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WEST GERMAN President Richard von Weizsacker, who recently accepted Harvard's invitation to speak at this June's Commencement Exercises, has earned his place as a moral leader in the world. With persistence and eloquence he has called for his countrymen to remember the horrible lessons of Nazism and to use them to build an increasingly tolerant future. Recently, however, von Weizsacker's call has been ignored by Germans who are beginning to celebrate openly the Nazi-dominated past while forgetting its horrible cost...
Since these aspects of his past and his personality are what make the president such a provocative and challenging speaker, it is unfortunate that a biography of von Weizsacker prepared by the University's press office deliberately omitted any reference to his army service. It was foolish to try to deny his years in the German infantry, to skip them over as if they were just another item on a long curriculum vitae. But it also displayed an insensitivity to the very reasons that make von Weizsacker a man worthy of giving this year's commencement address and receiving...
...Customs Service formally accepted two E- 2C Hawkeye radar planes from the U.S. Navy in San Diego. The ceremony was designed to showcase the high-tech weapons the Reagan Administration has committed to its war on illegal drugs. Making a similar pitch in Houston, Customs Commissioner William von Raab invited some 65 Texas lawmen to inspect a sophisticated new communications center for coordinating surveillance against smugglers. Alive with radar screens, computers and scrambled-speech telephones, the Blue Fire command post will eventually anchor a "radar picket line" along the porous 2,000-mile. border with Mexico, the passageway...
Commissioner Von Raab insists these complaints are premature. "We're pouring in millions," he declares, while predicting that the new gear and personnel will soon be visible. Von Raab says that "hundreds" of secure "voice-privacy" radios are being shipped to the Southwest and that 400 new Customs employees -- a 40% increase -- will be on the job within four months. Despite the cumbersome process of awarding contracts, he promised that radar planes and balloons will be in operation by next year...
...Von Raab's rosy predictions may yet come true, but only if Congress insists on providing money for Operation Alliance that the Administration does not want to spend. The President was widely criticized when his budget for the coming fiscal year called for a $150 million slash in drug education and other cutbacks. Very quietly, the Administration has also asked Congress for permission to "postpone" the spending of $32 million designated for Customs to use this year. This would mean that Customs would have to restrict flights of the Hawkeye radar planes it has just received with such a splash...