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military strategy in peacetime. The two are interlocked, and the problem is one of finding the best means for coordinating their strength toward one common end national strategy that would meet the grave challenges of our times.” WHY SHOULD a civilian organization such as a chamber of commerce go to the trouble and expense of sponsoring a military seminar? “We feel that the business community can become better informed on world affairs by participation in the seminar,” Melvin Sisk, the San Antonio chamber’s executive vice-president, told the Observer. “It’s not only useful to them as businessmen but makes them better-informed citizens.” Sisk said that the civilians attending included “some of the top business leadersbankers, officials of Southwest Research Center, and executives, including some retired businessmen. Two hundred and seventy civilians received certificates for attending over half of the 33 50-minute lectures. Colonel Taylor said that of the 450 advance civilian registrants, some of whom did not show up, there were 72 retired military people, 66 members of women’s organizations, 21 from San Antonio industries, 75 from local commercial establishments, three retired from civilian occupations, 35 from colleges and schools, 63 civil service employees \(mostly security ployees, seven local residents of undetermined occupation, and 10 professional people. Of the 213 military personnel attending from 38 states, 178 were reservists on twoweeks’ active duty, 35 were regular army or air force people. THERE WERE a few, very few, San Antonio people who did not approve of the seminar and were particularly wary of its being held on the campus of a university. Tom Flower, a local foe of the nation’s Vietnam role, wrote a letter in protest to the local newspaper a few days before, saying the seminar “presents a threat to our democratic society. This threat was referred to by former President Dwight Eisenhower when he warned the nation to beware of the military-industrial complex, and its danger to the viable process of democratic self-determination.” Flower, a successful wholesale salesman who wears a beret, was on hand regularly with a handful of other pickets who each day displayed signs calling for peace and handed out leaflets as seminar participants went to and from the Trinity auditorium. What do you say to the proposition that a university is not the place for a military seminar? the Observer asked Colonel Taylor. “We think a university is the place for this sort of thing,” Taylor said. Inside the auditorium there was no concern about any threats to democracy from a military-industrial alliance. Indeed Gov. John Connally, speaking at the opening session, said the strength of this nation’s democracy depends on maintenance of the country’s industrial and military power. “The enemies of this nation are willing to co-exist with us only as we are powerful enough to make them want to do so,” Connally said. “There’s not one person in this room that wants to teach war, but there’s not one person who does not know that idealism untempered with realism is sheer folly as far as conduct of national affairs is concerned. “We have a stake in Vietnam, because we have a stake in freedom and liberty and we have to protect it,” Connally continued. “If it was not for the United States it is my firm conviction that substantially all the people of the earth would be enslaved …. More and more today, people are expressing the clear understanding that an act of violence against a neighbor could easily develop into an act of violence against themselves.” The Observer, having heard that the seminar was being picketed, left one of morning sessions a bit early to see who the demonstrators were. In the lobby was a campus patrolman, armed with a holstered pistolas are all policemen at Trinity, which employs a private security firm. Outside two other armed officers of the security firm were standing in front of the entrance to the auditorium. None of the officers had been there at mid-morning when the Observer reporter had arrived. It was later learned that the pickets ap Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the State Week and Austin Forum-Advocate. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Editor, Greg Olds. Editor-at-large, Ronnie Dugger. Business Manager, Sarah Payne. Associate Manager, C. R. Olofson. Contributing Editors, Elroy Bode, Winston Bode, Bill Brammer, Sue Horn Estes, Larry Goodwyn, Harris Green, Bill Helmer, Dave Hickey, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Earnest Klipple, Al Melinger, Robert L. Montgomery, Willie Morris, James Presley, Charles Ramsdell, John Rogers, Mary Beth Rogers, Roger Shattuck, Robert Sherrill, Dan Strawn, Tom Sutherland, Charles Alan Wright. Contributing Photographer, Russell Lee. The Observer publishes articles, essays, and creative work of the shorter forms having to do in various ways with this area. The pay depends; at present it is token. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by return postage. The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that he agrees with peared only early in the morning, during the noon recess, and in the afternoon at adjournment, wanting to appear when the seminar’s participants were outside going to or from the auditorium. Evidently the officers were present only at these times. Thinking the demonstrators would be in front of the auditorium the reporter went outside to wait there. One of the officers came over and asked the reporter what he was doing there. On hearing the nature of the newsman’s presence, the officer said that the pickets were at the entrance to the inner campus drive, one or two hundred feet away. The dertionstrators iold the Observer that it was their understanding that they would be arrested if they went onto the campus. Eight pickets were present, carrying signs saying, “The weary seek peace,” “There is no way to peace; peace is the way.A. J. Muste,” “Plan Peace,” and “Fight communism with bread not bombs.” Most of these signs had been covered in sheets of ice a few days earlier, when a few pickets had braved an ice storm and sub-freezing temperatures to demonstrate on the seminar’s opening day. FLOWER WAS among the pickets. He said he objected to the use of the prestige of a university in putting forward of “such propaganda as facts. They call this a seminar, but there is no discus them, because this is a journal of free voices. Unsigned articles are the editor’s. 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Foreign rates on request. Single copies 25c; prices for ten or more for students, or bulk orders, on request. Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas 78705. Telephone GR 7-0746. Editor’s residence phone, GR 8-2333. Houston office: 718 Capital National Bank Building, Houston, Texas 77002. Telephone CA 8-7956. Change of Address: Please give old and new address and allow three weeks. Form 3579 regarding undelivered copies: Send to Texas Observer, 504 W. 24th, Austin, Texas 78705. THE TEXAS OBSERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co. A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South 62nd YEARESTABLISHED 1906 Vol. LX, No. 2 7AB31 Feb. 2, 1968