Correspondence
Correspondence - organs over the methods and direction of foreign policy." Everything here, he continues, "depends on precisely which forces within the ruling circles control the government." It is not...
...So much has happened since Mr...
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...SURVIVAL VILLAGE IN FLORIDA Now In planning stage...
...Adelman prescribes the timehonored conservative remedy of across-the-board increases in defense appropriations...
...I have my doubts...
...Kramer is the decade's great cinematic litmus test...
...It has inevitably become the focal point for jingoist extremists who have seized the political initiative and now hold the treaty hostage...
...Samuel Putz Schenectady, New York THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980 39...
...Even so, it must be admitted that there exists an older, stronger brotherhood which justifies Ted's style of desertion and which is only now being examined for immoderation...
...One day it poured with rain and so I retired to my room with the copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy that was lying around the house...
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...deterrent strategy is based and sufficient proof of the vulnerability of existing weapons systems, Adelman's concerns about the destabilization of the strategic balance simply remain unjustified...
...Please attach the address label from the most recent issue of your American Spectator in the space below...
...The conditions of "divided rule," he goes on to argue, "can only assist progressive tendencies...
...p the editor --only to find that it was never printed...
...A note of confession on Mr...
...Where affectionate...
...I for one believe it when the Right says it will defend America to the death: your death, and mine-ours...
...Adelman may be correct when intimating that the SALT II treaty may be the best thing ever to happen to American foreign policy...
...Mark Twain's brilliant, wickedly lascivious underground masterpiece...
...While it was hoped that SALT II would raise critical questions about the direction of U.S...
...In the absenc~ of a critique of the doctrinal foundation on which U.S...
...If he had faced it and struggled with it, Kramer vs...
...The important thing about all of this is that analyses like Nyporko's do have an effect on Soviet foreign policy...
...n Enclosed is my check for $15 D Charge VISA account no...
...privately printed...
...this scene appears to be set up in order to demonstrate Ted's insensitiveness, but he actually comes off rather well...
...strategic doctrine" have been bound up in the MAD doctrine of "mutual assured destruction...
...Podhoretz concludes, that the ideology she uses to make good her escape from an imagined sense of injury exists for, and is promoted primarily for, that purpose...
...This says something for the film as political event, not drama--an understanding of its significance John Podhoretz demonstrates in his review ("The Talkies," January 1980...
...Strategic Mite...
...Try herbs...
...Billy is not the product of what Mr...
...but it also sees, and rather counts on, the weakening of executive power as a result of congressional overreaction to, among other things, the "mistaken" Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Vietnam war, and Watergate...
...Adelman's first "lesson" is that "U.S...
...Clearly the Kremlin is aware, as Nyporko reveals, of the potentially great power of the American President...
...This is why the movie weakens when it attempts to give Joanna's side of the story...
...Send $3 to OIL LOTTERY, Box MW, The American Spectator...
...5. Ted's isolation from his family before Joanna left was his form of desertion...
...Travis composed his letter...
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...strategic might is dwindling mightily...
...F.L...
...It would be guileless to expect the Soviet Union to be the first nation in history to achieve military superiority and not try to exploit it for political if not military purposes...
...I should say that I was at that time immersed in welfare research, and had even brought with me some government welfare proceedings (just in case, so to speak...
...Nyporko's paradigm is the Nixon presidency, the checksand-balances tension of which he calls "unprecedented...
...motivated by the fear of not looking sufficiently progressive," or a "guru of the state, church, and academia" who still clings to "fashionable canons...
...l ~ I I I I I I l l I I I I I I I I I I To: A l l , 777 14th St...
...Risto Marttinen Falls Church, Virginia Give Me Solar or Give Me Death According to Joseph Shattan ("The No-Nuke Wind Ensemble," March 1980), people who oppose nuclear power don't like America--apparently because they'd prefer to see American citizens alive and healthy instead of riddled with bent chromosomes or cooked alive like meatloaf in a microwave oven...
...Irving Babbitt was a distinguished professor of French literature at Harvard and a leader of the intellectual movement called American Humanism...
