Editorials/Vaporizers/My Pal Churkin
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS VAPORIZERS by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. urs is a very curious political culture. The author Garry Wills heaves up a fantasy on the life of Ronald Reagan, Reagan's America. Innocents at...
...In an age in which scientific advance is looked to to resolve such diverse problems as AIDS and sluggish productivity, SDI's critics have abandoned all hope that science might save us from nuclear missiles...
...Finn may actually wish to discard all the nondemocratic thinkers of the past, thus rendering "cultural literacy" ever so much easier to acquire...
...This sort of idiot philosophizing goes on all the time...
...The Soviet state-owned film industry frequently portrays America as an evil place, and by taking considerable liberties with the truth...
...2. Alternatively, Mr...
...In matters of security they trust in the Politburo's promises rather than in the promise of American technology...
...Once again the philosopher has befuddled himself...
...As as(continued on page 52) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987 11 "The Great Acid Rain Debate" AMERICAN SPECTATOR REPRINT To what extent is American industry responsible for acid rain...
...Coolly, fluently, but with the delicacy of an invading army, Mr...
...All this and more has no objective reality for the critics...
...10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987 MY PAL CHURKIN Impatience is as fundamental to the genius of America as optimism...
...fter all, the series' basic message is merely that totalitarian regimes are ghastly...
...Finn, in a less agitated moment, will be amenable to doing so...
...That support should not, however, deteriorate into uncritical fundamentalism...
...These reprints are ideal for distribution to your employees, shareholders, concerned citizens and the press...
...The other great fear is the death of our freedoms...
...3. Finally, Mr...
...While Mr...
...Edward Thomas Veal Alexandria, Virginia Chester E. Finn, Jr...
...I can think of three possible ways to resolve this seeming contradiction: 1. Mr...
...Churkin, ABC is a tool of "cultural fascism...
...Nor does the fact that SDI answers their oft-repeatedhopes for peace...
...Innocents at Home, wherein not one paragraph is exempt from inaccuracy, and he is acclaimed a "philosopher...
...Gorbachev wants to invigorate his economy and to assuage the social problems now plaguing it...
...replies: Mr...
...Veal uses exactly the same arguments as do senior government officials in the Peoples Republic of China, which nation I just visited for the first time, in explaining why democracy is ill-suited to their land and vice versa...
...And I'm also sorry to add that nothing Mansbridge now says takes away from the fact that she's written a fair, honest, trenchant book...
...A few more speeches and there will be Americans calling for joint U.S.-Soviet maneuvers against Chile...
...A fairly diligent undergraduate should require no more than a semester or so, I think, to read every extant word written before 1900 by every human being who was possessed of "a deep and abiding affection for and belief in democracy...
...One reason was that feminists usually treat homemakers with disdain, as if their integrity as women and human beings is hurled into doubt by their decision to stay home...
...Within that time such diverse sources as the Pentagon and deliberative groups convened by the George C. Marshall Institute argue that a defense of several layers can be constructed to protect our deterrent force and parts of our population...
...According to SDI strategists such as Robert Jastrow, the United States has perhaps five years to shield itself from the Soviet combination of offensive weaponry and strategic defenses...
...Amerika" was an attempt "to fan hatred" and "instill negative thoughts in American minds" about the Soviet Union...
...Yes, Mr...
...Nuclear war is only the most public fear of our time...
...Sorry, but I do: It's a terrible idea...
...Finn's criteria for "standing"), democratic government has worked well in America and deserves conservative support...
...Conservative democrats need to face these problems openly...
...Gorbachev declared last month, "the broad democratization of our society is irreversible...
...The trouble was, this wasn't what feminist lawyers were saying during the ERA fight, as she notes in her book...
...Veal's arguments and reasoning are accepted, at least by those in power, and deployed to forestall motion toward democracy...
...My assumption must have been wrong, though, for hardly any of these figures had anything resembling "a deep and abiding affection for and belief in democracy" (and some of those who did, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, found this affection compatible with totalitarian sentiments...
...Veal surely has the right to possess, even to utter, these lamentable opinions, I have to say that it makes me sad and slightly nauseous to see them emanating from an American...
...If it were to become a friendly society it would not oppose, as Mr...
...But for now it is apparent that democratization means something different to him than to us...
...Churkin answered for me...
...According to Mr...
...She has a complex argument on this, and I guess from her perspective it's a persuasive one...
...The First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy did not even pause to say hello...
...The Central Intelligence Agency's 1985 National Intelligence Estimate, 11-3-885, reveals that this buildup may have ended the nuclear stalemate that SDI's critics prefer to the assured security of strategic defense...
