The Best and the Brightest

...tA The Alternative June-September 1973 The author's naive assertion that ture...

...and that In constant 1974 dollars the total figures Stennis (D-.Miss...

...for in The Making of a Quagmire that the international front articulated the as Sir Robert Thompson reminds us: Ho Chi Minh disagreed: "Because of propaganda aims of the Vietcong, "It is only necessary to look at the Diem's reputation as a nationalist, it did not in those days send North chain of events in South Vietnam Ho Chi Minh asked him to join Ho's Vietnamese troops to fight in the since 1963, from the time of the popular front in 1945...

...they In terms of Gross National Product, charge that our national priorities are defense spending is also at its lowest The importance and far-reaching conmisplaced and that if the Federal budget level since 1950" the figures are ('74) sequences of the current debate over has to be cut at all it should be cut in 6 percent and ('50) 4.9 percent respec- the Federal budget should not be underthe area of defense...

...Lipset successtoward one side or the other...

...Despite divisions and rivalries [ in the communist world, a failure to ] respond to North Vietnamese aggresState Zip~ . [ sion would have permitted, among Year [ others, the Chinese, the Cubans, and the Russians to draw dangerous con...

...3.00 i"3 1 yr...

...The "found itself face to face with failthe author's omission to substantiate forces of Ho Chi Minh drove the ure...

...The Time To Act Is Now" argue that there is no fiscal crisis...

...specific political issues which trigger Many of the professors and journalists In 1969 and 1971 two monumental and each activist movement, and "faciliwho argued that activism was best un- distinctly "non-political" analyses of tating factors," the broader conditions derstood "politically" (and indeed there student movements appeared" Louis which seem to encourage students, more were many of them) were frank apolo- Feuer's The Conflict of Generations and than any other group in our society, to gists for the radical position: freedom Robert Nisbet's The Degradation oS the engage in radical politics...

...Speaker, (the Speaker of the for every airplane...

...And above all, "there ever, is so lightly dismissed, for as and were therefore incapable of seeing was a refusal to consider what the the publisher's puffery points out, "the shades of difference --the fact alternatives to escalation really were...

...Our east Asia is to weaken our threat and stam's account is that the United struggle in Vietnam to maintain U.S...

...in sDtailelmed, " "ainn American creation which fit American needs, nit Vietnamese ones, "lacked by David Halberstam academy: The Best and the Brightest the support of the peasants...

...has pointed to the "godawful crisis on our hands which will dwarf any partment will drop to $79 billion or 28.4 waste" and "total inadequacy" of U.S...

...By Fiscal dubious merit...

...clusions about American determina[ ~ 3 yrs...

...berstam...

...Not only of political redress...

...cal" model generally prevailed...

...Vietnam issues in a particular postjective analyses of the student movement The trend is to disregard what the activ- Stalinist political epoch...

...The Kennedy AdminisAlthough the book is largely based sic merits of the nook as history, tration, seeing "South Viet Nam as on "some five hundred interviews" compels us to take The Best and the a real country, with a real flag," and contains not a single footnote, Brightest seriously, for in it Halber laboring under the Cold War delusion the credulous reader is expected to stam is attempting to shape public that force justifies force, and still excuse the author's failure to docu- opinion by supplanting old and ines- treating communism as a monolith, ment his account because "the politi- capable realities with new myths and responded with advisers and increased cal climate is somewhat sensitive wishful thinking, aid...

...This alone is for the causes of student protest is to fine...

...In measuring its response to the North Vietnamese challenge, the Kennedy Administration's major concern was what would our opponents conclude about American determination from our actions or failure to act...

...John Foster Dulles Evidence of the North's motives in if the Vietcong had had a good cause may have been incapable of distin- launching war on the South is con- within South Vietnam, the whole guishing between Ho the nationalist tained in Joseph Buttinger's Vietnam: country would have collapsed long and Ho the communist, but the dis- An Embattled Dragon, a book which ago...

...It had seen too many fruitless data is worthy of perusal even for the rather intellectualized frustration, an in- "confrontations," too many "symbolic reader who disagrees with everything voluntary reaction to widespread cultural protests," too much hysteria and un- else...

...Lipset has written an essentially Little, Brown, & Co., $3.95 pb...

...The paramount issue raised by Vietnam was whether the United States would respond to an armed communist attempt to alter the status quo...

...Con- raised was whether the Vietnamese tant influences on their thinking on sequently, when the 1954 Geneva might not be better off under Ho, and Vietnam, they responded by naming Agreements partitioned Vietnam and to what degree the success of the Viet the late Bernard Fall and Mr...

...5.50 [:] 2 yrs...

...It was part tion of agriculture was pursued beone, and it camouflaged the hard-core of a systematic and calculated con- ginning early in 1958 increased the Communist apparatus...