...Deluxe accommodations TravLtips Dept...
...C O R R E S P O N D E N C E QO0~iB00D~b~t~DDgBUDjD0IOBQ~m0e9Oi0IQtIO~80tDDDD~DODBDD0~0D00D0~DBOD0IQD0~000DmD~QDD~mD80P0~0~I0~DD0II9~QOI0OP000IQD0jD000~PbD~DB~DQI0~D6~0~DDD0~I0D00 ~0 Podhoretz vs...
...stead of giving the general public greater insight into the theoretical framework within which this obsessive preoccupation with nucleat "inferiority" is justified, writers like Adelman have obscured this deeper issue and have concentrated chiefly on "setting into motion pressures which, over time, [will] redress the strategic imbalance," the nature of which they never bother to define...
...So confident is Adelman in his argument for the continued e~calation of strategic force levels that at one point he ventures so far as to say that in the recent past, "the U.S...
...Like Ted, she would have lost jobs and taken salary reductions...
...How wrong I was...
...However, I find in myself and among friends who share this general criticism surprisingly strong support for Joanna...
...Joanna's "natural responsibility" ? What is Ted's natural responsibility...
...80 acre tract already acquired...
...Joanna were under consideration by the Supreme Court...
...Literature," George Orwell writes: Politically, Swift was one of those people who are driven into a sort of perverse Toryism by the follies of the progressive party of the moment...
...Podhoretz calls a"lousy mother...
...The chances are that after yon explained what was bothering you, he explained that they "stood by their story," or that it was all matter of"news judgment...
...This is not a simple question to a n s w e r . 2. Because of Joanna's desertion, which represents to Mr...
...Horner's letter further convinces me that Kramer vs...
...A small clarification: The measures of strategic power need not be specified in this type of popular article but are readily available in the Secretary of Defense's past two Posture Statements (Charts 1A-1) which come to the conclusion I presented...
...I found the bureaucratic prose to be a model of lucidity compared with le Carr& The British press has been somewhat less enthusiastic about le Carr6 lately...
...was disarming itself so fast that nothing new was left to propose to the UN disarmament crowd," a reference to President Carter's decision to forestall development of the B- 1 bomber, MX missile system, and Trident submarine programs...
...Eightypageannotatededition...
...To insist as he does that the Soviets will soon acquire "superiority" in the strategic realm without adequately explaining what it means, and then to reveal how easily the public can be manipulated into sharing the same perception, is intellectually dishonest...
...You will be able to get important, interesting books from AIM at a discount In fact, AIM will give you one of these books FREE if you join using the coupon below...
...This recommendation is based on the observations that the "U.S...
...Horner's sympathetic evaluation of Joanna...
...This true story of the ordeal of Maurice Stans, former secretary of commerce, and many others, retails for $12.95...
...Travis has as well...
...3. Mr...
...Within an hour or so, I realized I didn't have much idea what was going on in Smileyland or why, or who was saying what to whom...
...Name Address City, state, zip THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980 35 imagery it is meant to conjure of the dissolution of our strategic deterrent, a caricature of which is displayed on the next page for those who do not immediately acknowledge the gravity of the situation...
...And you may have felt even more defeated if, as often happens, you saw them do again the very same thing you had complained about...
...Not surprisingly, he would prefer to see a Republican President elected in 1980, along with a Democratic Congress...
...contrasts Rousseau with Burke...
...I surmise Mr...
...It is not hard to see how something like the invasion of Afghanistan might follow from that...
...But I imagined, as I stretched out on my bed, that le Carr6 would make for welcome relief...
...strategic doctrine, offering in its place a simplistic analysis of U.S...
...BEAT INFLATION...
...Later on, Ted does yell at Billy for spilling Hawaiian Punch on some of his worksheets...
...One so mentioned, William Sloane Coffin, headed to Iran for Christmas, after the article was published, saying he could not understand the American public's hurry in getting the hostages released and comparing President Carter's sanctions against Iran to President Johnson's bombings of North Vietnam...
...Homer Since its release, Kramer vs...
