NOTES IN THE NEWS
Notes in the News Subsidies for the Wealthy Sunflower County, Mississippi, is much maligned, as its most prominent citizen, Senator James O. Eastland, has frequently complained. It is often cited...
...Rarick inserted them with this accolade: "Syndicated columnist John J. Synon has detailed a factual report of the frightening death of a midwestern city— Gary, Indiana...
...This is extraordinary...
...troops on the ground...
...I think it never happened before that a dictatorship has no arms of its own, no force, doesn't represent any part of public opinion...
...One of the farms so favored, a modest 5,235-acre tract called Eastland Plantation, Inc., received $157,930 in 1967 as a grateful Government's token of appreciation for not planting cotton...
...development aid loans to Peru for the current fiscal year because of President Fernando Belaunde Terry's decision to buy supersonic jet fighter planes from France...
...It should be emphasized that these payments are not for food produced or for services rendered, but rather are payments not to cultivate the land...
...Already initial tests have resulted in cracked plaster, broken windows and tumbling bric-a-brac, though studies on structural damage are so far inconclusive...
...After the bill was passed, President Johnson lambasted the weakness of the firearms provisions, noting that firearms are used in 6,500 U.S...
...Synon, said the Senator, is not listed in the directories of syndicated writers...
...We do know that Mr...
...Although the American version, whose development costs are being borne by American taxpayers, is lagging about four years behind the European Concorde, the Boeing Company hopes ultimately to produce and sell 1,200 of the super-noisemakers...
...It bans mail-order sales of handguns...
...His amendment to the 1969 agriculture appropriations bill is still pending, but a similar effort has already been rejected by the House...
...It could also be mentioned that three large mail-order firms have stopped selling all firearms through the mail...
...The official in charge of the SST project for the FAA has been quoted as saying that "the public will have to learn to accept sonic boom to a degree...
...Perils of the SST Despite technical difficulties and financial problems, both European and American developers of the supersonic transport plane are making steady progress toward production models...
...forces and expanded combat operations in Vietnam, his next action was predictable: Ten days afterward he yielded to conservative pressures in Congress by announcing he would accept a $6 billion budget cut in return for enactment of his proposed ten per cent surtax to finance the war and curb inflation...
...That family would be labeled welfare chiselers...
...They have become a monumental windfall for huge corporation farms—a windfall that enjoys the perennial support of many legislators who pride themselves on their cost-consciousness...
...Within two years or so, the travelerin-a-hurry may be able to fly comfortably from New York to Los Angeles in less than three hours, while inflicting acute discomfort—and perhaps lasting physical damage—on those left in the wake of the SSTs sonic boom...
...I can see no justification for these outlandish subsidy payments," Senator Williams said...
...We've got to have a tax bill...
...Two days before the President revealed he would accede to the $6 billion reduction, House liberals had sought to hold the slash to $4 billion, the figure Mr...
...While the President sacrifices more of his social program to the budget slashers in Congress, he says nothing about the scandalous loopholes in our tax laws...
...Representative Clarence D. Long, Maryland Democrat and one of the authors of the AID appropriations amendment, notes that "a country is perfectly free to divert its own resources from economic development to defense—but not U.S...
...More than a year later, that remains the least our Government can do...
...But when a farmer receives $100,000 for not growing who knows what, that is free enterprise...
...Treasury billions in needed revenue...
...Europe has changed, the Soviet military threat has eased, the monolithic Eastern "bloc" has fragmented, the new mobility of armed forces has rendered archaic the notion of a permanent U.S...
...Taking things as they are today, if billions must be cut from the budget to appease the dominant Tory bloc in Congress, reductions should be made in the proposed defense budget of $77.3 billion, the space program, the huge subsidies for corporate and other large farm operators, and in funds for the supersonic transport...
...Helen Vlachos, the conservative Greek publisher now in exile in London...
...Contrary to what many believe," the Senator said, "the boom follows continuously in the track of a plane moving faster than the speed of sound, and may be as much as fifty to eighty miles wide throughout a supersonic flight...
...Racism in the Record Some of the most viciously slanderous reading published anywhere in the country can be found in the pages of the Congressional Record, inserted there by the hard-core bigots of Congress at the taxpayers' expense...
...Senator Clifford P. Case, New Jersey Republican, is one of the few members of Congress to have spoken out on the possible penalties we all may pay for this piece of progress...
...To maintain six divisions in Europe while Americans are being asked to help their nation by deferring foreign travel is preposterous...
...The Federal Aviation Administration has chosen for itself the role of advocate rather than regulator...
...murders each year, compared with thirty in England and thirty-seven in Japan...
...We do know that Mr...
