happened...

...We have no tradition of organized social protest such as one sees in America," says pollution expert Tokue Shibata, a professor of economics at Tokyo Metropolitan University...

...There are historic reasons for the extreme nature of Japanese reactions to social stress...

...Michael Berger Soviet Price Tags Moscow—The talk of the Soviet Union right now is that the price of cognac has doubled:A typical domestic brand costs 10 rubles, and the best brand costs 20...

...In Tokyo, they have zero...

...While there is no cost-of-living index in the Soviet Union, occasional price cuts are well publicized...

...A decade and a half later, the "concentration camp" specter had been virtually forgotten when the New Left, nervous about real and imagined repression, resurrected it...

...even the most perfunctory guarantees of the Geneva Convention, such as regular delivery of mail and food parcels, are denied them...

...Under its authority, the President or his agents could "detain" persons "if there is reasonable ground to believe that such a person will engage in or probably will with others engage in acts of espionage or sabotage...

...The public at large also reacted with mixed feeling to the Rogers proposals...

...Moreover, Arab regimes—including military ones—seem to have a minimal regard for the lives, let alone the well-being, of their soldiers...

...Waste from a paper mill was fouling the Edo River in Tokyo, and fishermen in the basin area complained for months...

...Finally, early in 1969, Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D.-Ha...

...Paul Krassner's magazine, the Realist, was among the first to write about "actual concentration camps in America" some four years ago...

...Indeed, this is rapidly attaining a folkloric dimension equal to that of the "rules of revolution," attributed to Lenin by the American Right...

...Yet such acts do little to end the frustrating bureaucratic conflict over responsibility for policing industry, nor do they help to institute a viable system of controls—one not dictated by the powerful business interests...

...While the "rules" are patently spurious, however, the concern about "concentration camps" stems from the "emergency detention" provision of the Internal Security Act of 1950...

...It was the third item that worried civil libertarians and New Leftists alike...

...Although the Nixon Administration has since corroborated the installation of sam-2 and sam-3 missile batteries along the Suez Canal front line, Israelis have been chastened by the sequence of events...

...In May 1968...

...3) insurrection within the United States in the aid of a foreign enemy...

...Michitaka Kaino, head of Tokyo's Environmental Pollution Study Group...

...Japan's major sources of pollution are industrial wastes and carbon exhausts from the nearly 2 million automobiles which strangle its inadequate roads...

...Wages in the Soviet Union have risen faster than productivity in the last five years, because the economic planners placed heavier stress on money incentives...

...Another situation peculiar to the Japanese is the complex network of tiny shops, lofts and almost-hidden work areas scattered throughout Japanese cities, producing industrial goods but uncontrolled by industrial laws...

...history, moreover, was accomplished without the authority of any legislation whatsoever...

...For instance, the people of Soviet cities seem to be somewhat better clothed each year, particularly the young...

...Last year, 130 people died from cadmium poisoning caused by a smeltery in Toyama prefecture...

...Though Tokyo's garbage disposal and sewage treatment facilities are superior to those of most American cities, the lack of underground canals (only 36 per cent of the city has them) lead to another kind of pollution—odor...

...Wounded Israeli captives are now frequently beaten, and fail to receive proper medical attention...

...Popularly known as the McCarran Act, it was passed over President Truman's veto at a time when fear of domestic Communism was at its height, despite his warning that the law "would strike blows at our own liberties...

...The only chance for exchange, it appears, comes when the Arab prisoner happens to belong to an influential family that is in a position to put effective pressure on the government to obtain his release...

...Rumors of a change in the value of the ruble do sometimes spring up (based on past experience, this would mean a rise in the general price level), but so far have been officially denied, and slightly higher factory wages are promised for the year ahead...

...Hearings have been held, but Justice Department officials have not— after eight months—managed to make it up the Hill to testify...

...Once it did, though, mail from "concerned citizens" to their congressmen picked up...

...Yet on August 4, Cairo papers reported he was in good shape, and printed his post-capture photograph...

...they note, a report by the House Un-American Activities Committee (now called the House Internal Security Committee) cited possible use of detention camps for "black nationalists and Communists...

...Finally, it may be coincidence, or again it may not, but it has been observed here that reports of prisoner maltreatment, and of illegal efforts to extort military information from them, have increased almost simultaneously with the mounting Soviet military involvement in Egypt.—Eliahu Salpeter Durable Rumor Washington—The tendency of the radical Left to see the "totalitarian instincts" of the Federal government insidiously at work everywhere has breathed new life into one of the country's more durable rumors—the existence of secret prison compounds for political dissidents and minority groups...

...When the repealer came up for Senate floor action last December 22, Inouye said: "I introduced this measure when I became aware of the widespread rumors circulated throughout our nation that the Federal government was readying concentration camps to be filled with those who hold unpopular views and beliefs...

...Inouye's use of the phrase "by birth" apparently referred to the placing of Japanese-Americans in detention camps during World War II, which his constituents have not forgotten...

