European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 7, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes Friday october 7,1988 Jim Fain without new taxes defense faces Sharp cuts the chasm Between political Campaign and real world Seldom has been wider than in this year s jabber Wocky sparring Over defense. George Bush says he will press on with Star wars and All other systems now on the drawing boards. Michael Dukakis says hell limit Slat wars to research Knock Oul my and Midge Man and use the savings la beef up conventional forces. Both arc whistling without new taxes whoever is elected will preside Over Sharp cutbacks. The defense Bill Reagan signed last week docs not match the inflation rate. By next year defense will have to be slashed. Privately advisers to Bolh candidates admin the next president will sit Down immediately with congressional leaders and negotiate a tight defense budget. Given other needs Star Ware is bound to be Strelch cd out As it should be. Land based missile modernization is up for grabs. The Reagan administration has All the Mobile single warhead Midge Man. They want to build a rail Basing system for the 10-warhead my of which we already have 78. Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci says cur rent intelligence guarantees the five to six hour warning that would keep the my Force from being wiped Oul before it could be deployed on rail cars. Maybe. But Midge Man is the sure Way in keep a survivable land missile. Along with mobility it has the virtue of a single warhead. To attack it the russians would have to launch More warheads than they could Hope to destroy. My with its 10 warheads is a far More alluring target nothing in tic entire nuclear Nightmare has been As inviting of a first strike As multiple War Heads. Even Henry Kissinger admits Irving was a mistake. Dukakis seems to Hope if you comb through his Fine print for an agreement with Moscow Banning Mir is. Then we could keep a secure deterrent by cutting Back to one warhead each our Sta a cd minutemen. Dandy of course but no sensible plan tilt Buls the nation on what Moscow might do. Mid Gulman with its $50 billion Price tag is the safer Choice. Boosting conventional arms As Dukakis proposes Jias much to recommend it but is the most expensive idea of All. Thai s Why we be relied since Eisenhower George f. Will onus?1 1w election about go Oping. Vuu should smoke forceful More specific. This a00utvbh600pjokat on More bang for the Buck nukes. Improving Readi Ness is a inc critical. While costly it s not she same As adding troops. The Hope of course is for verifiable agreements reducing Bolh strategic weapons and the armies in Europe. Given Corby s recent moves this could happen but a Hope is not a basis for Force pm mini no. If reductions conic about Fine. Until then we need midget Man. Russia already has deployed counterparts to Bolli it and my. Some of the Price could be recovered by de emphasizing penetration bombers like stealth and relying More on air launched cruise mis Siles. Instead of larger conventional armies we need to Force the foot dragging Pentagon to build a genuine capacity for Hehling terrorism and limited wars the Only combat we get into these Days. Generals and admirals hate to bother with such Grubby matters. There s no Glamor or promotion there. A few people in Congress understand All this clearly but neither candidate seems to have the foggiest notion of it. Unless icy get quickly up to Speed the defense establishment will fatter away dwindling resources untraditional ways largely irrelevant to today s Security needs. Ca Huttt Swyte Block sox scandal ski m touches National nerve the second pitched i Coll of the White sox throw in the first game of the 1919 world series hit Cincinnati sle Adolt Man. New York gamblers got the signal the series was fixed. Today in a political season that mocks the idea of Progress a season loud with lamentations about sleaze in Washington and Sharp practices on Wall Street it is Well to revisit an Era when America was really raw. The Era is accessible through them Viu eight men Oul based on Eliot Asinos Book of that title about the Black son scandal. There Are to More Fine novels on thai subject. Marry Stein s hoopla and . Kinsella s shoeless Joe which is being made into a movie. Who half a Century from now will write novels and make movies about watergate As Many As Are interested today in the Teapot dome scandal. But when scandal touched baseball it touched a National nerve. The Black sox scandal involve two timeless themes of Art love and re Gret. In that instance it was love of Voca Tion and regret about losing it. The most poignant figure was shoeless Joe Jackson. Shoeless Joe was an illiterate natural who compiled the third High Esi Balling average in history and was great that even when throwing the series he could not Stop himself from hitting .375 and setting a series record with 12 hits. The scandal is a window in a Dank basement of american history. In 1919,americans were feeling morally Admira ble if they did say so themselves an they did. They had been on the winning Side in the War to end the fixed series occurred i rec months before the beginning of a misadventure in moralist prohibition. But gambling was As american As the god Rush Ifie dream of Quick Ric Liei and when the government closed racetracks during the War gamblers turned to baseball which then was America s biggest entertainment Indus try. Hotel lobbies where teams stayed teemed with gamblers. Hippo Roming was the Isle Century word for throwing games and in postwar America there was p new Brazen Ness by gamblers. On sept. 10, 1920, various Wall Street brokerage houses received flashes on their news wires babe Ruth and some teammates had been injured in an Acci Dent in route to Cleveland. Quickly the Odds on thai game changed and the gamblers the source of the lie cleaned up. The White sox conspirators assumed they would gel away with i be cause they assumed almost certainly correctly that other major leagues had got ten away with fixes. The team owners frightened about the possible devaluation of their franchises rushed out and bought some virtue in the person of a Federal judge to serve As base Ball s first commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis with his Shock of White hair Over craggy features and his mail Slot Mouth looked like integrity alerted just As Harding elected in 1920, looked like a president. Landis was a tobacco chewing Bour Bon Drinker who would hand out stiff sentences to people who violated prohibition. He had a Knack far self dramatizing publicity. Landis fined Standard Oil of Indiana 129,240,000 in a rebate Case the supreme court overturned him and tried to Cal Radical Kaiser Wilhelm on a murder charge because a chicagoan died when a German submarine sunk the lust Lania. Landis barred from baseball tight White sox players including one who merely knew about the conspiracy but did not report it. It was rough Justice. Nothing happened to the gamblers handsome of the players were guilty primarily of stupidity and succumbing to peer pressure. Most of them were cheated Oul of most of the promised Money and Only one player made much $35,000. But roughness can make Justice effective. Baseball s gambling problems were cured. The. 1910s, the Dawn of broadcasting and hence of hoopla would Wash away memories of the scandal. Those Yean were the Golden age of american sport babe Ruth Jack Dempsey Gene Tunney red Grange Knole Rockne Bobby Jones Bill Tilden Man o1 War. From Wall Street to main Street and including both ends of Pennsylvania ave nue America Back then when a . Senator appeared in advertisements endorsing Lucky strike cigarettes was immeasurably less scrupulous about Stan Dards of behaviour than it is today. Baseball put it House in order because of inc Black sox. Ten Yean later the crash ushered in a new age of regulation of Finan Cial institutions. And various scandals be fore and after watergate have produced refinements and some in rules about comportment in the corridor of Power. Civilization advances by tils and starts often stimulated by shocked sensibilities. As another baseball season comes to a Cli Max it is Well to consider How far we have come in the Fis cais since Chicago Chil Dren began their sandlot games with the cry play bail vilhjofl1oq Pool group