...level since 1940, when outlays repreThere are, of course, many critics who sented 16.6 percent of the total budget...

...One mains alarming, e.g., the army only has partment of Defense budget could go freshman congressman undoubtedly 4,500 combat spaces for its 50,000 active for manpower costs by 1975...

...And at the risk of sounding inconchanges which the students themselves reason having nothing to do with the clusive, Lipset shows his customary do not comprehend...

...when spending on human resources will equally strong proponent of the "Mr...

...Although the "top-heavy" now goes for manpower costs and it is a vehicle to indicate their concern over structure of our armed services still re- estimated that 67 percent of the De- our ever-growing fiscal problems...

...Under the Nixon Administration, bud- come to realize that the military, like unless we stop debauching our currency get priorities for human resources will the other sectors of our society, can no long enough to restore international conhave grown at an estimated average of longer support lavish programs of fidence in the dollar, we will have a 15 percent, from 1970 to 1974...

...for the defense budget are less than they man of the Senate Armed Services Corn- Needless to say, this is one assertion were in 1964, before the Vietnam mittee, has promised to weigh the re- that will not go unchallenged...

...Or the diagnosis of one and the self-diagno- history, and so lends his writing a welyou believe that student movements are sis of the other must finally part com- come reserve...

...Diem refused, South...

...Assuming the book as another lamentable ex- influenced by "the fall of China, the that we could affect the outcome of ample of declining historiographical rise of McCarthy, and the Korean the war, American leaders escalated standards...

...It was assumed, explain it at all...

...In a short while, the diffuse way, Lipset comes out in favor come cures for our medieval, racist "non-political" approach came to domi- of "motivating factors," and just about hangover, and teach-ins and SDS gave nate the subject, and student-watchers sums up his thesis on page 37: "the us a well-deserved chastizing for South- of the academy, now freed from the larger explanation for the rise of activeast Asian imperialism run wild...

...Hal- established Ho in the North, John Cong was a measure of this...

...It manages to maintain a firm commitment to individualism and freedom without being doctrinaire, boring or doleful...

...Once again The Best and the industrialization prohibited imports Quagmire, where we are provided Brightest is controverted by The that might have relieved the appalling additional insights into how Ho cap- Making of a Quagmire: "The new shortage of consumer goods...

...Atkins' Diet ReVolution on the ment) grew, Diem "turned to White product of David Halberstam's quest best seller lists...

...The war can do and will do and do again to lithic communism merely reveals that in Vietnam represents one of the few defend our position...

...You either American intellectual public was at last fully wrests his subject from the feverish conclude that student movements have pushed beyond limits...

...7.00 The Alternative, R.R...

...They joined battle vellian confession of Mark Rudd of the are his attempts to refute their "nonas allies of their liberal parents, first Columbia SDS: "Let me tell you...

...But this is no 56 percent of the current defense budget congressmen used the special order as longer true...

...But the North's inability to provide ordeal of reading this badly written A central and repetitious theme of this better life was largely why the work unfulfilled...

...Rather, the lace of the war Buddhist controversy which led to the the Communists had murdered his was of a purely indigenous uprising...

...Speaker, I suggest that the rerise to 47 percent of the total budget...

...And perhaps refusal to consider seriously the adverfor radical, but definitive programs it listened too closely to that Neo-Machia- sary position of his colleagues...

...Many national- spiracy on the part of the Communist regime's difficulties with the peasists joined who were not Communists, government in Hanoi to take over ants...

...The success of this policy, based upon the hard-learned lesson that the toleration of aggression breeds only further aggression, depends upon the credibility of the United States' threat to meet force with force...

...His vast storehouse of not deliberately political at all, but pany...

...who is also the Chair- the time to act is now...

...It is difficult States became entangled in an un- credibility is the best evidence that to imagine a more senseless way to fortunate and costly war for a country can be offered to potential aggressors squander the American blood that has not worth the price...

...when the movement mushroomed, as finally found an audience and moderate In his first chapter, Lipset separates partakers of the intellectuals' legitimate professors whose liberalism had been the causes of student unrest into two "sense of outrage" against the domestic stung by the movement's excesses sig- categories: "motivating factors," the status quo and Johnson's foreign policy, naled a retreat from the "issues...

...Our Air Force has two majors States is thus spending substantially less gest, Mr...

...Department of Defense, Senator John sponsibility for action is ours...

...We political" approach few and poor--what as the more daring standard-bearers of manufactured the issues . . ." In any is worse, his own thesis is eminently Kennedy's civil rights legions, and later, event, conservative professors who had attackable from their point of view...

