Dear Editor
Dear Editor KITMAN Marvin Kitman's "Out to. Launch' (NL, August 18) popped up in our news clippings. We found it utterly delightful-a refreshing viewpoint, and a nice piece of writing. Washington,...
...Certainly, teenagers and youths ought to be treated differently than the full-time employed, the elderly or the housewife who at 40 temporarily returns to the job market...
...Whether it should, or should not have done so, is another question...
...Our urban landscape is ugly, and given the present wage levels in the construction industry il will probably remain that way...
...This favorite Liberal-Left scheme never seems to be examined in much depth...
...It would result in the virtual abandonment of the South Vietnamese people, except those lucky enough to live within the range of our fortified coastal enclaves...
...as the minimum wage now stands, employing them is probably prohibitive...
...Through his obviously superior literary taste, keen aesthetic insight and artistic sensibility, he has helped me back to the path of literary righteousness and away from Hesse's dirty metaphysic...
...abandoned them...
...What America needs today is the formation or responsible nonpartisan leadership that would make the factual situation in Vietnam-the encouraging, as well as the difficult aspects of the war-clear to the people...
...despite all the rhetoric and outcries...
...Up until a few days ago, I had been reading practically all available Hesse books, wholly enjoying every one of them...
...This, in conjunction with income maintenance for family heads, might make some real sense...
...The nation never committed itself to the war...
...It is my firm belief that once the true facts are known, the large majority of American people will support this country's commendable military, political and economic objectives in South Vietnam...
...I profoundly disagree with his views...
...John C. Chapin VIETNAM Carl Landauer's "A Dove's Peace Proposal" (NL, October 27) could be interpreted logically as making out a case for returning to the earlier bombing program...
...In my opinion, one of the greatest immoralities of "our" war in Vietnam is that almost the entire burden.has been borne by so few...
...How do you induce the Vietcong and North Vietnamese to reduce their pressure, and killing of Americans, by holding defensive positions with our backs to the sea...
...Frank Forrester Information Office U.S...
...Miami, Flo...
...Motiveless Malignity, ("Trudging Through Sterile Paths," NL, October 13), understandable and basically correct, notably his attack on Auchincloss' tendency to seek motivations more simple and neat than is justified by the actual plays...
...George F. Ackerman One can sympathize with Carl Landauer now that he finds his legions for peace being infiltrated by the "many newcomers" who are currently issuing "a loud call for immediate unilateral withdrawal of all American troops" from Vietnam...
...HESSE Now that Kingsley Shorter, in his "Metaphysical Hard Core" (NL, October 13) has thoroughly exposed Hermann Hesse as a metaphyscial pornographer, what do I do with my copies of his works...
...The plan would also provide a period in which Hanoi "may realize how much more it can gain by unifying the nation than in continuing a blood feud...
...Chicago, III...
...Washington, DC...
...job and circumstances rather than a rigid, across-the-board application...
...I would like to apologize for what I thought was a vicious attack on the U.S...
...Now, we must not allow it to become a tragedy by failing to see it through to an honorable conclusion...
...I had written my review after seeing the tape several days before the moon landing took place...
...Moreover, it would gratuitously restore the military initiative to the enemy...
...And when, in the next paragraph, he describes "the first scene as a kind of Jamesian clonnee," whatever that is, and concludes with the thought that it initiates "a tragedy of mythic proportions," it is clear that he is asking us to choose between platitudes which are clear and platitudes which are stated dogmatically, with no attempt of any kind at explanation...
...My thanks, then, to Shorter...
...I find some of Arthur Gewirtz* criticisms of Louis Auchincloss' new book...
...In the first place, despite the defeatist attitude of an articulate minority of American citizens, the outlook for a successful conclusion to our military effort in Vietnam is today by no means discouraging...
...Shorter that I must be some kind of metaphysical degenerate...
...Recrimination will be rife in this country if a small but noisy minority is allowed to accomplish its objective of forcing the United States to abandon its worthy goal-achieving freedom of choice for the long-suffering people of South Vietnam...
...Landauer's solution is to revive General James M. Gavin's previously discredited plan so that the demand for immediate unilateral withdrawal might be placated...
...Emerson, NJ...
...Detroit, Mich...
...Furthermore, as he says, "it is a hateful thing to leave comrades-in-arms in the lurch without a supreme effort to give them a modicum of protection...
