Dear Editor 27
DEAR EDITOR SUPREME COURT Earl Latham, in his review of Bernard Schwartz's The Supreme Court (NL, November 11), cites me as urging in 1947 "that a 'liberal majority' read its liberalism...
...American aid has not been any more of a "corrupting" influence than Chinese or Russian assistance would be per se...
...There is one Kachin rebel leader, Naw Seng, now reportedly in China...
...Is this comparable to the FBI...
...The new Four-Year Plan, proposed in 1955 and adopted in 1956, cut back on industrialization, doubled the capital investment in agriculture, and otherwise decided on a more modest approach to a "balanced economy...
...According to U Nu's published account, which has not been denied by the British, the Burmese fought because the British refused as late as April 1942 to set any timetable for eventual self-rule...
...The state (Sec...
...DEAR EDITOR SUPREME COURT Earl Latham, in his review of Bernard Schwartz's The Supreme Court (NL, November 11), cites me as urging in 1947 "that a 'liberal majority' read its liberalism deliberately into the law, since conservative majorities in the past had done the same thing...
...The actual constitution of Burma has nothing to do with German or Italian fascist models...
...Arthur Schlesinger Jr...
...Granted that politically determined and emergency-generated aid is not calculated to promote minimal levels...
...During this period, too, Thai defense expenditures multiplied several-fold in preparation for any Chinese attack...
...The four or five English-language dailies and the two dozen Burmese and other non-English-language newspapers published in Burma are outspoken enough and never fail to write about the doings of the BSI...
...Nor are there "rebel groups" among "the Kachins [and] Shans...
...Bell replies: My critical but friendly reportage on Burma provokes Mr...
...Trager to apodictic, if extraneous, reaction...
...Yet, our support of an admittedly corrupt regime and the possibilities of Congress reducing U. S. aid, to which he referred, are not the major threats...
...Bell may be interested in knowing, in re the steel mill, that iron ore has been discovered...
...In so doing, he is misled by what was obviously an unintended ambiguity in Schwartz's text...
...This popular dissatisfaction reflects, in part, the common problem of underdeveloped countries: the gap between the increasing demand for improved living standards and economic growth...
...What the quotation from Fortune did, as Schwartz said, was to state the views of those I called in that article the judicial activists, but I am sure that Schwartz did not mean to imply that I held those views myself...
...Because these civil liberties were explicitly safeguarded in the Constitution, or conceived to be basic to any notion of the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, Mr...
...In this case, I agree with the views expressed by Professor Frankfurter—though abandoned by Mr...
...It is far less, too, than the aid given Laos and Cambodia, both of which would presumably fall to the Communists in the event of any Chinese conquest of Thailand...
...But, though the Thakins were in his government, they began, with his knowledge and probable connivance, their resistance movement to the Japanese in that same year...
...The "lavishness" of U. S. assistance is also questionable...
...It is only fair to recall, however, that nepotism, governmental enterprise in any potentially lucrative field, and "tea money" have always existed...
...But little is gained in blinking at the past or minimizing some of the ruthless actions of the Socialist party...
...Justice Holmes attributed very different legal significance to those liberties of the individual which history has attested as the indispensable conditions of a free society from that which he attached to liberties which derived merely from shifting economic arrangements...
...I think it is one of the more hopeful facts about Burma, and its promise for the leadership of Asia, that its leaders have moved away from their confused doctrinaire theories and modified their practices in the light of experience...
...The best daily in Burma, the Nation, has never hesitated, day in and day out, to criticize the Government or anyone in it...
...First came a Buddhist-inspired start, lasting roughly through World "War I. Next was a more politically oriented nationalist movement, inspired by Wilsonian ideals of self-determination and Indian struggles for home rule and, in the main, willing to fight for Burmese advancement in terms of British colonial development (i.e., dyarchy, separation from India, etc...
...But is it...
...and that, even because of internal factional pressure in the ruling party, the BSI has been curbed...
...It is incredible that a Government official "seemed surprised to learn that [Bell] was aware of the BSI...
