Special Correspondence
ston Seagull momentum. Heading into the big plenary session one could sense some generational chickens coming home to roost. If the Nation w r i t e r s ' congress had any significance, this...
...A band of hardcore faithful shouted back and forth in an a t t e m p t to elect an executive committee before the New School took its auditorium backl As the thing petered out I found myself standing next to Alexander Cockburn, ideologue-in-chief at the Village Vowe...
...And the trouble with Hook is not only that he is an ideologue...
...The harm that a non-Communist such as "Lube" did to Poland was probably much worse than the doings of Alger Hiss who, his p r e s e n c e at Yalta, e t c . , notwithstanding, had been merely playing earlier at Being A Spy...
...More important, the Jewish s c i e n t i s t s who warned a g a i n s t the p o s s i b i l i t y of German success and helped build atomic weapons did so not because they wereJewish but because they believed t h a t human freedom was at stake...
...More of the same egalitarian participatorian goo...
...Gannon's work demonstrates that Brodiebenefited not awhit from Wills's savage yet instructive pillorying...
...J a c k s o n ' s cold war views...
...but it is at least arguable that they are not very different in kind...
...Risks-ARE PESTICIDES REALLY NECESSARY...
...He tells us, for instance, that most unemployed workers are probably not interested in seeking gainful work, being satisfied with the extravagant unemployment compensation they receive...
...and "Up or Down...
...Yet Currie was e i t h e r a Communist or a cryptoCommunist, who was very influential in the White House: He was instrumental there in destroying the case for the so-called modus vivendi proposal which in late November 1941 had been prepared by the State Department in answer to the lastditch Japanese compromise proposal which may have avoided...
...Arch Pudding ton Executive Director League for Industrial Democracy New York, New York P.S...
...That this class does not recognize its true mission is all the more reason for 44 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1982 BetheU, self-consciously part of the vanguard, to step up the rhetoric...
...Tom Bethell does not e~l them f a s c i s t s ; he calls them neototalitarians, blind worshippers of s t a t e intrusion into the innermost reaches of our social and p e r s o n a l lives...
...Only the business class has the ingenuity, creative vitality, and dedication to excellence required to pull Western society out of its economic stagnation and safeguard democracy...
...I am not being s a r c a s t i c here...
...Isador Lubin, whom Galhraith calls affectionately "Lube" ("my lifelong f r i e n d . . . I have always felt g r a t e f u l to h i m " ) , was another influential person in Washington during the war...
...the role of the State in education...
...In the latter's sustained exchanges with Galbraith, despite differences with him far more profound than mine, he has acknowledged G a l b r a i t h ' s generosity of spirit (and not only in his benefactions to students), his capacity to write lucid prose, and his sense of humor, of which fanatics like Lukacs seem devoid...
...In one instance Galbraith himself admits of one such example: A foomote on page 182 reveals how "his wife '!had done in" Otto von Hapsburg who had Franklin R o o s e v e l t ' s ear and who in 1942 was trying to form an Austrian legion to fight with the American army...
...To the radicals, organized labor had been transformed from a movement of revolutionary p o t e n t i a l into an apologist for and s u p p o r t e r o f a corrupt s t a t u s quo...
...Cockburn glanced at my American Spectator name tag and remarked, " T h i s must be a p r e t t y glitzy assignment for you...
...As an undergrad, I read portions of her Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, as well as Gary Wills's "Uncle Thomas's Cabin" which appeared in the New York Revww of Books and in which he proclaimed her "the fasting saint and very hermit of ignorance...
...He was the kind of ambitious young man about whom Saki wrote that he had sprung from the people and bad taken good care that there should be no recoil...
...Stepping out of my apartment I spotted Jimmy Breslin in the street...
...It does, however, result in an undignified pursuit of your olive...
...Perhaps Lukacs finds it galling t h a t G a l b r a i t h has got so far with them while he remains in the shade...
...Nor, as pointed out earlier, could those disturbed about the illusions of d&ente depend on the support of business...
...she apparently went to her grave unrepentantly unacquainted with rigorous argument...
...Or at least almost e v e r y o n e . There are a few exceptions...
...Indeed, by its eagerness to exploit the "youth culture" for maximum profits, business encouraged some of the worst attitudes of the counterculture...
...PLEASE PRINT Name Address City State Zip The American Spectator, Bound Editions P.O...
...It has, of course, been the labor movement which has been supporting S o l i d a r i t y - - financially, morally, and politically--and which also has been working for the ideal of free trade unionism in the Communist world for decades, often in direct opposition to a business community captivated by the promises of d~tente dollars...
...I have no great admiration for Hoover or for the grammar of the above sentence: But it is far from being wrong...
...is not unlike the official Soviet propaganda about the 'admission' of conquered territories (the Baltic nations for example) into the USSR...
