Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. DICTATORS Having noted the lucidity and fairmindedness of John Scott...
...The result can only be a repetition of the Herbert Hoover performance during the anti-Administration Congress of 1931-33, in which the Republican party destroyed itself for a decade...
...Scott seems to place a great deal of faith in the ability of the Western world to decide what is best for the people of the underdeveloped nations of the world...
...Ernst's reasoning, a high rate of suicide at Buchenwald, for instance, then have been a "hopeful sign" of individual freedom...
...By nominating the reactionary Lewis Strauss (practically forced out as Atomic Energy Commission chairman) as Secretary of Commerce, the present incumbent of the White House has demonstrated anew his complete lack of understanding of the American people's desires and aspirations...
...BASES Anthony Harrigan's alarming impressions from his visit to our advance airstrips in Western Europe and North Africa ("Three U.S...
...Riverdale, N.Y...
...Brian Rodan...
...Indeed, this expanded former civilian airport, which now also serves as the hub of civilian air transport to and from West Germany, is a most vulnerable target, an hour's fast car-drive from the East German border...
...Would it not he more advantageous to distribute the supply functions this base now has to the various other military airstrips that have been created in West Germany and thus affect a decentralization...
...Newark, N.J...
...Schenectady Orville E. Clauss U.S...
...after all, Reuther has not sought elective office, nor is there any indication that he ever will...
...Cleveland Otto J. Miller Tris Coffin's excellent election report in the November 10 issue again raises the question of whether a few forward-looking men like Wendell Willkie (1940) or Nelson Rockefeller (1960) can resuscitate the Republican party...
...I read with great interest and amusement J. G. Weightman's piece on France's latest cultural export, the "constant nympho" Brigitte Bardot (NL, September 15), Boris Pasternak's notes on translating Shakespeare (NL, October 13), which by implication illuminated the tragic conflict of the writer in the Soviet Union today, and, recently, Rod Nordell's piece on Sean O'Casey ("Cock-a-Doodle Casey," NL, November 3...
...Instead, he has intelligently assisted the rebuilding of the Michigan Democratic party under progressive leadership...
...As for the U.S...
...One need only look at the record of the British in India and South Africa, the Dutch in Indonesia, and the French in Algeria to observe the folly of such optimism...
...If, as Mr...
...Louisville Alexander Hampton CULTURAL COVERAGE As an on-and-off reader of The New Leader over the past few years, I have noticed with great satisfaction that in recent months you seem to have extended your coverage of cultural subjects...
...Sure, the suicide rate in "free" countries such as Sweden, for instance, is higher than perhaps anywhere else—but does this speak for freedom...
...Of course, Willkie's repudiation by the GOP in 1944—after he had proved so obviously right in his internationalism—shows what run-of-the-mill Republicans thought of him...
...Rhein-Main Base, there seems to be indeed no serious need for the reported display of "Little America...
...In my opinion, analysts of this question who stress the big-business leadership of the GOP as a limiting factor are barking up the wrong tree...
...Reuther is dangerous to the Right because he knowns the right answers and knows how to express them...
...In his case, however, personal failings may have been decisive...
...after all, it was the Eastern group that defeated Taft in four straight national conventions from 1940 through 1952...
...The very fact that Willkie was considering such a realignment shows how little he thought of the Republican party as a vehicle for modern government...
...Should an unpopular dictator be upheld by the United States, it is quite probable that our prestige would fall even lower and our figurehead be deposed or assasinated...
...Nor is conservative fear of Reuther to be explained by the fact that his union leads the way in getting wage increases and fringe benefits...
...Willkie in his last days was contemplating a joint effort with Roosevelt at promoting a political realignment, under which Willkie Republicans would join Roosevelt Democrats in a single progressive party while the Southern Bourbons joined up with the GOP reactionaries...
...Wall Street"—both because of its international associations and its proximity to eventful changes in technology—is a factor working for modernity among the Republicans...
...His sole example of a benevolent dictator who would be supported by America is Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, who is undoubtedly an asset to the free world...
...Bases Overseas," NL, November 3) raise a few serious questions...
...Sterling, Ill...
...Quite apart from Eisenhower, who never had any social views worth discussing, the fate of other would-be GOP reformers does not augur well for Rockefellers, attempt...
...Herbert Drieschoeck NEW COVER Your November 10 Rockefeller cover proved again that "a picture is worth a thousand words...
...Nor is the answer to be found in Reuther's supposed personal ambitions, even though J. B. Matthews thinks he has such...
...The fact that Soviet students take their lives after flunking an examination seems to be a sign of hopelessness rather than of freedom...
...Rather, the analyst of Republican backwardness must look to the structure of the average small town and suburb...
...For a person to take his own life, as the ultimate step, he has to be pretty desperate and see no possibility of improving his present wretched condition...
...If all we can offer Asia is a haphazard paternalism as a desperate stopgap to the Soviet world's expansionism, there is little point in continuing the cold war, since we will not only lose it, but also the principles for which we are fighting...
...there is no comparable right-wing outcry against "Mc-Donaldism" as result of Dave MacDonald's bargaining victories...
...I hope you will keep this up...
...James Gordon SUICIDES George Gibian's letter in The New Leader of November 3, which takes exception to Morris Ernst's interpretation of Soviet suicides (NL, October 27) as a "hopeful sign" and a "very valid index for the detection of individual freedom" makes a most valid point...
