Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Ho, Hun As to "Germany Neither East Nor West" (TAS, March 1991): The self-appointed praeceptor Germaniae is a breed apart. The piece by Mr. George Szamuely is subtitled:...
...As for threatening our interests, if the alleged Mr...
...Alas, his mini-review of my earlier (1987) book, The Birth Dearth—which appears within the very same piece—is wacky, or malign, or ignorant, or all of these...
...Nonetheless, shameless to a fault, he writes idiocies of various sorts...
...Because they are more likely to be poor, blacks and Hispanics have substantially higher fertility rates than whites...
...and all of them will no doubt enjoy the active support of the Soviet Union...
...U.S...
...The various Arab countries do not recognize "democracy" as a final objective of this conflict, even were such a thing possible, nor should Americans be so foolish as to believe that "stability" in the region serves American and Western interests...
...If America is to prevail in the world, we must do so by example, not by force...
...It is an issue about which I believe I am on the side of the angels...
...The root cause of the changing demographic balance in America . . . is the very low fertility of the middle class Americans who are already here...
...The potential resentment yielded by such changes in the demographic mix can yield ugly turbulence...
...Bethell does not understand why the possibility of a man like Sad-dam Hussein controlling 60 percent of the world's oil exports (not reserves) is a mortal threat, then it is beyond my powers to explain it to him...
...Bethell-Lewis let his mask slip at the end, though, when he whimpered, "If America is to prevail in the world, we must do so by ple, not by force...
...Governor Cuomo's appearance at the rally was his most overt gesture of support for the striking unions since the labor crisis began building at the News almost a year ago...
...Moreover, by convincing the fragile Saudi and other Gulf oil-producing kingdoms to go to war against Iraq, we have committed ourselves to stay on indefinitely to protect them from Iran, a rebuilt Iraq, or even a newly expanded Syria...
...I believed this because American population projections then showed us going from "low growth" to "no growth" to "negative growth...
...In The Birth Dearth I note that black middle-class fertility is very low, lower in fact than white middle-class fertility, and tragic...
...M-O-R-E, race-neutral...
...And it won't be the fault of the immigrants, Hispanics, blacks, or Asian or Moslem Americans...
...During a period of relative stability, even including its war with Iran, Iraq managed to harness its economic and human resources to such a degree that it was able to directly threaten Western access to Persian Gulf oil (although it is far from clear that this was Hussein's true aim...
...Also at the rally were John Cardinal O'Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York...
...Of course the role of diplomacy and war is to advance national interests, but how, exactly, does our intervention in this "Arab-Arab" dispute over money and oil production, as then-U.S...
...To that must be added the long range question, troubling to many, of whether America will remain a nation that can continue to be characterized as one that is predominately of white European extraction...
...I didn't talk about subservience, I just thought there might be some Arab lead-ers—and citizens—who prefer being on the winning side...
...maliciously...
...March 19911 —Tom Phelan Ocean City, New Jersey It was with deep sorrow that I learned of the diabolical kidnapping of TAS's Washington correspondent, Tom Beth-ell, and his obvious replacement by Anthony Lewis...
...To those who feel that America must absolutely remain a nation with a clear majority of citizens with a white European heritage (I don't), it should be pointed out to them that the problem they see is essentially one brought upon [sic] by their own actions...
...It's not true, or close to it...
...But he is quite wrong when he thinks that we smashed Iraq "into the Middle Ages" because we were worried about a higher cost later on if we didn't act now...
...Tucker's view, are overpaid and underworked...
...The sheer fatuity of it makes any response virtually gratuitous, but still it might be worth suggesting that German craftsmanship, in its widest sense, is currently engaged in what must be one of the most grateful tasks in living memory...
...I take my text from the New York Times, December 11, 1990, p. B3: At Rally, Cuomo Supports Unions in News Strike by David E. Pitt Governor Mario M. Cuomo publicly proclaimed his support for the striking unions at the Daily News last night, telling thousands of pro-labor demonstrators outside the paper's East 42nd Street headquarters that it was time for "fairness and reasonableness" at the bargaining table...
...My past has nothing to do with the issue of reportorial professionalism...