...In a chapter of a book wherein I attempted to describe the s t a t e of American public opinion circa 1945, I wrote that the best description of certain crypto-Communists was composed by Edmund Wilson in a foreword to his novel, I Thought Of Daisy, which I must now quote at some length: Some time in t h e late t h i r t i e s , at t h e time when [the Soviets] w e r e . . , coming to seem r e s p e c t a b l e and 'Communism a p a s s p o r t to power in an impending i n t e r - national b u r e a u c r a c y , I t h o u g h t of doing a b r i e f s e q u e l to Daisy, in which . . . some Washington o f f i c i a l . . , of pygmy size, would be giving h i m s e l f a s e n s e o f imp o r t a n c e and e n j o y i n g a good d e a l o f e x c i t e m e n t t h r o u g h an underground connection with the Communists . . . ]their] set would go on drinking, playing bridge and making p a s s e s at one a n o t h e r ' s girls with t h e conviction that t h e s e activities had been given a new d i g n i t y by being used to cover up oleerations which would e v e n t u a l l y prove world.-shaking and land them somehow at the top of the heap . . . Benefits vs...
...I have very little to say a g a i n s t snobs...
...Ultimately, however, Tom Bethell's view of the forces which shape American society are no more accurate than Tom Hayden's...
...I am uncertain as to why he is in such a frenzy about G a l b r a i t h . His animus a g a i n s t me d e r i v e s from his resentment of my critical review in East Europe of his History o f the Cold War (1961...
...Bethell A big, fat double bravo to Tom Bethell for his two well-written, informative, and entertaining pieces in the January American Spectator...
...That Bethell's polemics reek of the contempt for workers and hatred o f the labor movement which typified the writings of the SDS is no mere coincidence...
...And, putting your martini on ice takes away that distinct line of completion...
...That Polish cavalry charged German and Soviet tanks is testimony to the perennial gallantry of Poles agains t hopeless odds...
...Unions, Bethell says, are "pockets of privilege expressly granted by the s t a t e , thus extensions of s t a t e power...
...Qaddafi...
...My check for $36.50 is enclosed...
...it seems, rather, that mergers, tax shelters, and acquisitions will continue to be the order of the day...
...E.L...
...But when it comes to himself, and to his often detailed descriptions of the stages of his career, his self-portrait is, more than often, disingenuous...
...There are the t o t a l i t a r i a n leftists Bethell encountered in Washi n g t o n . And there are others...
...This is why about Galbraith the man these successive memoirs reveal very little...
...and he chose to include, with an evident chuckle, J. Edgar Hoover's summary of Galbraith: "Investigation favorable except conceited, egotistical and snobbish...
...He is one of those who looks up his FBI file...
...Prepayment is required on all orders not for resale...
...Why he thinks this sink I not know...
...The same day that I read Tom Bethelrs piece on Solidarity Day I ran across the following comments, enunciated by one of America's leading banking executives: . . . worker self-management (in Poland) _9 . . would be counterproductive...
...this mug will be the envy of all your friends in the "Masterpiece Theatre" coterie...
...Oddly enough, in that book he defends views that are very close to some of Galbraith's...
...Now you can not only drink to the American Spectator, but from it--the better to tolerate the besotted hokum passing f6r wisdom in the Republic these days...
...Ancient wisdom warns us that a man who gets drunk occasionally is not necessarily a drunkard...
...Perhaps the recent increase in the price of newsprint will aid you in a decision to reject the, publication of reviews of other very bad books in the future (if you need some economic reason...
...Evidently t h a t role w o u l d n ' t be t e r r i b l y significant, given B e t h e l l ' s low opinion not merely of unions, but of workers themselves...
...Galbraith.writes that in California he "looked up e s p e c i a l l y " to Silverm a s t e r who " l a t e r moved on to Washington and was much celebrated by Whittaker Chambers as a leader of the Communist underground in that c i t y . " Welt, Silvermaster was not merely celebrated as such...
...We pay postage on prepaid orders...
...It is not only that he does not know an ideologue from an o p p o r t u n i s t ; he does not know an o p p o r t u n i s t from an innocent...
...the former governs the latter and not the reverse, not at all...
...In B e t h e l l ' s case, however, it is the business class which has the historical assignment of effecting revolutionary change...
...Hook cannot comprehend that G a l b r a i t h ' s politics have very little to do with innocence or ignorance...
...I understand that shipment will be made in early 1982...
...And therefore, in my view . . . . Solidarity has to . . . be willing to work with the government and has to allow the government to retain centralized control over the economy...
...support for anti-Marxist forces ih Angola, the business community in general has been notable in its lack of enthusiasm for the Reagan defense buildup...
...One minor point about his "Taxing Interest Rates" concerns his statement: " . . . the Consumer Price Index rose by .8 percent in August...
...Here are some of them: Gregory Silvermaster, Lauchlin Currie, Isador Lubin, Oscar Lange...
...Of course none of us can be sure of his unconscious motives...
...A few years later it was Lauchlin Currie who offered Galbraith an important position in the Washington bureaucracy...
...Nor is there any evidence to suggest that the pro-business policies introduced by the Administration will bring about massive new investment in the American economy...
...He went on to reflect that the way the South African resolution was worded, he couldn't even travel there to denounce the place...
...Someone has explained this gratuitous intrusion of Judenhetze as the s e l f - h a t r e d of an apostate Jew seeking social acceptance among his new coreligionists...
...Disagree with them as one may, they are certainly worthy of being colleagues of Galbraith, a judgment from which Galbraith will h a r d l y demur...
...Business has a rather sorry track record in defending the traditional values which underpin democracy...
...So far as I know I have been envious-and o f t e n ! - - o n l y of those who are wiser than I am, not richer or more famous...
