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6The Daily Tar HeelFriday, February 1
laiig ar 1
Prt year of editorial freedom
Kerry DeRochi, Editor
EDDIE WOOTEN, Marfctfrne Editor
CHARLES ElLMAKFR, Associate Editor FRANK BRUNI, Associate Editor
Kelly Simmons, University Editor
Kyle Marshall, Stair and National Editor
MICHAEL DESlSTI, Sports Editor
Melissa Moore, News Editor
Michael Toole, City Editor
KAREN FISHER, Features Editor
Jeff Grove, Am Editor
CHARLES W. LeDFORD. Photosraphy Editor
An American in Moscow
By DA VID ROME
Ode to an institution
So long, Wilson. Last night, we bade you farewell goodbye to your
cubby-hole carrels, your dusty stacks, your crystal chandeliers
When you closed late on Thursday, part of our career here closed with
you. The fraternities, sororities and strippers will always have the Under
grad. But we preferred your lounges. After all, it wasn't too long ago
when as freshmen we entered the stacks fearing death and clutching our
roommates for support. We left a few hours later, flushed with excite
ment, the 600-pound Poli Sci textbook in hand.
The years have passed quickly, Wilson, and throughout them you've
served us well. You watched over us carefully as we napped through our
classes and read the latest magazines when we were supposed to be study
ing the Manifesto. You didn't flinch when we snuck in those six packs of
Tab or the peanut M&M's during exams. It was as though you had seen it
all.
But they decided to close you anyway, Wilson. It was time to lay you
to rest. On Monday, the rooms which brought forth hurried term papers
and lengthy honors theses will house "special" library collections. We'll
be moved to the brick depot across the Pit. (The one they call the largest
school building in North Carolina. We'll probably just get lost.) For the
past few weeks we've watched painfully as your books have been shipped
to that young upstart. We've read the paper to see which stack was the
next to go. So long seventh floor-New; goodbye Dickens.
But we won't forget you, Wilson. As with most good friends, goodbye
hasn't been easy. Searching the stacks made us feel challenged; entering
the Humanities room reminded us how much farther we have to go.
So when the bell rang for the final time Thursday night it was the end
of an era. We stood in the last checkout line as our knapsacks were rifled
through for the final search: From now On, we'll peer at you from the ?
windows of Davis.
We'll miss you, Wilson. Goodbye.
Breaking the bank
President Reagan submitted his 1985 budget to Congress Wednesday,
calling for $925 billion in government spending, about $180 billion more
than the government will receive through taxes. It was just four years ago
that Reagan had promised he would balance the federal budget within
four years. And yet the record spending continues.
Despite the large deficit, Reagan has refused to back down on increas
ed military spending or to support tax increases to offset such expen-
ditures. This attitude has Democrats ranhihg around the cduntry gleefulry
extolling the vices of Reagan's spending habits. Even Martin Feldstein,
chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said the
deficits must be cut immediately or risk rising inflation, rising interest
rates and a general slowdown in the. economy. As Reagan himself has
said, "Only the threat of indefinitely prolonged budget deficits threatens
the continuation of sustained non-inflationary growth and prosperity. It
raises the specter of sharply higher interest rates, choked-of f investment,
renewed recession and rising unemployment."
To be sure, Reagan does not want the deficit spending any more than
the Democrats, especially in this election year. To combat the deficit pro
blem (and to even out the blame for the excess spending), Reagan has
proposed that a bipartisan commission study ways of reducing the deficit
by as much as $100 billion over the next three years. He has also approv
ed some minor tax increases that would bring in an extra $33.7 billion in
the next three years and has called for a revision of the tax codes to close
"loopholes" through which billions are slipping every year.
Reagan is proposing relatively minor cutbacks of about $26.3 billion in
Medicare, civil service and military retirement, education and benefit pro
grams for the poor. But the military budget again will receive a large in
crease, about 9.3 percent in current dollars. In addition, Reagan plans a
3.5 percent pay raise for federal employees.
So why, in an election year, has Reagan submitted such an expensive
and deficit-ridden budget? Leverage. Now that Congress has the budget,
it will surely debate extensively over it. If any serious budget-cutting is go
ing to be done, as both camps insist it should, Reagan could neither ire
the Democrats by drastically cutting social programs nor leave his posi
tion weak by cutting military spending. Therefore, most taxes and spen
ding habits remained virtually the same. x
Of course, there is one problem with hoping for an even-handed
budget-cutting exercise this year: elections. Few congressmen, senators or
presidential candidates want to offend any sector of the electorate, and
they will probably bend over backward to keep or gain potential votes.
