For a Dynamic Center

...It is the Center's distrust of absolutes, its ability to postpone judgment until the facts are in, its readiness to compromise, that keep the extremes from tearing our social fabric into shreds...

...Let it be confident, aggressive - and proud of its mission...

...While the older varieties of Right-wing extremism cannot be dismissed, most of them appear to have declined in influence...

...Communist recruitment of students spurs Birch Society recruitment of fearful- middle-class matrons...

...The Administration's peace efforts are described as a hoax...

...There have always been dropouts among the prejudiced, the impatient, the thwarted - those who have never been aware of democratic values or have lost faith in them...

...But today the Center is losing adherents among groups which not only are of great importance to our society but actually have a high stake in the continuing viability of democratic processes...

...Attempts to stop troop trains, burning of draft cards, "sit-ins' blocking public buildings or streets, letter-writing campaigns to undermine the morale of American troops in Vietnam, broadcasts from hostile capitals attacking U.S...

...What is eroding the Center today...

...Always on the outermost fringes of the American scene, the scattered hate groups preaching anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, neo-Nazism, have never achieved respectability...

...The basic sin of the Wisconsin Senator, it is now assumed, was not in wrongfully labeling certain individuals as Communists and using non-existent evidence to raise the spectre of an imaginary Communist conspiracy in the upper echelons of government, but in raising the issue at all...

...An example - significant only because of the blind spot it exemplifies - can be found in an Anti-Defamation League report, The John Birch Society-1966...

...The perennial efforts of such groups to penetrate the liberal Left slowed to a halt after the brutal Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolt, when the true nature of Communist terrorism became clear even to the most obtuse...

...Everywhere the extreme Right and the extreme Left feed and stimulate each other...

...This suspicion is accompanied by an unwillingness to listen to the other side...

...In its present form it originated during the McCarthyite era 15 years ago, and by 1964 it reached the point where far-Right extremism became a major issue in the Presidential election...

...Regardless of how the groups that compose the Center may be divided on the issues of the day, they are united in a readiness to compromise and to see the political scene as a whole rather than in terms of a single overriding issue...

...It appears that the Klans may continue their subversive battle despite the increasing pressure of the Federal authorities...

...It is therefore not surprising that some view the Center as a sort of no-man's-land, whose inhabitants try to escape from controversy...

...Becoming transfixed with the menace from the far Right, they have neglected the menace from the totalitarian Left...

...This is neither new nor in itself disquieting: The intellectual always has tried to maintain a critical detachment from society and serves a useful function in so doing...

...The center plays an indispensable role in the creation of what is, for all its faults, the most effective political and social system the world has yet devised...

...Here, as elsewhere, the fantasies closely parallel those of the extreme Right-wing circles who view the Administration - any administration - as the puppet of a Communist conspiracy...

...In certain groups no Administration statement is taken at its face value - and no accusation against the United States as a power-hungry "imperialist" is too wild to be taken up and parroted...

...It is only the open-mindedness of the Center that permits the experimentation needed for solution of the problems produced by rapid technological and social change...

...Young Americans lack first-hand knowledge of the ill-fated Communist-Liberal coalitions in Spain and Eastern Europe, and the Communist infiltration that wrecked a host of worthy social-action movements in the United States...

...One would have thought that this question had long since been settled...

...Nevertheless, this evil device has apparently been used to mislead some members of the Negro community into bracketing opposition to the Vietnam operation with support of Civil Rights...

...To our leaders, we are plainly nothing but a natural resource - cannon fodder," reads one pamphlet...

...These are, of course, the tactics of the extremist who, unable to tolerate views other than his own, perverts the expression of his opinions into a weapon...

...When elements on the Right resort to violence against the Civil Rights movement, they evoke counterviolence on the Left...

...They offer the reassurance of absolute convictions, prefabricated so that the believer never faces the tedious and timeconsuming task of making up his own mind...

...The extremes, with their action programs that offer excitement and a sense of direct participation in the making of history, have an illusory glamour...

...This excellently documented expose discredits the Birchers with the statement that the John Birch Society is "a movement and recruitment apparatus on the Far Right that is comparable to the Communist apparatus on the Far Left in the 1930s and 1940s...

