Editorials
Contents Volume CXIII, Number 22 commonweal Correspondence ...
...CXIII 713 The new fallacy is the notion that the Iran-contra connection is a development extrinsic to the Reagan presidency...
...Obviously, they need not be Democrats...
...But in the end, righteousness leading to a routine substitution of rhetoric for the president himself is a major part of the problem, and not reality...
...Here is moral divide those who knew from those who didn't...
...secrecy, in most cases, was directed against American public He has set the tone for foreign policy, particularly in regard to opinion as much as against the adversary...
...They must be democrats...
...We needed, that letter said, dark...
...to incoherence, to collapse: J. Bryan Hehir 679 Gay rights/gay plight An open letter: Stephen Flred 680 A response: Joseph L. Bernardin 682 A TUMOR Haiti: the malnourished revolution: Karen Sue Smith 684 DEEPLY LODGED Screen: Tom O'Brien 689 Success in small things: Tom O'Brien 690 "CLEARLY, MISTAKES WERE made," allows George Bush...
...Contents Volume CXIII, Number 22 commonweal Correspondence 674 Editorials 675 Truth flashes: John Garter 677 Fron~ Ignorance...
...Or should the country face the harder fact that this suffered from a bad case of "Vietnam syndrome" - a reluc- trust was never deserved in the first place...
...Kenneth A. Briggs, John Tracy Ellis 697 exposure...
...hank...
...It is bad enough that 53 percent superseded by a shadowy world of White House advisors, CIA of the people do not believe the president's denial of knowagents, and semi-official gunrunners, where duplicity is ledge about the diversion of arms money to the contras...
...Daniloff Ronald Reagan has certainly tapped wells of trust and affecfor a Soviet spy...
...When the going gets contra operation against Solidarity in Poland, the temptation tough, the tough get undemocratic...
...Nonetheless, he has charted the main directions of like strong medicine, the administration hard-liners appeared this administration...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., America's Founding Fathers...
...15 Dutch St., New I choose it to mean...
...The democratic process will be America's own political fabric...
...A Strategic Defense Initiative was suddenly catapulted by an ill-prepared presidential speech into a position commanding much of U.S...
...is the president who can say, no, we didn't trade Mr...
...our feet, overjoyed about the outcome, but a little wobbly and The response to this appeal was generous...
...Assessments of vital Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in national interests could be turned on or off like a spigot, as in Lebanon...
...PostslAstvR: Send address changes to Commonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...Quite the contrary...
...N.Y...
...vaguely liberal_ guy of sneering at a Catholic Workers, Wanderer readers, Some mornings on one television staparticular sort of fundamentalist ACLU members, Moral Majority folks, tion we can get around here I am able to Christian...
...He has chosen his inner circle for their to be all the more delighted...
...Principled U.S...
...They prescribed a Reagan has raised haziness about the specifics of policy to an healthy dose of both secrecy and military force...
...The Reagan administration has been of the Humpty-Dumpty York...
...Because for the past twenty-five years...
...They were Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, always imprecise and malleable concepts, applicable when and where desired, and Janice Gates mainly designed to focus onto the Soviet Union the horror properly felt at the Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor violence randomly dealt out to innocents by terrorists...
...A bit dotty perhaps (and willing to joke about it), Iranian arms embargo even when knowing the U.S...
...One of my favorite quotes is all those poor non-Pentecostals whose view is quite simply the one from which from Gregory of Nyssa...
...How could this be...
...tance to use military power overseas...
...But the two notions are disturbing: they add one more fallacy to the wallow of mummery and dissimulation into which the nation has fallen...
...arms policy-without even a 26 December /986: 675 careful delineation of what was meant...
...The already tattered alliances in Europe and has no stomach for slipping arms to the folks responsible for the Middle East are not going to be helped by a period of killing 241 Marines unawares in their barracks, then those who prolonged crisis...
...Most of our readers have received tions through their offices or agencies, and our mailing house's letters describing the economic realities that led to this move computers have coded their addresses among the many librarfrom the offices on Madison Avenue where we were quartered ies or other institutions that receive Commonweal...
...who can recreate Reykjavik the morning after...
...comprehends anything...
...foreign policy by "telling all" and holds, "We know what is right", and therefore explanation is fingering those responsible...
...This is not to say that the problems driving so many people to ask for a freshened-up President Trust-Me are not very real BEHIND THIS administration's demagogic words and secret ones...
...Writing last May, we explained only those subscribers coded as individual subscriptions reour plight and pretty much placed our fate in the hands of our ceived our letters of appeal, other readers were left in the readers...
...Act Two: We find a new • An armload of others willing to become Com-_ location for our office, at a very attractive rent...
...Imminent threats to national security" could be $28: Canada- $30: foreign...
