Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR STRANGELOVE In his article, "The Strangelove of the Intellectuals" (NL, March 2), Robert Lekachman says Dr. Strangelove is not a good film, even though the reaction of the...
...What we object to is the systematic and voluntary antagonism raised between national education and religious duty That is why we tell the young: Sing your hymns to freedom, but do not forget the freedom of the children of God...
...Owen seems to doubt Pakistan's willingness to fulfill its treaty obligations...
...Unless our own country weakens, a two-thirds majority for Peking's UN admission is not indicated...
...are "besotted fools" in a world "madly bent on its own destruction...
...It should be seen and read by Jews and Gentiles alike, and by those who condemn, attack and picket the play without reading or seeing it...
...He also brings in Pakistan's vote in the UN General Assembly in favor of seating China...
...President William V. S. Tubman of Liberia said the Peking regime openly advocates war as its official policy and should not be recognized or admitted to the UN...
...The Pope, it appears, was displeased for no other reason than that Hitler was trying to control education...
...Roche's positive proposals are all too vague for a working liberal philosophy in this field...
...It also protested against India's take-over of the State of Hyderabad...
...Is it against the purpose of NATO...
...President Ayub Khan, long before China-India clash in the Himmalayas, proposed settlement of the disputes between India and Pakistan and suggested that the two countries enter into a joint defense agreement...
...At one point he says, "Yet even if the Kashmir issue were settled in favor of Pakistan, it is likely that the basic hostility towards India would remain...
...The same procedural difficulties which arise out of active action against Castro (and this does not mean implementation of the Goldwater fantasy-land the boys and finish the rascals) are present in American intervention in other Latin American countries...
...I think, therefore, the The Deputy, despite its weaknesses as a drama, is the most important play of this century...
...Owen says that Pakistan has been a problem for India since 1947...
...Pakistan did not keep quiet when India took Junagarh State by military action when that State had acceded to Pakistan...
...Earlier the Pope had ordered Dom Sturzo to dissolve the Partito Populaire because it opposed Mussolini...
...As for my "distorting history," every student of history knows full well that the 1937 Encyclical "In Burning Concern" by Pius XI had been the only protest against the Third Reich...
...But these are only speculations...
...Does he have any instance in mind...
...Because he is in bad faith...
...In regard to Cuba, Russian involvement points up the necessity for caution...
...If we cannot use the UN to quell minor crises, then its utility narrows to the zero level...
...With Lekachman, "I should rather answer these questions in the affirmative than believe that my favorite reviewers have suffered a sudden decline of judgment or that I have...
...Thus, the critics will to believe the unbelievable, even the dangerously and irresponsibly unbelievable, because they take "a certain pleasure" in contemplating themselves as "men of intelligence and sensitivity overcome by a world they never made," etc...
...Because it is funny...
...Can it be, finally, that he leaped with so much joy upon the "strangelove of the intellectuals" before he noticed the ricketiness of his launching platform...
...He cites Pakistan's border settlement, cultural pact, and air agreement...
...Cameroun, Dahomey, Gabon, Ivory Coast, the Malagasy Republic, and Upper Volta, all former French colonies, and others including Liberia, Congo (Leopoldville) and Togo have reassured the Republic of China of their support...
...More than anything else, this shows how little Owens understands us Pakistanis...
...It is both a reminder and a warning...
...That Catholics should come to the defense of Pope Pius XII is of course logical and expected...
...Why did I find it funny...
...It calls for soul-searching on the part of us all: Catholics, Protestants and Jews...
...Strangelove is not a good film, even though the reaction of the intellectual critics has ranged from "joy to ecstasy...
...This offer has been repeated from the Pakistan side-the last time it was made was less than a month ago-and each time it has been turned down by India...
...When Roche endorses a strategy of American intervention in the affairs of other nations to support "democratic ideals," he is, I fear, opening a Pandora's box of difficulties...
...Miami, Fla...
...A story is known about German-Jewish nun, Edith Stein, who in 1938, after the publication of Pius XI's Encyclical, wrote him a letter requesting that he issue an encyclical about the Jews...
...India's Prime Minister Nehru replied, "Defense against whom...
...Philadelphia, Pa...
...Owen also thinks that many Pakistanis would like to see India weakened or even destroyed by Communist China...
...Los Angeles, Calif Dantshmand...
...On the basis of his conversation with one or two Pakistani acquaintances, Owens thinks that Pakistanis would prefer occupation by China to that of India...
...What the film says is that "American leaders" (not Russian...
...Immediately after signing the Concordat, Pius XI, called Monsignor Kaas, the leader of the German Catholic Center party, to Rome and ordered him to disband his party because it opposed Hitler...
...The ROC presently maintains diplomatic relations with 19 African countries...
...American Ideals" will, in this case, bend quite flexibly to American national interest...
...Lekachman argues, so the power of the utterance to get such a hearing must be attributed to some fault of character of those who heard it and applaud it...
...And what makes it worse is that Baal-Teshuva has the colossal effrontery to distort history in order to exonerate the Vatican...
...No exoneration will clear it from Pope Pius XII's crime of indifference...
...The U.S...
...We love our country...
...I agree with Rolf Hochhuth, the author of The Deputy, with whom I recently had a long talk in New York, that had Pius XI or Pope John XXIII been in office, instead of Pius XII, things would have been different, and perhaps many more lives might have been saved...
...This is obviously out of date since the testban treaty...
...Moreover, as is well known, it was Cardinal Pacelli who negotiated and signed the infamous Concordat with Hitler, thus giving him moral and material aid when he needed it most and when his criminal intentions to unleash a war of conquest and to exterminate the Jews were well-established...