...Overland SST flights, he recently warned, may prove to be more than a nuisance —they may be intolerable...
...When he testified on the 1969 defense budget, former Defense Secretary Robert S. Mc-Namara acknowledged that "the willingness of the United States to fulfill its obligations [in NATO] should no longer be in question, quite apart from the presence or absence of a particular number of U.S...
...Fifteen more "farmers" in seven states received subsidies of $500,000 or more, and about 400— including Senator Eastland—received Federal payments of at least $100,000...
...The measure deserves speedy enactment...
...Meanwhile, readers are advised to be vigilant and remember that even if a "fact" comes from the Congressional Record, "it ain't necessarily so...
...If faithfully enforced, the provision could bring a halt to the wasteful and dangerous arms race in Latin America...
...They reflect the public mood better than the public's own representatives in Washington...
...To cut a single dollar out of the grossly inadequate total of U.S...
...In a dispatch from Lima to The New York Times, Malcolm W. Browne reports that "many observers believe that the possession of a jet air force is important to Peru more for reasons of national pride than military necessity...
...Because he steadfastly opposes legislation that would aid the poor, he has been labeled a foe of Federal giveaways...
...Should Congress fall short of legislating the $6 billion cutback, President Johnson would be faced with making reductions still needed to meet the "economy" quota...
...At this moment NATO is protecting the junta...
...The wrath in Lima is the result of a decision by the Agency for International Development to halt all U.S...
...These people are using NATO as though it was their own police force...
...When the colonels seized power in the spring of 1967, establishing Europe's first new fascist regime in thirty years, The Progressive pointed out that "the weapons and other military equipment employed to smash what had survived as democracy in Greece were provided largely by the United States as part of our dedication to strengthen the 'free world.' The least our Government can do now is to stop at once the flow of arms to a military junta which brutally opposes everything America says it stands for...
...Dangerous 'Economy' When President Johnson asked Congress for a $3.9 billion supplemental appropriation, most of it to pay for increased U.S...
...Until such an investigation is completed to the satisfaction of Congress, the Case bill would categorically ban non-military supersonic flights over the United States, and its territories and possessions...
...carriers—have ordered some 200 SSTs to date...
...Extremists quote from it frequently in an effort to create an aura of respectability for some of their most savage propaganda efforts...
...Senator Eastland, too, is much maligned...
...Some liberal Representatives have proposed that Mr...
...counter-strike force" staMurder by Mail The so-called gun-control provision [of the new anti-crime legislation] alone is a mockery...
...The net foreign exchange cost to the United States is placed at more than $800 million...
...The airlines will have a heavy investment in SSTs, and they can be expected to try to recoup it by flying the planes at all hours over every route the traffic will bear...
...Payments of more than $1.2 million each also went to the U.S...
...Chicago Sun-Times June 8, 1968 tioned in Europe...
...Arms for Fascists Secretary of Defense Clark M. Clifford, profoundly concerned about Greece's role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, profoundly indifferent about democracy's role in Greece, has urged Congress to resume full military assistance to the junta that holds sway in Athens...
...Cost of the jet fighters has been estimated at up to $55 million—not counting such accompanying hardware as missiles, which the French are reportedly also ready to sell to Peru...
...There has been a brief flurry of resistance to budget butchery in the House...
...The obligations imposed on us by the NATO alliance are far more important than the kind of...
...Last year, three California agricultural complexes—the Rancho San Antonio, the J. G. Bos-well Company, and South Lake Farms ¦—received a total of $8,259,579 in farm subsidies...
...Roving gangs of black criminals hold the town in thrall," Synon wrote...
...social, welfare, and anti-pollution programs is inhuman enough...
...funds...
...Vlachos said, "entirely because of NATO power—NATO money, NATO weaponry, NATO jam in the morning, NATO suits—NATO everything you see...
...More than forty world airlines— including major U.S...
...For going ahead with the plane purchase, Peru stands to lose $37.5 million in American loans for general budgetary support as well as specific economic development projects...
...Johnson take the initiative and submit an itemized list of where the reductions should be made—as a means of saving a greater portion of welfare and other social programs than conservative and reactionary House and Senate members would permit if they wield the ax...
...It is, indeed, and Senator Eastland, for one, knows just how sweet it is...
...The precise cost of the U.S...
...government they have in Greece or what we think of it," Secretary Clifford told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...
...Nor should U.S...
...Three days after the Rarick insertion, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana rose in the Senate and blistered Synon, his articles, and the two Congressmen...
...It ranks near the bottom on almost every national indicator of human welfare...
...The House and Senate might, at the least, establish such minimum standards for insertions of "articles" in the Record as a requirement that the authors and place of publication be properly identified...