Yet as the deficits continue to grow and more of each year's budget goes
toward servicing the national debt, fiscal responsibility by both the presi
dent and congress is mandatory ."As Reagan has saidTa "fiSO bMon deficit
is unacceptable, but proposing such a budget is a disservice to each and
every U.S. citizen. ' .
On my last day in the Soviet
Union, late in December, I was
approached on a main street in
Leningrad by a young Russion
in Western clothes, an obvious
blackmarketeer, who asked
me, "Are you an American?"
I answered, "No; I'm from Moscow." I said that in part
because I knew it would probably stop him from bother
ing me, but I also felt that I had earned the right to
associate myself with that city and its people. I had lived
for (I am tempted to say "lived through") four months
as a student in Moscow at the Pushkin Institute of the
Russian Language.
It was a special feeling being an American and yet liv
ing, eating, playing, moving around and talking like a
Muscovite. This article and the ones to come are not part
of a KGB murder mystery on the order of Gorky Park or
a love story like Dr. Zhivago but an attempt to describe
some of the unique attitudes, lifestyles, concerns and in
stitutions I found and experienced in Moscow.
I want to avoid being narrow-minded and present
more than just negative images of Moscow, but many of
the negative aspects of Moscow life appearedxto me as
institutional problems infrequently discussed within the
Soviet Union. This was my third time in the Soviet
Union, but my first extended stay, and over the course
of those four months the novelty of some of these in
stitutional differences between East and West wore off
and left me frustrated and defensive about America.
I lived in a student dormitory adjacent to the Pushkin
Institute in a residential section of Moscow far from the
center of town. I was with a group of about 25
Americans, but the institute's population consisted
largely of students from "fraternal socialist countries"
or the Third World. There were Poles, Vietnamese,
Afghanis, Cubans, Syrians, Tunisians, and a minority of
us from the "capitalist countries." I lived with four
other Americans in two small rooms that could con
ceivably be called a suite. There is no word in the Rus
sian langauge for "privacy," and we were not assured of
very much privacy in the dorm.
Everyone asks if I was followed or bugged or ever in
danger. I do not think I was ever followed or bugged,
but it does not really matter whether I was. We were just
careful not to talk too much in our dorm rooms and not
to use the pay phones in our institute to call Russian
friends. We were not necessarily afraid for ourselves but
for the possible ramifications for our friends of being in
volved with Americans during a time of heightened ten
sions between the two countries. Their internal security
system certainly cannot and would not want to follow
every American student, but the chance and fear that
they might is instilled in many of the Russians I met. I
often felt like I was in a spy movie when I would go out
into the cold dark streets at night and hurry into a
The Daily Tar Heel
Assistant New Editor: Tracy Adams
Editorial Assistants: Bill Riedy and Gigi Sooner.
Assistant Managing Editors: Joel Broadway, Amy Tanner and Heidi Zehnal
News Desk: SaHie Krawcheck, Sheryl Thomas and Clinton Weaver .
News: Dick Anderson, Diana Bosniack, Richard Boyce, Keith Bradsher, Amy Branen, Lisa
Brantley, Hope Buffington, Tom Conlon, Kathie Collins, Kate Cooper, Teresa Cox, Lynn
Davis, Dennis Dowdy, Chris Edwards, Kathy Farley, Steve Ferguson, Genie French, Heather
Hay, Tracy Hilton, Andy Hodges, Jim Hoffman, Melissa Holland, Reggie Holley, Sue Kuhn,
Thad Ogburn, Beth O'Kelley, Janet Olson, Beth Ownley, Cindy Parker, Ben Perkowski,
Sarah Raper, Cindi Ross, Liz Saylor, Katherine Schultz, Sharon Sheridan, Deborah Simpkins,
Sally Smith, Mark Stinneford, Vance Trefethen, Chuck Wallington, Melanie Wells, Lynda
Wolf, Rebekah Wright, Jim Yardley and Jim Zook. Wayne Thompson, assistant state and na
tional editor.
Sports: Frank Kennedy, Michael Persinger and Kurt Rosenberg assistant sports editors. Glen
na Burress, Kimball Crossley, Pete Fields, John Hackney, Lonnie McCullough, Robyn Nor
wood, Julie Peters, Glenn Peterson, Lee Roberts, Mike Schoor, Scott Smith, Mike Waters,
David Wells and Bob Young.
