EDITORIALS
CORRESPONDENCE Ss and Sense Detroit, Mich. To the Editors: At the risk of sounding foolhardy, I make bold to suggest that you have no qualms about raising to $25 for a full-year subscription...
...To the Editors: At the risk of sounding foolhardy, I make bold to suggest that you have no qualms about raising to $25 for a full-year subscription to your estimable publication...
...A major flaw, knowingly permitted in the new law, is that such reports are to be filed by candidates with either the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House...
...Your indomitable effort to "stir up the indifferent," and to bring the irresolute to conviction of sin, is assuredly worth the "munificent" sum of $25 per annum...
...Specifically, again, there were the charges leveled by the American Ambassador in Saigon against the president of New York Theological Seminary, an incident demonstrating how close to the surface still lies the proclivity of people in official government position to libel the peace community and its members...
...cannot do, and would be better off not even attempting...
...214 WORK, WORK, WORK: Saul MalofJ 215 THE VALUES OF SURVIVAL: Victor Ferkiss 218 ROOKS: Bruce Vawter, Irring Malin 219 JAMES O'GARA: Editor JOHN DEEDY: Managing t'dltor RAYMOND A. SCHROTH: Associate Editor ANNE ROBERTSON: Editorial Assistant COLIN L. WESTERBECK, JR.: Movies JOHN FANDEL: Poetry BRIAN WICKER: Great Britain ALAIN WOODROW: Paris HENRY TEN KORTENAAR: Rome JOHN COONEY: Dublin EDWARD S. SKILLIN: Publisher JOHN ERUBAKER: Advertising Manager COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review o1 Public Affairs...
...Deeds comes to Washington to advance the common weal, but generally even the most high-minded of federal elective officeholders find their causes best advanced if their political coffers are reasonably well stocked...
...The release of the prisoners will not solve Vietnam's freedom problems, but it would remove a major source of grievance--and maybe make Thieu a mite more palatable to those of sensitive instincts...
...The 1971 law placed a limitation on the amount of money that could be spent for campaign propaganda, particularly television and radio "spots...
...In 1971, however, for the first time, a law was enacted providing for comprehensive reporting of sources of campaign funds made to candidates for federal elective office--Congress and the Presidency...
...Copyright ~ 1974 Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc...
...In 1972, the Presidential fund attracted little money, because the Nixon Administration hid its existence from the taxpayers, a situation since remedied in time for 1973 tax payments...
...But these are days for paradoxes and strange happenings in connection with the American commitment to Vietnam...
...As for Vietnam itself, there is much that the U.S...
...Further expansion of U.S...
...Webber without the attack being disowned by an emCommonweal: 203 barrassed Administration or Foreign Service...
...Nevertheless it is something to ponder when an American official of such high station can defame a person of peace like Dr...
...Much less was the point pressed that the $266 million might be beneficially spent at home on the nation's own veterans of Vietnam--for projects, for instance, that might lessen the veterans' disproportionately high percentage of joblessness...
...Some events of recent days, however, dramatize that, though the troops may be home from that unhappy country, Vietnam is still very much a part of the American experience and still working its distortions on elementary logic and the American sense of justice...
...consumption would require new refineries which would process increasing volumes of imported oil...
...One cannot help feeling outraged when witnessing the penurious nature of many people to whom a few more dollars matter more than the exhilaration of being exposed to the thrust of unorthodox ideas...
...consumption of petroleum products has risen from 11 million barrels/day in 1963 to 17 million barrels/ day in 1973, prior to the current shortage...
...It approved S. 372 which would place dollar ceilings on both contributions and expenditures...
...balance of payments, and world-wide oil supplies...
...But certain things are within its province, and the longer these are delayed the more remote becomes the day when economic, social and cultural stability will return to Vietnam...
...William Calley, so that now he has but six months more to serve for his murder of "not less than 22" Vietnamese civilians at My Lai...
...The amount in the fund would depend upon the number of taxpayers who, by giving permission when filing their federal individual income tax returns, authorized $l or $2 in federal funds to be placed in the fund...
...First among these would be the restoration of individual freedoms...
...Then, last year, the Senate took another step toward shedding light on the dark corners of campaign financing...
...It also sought to cure the supervision problem, left in the 1971 law, by establishing a new seven-member federal campaignfinancing oversight commission with subpoena power to inquire into records of winning and losing candidates in primary and general elections...
...Printed in the USA and published weekly, except biweekly Christmas-Hew Year's and June to mid.September, by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Foreign S16...
...However, the conclusion that energy policy should be responsive to consumer demand requires further consideration...
...During this same period, domestic crude oil production has failed to keep pace with this growth, rising from 7.5 millions barrels/day in 1963, to peak at close to 10 million barrels/day in 1970, and is now in an inevitable decline, with present production at 9.1 million barrels/day...