...Wouldn't that be a strange position to come from a man (me) who Norden indicates (mischievously...
...Norden says I was "honest" and "brave' to write The Birth Dearth, which he describes as having a racial thesis...
...Michael Ledeen replies Thank you, Curtis Barton...
...What happens in [such] an America...
...So I'll stick to my guns...
...If we are lucky, it will spark a serious debate about race and politics...
...Because he is referring to a January presidential decree on military reform that is well intentioned, but a decidedly mixed bag...
...what else is new...
...That the biggest source of skills-preference immigration coming to America is from India...
...A commentary by William 'Ricker in the March issue ("Give Us This Day Our Daily News") criticized New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo for attending a labor rally for striking workers of the New York Daily News...
...Christopher Whalen Washington, D.C...
...Doesn't he know that about 70-80 percent of the immigrants coming in under the new immigration code will be of non-European ancestry...
...To admit Lewites was good at fleecing lefty tourists is not to defend Sandinismo...
...Enjoy the gusto while it lasts, fellas...
...Today, 80 percent of the current total US...
...Philip Averbuck Watertown, Massachusetts THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1991 55...
...Second, he gives us a long quotation that is wrong about everything (there has been no terrorism directed against Americans during the Gulf War) and then a stupidity of his own: the IRA has been bombing in London for decades...
...It has become fashionable in recent years to blame unions for the nation's economic problems, and strikes such as the one at the...
...continued on page 54) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1991 7 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 7) om Is This Guy...
...Reconstruction of the Ducal residence in Dresden is emblematic of such efforts, but these pervade all of what was once the "DDR" and provide enormous impetus for traditional German qualities—skill, competence, and dedication...
...I suppose he thinks that we caused Hitler to invade Poland, too...
...It is flattering, if somewhat puzzling, that he has taken the trouble to dispute our American Spectator story, which said the same thing in much less detail...
...Why would I support such legislation...
...Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie characterized it, serve American interests...
...So it's best to get going on the liberalization process...
...First, he totally misstates my arguments (and misspells Richard Perle's name in passing...
...This time the cultural, linguistic and racial differences seem even greater to many Americans...
...The only "leverage' we will have after this war ends, at least in formal terms, is when and if we finally decide to withdraw...
...we did that because Saddam would not play by the rules...
...But what's coming down the road at us demographically is asking for some extra trouble, and it is self-inflicted...
...More...
...Less than 20 percentof legal immigrants to America today are of white European "stock," to use Census parlance...
...The files show that neither Mr...
...Had a few more years gone by, Hussein might have been able to perfect delivery systems for the crude nuclear weapons he is said to already possess, thereby raising the price of an eventual Western military intervention...
...It is grossly unfair for Weiner to suggest that I harbor "an accommodating attitude toward the previous regime," and it is gratuitous and nasty to bring up my past in the unions...
...It is true that America has absorbed tens of millions of immigrants before...
...His characterization of my view is plain crapola...
...Andrew Gray Washington, DC Don't Mess Around with Jim I don't read The American Spectator often enough to know whether David Frum's breathless, sweaty, and profoundly dishonest screed about my The Closest of Strangers ("The Most Overrated Book of the Year," TAS, March 1991) is typical of what passes for good writing in your pages, but nothing he wrote encourages me to revisit you anytime soon...
...Just then Mrs...
...Boxes, since the usual result is brown paper-wrapped packages and a suspicious wife...
...This is why America, along with Britain and France, are today bombing Iraq into the Middle Ages...
...I do not believe that America is essentially a racist or bigoted country...
...His piece is the perfect specimen of the tract-like writing that so often gave liberals like me an excuse to laugh off conservative discourse before the 1980s...
...At least Richard Pearle [sic], who so well succeeded in his objective of getting us to go to war to destroy Iraq, spares us musings of a postwar utopia...
...I believe that such a pattern would have harmed us, personally, economically, and geopolitically...
...Whenever the Governor hears such comment, he makes himself available to remind people that, whatever one thinks about the reasonableness of a particular bargaining position in a particular negotiation, unionism has spurred social progress in this country that government, churches, and philanthropic institutions were unable to bring about...
