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Volume XCVIII, Number 60
University of Southern California
Tuesday, April 16, 1985
Trustees elect new chairman at weekend retreat
Scharffenberger succeeds Hartnack as head of university's governing body
By Aaron Van Curen
Assistant City Editor
George Scharffenberger, a 12-vear member of the Board of Trustees, succeeded Carl Hartnack as chairman last weekend at the trustees' annual retreat in La Quinta, Calif.
Scharffenberger, 65, was elected to the position after Hartnack's five-year term ended. George Abdo, executive assistant to the president, said Scharffenberger's ascension reflects “the orderly transition of one chairmanship to another."
Abdo said Hartnack "will still have a major role to play on the board." Hartnack, also chairman of the board of Security Pacific Bank, will assume the position of director of the trustees' development committee, and resume as chairman of the academic affairs committee and a member of the executive committee.
"I've stepped into a very focused part of the university," Hartnack said. "My commitment will be as big, but more clearly defined (than my role as chairman)."
"I guarantee that no one could do a better job than George will," he said of Scharffenberger.
Scharffenberger holds positions in many leading businesses and institutions throughout the United States. "His rich experience in American enterprise and independent higher education suit him superblv to lead USC's board," said university President James Zumberge.
Scharffenberger, a 1941 graduate of Columbia University, is the chairman and chief executive officer of City Investment Company of New York, where he has been employed since 1966.
Before 1966, Scharffenberger was senior vice president of Litton Industries, Inc., and chairman of the Systems Group, the company's major producer of electronic systems.
He came to Litton in 1959, after serving as president of ITT Kellogg, a division of International Telephone and Telegraph.
He joined ITT Kellogg in 1943 from Arthur Andersen & Co., a public accounting firm. Scharffenberger is a certified public accountant in New York.
Scharffenberger also serves as director of five corporations, including the Rockefeller Group. He holds positions in the New York Historical Society and five other civic organizations.
GEORGE SCHARFFENBERGER
Conference about Vietnam War offers differing views of defeat
By Pablo Lopez
Staff Writer
In October 1969, President Richard Nixon said he wasn't going to be the first American president to lose a war.
However, by April 1975, with South Vietnam falling into the hands of the Viet Cong, the United States had lost its first conflict, which left 58,000 dead,
300,000	wounded and cost a total of $150 billion.
Now, 10 years later, scholars, war veterans and the public gathered in Norris Theatre Saturday to reflect on the V'ietnam War.
In conjunction with the political science department and the Vietnamese Student Association, the opening session of the conference, "Indochina: 10 Years After the Fall of Saigon," provided the forum for an exchange of opinions — sometimes in Vietnamese, but mostly in English — and drudged up the cold facts of the Indochinese conflict.
The session, called "Review
of the Indochina War, 1960-1975," put the responsibility for the loss in America's comer, showing resentment and casting light on the reaction of the public and the press.
"The war was not lost in Vietnam, it was lost right here (in America)," said Monte Ung, adjunct associate professor in the electrical engineering department and adviser to the VSA.
Dr. Haing Ngor, who won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in The Killing Fields spoke about Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime Saturday. See page 3.
"The American people simply did not identify with the Vietnamese, culturally, historically, and not even racially."
Ung said the American public did not have the patience to endure a conflict in which troops and social reform were called for at the same time. He said it hurt the Americans in their pocket-books.
He added that if it had been the United States saving Europe
—	where it is more closely aligned historically and culturally — the outcome would have been different.
"We could have wiped out the Communists, but Vietnam was such a faraway place. Why should Americans send their kids? I think it was just a noble war," Ung said.
However, George Totten, chairman of the political science department, said the war was lost because of a strong Vietnamese impulse toward nationalism.
"The Vietnamese may resent the way (Americans) took over and ran the war, but the impetus was nationalism. The appeal to unite a nation was strong," he said.
He added that "Americans had never seen a war machine like the Viet Cong and we weren't prepared to fight a long, drawn-out war."
Ung and Totten agreed the (Continued on page 6)
Three students lobby for government aid
By Lisa Lapin
Staff Writer
Instead of going to Mazatlan or Palm Springs, three university students spent their prime tanning time pounding the pavement of Capitol Hill in order to lobby legislators.
Michael-Jon Martinez, Sheri Roe and Keith McCoslin — part of a 15-member group of student activists representing the Los Angeles Collegiate Council — spent a week in Washington, persuading lawmakers to vote against President Reagan's proposed cuts in education and financial aid.
And a usually unfriendly Washington welcomed the students from California with open arms.
About 47 senate and congressional leaders agreed to meet w'ith the group, including Secretary of Education William Bennett, who spent 45 minutes with the students. The students were also frequently on the local news in Washington, as well as on ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley" for their efforts.
"Here we were, 15 students from L.A., working on our break. People said 'wow'," said Martinez, chairman of the Environmental and External Affairs research action unit for the Student Senate.
The LACC group, representing 19 colleges and universities in the Los Angeles area, made themselves visible in the capito! by publishing a daily newsletter called the Student Higher Education Bulletin.
Every night they were awake until three or four in the morning composing the letter, and then up early to hand deliver copies to every congressman and senator.
And since their visit coincided w'ith the House vote on the MX missile, they passed out buttons, too. They read "Education is our best defense."
"Everybody wanted one and they all wore them," Martinez said. "It was great to see all those Brooks Brothers' suits with our little white button on the lapel."
"I think it was refreshing for them to see students come in and actually talk to them," instead of older lobbyists representing students, Martinez said.
Roe, a long-time supporter of financial aid, was the brainchild of the LACC expedition. She herself depends on a full-time job during the day, as well as financial aid, in order to attend USC, Martinez said.
The Reagan administration has proposed a S32,500-a-vear income limit on families eligible to receive loans, as well as a S4,000 cap on federal student aid that any one student can receive in a year.
The LACC group confronted Bennett with this proposal, and, according to Martinez, the secretary became very uncomfortable and left 15 minutes early.
(Continued on page 2)