Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR BERMEL May I congratulate The New Leader for Albert Bermel's theater criticism. He is literate, consistently intelligent, and, it seems to me, consistently just. I enjoy reading...
...Wales and the Northeast of England...
...My comment on Britain's stylish decadence was not a complaint, even less was it a sneer...
...Then a new category should be added to Brzezinski's: a change on the cold war line toward Communism, by violent methods, which is wanted by the people, but resisted by the established government...
...Still not good enough, true...
...Perhaps Steel exposes his prejudices most of all by his comment that the nation "continues to enjoy the stylish decadence that is one of the great charms of Britain today...
...Danang, oh, Danang...
...Suppose the South Vietnamese want to be "liberated" by the vc...
...New Haven, Conn...
...The truth of this observation was revealed by the trade figures for March which had widened the gap to £77 million-a jump of £18 million over the preceding month...
...Carl Landauer There are four main areas of disagreement between myself and Professor Brzezinski: 1. He implies that Communist China's present isolation comes as a result of United States policy...
...What is to be done...
...The Wilson government established new Ministries to tackle them...
...It should be our policy to allow the Soviet Union to choose the first alternative, and prevent what is happening now: The Soviets are fighting the Chinese on China's chosen ground...
...Technology began the task of re-organizing and modernizing some of our key industries such as machine tools, electronics and computers -again with marked success which, in the next few months, may even become clearer...
...4. The war in Vietnam is a civil war, which like the Spanish Civil War, has profound international implications-but that does not make it any less of a civil war...
...BRZEZINSKI Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his "New Guidelines for the West" (NL, March 28), is certainly right when he pleads for a Western effort to increase the contacts with Eastern Europe, although I am doubtful about the possibility and even the desirability of a "community of the more developed nations...
...At this time, the faintest admission by the United States of defeat would mean havoc for this country's worldwide policy...
...But it is a pity to brandish the cheap sneer across a country which, for all its old fashioned charm, is genuinely now engaged in a technical and social revolution...
...People have misjudged the British before and will, no doubt, continue to do so...
...Most political observers have felt for some time that an election was not only necessary but vital for the nation's economic health...
...It was not the instability of the parliamentary situation that was having a serious effect on Britain's overseas dealings, as Goodman claims, but the failure of the Labor government to cope with the economic crisis...
...I suppose it really depends on what standards of political maturity you are using...
...To answer his points: 1. He may think the March 31 election was for the nation's economic health, but Harold Wilson did not seem to agree with him...
...Do we have a local, viable alternative, with broad support which can unite the country politically, so that the Communists would not score a political victory there or on a regional scale...
...And the British growth rate (far from being no more than 1 per cent as Steel suggests) has been developing at between 2½ per cent-3 per cent last year...
...Mild deflation has been introduced without causing serious unemployment in the "difficult zones" of the country such as Scotland...
...I also agree with part of his criticism of the "neutralization solution...
...3. Steel asserts that "the Exchequer's office is being run along rules laid down by the banks of the City and there is yet no sign that taxation will be used for achieving economic, let alone social equality...
...Indeed, the Prime Minister wisely rejected frantic appeals for an earlier poll, waiting for an opportune moment when Labor's majority was likely to be increased...
...In fact, however, China has suffered setbacks in Africa, Indonesia and Cuba because of either domestic circumstances in these countries or because of her own aggressive policies, and the effect of the Sino-Soviet split on these various problems...
...But on the most burning problem of American foreign policy, Brzezinski's article seems to take a position which I consider fatally wrong: on the issue of "globalism" versus selective commitments...
...Not in 1954, and the answer would remain "No" if Vietnam had not acquired the international importance which we have given to it...
...I enjoy reading him...
...That is, a man like Podgorny certainly held minor economic posts twenty years ago, but his rise to power has been wholly outside them, in the political apparatus pure and simple...
...3. Whatever the ultimate effects of the Finance Act of 1965-in which Goodman places a degree of faith not shared by most informed observers-the Labor government's policies with regard to sterling have been models of fiscal orthodoxy and have received the blessing of the City banks...
...Do we have a program of social-economic reforms...
...Most economic observers in Britain are now agreed that this measure constituted the most revolutionary tax change since 1911...
...1. In suggesting that the election of March 31 was unnecessary if not irrelevant, Steel betrays a surprising lack of understanding about the character of British politics...
...it can also mean, however, that the Soviets must prove their ideological purity concerning the struggle against imperialism...
...Is the vc Communist controlled...
...On the Soviet side, it can mean some achievement in the "peace business" such as the nuclear test ban treaty or the Tashkent diplomatic initiative...
...2. Brzezinski states: "It is not right to argue that opposition to China's ambitions necessarily reduces the Sino-Soviet rift...
...Jorge I. Dominguez CLARIFICATION Either through an editorial slip (I hope) or illegibility of an insert in handwriting (I hope not), one point I was trying to make in my article on the 23rd Congress has gone a little astray...
...Although he states that "it would be simpleminded and harmful for the United States to adopt the principle that it should intervene whenever and wherever a Communist takeover threatens or has actually occurred," he seems to recognize only limitations which follow from moral considerations, especially from respect for a people's free decision to adopt Communism, if such decision ever occurs...
...They are, however, a reasonably mature electorate, and I believe they took the 1966 election every bit as seriously and thoughtfully as the 1964 one or any other-possibly even more so...
...2. Steel complained that the British public failed "to share the excitement shown by newspaper columnists and political candidates...