Features: Clarice Bickford, Lauren Brown, Tom Camacho, Toni Carter, Charles Gibbs, Tom
Grey, Marymelda Hall, Kathy Hopper, Charles Karnes, Jennifer Keller, Dianna Massie,
Kathy Norcross, Amy Styers, Mike Truell, assistant features editor.
Arts: Ed Brackett, J. Bonasia, Steve Carr, Louis Corrigan, Ivy Hilliard, Ned Irvine, Jo Ellen
Meekins, Steve Murray, Arlaine Rockey, David Sotolongo and Sheryl Thomas, assistant arts
editor.
Photography: Larry Childress, Lori Heeman, Jeff Neuville, Susie Post and Lori Thomas.
Zane Saunders, assistant photography editor. L
Business: Anne Fulcher, business manager: Angela Booze and Tammy Martin, accounts
receivable clerks; Dawn Welch, circulationdistribution manager; William Austin, assistant
circulationdistribution manager; Patti Pittman and Julie Jones, classified advertising staff;
Yvette Moxin, receptionist; Debbie McCurdy, secretary.
Advertising: Paula Brewer, advertising manager; Mike Tabor, advertising coordinator; Laura
Austin, Kevin Freidheim, Patricia Gorry, Terry Lee, Doug Robinson, Amy Schultz and Anneli
Zeck, ad representatives.
phone booth and try to affect a native accent in order to
arrange a meeting with a friend next to a certain subway
car in the middle of a certain subway platform.
I look back now and try to account , for all the free
time I spent in Moscow and realize what an impact the
society had on my use of time. Classes were held six days
a week from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the rest of the time
we were free to explore the city. Like a typical
Muscovite, I spent most of my free item acquiring and
consuming food, keeping warm, riding the metro, and
being with friends. It is unbelievable how much time it
takes to get anything done in the Soviet Union. There is
probably no conscious effort by the Soviet government
to complicate procedures and life so much that the peo
ple have less leisure time for "anti-Soviet thought and
activities," but the system definitely creates that effect,
and there is very little incentive to change things. Con
trary to what the Western press may sometimes say, the
Soviet system and economy definitely do work. They
just work slowly and inefficiently.
For example, at one point I wanted to use the main
scholarly library, the Lenin Library. I knew that as a
resident American student I was entitiled to read in the
most prestigious reading room in the library, which is
available to only the top Soviet scholars. It took six con
secutive days of effort before I was actually able to see
some books. I spent three days finding out the pro
cedures for obtaining a library card and having the
necessary photograph taken. I spent a fourth day having
the card processed. On the fifth day I actually saw the
library from the inside and ordered some books that
were waiting for me on the sixth day. On the seventh
day, the library was closed for the monthly "Sanitary
Day." If I had wanted to photocopy any materials in the
library, it probably would have required official permis
sion from Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov.
At least with the library, I did not have to wait in line.
Consumer shortages and allocation problems do result
frequently in long, slow lines. As a spoiled American, I
was very impatient in these lines, and I avoided them as
much as possible. I did not have to do much food shopp
ing because I would eat in the institute's cafeteria or
various cafeterias and restaurants in the city or occa
sionally dip into my reserves of three jars of Skippy
peanut butter.
The Russians have developed a-unique system of
waiting in lines. Very often a family or a few friends will
shop together each waiting in a different line. Other
wise, a person will stand in the check-out line of a pro
duce store for a few seconds and say to the person in
front or behind, "I'll be right back", and have his or her
place held (usually by me) while he or she picks up
something from a different line. On a few occasions, I
would be holding about four other people's places in
line. The only time this custom made me nervous was in
line at a liquor store where drunk men would push and
mumble their way up to the front of the line.
While Muscovites often displayed great complacency
in these lines, at other times, particularly during rush
hour, they seemed very pushy. I wondered if this
pushiness was iust a trait of Muscovite or characteristic
of urban dwellers throughout in the world. Once, I
managed to board a bus during rush hour on the way to
a hotel. When I asked someone directions, it became ob
vious that I was a foreigner. One elderly Russian man in
the crowd of sardines started cursing that all the foreign
tourists were to blame for crowding the buses. Others
quickly came to my defense, but I was saddened by this
short-sighted view of a problem. The buses are not over
crowded because of foreign tourists. They are over
crowded because the Soviet bureaucracy does not have
enough buses operating at that time.