...I f you reject the notion that only the State, through its chief executive, faithfully expresses your w i l l - - l o o k about you...
...certainly our business class has more influence over the future course of events in Poland than the editors of Workers' World...
...Back then it was not unusual for trade union members to be described as fascists...
...All through Hook's assessment of Galbraith there is a perceptible touch of envy...
...In at least one sense, the New Left had a more accurate perception of American society than do our conservatives today...
...On page 356 t h e r e is a sentence which ought to inhibit those who consider Galbraith as The Great Stylist of the Age...
...40 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1982 stage of his career, he thinks he must pay an encomium to his secretary who " h a s r e g u l a t e d the tourist flow~the considerable number of travelers who, after viewing Concord, Lexington, the Old North Church and Harvard, are moved, however oddly, to view Galbraith...
...I was disappointed...
...Whatever the t r u t h , I have no i n t e r e s t in knowing it...
...There is his acid--and, let me add, largely correct-description of Princeton before World War II, his durable irritation with a university where "quite a few faculty members looked with admiration on the superior assurance and behavior of their students...
...free libraries...
...Lukacs's passion to score against me leads this stickler for grammar and diction to misread the sentence in which I wrote " i f George Kennan does not win Galbraith over and he continues to r e s i s t the lunacy of unilateral disarmament, Galbraith, too, would fight for human freed o m . . . " Lukacs interprets this as an attack on Kennan's sanity which he defends against " t h e mindless insolence of a New York c a f e t e r i a i d e o l o g u e . " (For a moment I expected that sentence to end with the words "rootless cosmopolitan...
...Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery...
...I am very curious as to whom Lukacs has in mind when he refers to "right-wing Neanderthalers at the Hoover Institution": Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Martin Lipset, John Bunzel, Edward Teller, Robert Conquest, William Goode, Alex Inkeles, Roger Freeman, Peter Duignan, Lewis Gann, Milorad Drachkovitch, James B. Stockdale...
...We broke over the Katyn massacre which he insisted in the face of the evidence was a Nazi not a Communist atrocity...
...and the USSR are becoming mirror images of one another (conv e r g e n c e ? ) , t h a t Americans " a r e beginning to think and look more like Germans than like B r i t o n s , " t h a t although Communism is an obvious " l i e , " anti-Communism is a "Half T r u t h " but " H a l f Truths may be more deceptively dangerous than are obvious l i e s , " t h a t the continuity between Czarist and Soviet foreign policy is more i m p r e s s i v e than the discontinuity, that the mood which followed the accession of Alaska arid Hawaii to the U.S...
...Such views should not be taken lightly...
...rather, they faced business's active opposition...
...There would be nothing wrong with that, unless Mrs...
...A new book about both sides of Pesticide Controversies...
...The Stalinist theory of Social-Fascism is an ideal instance of political lunacy...
...He asserts that the U.S...
...Thirdly, a man may be guilty of political lunacy without being insane...
...BOX 7732 LOUISVILLE, KY 40207 TEL...
...j o o o . . o o . . - o o . . . . . . . . ~176176 . . . . . . ..~176176176176176176 . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176 . . . . . . . . .~176176176176176176176176 . . . . . . . ~176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176 C 0 R R E S P 0 N D -E N C E ~.,~,,,~176176176176176176176176176176 . . . . . ~176176176176 . . . . . . . . . . . , , , , , ~ . . . . . ~176176176176176176176176176176176 *~176176 . , , , . , ~ 1 7 6 Galbraith Unhooked I read Sidney Hook on John Kenneth Galbraith (The American Spectator, October 1981), and it is as if Bella Abzug were writing about Jackie O. Hook is not altogether wrong, and I can easily imagine Bella Abzug saying things about Jackie Onassis that would be largely correct: for example, t h a t J a c k i e is not a feminist...
...A. would go on to say that this is where the former Mrs...
...Bethell praises Solidarity as a "genuine workers' movement...
...There are no 0bstructiohist shop stewards in Russia, since t h e r e are no genuine unions...
...Please note that these tankards are shipped in quantities of four, and via UPS when possible...
...Beer mugs are available only in sets of four...
...All orders from outside the United States must be prepaid in U.S...
...He does not say a word about the decisive and great financial advantages that his marriage brought him...
...But Tom Bethell has seriously misread recent history if he believes that the business class can by itself provide a successful defense of a democratic culture and society...
...Monday morning, The New School...
...Yet Galbraith, especially in this (already the third...
...Finally, unions were led not by real p r o l e t a r i a n s , but r a t h e r by faceless bureaucrats, objectionable g a n g s t e r t y p e s , or cigar-smoking authoritarians...
...Lukacs would have done well to have borrowed a leaf from William' Buckley...
...While they are every bit as efficient as their erstwhile counterparts, they do not have the "bite...
...Two questions linger in my mind, however, like mature ice cubes before a refresher: "Gin or Vodka...
...You are not alone...
...Multiply this by 12 to find the annual rate . . . " Wrong...
...Furthermore, unions in the United States are subject to any number of laws that r e g u l a t e and limit their activities...
...Indeed, why should I be envious of Galbraith...