...An appreciable amount of U. S. aid began in 1954, following Indo-China's collapse, as a result of our decision to retain a foothold in Southeast Asia...
...New York City Frank N. Tracer Daniel Bell's picturesque account of Thailand ("Bangkok Vistas," NL, October 7) is marred by some misleading points...
...The principal defect concerns his references to American aid, which reportedly is "ruining [the] country . . has poured in lavishly [and] as a byproduct [has produced] large-scale corruption...
...They both have had to compromise their aspirations...
...Thailand was an obvious choice for this role due to its strategic position, tin and rubber resources, and pro-Western orientation...
...The third was the Thakin-led movement, beginning in the mid-1980s, which combined notions derived from people's-frontism with rudimentary formulations of Leninist anti-imperialism...
...The history of "Burma's struggle for independence is a confused record of ideological meanderings" only to those who will not trouble to examine the record...
...Nissenbaum I would only say that I wrote that "since Thailand has become the military anchor for SEATO, American aid has poured in lavishly" and corruption has increased correspondingly...
...Certainly there is a difference between enactments which are bad but repealable, and those which corrupt the very processes by which repeal is to be attained...
...U Nu, in moving the adoption of the draft constitution which Trager alludes, said in 1947: "The ideology that Burma needs today is not Trotsky's 'Immediate action regardless of the consequences,' but Lenin's 'Get strong first, everything else afterward.' The credo of our late lamented leader Bogyoke [Aung San] is the latter...
...Justice Frankfurter—when he wrote of Oliver Wendell Holmes: "He was hesitant to oppose his own opinion to the economic views of the legislature...
...If Burma had been presented more realistically to the world before, then one might approach the country less naively and come away with a more balanced reaction...
...In the past several years, Congress has approved some $35,-50 million yearly...
...The Red Flag Communists may have heard of Trotsky, and have been referred to as "Trot-skyists" to distinguish them from the White Flag Communists, who were originally called Stalinists, but I'll bet Bell u Burmese longyi (not "Langhi") that he cannot discover a Trotskyist idea, proposition or what-have-you among this faction led by Communist Thakin Soe...
...For the record, Thailand received only token U. S. assistance in 1950-54, though it contributed troops (still on the lines) and supplies to South Korea...
...The one faction which expressed any "fascist ideology" was that led by Dr...
...E. Maung, is similarly vocal...
...But the nub of the problem, really is the conception of the Burmese Bureau of Special Investigations and Trager's defense of it...
...Thailand has scarcely been "ruined" by American aid...
...I understand well the problem of "expediency" in bolstering a regime in order to stem the Communist threat...
...Bell has it that Burma "exhibits a doctrinaire approach" to socialization and points out that Burma is primarily an agricultural country, yet is intent on large-scale industrialization and socialization...
...And U Nu, the Prime Minister, is the man who more than anyone else is for social services and social capital investment...
...The non-totalitarian potential in socialism is getting a better workout in the land of the Golden Pagoda than anywhere else in Asia...
...But it seems to me extremely short-sighted not to realize that our actions are also alienating individuals who, in the long run, would prove to be better friends of the U. S. than the corrupt Army cliques...
...If the experience of the '20s and '30s has any meaning, it is that sometimes the more fervid defenders of a country do the greater harm...
...I did not say that Burma was totalitarian or a police state, but that dangerous tendencies existed which were rationalized, as all such rationalizations begin, on the grounds of "necessity...
...I have never seen or heard of a 1941 draft constitution, with or without fascist overtones, prepared by Aung San or anyone else among the Burmese who went with him to Japanese territory for military training...
...Its nearest analogue was our own FBI...
...The extraordinary thing about Burma is that, under a fagade of professed socialism and despite - violent insurrectionary Communist effort (abetted by a dissident ethnic minority and some 5,000 Kuomintang bandits left over after the UN helped to get about 6,000 Chinese Nationalists repatriated to Formosa), it is very much a democracy...
