OLD WEIRD HERALD
Volume 11, No. 2
Niagara County Community College, Niagara Falls, N.Y.
October 14, 1969
MORATORIUM
TOMORROW
Vietnamization of the War
President Nixon has said he
SPOCK SPEAKS
RAY LONSDALE
would be the leader of a uni-
On Thursday, October 9th,
the student body and 343 nonstudents, to the tune of over
700 people, listened to Dr. Benjamin Spock give a well organized and well delivered lecture
on dissent and its effects on society.
A press conference was held
prior to his talk where the reporters present caused some
very important points to be
brought out: That both sides
are probably committing "war
crimes against each other. North
Vietnamese may be mistreating
United States prisoners and
South Vietnamese are placing
thousands of "displaced per-
sons" in virtual concentration
camps; which is against the
Geneva Accords.
The displaced persons were
driven from their villages by
U.S. Army search and destroy
missions.
The United States entered
Vietnam to fill the vacuum left
by the French to gain a base in
South East Asia for defensive
attacks on China and to protect the control of mineral deposits in that area for U S and
Allied business interests.
Dr. Spock also brought out
at the news conference that the
government of the U.S. is the
perpetrators of violence, not
the peace demonstrators. The
riots were caused by the ad-
ministrators of local governments and the policing forces
trying to stop protestors in the
name of Americanism.
His lecture began with the
Vietnam Issue, presenting much
the same topics as in the press
conference. There were topics
discussed other than these. The
French re-entered Indo China
in 1946 to try to regain the
territory lost to the Japanese
in World War 11.
The Vietnamese fought the
French for eight years under
Ho Che Min and drove them
out in 1954. The peace was
made at Geneva and Ho went
north of the 17th parallel and
left the French and their sympathizers in the south to leave
without harrassment.
The agreement reached was
to temporarily divide the country on the 17th parallel and to
hold general elections within
two years to determine who
fied Vietnam. The division was
not to be a political division.
President Eisenhower admitted in his memoirs that "All
experts on South East Asia
agreed that the Vietnamese people would have voted 80S for
Ho Che Min. The U S. signed
an agreement not to interfere
with the Geneva accords.
The accords stated that there
would be no outside interference by powers in Vietnamese
affairs. After we (the U.S.) entered South Vietnam we put up
our puppet government which
then asked us to stop the Viet
Cong when it began its War of
Liberation in 1966.
Our first puppet's name was
Diem.
He promptly called off the
elections called for by the Geneva accords; it's strange that
all our puppets came from the
north originally and all supported the French during the
war, including the present vicepresident Ky.
Dr. Spock listed the illegalities of our involvement in
Vietnam:
1. We went into Vietnam
without any justification and in
doing so we broke our agreement to abide by the Geneva
accords.
2. The U.S. in joining the
United Nations, agreed to abide
by the rules of that organization. One of these rules is that
all threats to world peace are
to be brought before that organization which the United
States did not do.
3. Lyndon Johnson went
ahead and gave direct military
aid to South Vietnam without
a declaration of war. He maintained that the Tonkin Gulf
resolution constituted a declaration of war.
When the Senate sought to
find the real circumstances behind the incident, it was found
that the U.S. had outfitted and
trained the navy of South Vietnam and that it was attacking
ports in the northIt was also found that the
U.S. Navy was steaming near
the ports to be attacked to
draw off the naval forces of
North Vietnam so that the
South Vietnamese navy would
be unopposed.
expects to be out of the Vietnam War by the end of 1970
or mid-1971. He intends to do
this through the Paris peace
talks or what he calls Vietnamization or possibly through a
combination of both.
As part of the Administra-
tion's
Vietnamization
or De-
Americanization plan 60,000
American troops are scheduled
to be withdrawn by Dec. 15th.
Part of those are the men of
the 3rd Marine Division currently leaving a northern sector
of South Vietnam which the
Defense Dept. claims to be
dense jungle of no military importance.
It has been my understanding that as American troops
are withdrawn from each sector
that they are to be replaced by
RVN troops or the area is to
be abandoned as having no
strategic value. Yet if that is
the plan, then why is it that the
Army's Ist Airborne Division
is moving into the same area
that the Marines are currently
leaving? It appears that President Nixon and his advisors
have already forgotten their objectives even before completing
the first phase of the operation.