...Before that, he signaled his change of heart in a remark to me: "Only if the Americans are prepared to fight the Russians on the banks of the river Bug does it make sense for the Poles to r e s i s t t h e m . " Nonetheless his critique of Communism, his characterization of the Soviet system as a form of "industrial serfdom," and his a t t e m p t to develop a market socialism to counter its totalitarian potential, were praiseworthy achievements...
...After months of testing, design, and much perspiration, we are pleased to present the Official American Spectator Beer Mug...
...B,A.~IC BO01~, INC...
...Moreover, the use of the word "conspiracy" implies that the legal r i g h t s enjoyed by unions are the result of some form of illegal collusion between the government and the labor movement...
...Her bag of tricks still contained the beatification of irrelevant detail, a free-form approach to facts, and a reliance on innuendo and rhetorical questions to establish the parts of her thesis...
...you can have as many refreshers as you want without a concerned companion commenting on the exact number of martinis consumed...
...They have also acknowledged having engaged in secret negotiations with the Soviets over repayment of the Polish debt a short time before martial law was declared...
...There is not a particle of evidence that Isador Lubin was THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1982 41 Lange only for his abilities...
...I am not i n t e r e s t e d in Lukacs's judgment of my philosophical capacities since they are beyond his capacity to assess them, but I do find amusing, and yet rather puzzling, his assertion that my criticism of Galbraith has " a p e r c e p t i b l e touch of envy...
...Galbraith was a t t r a c t e d to these people not because they were Communists or crypto-Communists...
...As for unions being "legal conspiracies specifically exempted from prosecution under a n t i t r u s t l a w s , " the fact is that t h e r e is practically no major institution that is not in some way or a n o t h e r sanctioned, encouraged, or subsidized by the federal government, with the business community being well up on the list of those receiving special benefits and favors~ Bethell's argument is simply the reverse side of the coin of those leftists who argue that membership on a corporate board makes one an "agent of the state...
...Well, I'm not against unions, but I d o n ' t think it will work . . . . See, writing a book is such an individual thing . . . . It starts with a guy sitting down at a typewriter on one end and ends with a guy sitting down to read it on the other . . . . Of course, writing is a lonely business, and I can see how some people might want a crowd a r o u n d . . . . But I don't think it will work...
...Galbraith's description of his wife is agreeable and affectionate, he cannot be faulted or accused of hardh e a r t e d n e s s in that...
...Galbraith is as wrong about the meaning o f " e f f l u e n t " as he was of the related word " a f f l u e n t " which made him famous: The society he had written about was inflated, not affluent...
...This is fairly mild stuff compared to some of the remarks made by our c a p t a i n s of industry and finance, including o u t r i g h t e x p r e s s i o n s of hope that the Soviets would move in and "restore order" in their obstreperous neighbor...
...my opinion, what is needed for the immediate term . . . is 'for greater centralization...
...He is, however, an archetype of that Anglo-Saxon genus, the liberal snob...
...One wonders what Lukacs makes of much of Churchill...
...Presumably he would prefer the Soviet labor model...
...add to this the fact that Lange, an intellectual opportunist of the cosmopolitan-Marxist variety, later did his best--and a very bad best it w a s - - f o r the cause of a Sovietized government of Poland...
...But why is t h a t so e x t r a o r d i n a r y ? Were not many (if not most) students at Eton or Oxford or even Gtittingen of a higher social class than were their professors...
...The ethics of controversy need not inhibit the pyrotechnics of animated criticism...
...But Heisenberg and von Weizs~icker were not building bombs while other German technicians led by Von Braun, were building rockets that were to rain death on London in 1944...
...502) 896-8731 Whether these people were actually Communist Party members or not makes little difference...
...But for Tom Bethell, the main danger is the nascent totalitarian impulses in the labor movement...
...now he m a r r i e s ; and Snobbery has a natural inclination for conservatism and aristocracy and tradition, which is probably why the liberal snob is often l e s s a t t r a c t i v e , because less n a t u r a l , t h a n t h e c o n s e r v a t i v e one...
...At best, Trotsky-types r a t h e r than Stalin-types, at worst volunteer agents of Soviet c a u s e s , they were self-serving, opportunistic, narrow-minded, sour, and ambitious...
...or at least postponed, the Japanese decision to go to war with the United States...
...It is obvious that English is not Lukacs's mother tongue...
...but we can be certain that Bella, being a woman, will not say (or think) thatJackie's shortcomings are due to her ideological inadequacy...
...There the " u n i o n s " are concerned above all else with increasing productivity, fulfilling the plan, and g e t t i n g more work from the workers...
...What difference did that make...
...White was highly effective, all right--often in high matters of statecraft that had little or nothing to do with the Department of the Treasury...
...Workers r e p r e s e n t e d by unions are " a privileged group," whose rarefied stanas is secured by " a combination of legal protection, coercion, and t h r e a t e n e d v i o l e n c e . " Unions are also "legal conspiracies" directed against other, non-unionized workers_9 Worst of all, the unions are led by "bureaucrats" whose overriding function is " o b s t r u c t i o n " at the workplace...
...L u k a c s ' s book e x p r e s s e s views quite congenial to those of Galbraith's which were the target of my criticisms of the l a t t e r ' s autobiography...
...t h e r e a f t e r Currie disappeared in South America...
...he was involved in a number of pro-Soviet i n t r i g u e s whether he was a secret Communist or not (I am inclined to think the latter...