...Indeed, as a reading of the Fortune article will show, while I did my best to summarize accurately the views of both the activists and the advocates of judicial self-denial, I clearly placed myself on the side of self-denial, writing: "On this issue Frankfurter and Jackson are surely right...
...It is true that, despite extensive foreign reserves and credit capacity, Thailand's economic position has weakened...
...For example: I never even mentioned the constitution of Burma...
...Burma was the first newly independent nation of South Asia to invite private foreign capital into "joint ventures...
...BELL ON ASIA Daniel Bell's snapshots of his few days in Burma (NL, October 14) add up to an inaccurate, unfavorable representation...
...Aung Sail organized, with Japanese help, the Burma Independence Army, which,- starting with the "30 Comrades" who received military training from the Japanese, marched into Burma, collecting an army of 10,000...
...To him, it is just like "our own FBI...
...The crypto-Communists and their allies are in Parliament and publish newspapers...
...It would be difficult to match this frank explanation of error...
...This phase culminated in the adoption of the 1937 (Partial) Home Rule Constitution...
...The brief cooperation with Japan had its roots in Japan's earlier defeat of Russia, Sun Yat-senism and Asian antagonism to the "white man's burden...
...Here are some of the major factual errors: Bell says that Burmese resistance leader Aung San prepared l» "draft constitution" in 1941 that, he implies, was characterized by "fascist ideology...
...The sources are mainly British, French, Irish and American...
...Washington, D. C. Hy NISSENBAUM Mr...
...It a No (See...
...In short, the first flush of industrialization and socialization, designed to remove in Burmese eyes the stigma of a "colonial economy," has since given way to an approach which U Nu carefully defined anew on June 8, 1957, when he not only outlined the future of the modest Four-Year Plan but publicly acknowledged the "several blunders" committed by his own government...
...The "thakins," the main leftist group from which the present leadership derives, had a jumbling set of political conceptions, grabbing whatever dress seemed appropriate to garb their aspirations for independence...
...With charter membership in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, Thailand began receiving extensive aid for defensive and anti-subversive purposes...
...The liberty of man to search for truth was of a different order than some economic dogma...
...But the one undeniable thing about Burma is that she is not doctrinaire...
...This is sparse so far as politically calculated "impact" projects are concerned...
...Perhaps I should add that, while I admire many things in Professor Schwartz's excellent book, I disagree with his view that the rights protected by the First Amendment should not occupy a preferred position when the courts judge the validity of legislative enactments...
...The opposition factions of Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe, which split into rival Communist parties (the latter generally called Trotskyite to distinguish them from the Moscow-oriented party of Than Tun), reflected similar ideological confusions...
...Naturally, therefore, Mr...
...The attitude of "getting strong" was responsible for the headlong nationalization and the irrational industrialization (and the decision to build a. steel mill before there was any idea that iron-ore deposits existed...
...And where were the friends of Burma in reporting about the BSI abroad...
...Incidentally, Kyaw Nyein (not Nien), whom Bell and I both respect, may be "less doctrinaire than most in the party," but he is the man, as Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy, who more than anyone else is for industrialization...
...Essentially, it is marked by three phases...
...As the recent coup showed, corruption is endemic in the regime...
...but these "directives" "shall not be enforceable in any court of law...
...A major stock-holder in the paper is the leader of one "right-wing" opposition group in the Parliament, the Arakanese...
...American aid has helped in partly financing long-overdue capital-investment projects and providing a valuable deflationary force...
...Apart from the military contribution, aid has wisely and profitably been channeled into Thailand's basic development areas...
...Buddhism is not "almost the state religion' (though conceivably it could become such in the Scandinavian manner...
...but we do little about it and simply shut our eyes to the fact that a portion of this aid goes to enrich small cliques...
...The Bureau of Special Investigation (BSI) was not organized as, nor did it ever become, a "secret police" in the Russian or Nazi sense...
...The major ethnic group in revolt is the Karens—and this group includes members of the Karen family of peoples living in the Shan State...
