Editorials
Contents Volume CVII, Number 9 Correspondence Editorials 258 259 The good soldier system: Thomas Powers 261 Peter Berger's unfinished symphony: Gregory Baum An interview with Mary Gordon:...
...From the moment the hosiages were seized, Washington was faced with a choice...
...263 270 274 275 Books Hans K/ing: His Wqrk and His Way/Tbe Church--Maintained in Truth: Peter Chirico 277 Decade of Decision: John Judis 280 The Dream of the Golden Mountains: Daniel T. Rodgers 281 So Long, See You Tomorrow: Robert A. Leiter 283 I Staff I Editor: James O'Gara Executive Editor...
...r .'lllll...
...No doubt this decision was based on an optimism arising from the success of negotia- tions in a number of similar instances (the latest success in Colombia only a week or so ago), an optimism that proved mistaken in the Iranian case...
...Single copy, $1...
...But Carter may yet end up smiling, thanks to the natural reflex to rally 'round the leader...
...America would emerge with neither'hostages nor honor nor the trust of other nations...
...The administration played with the moral equivalent of war with no great consistency or seriousness...
...And that mood has obscured all perspective...
...Had the rescue operation succeeded, of course, the political payoff would have been overwhelming...
...The f'wst is the apparent inability of the government to recognize the implications of a given policy, to stick with a policy consistently, and to offer some leadership to the nation in explaining and defending that policy...
...The president let public opinion drift toward the catharsis of military action...
...Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome but cannot be considered or returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...A punitive air strike on Iran...
...Contents Volume CVII, Number 9 Correspondence Editorials 258 259 The good soldier system: Thomas Powers 261 Peter Berger's unfinished symphony: Gregory Baum An interview with Mary Gordon: Diana Cooper-Clark Dance: Don McDonagh Screen: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...and yet it, too, carries implications that should be weighed seriously...
...But the government's decision, we believe, was the fight one...
...For the moment there is a pall over all of American foreign policy...
...In this case, as in so many others, an administration with initially sound instincts hut without the courage of its convictions, or maybe without geniune convic- tions at all, is giving America the worst of all worlds...
...And then what would have been the appropriate--the "necessary"--response...
...It is certainly no substitute for wisdom, consistency, and leader- ship...
...Peter Steinfels Assistant Editors: Daniel Murtaugh, David Toolan Editorial Assistant: Anne Robertson Columnists: John Garvey, Frank Getlein, Abigail McCarthy, Thomas Powers Movies: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...So where are we...
...As we wrote last February, the public "doesn't realize that American 'weakness' visa vis Teheran is largely of our own choosing...
...He decided to ride the tiger...
...ID 8. ~,v., P"dL~ ,av6~ i--•, :nnmlmmm...
...This week's newsmagazines could well be filled with photos reminiscent not of Entebbe but of the Jonestown carnage...
...The second fact is the complete loss of perspective, bordering on hysteria, that is overtaking the nation with regard to Iran...
...Poetry: Rosemary Deen, Made Ponsot Correspondents: Brian Wicker (Great Britain), Desmond Fisher (Dublin), Aiein Woodrow (Pads) Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, Jacqueline Reeves Advertising Manager...
...Negotiations in the Middle East hobble along lamely, the arms race moves closer to that final miscalculation, the international economy is coming loose at the seams...
...It was in its way an affirmation of the very principle that the hostage-takers, and all-too-much international politics generally, were violating: that individual lives count, that innocent bystanders cannot be used casually in the deadly games of nations...
...His resignation is a principled and understandable move...
...Iran has been dallying with the Soviets, and Third World awareness of Moscow's version of imperialism has been dulled...
...If the concern with individual lives was to predomi- nate, that meamminimizing the element of confrontation between nations, that meant refusing to be drawn into dramatics, that meant admitting the process might be terribly long, too long in fact to suspend all normal political life in the meantime...
...One was the affront to American dignity, the violation of important diplomatic immunities, and the possible precedent for similar actions elsewhere...
...Our government made the latter its primary concern...
