ustxtxb_obs_1969_11_07_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

Then, figures have been tossed around about what the senator’s own campaign is to cost. Jim Allison, of Midland, the deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee and the number two man in the national GOP organization, said Yarborough, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, is sure to “receive a minimum of $1 million from the AFL-CIO.” Yarborough denied that, saying that “I have never lived in that kind of dream world with that much money. This is just a Republican coverup for the millions they plan to spend against me if I decide to run again next year.” The announcement that George Wal lace’s American Party wants to run Dan Smoot for U.S. senator in Texas next year may give George Bush pause. The Houston congressman likes his life in Washington and does not want to have to give it up after running against Senator Yarborough and losing. With Smoot on the November ballot, Bush would be denied many right-wing votes and deprived of much of the manueverability toward moderation he would want. The high muckety-mucks in the Texas Republican Party, to say nothing of President Nixon, want that Senate seat for a Republican and could care less about such considerations. They have Bush in the position now that if he doesn’t run they will say he let them down. But Smoot is to declare himself in or out by the first of the year, and this gives Bush a whole lot more to think about. Barnes Moving Right? Lieutenant Governor Barnes’ public statements lately are more right-ish than had been the case in recent months. Barnes, in Dallas, was almost caustic in his criticism of the efforts to reform the national Democratic Party, an effort being led by Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota. “I’ll always support a Democratic ticket,” Barnes said, “But I’ll certainly support a Texas Democratic party rather than a McGovern Democratic party.” Barnes warned against what he regards as a movement by McGovern and others to pull the party leftward and destroy the political coalition formed by President Roosevelt. “I think it’s very important that we do not let Senator McGovern or anyone else purge anybody out of the Democratic Party,” he said. At Brownwood recently the Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom was dedicated, three days after the Vietnam Moratorium. Sen. John Tower told the crowd of some 5,000, including the late general’s widow and Gen. William C. Westmoreland, that “This day serves to remind us that there can be no moratorium in man’s striving for freedom and there cannot be a pause in our struggle to defend it.” Tower called MacArthur “the greatest American of our generation.” White House Hawk Margaret Mayer, Washington columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, recently speculated that Texas Senator Tower has been calling for renewed military pressure in Vietnam in order to make President Nixon’s proposed “staged withdrawal” seem more of a moderate idea than a conservative one. “On the Vietnam War, the President needed someone to open a second front that would put his position on this issue also in the middle ground,” Miss Mayer wrote. “Tower was the man to open the second front. He could do it convincingly because he has been one of the primary early advocates of a military force in Vietnam. He could do it without severely damaging his own political standing, because, as he observed, there is in the grass roots a feeling that America does not determine to fight a war only to capitulate to the enemy. That feeling is probably more pronounced in Texas than elsewhere.” Senator Yarborough is optimistic about the chances for his proposed 46% increase in veterans’ education benefits, despite the fact that President Nixon has called it “unrealistic and excessive” and “inflationary.” The House has passed a 27% increase. The reason for the Texas senator’s optimism is the Senate’s 77-0 support of his measure, which he believes would discourage the president from vetoing the bill. In arguing for its passage, Yarborough said the president ignored the real cause of inflation, the Vietnam war. He said a vote against the bill would penalize “the thousands of young men who were called on to risk their lives in that conflict.” Ho, Ho . . It may be a surprise to Houstonians, but the Texas Industrial Commission says there is no pollution in Texas. The state agency recently issued, presumably at public expense, a four-page brochure touting “the gentle life” in Texas. Flatly stating that there is no air or water pollution in the state. The piece of creative public relations called Texas “a place to face the future unafraid; to breathe the clean refreshing air; swim and fish untainted streams; and watch the healthy young mature.” Meanwhile, in Houston, Mayor Louie Welch has asked the Air Control Board to ban visible exhausts from cars and trucks and to stop granting pollution variances to industries. And the air board in conjunction with City of Houston and Harris County pollution authorities are starting a crash program to identify all air pollution sources in the besmogged county. In a policy-setting ruling, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously decided to take no further action in the controversy over CBS’s documentary, “Hunger in America,” first shown on May 21, 1968. Complaints, including a letter from Congressman Gonzalez of San Antonio, centered on the contention that a San Antonio newborn baby, shown on the program, died of starvation. The child actually died because of premature birth, but CBS personnel said they had been told “maternal malnutrition” was the cause of death. The FCC decided it will not defer license renewals in charges of “slanting the news” unless there is “extrinsic evidence of possible deliberate distortion of staging of the news” involving the licensee, its principals, top management, or news management. The commission emphasized it would not play “national arbiter of truth” in such cases. The state’s first human relations committee, which met initially this month, is expected to focus its attention first on discrimination in state hiring. The 50-man study group actually will be able to do little more than get itself together for meetings on the skimpy $49,000 appropriated for its first year’s operations. Secretary of State Martin Dies, Jr., is chairman of the committee. Former Secretary of State Roy Barrera was elected vice-chairman, and Mrs. M. J. Anderson, a Negro school board official from Austin, was chosen secretary. James Ray, a former executive assistant to Lubbock Congressman George Mahon, has been named executive director of the committee at a salary of $17,500 yearly. Bob DuPont, one of the students arrested for impeding the destruction of trees on Waller Creek \(now “Peoples’ copyreading job on the Austin American-Statesman for his militant conservationism. The newspaper’s management insisted his job would not have been in danger, except for the fact that he missed an evening’s work while waiting to set bail. Jeff Burke, the Rio Hondo diver who is a central figure in the “sunken treasure” saga still unfolding, has filed a libel suit for more than $1 million against Land Commissioner Sadler, alleging that Sadler defamed him in testimony before a legislative committee this summer. The Senate Migratory Health Subcommittee plans hearings in McAllen during the last week in November. Ty Fain, who directed the late Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign efforts in Texas and the November 7, 1969 11