...Johnson had previously accepted...
...Far more is involved than the shattering affront to the ears...
...The junta survives, Mrs...
...A contrary view—and a far more persuasive one—was expressed recently by Mrs...
...Do we really need all those American atomic missile battalions in northern Italy, with their short-range missiles...
...It is often cited as a wretched backwater of poverty, ignorance, and disease...
...The principle of opposition to "unnecessary military expenditures" is a sound one, and The Progressive hopes to see it applied to other nations as well as to Peru...
...Yet Sunflower County is a prime participant in one of the more generous Federal welfare programs—one that sustains, as it happens, the welfare of the county's rich plantation owners...
...The kind of government they maintain at the moment" in Greece is one of mass political arrests and tortures, of stringent censorship and rule by military fiat...
...Of course we don't...
...NATO forces is a secret known only to the Pentagon, but educated estimates current on Capitol Hill suggest that $2.5 billion a year is being spent on this "deterrent" whose efficacy—if it ever had any—lapsed many years ago...
...Some 350,000 U.S...
...Senator Case has introduced legislation that would authorize a "full and complete" two-year investigation of the possible detrimental effects of sonic booms...
...Specifically, he proposed a $10,000 ceiling on the amount to be paid to any individual under the farm subsidy program...
...The series entitled "Gary: A City Without Hope," was placed in the Congressional Record twice, on May 9 by Representative James B. Utt, California Republican, and on May 21 by John R. Rarick, Louisiana Democrat...
...Those Six Divisions A bizarre aspect of the current bal-ance-of-payments and budgetary crises is the stubbornness with which both the Administration and a majority of Congress cling to the costly and obsolete "commitment" of six American divisions stationed in Europe as part of the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization...
...Such devices as the oil depletion allowance, the capital gains formula, and those "foundation" rackets that mask tax-dodging schemes cost the U.S...
...What we do not know," Senator Bayh continued, "is why two Members of Congress would deliberately place in the Congressional Record articles written by such a man without giving us the benefit of his credentials, and describe him only as 'a syndicated columnist.' What we do not know is why Representative Rarick would describe these reports as 'factual.' " The increasing use by extremist members of Congress of the Congressional Record as a transmission belt for bigotry and far-right views must become a matter of major concern to the full membership of the House and Senate...
...Representative George H. Mahon, the Texas Democrat who heads the House Appropriations Committee, said after the vote that his Committee could not possibly whittle enough out of various money bills to reduce the budget for the new fiscal year by the $6 billion figure which had won approval of both House and Senate...
...Yet every effort to bring the troops home has met with vacillation in the Administration and defeat in Congress...
...She believes that if NATO assistance were withdrawn from the Greek colonels, it would be the junta —not the Alliance—that would disintegrate...
...For example, None Dare Call It Treason, the paperback volume written by John Stormer and distributed in huge quantities to smear President Johnson in the 1964 campaign, cited scores of items taken from the Congressional Record...
...Farm subsidies were conceived, of course, as a form of assistance for small farmers...
...Unless the Administration has lost all touch with reality, including such grim facts as urban riots born of poverty, unemployment, and wretched housing in city ghettos, the presence of ten million Americans suffering from hunger and malnutrition, and the widespread pollution of air and water, it surely realizes that billions of dollars more are needed to begin to deal with these problems...
...On a single flight across the United States, the experts believe, as many as ten to twenty million persons may be boomed by a su-personically operated SST...
...But any madman still will be able to buy a rifle or shotgun through the mails...
...This move, he calculated, would save the Treasury $600 million a year...
...funds rush in to fill the gap...
...To put it more bluntly, Peru needs jet fighters about as badly as a moose needs a hat rack...
...military personnel, accompanied by more than 200,000 dependents, continue to be maintained on the continent at taxpayers' expense...
...AID's decision to bar the loans was made under an amendment to the 1968 foreign aid appropriations bill which requires the United States to reduce economic aid by an amount equal to the money spent by a developing nation on advanced weapons, such as jets or missiles...
...Even The Syndicates, the world's hitherto toughest, avoid crossing lances with this new breed of cut-throat and Mayor Hatcher seems unwilling to vigorously prosecute the murderous acts of the apes...
...At least seventy-five thousand copies of the Record are distributed around the country and some material in it is widely reprinted...
...The House disagreed, 129-to-79...
...Think of what an outcry there would be if a mother on welfare with a dozen children in New York were to receive anything like $10,000 in welfare payments," Ryan said...
...In budget and tax matters, as in so many other areas, the Administration has not only lowered the Great Society flag, it has permitted Congress to cut down the flagpole...
