Dear Editor
Dear Editor Israel's Survival In his article, "The Threat to Israel's Security" (NL, March 14), Hans J. Morgenthau sets up a straw man with the sentence: "Once Israel is reduced to an indefensible...
...I have long favored, and still do, a voluntary national incomes policy...
...Yet it is real and there is little relief in sight...
...This was the subject of the discussions last month between President Carter and Prime Minister Rabin...
...We have never considered that consumer and business spending of tax concessions, unlike well-directed public investment, will not buy the goods and services the economy and the public need most—energy and resource development, increased food production and more equitable treatment of farm families, mass transportation, improvement of the environment, urban rescue and renewal, health services, education, housing, eradication of poverty, and development of a dignified and adequate income support program for those who cannot work...
...And the United States subsidizes Uganda by importing half of its coffee crop...
...Thus far only Tanzania and, to a lesser ex- ] tent, Zambia, have been outspoken...
...they were unfair to labor and wages, and excessively intolerant of price increases...
...It would not plan the whole economy...
...Archbishop Janani Luwum is not the first—nor the last—to be executed by Idi Amin...
...We hove let them suffer too long...
...Has Morgenthau forgotten the UN Partition Plan of November 1947 that enabled the Jewish people to establish the State of Israel...
...In addition, legislation is needed bringing the Federal Reserve System into line with the economic program of the government...
...Five cycles of stagnation, absolute downturn, and inadequate recovery?each worse than the previous one—have caused us to forfeit about 4.4 trillion 1976 dollars worth of total national production...
...New York City Richard L. Chimberg On Unemployment I agree with Lane Kirkland's criticisms of President Carter's economic "package" and with the generally excellent alternative proposals of the AFL-CIO ("Putting America Back to Work," NL, February 14...
...Pleasantville, N.Y...
...Dear Editor Israel's Survival In his article, "The Threat to Israel's Security" (NL, March 14), Hans J. Morgenthau sets up a straw man with the sentence: "Once Israel is reduced to an indefensible blot on the map, however, the temptation to administer the coup de grace will be irresistible...
...Moreover, they have resulted in government revenues falling so far short of what they would have been at sustained full resource-use that horrendous budget deficits have been accomplished by neglect of some of our most pressing domestic priorities...
...Yet a real cure has never come about, due to a repeated series of interacting errors in national economic policies...
...In the foreseeable future this strength will depend largely upon continued friendship with the United States?not for guarantees, but for sophisticated weapons...
...The situation is perhaps unfathomable for persons far from the scene...
...Leon H. Keyserling i President, Conference j on Economic Progress j Idi Amin Every day I meet Ugandans here in Nairobi whose husbands or wives or brothers have disappeared...
...At least two-thirds of this should be Federal money for useful job creation, with the stress on additional goods and services as demanded by our needs...
...Nairobi, Kenya Roger Mann...
...They want African countries such as Mozambique, Angola and Somalia to bear down on their Soviet friends, j They want American aid to stop flowing to...
...At any rate, something must be done to relieve the horror facing Ugandan citizens...
...The United Nations Human Rights Commission says it will wait until next year to discuss Uganda...
...Of course, j South Africa and Rhodesia are laughing be...
...I do not wish to belittle the accomplishments of the Israelis...
...But those we have tried in the past were designed to restrain and not to create...
...Lockheed continues to sell Idi Amin C-130 planes...
...People here are hoping that more pressure will be exerted on Armin...
...We have used Federal spending and tax policy interchangeably, despite the fact that government outlays should always be directed at the economic and social imperatives of an economy at full resource use (whether it exists at the time or not) that cannot otherwise be met, while a tax policy should, if necessary, come only afterward and to prevent nonessential spending...
...The world must not disregard Uganda as i it has in the past, for public opinion alone can ! help the Langi, the Acholi, the Christians...
...The defense capabilities of the 1967 borders, however, can be improved...
...They therefore promoted income flows injurious to optimum economic performance and economic growth and were inflationary to boot...
...similar to mine in size, and it is correct in preferring job creation to tax reduction...
...We have not supplemented macroeconomic approaches with enough microeconomic approaches to overcome structural difficulties...
...Its housing proposals hit the mark, and some job training is essential...
...Still, its concentration upon public works and public-service jobs, which indeed are needed in large amounts, would become simply another temporary "shot" or "quick-fix," albeit a bigger and better one than the President's first-year package...
...President Carter's stand on human rights is a step in the right direction...
...t In periods of virtual stagnation, like the one we are in, we have often attempted what Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Schultze has called a "shot" or "quick-fix...