...Concepts theology isn't a version of Augustine's at others ought to be judged...
...dance in front of an auditorium full of Hatfield, or the people around the It is hard to imagine an alternative to the people...
...school of thought...
...Literature, and the Arts, intervene with such support itself...
...he or she was wrong, and it looks just ogy to him: Jews and mainstream ChrisCalling this "deceni' is a bit condes- plain wimpy to mount an argument while tians and other people who don't get cending, but that's part of my point too: pleading that the possibility of our being saved will go to hell, and it isn't his fault we always condescend, always assume mistaken be simultaneously taken into or his harsh decision, it's God's will for that our religious or political point of account...
...And that brings me to Jimmy Swaggart, and also to Flannery O'Connor, and AM probably as guilty as the next tion of being right is what unites a lot of to needs people really have...
...Even if, in our heart of hearts, who can declare, "It was not my intent to do business with America didn't stand quite as tall as he said (who could miss Khomeini, to trade weapons for hostages, nor to undercut our the poverty and homelessness, the promotion of mergers rather policy on anti-terrorism," even as he is doing them all-and than of manufacturing, the private and public debt...
...asked for...
...New York...
...president should clean house, yes...
...What we have to Editor: Peter Steintels confront is no ugly blemish on the surface but a tumor deeply lodged in a vital organ...
...was violat- a bit casual with the truth, certainly detached from rudimentary ing it...
...If that seemed art form...
...I didn't make a Books mistake," President Reagan insists at first, then concedes, "It's obvious that the Hope in Hard Times: Peggy Rosenthal 693 execution of these policies was flawed, and mistakes were made...
...I agree with Of several minds: John Garvey that, but what do you do with it...
...In the Iran-contraspiracy, Reagan was sides of the deadly Iran-Iraq war, the daily contradictions, Reagan, with results that we have only begun to recognize...
...The mundane fact HOULD WE bemoan the fact that the president has betrayed remains that the Reaganites entered office convinced that S the trust so readily placed in him - and imagine that it can Jimmy Carter had shackled the CIA and that America still be restored...
...The road to those Central America...
...It is naive to think that Ronald Reagan can somehow kiss Reagan is more honest and trustworthy than most people in public life...
...admissions, and retractions started in 1981, not 1985...
...Church: crimes...
...The assump- create idols," he wrote, "only wonder its worst (though Jimmy thinks he finds it 26 Deeeinher /986: 677...
...I(038...
...The other fatuity is the idea that President Reagan can put the whole matter Eliot Janeway 696 right simply by coming clean with the public, the way little George Washington did Special supplement: A Call to Action: with his Dad about the cherry tree...
...It seems that a few of them never received word of our move-or of our appeal for MAKING OUR MOVE help...
...10038...
...tially conspiratorial - and constructed its counter-strategy in a kind of mirror image - is a long story...
...But standard operating procedure and you can't tell the liars with- the current measure of citizen cynicism was taken by the same out a scorecard...
...A cast of mind that stitution and on U.S...
...Most ominous, of course, is the effect on know better will find a way...
...But in most This is Commonweal's first Christmas at 15 Dutch Street, cases, it turns out, these are readers who receive their subscripNew York...
...Certainly Mr...
...The contras were "freedom fighters" and the moral equivalent of Single copy, $1.50...
...poll when it found that an even higher 59 percent believe Mr...
...A hearty homeless or penniless...
...dollars by International Money Order or by refusals to compromise with national security in the case of arms budgets became check on a U.S...
...highly adjustable matters when the farm vote required a grain deal with the Soviets...
...not what officials he dismisses but what officials he puts in their place...
...is published biweekly, except...
...What has emerged-and Staff every day brings new revelations-are policies thoroughly in keeping with this administration's characteristic outlook and methods of operation...
...Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...On the fifth anniversary of the Soviets' own successful acts is a deep distrust of democracy...
...tion in the American people...
...What can one say about a Chief Execupolicy, but it also encompassed a number of covert operations tive who naturally turns, when his office is threatened by the about which we will probably now be learning more...
...The Grenada invasion, the Libyan personal and ideological loyalty and he has been remarkably air strikes, and the contra war were the chief fruits of this loyal to them in turn...
...Religious book notes: Mars' Gerhart 694 One of the more fatuous things about the Iran-contraspiracy scandal is the fondness of officials for describing it in terms of "mistakes" rather than, say, lies or The Devil and Dr...
...Well, very clearly it was a mistake to get involved in the illegal arms transfer-or funds transfer," admits Secretary of State Shultz...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $49: Canada, $53: foreign, $59...
...Inconsistency was never an Publisher: Edward S. Skillin embarrassment to this administration, which indignantly denounced Cuba's or Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-33301 A Review of Nicaragua's support for insurgents in Central America while reserving the right to Public Affairs...
