EDITORIAL PAGE

Law of the jungle

Tue assassinaticn of United
States President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy on November 22 is a foul
and dastardly deed; the criminal
act of adement2d psychopath. An
end-product of a coldwar intoler-
ance and hate which deeply per-
meates wide stratas of American

life.

Regardless of the sppositicn of
milhons of peoples throughout the
world, and in America itself to the
coldwar policies of U.S. imperial-

ism, these same-millions of peace-

loving peoples cf all political faiths

in Canada and els-where, deeply

and sincerely mourn with the

_ American people in this dark hour

of colossal tragedy, the fourth of

_ its kind in the history of a great
nation.

Wherever and whenever such
evil violence erupts, democracy
and the civilized laws of crderly
progress takes a long st=p—back-
wards.
Amid all the welter of sorrow-
laden words, of tears, shock, hor-
ror and anger at this dastardly
deed, there are some grim lessons
yet to b> learned. Not the least of
_ these is the reminder that viclence
___ begets violence, and that th= vio-
lence of top-level U.S. policies and
_ pronouncements against peoples of
_ differing ideologies and social sys -
tems, inevitably rubs off upon its
own psychopathic and lunatic
_ fringe, finding xpression in the
lawless violence of the jungle.

_. Thus in the one extreme, indi-
vidual terrorism, murder, assassin -
ation and the lynch mob; on the
other ‘guilt™ by association, by in-
ference, inuendo and fabrication,
in which the institutions of estab-
lished law and justice are replaced
by the hysteria cf hate, prejudice
and bigotry—and more violence.
‘The alleged assassin, Lee Har-
_ vey Oswald, shot to death while
under police custody less than 48
hours after the assassination of
President Kennedy, was already
“tried, convicted and sentenced,”
not by a duly constituted court
of law, but by an all too familiar
_ police and press propaganda hys-
teria; an hysteria which makes a
mockery of the due process of
law.
___ Thus the question projects it-
_ self: was the murder of Lee Oswald
_ while in police custody aimed at
_ covering up a much wider con-
spiracy of the “right” which had
as its least cbjective the political
_ assassination of President John
Kennedy, but which culminated
in greater tragedy?

Th= facile “explanations” of
the Texas attorney-general and
the equally facile “evidence of
guilt” with which the Dallas police
~ have “convicted” Oswald, indicate

a much wider conspiracy in which

a psychopathic killer whoever he
may have been was merely a poor
pawn. “This pcor Faust is here”’
Georgi Dimitrov onc saidina
Leipzig court to the Nazi hang-
men, ‘but where is Mephisto-
pheles?”’

Perhaps the studied silence of
the ultra-rightist coldwar hate
mongers, the John Birchers and
Barry Goldwaters of Texas hold
the answers. The cold-blcoded
murder of Lee Oswald while in
police custody would indicate a
studied precaution against the
final answers surrounding .the
dastardly assassination of Presi-
dent Kennedy being too readily
found.

On the shoulders of John Ken-
nedy, alcne of all Americans, there
rested great and terrible responsi-
bilities affecting the peace and
wellbeing, not only of Americans,
but of all mankind. Now for him,
struck down in the high noon of
life, these grave responsibilities are
ended. But for the American peo-
ple and the peac2-loving peoples
of the whole world they have been
compounded by a conspiracy of

_ hate, which, in its multiple evils

triggered an assassin’s bullet to
snuff out the life of an American
president — and leave mankind
morally poorer.

John F. Kennedy's way tc
peace differed from that of many,
but the ultimate goal is indivisible
and the lesson of his cruel martyr-
dom plain for all to see—an end to
the coldwar hatreds which throw
civilization back to the law of th
jungle.

The Cuban affair

Acreat deal of attenticn has
been focused in Canada on the
trial in Cuba last Saturday of two
Canadians and a Cuban woman
charged with crimes against the
Cuban people. _

After hearing open admissions
in court that he was an agent and
spy for the CIA, and that he had
been engaged for the past year
ferrying explosives by plane to
anti-Castrs forces in the guise of
food parcels, Ronald P. Lippert of
Kitchener, Ont., was sentenced to
30 years.

The other Canadian arrested
with him, William Milne, was re-
leased andthe Cuban woman,
whose home served as a depot for
the explosives, was sentenced to
nine years in prison. The Cuban
court was apparently satisfied that
Milne was nct aware of the plane's
cargo.

The Canadian government has

MAREE eo
SNOWBALL Leo .

This cartoon from the Australian iabor paper,
‘Boilermaker’’ expresses that hope of all that
the test ban treaty will lead to general disarma-
ment.

Comment.

directly intervened in the case.
The ambassador and four officers _
of Canada’s embassy in Havana
attended the trial. On Monday
Ottawa announced it will appeal
against the sentence of Lippert.

Nation -wide preminence was
given to the case through a CBC
special broadcast Tuesday night.
Despite ccmmentator Tom
Gould's open hostility to Cuba
and his attempt to make some-
thing sinister out of the trial, one
thing emerged clearly from the
program:

That the Cuban court was
very lenient with the dissolute,
luxury-loving Lippert who admit-
ted he was in the pay of the CIA
and was aware he was running ex-
plosives to Cuba.

