To the Editor:
It is inevitable that such a heinous crime as the double homicide of Professors Half and Susanne Zantop will attract intense and widespread media attention. This would be true most anywhere, but especially so in such a small, closely knit community as Dartmouth, where the Zantops were both well known, highly respected and much-loved persons. Anyone surprised by the media's reaction to this shocking crime must have been living on some other planet.
One should assume that New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McLaughlin's office is conducting a responsible, professional and thorough investigation, releasing what facts they can, when and as they can, to the press without compromising their proceedings, and believe them when they say that "There are no resources being spared." President Wright, speaking for the College, has promptly communicated what he can and acted in a most respectful and compassionate way toward the Zantops, their colleagues and students. It must also be assumed that the College Safety and Security Force and the Hanover Police are, at the very least, maintaining normal vigilance and security efforts. What more can one reasonably expect the authorities to responsibly do at this time?
As tragic and disruptive to Dartmouth and its community life as this event is, it would, nonetheless, be best for everyone to go on about their normal lives and business and react as dispassionately as they can. To do otherwise only contributes to campus hysteria, assists the media in sensationalizing the crime and damages Dartmouth. However, Dartmouth and the community are still peopled by human beings among whom such awful and non-understandable things, regrettably, sometimes do happen. One shouldn't forget that Dartmouth remains the New England Ivy League idyll it always has been and will continue to be once the immediacy of this aberrant evildoing fades.
