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Finger L a k e s T i m e s

Wednesday, September 11,1985

A Titanic discovery
Nearly three-quarters of a century after she sank beneath the waters of the North Atlantic, the great ship Titanic is front-page news again. Why? Why should the discovery of the ship's wreckage draw so much attention from, the world's press? For what it's worth, here's one theory: The sinking of the Titanic was the first shocking piece of evidence that the supreme confidence of early 20th century Anglo-American society might be misplaced It was the first of many signs that mankind could not shape nature or society in an image to its own liking. Consider the times: In April 1912, when the 882-foot-long, 46,000-ton liner lett tor New York on her maiden voyage out of Southampton, the British empire was at the apex of its reach. Fully a quarter of the earth's land surface and a quarter of its population were under British control. India, Australia, New Zealand, Malaya, Hong Kong, the Suez Canal, Africa '^from the^Cape to Cairo'' all were controlled from London. The saying that "the sun never sets on the British empire" was more than a boast; it was fact. The United States, too, was an authentic world power, reaching from Cuba to the Philippines. More impressive than its imperial reach was its economic might. The mass-produced automobile, the steel mills of Pennsylvania and Ohio, the agricultural bounty of the Midwest and the Plains, all signaled unmistakably America's enormous richness. That wealth was in abundant evidence on board the Titanic, in the presence of the Straus family of department store fame and magnate John Jacob Astor. The Titanic was also the symbol of technology, of modern man's ability to conquer all obstacles through the wonders of ingenuity and science. The ship was by all accounts unsinkable; watertight doors and a double-fitted bottom saw to that. It was called "the ship

Jeff Greenfield
Cod himself couldn't sink." No wonder, then, that when an underwater spur from an iceberg slit a 500 toot long gash below the ship's waterline, the crew at first reassured the passengers that the accident would cause only a temporary, minor delay. No wonder the world was in shock when it was learned that, barely nine hours after that collision, the Titanic had gone down with the loss of more than 1,500 lives. In a sense, that disaster was a precursor of far greater disasters to rnmc Within two years, Europe and then the United States would be plunged into a war on a scale never before seen, a war the experts said couldn't happen. That first world war, in turn, sowed the seeds of totalitarianism that would take root in Cermany and the Soviet Union, triggermg a second world war and spawning the deaths of tens of millions of innocents. The Titanic demonstrated, as well, that massive wealth and power could not secure protection from disaster. While first-class passengers clearly were afforded far more protection than those traveling in steerage, Astor himself perished beneath the waves, as did Isidore Straus and Benjamin Guggenheim. There may even be a fable for out time in this 1912 tragedy. When the debates over foreign and defense policies are swept away, what remains is the clear fact that all of us rich and poor, influential and powerless live with the knowledge that our remarkable ingenuity has placed all of us under the shadow of obliteration. The White Star Lines, builders of the Titanic, were excoriated for providing only enough lifeboats for half the passengers and crew. In a nuclear age, there are no lifeboats at all.

Reagan's change of tune on sanctions

The following editorial appeared in Tuesday's Washington Post: "77>e system of apartheid means deliberate, systamatic, institutionalized racial discrimination denying the black majority their Cod-given rights. America's view of apartheid is simple and straightforward: We believe it is wrong. We condemn it. And we are united in hoping for the day when apartheid will be no more." Pretty good stuff, right? We thought so. President Reagan said it Monday in proposing to decree by executive order most of the sanctions that veto-proof majorities in both houses were prepared to legislate against South Africa. The Republican-controlled Senate promptly sidetracked the legislation. Leaders in the Democratic-controlled House sharply berated the president and his plan. Mr. Reagan's critics need to look carefully at what has happened. For it appears that the president has, finally, come to a public view of apartheid that reflects the intense and instinctive dislike that most Americans feel. His past statements have often read like defenses of apartheid, and have engendered a widespread distrust of his "constructive engagement" policy. Monday, however, Mr. Reagan had it right facts and tone. If he can stay on that track, his can become a voice other Americans will be pleased to have speak for them. Some of Mr. Reagan's critics profess to find his new position full of loopholes and devious relief for the Pretoria regime. They would do better to focus ^rv nelding the president to the new terms he has embraced. Otherwise they stand to be accused of being prepared to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for strictly partisan gain. It was always clear that the person most open to influence by Congress was not P.W. Botha but Ronald Reagan Now Congress has done it. It has changed his voice and gotten him to embrace most of the specific sanctions in the legislation. It has brought the president into a respectable national consensus on an issue of great political and moral moment. Why would responsible antiapartheid people want to advertise the remaining relatively small differences on sanctions and thereby convey to Pretoria the impression that there is comfort for apartheid in the space between? In the face of the new political context created by the president's switch, the House must now in effect start all over again to legislate, if it goes that, route. In these circumstances, it seems to us reckless to undertake to bring along another bill that would still face a reluctant Senate and that in any event could go only marginally beyond the president's^xeeutive order: The Reagan sanctions do not cut deep, into the South African economy: they scarcely could and still respect the, general wish to jolt apartheid but not to harm its black victims. Certainly these sanctions do not cut nearly as deep as the actions that private American banks undertook recently to protect themselves in South African seas turned ever stormier by domestic protests. But the sanctions do cast a long political and psychological shadow on South Africa's, rulers, who despite their disclaimers' register with infinite sensitivity what others and most of all Americans think of them. The sanctions can cast such a shadow, anyway, if Democrats will allow them to.