The lack of self-criticism in Soviet society came to
bother me more and more. They have all the answers
and are always right. The common reaction by most
.Muscovites to this kind of official dogma seems to be to
withdraw in part from all these issues and the media and
worry about the important things like getting enough to
eat and taking care of friends and family. There is very
little night life in Moscow, and television is not really
worth watching. With so few distractions, the Russians
are much more prone to spend hours sitting around talk
ing with friends or family members. My most pleasant
memories of Moscow include sitting around dinner
tables in Russian apartments and talking and eating for
several hours at a time. The Russians have also
developed a remarkable love for literature. Everywhere
you go, especially in the metro, people are reading, and
they can all quote from the classics of Pushkin and
others.
Most people were very anxious to meet an American
and talk with me, especially young people who liked to
try out their high school English. While I was often
frustrated by the rudeness and coldness of the masses in
public, I was impressed by the warmth, friendliness, and
hospitality of the people whom I met. They seemed to
appreciate that I was making the effort to learn Russian
and was not the type to launch immediately into a verbal
political attack or discussion.
Despite the fascination of day-to-day life in such a
diverse and interesting culture, the hassles and frustra
tions of Moscow really had an effect on my disposition
and seemed to be written all over the faces of the Rus
sians. After about two months of riding the metro every
day and regularly being approached by blackmarketeers
wanting to buy my Burlington, North Carolina-bought
jeans or my U.S. dollars, I wondered what I was doing in
such a strange place. There were frequent excitements
like being in Moscow and Red Square on the 66th An
niversary of the Great October Revolution, and like
other Muscovites, I went to a lot of films and read some
of the classics. However, a line from a play I saw mid
way through the semester, The Inspector General by
Gogol summed up much of what I was feeling at least by
December: "I'm fed up with this kind of life."
Editor's note: This column is the first in a series of
columns on Soviet society. Next: Ideology and the
Media.
David Rome is a junior Russian major from Bloom
field, Conn.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Pride and progressiveness
To the editor:
I was shocked and confused by the
assertion in the editorial "Running on
rhetoric" "has restored in many
Americans pride in this country and faith
in progress?? (DTH, Jan. 3).
. Progress? The budget deficit is the
largest ever, over nine million people are
unemployed, thousands of acres of
natural parks and wilderness areas have
been opened up for logging and drilling
for oil, registration for the draft was
reinstated, Civil Rights legislation has
been challenged, social programs have
been cut back funding for education and
the arts has been drastically reduced: This
is not progress!
Pride m America? Are we to be proud
of 259 marines dying in Lebanon for no
apparent gain, of supporting a right-wing
military dictatorship in El Salvador
whose death squads' atrocities recently
graced the cover of Newsweek, of the
CIA training peasants in Honduras to kill
Nicaraguan peasants because Nicaragua
will not let American corporations make
a big enough profit, of spreading nuclear
weapons across Europe and selling
weapons all over the world, of continuing
to support apartheid in South Africa, of
our invasion of Grenada? I would like to
be proud of my country, but right now it
is all I can do to avoid being ashamed.
Douglas White
Carrboro
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Reagan to go for another term
By WA YNE THOMPSON
President Reagan had even Vice Presi
dent George Bush biting his nails when
he went on nationwide television 10:55
p.m. EST Sunday to end the suspense
about bis 1984 re-election plans.
But Bush and the fund-raising
organization for the president that had
already raised $4 million had little to
worry about.
"Vice President Bush and I would like;
to have your continued support and
cooperation completing what we began
three years ago," Reagan said after citing
his aclrninistration's progress against in
flation and high interest rates.
"I am therefore announcing that I am
a candidate and will seek re-election." .
The Democrats were quick to react.
House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr.
called Reagan a "divider, not a unier."
"He has divided our country between
rich and poor, between the hopeful and
the hopeless, between the comfortable
and the miserable," O'Neill said. "The
American people will reject four more
years of danger, four more years of
pain."
Congressional Democrats also were
cool to the president's $925 billion fiscal
1985 budget and its call for $305 billion
in military spending. "It's just about an
update of the 1983 budget," said Rep.
James R. Jones, D-Okla., chairman of
the House Budget Committee.
Despite dissatisfaction with the
budget's red ink a $180 billion deficit
Republication congressional leaders
were enthusiastic. "It's a good budget.
It's a realistic budget," said Senate Ma
jority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr.,
R-Tenn.