...Thus we witness a bookkeeping "miracle" whereby $266 million is "found" in an old ledger to furnish additional military support for the Thieu regime for the remainder of fiscal '74...
...10016 MUrray Hill 3-2042...
...SI4 a year...
...But with the ambivalence, however understandable, with which sitting Members of Congress approach campaignfinancing reform, the "ceilings" on contributions were deceptive...
...But that these are so essentially military as American policymakers apparently would have them, or that they justify old hostilities towards Americans of differing viewpoints, is a matter to be hotly disputed...
...Single copies S0e 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 O 9 00 9 VIETNAM BACKWASH Vietnam is a war fought and capped, the President tells us, by "peace with honor...
...It goes without saying in this indictment of tactics and attitudes that the U.S...
...ALBERT ZEITLIN Oil Indigestion East Meadow, N.Y...
...More power to you...
...George W. Webber may have been responsible for the March 19 tragedy at Cai Lay that claimed 32 lives and 50 injured, because he failed to telephone Vietcong and North Vietnamese representatives during his January visit to Vietnam and use his "great influence" to secure a ban on weapons of terror--which is a little like saying that Daniel Berrigan, David Dellinger or some other antiwar figure is responsible for the great length of the war because at some time one of them neglected to phone Ho Chi Minh and get him to call off the fighting...
...U.S...
...22] analysis of big oil business' domination of national oil policy appears on the whole to be accurate and incisive...
...It's a little comparable to having an umpire calling balls-and-strikes who is also an employee of the home team...
...WASHINGTON REPORT MONEY AND POLITICS Political puppets are easily enough discerned by anyone with a sustained interest in public affairs, but the puppeteers are less easily discovered...
...Literature and the Arts...
...Each man now holding those respective positions is a person of integrity, but each is an employee of the Congress...
...A total of $21.4 million for each Presidential candidate was estimated to be the maximum that would be collected by this taxpayers' "check-off...
...Until recently, the half-century-old federal corruptpractices act assisted in disguising sources of large campaign donations...
...If Calley deserves administrative reprieve, even if only partial, the more so do conscientious resisters merit amnesty...
...Even more promisingly, from the standpoint of some campaign reformers, there was established a fund for federal financing of campaigns of Presidential candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties...
...It is well known that the (Continued on page 222) NEWS & VIEWS: 202 CORRESPONDENCE: 203 EDITORIALS: 203 WASHINGTON REPORT: Money and Politics: Sisyphus 204 SHALL WE SOON PRAISE PODHORETZ?: Michael Novak 207 THE MISSOURI SYNOD: STILL THE CHURCH MILITANT: Margaret M. Carlan 208 COMMUNITY, SI--INDEPENDENCE, NO: Jordan Bishop 212 VERSE: Nancy G. Westerfield 20G THE SCREEN: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...But if Congress or the general public was offended by the duplicity, there was no knowing it...
...The discovery of $266 million lying around unspent from last year was as fraudulent as some of those battle reports (e.g., Tong Le Chan) that Thieu issues when he is out to influence legislation or opinion in the United States...
...Ambassador Graham A. Martin alleged that Dr...
...Under terms of the bill, a contributor could give only $3000 to a candidate in any single cam3 May 1974:204...
...This third or fourth measure of juridical generosity can perhaps be defended on the grounds that Calley is a scapegoat for the system and for officers much higher than himself, who though they did not pull the trigger, set the policy and participated in a cover-up...
...An occasional bare-footed Mr...
...The problem is one for North as well as South Vietnam, but important beginnings can be made in the South, and the U.S., which provides roughly 85 percent of the upkeep of the Saigon government, is in a position of great influence...
...Webber, whose article on his Vietnam trip appeared in the March 15 Commonweal, easily defended himself against the Ambassador's irresponsible charges...
...It should insist, for example, that Thieu honor the Paris Peace Accords and at last open the prison gates to the 200,000 political prisoners held there...
...bears large residue obligations to Vietnam for the devastation dealt that land and its people over a decade's time...
...Nevertheless, justice is travestied when the generosity shown Calley is not matched by a kindred consideration for those young Americans who refused for conscience's sake to do any killing and who accordingly went underground or took up residence in other countries...
...Second class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...US and Canada...
...Particularly difficult to identify correctly are the back-stage money men who distribute their capital--or that of others even less willing to identify themselves--to favored candidates of both major political parties...
...This will only have adverse effects on the environment, U.S...
...To the Editors: James Goodman's ["Oil Indigestion, Mar...
...Specifically, there was the further reduction in the life sentence of Lieut...
Vol. 100 • May 1974 • No. 9