...American technicians, supplies and training have expanded schools and hospitals, as well as greatly reduced the toll of malaria...
...IV) as "Directive Principles of State Policy" (i.e., right to work, social services, education, standard of living, planning, assistance to economic organizations not working for private profit, etc...
...and he went on to quote from an article, "The Supreme Court, 1947," which appeared in Fortune in October 1947...
...Considering this background, we cannot now choose to overlook the plight of American policy-makers who then sought desperately to stem the Communist effort to conquer the entire continent...
...A newer opposition group, led by a former minister and Supreme Court judge, Dr...
...What Schwartz wrote is this: "The view of those who believe this way was well stated in a 1947 article by Arthur M. Schlesinger" (he meant Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr...
...If Bell found u group who were talking "privately of the need for an opposition party . . . for the right to criticize openly and freely," and if he implies that they do not dare to do this now or are inhibited from so doing by the Socialists and U Nu, then I must conclude this rebuttal with one additional fact: "Whatever their "reasons" for "talking privately," no external restrictions exist...
...Ba Maw, whom the Japanese installed as Chief of State in 1943...
...Aung San, in dealing with the Japanese and later with Mountbatten and Slim, always referred to himself, his army and his party as the Provisional Government of Burma...
...The combined opposition group won 57 out of 250 seats in last year's election—20 more than in 1951...
...In May 1947, Aung San's party, the AntiFascist People's Freedom League, adopted 14-point resolution which served as an outline for the constitution-drafting committee of the June 1947 Constituent Assembly...
...Justice Holmes was far more ready to find legislative invasion in this field than in the area of debatable economic reform.'7 Cambridge, Mass...
...Nonetheless, American aid had to be sufficient to permit Thailand to maintain both a military position and an economic state of health...
...To Mr...
...21 of the Constitution) "recognizes the -special position of Buddhism as the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens of the Union...
...She was the first Asian nation to conclude a separate peace treaty with Japan and arranged for a number of Japanese investments in Burma as part of the reparations agreement...
...With all these reservations, it is still necessary to share Bell's concern over American policy, "driving the best, democratic-minded elements into opposition...
...In one section, as in the German Weimar Constitution, the Burmese Constitution elaborates a general-welfare provision (Ch...
...The crucial questions are those of Thailand's allegiance to the anti-Peking bloc and U. S. ability to influence Thailand's future leaders...
...The main, non-Communist Thakins did not deviate from their central conception of independence for Burma as a democratic, socialist state outside the British Commonwealth...
...There is, as Bell stated, "large-scale corruption which disgusts the population and feeds Communist propaganda...
...This "fearsome moloch" has in 1957 been rendered inoperative for a period of three years because some criticisms of its methods were publicly aired...
...Having burned her fingers with the Eight-Year Plan, she immediately set about recasting her economic outlook...
...It is the opposition newspaper in the best traditions of the New York Herald Tribune when Roosevelt and Truman were President...
...It can, and has, held individuals incommunicado, without trial, or without listing any specific charges, for as much as six months or more...
...22) " recognizes Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Animism as some of the religions existing in the Union...
...The Burmese BSI has the right to arrest persons without warrant...
...I did cite the youthful writings of Aung San, while he was in Japan in early 1941, to indicate the fitful and confused ideological heritage of Burma, which I felt was the source of some current difficulties...
...Imagine putting the FBI on ice in this country...
...But history had also taught him that, since social development is a process of trial and error, the fullest possible opportunity for the free play of the human mind was an indispensable prerequisite...
...It is true that the first Two-Year Plan and the Eight-Year Plan (the latter prepared by American contract personnel paid for by U. S. aid funds) emphasized industrialization...
...This, however, is the result of the many unsuccessful Government ventures into industrial projects, inefficient tax and civil-service systems, and worldwide rice-price fluctuations...
...To the list of its sources, cited by Trager, one should add the constitution of postwar Yugoslavia, which, according to the authoritative account of Maung Maung, was "the most frequently consulted...
Vol. 40 • November 1957 • No. 47
