Can Amnesty Close the Book?

To the Editors:

America still has deep feelings about both war resisters and war makers. Amnesty is a device to set aside these feelings by proclaiming a forgetfulness of the war. Amnesty should be neither a condemnation nor a commendation of America's nightmare in Indochina.

By rejecting real amnesty, President Ford has defended the war makers and penalized the war resisters. Unlike all of his predecessors, he has offered involuntary servitude to those who were once denied alternative service. He calls this amnesty, but in many cases it is not even leniency. It is a policy that demands the submission of those who knew the Pentagon was wrong.

The absolute pardon of Mr. Nixon will not close the book on Watergate because a pardon implies forgiveness, and we cannot forgive offenses that have never been fully revealed. The offer of conditional clemency to war resisters will not close the ghastly book on Viet Nam because we realize that it is unfair to penalize those who refused to participate in conduct we now know was wrong.

President Ford's clemency plan defies the recommendation of every religious body in America and rejects the principal point of 37 previous grants of presidential amnesty. By degrading those opposed to war, it invites further wars because, as President Kennedy wrote, "War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

(The Rev.) Robert F. Drinan

Representative 4th District, Mass.

Washington, D.C.

What reasons can conscientious objectors, draft dodgers or deserters give for their actions? No one wants war, no one wants to die for a cause he may not agree with. However, this country is governed by the decisions of the majority, protecting the right of the minority to voice its opinions. Only through this system has our country survived.

If the sob sisters must weep, let them do it over the graves of the brave men who gave up life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to fight for what their country (right or wrong) decided had to be defended.

William G. Getty

Blackwood, N.J.

For lawbreaking, obstruction of justice, violating the constitutional oath of office and tarnishing the cherished image of the presidency, President Ford granted Mr. Nixon an absolute and advance pardon. By strange contrast, up to 24 months of public service is suggested for the youthful draft evaders who acted and objected conscientiously to an immoral and unconstitutional war. What an act of favoritism by "the honest man"!

Kuldip Singh

Ottawa

I served as a Marine infantryman in Viet Nam, where I saw one of my best friends killed and where I was severely wounded. I now realize how purposeless that war was, and I believe that the U.S. was wrong to get involved. All those who resisted serving in Viet Nam should get unconditional amnesty. They should not be punished just because they recognized the foolishness of our involvement sooner than most.

Michael Burton

Grand Rapids

As a gold star mother, I'd like to see a compassionate pardon for all those thousands of young men who refused service in an undeclared war fought for dubious reasons. God knows our shores were not in danger.

(Mrs.) Mary B. De La Croix

San Diego

Most letters to the editor favoring amnesty for draft dodgers and deserters leave the impression that all of them are men of high principle and ethics. Aren't any of them just plain goldbricks or smart asses who not only considered it clever to walk off and leave the dirty detail for somebody else but, even worse, felt that the guys who did stay and carry the load were just dopes?

Fred DiDomenico

Philadelphia

The Pardon: Relief and Rage

I am grateful to President Ford for pardoning Nixon. He has lifted a weight from our souls. We no longer need be "the Punishers."

The Spanish inquisitors felt that they had a holy cause, but they are remembered only for their cruelty. President Ford saw to the heart of the matter, and recognized the rightness of pardon. He may have saved us all from going down in history as the generation of punishment and retribution.

Helene D. Grouse

Fridley, Minn.

If Americans do not assert their fundamental rights and insist on full disclosure of all material relevant to Watergate, they will have relinquished a right inherent in our concept of democracy. Accountability is implicit in the public's contract with any elected or appointed official. The public's right to know cannot be abridged--but it can be given up, if that's the way people want it. If the Watergate investigation is not allowed to continue to a final conclusion of complete disclosure, the scandal and its divisiveness will remain with us as long as we live.

Ralph B. Urmy

South Laguna, Calif.

We should hold a new presidential election in view of Gerald Ford's latest decision to pardon Nixon.

(Mrs.) Natalie Hobson

Albany, N. Y.

Eve, Apples and Babies

Are women who enjoy motherhood intellectual dropouts? What would have become of the human race had Eve rejected motherhood in favor of pursuing a more gratifying career in the already promising apple industry?

Ginette T. Hochman

Florence, N.J.

Your article on the falling birth rate [Sept. 9] stressed the selfish reasons (not wanting to give up careers, free time, money), while ignoring a very real reason that many young couples are remaining childless. They are taking a good look at what type of person can be a good parent.

They are finally realizing that not everyone can be a good mother or father, that parenthood like any other career is not something that everyone can do well, and that persons who are not suited to being parents can damage or destroy a child if they go ahead and have a baby. This attitude shows self-sacrifice rather than selfishness. People who blithely have children and then ignore them or handle them ineptly--these are the selfish ones.

Kathleen L. Lewton

Toledo

Naive is TIME'S assertion that if the proportion of older people in the American electorate increases from 10% to 20%, older people will become "a greater political force." How does that follow? For older people to become a greater force in electoral politics, they would have to vote as a relatively cohesive group, more responsive to common age-based interests than to other interests they have as individuals. But they do not vote cohesively now and are very unlikely to do so in the future.

Today's 18-year-olds, and other age groups that will turn 65 between now and the year 2021, have already displayed their political diversity in elections and other forms of political behavior. The research of developmental psychologists and political scientists makes it clear that older persons of the future will be as diverse politically as those who are aged now, and probably more so.

