Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. SOUTH VIETNAM As something of a student of Vietnamese affairs, I read...
...Effective democracy, coupled with a minimum of economic reforms, has worked well—and in the West's favor—in the Philippines, Malaya, Cambodia and Burma...
...whether it is equally well-trained to stand the rigors of "revolutionary warfare" is another matter...
...it takes some to report on the faults of ourselves and our allies—and does much more good because we have some control over ourselves and some influence with our allies...
...This stupidity-engendered-by-fanaticism reminds me of J. Edgar Hoover's...
...Chamberlin, the typical fanatic, is blind to the subtleties of the mutual respect necessary for democratic discourse...
...He has the blindness of the fanatic because he doesn't mention the James Burnhams, Admiral Radfords and William Buckleys who backed Nixon because they felt with him there is a better chance of launching a preventive war ("pre-emptive war" is the newer euphemism...
...The new Vietnamese Army may certainly be well-trained by Western standards...
...It is common knowledge that our State Department and their volunteer "presstitutes" such as Chamberlin have been too busy trying to shore up the dictatorships of Franco, Rhee, Menderes and Chiang to condemn their ugly tyrannies, even when it has been Christians, democrats and anti-Communist socialists who have suffered...
...Otherwise, the term "free world" becomes a morass which swallows up every hope for a better world...
...William Henry Chamberlin's column just before the election (NL, November 7) is unbalanced because he mentions the supporters of Kennedy who are "committed to a philosophy of retreat and defeatism...
...Minneapolis, Minn...
...Washington, D. C. BERNARD B. FALL CHAMBERLIN For years I have studied Voltaire's Candide and Eric Hoffer's True Believer because they show the horrors of fanaticism...
...For example, he says, "Nixon was too much frightened by the horrific image of the 'Old Nixon' conjured up by the publicists and commentators who were in the opposite camp anyway...
...SOUTH VIETNAM As something of a student of Vietnamese affairs, I read Sal Tas' article, "The Revolt in Vietnam" (NL, November 28), with considerable interest...
...While it may perhaps he a bit trite and downright "unrealistic," I would respectfully suggest that, as a last resort, we might try real democracy for once—without such additives as "guided," "people's" or even "dictatorial...
...But his fanaticism has caused him to use the formula of military opposition of that time in all subsequent times—blindly and inflexibly...
...Chamberlin did a necessary service in alerting his readers to the errors of the Yalta and Potsdam periods...
...He is saying he should have accused his opponents of treason...
...It could be tried in South Vietnam as well, since all else seems to have failed...
...It takes no courage to report atrocities committed in China or Russia...
...Men whose "democratic dictatorship" (sic) you praised last year are now "autocratic, corrupt and ineffective...
...It certainly constitutes a radical departure from the line which you swallowed whole for six long years...
...JAMES C. WHITE...
...What seems so distressing even about your new stand (or your correspondent's) is that the only salvation which seems to be proposed is to transform South Vietnam from a civilian into a military dictatorship...
...Chamberlin also expects his readers to be as sleepy as he is sly...
...Considering what the Communists have been doing in South Vietnam with a force of less than 5,000 guerrillas (as against 150,000 South Vietnamese regulars and 50,000 Civil Guards), salvation does not seem to lie in the direction of a military junta...
...Reinhold Niebuhr wrote (NEW LEADER, March 15, 1954), concerning the Republican road show of Twenty Years of Treason, "Such political acrimony endangers the nation's health more than any specific political policies...
Vol. 43 • December 1960 • No. 50