...Well, I suppose he is...
...He bullied the TV anchorman, and when the anchorman questioned me Mr...
...Those countries enthralled by totalitarianism are grim places, worlds apart from the freedom and prosperity of America...
...Please send me reprints of Dixy Lee Ray's "The Great Acid Rain Debate...
...One does wonder, though, what grounds exist for asserting that universal literacy in a dead language of thought is one of the Republic's central needs...
...True, she did say the ERA would help homemakers in the long run...
...Veal, I do, fervently and permanently believe that cultural conservatism presupposes a deep and relentless ardor for democracy...
...Gorbachev has begun perfuming his addresses with such words as "reform," "participation," and "democratization...
...Had SDI been thumped for originally by the left rather than by the right, one can imagine all true-blue progressives coming out for it lustily and all true-blue conservatives viewing it with the utmost suspicion—such is the gruesome condition of our politics...
...This article originally appeared in the January 1987 issue of The American Spectator...
...Churkin with impunity...
...From that day in 1983 when the President first suggested SDI research these critics have been busily gatheringup the facts and vaporizing them, turning the Soviets' vast SDI research and deployment programs into no programs, their vast arms buildup into no buildup, their violations of the 1972 ABM treaty into nothing at all...
...Americans will have to be patient with our Soviet friends...
...Gorbachev strenuously does, SDI, a purely defensive weapons system...
...Amerika"is a "crude" attempt to "take the thoughts of Americans from their real problems: the threats of nuclear war and the many other economic, social, and other ills" of America...
...But in the heat of battle over the ERA, a lot of homemakers felt threatened by the amendment and its advocates...
...Their arms buildup has been equally prodigious...
...Nazism, the second great totalitarianism of this century, endures nowhere today...
...Perhaps Mr...
...They have marshalled stupendous evidence and analyses to sink SDI into mortal doubt...
...Within minutes his barrage of distortions, fantasies, and threats made it clear that if the Soviets really are going to change we shall all have to remain patient...
...Wills had typed out his last sophistic paragraph I am sure even he was woozy as to what he had wrought other than an urgent need to confront his bartender—and quick...
...Through advanced technologies our strategic defenses and eventually our entire nation will be secured from nuclear holocaust...
...About the time that I notified him that "Amerika" could have displeased him more—it could have been titled "Czechoslovakia, 1968'L his satellite connection with us broke mysteriously and we were left to contemplate the new Soviet "openness...
...Owing to enormous inefficiencies and to corruption within the Soviet state, Mr...
...Highly negative vibes, I'll bet she will tell you...
...It is a curious flight from their usual faith in science...
...If you don't believe me, ask any homemaker about the vibes she gets from feminists...
...Box 10448, Arlington, VA 22210...
...animals...
...Having convinced themselves of this, they proceed to do all sorts of unsavory things to college students, university professors, and even government officials who persist in pressing for greater freedom, for more rights, for multi-candidate elections, and for other of the trappings and accoutrements of democracy...
...In the end their fears of nuclear holocaust are replaced by dread of a shield against it...
...Finn bluntly states, "Anyone who doesn't start with a deep and abiding affection for and belief in democracy has no standing, in my view, to participate in the conversations about 'cultural conservatism'—or about much else...
...Steadily our impatience grows: "Get on with it, Mr...
...In the meantime, in any discussion with representatives of the Soviet government Americans will have to wade through propaganda and abuse...
...Read for yourself...
...Who knows...
...Enclosed is $ $ 1.50 for one $ 10.00 for ten $ 20.00 for twenty-five $ 75.00 for one hundred $350.00 for five hundred Name Address City State Zip The American Spectator, Subscription Department, P.O...
...Finn is best known, of course, as an advocate of "cultural literacy," which I had assumed meant reading carefully and taking seriously the central thinkers of the Western tradition...
...Ray demonstrates that knowledge of its causes and research into its history remain woefully inadequate...
...In response to a letter writer's argument that "modern democracy with its oneperson, one-vote popular sovereignty" undermines the conservative tenets of limited government and individual responsibility, Mr...
...Certainly many of the opponents of the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, find themselves so engaged...
...She'll just have to learn to live with that...
...ruth be known, the Soviets have spent $150 billion on SDI research and testing over the past ten years, fifteen times more than the United States...
...Dixy Lee Ray thoroughly examines this controversy by laying out the varied and complex factors involved...
...Some vague purpose is served here, but by the time all the painful intellection has been perpetrated, who knows what that purpose might be...