Even if Mr. Nixon should
somehow complete this phase
of the operation there would
still be barriers preventing a
total withdrawal of American
forces. For instance South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van
Forms Available for
Standing Committees
of the faculty Senate
RAY
LONSDALE
Thieu was recently quoted as
saying that he could not see
a total American troop withdrawal "in one year, but over
a period of years."
As part of his plan, Nixon
has been training the Vietnamese to fight the war in the
same way that we have been
doing it. The RVN troops have
been airlifted in and out erf
battlefield positions by American helicopters and the Vietnamese commanders are accustomed to calling the American
fighter and bomber air support.
The U.S. has been spending an
average of $3.5 million a day
on B-52 bomber raids alone.
For the government of South
Vietnam to find a way of fitting that into their annual budget of just over $1 billion they
will need Merlin the magician
for their economist.
If this is any indication of
how Nixon's other efforts to end
American involvement are
going, I suppose we may as
well prepare to annex South
Vietnam as a state. At least in
that respect we might possibly
be able to justify some erf the
expenditures of lives and dollars.
According to latest Defense
Dept. figures, released as of
September, 1969, there have
been a total of 685,340 lives
lost as a result of the Vietnam
War. The breakdown is as follows:
U S. Troops
RVN Troops
NLF & North
Vietnamese Troops
44,798
93,738
546,804
The October draft call is for
29,000 men. How many of
them will appear on future
death lists from the Defense
Department? How many of
them will be your friends?
Students interested in being
on the standing committees of
the faculty senate may pick
up forms from Miss Merino in
the Counselling building, today.
These committees are: Academic Standards, Curriculum,
Library, Admissions, and Instructional Aids. The forms for
these committees must be filled
out and returned by 5:00 p.m.
October 21
The selection of two sophomores and one freshman will
be made by the Student Life
Committee, consisting of freshmen, Chris Pino and Bob Kazeangin, and sophomores, Bill
Sukanzonas and Paulette Nuzzio.
Administrator
of the month
contest set
October 20, is the deadline for
students to cast their votes for
their favorite person on the administrative staff. All votes must be
accompanied by a statement explaining why the person deserves
this recognition.
Students do not have to sign their
names to their votes. The results
will be published in the next edition of the OLD WEIRD HERALD.
For November and December only
votes for faculty and members
will be accepted.
Frank Semon
The students
roll in the
peace effort
PATRICK MURPHY
Clearly, there is no point in
students backing the President's
peace efforts as the Paris Conference is in deadlock and the
Vietnamization plan is doomed
for failure, at least on arty short
range basis. Therefore it would
seem that the only opportunity
for students tired of the mass
murder of their fellow roan is
to band together with their fellow Americans and demand a
end to the warOn October 15th, students
throughout the nation will hold
a moratorium of classes in
order that they may go out in
their own community in an
effort to lay groundwork for
the unification of the efforts
of all Americans that will be
necessary to force President
Nixon to seek an immediate
peace settlement.
In Niagara Falls area there
wiil be marches from NCCC
and NU campuses to city hall,
where the two groups will join
for a peace rally. Mayor Lackey
and other local leaders will be
invited to speak at the rally.
All students are urged to participate in this program so that
it may be carried out to the
maximum efficiency. It has
been requested by the Moratorium Steering Committee that
no one bring any posters or
placards.
A continuing effort will be
made at later dates to organize
letter writing campaigns to Congressmen and set-up symposiums on the war, as well as
gathering public support against
the war from labor and civic
organizations in the community.
Further efforts will continually be made to bolster public
opinion against the war until
such time as Mr. Nixon withdraws all U.S. military forces
from the Republic of South
Vietnam.
"Unless the protest movement convinces America that
peace, domestic problems and
salvaging whatever safety can
be had for the Vietnamese,
should take priority over preserving a non-communist bastion in Vietnam, then the war
may continue endlessly." (Commonwealth, Dec. 1968)
DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE
NCCC day students possessing
student identification cards are eligible to receive discounts at various local stores. The OLD WEIRD
HERALD will publish a complete
list of those businesses that honor
NCCC identification cards in the
next issue.