...is appealing to raw emotion instead of reasoned judgment -and doing it in a particularly cruel and unjust way that makes a mockery of democratic debate The right to assemble and demonstrate peaceably to make known one's own views is time-honored recognition that the expression of dissent is an essential element in our free society...

...In contrast, the Southern groups fighting a last ditch battle for white supremacy have burgeoned during the Civil Rights controversies of the past decade...

...We have no legitimacy...

...Where elements on the Left ignore the obvious dangers of totalitarian penetration, they stimulate the fantasies of Right-wing extremism...

...The obvious falsity of this description of a war in which American troops are allied with hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese - in addition to many South Koreans-needs no elaboration...

...American memories are short - and what is probably more important, a new generation is coming to maturity that was still looking at Howdy Doody on TV when the Russian tanks roared into Budapest...

...These tendencies are manifested in much of the current opposition to the American role in Vietnam...

...These critics regularly use as ammunition Communist publications attacking the Vietnam war, including the official propaganda sheets of the East German government...

...If successful it would give these groups a privileged sanctuary, where they would be immune from criticism while working to undermine the society that harbors them...

...But, where the Korean War served as the catalyst for intolerance from the Right in the 50s, the Vietnam war of the 60s is the catalyst for intolerance from the Left...

...Freedom as we know it in the United States can flourish only when the Center is strong and healthy - and boldly self-confident...

...But the way some intellectuals are expressing their impatience in action is alarming...

...The substitution of abuse for argument is a frequent practice of the anti-Vietnam demonstrators -and a dangerous one...

...Moreover some of the New Left show a willingness to accept totalitarian groups as allies and co-workers...

...Any society has only two weapons with which to defend itself against totalitarian infiltration aimed at subverting its institutions and eventually capturing its government...

...They have had some success...

...While the more responsible organizations, such as SANE, have made an effort to prevent or limit Communist participation, others have pretended the problem does not exist...

...It is virtually impossible for any rational defense of United States Vietnam policies to be made before some audiences...

...It was hailed as proof of the vitality of the democratic center in American political life...

...The most active candidate for this inheritance is the John Birch Society, which is reported to be growing rapidly in the South...

...The other weapon, and in effect the only recourse available to a free society, is exposure...

...This situation reflects current attempts to rewrite the history of the McCarthy era...

...Even while loudly proclaiming his own right to dissent, he cannot bear to allow others to express their views unchallenged...

...The picket who chants "L.B.J., L.B.J, how many kids have you killed today...

...These groups-armed with "documentation" alleging that the United States is engaged in an action in Vietnam that is immoral, if not even insane-greet pro-Administration speakers with everything from total disbelief to rowdy catcalls...

...But this view is false...

...DuBois Clubs now recruiting on college campuses...

...Here the erosive effect results primarily from the growing impatience of many intellectuals with various aspects of our society...

...but their "respectable" allies of the White Citizens Councils are losing the support of the white community and may be supplanted by organizations less blatant in their defiance of the values of the rest of the nation...

...But while the passage of time partially accounts for much of this blindness, liberals themselves have contributed...

...Their attitude was summed up by one organizer of teach-ins who declared, "Is it up to us to say who is a Communist and who is not...

...In a world where totalitarian groups disguise themselves by endless metamorphoses into front groups and fellow travellers conceal their true allegiance, exposure is an essential process...

...But in the final analysis, the health of the Center depends on the people who make it up - their vigor and enthusiasm, their realization of the importance of what they are doing...

...it is everyone who approaches public affairs with a basic belief in the validity of democratic institutions...

...Erosion on the Right is far from a new phenomenon...

...For it is a great deal more than the swing vote, or middle-of-the-road indecisiveness...

...There is of course an important place for argument, criticism and dissent on this issue...

...Thus, it is not surprising that some artists and intellectuals have joined avowed party members and veteran fellow-travelers in public statements attacking the policies of the United States in language echoing the propaganda efforts of our enemies overseas...