...We see no evidence of his affection before her flight...
...The life of the spy may indeed be dull, as le Carr6 wants us to know, but art shouldn't mirror life all that faithfully...
...f"l Send me more information about Accuracy in Media...
...There is, unfortunately, some truth in what he says...
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...Podhoretz asks why Joanna did not take Billy with her, if she loved him...
...As Nyporko puts it, the "more liberal one...
...I t is not hard to imagine which forces Nyporko would prefer to see presiding...
...Podhoretz says that the "Sisterhood" has made desertion by mothers "acceptable and even 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980 laudable...
...You can join Accuracy in Media, America's media watchdog orgniltiou...
...4. Is not Ted's act of heroism-handling job and home alone-the permanent and unpraised condition of millions of divorced women...
...If nothing else, Mailer may go down in the history of literature as the hack who was atom...
...Unbelievable...
...a real rip-snorter...
...Homer's view of Ted Kramer before the fact: that Ted was a stranger to his son until circumstances bound them together...
...Desertion of a child is, always and everywhere, impermissible...
...If an ascendant ideology can be abused, to what extent does that discredit the ideology...
...Kramlr might well have made the extraordinarily unpretentious and rare leap into greatness m which too many movies pretentiously aspire...
...Think of it...
...Robert Benton, Kramer vs...
...Adelman is dishonest with himself in refusing critically to examine his theoretical assumptions and dishonest with his reading audience in not making those assumptions explicit...
...Reduce income tax interest up to 50...
...Worse, they are teaching their children to reject it too...
...In peeto...
...IMPORTANT: Allow six weeks for address change...
...Or did you write to Walter Cmnkite-and get back one of those meaningless form letters thanking you for your interest in CBS News...
...Last summer I was kindly invited by some friends to spend a few days by the seashore...
...Those who cherish meritocracy must acknowledge that to exclude women from its rewards (and its pains) is to create a climate in which many women reject the value of the competitive and productive ethic as a way of preserving a sense of their own importance...
...Richard Ingrains noted in the Spectator: "The poor fellow has completely lost his touch and can no longer write clearly...
...Now it's heading for 50...
...Travis' charge of my mentioning some "gurus" to be "simply laughed at...
...Coffin as the emissary from the Left and Rep...
...hberty l_abertyC/ s Democracy and Leadership By Irving Babbitt A penetrating work of politica book, moral philosophy, first publisheo In 1924, Democra~ y and Leadership is packed with wisdom...
...What can you do about it except stew...
...Podhoretz's conclusion that the film--or the story itself "outside" the film--presents a partial and overdue indictment of a liberated woman as "a cop-out artist who has failed to hack it in what is the most taxing and important job there is," I have heard raised, and have raised myself, the following questions: 1. If Joanna/s seriously more culpable than Ted, does that imply, as There Mr...
...Although there may be "no difference in principle" between the two parties, because they both support some degree of capitalism, "they nevertheless wage a sharp struggle with each other for the right to influence domestic and foreign policy...
...Worse, probably, since she had m start a career...
...Box 1969 Bloom)ngton, Indiana 47402 (Please attach address/abe/here...
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...The chances are that you felt frustrated and defeated...
...Joanna is Billy's mother...
...Even so, his first preference, of course, would be "that "progressive forces" (unnamed) form their own party, under the guidance of the Communist Party USA, or work successfully within one--guess which ?--of the two American political parties...
...Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zip...
...MEDIEVAL FARTING CONTEST Elizabeth, Shakespeare, other notables compete, with accompanying lewd remarks...
...and stands up for work and duty...
...To order this book, or for a copy of our catalog, write: LibertyPress/LibertyClassics 7440 North Shadeland, Dept...
...Nonetheless, the first scene between father and son, in which Ted incompetently makes breakfast for the two of them, gave me the impression of an "affectionate" and good-natured father...
...He does not define his terms and takes pride in manipulating the opin(continued on page 39) 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980 MISCELLANEOUS Problems...
...mili...
...His involvement in career extends well beyond the responsibility of family support...
