European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 30, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and stripes March Anthony Lewis South Africa showed its True colors on to How can we help to Stop the oppression and killing in South Africa the question is on the Ameri can and events make it once again last 25 years after South african police fired their guns into a crowd of Blacks 18 were in thinking about what we can we must eschew the United states cannot reorder South Afri on the other we Are involved economically and and involvement brings Respo Sibili what we do As it americans have just had an exception Al glimpse of the South african Abc news nightlife originated in South Africa every night for a there were Superb film and Ted Koppel interviewed government officials and opponents on the same after the first when he seemed less prepared than usual to ask the hard Koppel performed a real he exposed and they Are the basis for reflection on the american the most remarkable thing about the Koppel pro Grams was a the government officials inter viewed would not talk about the realities of the racial system they when asked about they spoke of political structures or of uplift in the socioeconomic it was As if they were holding some unpleasant object out at arms length and turning their Heads thus foreign minister asked about the fact that Blacks cannot vote in South said the government was going to put together Struc Tures which will allow for participating in decision Mak decision making at All Gerrit the minister who handles Black of was asked about influx control they pass Laws that restrict where Blacks can go in the he said the government was committed to moving away from the negative and discriminating aspects of the influx control does Viljoen know does he allow himself to know that under influx control Black men May get passes to work in White areas but have to live there for years apart from their wives and families what does he James Kilpatrick think the positive aspects of such Laws Are can he imagine the humiliation of living in a single sex of being stopped by policemen demanding to see his pass when Bishop Desmond Tutu asked Why he could not Botha said he could in one of the Black Home lands created by the in recent years 8 million Blacks have been stripped of their citizenship and told they Are now citizens of a Botha said the government hoped to resolve this because we do not want to Rob people of their such exchanges indicate that those who hold Power in South Africa Are embarrassed and defensive about their system at least before an american they will not talk concretely about the cruelties it Actu ally and while they speak much of they do not speak of repealing even one of the apartheid Laws that inflict those the other thing that the nightlife programs made if anyone doubted is that the Issue in South Africa is one of political the Whites who hold Power Are unwilling to share it in any meaningful de the Blacks want it and Are not going to be con tented with economic advances or the right to eat with Whites in a where does All this Point for american policy it i that we should keep the focus on Reali ties in South that is something we can we can avoid playing Pretorias game of of endless talk about of Aesop an abstractions instead of human by that test the Reagan administrations policy of constructive engagement is a i thought it deserved a but by now we can see that it has served to fudge the to the and to the Black majority in South it has looked like complicity with the game of and it has clouded american when the South african police fired into the crowd last president reagans reaction was to defend the he said they had acted to Stop rioting though Pretoria itself was Uncertain and worried Progress kill pet government in killed 5t South 50vernmfnt 1960 massacre in 196 enough to have a commission look into the Reagan did not have the simple decency to say what his Secretary of state that the shootings showed How evil and unacceptable apartheid an american policy must begin by making Clear that we reject that evil in All its c 1985 new York times news service when does private Lite become Public the sad Story of John Fedders provides an Opportunity for those of us in the news business to reexamine one of the unwritten rules of our once again we Are compelled to ask ourselves at what Point does the private life of a Public official become Public business Fedders was director of Law enforce ment for the securities and Exchange he resigned his Post in the Wake of disclosures that Over their 18 years of marriage he periodically had beaten his he publicly acknowledged at least seven such the Fedders Case presented no very difficult problems in the ethics of journal the Wall Street journal broke the Story on 25 after sitting on a tip for More than a Why the years silence the journal was unwilling to pub Lish a Story that could wreck the career of a Public official an official who was doing a Brilliant Job until the paper had a Public record on which a Story could be when Charlotte Fedders sued John Fedders for and the distributed by King features Syndicate m a wow nose two testified in a Public the Story became it was not investigative reporting Keyhole peeping or garbage rummaging that led to the Page 1 it was a transcript of Fedders testimony in open on the witness stand she poured out her travails As the wife of a a Man obsessed with discipline and order in save his wearing Fedders testified that she Laid out his clothes in the morn ing and picked them up when he dropped them at it was the Public record that triggered the this is the unwritten Rule that Many Washington journalists live and it is not a bad Wilbur Mills came to the House of representatives from Arkansas in he made himself an authority on tax in time he became chair Man of ways and and that Capac Ity he he ran his committee with a firm and his pub Lic hearings were models of what commit tee hearings ought to rumours of his heavy drinking began to circulate Early in the the rumours became More than rumours reporters who covered the House knew that Mills was an they wrote not a Why at that Point his private life was not interfering with his Public and there was no Public record to then came mills1 Drunken Dalliance with the Argentine firecracker and her famous dip in the tidal the cops were called now there were names on a it was the same Rule governed the matter of Wayne Hays of his affair with the Blond Bombshell was a private matter was that until he put Elizabeth Ray on the Public that made it a Public when she confessed to a reporter that i cant i cant i cant even answer the Hays was done he resigned from Congress in september the 535 men and women who serve in and the hundreds of top officials in the executive Proba Bly Are no More moral or immoral than upper income individuals in other they drive in the fast Lane it is the Lane that leads to reporters arc natural born one or another Rumor always is floating about the press galleries senator soands has a new Bimbo congressman Suchan such lost a bundle at the the rumours have to do with Gam and living beyond visible Means of we gab a but As Long As Public servants do the work for which they Are we will not act As judges of their private if the senior senator from Massachusetts had just taken the Young lady for a Midnight stroll upon the Beach and reporters had Learned of the matter nothing would have been but when he went off the Bridge at Chappaquiddick and Mary to Kopechne the cops came Ted Kennedy private life be came the system May seem cynical it punishes not the but the getting caught but it preserves the privacy of Public and it serves the Public c 1985 Universal press Syndicate