...Ledeen should study the unhappy history of the British occupation of Iraq and what is now Kuwait, and count the thousands of British lives that were spent over a period of decades to enforce Western access to Middle East oil...
...At roughly current rates of fertility and immigration (similar to those used in this volume), demographers Leon Bouvier and Robert Gardiner have projected that by the year 2080 . . . the white European share of the US...
...Only if you understand that this war will never end, at least short of the complete annihilation of the Arab people, and that radical leaders in the region will be very happy to slowly remove an occupying military force one soldier at a time, does the political folly of Mr...
...Ledeen's thin argument really hit home...
...not (as Norden characterizes my views) that America ought to take in just more white immigrants, not that just white women ought to have more babies...
...Union...
...You can't fool me: return the real Tom Bethell, and return him now...
...As I say about a hundred times in both books, I think the recent Hispanic, Asian, Moslem, and black immigration into America has been salutary...
...112-15) whether, as Wattenberg says in his letter, it is "race-neutral": I hesitate to bring it up...
...He has to contend with Lawrence Mead's observation, in a penetrating—and critical—review in the journal First Things, that "[Sleeper] also writes well...
...I can cite other conservatives Frum overlooked—and I'll send their reviews to anyone writing me at 225 E. 14th St., Apt...
...Retorts from Schwartz Lauren Weiner responded to my criticism of her Managua article (Correspondence, TAS, April 1991) by compounding her original error, which was to recycle gossip instead of reporting journalistically...
...Then there's the London Economist: "Millions of Arabs will consider the surviving regimes tainted by association with the West . . . " And then one might quote Vladimir Bukovsky: "The only country that really benefits without losing anything in dollars is the Soviet Union...
...For Whalen it's simply "oil and money...
...There was turmoil then, even though the existing population and the new immigrants could each be described as "white European," despite sometimes major cultural and religious differences...
...Further, recent immigrants have higher fertility rates than other Americans, at least for their first generation in residence...
...Yet, if you are trying to deal with the problems associated with the Birth Dearth, the problem of race and ethnicity ought to be raised, no matter how sensitive the topic is...
...Sleeper has called us to—will affix political labels to his arguments, thereby making them easier to avoid...
...Such are the real consequences of Bush's war and the new reality for Soviets, that it's no longer true that democracies don't start wars...
...Bethell-Lewis...
...If we are unlucky, we will get more of thesame: name-calling, finger-pointing, and the effort by those on the left and the right who—to avoid the hard work that Mr...
...No thanks to Jon Basil Utley, whose organization's name turns my stomach, and whose ideas—he's one of those misguided souls who wanted to leave Saddam alone to build up his nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons—have been disgraced by events...
...The rate is even less than that if illegal immigrants are counted in...
...As described in The First Universal Nation, I did indeed support, and ultimately applaud, the new immigration law, although I wanted the numbers to be somewhat higher...
...Stephen Schwartz San Francisca California Lauren Weiner replies Stephen Schwartz speaks of President Chamorro's "active and substantial steps to remove the army and police from Sandinista influence...
...You're fighting for all of us...
...Hardly a page of the book fails to strike off some memorable phrase...
...How else to explain his concluding comments about Operation Desert Storm, in which he denounces the U.S.'s "smashing a small and distant country which did not and does not constitute a threat to our interests...
...I quote you instead from R. E. Mc-Master's newsletter, the Reaper, from among his list of losers in the Gulf War: American business interests, U.S...
...Governor Cuomo attended the rally to make one fundamental point...
...Probably not, for Frum has taken on more than he knows...
...Finally, in a locution that fits his twisted brain, he seems to suggest that we started the Gulf War...
...Her victory is not being squandered...
...He does not spell out these steps...
...Jim Sleeper New York, New York Devil or Angel...
...I would suggest that the answer is no...
...Ben J. Wattenberg Washington, D.0 Edward Norden repliev Readers can decide from a chunk of The Birth Dearth (pp...
...That's what The First Universal Nation is all about...
...However, I'm making an exception in this case because I want to commend Michael Ledeen on his fine article in your March number ("We Are Number One...
...As a crowd put by the police at 6,500 people chanted, "Union...
...For me, it's trying to lay down some rules for the post-Cold War world...