We understand that the Cana-
dian embassy service has the re-
sponsibility to protect its nationals
when they run into difficulty in
foreign lands. But it seems to us
that the responsibility of the
Canadian government in this case
doesn't end there.

Has the Canadian government
made any apology to the Cuban
government, with whom we main-
tain friendly relations, over one
of its citizens allowing himself to
serve as a spy in the pay of a for-
eign country by running explos-
ives to the enemies of the Cuban
government?

And another question that
might well be asked is this: How
extensive are the operations of the
CIA in Canada and has Ottawa
lodged any protest with Wash-
ington over the recruitment of
Canadian citizens tc carry on their
dirty work against Cuba?

Pacific Tribune

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — MAURICE RUSH

Published weekly at
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Tom
McEwen

This ueek's guest columnist, pinch-
hitting for Tom McEwen who is recuperat-
ing from an operation *s VICTOR
F-ERLO, columnist for the U.S. Worker
His column, How To Appraise The kcon-
omy of the USSR, ts here slightly
abridged :

e

he summer drought, belatedly ruin-
‘i ing prospects of a record crop,
must have been a bitter disappoint-
ment to Soviet farmers and to the
people and government generally. As
the press has indicated, the crop was
far from calamitous. There is enough
for the Soviet people to continue to
consume huge quantities of their very
inexpensive bread; especially if they
can stop the absurd practice of using
it for animal feed.

In a businesslike way—before specul-
ators knew what was happening and
could rig the prices upwards—the Sov-
iet government moved to assure over-
seas grain supplies sufficient to meet
its export commitments and replen-
ish stocks. Its leaders publicly exam-
ined and criticized shortcomings in
their pastfarm policies and announced
measures to improve them. The big
emphasis is on fertilizers and irriga-
tion—which will provide partial weather
insurance, and which were crucial to
the rapid post-war rise in U.S. yields.

The evidence is that this is a local
setback to part of the economy, which
will not seriously reduce the rate of
the rapid overall advance, even temp-
orarily. Ss ae

First, the Soviet government does not

appear to be diverting vast resources
from other programs in a crash effort
to meet some crisis. It is giving
publicity to an emphasis planned long
ago, and for which the material found-
ations have now been laid.

Production of mineral fertilizers
there increased from 12.4 million tons
in 1958 to an indicated total of 19
million tons in 1963 (the U.S. con-
sumes about 25 million metric tons
per year, but the statistics may not
be comparable in plant food content),
The Soviet economic plan for 1963
announced last December provided for
installation of'7 million tons of fertil-
izer capacity in 1963 and the pro-
duction of 35 million tons in 1965.
The Wall Street Journal gave big pub-
licity to a W. R. Grace & Co.’ vice-
president who called the Soviet fert-
ilizer expansion plan ‘‘ridiculous’”’ and
doubted whether even the U.S. could

do it so fast.
* * *

Time will tell. Usually in indust-

rial matters, the U. S. experts, not
the Soviet planners prove ridiculous.
And with fertilizer, big increases
in irrigation outlays and farm mach-
inery output were already underway
this year before the crop decline.
Second, Soviet industry continues to

expand rapidly and in the process |
gain significantly on the U. S, In the —

first nine months of 1963 industrial
production increased 8.7% in the first
quarter to an indicated 9,1 in the third.

The general average now is held
down by comparatively slow increases
in major areas where demand is no
longer growing swiftly. In textiles and
apparel the emphasis now is on quality

‘rather than quantity. The substitution

of oil for coal, plastics for steel, re-
sult in a slower growth in the index

of production than in the effective

supply of energy and structural mat-
erials, uso :

.a significant portion of its rising per

‘ards,

bitious and be quietly postponed,

lation issues.

Soviet workers are scoring remark-
able successes in rapidly raising out-
put of priority industries. The 9-
month growth rate for chemicals was
17%, including a 25% rise in synthetic
resins and plastics, Natural gas went
up 22%, electricity 13%, instruments
15% over the same period of 1962.
There were good gains in output of
consumers durables and most food-
stuffs, including an important 11% rise
in the fish catch, and even more in
state supplies of meat, stimulated by
the higher prices to farmers set in
mid-1962.

Labor productivity, most decisive of
all indicators, gained another 6%.

Third, despite agricultural setbacks
and mounting foreign aid commitments
to Cuba, Asian and African countries,
the Soviet Union continues to develop

capita output to raising living stand-

A vital development in this respeci
was the recent Soviet announcement
on the workweek. When the working
day was cut from 8 to 7 hours in
1959-61, afurther cut was contemplatec
for the period 1964-68. As events de-
veloped, this observer wondered
whether that wouldn’t prove too am-

But on October 15 Trade Union
Secretary Soloviev announced that the
cut to 35 or 36 hours will begin next
year, Of the four capitalist dailies I
read, only one, The Journal of Com-
merce, carried a bit piece under the
absurd headline, ‘‘Ivan Goes Capitalist,
Maps Cut In Work Week.”’ i

Evidently the more widely read
papers are afraid news of this will
help American labor fight American
capitalists, now that the 35 hour week |
is finally coming to the fore among }
collective bargaining and labor legis-_

November 29, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page

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