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subjective viewpoint. Mrs. Meagher seems quite excited about her collusion theory, but I believe Mr. Belin was probably correct in accepting the first-hand later testimony of Givens. Here was a man who was no doubt pretty scared and uneasy at the time of the assassination and for some time thereafter as was the case with practically everyone else connected with the extremely tense situation in and around the book depository building. Having read most of the books and articles critical of the Warren Commission Report, I have come to the conclusion that just about none of them were researched free from bias and/or honestly conceived. In fact, I have been considerably surprised at the lack of astuteness of the Observer in this regard. Through the nearly eight years since John Kennedy’s death the critics \(including the rather bizarre performances repudiate, disparage or slander the Warren Report without offering anything of value that might throw further factual light on the crime itself. . . . I still think the Warren Commission did a tremendous job in the space of time allotted. And I refuse to be confused by nit-pickers until one of them comes forward with something more substantially believable than asinine suppositions of blatant complotting. George M. Sammons, 4002 Prescott, Dallas, Tex. 75219. Some questions I wonder if David Belin \(“Truth was my only goal,” Obs. on the Warren Commission and defends it, 24 The Texas Observer would clear up a point or so. 1.Oswald was given a paraffin test to see if he had on his cheeks the nitrate deposits caused by firing a rifle. The test showed he had no nitrate deposits on either cheek. 2.The autopsy at Parkland Hospital specified that death was caused by a shot in the temple, which cannot be hit from behind. \(Oswald, of course, was behind the 3.In subsequent tests no marksman ever succeeded in duplicating WITH A MOVING TARGET, and AT THE SAME DISTANCE, the rapid, accurate shots attributed to Oswald. Yet Oswald was known on the shooting range by fellow Marines as one who very frequently got “Maggie’s drawers,” the waving of a red flag for having missed the entire target sheet. 4.In the case of the murder of Officer Tippit, all but one witness described the murderer as an entirely different-looking man from Oswald. But the testimony of these eye witnesses was not not used by the Warren Commission. Dellar Rushing, 1424 Kipling, Houston, Tex. 77006. Astonished I am astonished that your Aug. 13 article about the superport indicated no doubt about the advisability of building the supercargo ships. Remember the wreck of the Torrey Canyon a peewee tanker in the English Channel and the collision of a couple of little tankers in San Francisco Bay? Those were major disasters affecting millions of people not just the birds and the fish. Think what would have happened if they had been 200,000-ton or even 100,000-ton ships. People who know the seas people for whom the seas are somthing more than just a medium for floating cargo vessels and a place to dump sewage, nuclear wastes and other dangerous pollutants have been reporting for some time that the oceans are dying because of oil spillage and other pollution… . An international conference has been called for the dim future to discuss preservation of the oceans; but the problem ought to be dealt with now on an emergency basis. Many of the vast cargo ships are still on the drawing boards, and they ought to be stopped there at once. A sensible, safe limit should be set, by international agreement, on the size of cargo ships, especially oil tankers. A 20,000-ton oil tanker is a grave peril, and 100,000-tonners are positively insane. The whole critical problem needs airing badly. Think about it. Roger Tornell, 2329 Goldenrod Ave., Fort Worth, Tex. 76111. The Observer has no intention of encouraging the invasion of Texas waters by a floating cousin of the SST. Of course we question the advisability of building a superport. Why else would we have devoted five precious pages to the subject? -Ed. For less editorializing Please for those of us living out of state give us more political news reporting and less editorializing!!! Mrs. A. J. Farley, UCLA NPI, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles; Calif. 90024. Gringos only? I’ve been following Observer coverage of chicano issues in Texas and am beginning to wonder why you have no brown writers yourself. Could it be that T.O. is a gringo bastion? Claudia Santos, 327 University, Menlo Park, Calif. In fact, the Observer has two chicano writers, but they have chosen their own assignments. Henry Staten likes to write about freaks, and Amado Muro prefers covering the hobo community. Ed. Who owns Texas? When Gov. Preston Smith announced his refusal to comply with President Nixon’s order for an economic freeze, he caused a storm of controversy from Texas streets to the White House. Before all the pertinent facts could be gathered, the press was carrying the debate in banner headlines: SMITH DEFIES FREEZE ORDER. The White House, on the wrong side of heavily “moral” issues for so long, suddenly found itself armed with the mightiest of forces, the most totally accepted heuristic argument of all time, “the greater good.” Activities and thoughts carried on in the name of the greater good are beyond scientific investigation. They are immune to special interests and unmindful of temporary difficulties. They are eternal… . So Preston Smith is a villain for becoming a snag in the smooth economic flow toward the greater good. He will go down in history with Aaron Burr, Philip Daniel Ellsberg. He will go down in Texas history as a source of public embarrassment, not because he was wrong, but because he was simple. He assumed that the question of legal sovereignty was still extant, he made his decision for a smaller portion of the greater good than was allowable and he underestimated the conditioning of the citizens of Texas. Most serious of all, Smith forgot who owns Texas and its citizens. His agrarian mentality comes dragging its feet against the pull of progress and he fails to see that eventually we will dispense with state governments and local leaders so that we may look to big brother for dissemination of the greater good. Jay Farrington, Austin, Tex. 78702.