...nut if you have .eooooo3 of th,t --jm, $1 ~--you tim do smnetMng almost as satisfying...
...Morton Worcester, Massachusetts Nuke the Novelist The megaton of literary criticism over Norman Mailer in the pages of the February American Spectator leaves me wondering what remains...
...Time magazine and most of the other critics share Mrs...
...Her desertion is inexcusable, b u t . . . If she had taken him, or had continued to take full responsibility for him at home, within the marriage, she would have fared about as well as Ted did, when he took charge...
...17...
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...rl Send me the FREE copy of The Temws of Justice that ! am entitled to receive for joining AIM...
...While not conducive to a serious examination of the realities of strategic power, these promotional methods do serve a useful purpose, as the second " l e s s o n " soon reveals...
...We pay postage, but require prepayment, on orders from individuals, Please allow four to six weeks for delivery...
...Date of change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X91 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 36) ion of those easily misled by such sophistry...
...The question therefore becomes: By what standards is strategic might measured and on what grounds could it be said that it is dwindling...
...Embassy in Teheran have such disdain for the U.S...
...It's as if the case of Ted vs...
...Twice n mouth, you wilt get the AIM Rt~p~'t--I hard-hitting, provocative newsletter that tells 7ou about the latest lins of the media and mllgests letters etbal~ you have sent a letter to that you can write in concert with thousands of others to exert pressure on the media moguls to correct them...
...Send SASE to Brainbeau's Brainstorms, Box 2138, Youngstown, Ohio 44504...
...from continuing to "disarm itself...
...A dull dog is Smiley, waddling introspectively at your heels for 327 solemn pages," Richard Barkley wrote of Smiley's People in the Sunday Express...
...describes true and false liberals...
...By delaying ratification, congressional hawks hope to extract commitments from the administration and the rest of Congress to reverse America's ominous military "decline" and renew the quest for global supremacy...
...To me, we're in the fine position of having SALT's lessons without its provisions (legally, at leas0...
...Democracy and Leadership joins the broken links between politics and morals-and that accomplishment marks it as a work of genius.With a foreword by Russell Kirk...
...N.W, , Washington , D.C...
...Yet to question the desirability of deploying still more atomic weapons is to be roundly dismissed by Adelman as either a guilt-ridden Soviet sympathizer seeking to "balance the power of the United States," a "coward...
...He then goes on to make expenditure comparisons of both superpowers which supposealy lend validity to his initial claim that Western strategic might is in jeopardy and that the Soviets will soon achieve global supremacy unless measures are taken to prevent the U.S...
...I say "surprisingly," because no reviews I have seen construe the movie as primarily a sympathetic portrait of her...
...Mark D. Travis Denver, Colorado Kenneth Adelman replies: Where to begin...
...I share in Mr...
...The value of this simple yet extremely effective tactic has not gone unnoticed...
...You will he supporting AIM's weekly newspaper column, "Accuracy in Media," which reaches a couple of million readers through over 100 newspapers...
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...Would you rather have Rather or Brainbeau...
...Hardcover $9.00, Softcover $4.00...
...What exactly is meant by this is unclear...
...And while Democrats in Congress may oppose a Democratic President, a more useful situation, Nyporko suggests, is one in which a Congress predominantly of one party deters a President from the opposition party...
...is falling behind the Soviet Union militarily," which is "nothing new," and that, more importantly, "the U.S...
...Ted himself, in the courtroom scene, indicates he does not consider her a failure...
...tarily superior to the USSR while onehalf believes the Russians have forged ahead...
...We may safely conclude that any attempt at arms control which is unsuccessful at restraining arms growth will ultimately be exploited by militarists who would move the country toward the brink of nuclear confrontation by capitalizing on the political straits of politicians for whom the symbolic aspects of a SALT treaty yield considerable utility...
...Despite the talk of the last ten years, women who abdicate their motherhood can receive no valid defense...
...Box GJ, The American Spectator...
...After all, Billy did know that he wasn't supposed to drink the punch in the living room...
...No SALT II for a while, he told the Senate and the nation...