...For my part I wanted to experience the new 10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987 Soviet openness and candor for myself, and, of course, soothe any hurt feelings Mr...
...EDITORIAL (continued -from page 11) tounding as this diatribe was, Mr...
...By the time Dr...
...All are ardent opponents of nuclear holocaust...
...True, she did say that female draftees would never see combat...
...If ABC were bound by history's record, "it would have made a documentary about the American invasion of Russia complete with tortures and concentration camps...
...He could launch this whopper because Americans "have little knowledge about Russia...
...CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 9) I'm glad to know I was "literally correct" on the points she mentions...
...From Mansbridge's standpoint, I suppose the worst thing I could say at this point is that I agree with her about no-fault divorce...
...After all, Soviet transgressions against the freedoms of others are not merely theoretical...
...Only the malign influence of politics can explain it...
...Churkin was responding with brief appearances on television stations all over the country...
...Finn may simply be so fearful of the destructive consequences of intramural bickering among conservatives (vide his piece in your November 1986 issue) that he declines to argue at all—and hurls bulls of excommunication instead...
...Neither a Soviet strike nor the assault of some Third World fanatic as yet unknown will menace us...
...If that conviction on my part "stultifies" my "life's work" in the eyes of you and others who may share your blighted worldview, that is a price I gladly pay...
...We may as well try to persuade modern scientists to study phlogiston and Ptolemaic astronomy...
...Hence for dramatic purposes, if for no other, it is plausible that an America oppressed by totalitarianism would be dominated by Soviet totalitarianism as are so many countries in Eastern Europe, the Baltic, and elsewhere...
...Finn may not take dead authors quite so seriously as those of his own generation...
...Churkin's style was even more primitive...
...Why, then, allow them a place in our "conversations...
...In all the decades of the nuclear age only SDI has offered a plausible alternative to nuclear nightmare, but SDI's critics have become philosophers along with Dr...
...Not in the sense that Plato or Aristotle were philosophers, but in the modern sense of the philosopher, that is to say, the thinker who gathers up facts and vaporizes them into a lovely dithyramb of pompous carping...
...And with billions of federal dollars now poised at "correcting" acidic rain, Dr...
...They have deployed a combination of ABMs and air defenses that give them at least a light shield for the entire Soviet Union...
...Mr...
...That does not mean that the Soviet Union will become a free society or even a friendly one...
...Throughout the totalitarian and authoritarian nations of the world—a far larger set, let us bear in mind, than the democratic nations—Mr...
...Cultural literacy" may be a mere aesthetic accomplishment, the ideas of the past having been superseded by an enlightened modernity...
...Surely a suave Soviet diplomat would accept "Amerika" philosophically...
...Communism does...
...Miffed by ABC's fictional portrayal of America after a Soviet takeover, Mr...
...Perhaps, as Mr...
...Gorbachev...
...The hour for doing so is now...
...It's not just in China...
...Finn Angler With a single intemperate sentence in [the Correspondence section of] your February issue, Chester E. Finn, Jr., stultifies most of his own life's work...
...As a member of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, she is not content to take the easy route by fingering a convient bogey-man...
...Even I have become expectant, and imagine my anticipation when a Washington television station invited me to participate in a discussion of the ABC drama "Amerike with Mr...
...Well, I was in error...
...Churkin came on...
...According to that NIE assessment, the Soviet warhead arsenal has grown from 6,000 in 1978 to 12,000 in 1985 and will reach 20,000 by 1990...
...Vitaly Churkin, the youthful First Secretary at the Soviet Embassy...
...Copies are now available...
...Finally, the Soviet's breaches of their ABM obligations extend the gamut from tricky questions of missile capacity to the blatancy of their Krasnoyarsk radar...
...Fortunately, ABC's Soviet takeover of America had yet to be consummated, so I could outshout Mr...
...In my own opinion (which I mention only in the hope of satisfying Mr...
...52 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987...
...And so as Mikhail S. Gorbachev announces to the comrades, as he did before the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on January 27, that "we have begun reorganization and will not look back . ." Americans of every stripe begin to fidget...
...Churkin might harbor from ABC's infelicitous depiction of his country...
...He was being beamed in to our studio from his office...
...Wills's immediate purpose is to render Ronald Reagan unseemly, but the arduous erudition and argumentation that he lugs onto center stage suggest that he has set his sights on the immensities: a world without flags, the salvation of man, a Bill of Rights for laboratory Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Post column syndicated by King Features...
...Not only do democratic principles sometimes clash with civilization and liberty, but democracies often seem incapable of selfpreservation...
Vol. 20 • April 1987 • No. 4
