Volume XCII, Number r^~ University of
trojan
Southern California Thursday, November 4, 1982
What lurks behind scenes during pre-election days?
Cutting through ticker tape, campaign signs
Liddy: Conspirator speaks
on Watergate, government
By Marc Igler
Assistant City Editor
G. Gordon Liddy does not occupy the most honorable position available in American history. He was the engineer behind the United State's most politically embarrassing episode since World War II — Watergate. But judging from the rousing welcome upon his entrance and the standing ovation upon his departure from Wednesday’s audience at Bovard Auditorium, Liddy could almost be perceived as a national hero.
During his two-hour speech, Liddy never tried to exonerate himself from his conspiracy conviction in 1973, for which he served 52 months in nine U.S. prisons. On the contrary and in the most blunt terms, he admitted his participation in Watergate and said that “that sort of thing goes on every four years.”
But Watergate was far from the focus of Liddy's address to the capacity crowd, which was seemingly captivated by the 52-year-old former FBI agent's words.
Liddy talked about the illusions that he says Americans have about themselves and about their system of government. He said that Americans fool themselves about their success and their strength. They camouflage their failures through a deceptive combination of euphemisms, lies and good deeds.
“Only the American people would believe that the world is a gentlemanly place,” Liddy said with the utmost composure and stage presence. “The fact of the matter is that illu-
sions infect every part of the body politic in this country.” While speaking, he used neither a podium nor a script, opting instead for a steady pace back and forth across the stage.
He was paid handsomely for his appearance at the university, well into a four-figure mark, and appears to be intimately familiar with how to treat a student audience.
When he emerged from behind the curtain and tried to disconnect the microphone from its stand, Liddy said, "I’ve got to be careful with these things. I’ve had trouble with microphones in the past.” Liddy opened his speech by saying that the moral malaise that former President Carter referred to in the late 1970s goes much deeper than a “crisis of confidence.”
“I do believe the former
president put his finger on something when he suggested that there is something different about this country's class and its people,” Liddy said. “But I have a different analysis and conclusion.”
He said that the American people are “unable to comprehend the real, or if we can, we tend to turn away from it and shove its darker aspects to the side.”
The symptoms of these illusions, Liddy said, can be found in the American penchant for euphemisms, such as “underprivileged” for poor and “correctional institutes” for prisons.
“We should start using precise language as a first step,” Liddy said. “Precision in language leads to precision in thought. You have to confront your problems."
(Continued on page 15)
Staff photo by Robert Heller
WHEN G. G. LIDDY TALKS . . . — G. Gordon Liddy spoke to university students Wednesday about illusions he says Americans have about themselves and their government
Senate to unveil new issue address system
By Belma Johnson
Staff Writer
A changed Student Senate will emerge after an informal ifteeting Sunday, president Dan Dunmoyer firmly stated Wednesday night. But he refused to elaborate on the plan.
“It is time for a change in the way the senate addresses issues,” Dunmoyer told the senate.
He said he will give the senators details of his plan during an informal meeting next Sunday evening in Heritage Hall.
“Sunday, I hope to spill my guts as to where we’re at as a senate,” he said. “The issues are uncomfortable for me but they are also important.”
Before Dunmoyer’s remarks, however, Carl Levredge, director of security and
parking operations, talked to the senate and fielded questions about the campus’s crime and parking problems.
He said crime against people fell 41 percent from last year's rate. But he added that crimes against property rose 2 percent over 1981.
He said one crime deterrent is an “association of people warning neighbors of (crime) dangers.”
The safety network also clarifies details of violent crimes to discredit false or sensationalized rumors, Levredge said.
He said he expects the blue-lighted emergency phones, recently implemented on campus, to help students in danger contact security. He denied that the phones are merely to feign increased security.
“We’ve pretty much blanketed the campus with phones. They weren't put up for cosmetics. They were put up for function,” he told the senate.
Levredge said security is having problems with people stealing the inexpensive bulbs which highlight the phones.
“If people are interested in blue bulbs, have them check with me. I’ll get them a discount,” he mused.
He spent several minutes discussing the possibility of University Security officers receiving peace officer status.
“A lot of people look at it as the answer to our problem. It’s not. It’s an operational tool,” he said. “The fact that other universities have it has not eliminated their problems.”
(Continued on page 5)
GRAY DAVIS
By Belma Johnson
Staff Writer
The bands have finished their songs, and the cheering voices are hoarse. The ticker tape and waving banners have stopped, and the voters have decided.
Election Day is over, but one question lingers: What actually happened?
What goes on behind the scenes during election campaigns frequently remains a mystery to the average American.
To examine and report campaign procedure, the Daily Trojan followed Gray Davis’ victory in the nearby race for the 43rd Assembly District.
Although Davis won this Beverly Hills area district by a landslide, his political past has not always included victory.
He lost to Jesse Unruh in the 1974 race for state treasurer. “It was a very painful experience,” Davis recalled.
He elaborated, “It was a crushing experience. . .1 knew the day he filed his papers, I would probably lose.”
It was Davis’ first attempt to enter a statewide office. He had given up his job at a California law firm for politics. A year earlier, the Columbia Law School graduate was told by his employer to choose between politics and practicing law. He chose politics.
Shortly after Davis lost the primary, Jerry Brown asked him to manage his gubernatorial campaign. When Brown won, so did Davis.
Eventually, Brown made Davis his chief of staff, a position Davis worked to keep and im-
prove for seven years.
When asked why Brown chose a man to lead his staff who had lost the only major race he ever entered, who had only one previous position in major politics, and who, at 31, was considered young for the job, Davis replied that the Brown staff was characteristically youthful.
Now, a year after resigning from that position, he sat in his own Beverly Hills campaign suite, where the mood was generally relaxed, confident and light.
Directly across from the entrance door, there hung a poster board with bold, green-marking-pen writing that proclaimed: 2265 DEMOCRATIC VOTERS REGISTERED IN THE 43RD.
Those voters represent over 56 percent of the district that the 39-year-old Democrat won.
Davis beat Raymond Jan Sollenberger, his little-known Republican challenger, 63 percent to 36 percent.
Before the election, Sollenberger said he considered himself a reasonable challenger.
The 39-year-old professional political analyst said he thought Davis was too closely associated with controversial Gov. Brown.
“Gray Davis was in fact the acting governor of California,” Sollenberger said last week, referring to the time Brown spent running for president in 1976.
“He worked in almost total concert with Governor Brown,” Sollenberger continued. “He was the spokesman and implementer of Brown policies. He was loyal to Jerry Brown.
(Continued on page 15)