Robert H. Binstock

Professor of Politics

Brandeis University

Waltham, Mass.

Torture at the Rodeo

Your article "The New Bronco Breed" [Sept. 2] made numerous references to the hazards and injuries endured by the men and women who voluntarily participate in rodeos. No mention was made of the pain, torture and unnatural conditions to which the nonhuman animals--off whose unwilling backs money is made--are subjected. These animals are domesticated and are docile when not being poked (sometimes with electric prods applied to the rectal area), strapped tightly (aft of the rib cage and often around the genitals), chased, roped, thrown and tied.

Why do many Americans abhor bullfights but eagerly attend rodeos in which animals suffer spur marks, broken horns, bones and necks, internal bleeding, panic and shock?

Diana A. Spencer

New York City

Mixed Economy, Pure Woe

President Ford's decision to keep Richard Nixon's economic advisers --the men whose mistaken policies brought us to our present intolerable economic dilemma--may well prove to be more serious than his pardoning of his predecessor.

These advisers believe that we can depend on fiscal restraint and tight money (high interest rates) to curb inflation. They think that we can rely primarily on the forces of supply and demand, operating in a free competitive market, to restrain prices. Unfortunately for their theories, and for the welfare of our country, our economy is not that competitive and not that free.

What we have is a mixed economy. Some of it is competitive; much of it is not. Some 1,000 large firms with enough monopoly power to administer prices account for almost one-half of our gross national product. Under the free-market theories of the present economic advisers, prices and profits soar ever upward, while consumers tighten their belts.

The newest member of this free-market team is Alan Greenspan, appointed by Nixon just prior to his resignation to be chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Among Greenspan's views none is more startling than his opposition to antitrust laws. These laws provide the only weapon available to maintain and restore competition. The mind boggles at trying to conceive how one can rely on competition as a regulatory force and want to do away with the legislative acts designed to maintain it.

John C. Davis

New Port Richey, Fla.

The writer, an economist, was on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Truman from 1947 to 1953.

Your Sept. 16 issue mistakenly cites me as advocating a $6 billion public-service employment program paid for by increased taxes on the oil industry. I have never advocated a program of this size or this method of financing.

It is true that I have been a strong supporter of public-service jobs, but under a plan gearing the amount spent to the level of unemployment. As TIME reported, this type of proposal was recently introduced by Senator Jacob Javits and is under study by the Administration. Public-service jobs have proved to be one of the quickest and least wasteful methods for the Federal Government to tackle unemployment.

I also believe that any program we enact now must be financed through either increased tax revenue or reduced federal outlays in other areas to negate any inflationary impact. I do not think that it would be equitable or even possible, however, to finance the entire program from one source alone.

Charles H. Percy

U.S. Senator, Illinois

Washington, D.C.

Shame on Paar

I am amazed at Jack Paar's vindictive attitude [TIME FORUM, Sept. 16] toward Dick Cavett, merely because your reviewer liked the book. Shame on him for his petty words. I nominate him for "Poorest Sport in Television."

(Mrs.) Helen Rafter

Clinton, Tenn.

Passage to India

Your special issue of Aug. 19 says that I, "like so many others in the Administration, drifted away (Moynihan went off to an ambassadorship in New Delhi after his pet programs were gutted ...)." This makes it sound as if I took this post as a retirement job, or something such. It is not at all the case, and the statement is less than complimentary to the government to which I am accredited.

When President-elect Nixon asked me to come to work for him in December 1968, he volunteered at a press conference that I would be able to stay for two years. More than once, perhaps, I considered leaving sooner, but I stayed until December 1970, exactly as originally agreed. I had been offered the United Nations ambassadorship, but had declined. In the two years that followed I wrote two books, organized a course at Harvard, served on the U.S. delegation to the U.N. and stayed out of politics. Then the President called to ask me to go to India. As I had publicly disagreed with him on Bangladesh and had declined to endorse him in 1972, I felt that his offer was a genuine reflection of his policy interests, and one I could accept as an independent person. The wisdom of having done so becomes less certain with time, but there was a rationale at the beginning.

Daniel P. Moynihan

U.S. Ambassador to India

New Delhi

Mormon Reformers

To state that Mormons believe that blacks are descendants of Ham and Cain is an insult to many intelligent, active and faithful members of the church who recognize that natural and evolutionary process rather than a "curse of God" is responsible for varying skin colorations.

Your article [Sept. 16] implies an acceptance of present church racial discrimination by members who, in fact, believe in full equality for all. They are working within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through example, education and patience to change the present practice.

Christian Fonnesbeck

Salt Lake City

Alias Selma

It was a sad spectacle to see a Massachusetts mob hurling tomatoes and savage language at Senator Ted Kennedy as he attempted to speak on integration and busing. This in a state known for Harvard and the Boston Tea Party! I suggest that the state be renamed "Selma," a name that will live as an insult to the dignity of Martin Luther King, another man who spoke of a whole U.S., not merely a white one.

Beverly Hepburn

Berkeley, Calif.

Tell them Yankees to get out of the schoolhouse door. The Confederate marshals are off to Boston. They ain't whistlin' Dixie but The Star-Spangled Banner. How did all them rednecks get up there?

Bill Hilton

Lockhart, Texas

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