...Sugar Corporation of Hendry County, Florida, and the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company of Honolulu...
...Clifford assured the Senators that "we can play a greater part in helping Greece to get constitutional government if we continue our military aid than if we stop it...
...Apparently they are untouchable...
...Synon used to be a lobbyist in the pay of Portugal...
...But Mr...
...But to consider cuts of millions or billions in these areas while the Administration at the same time increases funds budgeted for Vietnam and Korean military operations from $23.8 billion to $27.7 billion, is shocking evidence of the degree to which the Administration and the Congress are dominated by the military-industrial complex...
...To pay the costs of the NATO force while cutting back on essential domestic programs is nothing short of criminal...
...If our military aid to our allies was determined by the kind of government they maintain at the moment, then NATO would disintegrate...
...As a particularly poisonous example, we cite a series of four articles written by John J. Synon, purportedly describing conditions in Gary, Indiana, under the administration of its new mayor, Richard Hatcher, a black attorney...
...Senator John J. Williams, Delaware Republican, called these figures to the attention of his colleagues a few weeks ago, and suggested that they offer a natural opportunity for budget cutting...
...Even a $25,000 ceiling would result in a saving of $170 million...
...In fact, however, the Senator is a firm friend of the aforementioned welfare program—the Federal farm subsidy legislation that last year brought payments of more than $100,000 each to no fewer than nine of Sunflower County's plantations...
...Like many of its Latin American neighbors, Peru has made little effort to tax its wealthy upper class, Representative Long points out, and many of the Andean Indians who constitute half of Peru's population have a living standard "lower than when Columbus discovered America...
...More importantly, yet to be answered are such questions as the effect of the boom on persons with heart ailments, on surgeons in the midst of delicate operations, on sleeping people, on weak buildings, on mountains laden with snow or loose rocks, and on ancient geological formations—a few areas of deep concern...
...Almost two decades have passed since the United States entered into the six-division NATO commitment...
...Congress and the Administration have been inexcusably indifferent to the formidable problems posed by the SST...
...Synon was the salaried director of the National Putnam Letters Committee, an organization dedicated to the proposition that Negroes are biologically inferior to Caucasians...
...Representative William F. Ryan, New York Democrat, who spoke in support of the Findley amendment, noted that $10,000—the proposed ceiling—is a substantial sum of money as Federal welfare programs go...
...Both the balance of payments problem and the budget deficit would be substantially eased by bringing the NATO forces and their families home...
...We do know," the Indiana Democrat went on, "that Mr...
...Pointing with Pride Peruvians of many political persuasions are roundly denouncing the Government of the United States these days, but for once Americans have reason to be proud rather than apologetic...
...Senator Bayh called the articles "poison-pen letters from a warped and poisoned mind" that not only slandered Negroes but referred to Gary's white ethnic groups as "brawlers" and suggested that the city's Catholic women would vote for a Catholic for President at the behest of their church...
...Six billions could be cut from defense funds alone by such measures as withdrawal of four of our six divisions from Europe, realistic limitations on our offensive and defensive missile systems, reduction of the enormous waste in defense procurement, and the revival of Government renegotiation to check the runaway boom in war profiteering...
...Do we really need all those troops in Germany simply to maintain the 'credibility' of the NATO posture...
...The new mayor's staff was characterized by Synon as a "motley, mostly Negro entourage now cavorting at Gary's city hall...
...In time, it might even be applied to the United States...
...When members of Congress start enjoying those long, speedy flights, it will be too late...
...A $5,000 ceiling would save $1 billion...
...Synon was a lobbyist in the pay of the state of Mississippi to work against the civil rights bill of 1964...
...He exposed Synon's failure to give the sources of alleged quotes from local residents...
...Representative Henry S. Reuss, Wisconsin Democrat, asked recently...
...They were defeated 259 to 137...
...If it were not for that domination, the war in Vietnam might have been settled long ago and the billions saved could have been assigned to America's urgent social needs...
...The sole purpose of the series, he said, "is to spread lies so as to inflame passions...
...The uninitiated would not know, of course, how many of these basically false items were inserted by right-wingers in Congress, often without a shred of evidence to support the wild charges...
...It was sponsored by Representative Paul Findley, Illinois Republican, who said: "With a surtax in prospect, with everyone straining every ounce of energy trying to cut back on spending, I cannot think of a better, more logical, or more proper place to cut than to cut back these million-dollar or hundred-thousand-dollar payments to single recipients under the various farm programs...
...We'll do our best," he said...
...Neither Congressman indicated where or when these articles were published, if indeed they had been...
Vol. 32 • July 1968 • No. 7