...mnnn I / I l l l I l l l l I i mum n nnmnnm I I I I l l l l I / / n / I I mmnnn N i l I n nmm mnnannn / I l l l l n I I I [ Please enter a new renewal subscription to The Alternative...

...fall of President Diem, to realize that, eldest brother...

...I I [ Student and Regular [ Faculty Members: Subscribers: [ D lyr...

...Nor is the author's influence Foster Dulles "decided that the rest Readers of The Best and the these days simply limited to the of the country" would be "a Western Brightest, lured by inducements "to The Alternative June-September 1973 17 find out the full reasons why it had and to the 800,000 refugees who fled read" and lists in his bibliography: all happened," will emerge from the south aftertheGenevaAgreements...

...issues," in fact, too complete a tide genius at giving every argument a fair Back in the early sixties, the "politi- of anti-intellectualism that seemed, in- hearing and a sympathetic discussion...

...9 Milton Friedman To subscribe or renew just complete the form below and mail today...

...Even if we accept Halberstam's others who opposed the Communists the South...

...As Viet Random House,$10.00 is flooding suburbia as a Book-of- Cong ~trength (feeding upon local the-Month Club selection and rivals grievances against the Diem governThe Best and the Brightest is the Dr...

...Although The Best kind of a conspiracy, for though Diem, we cannot escape the fact that and the Brightest tells us that Diem Hanoi directed the war, set its pace, the regimes which replaced him conwas "an American creation," we learn controlled its overall strategy and on tinued the war at a terrible cost...

...foreign policy, rather than the intrin- Americans...

...should learn our lesson and shun oppose violations of the status quo...

...shadow-world of ideological causes, have ism during the past half decade or so But what was more important was tended increasingly to seek an explana- must lie primarily in political events: that even the detached observers, the tion in historical forces utterly beyond the emergence of the civil rights and non-apologists who attempted quite ob- the students' understanding or control...

...The United spoke for many when he said" "I sugcaptains...

...To its you are -- historian, journalist, curious Then in the late sixties came a reac- credit, Rebellion has all the outward observer- your views are bound to lean tion of sorts, when the credulity of the signs of a masterpiece...

...much they would disagree with the the pattern of uprisings"-- or do not Finding the causes of student unrest activists' key positions...

...Student tent, as its primary goal, on not being Still, Rebellion is crippled by Lipset's activists, it was then believed, fought understood politically at all...

...Fatally misconceiving the war these days, and the relationship of The author's thesis, disjointed and as primarily military rather than reporter to source is very much under scattered throughout 665 pages of political, the United States by 1964 attack...

...And today, with on the research and development of wea- House of Representatives) that unless only 2.5 million men under arms -- as pons systems than it has been in recent we do something to reduce that $25 bilcompared to 12 million during World years, lion which goes down the drain every year in interest on the Federal debt...

...To begin to set the primarily an indigenous movement Food production, although rising, record straight, one need look no growing out of Diem's inability to could not keep pace with the populafarther than to Halberstam's first improve the conditions of the peas- tion increase, and the policy of forced book on Vietnam, The Making of a ants...

...of the other l~roblems and evils to which percent of the total budget at a time weapons procurement procedures...

...During a special order which of the purpose of defense spending, conservatives have been inclined to overlook These figures are particularly startling was held by the freshman class of the the cumbersome bureaucratic failures of when it is pointed out that a whopping Ninety-third Congress, a number of the the Defense Department...

...tinction was readily apparent to Diem, Halberstam claims to have "carefully Halberstam's refusal to acknowledge that the North's aggression Consider The Alternative YtLTERNATII i Starting a Cold War Notes on a Peculiar Conflict Dexter Perkins Robert Pfaltzgraff James Grant Robert Ferreli Bud Faisom Robert Mnddox "The Alternative is a consistently interesting, thoughtful, and lively magazine...

...covering a broad political spectrum have confiscated by government at all levels...

...War II -- we now have seven more However, given the reorganization of unless we act to reduce the 43 percent four-star generals and admirals than we national priorities, congressional critics of every taxpayer's earnings which are did during the war...

...War" had become slavish adherents by pouring in moi'e troops and bombNo work by David Halberstam, how- to a belief in monolithic communism ing the North...

...therefore, we of our continuing determination to been shed in Vietnam...

...As frustrations mounted in the his work, coupled with his almost French out of Vietnam, thereby cap- South, the United States more and extrasensory capacity to know the turing the nationalism of the country, more blamed the North, coming to innermost thoughts of his subjects, and becoming a "genuine revolution- believe that Hanoi was the villain would lead the reviewer to dismiss ary force...

...To reverse this he does not understand the elements instances when an aggressor has interpretation, to tell the world that of a deterrent foreign policy, challenged the credibility of the we shall never fight again in SouthThe conclusion suggested by Halber American promise to retaliate...

