ustxtxb_obs_1966_09_16_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

ern colleges and universities, plus those in California, have benefited most from National Science Foundation grants. 3 Respect for law must be advocated more strongly by government leaders. “We cannot permit a continuation of the idea that is prevalent among some of our fellow Americans that respect for our laws must, in the final analysis, rest upon the whim of each individual. . . . Selective disobedience of law only leads to anarchy. .. . If our laws need to be changed, they are to De changed in our legislative halls, not in our streets.” 4 Intensified attention is needed to water and air pollution, highway deaths, traffic congestion, booming population, and urban growth. G. 0. Tower Talks Things Over Austin Republican Senator John Tower is campaigning relaxed. He makes little use of written speeches. He talks easily and informally. He knows his themes they are themes he has been over many times and he knows, too, he wants to avoid any fights he can until the election is over. “We have always known,” he told the airport crowd in Austin at the end of his three-day, 3,000-mile campaign opener, “that the people who back us are people who are unselfishly motivated … who seek no favors of government. . . . I am not dominated by any politician, regardless of how powerful, or by any clique. In the Senate you have to have independence of action, you have to be your own man.” During his tour he persisted in his now well-known campaign year postures: Inflation and tight money result from too much government spending. The administration is guilty of “orgies of profligate spending.” The open housing provision of the civil rights bill is unconstitutional, an invasion of private property rights. The Vietnam war should be prosecuted to a successful conclusion. Tower’s opponent, Waggoner Carr, was quoted in the Houston Chronicle Aug. 18 that he would approve dropping the atomic bomb to win the war in Vietnam if the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend it. “They are the professionals. They should decide,” he was quoted. Early Saturday morning in Harlington, Tower said it’s time for this nation to stop worrying what other nations think as to our actions in Vietnam “It is time to bomb Hanoi and to clog the port of Haiphong with bombed shipping.” But Saturday morning in Houston during his three-day campaign tour, the senator thrust at Carr on nuclear war: “My opponent is quoted in recent \(Aug. ing he would approve dropping atomic bombs in Vietnam if the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended it. Those of us familiar with military affairs and the international situation know that the decision to use nuclear weapons must remain solely with the President of the United States. “I have been to Vietnam and talked to our commanders there. I see no need in this jungle war of infiltration to use citybusting bombs that would destroy civilian population. “Under no circumstances would I approve the use of nuclear bombs upon authority of anyone but our President. He alone has available the information necessary to make such a fateful decision a decision upon which hinges world-wide peace or war. “Such an uninformed statement by my opponent points up his lack of experience and knowledge in national and international affairs. It is graphic evidence to Texans of the vital need to retain experienced, responsible representation in the Senate.” JUST AS CARR had trouble attracting a crowd at Lubbock, Tower did for his Dallas opener. Carr had perhaps 2,000 at Lubbock, Tower about as many at Dallas. Tower’s rip-around-the-state tour was designed mostly to get local press coverage and pep up campaign workers. After it was over Tower, tired but in good spirits, answered a few questions for the Observer at the Forty Acres Club near the campus. He has held forth the possibility that an Asian nations’ conference “just might” lead to peace, but up close the prospect does not seem strong to him. “The idea,” he said, “is that you get the Asian countries together and attempt to solve the Asians’ problems. Ultimately they’ve got to solve their own problems. I don’t think you could include Peking or Hanoi under present circumstances. Maybe Peking or Hanoi would deal with an all-Asian conference, whereas they wouldn’t deal with Western nations.” With China acquiring nuclear weapons, what long-term view of U.S. relations with China does Tower have? “I believe that we’ve first got to gain their respect. I think we’ve got to convince those buzzards that war is too costly an instrument of national policy to employ.” They must be convinced of this, Tower said, before they will be willing “to negotiate anything like co-existence.” U.S. relations with Russia are relatively tranquil now, he said, although there is much strain because of the Vietnam war. With more nations getting nuclear weapons year after year, what kind of a world does Tower visualize? He thinks a nuclear non-proliferation treaty would not stop the bombs from spreading without everyone agreeing to the treaty. “I’ll spring for disarmament any day when I think we can get good-faith participation on the part of the communist sphere,” he added. But, as to how to avoid a world developing in which many nations have the absolute weapons, he said he didn’t know; sometimes, he said, you just have to face the situations that come up and handle them day to day. “I’ve seen what conventional bombs can do to a city, so I can just imagine what nuclear bombs would do. I’ve seen the classified figures on the potential of nuclear weapons, so this is a horrible, bloody thing,” Tower said. “However much I may sound like a warmonger, I abhor the thought of a thermonuclear holocaust.” Tower expressed satisfaction that the M-16 rifle, the use of which in Vietnam he advocated earlier this year, is now being used there. The M-16, he explained, is a .223 caliber rifle “that uses a much smaller round, but it tumbles, and it tends to fragment. It’s much lighter, you can carry three times as much ammunition.” He does not think that there has been “any unnecessary bombing of villages that was calculated.” Viet Cong villages are perched atop whole networks of tunnels, he said. And he added, “Those Viet Cong are killing civilians they do it for a purpose. It’s terrorism.” HOW ARE THINGS in Washington? “I think the trend toward executive domination of legislative initiative has been accelerated,” he replied. The Congress reclaimed some of its prerogatives this year, however, he said. As for the Republicans’ 1968 presidential candidate, “I wouldn’t even predict. Right now it appears that Romney and Nixon are the only two contenders in the field. Other possibilities may emerge after the 1966 elections.” Naturally a question was asked about Goldwater, but Tower took his answer off the record. The food for peace program would be fine, he said, if we had food surpluses, but they are running out. He has voted for farm support programs that tend to work toward a free market, he explains; originally he was for an end, on a phasing-out basis, to all farm supports. He seems impressed by the cost-price squeeze U.S. farmers are caught in and by the fact that world food prices are lower than U.S. prices. “The people who need the food can’t buy it,” he said. “If they could, every one of us could go into agriculture” and, he indicated, make good money. To fight high interest, Tower said, he favors cutting government spending he took $150 million out of the mass transit program and tried, but failed, to get 8900 million out of the demonstration cities project, he mentioned with satisfaction. He is opposed to suspending the 7% tax credit businessmen are allowed on capital investments, as President Johnson has proposed. What would Tower propose to help the people in the ghettoes of American cities? “I think the whole key to it,” he said, “is in educating those people to find employment.” Discrimination in any federal activity is already prohibited by Title VI of the 1964 civil rights act, he said. R. D. September 16, 1966 5