European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 27, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 16 the stars and stripes Friday May 27, 1977 William Sarre advice to Columbia Don t bar Kissinger "iftweythlrtkthe7iu they try com Iris there is no place at Columbia to Henry Kissinger cries that University s student newspaper. The Issue is whether this University respects the moral values it purports to represent. A Columbia appointment would Reward and legitimize Kissinger s policies. His actions have shown my unfit to teach Here and Colum Bia should not hire . Noam Chomsky the linguistics giant from Mit who has equated some Nixon crimes with those of Kennedy and Johnson told a rally of Columbia protes ters that Kissinger shoud head a depart ment of death and adding injury to insult challenged his scholarly qualifications for any academic Columbia or any other great University offer Kissinger a chair from which he could never be fired or should he like Walt Rostow and Dean Rusk be ostracized by much of the academic Community for being a part of a policy that Many faculty and students found own anti Kissinger credentials Are in Apple pie order i was the first on my lock to oppose his 1973 confirmation As Secretary of state and i recently joined the group of plaintive plaintiffs seeking to make Public his private papers which were assembled at a Cost to the taxpayers of Over $400,000.but i believe Columbia should offer him the Post. Let s Analyse the objections 1. The University is making the offer purely out of fund raising and celebrity motives. True. The Rockefeller and others would cough up a fat endowment and Columbia would have a Star for other fund raisers.2. Between writing multimillion Dollar Book starring on Abc and advising the Chase Manhattan Bank he would have no time to teach. Also True. But since when Are big name professors required to teach he would be a kind of absent pres ence."3. He is being hired secretly Circum venting the Normal procedure applied toothed professors. Come now Public Dis closure of the delicate negotiations could abort the entire opening to Academia. 4. He is Only seeking legitimacy Saniti lotion the approval of the academic Community that Money cannot buy and not the Freedom to Leach so the academic free Dom argument does not apply. True about what he is seeking but the academic free Dom argument definitely docs apply. Academic Freedom is at Issue because the anti Kissinger demonstrators would deny him Honor and tenure on the basis of War but he is not Adolf Eich Mann the bombing was not mindless the War from which he helped extricate us was not that be would show up on Campus Between Board meetings the former National Security adviser might open a few closed minds about the most outrageous rewriting of history now going on that the United states was somehow responsible for the Bloodbath in has been turned on its head by the assertion that our bombing of vietnamese forces that were using cambodian territory in some Way brutalized the gentle cambodian communists. In reality Only our abandonment of Vietnam made it pos sible for the cambodian Khmer Rouge to take Over and to begin their outside the Media reign of terror. If Henry Kissinger were to be denied a academic Post because of his role in the War which is what the students holler ing is really All about then higher Educa Tion in America will be saying there is no toleration for an unpopular View of recent history. Higher education would also be saying that the us against them passion that used to Rule the Campus and the White House prevails and that vengeance and self righteousness remain the order of the Day. Kissinger committed some terrible buses but he is no War criminal. His eight year Devotion to duplicity makes difficult a defense of the Law of return to Aca Demic life but getting even with on individual is not As important As holding firm to a principle any educator who serves in any unpopular not to be barred from returning to Campus. If i can Swallow the honouring of Henry so can the students at Columbia. William f. Buckley itching powder for Nixon critics add one More recommendation people engaged in the extended Conversa lion about Nixon ought to read Victor Lasky s it did t Start with is not a review of that Book which has been discussed and solidly recommended by William satire and Patrick Buchanan and in the Book pages of the Washington Post no less by Nick Thimesch. All syndicated columnists All three agreed that Victor Lasky puts Nixon s offences in perspective. Buchanan s conclusion is eloquently Given in the earthy language he uses so effectively. If the first five kids caught smoking pot in the dorm were Givena Stern lecture you do not expel prosecute and Mark for life the must demur. For one thing the Lasky Book As Meg Greenfield of Newsweek put sit overloads the circuit in that or. 200qbc. Lasky is unwilling to discard any speck of evidence any itching powder against his itching powder. Lasky reports that a staffer attached to lbs s Campaign came up with the idea of using it against the hecklers who so annoyed Advance men could carry a can with them. If they saw a heckler shouting or carrying a Goldwater sign the Advance men could throw some powder on the heckler who d have to Stop what he was Lasky punctilious by reports that the idea of using itching powder was rejected but also reports that the Man who rejected it heard that in Houston somebody did use it on some unfriendly such reporting does not contribute very much to the Case against lbs. But of course there is plenty of reporting in the Lask Book that does and that makes a Case against the excesses of Kennedy and other presidents. Buchanan and others have a Point but. They neglect to focus properly on what it was that actually brought Nixon Down. It was t that the crimes committed under his general auspices were More egregious than others committed under the auspices and in some cases at the direct instructions of Bis predecessors. They fail to take into account the critical Point which i have elsewhere labelled the prof Umo Factor in memory of the British gentleman of recent memory who looked his pern Square in the eyes and gave them his word that he was not guilty. It was for this not for his whoring about that John Profumo was Dis graced. It is so with Nixon who might easily have survived watergate if he had declined to flourish his innocence on Romany occasions before the whole world. Nixon s stubborn refusal even now to concede that he was guilty of a specific crime conspiring to obstruct Justice continues to Gall and like Spiro Angew s professions of innocence continues to irritate his friends. But on the other hand How badly do we need this confession it is in dispensable to what perhaps to our re estimation of Nixon but those most irritated by Nixon s insistence on his technical innocence Are secretly pleased because they fear most anything Nixon might do that is genuinely endearing. It is i say it again Only the critics of Nixon who Are pathologically More inter Esting than Nixon himself. Garry wills for instance who wrote of Nixon that like Boris Karloff he la the monster who Lur child walks. He is our living death All our yesterdays returning or even better Pete Samiu he Isth Bela Lugosi of american politics lying out there in the crypt of san Clemente and rising into the darkness at night. There he was walking among us again with that eerie smile whose glittery vengeful eyes that Odd hunched body that he also seemed to have rented somewhere but never or get Jimmy Breslin. Noting that the great train robbers of 1963 Are still in jail All they did was Rob a train. Imagine what you re really supposed to get for Rob Bing our if i were lord of heaven and Earth i know How 1 would Deal with these Fol when they linger in Purgatory. I would show them endless reruns of Nixon s checkers speech and instruct the superin tending Angel to Point every now and then to the screen and Lay that la a human Only after they began nodding their Heads in understanding would the Gates to Paradise creak open for them. Ice Mung Tonsur t w of Mim up retd in the column and a to a