...At the same time, although strenuous efforts have been made to keep life away from the battle lines as normal as possible, three years of living in a state of war had taken its psychological and physical toll...

...But one hears grumbling that the price tag on new clothing exceeds the additional value of the quality improvement...

...I've done a good bit of traveling about this country in recent weeks, and heard considerable complaining about prices and shortages...

...Lest one suspect that the reports are government-inspired, it should be noted that Israeli newspapers must struggle to extract the disheartening details of this maltreatment from military authorities...

...This year, the wailing families of industrial poisoning victims tried to storm the hearing rooms where compensation amounts were being discussed, and there were angry threats...

...But the need to in some degree mitigate the grumbling is causing further delay in the development of the next five-year economic plan...

...Spirits started to rise...

...One dramatic incident occurred earlier this summer, when the president of a mining company reacted to adverse publicity by committing suicide, accepting blame in classic Japanese fashion for the pollution caused by his firm...

...Indeed, there is growing evidence that the Egyptians, desperate and furious with their pilots' record of repeated defeats and hoping to discover the "secret" of Israel's qualitative air superiority, are using increasingly brutal methods to extricate military information...

...Then came Egypt's violation of the cease-fire agreement signed last August 7. Far more devastating than the actual first violations, however, was Washington's refusal to recognize them, apparently out of fear of torpedoing the peace talks opening under the auspices of United Nations Special Envoy Dr...

...Unfortunately, there is little Israel can do other than hope to mobilize world-wide support for urging Egypt and Syria to exchange prisoners, or at least assure their humane treatment...

...Thus they exhibit no interest in effecting an exchange of prisoners, no matter how advantageous the ratio offered...

...introduced legislation for repeal of the law...

...Since its December passage by the Senate, the bill has been languishing before the House Internal Security Committee...

...A May 28 letter from Chairman Richard Ichord (D.-Mo...

...Life is pretty good these days," a Russian—dressed like an American workman of the 1930s—will say to a foreign visitor, expecting to hear in response that indeed it is...

...Added to these reasons for Israel's reluctance to rush the investigation and release of the Algerians is the increasing number of reports about Arab—and particularly Egyptian—abuse of Israeli prisoners of war...

...Because the subterranean reports were often embellished with colorful hyperbole, and because Establishment journals generally ignored the subject, the question of legally-sanctioned concentration camps in the U.S...

...Israel has repeatedly indicated its readiness to trade the 69 Egyptian and 39 Syrian pows held here for the 13 Israeli captives in Egypt and the two in Syria, yet neither Cairo nor Damascus has considered this a worthwhile trade...

...While hardly a hotbed of civil libertarians, the committee seemed agreeable to repeal before encountering Administration foot-dragging...

...Higher prices usually appear on new merchandise...

...Public bathhouses, for example, are still a common sight in all Japanese cities...

...Some Israelis recall that Algeria itself set the airline kidnapping industry into high gear in 1967, when it not only welcomed the highjackers of former Congolese Premier Moise Tshombe's plane but held him in prison until he finally died...

...to Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, who earlier gave the department's lukewarm endorsement, received no response...

...At that time, Fukuda and other government leaders demanded—and got—alterations in the report's "overemphasis" on ecological hazards...

...And I am afraid we are reaching that point in the case of pollution...

...Of the 13 Israelis held by the Egyptians, four have never been permitted to meet with a representative of the International Red Cross, although the organization's right of unannounced visits is among the most fundamental safeguards in the Geneva Convention...

...Even in Hokkaido, the largely undeveloped northern island, the lakes are contaminated and smog can be seen regularly in the capital city, Sapporo, site of the 1972 Winter Olympics...

...A White Paper released by the Economic Planning Agency this summer warned of a deteriorating environment, but what will be done about it remains to be seen...

...Edward Stockton, former director of pollution control in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was shocked when he came to Tokyo this spring...

...Apparently the committee will not take the initiative and report the bill without visible backing from the Administration...

...did not immediately receive the full attention of liberals, minority groups and the mass media...

...With time waning in this session, and with House members anxious to get back to their districts for campaigning, the odds grow greater that the 1950 statute will remain on the books—sustaining the "concentration camp" rumor.—Carrol W. Cagle Postmiracle Pollution Tokyo—The Japanese are choking on their gnp...

...Until it does, we'll have only temporary, stop-gap measures, and that is a dangerous situation...

...Israeli Reality Jerusalem—The tendency of foreign correspondents to report Cabinet debates here in "hawk-dove" terms is giving outsiders a distorted view of Israel's current mood...

...Of course, no one expects any popular political pressure to be mounted against Soviet foreign aid...

...Prime Minister Golda Meir recently disclosed that wounded Israelis imprisoned in Egypt shun painkillers and sedatives, suspecting that they contain drugs "to loosen the tongue" as they ease the suffering...

...Prime Minister Golda Meir did virtually the same, except in reverse order (the difference between the two major Cabinet figures being more a matter of subtlety than substance...

...2) a declaration of war by Congress...

