Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 102, No. 190, Ed. 1 Monday, August 11, 1980 Page: 4 of 10
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4—THE NCm-TOCGRAM. Sulphur Spring*. Tm«. Monday Aug. It. 1M0.
!
forum
Jack Anderson
The sad presidency
In our opinion
East Texans rejoice
over new reservoir
30,000 surface acres.
of James E. Carter
There is much happiness being ex-
pressed in the heavily industralized
Longview area over the upcoming
operational status of the nearby Lake
Fork Reservoir, a part of the vast
Sabine River Authority.
Lake Fork’s massive resources will
be tapped by the City of Longview,
and, in effect, other cities which it sup-
plies water. Longview has contracted
for the delivery of 20,000 acre feet of
water annually from Lake Fork with
the water coming initially from
upstream Lake Tawakoni.
When completely filled, Lake Fork
Reservoir in Wood County, with a
slight indentation into Hopkins County
by one arm of water, will cover about
While smaller towns adjacent to
Lake Fork Reservoir are expected to
benefit from recreational activities,
the biggest benefactor may well be
Longview on down the stream. The
leaders in Longview and other cities to
the east of Quitman see the addition of
Lake Fork Reservoir as a good selling
point to lure other industries to East
Texas.
Water is a precious commodity and
holds a vital key in the development of
areas. That is one of he principal
reasons that it is so important to
vigorously pursue the construction of
Cooper Lake north of Sulphur Springs.
Milestones of August
rapidly being crossed
The weather may remain hot and
dreary, but the milestones of August
are beginning to show up in precise
order as the month progresses.
Hurricane season opened almost
exactly cm schedule with a monster
named Allen crowding the Gulf of Mex-
ico.
In another week the early bird col-
lege students will be scurrying away
toward their campuses.
In two more weeks public schools
will have a new year in full operation.
In three more weeks September will
be here and the psychological
pressures of the season will begin to
change.
Summer probably will linger
around for a while but in a form that
can be tolerated.
As long as we have safely
negotiated our way through July and
August, there isn’t much use to fret
about the remnants of summer that
may be left. It will be only a question of
days then.
WASHINGTON - The first time I visited Jimmy
Carter in the White House, I suggested that the
nation had gone through enough news shocks for one
decade. “I am looking for stories that would restore
faith in the system, faith in the Oval Office,” I said.
This brought a diffident smile to the face of the
new president who had come to power preaching
morality to post-Watergate America. He deplored
"the sordid occurences of the past.” He agreed that
the American people looked to him to bring a new
sense of integrity and idealism to Washington.
"So I think I do have, in spite of partisan
divisions, the good wishes of the American people,”
he told me.
The tragedy of the Carter presidency is that he
has foolishly squandered those good wishes. Jimmy
Carter has let down a people who wanted to believe
in him, who wished for his success. He promised
that he would never lie to them, yet his ad-
ministration has been caught in one awkward lie
after another. He promised strong leadership. Yet
he has withdrawn into long periods of indecision,
passivity and paralysis.
He has never tired of uttering his sermonettes. He
has preached against drug abuse and in-
discriminate sex. “I have asked my own White
House staff,” he said in 1977, “to protect the in-
tegrity of their families ... So those of you who are
living in sin, I hope you’ll get married. Those of you
who have left your spouses, go back home.” But he
has been unable to impress his standards upon his
immediate subordinates.
Like Richard Nixon before him, Carter has also
tended to insulate himself from the Washington
whirl and to use his staff as a buffer. He has a desire
for solitude and a craving for an orderly en-
vironment, undisturbed by trivial interruptions of
the internecine discord.
"I value solitude,” he once told me. “I kind of
hunger after loneliness."
So Carter has tried to isolate himself from un-
necessary turmoil, dealing regularly only with
those trusted, select few whose faces and accents
are familiar to him.
The trouble with all this is that a seething en-
terprise like America cannot be led from a glass
bubble. Subordinates suddenly catapulted from the
backwaters of Georgia to the peaks of power in
Washington will succumb to the heady atmosphere.
But as outsiders, they will distrust the insiders who
know their way around the marble maze. They will
find true security only in the good-ole-boy ties with
their own limited group.
The clique at the center will also feel threatened
by the professionals who will press closely around.
Suspicion and hostility at the center will eventually
permeate the organization. Then professionals who
are blocked from access to the president will begin
to connive.
This scenario is all too familiar to those of us who
witnessed the Nixon presidency commit first the
blunders and then the crimes that produced the
greatest political scandal in American history. We,
hardly expected to see a similar scenario repeated
within the decade. Yet already, we have witnessed
the quiet cover-ups and the pious denials in the
Carter White House.
Most Americans probahly have more sympathy
for the harassed but human Jimmy Carter than
they showed Richard Nixon. They don’t see in
Carter’s faltering and fumbling the cold calculation
that characterized the Nixon administration. The
Carter team comes across more as the Bad News
Bears.
It’s hard not to like that jovial carouser, Hamilton
Jordan, for instance. He may have seemed a
curious choice to handle sensitive diplomtic
assignments for the United States. He may never
have practiced diplomacy outside a barroom.
