Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR REISCHAUER The most informative excerpts from Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ("The Challenge in Asia," NL, February 13)...
...We see this war going on with ever-increasing horrors, so far without any tangible prospect of an end and with military forecasts repeatedly proved incorrect...
...An example of Balaguer's control over the military and his support from them is that recently he boldly replaced the chief of staff of the Air Force without a whimper heard from the Armed Forces...
...Potentially more dangerous perhaps than the businessmen-type Trujillistas is Neit Nivar Seijas, Balaguer's bodyguard and head of the palace military household...
...And this demand is put to us by a sovereign disregard for the fact that most of us have not exactly waited for the admonition by Freedom House to tell the fanatics where and why they are wrong, just as we have not waited for prodding by the fanatics to say why we consider the government policy wrong...
...We are asked, for instance, to disassociate ourselves from the proposition "that this nation's leaders are obsessed with some compulsion to play 'world policeman...
...It is not enough that our fellow liberals from Freedom House acknowledge our legal right to criticism...
...We know (c) has already proved fruitless...
...And on page 28 we read: "But you are not going to get meaningful negotiations until both sides really want to negotiate, and I am not at all certain that is true at the present moment...
...To do anything serious he probably would need a while to get organized...
...He is not a virtual prisoner of the military, as Gall says...
...What else can we do but say very loud that we think our government's policy wrong...
...Washington, D.C...
...If those supporters of the war who consider themselves liberals want to do their share in halting the degeneration of the debate, they will have to show more understanding of our position...
...As John Bartlow Martin correctly points out in Overtaken By Events, Bosch is essentially an agitator—a professional exile politician, although of course an idealistic and totally honest man...
...Rather, it presents us with a list of absurdities uttered by fanatics of the Left and asks us to repudiate them if we do not want to become guilty of harming our country...
...Remember that Bosch was thrown out when he tried to remove the then Colonel Wessin y Wessin...
...Now I don't believe that this is a "compulsion" or "obsession" of President Johnson's or Dean Rusk's or anyone else's in Washington...
...For any of Balaguer's recent predecessors to have attempted this would certainly have caused, if not an attempt to overthrow the government, at least a great outcry...
...but I cannot explain our present policy in Vietnam on any other ground than the government's belief that a Communist attempt at expansion by force must be met with counterforce regardless of time, place and circumstance, just as a policeman who hears of a burglary cannot ask whether this is a convenient place to catch the burglar...
...Balaguer has also managed to take some progressive steps in various economic areas without sacrificing the support of the Armed Forces...
...DEAR EDITOR REISCHAUER The most informative excerpts from Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ("The Challenge in Asia," NL, February 13) contains on page 18 his remark: "Our concept that we bring them to the negotiating table if we make the situation painful enough is just a complete psychological misunderstanding...
...Here Cherne identifies Hans Morgenthau with the attitude of Stokley Carmichael and of the inaugurators of the mock war crimes trial of President Johnson on no other evidence than what Morgenthau rightfully calls "guilt by lack of dis-association...
...Although he does not have a very good reputation, at least for the moment he seems to be behaving himself...
...Consequently, I and some others draw the conclusion that the United States should accept such a Communist challenge only where conditions favor our success, especially where we find a cooperating native government that has substantial and active following in the country...
...I am at any time willing to discuss counterarguments, but I resent it if my position is first distorted by being cast in a form in which it cannot be defended, and if the ridicule that this absurdity invites is used as an opportunity to gloss over the real issue...
...In fact, he has deep support within the Armed Forces because they trust him...
...Bosch's presence was more likely to keep the Left agitated than to keep the lid on it...
...I happen to think—as do Morgenthau, Lippmann and others—that this nation cannot successfully pursue such a course, that in attempting to pursue it we shall be forced to employ means comparable to blowing up the burglarized house with its inhabitants to kill the burglar, and that we shall also do great harm to ourselves...
...He is not Betancourt, but the poor country might make some progress under him...
...The name of the United States is becoming mud with a major segment of the world's population, and the policy of our country is criticized even by some of our best friends...
...In fact, there is a good possibility that the prd and other Left-wing forces will crumble and wither for a time unless Balaguer makes a serious error...
...Thomas Atkins...
...Columbus, Ohio Alfred Lande Professor Emeritus of Physics Ohio State University FREEDOM HOUSE Although I do not want to take responsibility for every word that Hans J. Morgen-thau used in criticism of the Freedom House Statement on Vietnam ("Freedom, Freedom House and Vietnam," NL, January 2) and of Leo Cherne's reply ("The House that Cherne Built," NL, January 30), I share Morgen-thau's feeling of bitterness...
...Hamburg, Germany Carl Landauer BALAGUER Norman Gall, in his article "Struggle in Santo Domingo" (NL, January 2), is correct in highlighting the potential danger from the presence of several Trujillista elements near President Joaquin Balaguer...
...Martin convincingly demonstrated that when Bosch came to power, he remained an "agitator in power"—something of which Bosch contemptuously accused Fidel Castro of being...
...Gall is probably inaccurate to claim that Bosch kept the lid on the Left and that now that he is gone all hell could break loose...
...The other side, I think, is still hoping for a victory over us...
...But more important is the offensive method of reasoning which underlies the whole Freedom House statement—offensive not, of course, because it is contrary to Morgenthau's opinion or mine, but because it pretends to talk to the "responsible" critics, among whom it seems to count (most of the time anyway) people like Morgenthau and myself, yet does not deign to discuss our arguments...
...But it is not enough to avoid bad words...
...If (b) represents Asian psychology, then Asia must be located in the Antiworld, and we may hope that the Asians will soon apply their psychology also to us...
...Gall's portrait of Balaguer...
...I regret the acrimony of this discussion, for there will be a day when the Vietnam war is over, and then Cherne and Morgenthau and others will have to work together against the Reagans and the Wallaces...
...There are, then, the following alternatives for reducing the enemy's hope for victory: making the pressure a) more painful for him, b) less painful, or c) not changing the pain for some time...
...This does not mean that sometime in the future the Left will not be able to collect its forces and challenge the regime, but rather that at present the Left has no real issue with which to keep the normally quiet masses (30 years of Trujillo) agitated...
...Gall is right to wish Balaguer well...
...I can see no excuse for Cherne's passage ("Responsibility and the Critic," NL, January 16) about the "shaft" which, "more narrowly aimed, quite properly found a wider mark...
...they must also refrain from bludgeoning us with moral opprobrium, otherwise the wounds will not easily heal...
...however, makes him appear to be a man of less strength of character than probably is accurate...
...A large part of American resources is committed in an area of third-rate importance, while our position remains vulnerable in vital spots...
...Obviously this type of relationship differs from one in which he would be a puppet...
...The very credibility of our government is questioned not only by malevolent observers but even by some who are prepared to give us much of the benefit of every doubt...
Vol. 50 • March 1967 • No. 6