...On paper, it is heaven...
...I was pointing out that, with the exception of Kosygin, none of the present full members of the Politburo have (unlike their predecessors in the mid-50's) worked during the senior period of their careers in the economic administration...
...still below the programmed 4 per cent...
...Moreover the instability of the parliamentary situation pre-March 31 was having a serious effect on Britain's overseas dealings...
...Indeed, the extensive modernization schemes aimed at revitalizing these regions have gone ahead as never before...
...3. Brzezinski says that the U.S...
...is justified in intervening in a country where, by forcible change (coup or revolution), there is an attempt to establish a Communist government, even though this country is not "on the cold war line...
...The danger in Vietnam is that the U.S...
...I would plead with the author to find a country which can meet these requirements...
...The DEA handled the extraordinary difficult task of establishing an incomes policy by consent--and despite all the criticism has had some important successes...
...is "containing" internal disturbances as well as external aggression...
...This ignores totally the far-reaching-if delayedeffects cf the Finance Act of Mid-1965...
...My own experience in touring the country for three weeks during the election campaign was of packed meetings, intelligent questioning by audiences and a very great interest and concern in the principal issues...
...The British are not a politically volatile or exhibitionist nation...
...This is provided four conditions, which he sets forth, are met: that it is certain that the movement in question is Communist controlled, that such a triumphant movement would pose a political or military threat to the United States, that there is a local alternative to Communism available so that establishing a local reactionary regime would not give the Communists a regional success, and that a program of social-economic reform be available to provide ex post facto justification of intervention...
...I said they did not share the excitement shown by newspaper columnists and political candidates-and committed ideologues such as Goodman...
...But for the sake of your readers I would like to set the record straight on some points of fact...
...On the contrary, the Sino-Soviet rift usually widens as a consequence of international crises...
...5. While I sympathize with Goodman's desire to defend the rather inept record of the Labor government, I must confess that I resent the accusation that I brandish a "cheap sneer" toward Britain...
...They are strengthening North Vietnamese fighting capacity, and "out-revolutionizing" the Chinese...
...Would a Communist takeover pose a political or military threat to the U.S...
...4. Goodman, in his zeal, confuses trade deficit with debt, thereby propounding the nonsensical statement that Labor "reduced the current trade deficit by half from the £800 million debt inherited in 1964...
...In practice...
...New York City Richard Elman BRITISH ELECTIONS As a one-time contributor to the columns of The New Leader more than as an irate Englishman I must protest strongly at the highly slanted and factually dubious account by Ronald Steel of "Britain's Unwanted Election" (NL, March 14...
...London Robert Conquest...
...Next to nuclear war, the greatest danger with which our Vietnam involvement threatens us is a neo-isolationist wave-neoisolationist not in the unduly broa.d sense in which Brzezinski uses the term, but in a narrower and truly dangerous sense of retreat into the "Fortress America"-which may then not even be a defensible fortress...
...But at least Jet us get the record right...
...If we insist on sacrificing American lives wherever the Communists decide to use violence, even if that happens in a jungle country with a corrupt and unpopular government and with no foundations to build a better one, we shall not only incur all sorts of diplomatic and military setbacks, we shall also exhaust the willingness of the American people to bear international responsibility...
...For both internal and external reasons not even a nation as powerful as ours is capable of filling this role...
...In terms of population increase the growth in real income has not been much above 1 per cent, and today British per capita income, on a world scale, is in 11th place...
...The first guideline to establish is that we cannot and must not consider ourselves the universal policeman who must try to catch the burglar at every risk to himself and even when the odds are strongly against success...
...Well, it is no bad achievement to have reduced the trade deficit by half from the £800 million debt inherited after the October, 1964 election...
...It infuriated the centers of orthodox finance...
...Totally absent from his "guidelines" appears to be the thought that even in situations in which we have every right to condemn the Communist takeover as effected or attempted by brute force, it may be wrong to intervene by counterforce because our intervention may have no practical chance to restore or create a free government for the people, as is obviously the case in Vietnam...
...Nor have the new ministries launched by Wilson served any function other than to give the impression to such sympathetic observers as Goodman that something serious is being done...
...Let us apply his four tests to South Vietnam...
...London Geoffrey Goodman Ronald Steel replies: Geoffrey Goodman is an impassioned advocate of the Labor government, but not a very convincing one...
...2. I did not say the British did not take their election seriously...
...Berkeley, Calif...
...This poses a moral dilemma...
...It is of course, perfectly legitimate for Steel to expose his prejudices against the Labor Government and his ignorance about British political life...
...Extending this logic, the result of a widening rift would be increased competition which can take two forms...
...the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), and the Ministry of Technology were two important and unique developments on the economic front...
...Labor did, indeed, reduce the current trade deficitbut only by emergency stop-gap measures such as the import surtax, which have had no effect whatsoever on the structural weaknesses in the economy...
...4. Then there is Steel's suggestion that the Labor Government has offered nothing to overcome the economic crisis...
...Whether Wilson is "loved" or not by Steel he is evidently not unloved by the British electorate if the March, 31 election result is anything to judge by...
...Nor has this been done solely by restrictive measures (though naturally such measures were vitally needed...
...Exceptionally difficult problems faced the Labor administration when it took office in October, 1964...
...It was a compliment, and even stern Labor moralizers should not be unable to recognize it as one...
Vol. 49 • May 1966 • No. 10