...Commonweal: 676 our most loyal friends and supporters...
...Commonweal continues to be a shoestring opera- But mostly the move is behind us, and we can get back to the tion, but the journal will not go into the new year either "normal" crises, like dealing with the annual deficit...
...To begin with, such a hope una purely after-the-fact operation, a rationale that sells the derestimates how deep the rot goes and what blurry lines may policy rather than goes into its formulation...
...Act Four: We beg and borrow (but not steal, pledges to repeat such gifts in the "out years...
...Religion...
...I can't stand his smugness, his Sojourners fellowship, who combine a idea that we are right-certainly no one self-righteousness, his bigotry...
...in keeping with its usual holiday practice, Com- Mr...
...The monweal publishes one less issue at the end of the year...
...NY 10038...
...even if our new offices are quite a bit closer to Wall Street) that • A platoon or a company or a regiment of friends sum...
...What lively concern with biblical Christianity would proceed from the assumption that seems like bigotry to me is simple theoland social action...
...My catalogue of what bothers Sojourners, and people on opposite sides see Jimmy Swaggart's Bible study, and me about fundamentalists is fairly long of the table over coffee after Catholic, some evenings on another one I am able and detailed...
...But the key to future trust is The next issue will be dated January 16, 1987...
...There are certainly decent Orthodox, and Protestant services all to see him sweat and sing and shout and evangelicals--people like Senator Mark over the country every Sunday morning...
...Why the right worst catastrophe is only a second away from a grin and a has historically conceived of the Communist enemy as essen- wisecrack...
...Still, the answer is not be found in a fresh coat of Teflon...
...A handful of supporters willing to make sizable Of course, we are overjoyed to enlighten them-and anyone contributions -of $1,000 or more-this year and if pos- else who might be interested in coming to the magazine's aid...
...away the wounds his administration has inflicted on the ConWhat is involved here is a cast of mind...
...monthly " When I use a word," said Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty, "it means just what Christmas-New Year's and July and'A4gust, by Commonweal Foundation...
...The taint of illegality, to Michael Deaver and Richard Nixon...
...sible to continue that level of giving on request through Here is the story, very briefly: Act One: We lose our lease, at the decade...
...Karen Sue How can an anti-terrorist government, it is asked, barter arms with the funders Smith, Patrick Jordan and outfitters of terrorists...
...Reagan and his current advisors are not to be trusted...
...It could be that worrying about what we ought to do is a central part of our problem...
...Conservatives have constantly urged, "Let Swiss bank accounts, the too-clever-by-half deals with both Reagan be Reagan...
...at least whose secretary of state can lecture Persian Gulf nations on the he stood tall...
...In some cases, lost mail...
...We are like patients after very successful surgery-on sending us single contributions of $10, $25, or $50...
...Assistant Editors: David Toolan...
...There are a few aspects of outfitting our received what we had asked for, or even more than we had new office space yet to be completed-and yet to be paid...
...Act Three: We monweal Associates by contributing between $75 and shell out over $60,000 in order to renovate the new space and $200 (or more) in 1986, and to make non-binding make the move...
...instead, we should worry more TROTH FLASHES about what we ought to be, and that conWHAT'S RIGHT ABOUT JIMMY SWAGGART cern has something to do with Gregory of Nyssa's concern for wonder and, what it could lead us to comprehend...
...least at any price we could afford...
...By and large, we feeling short of blood...
...If Congress refuses to fund Moscow might see in a demoralized and leaderless America the contra war which the administration planned, if the public cannot be ignored...
...The truth is that the administration's proclamations, first Production Editor: Anne Robertson on "international terrorism," later on "state-supported terrorism," were, from the Poetry: Rosemary Deen Movies: Torn O'Brien blustering days of General Haig, two parts propaganda to one part policy...
...The media and other politicians have acquiesced David J. O'Brien, John Dearden, in these pretenses, partly so as not to seem partisan, partly out of genuine fear for the Francis J. Butler, Dolores L. Curran, institutional reverberations of incapacitating yet another presidency through public James Finn, Dennis P. McCann...
...Christmas thanks to all who responded when we asked-and to Recently, however, we have been reproached by some of any who, only hearing of our move now, would still like to...
...Index to Vol...
...All declared by fiat, as in the embargo imposed on Nicaragua...
...The president who runs up the biggest deficit in U.S only because he may have actually made decisions now being history and also campaigns for a balanced budget amendment unloaded on subordinates...
...details, yet emanating confidence, with those remarkably The Iran-contraspiracy has further roots in this administra- broad shoulders and that puckish look suggesting that even the tion's penchant for secret, military operations...
Vol. 113 • December 1986 • No. 22
