Correspondence: Letters from Name Withheld, William Hawkins, Dan Bennett, and Larry Oates
Correspondence To the Editor: I've just finished reading Mr. Taggert's article in your December issue. If your magazine served no other useful purpose than to provide a forum for the development...
...Docksai includes a mysterious group he calls "Randists," suggesting that anyone who adheres to a coherent, consistent philosophy is a personality cultist, whereas the Vice President, who takes one step back politically for every two steps forward-and keeps himself in tune with the validating "mood" of the Silent Majority- is proof against the hero worship that leads to cults...
...Eliot saw fit to condemn (But after all, if Eliot is good enough to look down on Churchill, then he is good enough to look down on most anything...
...The Soviet Union and Communist China un-doubtably still pursue expansionist policies and hope for eventual world domination along the lines of Communist prophecy...
...The SALT negotiations provide an extra safeguard, in the form of agreed nuclear force levels, that can allow us to further reorient our defense programs to meet the real threats to our security interests without being constantly diverted by costly and unrewarding nuclear arms races...
...Best regards, William R. Hawkins Kankakee, Illinois To the Editor: Although Ronald Docksai shows the potential for writing a good review (re: The Impudent Snobs- December), it is apparent and perhaps all of what Mr...
...I am interested in finding out more about this esoteric character...
...I am refreshed to learn that- in the days of a miniscule GNP, of incorrigible male chauvinism, of unabashed social, economic, and political inequality- great leaders seldom used the words...
...Nuclear weapons are less than useless in this type of warfare, even if the US were emotionally geared to use them...
...Problems" and "crises," it seems, are all in the eye of the beholder...
...Since the two are not necessarily related, nor was there an attempt by Gow to show how they cm relate, his efforts to convey a useful idea were largely wasted...
...Eliot were enemies of the "permanent things," then Mr...
...Economic and military aid, backed by a large reserve of streamlined conventional forces are the keys to regional defense...
...I'll make a deal with him...
...Docksai writes is for appearances) that he has some way to go...
...War is a political act, as Clausewitz noted long ago, initiated for conquest or advantage rather than for death and destruction...
...Ah It's a sign of the times...
...Schneider's figures...
...It was of interest because it contained an inflated wealth of meaning...
...In the sixties, our president took amphetamines so he could average four...
...Last year the Soviets cut their ICBM construction by 90 percent and invested the money in fielding four new combat divisions, increasing tactical aircraft production and new warships...
...even a 95 percent effective first-strike will not save the aggressor's homeland from decimation...
...To the Editor: William Schneider's analysis of the SALT agreement and the current balance of nuclear weapons was a valuable collection of facts and figures...
...Yours truly Dan Bennett North Little Rock, Arkansas To the Editor: May good Aeolis waft those soporific winds hither...
...However, like virtually all reviews of SALT, the data was presented in a political vacuum...
...Since a forced perception cannot be tested (a key identifying feature of free will), statements bearing truth are accidental...
...In a period of rising military costs and multiple commitments (not the least of which are domestic), both the US and the USSR need to reorder their military priorities away from strategic weapons with their limited political utility and towards those forces best suited to "limited" war...
...The capability to launch such a war exists, but there is no political, economic, or ideological reason why such a war should ever be fought...
...If your magazine served no other useful purpose than to provide a forum for the development of Tom Taggerts, its publication would still be amply justified...
...In conclusion, since all modern weapon systems have a high price tag, once a basic level of nuclear deterrence has been achieved (as has been the American case for many years), additional resources should be invested in those military forces that provide the greatest flexibility and political utility...
...MacDonald's efforts at reviewing represent a collusion between living intellects and those dead out of their mind...
...In conventional forces, this could mean five to six new ground combat divisions on three new aircraft carriers complete with aircraft and escort ships or twenty-seven extra tactical-fighter squadrons...
...The SALT talks are a result of this condition...
...Haven B. Gow's article "In Defense of Freedom" was more tolerable than the rest, but revealed a deficiency in that it tried to combine "freedom" as a political concept with "free will," a metaphysical-psychological concept...
...f, as Eliot suggests, history is an experience of many generations, a Burkian contract between the living and the dead, then it is not too difficult to see that Mr...
...Larry Oates Los Gatos, Californiaarry Oates Los Gatos, California...
...Envisioned is a war of massive first- and second-strikes, obliterating entire societies and killing hundreds of millions of citizens...
...As a matter of fact, he demonstrates a spiritual kinship to Eliot in that his writings suggest a dry brain in a dry season confronted with a waste land...
...Ergo, determinism is un-provable...
...Also of extreme interest was the review (Eltot and His Age) by W. Wesley MacDonald...
...Name Withheld Georgetown University Washington, D.C...
...If he tells me where I can find "Coriolan," then I'll tell him where he can find the Temple of Nike Apteros...
...The problem with most articles in the current defense debate is that they all start from the standard American view of war, i.e., total, righteous, global, and nuclear...
...A superior argument, brought forward by Nathaniel Branden, is that determinism is inherently unknowable and therefore absurd...
...Right...
...In cataloguing the opposition to Agnew, Mr...
...Discovering an author of Mr...
...MacDonald mentions, with a great thrift of description, a figure named Coriolan- one of the many things Mr...
...In the thirties, we had a president who shamelessly indulged in twelve hours of sleep daily...
...Q.E.D...
...Keep on discovering Taggerts and we'll be in good shape when our time comes...
...MacDonald is an enemy of the "things that make sense...
...No matter what conclusion they came to, they are precluded from certainty by the knowledge that they were forced to their conclusion...
...The road to world empire, for the Communist powers, leads through a pattern of regional domination, slowly progressing across the globe...
...If the intellectual opponents of T.S...
...Taggert's wit, insight, and erudition helps make weathering the current conservative malaise bearable...
...By limiting our ABM sites to two, as agreed to in SALT, and by slowing our B-l and ULBMS programs, an additional $5 billion can be diverted into other, more useful military programs...
...But to assume their plans include a global-nuclear war, is to assume their leaders are fools...
...In his discussion of free will, Gow suggests that the doctrine of determinism must be rejected on the strength of no better argument than that evil consequences will occur as a result of its acceptance...
...When the number of nuclear warheads available to each Superpower approaches 10,000, as in Mr...
...Suppose men investigating determinism were determined by something other than themselves...
Vol. 6 • February 1973 • No. 5