Evangelist Pat Robertson

The 1988 Jesse Jackson?

By PETER A. BROWN (Scripps Howard News Service) (Peter A. Brown is White House correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service.) WASHINGTON - If TV evangelist Pat Robertson runs for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination, he could do to the GOP what Jesse Jackson did to the Democrats in 1984. He could pursue explosive, divisive social issues in the Republican primaries and make it tough for the Republicans in the general election. " Y o u c o u l d almost have a Democratic-like primary situation with (Vice President George) Bush playing Mondale, (Rep. Jack) Kemp playing Hart and Robertson playing Jackson," said a White House political strategist. Jackson appealed strongly to blacks and forced eventual nominee Walter Mondale to spend so much time dealing with Jackson's concerns that large numbers of whites became alienated. Robertson, who's known to be considering making the race, would presumably concentrate on so-called family issues abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, busing and the like and force rival candidates to respond in greater detail than they'd like. "Pat's candidacy would pull American politics sharply to the right," said Conservative Digest Publisher and New Right activist Richard Viguerie. It's not that the other likely GOlicandidates Bush, Kemp,Senate Republican leader Robert Dole disagree with Robertson. But they'd rather campaign on economics and foreign policy. GOP strategists fear losing the more socially liberal baby boomers who are voting Republican because they are economically conservative. "The bond of the Republican coalition is the economic issues and Ronald Reagan's leadership," said the White House analyst. "Those are the two bonds, not fighting over abortion, ERA and some of the other social issues that are controversial even within the Republican Party. "You're going to effectively lose Reagan's leadership bond because he won't be on the ballot and secondly you could lose the key bonding issue in the Reagan coalition economic opportunity if it becomes subordinated to those soc ial issues." Charlie Black, a Washington-based Republican political consultant with strong ties to New Right godfather Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C, doubts Robertson wilt poison the electoral waters. "There are at least five candidates who are going to run ahead of Pat Robertson if he runs," Black said. "I don't think you can take a guy who's running sixth and have him dictate the agenda for the others." In the last two presidential elections, evangelical Christians have given Reagan and the Republicans huge majorities just as blacks have for Democrats. But like Jackson, who argued the Democrats have not rewarded blacks fdr their support, some members of the "religious right" are demanding more than favorable rhetoric from the Reagan administration. There are obvious differences between Jackson, the black Baptist who might even run again in 1988, antL Robertson, the white fundamentalist who heads the Christian Broadcasting Network. "Robertson would be better organized and have a lot more money than Jackson ever had," said the White House analyst. But he added that Robertson probably can't motivate his voters as effectively as Jackson did his. Robertson Hoes not have the allegiance of all the other numerous evangelical leaders, and in fact the best known one Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell has already endorsed Bush. So just as Jackson didn't get all the black votes, Robertson won't get all the evangelicals. But just as Jackson couldn't win the nomination but did roil the political waters and help open the way for a Republican victory, so too could Robertson help put a Democrat in the White House

