The Rivals
Ferrell, Robert H.
The Bootblack Stand Dr. George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, is celebrating the publication of his new book, which is now available at avant-garde bookstores...
...The Alternative is looking for campus distributors...
...Plunkitt: My chances of winning the presidency this year seem hopeless...
...It may be that the better is the enemy of the good, but one wonders whether courses other than a careful conservatism might have worked better...
...The Truman Administration was itself weak...
...in domestic politics it was in a confusing situation, and for foreign policy there was little conventional military strength...
...What can one agree with in Ulam's book...
...GWP the sometimes involuted calculations of Nikita Khrushchev who out of increasing concern for the Chinese wanted friendship with the United States...
...It would be pleasant to say that Adam Ulam's new book, now available in a paperback edition, has all the answers to its grand subject, the first quarter century of American-Russian relations since the end of the Second World War...
...American-Russian relations since 1945 have often been costly in lives and treasure--a hundred thousand American, not to mention Asian, lives, and defense budgets are approaching the astronomic...
...In fact, we should probably force men into women's organizations at least to fill certain goals...
...sometimes he is too analytic, inclined to see order or thought where there may not have been much...
...47401 The Alternative April 1973 27...
...From now on even Senator Gravel takes a back seat to your genius...
...I suggest that you take the lead by joining La Leche, the women's organization which advocates natural breast feeding...
...During the fifties Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' prose style obscured the increasing subtleties of Soviet policy, is over, she is throwing her considerable weight into the women's movement by setting out on a circumcision of the globe in a little boat...
...The President was unsure of election in 1948...
...And out of reverence for the American political system I am not going to tell you when the next one comes up...
...Regards, Senator Philip Hart Dear Senator Hart: I spotted you years ago as a forwardlooking solon of the old school, a fitting sequel to Robert La Follette...
...Although Dr...
...It is easy in retrospect to point out Soviet weakness during the Truman era...
...The historian can be thankful that policy proved as sensible as it did...
...Then consider the essentially conservative nature of American foreign policy during the past quarter century, the years since 1945...
...Ulam probably is showing hindsight when he stresses the Soviets' economic and military weakness in the immediate postwar years...
...he tends to be opinionated and iconoclastic...
...The Aiternatwe R.R...
...My wife calls me the Abraham Lincoln of Pretty Feet...
...The author in a footnote to his concluding chapter properly remarks that "an informed and dispassionate mind is the first and perhaps the most fundamental condition of the individual's contribution to social improvement...
...This last stunt proves it...
...senators...
...Of course it does not...
...GWP Dear Mr...
...In a theoretical manner it is fairly easy to say something should have been otherwise, but then so many mistakes would have been possible, especially beginning in 1952 or 1953 when there was a virtual equality in nuclear arms between the United States and the USSR...
...PlunkittI have been an activist for the women's movement for a very long time...
...Robert H. Ferrell Students: Need some coin...
...I chose to defend them against those weirdo pre-flight searches by sick airport security guards whose eager hands make II III IIII I mE me feel personally like a defenseless muskmelon or something...
...I am now asked to speak before many distinguished groups like the Clyde City Mental Health Association, The Society of Jesters of Greenwich Village, the Paducah Lodge for Disabled and Demented Pig Farmers, Richard Speck, the Wilmette League of Women Voters, the National Association of Melon Growers, and The New Politics Coalition of Palm Beach...
...And yet it contains a good many acceptable answers...
...Now if we are to truly liberate the sexes in this country it seems to me that men are going to have to be able to join women's organizations...
...Hartke: Turn yourself in to the authorities you nitwit before you do yourself harm...
...As a senator, I do object...
...Plunkitt's book is about the importance of altruism in politics and it is titled What's in It for Me...
...I am never going to win the 1973 presidential race...
...In fact, now that the war 1 l[ R iew The Rivals America and Russia Since World War II by Adam Ulam Compass Viking $2.95 pb...
...George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, is celebrating the publication of his new book, which is now available at avant-garde bookstores throughout New Jersey...
...Write for details...
...The author has spent much time studying Soviet Russian foreign policy...
...Earn a liberal commission for yourself or for your club treasury introducing The Alternative to your friends and cohabitants...
...I made at least one memorable statement in The New York Times: "As a person I do not obiect to a search...
...The Soviets were happy to see the Americans in trouble in a comer of Asia...
...Have you any suggestions...
...I took your advice and in kicking off my campaign for the 1973 Democratic presidential candidacy I championed the civil liberties of a sorely oppressed group, that being the precious liberties of U.S...
...Now where do I turn...
...In wondering the first move should be to accumulate information...
...At the same time it is attractive to read about alternatives...
...Then in the sixties, after the missile crisis, American policy slipped into irrelevance because of preoccupation with Vietnam...
...The reader may well be wary of some of the supporting detail...
...11, Box 360, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, Continental U.S.A...
...Plunkitt expects to earn ten million dollars from sales of his new book, he has agreed to continue to advise public figures through this column...
...There is no presidential campaign this year...
...Perhaps the best part of the book is the framework, the general analysis...
...but he brings information, intelligence, and lively prose to his points and the result is always interesting, at times fascinating: Relations between the two rivals divided conveniently into the years from 1945 to 1950, the fifties, and the sixties, and Ulam's opinions of policy during these three eras are never in doubt...
...In fact I have gotten quite a lot of publicity...
...Dear Mr...
...I have always thought you one of the biggest blockheads in the Senate...
...He managed that hurdle, contrary to most of the guesses of the time, but then a year and a half later the Korean War began and Truman once more had his hands full...
...For the first period, when the cold war heated up, he considers the forces behind policy to have been Soviet malevolence and American fear, the latter based on an overestimate of Russian strength...
...Cordially, R. Vance Hartke Dear Mr...
...Address all correspondence to The Bootblack Stand, c/o The Establishment, R.R...
...There was even a modest cooperation between the USSR and the People's Republic of China, for the Chinese were likewise happy to see the Americans humbled...
...Hence the reason for reading this book...
...Yes, by all means men should be forced into women's organizations...
...11, Box 360 Bloomington, ind...
...But none of the Democratic clubs of New Hampshire or any of the other primary states seems interested in me...
Vol. 6 • April 1973 • No. 7