...As he did, a cameraman screamed an obscenity and cried, "Hey, that's censorship...
...An excellent source book for Vo-Ag, 4-H and Extension Workers...
...It recognized labor as a force for a stable, prosperous America, and as a bulwark of American democratic ideals around the world...
...Although he seeks radically different goals, Tom Bethell has reached conclusions which notably parallel those of the New Left...
...Hook does not 'know an ideologue from an o p p o r t u n i s t . " I am conv i n c e d , " Hook writes, " t h a t if George Kennan does not win Galbraith over and he continues to resist the lunacy of unilateral disarmament, Galbraith . . . would fight for human freedom in Cambridge, Massachus e t t s , or Townsend, Vermont...
...He may have been mistaken in opposing the Polish London Government-in-Exile but this does not invalidate the justified criticism of the prewar authoritarian Polish regime and its anti-Semitic excesses_9 In the early thirties I helped organize protest meetings against the treatment of Jewish students at Polish universities and the forcible attempts to compel them to sit on yellow benches...
...What I am sure of is that for Sidney Hook to call George Kennan a lunatic and a defeatist amounts to the kind of mindless insolence of which only a New York c a f e t e r i a ideologue is capable...
...There is reason to believe that the monumental object of these pilgrimages does not think them so odd, after all...
...to reserve...
...In any event, Galbraith was lucky or judicious enough (probably both) to avoid that kind of entanglement, whereby he kept both his FBI record and his substantial nose clean...
...In reality, Galbraith is as innocent about Communism as, say, Woody Allen is about publicity...
...As further evidence, Bethell cites a quote from Lane Kirkland's Solidarity Day s p e e c h . In B e t h e l l ' s version, Kirkland declared that " o n l y the s t a t e e x p r e s s e s your will not to destroy the programs that feed the roots of a decent s o c i e t y . " In fact, Kirkland said no such thing...
...PLEASE PRINT Name Address City State Zip Money-Back Guarantee Return in ten days ff not satisfied...
...It has no bearing on th'e character of the prewar regime any more than the prowess of Russian serfs against Napoleon's army and of Soviet workers and peasants at Stalingrad mitigates the evils of serfdom or Stalinism...
...Lukacs is mistaken about German scientific ~ efforts to build an atomic bomb...
...Box 877, Bloomington, IN 47402 I gold band...
...There are some values that transcend politics...
...There exist innumerable examples of bureaucrats in high positions who can damage a cause they do not like...
...Well, the primitive prewar fascists of Poland were the first nation in Europe to stand up and fight against the then overwhelming power of Hitler's Germany...
...In this view, trade unionists are obstructionists for the sake of obstruction...
...From the little experience I have had of Harvard, I discovered that Cambridge in winter was colder than New York and in summer hotter than blazes while the climate at Stanford is ideal, next door to Redwood City, declared by a Congress of Geographers to enjoy the best climate in the world...
...He was a key figure in influencing Roosevelt against the Polish government in London and in pushing the case for the pro-Soviet Poles of Moscow and elsewhere, for which he should have earned the gratitude of Molotov and Stalin--who, to 'be sure, would have acknowledged t h e i r obligation to "Lube" less handsomely than Galbraith, or not at all...
...Domestically, unions helped to reinforce the hegemony of the giant corporations, while systematically persecuting minorities, women, and youthful non-conformists...
...Concerning Bethelrs distress over the labor movement's "protected" status under U.S...
...In The Age of Uncertainty, he reminisces about them with much affection...
...Now this is exactly what Professor Hook, who is a philosopher who knows very little about human nature, does...
...He prefers John Kennedy to Truman (and in 1968 he preferred Robert Kenncdy to Eugene McCarthy) which tells us something about Galbraith, though probably not much...
...Congress to provide guns and money to South African revolutionaries--a man in the balcony began dimming the lights in hopes that everyone would go home...
...The best one can say about Galbraith's political and ideological preferences is that Chesterton's maxim applies to him in part: Galbraith "is one of those snobs who think they can atone for being h a r d - h e a r t e d by being soft-headed...
...H e - c e r t a i n l y knew how to advance in the highest circles of the American establishment until, at this "['One man who may have s e e n t h r o u g h the mask was Truman, who had little time for Galbraith...
...bound editions of the 1981 The American Spectator bound volume at $35 each...
...J Scott G North Hollywood, Cahfornia Encounters With Fawn Brodie I thqroughly enjoyed Frank Gannon's review of Fawn Brodie's biography of Richard Nixon (December 1981) because it reminded me of a previous, forgotten, pleasant encounter with a review of Brodie's work...
...Early in his career, at Princeton, he resolved to rise above those rich fledglings, financially and socially...
...It was not issued by bureaucratic fiat or court order...
...I fully recognize the importance of the entrepreneurial spirit...
...but what is far more telling is his account of certain leftist intellectual bureaucrats and of his relationships with them...
...Since Lukacs gives no grounds for his violent a s p e r s i o n s a g a i n s t Galbraith and his statements about me, I am compelled to s p e c u l a t e about their causes...
...Here the election of Reagan has changed nothing...
