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The New Leader Book Page The Case for Expediency QltAUD AND tho AfHICAN HCHNtt. By O. Ward Frit: Tho MaomUlan Company. By VARIAN FRY J||M histories of France which succeeding generations of...
...e«t his account of the invasion of French North and West Africa by the combined fowta of Britain and the United Statet, tad the subsequent campaign against the G*rmua In Tunisia...
...The great problem of any progressive revolutionary movement is to fill the psychological Vacuum created by capitalism's failures with sn intelligent cooperative outlook...
...As a result, at least one of his edicts on the revolution of our age is an impression exaggerated into undue significance...
...Granted that it would have been impossible to impose De Gaulle, why pick Giraud...
...Koenigstein...
...Huxley come equipped with the special techniques of observation and analysis employed by careful social scientists...
...RALPH DE TOLEDO...
...Unfortunately, Mr...
...Even General Giraud's appointment of the arch-collaborationist Peyrouton aa Governor of Algeria and his abrogation of the Cremieux decree had nothing ainister in them, Mr...
...If ttbsrals were consistent in their taiaUng, it would he raging todsy ever the question of Ruaaian policy toward Pel*ad aad oar policy toward that policy...
...Huxley's error consists in sssction in high placet, the contervatitm of administrative structures, the role of demagoguei, the Macchiavelllan possibilities of a press and radio owned and operated by a thin top layer of monopoly capital...
...It has already awvei on from North Africa to Italy and Normandy...
...The leaders of Russia's program, uncontrolled by any free expression of popular opinion, operated in the realm of arbitrary quotas, came to decisions from the center, and bathed the countryside in blood...
...The reaction of the peasants was to withhold their grain, and when the government attempted forcible requisitioning, they burned the grain...
...And so, when Girsud fsiled, Darlsn was eagerly accepted, and when Darlsn was assassinated, Giraud took his place...
...By VARIAN FRY J||M histories of France which succeeding generations of Frenchmen •f write, the amount of space devoted to the role of Henri Honore Giraud Htm destined to be small, for "that gallant warrior whom no prison can Mad," »« Winston GhurchilJ once described him, has disappeared from the French political scene as completely as Villon's "snows of yesteryear" dismini from the society of his day...
...That ia the question of how General Giraud escaped from...
...See the eagle, once a raven...
...Price sees little or nothing in the Central's ideas snd actions with which ht is not in complete and hearty •ympathy...
...Why waa so little weight given to the pcssible effect of our actions (whatever our motives) on the morale of the longsuffering people of France.' Why did the State Department not press more vigorously the long run claims of statesmanship...
...Price leaves a number of important questions unanswered and, for that matter, unasked...
...In his concrete, practical approach to government control, Huxley differs alike from the glib, unspeciflc "planner" of the Max Lerner type and from those, like John Chamberlain, who view with undifferentiated/ alarm any interference with the illusory "free market...
...What is lacking is a more than merely formal appreciation of the facts of procapital...
...Our choice is limited to making its auspices democratic or totalitarian...
...The leaders of the TVA were aware of the close connection of means and ends, respected the freedom of choice of the farmers, and, by experiment, arrived at a successful technique of decentralized administration...
...Society, however, does not'offer the conveniences of the laboratory' Nor does Mr...
...Though Giraud is no longer the center of it, it is a controversy which kit eclipse has jy no means brcught to aa «n\ Nor does it seem likely to be settled so long ss this wsr continues: it will simply shift its focus...
...The mistake made by both is to tOe in the collapse of ths economic system based on private profit a parallel widespread change of individual psychology...
...Africa would never accept the •ntHority of General de Gaulle...
...In order to check the appalling soil erosion in the Tennessee area, the TVA set up test-demonstration farms in each community to persuade the fsrmers to change their methods snd ttitudes...
...Laugh your message to the woah: "We are strong who once wore meek, "We are brave who oaea wore craven...
...He saved string...
...If it v as necessary to use Dsrlan to step French resistance to our lsndings, why was Genersl Clark allowed to arrant this hated symbol of collaboration, compulsion and concentration camps civil as well as militsry power...
...Sarc enough, there's hell te pay...
...But the most rewarding assays in this book are outside the sphere of politics: a igorous statement of the author's naturalistic philosophy, a keen and original analysis of "lace," discussion of war aa a biological phenomenon (practiced only by harvester antt and men), and a statement Of the status of Darwinism today...
...This ia probably only in part because, like the life of most modern kings, the Private life of Henri Giraud provides hii biographer with little to expand upon...
...On the subject of reconstruction and the peace, Huxley has a number of sensible things to say...
...It is also, and perhaps principally, be'etet, a conservetive and traditionalist kiasetf (he is the foreign correspondent •f the Daily Mail, and once found much to admire in both Hitler and Mussolini), Mr...
...It ia inrtmctfve to compare the policies of the TVA with those of the 1929 collectivisation program in Russia...
...Price assurea us...
...But the impulses to private and anti-social gain still remain to plague such a program...
...ot what ia of lasting interest in bis m<* it not hit portrait of the General...
...Price's view, this was or.ly logical and sensible...
...Tomorrow it will almost certainly be concerned with issues •rising eat of the fighting in Germany, hat, whatever the current applications aay be, the basic issues of the controversy will remain the aame...
...He would not deny the Germans foodstuffs necessary to health or materiala to reconstruct their industry, but he would require them to supply a larger proport'on of the equipment needed to restore economic life In the countries they had overrun...
...Chant for Supermen -MOW SLIGHTLY IN iitriat Breathe the wind, eat the straw...