...Lead poisoning from the massive vehicle exhaust fumes threatens several areas of Tokyo...

...in one district, animals can actually be seen coughing and gagging on the rancid air...

...Fear of internment, I believe, lurks for many of those who are by birth or choice not 'in tune' with the rest of the country...

...The 1950 measure gave the President power to proclaim an "internal security emergency" in the event of: (1) invasion of the United States or any of its possessions...

...An overwhelming emphasis on economic growth at the expense of environmental controls has polluted Japan's air, dirtied its waters and made an already congested land seem even more oppressive...

...Defense Minister Moshe Dayan expressed grave reservations, but concluded that Israel could not afford to unconditionally reject the efforts of its most important (and perhaps only) ally...

...When the price of vodka recently went up a ruble a pint, the increase was accompanied by a propaganda campaign urging people to drink less vodka and switch to wine and cognac...

...Further complicating the ecological imbalance are factors peculiar to Japan...

...Most people seem convinced that the crushing insecurity of workers in the West is far worse than a few shortages amid total security here...

...Jerusalem's worst fears seemed to be confirmed late last month when the Egyptians announced that an Israeli pilot shot down over Egypt on August 3 died in a prison hospital the very next day, "after a heart attack...

...I don't have the heart to tell him how far his country is behind neighboring Finland, let alone the United States.—Irwin M. Chapman...

...Though the drift toward the present environmental crisis has been apparent for a decade, only recently has the Japanese public begun to demand action...

...Already this year three people have killed themselves (one woman in Osaka murdered her three small children as well) after breaking under the strain of noise neurosis...

...For some of Japan's citizens, the noxious byproducts of the postwar "miracle" have had a fatal effect...

...These rumors . . . are believed in many urban ghettoes as well as by those dissidents who are at odds with many of the policies of the United States...

...His repealer was cosponsored by 25 senators and received broad public support, especially after memories were refreshed...

...The cost of small-screen television sets, for example, has just been reduced...

...The deafening clamor of modern urban life has created a new phrase in Japanese— sohno noirose (noise neurosis...

...similar articles began to crop up in underground papers shortly thereafter...

...The official euphemism applied to a consumer item in short supply, "deficit," seems to be pronounced with greater impatience...

...Much of Japan's most expensive green tea crop has been ruined this year by pesticides...

...Since prices for most manufactured goods are uniform throughout the country, they are frequently printed on the labels or, where items are made of metal or plastic, even molded or stamped into them...

...Traditional, and current, Arab ideas about the rights of prisoners—be they French, British, Israeli, or other Arabs—are far from the standards set by the Red Cross...

...Party chief Brezhnev has already announced new measures to stimulate farm production, and additional investment in agricultural machinery...

...for the average factory worker, this represents two or four days pay, respectively...

...Every day these businesses dump chemically tainted water into local canals, add to the smog problem, and tack on a few decibels to a frightening level of noise pollution...

...Still, the fact remains that the grumbling is no more serious than the griping on a U.S...

...The first large-scale, but isolated, violence erupted ten years ago...

...over a 17-year period, 45 people have been killed and 71 permanently disabled by poisonous mercury emissions from a chemical plant in Minamata, on the southern island of Kyushu...

...Ironically, one of the detained Algerians, Major Khalid Jaloul, appears to have been directly involved in the interrogation of the abducted Israelis two years ago...

...The mass incarceration that marked this sordid chapter of U.S...

...The government does not think in long-range terms," charges Dr...

...Initial reaction to Secretary of State William P. Rogers' Middle East peace plan, for example, fell into three fairly predictable categories: Menachem Beigin and his Gahal party supporters saw it as the beginning of a slow erosion of Israel's post-1967 position, and decided to quit the government rather than support the plan...

...Special trucks collect an average of 2,000 tons of human waste each day...

...Army post...

...The supply of consumer goods, however, has not expanded to the point where, in a market economy, inflation would result...

...What outsiders fail to understand," explained an Israeli, "is that we cannot afford the luxury of hawks and doves...

...Finally, one night they grabbed knives, poles and rocks, marched on the mill, broke it open, and destroyed it...

...There are thousands in Tokyo alone, and their wood furnaces contribute greatly to the layer of smoke now usually found hanging over the capital...

...The mood here now is extremely sober, with people of almost all political persuasions approving the government's decision to temporarily withdraw from the Jarring sessions...

...Sarai Elana POW Abuse Tel Aviv—People here find it a little difficult to commiserate with the Algerian government over the detention of two of its citizens, reportedly senior secret service officials, after their arrival at Lydda airport on a regularly scheduled stopover between the Far East and Europe...

...If hardly anyone believed peace was really attainable, and more people shared Beigin's fears than might be suspected, the cease-fire nevertheless was a welcome relief and Israelis began allowing themselves to hope...

...And most Israelis, of course, remember that the first El Al airliner ever skyjacked was also taken to Algeria—which released the 12 Jewish passengers and crew only after a two-month detention, and in exchange for 16 Arab terrorists held in Israel's jails for murder and sabotage...