America will be hurt more than S. Africa

ByCARLNOFFKE (Special to the Los Angeles Times) (Carl Noffke is director of the Institute for American Studies at the Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg.) JOHANNESBURG, South Africa South Africa's strategic situation its stabilizing role in Southern Africa and its storehouse of strategic minerals are seldom seriously taken into account when American politicians debate South Africa. Now, in the move toward sanctions, there is the prospect that the United States will lose the ability to influence events in South Africa. I ask myself why American politicians act as they do. South Africa is not the United States, and your blueprints are not acceptable to a racially complex country such as we are. We are part of the continent of Africa. We are a land of minority. We have to devise a political future two choices, political partitioning or a unique amalgam of powersharing and the recognition of the political autonomy of each of the ethnic minorities within our borders. Being an expanding democracy, we do not desire to follow the political blueprint of much of black Africa, which consists of either civil or military dictatorships it is pathetic that your politicians seek to banish South Africa while ignoring the odious politics and ways of life in the East bloc and Third World countries. However, if you set blueprints, these should apply to all countries, small or large. We have a long road ahead to achieve justice and equality for all in South Africa, but we are losing. Our pace is dictated by the needs of the people and by our own aspirations. It will not be dictated by pressure from abroad. If anything, pressure would retard progress; it would be counterproductive. White South Africans come out of the same racial mold as white Americans, and we have many characteristics in common. You will therefore understand that punitive sanctions will not have the desired effect. We will ignore what is being prescribed to us, and we will move ahead alone if need be.
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South Africa is a highly sophisticated and resourceful country. Its people are remarkable. Its achievements are outstanding. Sanctions may harm our economy, but it will not be crippled. We will simply have to become more selfsufficient and more self-supporting. And you will lose the opportunity to guide us when we do seek counsel. It is rather ironic that while the U.S.

insecurity. The Soviet Union will reap enormous benefits from the sudden sanction fad, just as communism benefited from the senility of the Western leaders at Yalta. In the event of any American harboring of illusions about South Africa/some basic facts have to be stated: We are a regional economic and military power, and we have the ability to manufacture

Our pace is dictated by the needs of the people and by our own aspirations. It will not be dictated by pressure from abroad. If anything, pressure would retard progress; It would be counterproductive. ...We will Ignore what Is being prescribed to us, and we will move ahead alone If need be.
Congress was devising an everincreasing avalanche of sanctions against us, our trade with black Africa more than doubled. South Africa trades with 49 of 51 black countries in Africa, and our neighbors to the north of us move most of their import and export goods through South Africa Indisputably, black South Africans enjoy the best medical and educational facilities on the continent and have the best jobs, and their quality of life is improving continuously, Millions of blacks in neighboring countries are totally dependent on our economy for their survival. I ask you: Should all this be sacrificed through the shortsightedness Or opportunism of American politicians who ignore the reality of the situation? Sanctions will not destroy the South African economy, nor will they topple the South African government, but they will threaten some of the politically and economically fragile countries in Southern Africa. Sanctions will not work the way Washington expects. They will close the door for the United States, and will achieve nothing positive Sanctions will make a mockery of the policy of constructive engagement, of which the primary aim fs the elimination of Soviet and Cuban influence in Southern Africa. Communism thrives on instability and anything that we desire. Although unrest occurs temporarily in some parts of South Africa, the stability of the country it not being threatened by the groups that follow Soviet revolutionary dictates, just as the Watts riot in the '60s did not threaten the stability of the entire United States We are addressing our problems in a serious and reasonable manner, and we will survive . Sanctions may hurt us, but they may hurt you more. To quote Claude Cheysson, the former French foreign minister, when he addressed the United Nations committee against apartheid on Oct. 9, 1984: "History shows that an embargo has never succeeded against countries with natural resources, whereas their weaker neighbors who are affected by it suffer horribly." The United States is strongly dependent on South African strategic metal and minerals that are critical in in-' dustries ranging from aerospace to' petroleum refining Yet these metals and minerals amount to but a small percentage of South Africa's exports. You have in the United States about a year's worth of supplies of chromium, platinum, vanadium and manganese. Your other choice of supplier is the Soviet Union. Who is shooting whom in the foot?

The First Amendment To The Constitution Of the United States

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro-' hibiting the tree p**rcise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceaWy to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

Thomas M. Tryniski 309 South 4th Street Fulton New York 13069

www.fultonhistory.com