NOBEL PRIZE?

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The rather widely, yet convertly, bruited notion of awarding Mr. Nixon (or possibly his man Friday, the Herr Geheimrat Prof. Dr. Kissinger) the Nobel Peace Prize is preposterous enough that we can suspect it stems from the balmy brain of some unregenerate cynic, if not from some sycophant claquer of the Agnew stripe. Whoever thought it up fails to realize that so high an honor could have its seamy side, too. Mr. Nixon would find himself in a cheerless company along with men of thought, science, literature, above all, integrity, where plastic "sincerities" and windy rhetoric are not properly appreciated. He would be out of his element.

Now we have the Watergate burglars proposing pensions during their jailing. According to defense, their well-coached confessions should entitle their acts to be constructed as mere misdemeanors, inasmuch as the parties were patriotically motivated to forestall the catastrophic felony of a democratic victory. (We marvel how conveniently files disappear in headquarters). We could reward the California firebug for risking his person as fire-fighter in the most disastrous fire Berkeley has had in decades, despite his authorship of the same. We could also award a posthumous peace-prize to Herr Von Ribbentrop for cementing a bilateral non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin just prior to the German invasion of Russia.

But we should beware of precedent. More than one idle brain-storm has turned into a sober reality in this age of anarchic reason, when ignorance is equated with learning, vulgarity with democracy, insolence with honesty, loafing with labor, and crime with self-expression. Nothing is too outrageous to be taken seriously by politicians, sociologists, and even the academic fraternity.

Could it be that some clever yahoo in top circles has thought to repay the Swedes for their temerity in protesting the escalated brutality of our recent bombings in S.E. Asia by reducing their most prestigious institution to absurdity? Ernst Bacon   Professor Emeritus   Syracuse University