...She never received an answer...
...if anything, they are based on his own ignorance of history and his overzealousness and emotionality...
...I am also surprised by Roche's apparent willingness to drop the UN...
...has a cultural pact with Russia...
...But he fails to mention that except for this vote-which, incidentally is favored by some of America's European allies-Pakistan has voted with America on all major issues...
...He says that Pius XI's Encyclical, "In Burning Concern," was directed against the Nazis: "Said to have been written by Pius XII when he was Vatican Secretary of State, it denounces Nazi crimes...
...And to India and Owen's annoyance, Pakistan keeps reminding India and the world of the UN resolutions on Kashmir...
...Why did Lekachman find it unfunny...
...It condemned and warned against elevating racist and national values to absolute prioity...
...That is why Pakistan approached China for landing rights and the air agreement was the result...
...It is a play about the crime of indifference by the Vicar of God on earth, who could at least have protested the Nazi crimes against the Jews, but chose to remain silent...
...Pakistan did not cheer India when it attacked Goa...
...No one will deny that...
...The truth is that there is not a single word in "In Burning Concern" against the Nazis...
...Strong measures, measures which would fit under Roche's concept of involvement, should be implemented...
...Fourteen recognize Peking...
...M. Novella Jacob Baal-Teshuva replies: I fully agree with Mr...
...It seems the world has not yet learned the tragic and bloody lessons of appeasing evil men...
...Since it is bad, he continues, and yet people like Robert Brustein and Stanley Kauffmann do like it, it must be because they are responding to what the film says rather than to what it is and does...
...Owens mentions Pakistan's pathological fear of India...
...John Owen's article, "Pakistan's Ambiguous Politics," in your March 2 issue is an example...
...In any case, we still risk having the epithet "imperialist" hurled against us...
...New York City F. W. Howton 'THE DEPUTY' It was with mounting anger that I read "Awaiting 'The Deputy'" by Jacob BaalTeshuva (NL, February 17...
...SEATO is a defense treaty...
...While international action to quell a crisis may not be swift, it has the advantage of general sanction...
...It is true that the words "lew" or "anti-Semitism" were never mentioned, since the Catholic Church never absolutely condemned racism in general nor anti-Semitism in particular...
...On the other hand, the encyclical contains a tacit approval of Hitler's racial policies and tells the Nazis that he, the Pope, has no objection to the extermination of the Jews...
...India has backed down from its understanding with the UN to allow the world body to hold a plebescite in Kashmir...
...Owens fails to give this background of the air pact, and thus presents a highly distorted picture of the affair...
...I have not attempted to "exonerate the Vatican," as anyone who has carefully read my article will acknowledge...
...Can it be be that he even took some pleasure in depicting the opposition as made up of kitsch-besotted fools...
...this can be easily ascertained by anyone who cares to read it...
...It may be of interest to your readers to know that many of the new African nations -a majority of which had recognized President Chiang's government-have, since French recognition of the Peking regime, reaffirmed their support for the Republic of China...
...AMERICAN POWER It is interesting to note the practical effect of John Roche's exhortation ("The Uses of American Power," NL, March 2) that American power be used to support "good" regimes and undermine bad ones...
...Jordan Baines Miles PARIS AND PEKING I noted that his thoughtful analysis of the dangerous courtship between "Paris and Peking" (NL, February 17), G. F. Hudson said: "There is a prospect that the states formed out of the former French colonies in Africa may also change course, and together with some other African states influenced by them assure the two-thirds majority needed to seat the delegates of Communist China in the United Nations Assembly...
...So, first, as a face in the crowd of thousands of self-hating intellectuals driven by vanity (and worse) to stand in line to get in to see this "second-rate" movie, I would like to report that I enjoyed it very much...
...Lekachman says if I found it funny that is my problem: I reply that if Lekachman found it unfunny that is his problem...
...he also ordered the German hierarchy to collaborate and cooperate with Hitler, which it did till the very end of the War, while the gas chambers and furnaces were going full blast in the Nazi concentration camps...
...Does the border settlement strengthen it or weaken it...
...Rejecting both the 19th century liberal and the 19th century Socialist approach to American intervention, he advocates our moral responsibility to pick and choose, i.e., to support "procedural" objections to a program designed to "liberate" Eastern Europe and undermine the Communist dictatorship in Cuba...
...Ad hominem arguments can be fun, once the other fellow starts them...
...Novella that "the world has not yet learned the tragic and bloody lessons of appeasing evil men...
...Because I have lived in Taipei for 11 years and have recently visited many of these African states, I try to keep informed about them...
...Here is part of the text: "No one would think of preventing young Germans establishing a true ethnical community in a noble love of freedom and loyalty to their country...
...President Tsiranana of Malagasy said his country "will never establish diplomatic relations with any Communist country...
...The Deputy is an important play with an important message for all humanity...
...As for Novella's accusations of my "distorting history in order to exonerate the Vatican," they have no basis whatsoever...
...And if Pakistan was refused landing rights for its planes by the British authorities at Hong Kong, should it have dropped its plans for air service to Tokyo...
...India can remove all cause of doubt by fulfilling its commitments with regard to Kashmir...
...Claremont, Calif Geraldine Fitch PAKISTAN One can prove anything by arguing from selected facts and misrepresenting or misinterpreting others...
...But that a lew should attempt to whitewash him is something I find inexplicable...
...Can it be (to borrow his rhetoric) that he takes a certain pleasure in contemplating himself as a man of intelligence and sensitivity who has learned to master self-hatred by being eternally vigilant against it...
Vol. 47 • March 1964 • No. 7