Perhaps he also looked a bit silly flying off to
Europe on a secret diplomatic mission, disguised in
a gray wig and false mustache. But you can’t help
cheering good ole Ham, slowed by overweight, as he
charges for first base clutching a drink in his fist.
And who cap stay angry at Billy Carter, despite
the stretch of red neck showing above the collar? He
may knock nothing but foul balls, but he always has
a retort for the crowd. Sure, he may have tried to
hustle a few petrodollars from Libya's Muammar
Qaddafi, but this merely would have left Qaddafi
with less money to hand out to world terrorists.
You’ll usually find Rosalyn Carter, meanwhile, in
there pitching. She suggested having Billy ask his
friend Qaddafi to use his influence with Ayatollah
Khomeini to free the American hostages. Of course,
her timing was bad; the suggestion came at about
the same time Libyan militants burned the U.S.
Embassy in Tripoli.
Then it turned out that Qaddafi had no influence
with Khomeini. The two radical rulers are bitter
enemies. In fact, one of Khomeini's holy men had
vanished in Libya, and Khomeini had blamed
Qaddafi.
Rosalyn had many opportunities to try her own
hand at diplomacy and to practice her Spanish on
diplomatic forays to Latin America. According to
State Department cables, the Latin Americans
were unappreciative.
Son Chip Carter, a nice enough kid, encountered a
similar reception on a diplomatic jaunt into the
Arab world. Jordan's King Husseir. was so irritated
at being asked to deal with the president’s son that
he sent Chip to eat with the children.
Those who know Jimmy Carter say he is a deeply
private person, a decent, shy, sensitive man, who
desperately wanted to be a good president. It’s sad
for Carter - sadder still for the nation - that he
failed.
John G. Long
John G. Long was a person who
cared for others. And during his long
career with Rockwell International’s
Sulphur Springs plant, through his role
a personnel director, he had opportuni-
ty to personally know thousands of per-
sons with whom he came in contact
over the years.
He was one of the first to be
employed by the company when it
located a plant here. He began work
with the firm before its huge building
was erected east of Sulphur Springs.
His abilities were quickly recognized
Sulphur Springs Needs....
•Cooper Reservoir
•Broader Vocational Education
•More Downtown Parking
•Continued Industrial Development
•A More Prosperous Agriculture
as he stepped into the key personnel
position.
Because he cared for others and
shared in their everyday experiences,
he earned the respect of his fellow
workers and was one of the company’s
best liked officials.
Mr. Long communicated well with
the Rockwell employees, the various
management teams, and the com-
munity as a whole.
His untimely death will leave a void
in the lives of many with whom he
served with over the years. Truly, he
served well during his time on earth.
•A City-County Health Unit
•City Beautification
•Enthusiastic Citizens
•Minimum Housing Standards Code
•Improved Streets & Drainage
Today in History
By The Associated Press
Today is Monday, Aug. 11, the
224th day of 1980. There are 142
days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history:
On Aug. 11, 1954, a formal
peace announcement was made
in Indochina, ending more than
seven years of fighting between
the French and the Communist
Vietminh.
On this date:
In 1857, the first trans-
Atlantic cable broke after 335
miles had been laid.
In 1935, Nazi storm troopers
staged mass demonstrations
against Jews in Germany.
In 1941, President Franklin
Roosevelt and British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill
signed the “Atlantic Charter,”
on a warship in the western
Atlantic.
In 1965, rioting and looting
broke out in the predominantly
black Watts section of Los
Angeles.
Today’s birthdays: Writer
Alex Haley is 59 years old.
Actor Lloyd Nolan is 77.
Thought for today: They that
govern the most make the least
noise. — John Selden (1584-
1654).
Reflections at age 75
Rules vs. naked power
By Robert Walters
NEW YORK (NEA) - Any honest assessment of the conflict-
ing claims in the fierce debate over the loyalty of delegates to
the Democratic National Convention leads to the inescapable
conclusion that President Carter is correct.
Acceptance of Carter's legal and moral position on the issue
leads, however, to an inevitable political result — the virtual-
IN WASHINGTON
H Robert Walters
ly automatic renomination of a president by a party quite
thoroughly disenchanted with his leadership
But the price for dumping Carter is far too high because it
requires forsaking more than a decade of profound structural
reform that has made the Democratic Party one of the most
responsive and representative institutions in our society
Relying upon an array of specious arguments and a high-
powered public-relations campaign. Sen Edward M Kennedy,
D-Mass.. and other Carter critics have deftly obscured the
origin, history and intent of the provision that states:
“All delegates to the national convention shall be bound to
vote for the presidential candidate whom they were elected to
support for at least the first convention ballot, unless released
in writing by the presidential candidate.
“Delegates who seek to violate this rule may be replaced
with an alternate of the same presidential preference oy the
presidential candidate ... at any time up to and including the
presidential balloting at the national convention."
That language was formulated, discussed and approved
unanimously by the Commission on Presidential Nomination
and Party Structure, a reform panel established by the Demo-
cratic National Committee in the autumn of 1975
The commission — whose 58 members included several
senior political aides to Kennedy who are now leading a belat-
ed crusade against their own recommendations — completed
its work in early 1978
In June 1978 — more than two years ago — the Democratic
National Committee approved those recommendations and
distributed them to state and local party officials as the
"Delegate Selection Rules for the 1980 Democratic National
Convention.”
