A/lore Hypocrisy
UNDER pressure from wives and families of American prisoners of war in Vietnam who want their men returned, the Nixon administration conceived what it believed to be a master stroke to restore its waning prestige at home. It would send a mission deep into North Vietnam to free American prisoners from a camp identified by U.S. intelligence.
It cared little for the fact that the covering bombing raids intended to distract North Vietnamese ground defences would violate its own commitments purporting to show its desire for peace, and endanger the peace talks in Paris. When the prisoners were returned home in a blaze of jingoistic publicity, it would be an American triumph. Instead, the failure of the mission became a demonstration of the Nixon administration's perfidy.
The administration's pretext was North Vietnamese maltreatment of prisoners, "I could not ignore the fact that our men were dying in captivity," asserted U.S. defence secretary Melvin Laird. And Nixon sought to bolster this propaganda ploy by threatening the North Vietnamese if "reprisals" were taken against American prisoners.
This is a page straight out of Goebbels' book. Not the North Vietnamese, but the U.S. military and the puppet South Vietnamese regime are guilty of a barbaric treatment of prisoners that has sickened millions of decent' Americans.
The photos reproduced on this page, which have been circulated widely in Europe, are only two of the thousands of exhibits supporting the savage treatment meted out to prisoners. And only this week, two seriously burned and disfigured women inmates of Tan Hiep prison, north of Saigon, added a new horror tale of guards throwing acid on a group of 100 women prisoners.
In his book, Conversations with Americans, taken from tapes made by U.S. veterans, Mark Lane lists these practices as being common in South Vietnam:
"American soldiers and marines snipping off enemy ears and wearing them in their hats or preserving them in jars of alcohol . . . torture of suspected Viet Cong by bamboo splints under fingernails, amputation of fingers, electrical wiring from field telephones attached to the genitals . . . prisoners dropped from helicopters . . . gang raping of Vietnamese nurses, followed by GIs firing hand flares into the women and exploding their stomachs . . ."
Not since Mark Twain led the American outcry against the Belgian atrocities in the Congo has there been such a terrible indictment of one nation seeking to enslave another.
As we approach another season of "Peace on earth, good will toward men," the paramount need of our time is to establish this as fact in Vietnam where for 30 years a brave people have been fighting for independence and peace, against the Japanese imperialists, the French colonialists and now the new American imperialists. Until the Nixon administration withdraws all U.S. forces from Vietnam, restoring to the Vietnamese people their right to determine their own destiny, all its statements and actions remain hypocrisy and evasion.
TfieTi/herma
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133 East Cordova Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 683-9655
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HAL GRIFFIN, Editor MIKE JAMES, Assistant Editor
Second class mail registration number 1576 Published by the Fisherman Publishing Society every second Friday Deadline: Wednesday prior to publication.
4 THE FISHERMAN — DECEMBER 4, 1970
FISH and SHIPS
Acynic of our acquaintance says that confidence men who want to stay out of jail go into politics. Recent election campaigns, both here and farther afield, would seem to bear this out, for manipulation of the "news" to deceive the gullible has been perfected to a point that any confidence man might envy.
During last month's U.S. election campaign, President Nixon had a group of pseudo-hippies on hand to shout obscenities and abuse so that he could counter with ringing denunciations of all radicals in his appeal' to the huge TV audience for support of his law and order campaign.
We're not sure who played the straight part and who the comic relief in this staged exchange, but as a TV show it proved somewhat less than a hit with the voting audience.
Here in the Vancouver civic election campaign, Mayor Tom Campbell would seem to have been using this approach for some time, if we can believe the testimony given by his former bookkeeper during her trial that one of her duties was to phone the radio stations after his speeches, posing as a loyal fan.
Campbell's speech to Vancouver City College was deliberately provocative, as NDP mayoralty candidate Tony Gargrave noted at the time. But it brought the desired reaction and the publicity it received encouraged Campbell to pursue this approach, aided and abetted by the Vancouver dailies, to the exclusion of all real issues.
Next he was engaged in a more obviously contrived confrontation with the Yippie mayoralty candidate, as eager for publicity as he was, and then it was the incident at UBC created with the witting assistance of a Maoist who provided him with just the opportunity he was seeking.
No wonder that Gargrave's first question was, "Is that man from the NPA?"