...America had sampled them, swellowed as much as it could digest, and moved o n . The plenary session quickly degenerated into a predictable piece of McGovernite t h e a t r e . Early on a delegate pleaded with the congress to get its act t o g e t h e r - - " T h e r e are people outside this room who are going to laugh at u s ! " Five hours later--as the delegates geared up to pass a resolution urging the U.S...
...But it is far from clear what role he would assign to such a movement, aside from enforcing whatever decisions were handed down by the enterprise management...
...Galbraith describes him as an admirably principled Keynesian...
...An undue number of his sen_9 tences begin with "And . . . " He writes that C.D...
...he was attracted to them because they were influential at the time, early p r o t o t y p e s of the kind of pseudocosmopolitan intellectual bureaucracy that has had a powerful attraction for Galbraith throughout his life...
...His actual words express a quite different meaning...
...There were also non-Jews engaged in weapons r e s e a r c h in the cause of freedom...
...Spruced up in a suit, puffing a fine cigar, studying a script of some kind, Breslin looked like a true prince of the city...
...Southborough, Massachusetts THE AMERICAN SPFX~TATOR FEBRI, IAF, Y 1982 -45...
...Knowing more about o p p o r t u n i s t s than does Hook, I am not so sure...
...He is a master opportunist, his political preferences having sprung from that condition, not the reverse...
...Hardcover $13.50, Softcover $6.00...
...Globally, labor was perceived as an " e x t e n s i o n " of American imperialist power, determined at all costs to o b l i t e r a t e w o r k e r s ' movements in the Third World...
...Please rush me a set of four official t American Spectator beer mugs for $34.50 plus $2.00 for postage and insurance...
...version of his memoirs is not really an elegant writer...
...In his eyes, concern with it is the stock in trade of cold war ideologues...
...He discounts the importance of Communism as an ideology influencing Soviet behavior...
...First of all, Kennan's position as I made clear was not one of unilateral disarmament but "Rather Red than Dead...
...they are, in fact, far more subject to government control than unions in most other Western democracies...
...By Keith C. Barrons, Ph.D...
...about the l a t t e r Gatbraith simply writes that White was " a highly effective Assistant Secretary of the (continued on page 40) "Sociological analysis a i t s besto" Se mo-r Martin Lipset "A b r i g h t , wonderfully g r e g a r i o u s i n t e l l e c t r a n g i n g among a w e a l t h of source m a t e r i a l s in social science, history, fiction, poetry, drama, philosophy, and religion, i d e n t i f y i n g problems t h a t a r e both fascin a t i n g and troublesomeY--Langdon Winner, The New York Times Book Review "In his a b i l i t y to understand complex socio-cultural processes, Bell is s u r e l y u n r i v a l e d in contemporary writingY--Raff Dahrendorf, London Review of Books DANIEL BELL THE WINDING PASSAGE Essays and.Sociological Journeys 1960-1980 Now in paperback, $8.00 at bookstores or direct from the publisher...
...The above was written prior to the military coup in Poland...
...The discussion is both theoretical and empirical...
...Give the last word to Breslin...
...John Lukacs Phoenixville, Pennsylvania anything but a dedicated public servant, "one of the selfless architects of the New Deal whom John Dewey once referred to as living refutation of all the current anti-Semitic stereotypical slanders...
...The workers, for their part, could do with a strong dose of Calvinism...
...If the Nation w r i t e r s ' congress had any significance, this was probably it...
...workers themselves are lazy s l o b s who leave uneaten chicken wings lying around the picnic grounds...
...The result, as Wills noted, was a "towering c0njecture," and, as Gannon found, a thoroughly bad book . . . . --Jack Park Springoqeld, Virginia I am amazed and disappointed that you would devote more than 13 columns of your publication to Frank Gannon's analysis of what he describes as Fawn Brodie's "very bad book...
...it is that here and there we may g l i m p s e - - t o use an old bromide--the face behind the mask.'l" There are curious and numerous instances of Galbraith's great attention to clothes, his repeated descriptions of who was and who w a s n ' t "beautifully attired...
...I believe that Galbraith knows the meaning of "efflue n t . " When I read the sentence I thought Galbraith was r e f e r r i n g , albeit unjustly, to C.D...
...Galbraith a t t e m p t s to disarm his r e a d e r s by avowing his self-esteem, suggesting that his repeatedly high estimate of h i m s e l f was the r e s u l t of his confidence in his intellectual superiority...
...his desire for intellectual approbation had been subordinate to his desire to find his place among people in power...
...They were, in short, bastions of "privilege" for white, middle-aged m',des...
...Oscar Lange was another Pole who "had moved to the United States to escape the primitive prewa~ fascism of his homeland...
...I would go further...
...Almost without exception, our financial elite has expressed satisfaction, albeit anonymously, that General J aruzelski has moved to set Polish society in order...
...While our energy giants have been lobbying against U.S...
...Please provide street address for UPS delivery...
...In simple justice to Galbraith, however, I wish to repudiate Lukacs's malicious insinuations about his character and to dissociate myself completely from them...
...It is thus that Galbraith has been happier among the top bureaucrats than among the top professors...
...Someone please add the Village Voice to the oppressed list...
...For your copy send $6.95 to: NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL BALANCE P.O...
...It is true ttaat Galbraith writes, on occasion, odd and silly things about Communism and capitalism...
...suddenly he is c a r e e n i n g through Europe with his wife in their own convertible, for the better part of a year...