...cause their racist system appears to be vin-1 dicated...
...Distribution of income, in its impact upon allocation of resources and acquisition of goods and services, is the core of a productive and just economic program...
...Professor Morgenthau's warning of "a settlement that has left a weakened Israel depending upon great-power guarantees" is yet another straw man...
...Perhaps, too, he can pressure Zaire and give Tanzania some encouragement or support for what has until now been a lonely crusade...
...A $25-30 billion stimulus should be substituted for the $16 billion in the President's first-year "package...
...We have adopted programs that we thought would work quickest, forgetting that doing the right thing even if it takes a few months longer is infinitely better than doing the wrong thing a bit faster...
...No such settlement is, or ever will be, discussed by any Israeli government...
...These relatives are either dead or ran away knowing they had been marked for death...
...It follows that all national economic policies—spending and taxation, monetary policy, social security and other income supplementation policies, as well as voluntary price and wage controls—are interrelated and should be treated as such in the framework of the balanced targets for the economy I have described...
...We have injected some, though not enough, additional purchasing power into the economy, but without analysis of the imbalance facing us or how more purchasing power should be allocated...
...This would provide targets for employment and reduction of unemployment...
...But it will not make decent progress toward a reduction of unemployment to 4 per cent (3 per cent for those aged 20 and over) within four years and much lower later on, and it will not release us from the roller-coaster economic performance that carries with it a portent of another and perhaps more serious recession within a year or two...
...destroy about 67 million man- and woman-years of employment opportunity, and suffer intolerable inflationary trends...
...Tax reduction should be one third, or preferably less, of the package, and be limited to progressive personal income-tax reduction in the lower half of the income structure...
...Furthermore, without Soviet and Czechoslovak arms during the 1948 War, without the alliance with France throughout the 1950s until the 1967 War, and, especially, without American military, political and economic aid provided since 1967, Israel could not have survived and prospered as it has...
...We have indiscriminately applied stimuli to speed up things, regardless of our true economic and social needs...
...And we should act upon the demonstrated fact that a healthy economy is the best remedy for inflation with a wide range of antiinffationary measures that nevertheless fall short of direct controls...
...The recent recession and the slow and deteriorating recovery are part and parcel—and hardly different in cause and effect—of the roller-coaster economic performance from early 1953 to date...
...Hundreds, maybe thousands, preceeded him and, according to refugees arriving here, countless Ugandans have been massacred since Luwum's mysterious "car crash...
...Yet it would substitute sound planning for Federal policies that are improvised, fragmented, unwisely limited, tardy—and fie-quently blind...
...Enactment of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1977 is absolutely essential as a first step in these directions...
...Policies pointed toward full resource use within four years alone can balance the Federal budget by around 1980...
...Jesse Zel Lurie It simply isn't true to say, as Professor Morgenthau does, that Israel "owes nothing to United Nations resolutions or the preferences of the great powers...
...Without Soviet and American support for the plan there would have been no lewish homeland in Palestine...
...he might be able to convince other western countries to he unequivocal...
...Grumman sends him Gulfstream II jets, trains his flight personnel and supplies spare parts...
...At best, the President's small, misdirected and narrowly conceived program may slightly improve conditions...
...Zaire, Uganda's closest friend in black Africa...
...We have not developed meaningful programs to overcome the most important shortages which are impediments to economic growth and highly inflationary...
...And above all, we have adhered tenaciously to the theory of a trade-off between unemployment and inflation, rather than recognizing in the compelling empirical evidence of over a quarter century an inverse correlation between the two phenomena...
...The AFL-CIO's trepidations are understandable...
...GNP, the major components of GNP essential to balanced and sustained growth, adequate attention to national priorities and integrated national policies for the attainment of these goals, to be reevaluated from year to year...
...Page Airways of Rochester, New York, still has its pilots in that country...
...Israel's 1967 borders were not indefensible, as the Israeli Army proved so admirably in the Six Day War...
...Yet Morgenthau's assertion that Israel is where it is despite UN and great power opposition is just not true...
...No matter what the agreed upon borders of Israel will be, Israeli security will hinge entirely upon the strength of the Israel Defense Forces...
...Instead of his current proposal, the President should send to the Congress a short- and long-range set of goals for the economy and not mere forecasts...
...I would prefer to allocate the stimulus, with emphasis upon all of the priorities listed' above, in a manner designed to make an adequate first-year start toward building America on a balanced and substantial basis, j Washington...
...The AFL-CIO $30 billion program is very The New Leader welcomes comment | and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...Uganda is butchering a large part of its population...
Vol. 60 • April 1977 • No. 8