...Clear speaking was especially necessary after the Afghanistan invasion intervened--a far more serious development, in our eyes, for the future of global peace but one that was merged and even submerged in the public mind with the question of the hostages...
...President Sadat has been further compromised in the Islamic world, and his peace policy, though eminently justified in regional terms, is all the more likely to be seen as an expression of special ties with the United States...
...What guides them is pure realpolitik and the old maxim about a whiff of grapeshot...
...Fifty citizens have had their lives unjustly and tragically interrupted, though the latest Iranian moves indicate that the greatest danger the hostages have run might well have been from their rescuers...
...10016...
...foreign, $39...
...Edward S. Skillin II Commonweal,A Review of Pubfic Affairs, Litera- ture and the Arts, is pubfished biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and Au- gust, by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madi- son Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Imagine the response in America to the withdrawal from power of some Soviet diplomat closely identified with the policy of negotia- tion and compromise...
...They do not deserve--indeed it will not do them any good--an escalation of their cause to the point that it blocks out everything else occurring in a world where fifty Afghans are dying in single clashes, where forty El Salvadorans died at Archbishop Rom- ero's funeral and a thousand more have fallen victim to vio- lence in recent months, where thousands of Cubans risk death to emigrate, and where the toll of suffering and death continues unabated in so many lands...
...The other was the well-being and survival of the fifty individual lives that were at stake...
...For those who have always rejected the humanitarian dimension of Washington's attitude toward the affair of hostages, this praise is at least consistent...
...Ruth E. Taylor Publisher...
...now it appears to be playing with war itself in the same manner...
...Once the United States had made this choice, its implications should have been acknowledged and publicly defended...
...We want to keep the hostages alive...
...The political returns for President Carter were obvious--at first...
...Commonweal: 260...
...It is our own set of policy priorities that stays our hand toward kan...
...None of these dangers can be forestalled, nor can any of the brighter developments like those in Zimbabwe be consolidated, by the kind of showdown mentality America is displaying over Iran...
...Jimmy Carter can no longer claim that no American soldier has died in service on foreign soil'during his term...
...Press, pres- ident, and Iranian militants have been engaged in a process which fed upon itself...
...Far better to be the nation's leader face-to-face with Khomeini than to be debating inflation with Kennedy, Reagan, and Anderson...
...We do not want to create further chaos in a nation bordering on the U.S.S.R...
...Telephone: (212)MU 3-2042...
...The hostages are dispersed...
...Negotiations had to continue quietly-- which would not rule out the graduated use of sanctions--bnt public displays had to be rejected and the press's demand for 9 May 1980:259 constant progress reports had to be patiently explained as counter-iaroductive...
...Courage is not the only virtue and not necessarily the highest in international politics...
...The affair was escalated into an interna- tional test of wills in large measure because that is what the administration allowed it to become...
...Two separate issues were raised...
...And last of all, Cyrus Vance has resigned...
...u'Si'iss...
...But that role soon produced its own kind of desperation, as revealed by the premature announcements on the morning of the Wisconsin primary...
...T-' i ¢ -..., liF WHAT THE 'RESCUE' REVEALS y II ES, WE Al~ speaking with hindsight when we express dismay at the ill-fated attempt to rescue the hostages...
...and Canada, $20...
...Had we been asked beforehand, we would have strongly urged that such a dangerous plan be set aside, and we would like to hope that in the inevitable euphoria following a successful operation we would have stuck to our position...
...And the Iranian rescue operation illustrates two crucial facts about the present situation of America...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S...
...Still, it would be well to keep in mind that even the abortive end to the mission was by no means the worst of outcomes...
...In any case, what is hindsight for, if not to learn something of value for the future...
...A good many voices have been raised to congratulate the president for a courageous decision...
...International peace may sometimes re- quire bold acts and the use of force, but bold acts and the use of force do not in themselves guarantee international peace...
...What happened, of course, was quite different...
...foreign, $22...
...The hostages de- serve the most diligent efforts on their behalf...
...In the case of others, this praise seems like a brave front...
...Washington is going with the mood of the country, in any case, neither guiding it nor resisting it...
...Special two-year rate: $35...
Vol. 107 • May 1980 • No. 9