In May 1979 — more than one year ago — the Democratic
National Committee approved the official “Call for the 1980
Democratic National Convention," a document whose now-
famous section F(3Xc) contained identical language.
On both occasions, there was heated debate over a variety
of proposed rules — but virtually no discussion of the clause
requiring delegates to remain faithful to the presidential can-
didates they endorsed during the primaries and caucuses.
"No one raised the question of fairness, equity or appropri-
ateness until it was clear who was winning and who was losing
the contest for the presidential nomination," says Donald
Fowler, former Democratic state chairman in South Carolina.
Indeed, it was not until early spring of this year — after
Carter had defeated Kennedy in Iowa, New Hampshire.
Alabama. Florida, Georgia and Illinois — that the senator and
his supporters began bemoaning the supposed lack of an “open
convention."
There indeed is a case to be made for freeing delegates
from their commitments in the event of "changed circum-
stances" — if, for instance, their candidate dies or is afflicted
by an incapacitating illness between the primary and the
convention.
But those arguments should have been raised, debated and
resolved when the appropriate rules were under consideration
in 1976,1977,1978 and 1979.
The final word on the matter comes from Kennedy himself
and from Washington attorney Joseph L. Rauh Jr., one of the
senator's most active and vocal supporters.
“Those of us who've been to these conventions know you can
do a lot with the rules if the delegates want to come along,”
Kennedy said earlier this year.
During a similar procedural dispute in 1972, however, Rauh
astutely assessed the terribly high cost of such devious manip-
ulation: “If the rules can be changed after the game has been
played, then all that remains of our great Democratic Party
reforms is naked political power."
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN)
Last July 12 was a red-let-
ter day on my calendar as I
blew out 75 candles on my
birthday cake.
It was a milestone in my
life But age isn’t a millstone
to weigh me down.
Fortunately, my health is
good and I don’t feel all that
old.
I really felt old 10 years
ago After a 45-year journalis-
tic career, I was mandatorily
retired. Maybe I could have
continued doing my job as
competently as before. But I
was put out to pasture. I was
GROWING OLDER
Harold Blumenfeld
just too old at age 65.
I have never really felt
retired. Instead, it’s only that
my name and number were
taken out of the
computer.
payroll
Berry's World
SMOKE-
FILLED
ROOM
■ ® 19*0 by NEA. Inc _
We moved to Florida to
escape the frenetic pace in
New York City. I couldn’t take
any more of those freezing,
windy Northern winters and
hoped the cost of living would
be lower in the Sun Belt.
Now I have more time for
reading and writing about
matters that interest me. I
have become more aware of
community affairs.
I have grown concerned
about compatriot aging citi-
zens. Their problems are my
problems, and I write this
column to help others who are
retired or who soon will be.
, I eat less but better. Since
retirement, I have taken off
15 pounds, although I must
fight a continuing battle of the
bulge.
Two recent operations for
prostate and hernia have
made me feel better than I
have in years. My recent car-
diograph indicates that I’m in
pretty good shape for a man
of my years.
The last 10 years have been
an exciting — and, too often,
sad - chapter in our national
history.
During my retirement, I
have lived through our retreat
from Vietnam, the taking of
American hostages in Iran,
volcanic eruptions, tornados,
hurricanes, inflation, reces-
sion, the resignation of a pres-
ident, the energy crisis, stu-
dent and racial rioting, a
papal visit, hijackings and
other guerrilla activity, politi-
cal scandals and more sex in
newspapers, books, magazines
and movies.
I’ve had some distressing
financial problems of my own.
Pension money invested in
AAA bonds, which were rec-
ommended as being sound as
the U.S. Treasury, were
reduced in face value by 10 to
15 points. Inflation diluted the
buying power of money from
dividends.
Of course, inflation has tak-
en a big bite out of almost
everyone’s bankroll. It has
made life especially difficult
for those on small fixed
incomes.
Medical costs have doubled
or tripled. Prices of items on
supermarket shelves continue
rising day after day.
My small new American-
made car cost twice as much
as the larger auto I bought
eight years ago. Gasoline used
to cost me 35 cents a gallon —
and service stations enticed
me with trading stamps and
free dishes.
To look on the brighter side,
our monthly Social Security
benefit checks keep us from
further tightening our belts.
Medicare pays for a good por-
tion of my medical bills.
I can say and write almost
anything I want to. I am free
to travel across the country
whenever I can afford that
luxury
I have the right to vote for
my local, state and national
representatives. When it
comes to voting for president
in November, I may hawe an
option of casting a ballot for a
third candidate or writing in
“none of the above” if I don’t
like the nominees of the major
political parties.
I hope I make it to the next
milestone - age 85. Even
with all the warts on its face,
the United States is still a
damn good place to live.
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN |
4
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Keys, Clarke. Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 102, No. 190, Ed. 1 Monday, August 11, 1980, newspaper, August 11, 1980; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth823453/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.