...And indeed, because tively, estimated...

...work's fundamental weakness...

...has hit a l u l l - into the past tense of react to and influence the "issues...

...Today many people are pre- teaching methods, greater emphasis on Glazer in his essays, Nelson Rockefeller pared to agree with Robert Nisbet that competition for post-grad employment, in his speeches, Walter Lippmann in his "in retrospect it is plain that the specific the "suspended adolescence" of students interviews -- never questioned that poli- reasons given by the earliest student whose average age continues to increase, tics was at the root of it all, however insurrectionaries.., only partly explain and so forth...

...Senator Barry Goldwater moral, constitutional, and economic Year 1974 the budget for the Defense De- (R-Ariz...

...Furthermore, phenomenon, agreed before 1968 that ist has to say about his own motives: of the "facilitating factors" that he will specific "political" issues--especially he has no idea why he is rebelling...

...In his own riding and SNCC, they told us, were wel- Academic Dogma...

...It is simply The Alternative June-September 1973 19...

...Studies end . . . . . [ against the South was the primary cause of the war is the basis of his inability to comprehend the true nature of U.S...

...Under normal circumstances, text, can be stated as follows...

...Department of Defense is at the lowest we have never weighed them before...

...when sociologists "polled 150 Ameri- that Ho, although a communist, might A question that was almost never can intellectuals on the most impor- also be primarily Vietnamese...

...But it was the most subtle interpretation of the opposition to were liquidated...

...Despite its enormous Halberstam's present version of events Hanoi regime could not resign itself wordage, Halberstam's account is is that Diem- unlike Ho- lacked to permanent partition and why the remarkable not for what it reveals the support of the peasants, and the Communists were impelled to attempt and explains, but for what it ignores guerrilla insurgency in the South was to win control of the South by force...

...4.00 [ [:} 2 yrs...

...The central tenet of post-World War II American foreign policy is to avoid war by threatening war...

...0 ~tna~ ~r bastion against Communists," and The Best and the Brighte Dinh Diem was st the South "by forewiganse rs...

...American policy-makers, and the source of the war...

...11, Box 360, Bloomington, Indiana 47401 Name Address City College or Univ...

...Rather than failing "to consider what the alternatives to escalation really were," American polieymakers rejected the inescapable alternative to meeting the North Vietnamese challenge: the collapse of American credibility in Southeast Asia and shaken confidence in our resolution elsewhere in the world...

...is relatively easy for Lipset...

...But Lipset fails to defend himself There are two ways of explaining the consider the reasons which student pro- effectively against the adverse currents rise of student activism over the last testers themselves offer for their ac- of prevailing opinion, and this is his ten or fifteen years, and no matter who tivities...

...People whom we or in the students' own subconscious cratization of the university, impersonal would today call moderates- Nathan turmoil...

...involvement in such wars in the fu- In the words of James Payne: "The Terry O'Rourke ~oo~ ~r162 So student movementology has its own 9 " he U " "ty trendsanditsowndialectic, andinlight Rebellton tn t ntverst o, these, Seymour M. Lipset's odd new addition to the field, Rebellion in the University, is something of a disappointby Seymour Martin Lipset in the words of The Report of the Presi- merit...

...7.00 O 3 yrs.$10.00 [ tion to respond to their separate and n_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . t distinct violations of the status quo...

...American [ policymakers had gone to college and I knew that communism was not monolithic...

...dent's Commission on Campus Unrest "political" analysis at a time when such that "the best place to begin any search efforts are not in vogue...

...Concern for a respon- foreign~: for help, for more aid, for "to find out the full reasons why it sibie understanding of American air power, for a new treaty with the (the Vietnam war) had all happened...

...Halber [ stam's claim that our involvement in [ _ Vietnam was the knee-jerk response 9 of believers in a monolithic communist [ conspiracy is untenable...

...This is perhaps the most dan- correct interpretation of our action American policymakers were moti gerous conclusion one could draw in Vietnam is that is shows what we vated by a simplistic belief in mono- from our Vietnam ordeal...

...the accept, nearly all are at least vaguely the war and domestic, social inequal- answers are to be found in his upbring- understood as grievances by the radicals ity -- were the single, most impoi-tant ing, or in the breakdown of institutions, themselves" increasing size and bureaucause of activism...

...An we now address ourselves...

...encourage aggression...

...involvement in Vietnam...

...The public likened clutches of current events and puts it been political movements and that activ- itself to a doctor watching a patient where it belongs- now that activism ism is a means chosen by students to slowly lose his sanity, and reasoned that...

...and misconceives...

...The tured the nationalist movement: "The Indochina war was not a spontaneous hectic pace at which the collectivizacause was a national and patriotic uprising from the South...