...The Reverend should be held up to more than scorn...
...There can be no defense for the desertion of a child--not worries about career, money, or health...
...Instead of providing an explanation, Adelman proudly asserts that SALT II has permitted defenseminded individuals like himself to "awaken Americans from their torpor to the coming strategic inferiority...
...Speaking of Jonathan Swirl in "Politics vs...
...George Hansen from the Right...
...It has merely been comprehended, internalized, and acted out to its logical letter...
...But, discounting for dramatic exaggeration, is it not possible that, over the long haul, Joanna did all three of them a favor ? Constance Homer Washington, D. C. John Podhoretz replies: It is plug-in-your-own ideology time at the movies...
...Please renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues--S12...
...Adelman is pleased to note that "only one-tenth of the public now considers the U.S...
...And what is more, your $15 membership in A I M is tax-deductible...
...Podhorerz "the flight of privileged American women from their natural responsibility," Ted "must become a mother to the kid to whom he is already an affectionate father...
...Well, if you had $45 million or so, you could buy your own newspaper and do things as they should be done...
...215) 925-3336 anytime...
...And finally, the ascendant ideology that is women's liberation has not been abused by a type like Joanna...
...This is a fine doctrine except for one small factor: The Soviets have never bought it, as seen by their large and redundant air and civil defense systems and their relentless ICBM buildup...
...Podhoretz's criticism of those who employ the women's movement ideology as a cover for selfishness and irresponsibility...
...Throughout our global military empire are poised thousands of warheads capable of literally incinerating the Soviet Union should it attempt a preemptive first strike...
...It is a pictur book, soldier emasculated to the point where only his skeletal structure remains...
...F104, 163-09 Depot, Flushing, NY 11358 Changing Your Address...
...Far more Democrats than Republicans are singled out as spokesmen for "progressive forces...
...He may go even higher after Afghanistan and before the complete budget is announced...
...For another, the President has joined us "jingoist extremists" who "now hold the treaty hostage...
...Perhaps Barry Commoner's "Citizen's P a r t y , " formed since the book was written, fits the bill...
...Greater detail is contained in a 1978 study for the Defense Nuclear Agency, which found the Soviets ahead in 33 of the 41 measures of strategic power...
...The apocalyptic tone of this pronouncement is matched only by the I Did you ever try to complain to a newspaper or a network about the way it treated an issue of concern to you...
...The main trouble with le Carrr's books, when all is said and done, is that they are so boring to read...
...After another hour I was totally in the dark, and eventually I threw down the book in disgust, turning to my welfare documents with renewed enthusiasm...
...The Spy Who Came In For a Scold I hope you will permit me to disagree with Karl O'Lessker's lengthy review of the allegedly "brilliant" novels by John le Carr6 ("Le Carrr's People," March 1980...
...SAVE YOUR GAS...
...This was his only directly political book, and in it Babbitt applies the principles of humanism to the civil social order...
...20 units proposed...
...There would have been for her only what she got at home before her flight: no praise, no promotions, no victories over competitors...
...Unfortunately, Adelman fails to capitalize on this opportunity to make a genuine contribution to the debate on the fundamental assumptions underlying U.S...
...A32 Indianapolis, Indiana 46250 While it should be evident that such simple comparisons do not in themselves constitute sufficient grounds for examining the relative strengths and weaknesses of American and Soviet defense postures, Adelman acknowledges the considerable political utility of stressing these differences when discussing the issue publicly...
...is seen as falling behind militarily...
...A larger clarification: The "fundamental assumptions underlying U.S...
...Payment enclosed [] Please bill me (please print) Name...
...Or you could have picked up the phone and talked to an editor or some other official...
...Those who remain unconvinced are simply laughed at...
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...APWP, Box 28594, Sacramento, CA 95828...
...No reply is forthcoming...
...Besides being poetic, it proves that "neoconservatism" is not new at all, but has been a historical companion/antidote to all progressive follies...
...ized by the greatest critical blast of the nuclear age...
...Not a peep of opposition has been heard on either the defense boosts or the shelving of SALT II...