Legislators agreed, overall, that the
budget has no surprises no large tax
increases, which the president opposed,
and no major cuts in domestic programs,
which Congress would be unlikely to
grant in the midst of presidential and
congressional campaigns.
Another dead in Beirut
A daylong series of clashes between
U.S.. Marines and Shiite Moslem
militiamen Monday killed one Marine
and reportedly took the lives of a 9-year-old
girl and two civilians.
Marine Corps representative Maj.
Dennis Brooks answered charges that
U.S. fire killed the civilians. "We have
no way . of knowing what we hit, and
what casualties there were," he said.
"We are sorry about any civilian
casualties, but the bottom line is that we
are taking fire from the area and we have
' to.defend ourselves."
The Marine who died was the 259th
U.S. serviceman killed in Lebanon since
the Marines were deployed in Beirut in
September 1982. The Marine's death
sparked a new round of calls from con
gressional Democrats for a U.S.
withdrawal from Lebanon.
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'Uniongate'
The Campus Governing Council took
no punitive action against CGC Speaker
James Exum's use of student organiza
tions' names to get priority use of Union
rooms for campaign meetings.
Exum, a candidate for student body
president, had acknowledged holding
"three or four" campaign meetings in
the Union, reserving rooms in the name
of the CGC or the Black Interdenomina
tional Student Association.
The council's Ethics Committee con
ducted an investigation of Exum and
concluded that he was unaware of
violating official Union policy in reserv
ing the rooms.
The Union gives student organizations
priority for rooms. Students may use the
rooms for other purposes, including
campaign meetings, if space is available,
but cannot reserve a room more than a
day in advance as Exum did.
Exum, who jokingly labeled the inci
dent "Uniongate," said the room mix
up would not hurt his campaign. "I
don't see how it could come out to ap
pear anything other than a misunder
standing," he said.
Once Exum found out about the offi
cial Union policy, he voluntarily stopped
reserving rooms.
Pam Kyff, chief reservationist for the
Union, said the volume of business done
at the Union Desk made "Uniongates"
hard to prevent.
Great Decisions
U.S. policy in Central America needs
a mix of diplomatic and military initia
tives to work, said senior fellow and
director of the Latin American Project at
the Council of Foreign Relations.
Speaking at the second lecture of the
Great Decisions series, Susan K. Pur cell
urged the U.S. to seek a political solution
in Central America. "There can't be an
economic solution while there's fighting
going on," she said. "It's like pouring
money in a sieve.
"If we could get the right political cir
cumstances, then the rest would come
about."
Purcell said U.S. debate of Central
American policy had become too divided
into anti-communist and non
interventionist camps.
"1 think you have to move gradually
from a policy that is blatantly contain
ment to more of a hands-off policy," she
said.
Although Purcell said the Reagan
administration's anti-communist policies
in the region had not worked, she added
that the U.S. should not quickly aban
don its Central American strategy.
"If you're going to x move sud
denly. . .you're going to destabilize
much of the hemisphere," she said.
President Carter's policy of allowing
any form of government to arise in Latin
America didn't escape Purcell's
criticism.
"The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
completely undid the Carter policy," she
said. "Part of foreign policy doesn't in
volve the most moral decision."
Maybe not all over'
Tar Heel point guard Kenny Smith's
wrist became Chapel Hill's favorite
gossip item as everywhere from Subway
"to the Pit students wondered aloud what
would happen to the Tar Heels' chances
of an NCAA basketball championship in
Seattle, Wa.
The fears of the prophets of doom
"It's all over," "There goes the ACC
championship" were put to rest by
Smith's able replacements, 6-3
sophomore Steve Hale and 6-4 junior
Buzz Peterson in Wednesday's game
against Clemson in Greensboro.
Hale and Peterson pestered the Clem
son guards with their defense and played
well on offense. Peterson scored a
career-high 19 points on nine-of-12
shooting, while Hale added six points
and six assists for the Heels.
Both Smiths couldn't have been more
pleased with the 97-75 blowout.
Smith's injury was diagnosed by team
physician Joseph DeWalt as a fracture of
the scaphoid bone in the left wrist. He
will be sidelined for at least four weeks.
The staff of WCHL spent most of
Sunday night and Monday answering
telephone calls about the freshman
phenom from faraway places like
Albuquerque, N.M., and San Francisco,
Calif.
Wayne Thompson, a senior broadcast
journalism major from Roanoke, Va.,Js
assistant stale and national editor for
The Daily Tar Heel.