...Dannhauser has discussed it with an eloquence the drink demands (November 1981...
...So could the impractical idealists who held that people turned to socialism out of exploitation or des p a i r . " They were far from being impractical...
...Lange was a very able man despite his defection...
...Of course Galbraith is there among the Beautiful People, and at Harvard--while Hook must, by necessity, keep company with some of the right-wing Neanderthalers at the Hoover Institution...
...For Galbraith it obviously made a great deal of difference...
...Alas, Hook is not a woman, and not much of a philosopher, either: He is an ideologue, and he treats Galbraith as if Galbraith, too, were an ideologue...
...In fact, the Wagner Act was democratically enacted by Congress and signed by the President...
...The banks...
...Postal Service...
...effects of protectionism on labor, agriculture and industry in Australia...
...flowed naturally from his misconceptions of Bolshevik-Leninist theory and practice...
...Actually, some of them were once his colleagues and d e s e r t e d Harvard for Stanford...
...He expresses great admiration for the Polish Solidarity movement, in his words, a "genuine w o r k e r s ' movement...
...I am not s u r e how many politically lunatic beliefs a person must hold before we consider him literally insane...
...he writes...
...law, it should be pointed out that Solidarity is seeking much the same kind of protection, as would free trade unions in any society...
...and they were lightyears away from any kind of respectable idealism...
...Featuring our infamous Turkey logo...
...and he often slips...
...10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1982 29 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 29) Treasury...
...But those who held it were not insane...
...There is, alas, enough i n the memoirs of this i n t e l l i g e n t and impressive man to qualify him for the French epithet of a faux bonhomme, a man who is not as nice as he seems...
...It helped H i t l e r to come to power...
...But if Galbraith's facile treatment of t h e s e people as harmless and dedicated i d e a l i s t s i s wrong so is Hook's assessment of Galbraith...
...but t h a t is a n o t h e r argument, a n o t h e r story...
...And the reference to "a lifeboat designed to sink as the ship s i n k s " is a p e r f e c t l y apposite and intelligible expression to describe the function of "flexible price s u p p o r t s . " My having s t a r t e d the previous sentence with "and" will convince Lukacs that like Galbraith I am an inelegant writer...
...The last time I came across such vehement anti-labor arguments was some ten years ago, when the leading ideologues of the New Left were engaged in a reformul_ation of the Left's traditionally favorable view of trade unions...
...the Post Office, State housing, and State ownership or regulation of utilities...
...I have spent LlbertyI ss Ll rb]C s s A Plea FOr Liberty An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation Edited by Thomas Mackay Introduction by Herbert Spencer Foreword by Jeffrey Paul Twelve essays, first published in 1891, by British authors investigating the impact of "social legislation" upon the people and economy of Great Britain and Australia at the turn of the century...
...Jackson was " a large, effluentman"--which can only mean that this mogul of TimeLife-Fortune was s u f f e r i n g from the opposite of constipation...
...In my review of Galbraith I cautioned against the confusion of ground and cause in discussing ideas...
...Labor Between Left and Right Although American c o n s e r v a t i v e s have never been p a r t i c u l a r l y fond of the trade union movemenL seldom have their misgivings been exp r e s s e d with the passion marking Sohdarnosc Tom Bethell's polemic . . . . . Usurped," which appeared in his "Capitol Ideas" column in the November 1981 American Spectator...
...Our supply is limited, so send an advance order today to ensure yourself a copy of this collector's item, sure to increase in value...
...As evidence, he cites several p a s s a g e s from the far-Left p r e s s , publications which, even in the woolly world of Left sectarians, are situated at the margin of the margins., and which, be it noted, devote much of their space to denunciations of the "class collaborationist" nature of our labor leaders...
...The American Spectator bound volume is an excellent reference work for anyone interested in the year's past events and personalities --covering everything from the demise of Jimmy Carter's presidency to the maniacal rule of Col...
...snobs whose illusions and whose esthetic visions of the world of society often make the ugliness of that world seem a wee bit more attractive than it is.* They are, however, romantic and soft-hearted snobs, whereas Galbraith is a pragmatic and hard-hearted one...
...It was for this reason that the New Left hated labor, and attempted, with a startling lack of success, to encourage the emergence of a "substitute p r o l e t a r i a t " - - s t u d e n t s and black revolutionaries--as the agent fer revolution...
...Your mugs are fully insured against oafish handling, thirsty thieves, and the general uncertainty of the U.S...
...Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, too, flit across G a l b r a i t h ' s pages...
...Patrick H. Gray, Jr...
...When asked about the American Writers Congress, he pulled out the cigar and gazed off into the distance...
...Despite Galbraith's failure in the past to understand the nature of Communism, I am confident that in the crunch he will stand up to the enemies of freedom...
...Consequently Galbraith does not like Truman...
...He has more legitimate grounds for envy of Galbraith than 1. However this may be, there is one ideological obsession from which Galbraith is completely free and which peeps out in an unguarded moment from L u k a c s ' s psychological depths...
...he does not understand how, when the crunch comes (and often when the chocolate mousse comes), an opportunist is more reprehensible than a committedCommunist...
...Enough...
...Bethell objects to unions as obstructionist, by which he means they sometimes oppose management policies...