...Before TV nonproductive advertising took about 3% of your dollar...
...He is significandy responsible to self and ambition, as opportunity in America...
...all it can do is rail verbally against Ted, because it cannot face, or measure up to, the indefensible...
...We will send you The Terrors of Justice by Maurice Stans--a chilling account of how the media and a vindictive Watergate special prosecutor in the crazed atmosphere of Watergate hounded an innocent man, trying by hook or crook to nail him with some criminal charge...
...All the action seems to take place offstage, for one thing...
...Kramer' s writer/ director, simply chickens out when he meets the real challenge...
...Kramer has bounced Carter and Kennedy, the Ayatollah, and the imminent Third World War from dinnerparty conversation in the city where I live--which is Washington, no less, where movies are only "culture," and not usually in the same league with politics for serious social discourse...
...This holds as the goal of strategic weapons to assure an unacceptable level of damage to the opponent in a retaliatory second strike...
...No wonder the "students" at the U.S...
...Tom Bethell IVasbington, D. C. Perverse Toryism I have come across what I consider to be a classic definition of "neoconservatism" which I thought that you might enjoy...
...For one thing, President Carter has used the "standard rightwing elixir for America's 'dangerous' military decline" to call (Dec...
...after greeting the Rev...
...distinguishes between ethical individualism and destructive egoism...
...133 Sarkes Tarzian Inc...
...No attempt whatsoever is made to define such terms...
...military capabilities and the standard rightwing elixir for America's "dangerous" military decline: massive acrossthe-board increases in defense spending and the deployment of every new weapons system the Pentagon manages to concoct...
...Seems that the writing of The Executioner's Song brought this forgotten target into range...
...Given her jargonized lines, and given the fact that her act of desertion is undermotivated (whether by script defect or "really" is, I believe, not possible to say--a major flaw in the film), a sympathetic response is necessarily a political, not a dramatic, reaction...
...Bloomington, Indiana Joanna has not been during the fiveyear period encompassing toilet training, shoelace tying, and the guidance which has made Billy a good, sensitive, loving, and brave child...
...Everyone seemed to be saying that it was wonderful...
...Free catalogl 603(A) North 2nd, Philadelphia, PA 19123...
...Carter has now come to that realization and I hope that Mr...
...In his article, "The Seven Lessons of SALT" (December 1979), Kenneth Adelman recognizes the futility of endeavoring to pIace substantive, bilateral constraints on arms growth and notes that the value of SALT treaties may lie ultimately with the pressure they exert periodically to subject America's defense posture to public review...
...Such statements are no laughing matter...
...Does this make it great literature...
...If she leaves him behind, it is he who is the real cause of the desertion...
...Against Mr...
...If this has ever happened to you, you belong to a very large club...
...I, for one, do not believe this, in spite of the convenience of the theory, and even in spite of the movie itself, which talks a lot about Ted's workaholic nature...
...In real art, such an act can be explained and the person who commits it can even be viewed sympathetically and understandingly: Anna Karenina is the supreme example of this, and a very fitting one in this instance...
...He summarizes the principal political philosophies...
...I am frankly perplexed by Mrs...
...No allowance is made for critics intent on exposing the suppositions underlying his reasoning for thorough inspection...
...20005 O 1 want to joan AIM...
...12) for an average 4.5 percent real annual defense increase over the next five years and more than 5 percent real boost next year...
...From 1969 to 1973," he gleefully notes, "Congress passed 149 different resolutions reducing executive power...
...In his analysis of the divisions within the Democratic Party, he suggests, relying heavily on American analysts, that "struggles" between Congress and the President are especially helped by certain Democratic deviations, most of which are dovish as well as anti-executive...
...Information $3.00...
...We live in a productively competitive society, where a chief source of joy is work well-done, and recognized as such...
...defense policy and the Soviet strategic threat, the debate has centered around budget numbers, percentage changes in nuclear inventories, and the precise date on which the Russians wilt acquire strategic "superiority...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR Circulation Department P.O...
Vol. 13 • April 1980 • No. 4