...Americans at home, for the first time in a long time, no longer feel physically secure as biological and chemical warfare is a real and deadly threat...
...And with Glenn Loury's observation, in the Washington Times, that "this is an important and perceptive work...
...Curtis Barton Chelmsford Massachusetts Perhaps it is fitting that an institution founded by an Arab, the American Enterprise Institute, now promotes some thinkers who's [sic] ideas must come out of the Thousand and One Nights...
...Tucker labors under the misconception that the Governor expressed support for the bargaining positions of unionized Daily News workers whom [sic], in Mr...
...Admittedly, Germany has its share of incompetent people—these seem to spend much of their time talking to reporters...
...By not taking sides in strikes, the Governor's administration can help to bring management and labor together to resolve a dispute...
...I went to Nicaragua myself in February...
...That family-based immigration, mostly non-European, is increased, not decreased...
...But I am convinced that we have to support it, and that unless we press folks like the Saudis to democratize, well be left with the usual unpleasant—and inevitably losing--choice between nasty repressers and crazy revolutionaries...
...military personnel, American businessmen and tourists worldwide are now marked as targets for terrorists globally...
...Finally, Christopher Whalen, who's so rude it makes one wonder if he's really related to the wise and thoughtful Richard Whalen who founded the Whalen Company...
...From now on, Americans will travel internationally in fear...
...Is there political support in the U.S...
...Chamorro took further active and substantial steps to remove the army and police from Sandinista influence...
...But the constitutionally protected Popular Sandinista Army retains its name—and its command structure...
...2B, New York, NY 10003—but then, as Frum put it at the intellectual high point of his diatribe, "You get the idea...
...The issues I raise in The Birth Dearth are issues of numbers, class, and geopolitical alignment, not race or ethnicity...
...Edward Norden's review of my new book, The First Universal Nation (TAS, March 1991) is quite interesting, if sometimes addled...
...Daily News often generate comment to the effect that our nation would be better off if workers did not have the right to organize and bargain collectively...
...sic] —Jon Basil Utley Committee to Avert A Mideast Holocaust Vienna, Virginia Michael Ledeen's euphoric proclamation of a "Second Democratic Revolution" illustrates the inside-the-Beltway delusion with respect to the Persian Gulf war that now affects most of Washington...
...I visited Montelimar, the resort built under Sandinista Herty Lewites's administration...
...Unpleasant as the thought may be, I think it will yield some unnecessary social turbulence...
...Moreover, the great majority of immigrants these days come from Hispanic nations, Asian nations, Moslem nations, and black African nations...
...the labor movement in this country has meant the dignity of a living wage and decent working conditions for millions of Americans, including many whom [sic] have never been a member of a union...
...I also supported the new children's tax credit, which is pro-natalist legislation aimed at helping poor and lower-middle-class parents, who are disproportionately non-Anglo...
...The "net effect" of squelching illegal immigration while increasing quotas for Europeans would, as I wrote, be "more new Americans from Europe, fewer from elsewhere...
...Chamorro took the Sandinista label off the air force and the navy, and banned officers from holding political posts—both positive moves...
...I would, however, caution that not all observers are as sanguine as he that democracy can be implanted in the Mideast...
...But Nor-den's ignorance is monumental...
...I have a suggestion for a future "Current Wisdom" entry: The American Spectator From TAS's Washington correspondent—a voice blathering in the wilderness: And as I told the Stanford students, liberals should be more wary than they are of international organizations like the U.N., especially when they legitimize preemptive strikes on small countries because they might one day grow stronger...
...In addition to its shrewd analysis, The Closest of Strangers is a joy to read...
...We'll see, I'm sure...
...Well, yeah, I guess you could describe Iraq as "small and distant," but it did have more tanks and artillery than the UK and France combined, and it had pursued an enormous and expensive program to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons for over a decade, and it did have the fourth-largest store of weaponry in the world...
...Humberto Ortega in line, assuming one is ever appointed (the position is now vacant...
...Et Tu, Tom...
...That almost all black and Hispanic congressmen supported the measure...
...Brothers and sisters," Mr...
...Your readers may like to know that Governor Cuomo did not take sides in the Daily News strike, nor has he ever taken sides in a strike...
