March 4,1970 THE CAROLINA JOURNAL Pages
Perot Organizes To Bring POWs Home
H. Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire
whose name has appeared recently in
newspapers and on television across the
country, is now speaking to UNCC.
Perot, who became interested last year
in the American prisoners in North
Vietnam, is asking the public to write
letters expressing concern for our
prisoners of war.
According to Monte Zepeda, who is
coordinating activities in the Carolinas on
behalf of Perot, this is "a tangible form
for the average citizen to express his
discontent of the way these men are
being treated."
Such letters represent the first part of a
fhree-part program entitled "United We
Stand, Inc." of Dallas, Texas.
Part two consists of caravans, beginning
0*1 each coast, travelling inward for a final
’’’erging somewhere in the center of the
country around mid-May.
The caravans will go from city to city.
picking up all letters and inviting
interested individuals to join the
campaign.
When the caravans merge, there will be
a final mass rally. All collected letters,
postcards, telegrams, and other written
material will be flown to Hanoi, where
North Vietnamese government leaders
will receive them. This is the third phase.
Zepeda stressed the fact that the
program is a non-partisan, non-political
campaign. It would commit no one to
any particular stand on the war.
'The program has nothing to do with
the way a person actually feels about the
war," he commented. "It's just to get our
prisoners out of those war camps. They
serve no further purpose to the North
Vietnamese after initial capture and
interrogation. They're just liabilities to
the North."
Perot became a billionaire through his
development of Electronic Data Systems,
Inc. Upon observing what he felt were
disgusting conditions of the POW camps,
he felt a need to take part in an active
way.
Around Christmas, Perot sent
planeloads of food and supplies for the
1400 prisoners in North Vietnam. He
agreed to duplicate the supplies equally
for the South's prisoners in an effort to
"help human beings." Hanoi refused.
Perot feels that if Americans present
their sentiments on these "unforgotten
men," Hanoi will ultimately release them
because Perot feels Hanoi closely
monitors American public opinion.
The Dallas foundation is coordinating
programs throughout the United States.
Although they are termed "associate"
groups now, recognition of "divisions" of
United We Stand, Inc. is expected soon.
Charlotte will receive all mail for the
Carolinas. The caravan will reach here
around mid-April.
Letters should be mailed within the
next 4-6 weeks. The address: I CARE,
Box 100,000, Charlotte, N. C. 28201.
Zepeda commented that the writer's
name and address should be included to
prove legitimacy of the writer to Hanoi
officials. He emphasized that one
sentence would suffice.
"Just to say 'I know our men are there,
and I'd like to see them sent home' would
be fine," he said. "Just a postcard will
do."
The Sophomore Class is participating
in the "I CARE" program. From today
through next Wednesday, they will man a
desk outside the cafeteria.
They will furnish paper and envelopes
and will receive letters to be turned over
to Zepeda for storage until the caravan
arrives in spring.
Bernadette Devlin Autobiography
Filled With Her Charm,Honesty
by Sharon Cooke
College Press Service
(CPS)-The autobiography of a
”year-old is a suspicious undertaking no
'*'3tter who is the author. One can rightly
jjisstion the author's ability to perceive
’be subject matter clearly, to stand back
^ a distance far enough to see what is
^levent and what is irrelevant, what is
and what is false. But Bernadette
^lin is exceptional in many ways, not
“>6 least of which is her ability to tell a
and an honest tale.
The Price of My Soul (which refers not
the price at which she is willing to sell
^t, but the price she is willing to pay not
^ is a charming and readable account of
^nadette and her struggles, her spunky
iJtbness, her dedication, her intelligence,
a family. It is not the work of
f brilliant, radical philosopher, and belongs
^the shelf not so much next to Marx or
Cohn-Bendit, but rather next to
j^aw's Major Barbara. She chronicles her
, ® from her birth as third in a very poor
•nily of six children, her early learning
disregard popular opinion, her
^cation, her political awakening and
.°'^h and finally to her somewhat
fcical election to the Mother of
, ^baments. Despite some major faults as
^ as what has been omitted in the way
^lid ideological and sociological
'•’King, every page of the book is
^ ked with Bernadette's compelling
intelligence, and honesty.
The book is valuable, if for no other
^n, because for once the issues, events
If I bistory of the uprisings in Northern
^^nd are made crystal clear to
jj^fican readers, a job which heretofore
j^b^n bungled in the usual way by the
J^f^ican press. The issues, as Bernadette
them, are more basic than those
'ch have propelled American students
fj l^te. They are jobs for heads of
f^'bilies, tighter controls on the exploits
and American business
I®** tbe most blatant kind of
j^Jlical oppression. An advanced and
i^^Pfehensive state of socialism is an
Important future goal, but employment
ijjJPs to be the most pressing immediate
l)f^*^nadette tells of going through the
oj'k^ess of collecting eye-witness accounts
? kicking she received from a cop
bug a demonstration and the filing of a
^ P^al complaint. She was spitting mad
Pith'be offender until she took her
dj^laint down to the barracks and
li^^ered that other complaints had
lodged against him, and Bernadette's
see him fired. "And such was the
political development at the
• ’ she says, "That ignorant thug that
he was, I couldn't see the point of adding
to Northern Ireland's unemployed. I took
my statement home again, and until such
time as he kicked someone else, he
probably remained in the police force."