From the widow of Simon Moan, a charter member of Prince Rupert Fishermen's Coop and owner for many years of the Polar Bear 2 who died last year, we have received the contract he had to sign in 1930 in order to fish herring for a pair named A. Sakai and K. Nitta.
We give it in full in order to remind some of the ypunger fishermen of what conditions were like before the advent of the UFAWU. It reads:
"I, the undersigned, hereby agree to work for you during the 1930-31 herring fishing season for the wages, terms and conditions stated below:
"(a) Wages $80 per month.
"(b) I will obey the lawful and proper orders and directions of your plant manager.
"(c) I agree to work at such periods during each 24 hours (including Sundays and public holidays) as the nature of the work necessitates and in time of emergencies to work overtime;
such requirements to be determined by the plant manager.
"(d) You will have the right to discharge me without giving me the usual notice or paying me any money in lieu of notice if my work is unsatisfactory to you in any respect or for any other reasons if you should deem that my services are not required.
"(e) The payment of my wages is to be made at the termination of my employment at Vancouver, B.C., on presentation of a pay cheque signed by your plant manager.
"(f) I agree to work and pay $25 monthly for board.
"Dated this 29th day of November, A.D. 1930."
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And from   Doug  Mac Kay at
Gibsons we have received the charter granted in 1930 to the Pender Harbor Branch of the British Columbia Fishermen's Protective Association.
Signed by BCFPA president Richard Marshall and secretary William E. Maiden (we had some difficulty making out this name and some of our readers perhaps can confirm or correct it), the charter was issued to Doug's father, John H. Mac Kay, as branch president, and his uncle, David MacKay, as a member of the branch executive. Others were Da I ton Burt, vice-president; Gordon S. Cooke, secretary-treasurer; and executive members Cedric Reid, Thomas Harder, Peter Kerr and Maynard Dubois.
"My father passed away some years ago after a lifetime in the B.C. fishing industry," Doug says in his accompanying letter. "Dave MacKay, his brother, who is named as an executive member on the charhter, was a fisherman in Scotland and B.C. all his life and was well known with his boat, the Real MacKay.
"The rest of the names on the charter are well known to the old timers in the gillnet fleeet.
. . . and this is the $50,000 machine on which I will be getting laid off next week."
A casualty of the annual benefit herring sale from the CKNW Orphans' Fund at New West minster on November 29 was Murray Sharpe, who slashed his thumb while trailing herring and had to make a hurried trip to the emergency ward to have il stitched up.
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We have heard from still another fisherman whose name was omitted from UFAWU small boat salmon clearance lists this season. He's Walter Cowan ol Richmond and his boat is the Delisle. Incidentally, we ar€ informed by the Women's Auxiliaries, he has just made a $25 donation to the children's Christmas fund — and this provides us with the opportunity to draw attention to the Christmas party registration forms on page 10.
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On a trip to Campbell River last week, John Rutka, our advertising manager, talked to Jim Oakman, who runs the DeLuxe Furniture store there and has advertised in our annual issue for some years.
Unlike some merchants in other Island centres, notably Port Alberni, who are feeling the economic pinch, Jim Oakman is closing out because his lease is expiring and retirement beckons.
Money being tight because the Trudeau government designed it that way, some of our Campbell River readers may want to tak" advantage of Jim Oakman's closing out bargains in furniture and appliances — he wants to be out by year's end and then he'll head for Victoria and retirement.
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From Prince Rupert we have word that Elizabeth Bell, shoreworker at Atlin Fisheries and a member of the Prince Rupert UFAWU Shoreworkers Local, is in Vancouver General Hospital for surgery and, we gather, she's likely to be there for some time. She would like to have visitors and, after this note appears, we're sure she will have.
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The Southam interests, which already own a chain of daily papers across the country, including the Vancouver Province, and a string of business publications, have acquired Sea Harvest and Ocean Science, better known under its former title, the Canadian Fisherman, from National Business Publications Ltd.
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The annual Fishermen's Cabaret Dance jointly sponsored by Woodwards UFAWU Local and the Finnish Organization in Vancouver at Clinton Hall on November 14 cleared more than $700, we're informed. Half the money has been donated to the UFAWU Survival Fund and the other half to the Finnish Organization.
First prize in the raffle was won by Matli Varila of Vancouver and second prize by Pentli Vakena of Richmond.