...According to this new version, adopted by some liberals who should know better, identification of a Communist, whether in the government or out, is an invasion of political privacy...

...The Center is so important to the American body politic that any threat to its vitality must be of concern...

...Exposure, research studies, information projects - all these can help to restore to the Center the vitality it is losing...

...Yet today it is clear that this Center is suffering serious erosion...

...George Field, a previous contributor, has been Executive Director of Freedom House since its founding...

...The totalitarian discipline accepted by members of the Communist party and the party's dedication to furthering the foreign policy objectives of another country have long been recognized as evidence that this was no political party in the usual sense of the word, but a special case that required continued exposure to public scrutiny...

...Ignored is the fact that the Communists, far from obligingly curling up to die a quarter century ago, are alive and kicking - and continuing to probe our society for weak spots...

...On the Left, the losses are among the younger faculty members and graduate students, a group whose education and intellectual training should have provided particular insight into the importance of democratic political techniques...

...By camouflaging extremist views with a veneer of respectability, it has already won a considerable following in the North and West...

...As President Johnson pointed out in his recent Freedom House speech, "The strength of America can never be sapped by discussion -and we have no better or stronger tradition than open debate in hours of danger...

...Above all, they are united by dedication to the free interplay of views - those of their opponents as well as their own...

...Often their use is spurred by self-proclaimed allies of the New Left drawn from totalitarian groups whose doctrines specifically scorn democratic procedures...

...Note that in this effort to place the Birch Society of today in its proper perspective the Anti-Defamation League has compared it not with today's Far Left but with that of the Depression era...

...The thousands of unrewarding tasks carried out by the Center enable a democratic political system to function from day to day...

...Here is the strongest threat from the Right, for the Birch Society, by adopting trappings which are intriguing to sections of the middle class, is luring conservatives away from the Center to an anti-democratic position on the Rightist fringe...

...However, the picketing of a public assembly simply for the purpose of proclaiming disapproval of the views of its sponsors tends to limit rather than foster the free interplay of opinion...

...Not all, but too many teach-ins have been sounding boards for unreasoned attacks on American policy rather than objective attempts to make clear the facts of a highly complex situation...

...At a teach-in a professor proclaims: "The United States is a bandit...

...Red China is much less committed to conquering the world than we are...

...On the Left we find quite a different - but equally alarming - situation...

...And in all cases it is the Center that is the real loser...

...But it has shown a disturbing growth since that election - perhaps in part because of it - since the defeat of Senator Goldwater led many ultra-conservatives to believe that their objectives would never be realized within the traditional political activity of the Center...

...But this is not the case in the current wide-ranging and open debate over our Vietnam policy and therefore the adoption of such tactics is clearly unwarranted...

...The intolerance is sometimes carried to the length of interfering with the right of those of different views to be heard...

...The substitution of direct action for democratic political procedures is manifested in other ways...

...A revealing side effect of the Communist penetration of the anti-Vietnam movement is the attempt to portray the Vietnam conflict as an interracial war, with white Americans arrayed against yellow orientals...

...The use of the McCarthy label to deter legitimate identification of Communists thus strikes directly at the ability of a democratic society to defend itself...

...He seeks to hamper his opponents, to drown them out, sometimes even to interfere physically with their expression...

...Direct action has a justification at times-when it is needed to attract public attention to urgent social objectives in situations where the normal democratic process is otherwise unavailable...

...The "New Left" is a hodge-podge of diverse elements, but too many of its components, substituting emotion for objective analysis and direct and sometimes illegal action for political activity, share a neurotic suspicion of the nation's leaders and a crude intolerance of divergent views...

...On the Right, the losses are taking place among middle-class suburbanites, although no group has benefited more from our society...

...One is suppression, a weapon that cannot be used (except in time of dire national emergency) without endangering the free society itself...

...At present the Communist party and its Trotskyite and Maoist off-shoots see the antiVietnam movement as a golden opportunity to regain lost ground...

...They attack with cries of "McCarthyism" any reference to the Communist domination of the W.E.B...

...policy - these again are the tactics of the extremist who has abandoned the normal democratic techniques for securing changes in laws or policies...