Religion is commonly throught to be
the central issue in Ulster, but it is not for
Bernadette, who is a devout Christian but
a somewhat skeptical Catholic. The
Catholic workers are condemned to an
intolerable situation, but one which is
only a little more intolerable than the
Protestant workers. It is not so much a
matter of Catholics versus Protestant as
worker versus British government and
corrupt British business interests and the
demagogue antics of the likes of Ian
Paisley, a villain if ever there was one.
The direct relevance of the struggles in
Ireland to student revolts may be
minimal. The climax of the Industrial
Revolution-uncontrolled technology
accompanied by unbridled power in a
giant world-wide web-may have been
Daniel Cohn-Bendit's motivation in
France, but not Bernadette Devlin's in
Ireland. To a Marxist who "started each
speech with 'This reminds me of the
&rbonne...'" Bernadette and her friends
"roared back 'Never mind the
Sorbonne-we're interested in the slums
of Belfast.'" Somehow the cries of the
economically crippled Northern Ireland
sound more like the peasants crying to
Marie Antoinette for bread than Danny
the Red confronting Charles de Gaulle.
Bernadette's chapter on her entry into
her famed political office, her disgust at
the slow inanities of Mother Parliament,
her being hounded by allmatter of freaks
and pests is among the best. For here the
ridiculousness of this poor girl's current
situation shines through with greatest
darity. Incidently, she seems a little
awed by her salary as MP which amounts
to a little over ^,000 and is in sharp
contrast to the salaries paid to the
servants of the American people.
She has had trouWe adjusting to
Parliament and its pomp and
circumstance, and they to her:
"Some of them are indulgent about my
running up the stairs and whistling in the
corridors, but there's a general feeling
that I ought to have more respect for the
dignity of Parliament; ought not to be
impatient with the pomp and ceremony
and time wasted for 'Hats off, strangers!
Here comes the speaker!' I always think
of Lord of the Flies when they trot in
with the Mace: 'I've got the conch;'
there's no doubt about it"
She has had some trouble adjusting to
the fame her election has attracted and to
the somewhat peculiar attentions of her
fans:
"I was asked to ring the international
operator: a call from America had been
booked and paid for. Thinking it had to
be important if a call from halfway
around the world had been paid for, I
rang the operator and got routed through
to Mrs. Typical Yank, who says, "Well!
Ah just wanted to get speaking to the real
Bernadette Devlin!" And that's all she
wanted to say! Then she puts her family
on to say "Hello!" It was the biggest
circus in creation, as far as I could see."
And of course we're all happy to know
that Mrs. Typical Yank is still hanging in
there, spending her money and keeping
up our richly-deserved reputation as the
biggest circus in creation.
We see that she is not, as the inane
jacket copy states, "one of the most
extraordinary political figures of the
day." Extraordinary political figures are
the likes of the men vvho engineered John
Lindsay's election last fall and Nixon's
election and who would have gotten
McCarthy elected if it hadn't been for the
candidate, and who needs them? No,
Bernadette is not a political figure at all.
She realizes exactly how much she can
and can't do to remedy the fundamental
problems of Northern Ireland, and she
realizes that it may have been a mistake
to dupe her constituents into thinking
that making Parliament work for them
was only a matter of putting the right
person in office. "I can get a post box for
Slate Quarry. Slate Quarry is a small
dying village, the least of vvhose worries
but the only one I can help with, is the
absence of a post box. If you work it out,
the biggest economic scandal in Britain is
that someone can earn L3,250 (her
salary) a year for getting three fishing
licences, one clear-way to a garage, and a
couple of telephone kiosks."
Bernadette pledges that she's going to
leave Parliament (after getting out of jail
first, I suppose) and keep fighting the
battle where it must be fought, where it
counts-in the streets of Belfast. And one
day the hated Unionist rule and the social
order it has created will go down for the
last time. "For half a century it has
misgovered us, but it is on the way out.
Now we are witnessing its dying
convulsions. And with traditional Irish
mercy, when we've got it down we will
kick it into the ground."
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
College forcing hiaa to MAie cizmcAL pec(5ioN6: if he
PRwes TO -me pmsi. sipe of th' cM^FLie- to a^aicg ir to
CLASS ON ti/vne — He Loeee his pakkomg aAce."