...Yes, give appeasement a chance, Mr...
...One of those rules is that totally unwarranted aggression in strategically sensitive areas will not be tolerated...
...population will be down . . . to 60 percent, and still shrinking...
...The notion that over the medium- to longer-term the United Sates alone is willing or even able to establish the "New World Order" George Bush envisions is absurd, particularly with respect to the Middle East...
...The Governor believes that it is not his role to rule on the merits of the bargaining positions taken by management or labor in a negotiation...
...George Szamuely is subtitled: "Reunification has left the Germans crabby, cowardly, and conveniently anti-Communist...
...the Rev...
...diplomats say the decree sounds like an assertion of presidential control, but would in fact weaken the power of a civilian defense minister to keep Gen...
...it is already a response to America's unleashing of the new era of justified "collateral damage" for greater political purpose...
...I'm not particularly optimistic about the chances for democracy in the Middle East, at least in the next few years...
...Both management and labor at the New York Post credited the Governor with valuable assistance in reaching an agreement that kept that newspaper alive —Tom Conroy Deputy Press Secretary to the Governor State of New York Executive Chamber Albany, New York William Recker replies...
...A major argument of The Birth Dearth, stated early and often, is that Americans ought to take in more immigrants and have more children...
...Thanks, but no thanks...
...Stay strong," he told the cheering crowd...
...that America is working, working very well, with its new immigrant mix...
...Cuomo said, standing on a packed dais facing the American flag-bedecked facade of the News building, "is not fair, it is not right, it is destructive of equitable collective bargaining—and it must be challenged...
...Anyway, where we disagree is over a serious matter (and not one that's either inside or outside the Beltway—that is, it's not an "inside Washington" matter, but a question of foreign policy): Why did we go to war...
...Norden was neither brave nor honest in writing a review which does have a racial thesis...
...the Governor hailed "the courage and sacrifice of the union movement" and denounced the federal law that has allowed the News to replace its 2,300 striking workers with permanent nonunion employees...
...Michael Ledeen, who helped bring us Iran-Contra, now promises us that Arabs will love Americans or at least behave in subservience to Americans, Israelis, Englishmen, and the kings and Sheiks who will now do as we tell them...
...Cuomo said, "we need to establish a balance in this country between the people who work and the people who invest and manage...
...Indeed, enormous strides toward amity among the races, religions, and ethnic groups have been achieved in recent decades...
...Hence, for the sake of domestic tranquility, the influx of Third Worlders should be controlled, and native middle-class women, mostly white, should have more babies...
...It is indeed a boondoggle, reflecting the Marxist love for elaborate projects, but does not detract from Lewites's efficiency at running the Sandinistas' tour operation...
...but just plain more...
...That law, Mr...
...Can your decision to publish it now be a symptom of your decline...
...This is what Wattenberg wants, not because he's a racist, but because he thinks that many of his countrymen are...
...and "Scabs go home...
...Cuomo nor his press officers made any objection to the Times's characterization of his appearance at the rally...
...The IRA station bombing in London is the first in seven years to target innocent civilians...
...The war has undermined the reformers within the Soviet Union who are blamed for bringing about the demise of yet another Soviet ally and risking Moslem enmity for Russia too...
...I and some Cuban-American tour agents from Miami who were there agreed that Montelimar could be made to work well by, say, Club Med...
...certainly erroneously . . . ) "wants to keep America basically white...
...It is an extremely sensitive topic...
...Jesse Jackson, and dozens of labor leaders...
...Whalen is right when he underlines Saddam's creation of weapons of mass destruction as one of the big motives for our military action...
...In its long-run consequences, smashing a small and distant country which did not and does not constitute a threat to our interests cannot be good for the United States...
...en You're Number One Usually I don't write to mysterious P.O...
...Congress or among the American people for an extended military deployment in the Gulf to garrison the Gulf oil-producing states...
...He has begun a very worthwhile investigation of the likely aftermath of the present conflict, and I applaud him on it...
...Japanese were part of my good guy coalition, whites from then-totalitarian Eastern Europe were not...
...population is of white European stock...
Vol. 24 • May 1991 • No. 5