...He Is a biologist who wishes to apply the rational, experimental approach of science to the problems of politics...
...Price answers in full...
...Harper and) Brothers, lie...
...It wasn't, aa the General told reporters when he arrived at Algiers, by letting himself down cn a rope woven from strands of hair tent -him by admiring French maidens...
...G. WARD PRICE'S book is more a defense of the policy of military expediency than a life of General Giraud...
...Slaughter, slaughter one another Till of death yoa make a brother Breath, the dour wind, eat the hay...
...German parachutists might blow up these bridges, and so cut off my supplies at the front...
...It should be said that this comparison is not made by Mr...
...Insofar aa It ia a life of the man who escaped from the castle at Koenigstein i<> become for a while the leader of French North African forces, it partakes / •f the qualities of a royal biography...
...Why did it surrender to completely to the judgment of military men...
...The process was slow, but it was based n the democratic planning principle of obtaining voluntary participation...
...Even after the Tunisian campaign >v»s far advanced, General Eisenhower, well pleased with the arrangements he had made, asked General de Gaulle n< t to come to North Africa—for fear, saya Mr...
...Huxley't error consists in assuming, agaimt all the evidence, that the peace and it: aftermath will be written by men of intelligence and goodwill, like himself...
...There it no evidence that individual compulsives to social behavior are appreciably more intense today than they were, let us say during the earlier European nationalist movements...
...When the Russian regime, on the other hand, decided to stop "fattening the Kulak" and proceeded at once to liquidate him through collectivization, it did so without consulting the millions of peaaants concerned, with only a superficial "educational" campaign, consisting largely of threats to those who did not cooperate...
...The Age of Social Man ON LIVING IN A REVOLUTION...
...These are only some of the queationi which Mr...
...In Mr...
...There is, however, one question which Mr...
...Following Peter Drucker's thesis that we are witnessing the end of economic man, Huxley sees us entering the Age of Social Man...
...For it was npt a quest ion i if lung the French could continue to resist us if we chose not to deal with Dtrlap: it was rather t question of retching Tunisia before the Germans got there...
...He sees that some kind of large-scale planning it inevitable...
...By Julias HuxUy...
...The events of the months that lie »keadof us may show that Giraud was the last, indifferent spokesman of ||l»t*o«aemtiv« and traditionalist influence he tried but failed to advance, oe thty may prove him to have been but the first of a series of candidates far the thankless task of bringing Franca kark to a pact aha haa long tinco outfrowa...
...For "Peyrouton was the only capable man available at the moment," snd the Cremieux decree hsd "put the Jews in a preferential position" vis-a-vis the Arabs...
...Price doet not antwer...
...This review hat discussed only those papers with Immediate political pertinence...
...As these test farms proved increasingly successful, more and more of the farmers came over to the new ways...
...When General Girajd proved incapable of winning their loyalty, Generals Eiaenhower and Clark had no choice but to turn to Admiral Darlan, the only man who could enforce an order to ecse fire...
...Though year crawa regurgItate What you killed and what yoa ate...
...In other wordt, the motlvt of profit it being tupplanted by group incentives, irrational onet in Drueker't view, potentially rational in Huxley's...
...By NAT GLICK In this collection of fifteen essays written since the outbreak of the war, Julian Huxley indulges in the "cross-fertilization of ideas...
...In this controversy, the defenders of ¦nulitary expediency" were ranged agalaat those who sdvanced the merits ef tee more dynamic policy of militant esBMcraey...
...VVhy was General de Gaulle not informed of the plan to invad* French Africa...
...He proposes a series of conferences instead of deciding all problems at one stroke...
...Why, if 'legitimacy" waa important, did not our diplomatic and military representatives concentrate their attention on exporting President Lenrun...
...As General Eisenhower explained to Mr...
...Price (in an interview which, to far as I know, has not been published elsewhere), "my 600-mile line of communications, with many vulnerable bridges, is my weakness...
...Would you live for evermore 7 At the ending, at the •<sri...
...Hit other proposals are equally tane and ' liberal: agaimt the partitioning of Germany, for a Raw Material Union functioning to stabilize prices and to Impose withholding sanctions in the event of illicit rearmament, foi the rapid development of colonies into equal and selfgoverning states...
...Spurn away the gentle heart...
...If I tried to force the hsnd of the French, they might withdraw hese troops...
...The bridges troops...
...Ttt for nearly a year and a half this groeral, whose strongest claim to fame |el prerloualy been the astonishing facility with which he both sllowed himtelf to be taken captive by the Germans aad subsequently succeeded in escaping frost their prisons, was the center of a political controversy which divided not »nlj Frenchmen but liberals from conservatives throughcut the world...
...Price, that "the prospects of the recovery of political power by the Jews as a result of the victory of De Gaullist principles might have led to trouble...
...But that Giraud himself has dis4friatrf foravor into the oblirion of the tncer'i "rotroiU" there seems no (rood jaesoa to doubt...
...Huxley, who speaks of Russia only In tie vaguest terms, but it is inescapably suggested '>y hit essay, "Tennessee Revisited: The Technique of Democratic Planning...
...But they are questions which will have to be antwered before the controversy can be completely cloaed...
...11 mutt be admitted that the case he "i»kes for military expediency is a strong The American diplomatic and mili|"7 epresentatives who prepared the musion selected General Giraud to be 0,»*ander-in-?Chlef of the French Forces because they knew that the French military and naval commanders...
...He doea not answer them because they do not interest him: he is too well satisfied with thingt at they, are, fr were...
...Huxley regards the TVA aa an admirable proof that It is possible to reconcile over-all planning -vith the valuea of democracy...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 38