...Yet we can see, on occasion, that his snobbishness is much more social than intellectual...
...It was then with the German Von Braun and his rocket team that the Jewish Teller and Von Neumann allied themselves in America by 1954...
...K.'s consciousness is wanting, that this is where she is naive and innocent, and that this is the most significant thing about her...
...The similarity between their attitudes and Bethell's is striking...
...I knew him well...
...Now Bella Abzug, too, must know that Jackie Onassis is hopelessly more attractive than she is...
...Newton Executive Vice President Nevada Taxpayers Association Carson City, Nevada The Martini Consumer The "martini philosophy...
...That Galbraith underestimated the problems of security...
...Western response to the hideous events there only reinforces my conclusions...
...These days, everyone admires Solidarity...
...Bravo...
...It is not only that he has been a master in allying himself to men and women who are high up and powerful...
...He is not always and a l t o g e t h e r s o f t - h e a d e d : only when h e so chooses, for public purposes...
...These handsome schooners were made especially for the discriminating Ammrletm $1met~tor bacchanal--holding a generous 15 ounces of your favorite beverage...
...Why a lifeboat designed to sink a bit as the ship sinks...
...The war being over," Galbraith writes, "Communism could again be the enemy...
...When the counterculture was waging all-out war against Western democratic institutions, it was not the business class which provided effective opposition...
...Lukacs has violated them by his scurrilities and cannot be considered salonf~'hig in decent assembly...
...Secondly, the advocacy of 42 THE AIvlERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1982 unilateral disarmament is political lunacy, and has been so characterized by many writers whom Galbraith admires, e.g., George Ball...
...emphasis added] B e t h e l l , of course, is not antiunion...
...Galbraith praises Oscar Lukacs Hooked Sidney Hook replies: I am tempted to limit my comment on Lukacs's tirade to the old saw: A gentleman will not insult me, no other can...
...T h a t Lukacs should patronize Galbraith for his lack of stylistic elegance is also amusing and puzzling...
...An index is also included...
...A54 Indianapolis, IN 46250 the l a r g e r part of my life in New York--the cultural and political capital of the nation...
...Between this kind of sabotage and "Lube's"' sabotage of a free Poland, and Philby and Macl e a n ' s sabotage of the unfortunate Albanians whom the CIA parachuted into the Balkans in 1950, there exist important differences of degree...
...Editions will be reserved by the date received, and shipment will be made in early 1982...
...Since I carry my own resources within me I am i n t e l l e c t u a l l y at home--some unkind critics also say at w a r ! - everywhere...
...J u s t who does he think has been s u p p o r t i n g Solid a r i t y ? The b u s i n e s s community...
...To order, or for a copy of our catalogue, write: LibertyPress/LibertyClassics 7440 North Shadeland, Dept...
...I believe there is a growing trend toward vodka martinis, on the rocks...
...Like the New Left, Bethell is a proponent of a return to class warfare...
...so he was...
...I must also add that I have never known any instructor "who had such a talent in gathering leaves of absence and arranging his grants...
...A number of y e s t e r y e a r ' s Kids had failed to establish themselves as writers or grab a slice of the liberal socio-cuhural pie while the getting was good...
...If Tom Bethell or anyone else is sir*cerely interested in exposing the forces that threaten democracy, he would he better advised to investigate what transpired during these negotiations rather than grousing about the messages on placards at a trade union rally...
...Enclosed is my check for...
...He writes that when'it comes to Communism Galbraith is an innocent, and that this is the most signtficant element in his memoirs...
...Sad to say, their causes were no longer in vogue...
...some of my best f r i e n d s are snobs...
...Here is this struggling instructor of economics...
...Why make Jewish s c i e n t i s t s the scapegoats...
...It sums up the issue in the way Hook cannot: It is Galbraith's character that matters, not his political ideas...
...Their main achievement is to have "extract[ed] from employers wages that are higher t h a n the market would otherwise pay...
...In a horrendous passage on p. 164 of his book Lukacs writes: The Central EuropeanJewish refugee scientists in 1939 convinced Roosevelt to build an atomic bomb, as they believed that their German colleagues were building one for Hitler...
...Tuesday afternoon, at the corner of Broadway and West 1 lOth Street...
...Among subjects considered are: labor unions and labor under coercion or freedom...
...Attempts were made but they failed...
...dollars...
...Lukacs has The Amerlema Spectator (volume 14) are now being taken...
...For one thing--a minor one--Hook a d - mires Galbraith's writing...
...the condition of the working class...
...The design is o-, printed (no tacky decals) on clear THE SATURDAY EVENING CLUB ! glass, and the rim of this magnificent I mug is trimmed with an attractive P.O...
...Order a set today--and never drink albne...
...Box 1969, Bloomington, IN 47402 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1982 43 forfeited the respect of every civilized reader...
...These volumes are" library bound, with gold lettering on a handsome dark green cloth cover...
...In the crucible of fire of the Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Revolt, that antiSemitism has been burned away despite the efforts of the Polish Communist regime to resuscitate it a few years ago...
...The .8 percent accumulates, it does not merely add u p . Of course, the real figures only enhance Bethell's central argument...
...The congress did, however, manage to approve the idea of a union and agree to meet the next morning to tidy up...
Vol. 15 • February 1982 • No. 2