...or else there would be a coalition Cabinet of Democrats and Eisenhower Republicans under the General—the price for which would certainly be the dismissal of at least John Foster Dulles and Ezra Taft Benson, the two Republican politicians whose policies have been most convincingly repudiated by the communities they allegedly serve...
...Dulles should be replaced either by Democrat not running for the Presidency—like Senator Mike Mansfield or J. William Fulbright—or by a non-political expert like Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen...
...Or have any of the VIP's who seem to be constantly visiting these installations ever voiced similar notes of warning...
...Even Thomas Dewey came to grief in his efforts to transfer to the national Republican party the modern attitudes he enforced in New York State...
...In these towns, as any reader of John O'Hara and John P. Marquard will recognize, the local bankers, utility heads, real-estate agents, auto dealers, factory directors are engaged in a passionate defense of a type of social provincialism that has been under serious challenge since World War I. The established pecking order in the villages was gravely undermined by Roosevelt, who improved the status of minorities and labor generally, and who exalted other social types-teachers, social workers, writers, etc.—above the local businessmen...
...The answer is not to be found in lameduck Senator Bill Knowland's hysteria about labor "corruption," for the real crooks—Beck, Hoffa and so on—were all staunch Republicans, while even Senator Barry Goldwater's "probe" of Reuther showed that the UAW chief is clean as a hound's tooth...
...Benson should give way to a Democrat known for sympathy to the plight of small farmers, like Senator William Proxmire or Hubert Humphrey...
...Unfortunately, President Eisenhower refuses to see his clear duty...
...John M. Williams VATICAN Robert Neville's "Covering the Vatican" (NL, November 10) was fascinating...
...No, the real reason Reuther is feared is that he is the only major native-bom labor leader who is articulate about the social, economic and cultural issues which face our whole society, and who freely draws on the experience of Socialist and labor movements abroad in casting about for solutions at home...
...they know how to deal with the mindless Becks and Hoffas but they can only get hysterical at the prospect of Reuther's ideas winning the consent of the American people...
...Ever since 1954, the voters have been saying that their affection for Eisenhower does not extend to the Republican party he nominally heads...
...Paoli, Pa...
...A Federal Government which really met the problems of 1960 America in dynamic Rooseveltian fashion—or even in the less unorthodox fashion recommended by the Rockefeller Reports—would administer the final blow to the old order in the small towns, and the local dignitaries know it...
...But it strikes me that there is room for speculation as to why such a book was written and why Reuther is the bete noire of American reaction...
...It is his ideas—which reflect the best opinion of the democratic Left throughout advanced industrial society—which frighten the reactionaries...
...But what of the other side of the Asian coin, which bears the imprint of such as Sukarno, who has used his "guided democracy" to work a form of economic blackmail of East and West...
...Brooklyn HAROLD NAIMAN ELECTION The weaknesses of the American Presidential system—as opposed to the British Parliamentary setup—have never been so strikingly demonstrated as during the Eisenhower Administration, and particularly in this recent election...
...On the other hand, then, how can it be explained that millions of people who suffered at the hands of various dictatorships, in Nazi and Soviet camps, did not choose suicide as an assertion of "individual freedom" but clung to life with the hope of ultimate deliverance...
...I was sorry, though, that he didn't discuss any alternatives to the (Christian Democratic) "government of priests" that we have helped impose on post-Fascist Italy...
...The Eisenhower hysteria about "spenders" reflects the small-town anxiety toward long-overdue modern programs of education, medical care, urban planning and economic reorganization...
...DICTATORS Having noted the lucidity and fairmindedness of John Scott in his previous article on Asia and American capital, I was appalled at the specious arguments used in his "Whose Dictators in Asia...
...If "massive retaliation" is the crux of our military thinking, our strategy should also be based on this thinking...
...Since we do not have a Parliamentary system, an Eisenhower resignation, leading to the succession of Nixon (trusted even less), would serve no function...
...Should the United States attempt to perpetuate a popular dictator, there is a good possibility that he would be Communist...
...In Britain or any other country with a Parliamentary system, either Eisenhower would have to resign, and an all-Democratic Cabinet would be formed by Lyndon Johnson...
...His behavior in this instance is an object lesson to the labor leaders of New York's Liberal party, who have just been clobbered because of their association with Carmine de Sapio...
...Chicago Peter F. Swoger REUTHER Daniel Seligman's review of Walter Reuther: Autocrat of the Bargaining Table (NL, November 3) gave that crackpot work the short shrift it deserves...
...NL, November 3...
...Such material, added to your perceptive political coverage, enhances the scope and interest of your magazine considerably...
...Do the planners of our Strategic Air Command take cognizance of these apparent criticisms...
...A company like General Electric, which propagandizes without stint for the most reactionary concepts, never had any hesitation about dealing with a Communist-run union, but they'd probably give their last tax-benefit to shut up Reuther...
...Harrigan points out, these bases are wide open to attack as well as to sabotage, and invite comparisons to Pearl Harbor, what is going to be done about it...
...But, with the President barred from a third term, a coalition Cabinet, minus the rigid diehards, is not only possible but necessary to insure effective government in the face of the Soviet challenge and the threat of depression-through-inflation...
...Would not, to follow Mr...
Vol. 41 • November 1958 • No. 42