...my great dismay, I now discover from the renowned Mr...
...We may never be able to exorcise the stab-in-the-back problem, but I suggest that recognition of the reality of the war-that it was not a war- involving the nation, but only, a small and brave segment of the nation-would be an honest reinterpre-tation which might stem the coming blood-thirstiness of the stab-in-the-back patriots...
...Marblehead, Mass, Ernest T. Clough MINIMUM WAGE Louise Wilson, in her letter of September 29 (NL, "Dear Editor*'), urges the extension and upgrading of the minimum wage...
...the Vietcong and North Vietnamese...
...Landauer further argues that adoption of the Gavin plan would enable us "to bail ourselves out of a position that has become untenable and minimize the political losses we have to suffer...
...particularly to the inarticulate majority...
...Should we employ the Gavin plan, Hanoi could later negotiate from the strong position of increasing military strength...
...Years ago, in fact, R. A. Gordon of the University of California recommended keeping separate records for 14- to 17-year-olds and those working less than five hours a week...
...I suddenly feel embarrassed by having them on my shelves...
...But once I saw the broadcast as it was finally cut and edited by the networks, i gave The New Leader instructions not to print the piece...
...And if one recognized the long-run danger to the nation (and to many more of the youths of the nation than are now directly involved) of abandoning an ally, what would one say about the American prisoners of war held by...
...Even in that light, "our defeat" has not been a defeat at all...
...Competent observers of prevailing conditions in South Vietnam are in general agreement that solid progress is evident in the pacification program, that the Vietcong have been largely decimated, and that the North Vietnamese troops have suffered extremely heavy, and probably unsustainable losses...
...One can agree with his judgment that "a simple command to embark would be nearly impossible to execute...
...Geological Survey Marvin Kit man replies: I think I can explain what happened...
...What should be proposed is some kind of sliding scale, a minimum wage differential varying according to age...
...We would certainly have cause for regret if, as might be anticipated from the holocaust in North Vietnam in the middle 1950s and in the city of Hue in 1?68, several hundred thousand South Vietnamese were massacred in cold blood after the U.S...
...And these few have held off and beaten, not been defeated by, the entire economic-military complex of all the Communist nations...
...As for the usefulness of the Gavin plan as a means of holding the line in South Vietnam while trying to negotiate a compromise political settlement with Hanoi, we should carefully consider what the adoption of such a military strategy would involve...
...Chester Tillit...
...Geological Survey, and assure everybody it won't happen again...
...Robert Anderson AUCHINCLOSS One of the more attractive aspects of 19th-century literary criticism is that while often tendentious and windy, it was at least always comprehensible and fairly relevant to non-academic concerns...
...But later on Gewirtz loses me when he complains of Auchincloss* failure to heed something called "typology," a jargon term I unfortunately do not understand...
...Unfortunately, because of this country's inept military methods, the Vietnam war has become a near catastrophe...
...It would disastrously undermine the morale of our Armed Forces, as well as that of our South Vietnamese ally...
...In many supermarkets, for instance, one notes the absence of kids helping out at the checkout counters because of asinine restrictions...
...How can the stab-in-the-back problem be successfully exorcised if we abandon the American prisoners of war...
...That the U.S...
...At the present minimum wage -not to mention the construction wage?the cost would be astronomical...
...In the excitement of the moon-doggie, it was run anyway...
...Again, consider this: Why not assemble construction gangs composed of youths (and those who need retraining) to learn the noble and almost lost art of fine stonemasonary...
...For a flat salary during the summer, they could replace ugly chainlink fences, pools of asphalt around shopping centers and sidewalks, with beautiful paths and walls in patterns of cut stone and granite...
...will not keep its word is, in my opinion, too repugnant an idea to receive serious consideration by the thoughtful but, up to now, silent majority of Americans...
...We cannot ask our troops to sweat it out in tropical enclaves, subject to increasing attack, while we endeavor to negotiate with a government that continues to refuse to negotiate...
...This has now all been changed...
...Our citizenry would then develop the patience and endurance necessary to see this unhappy conflict through to a successful culmination-one that will justify, at least to some degree, the heavy loss of life and substance sustained in faithfully carrying out our obligation under the Southeast Asia Treaty...
...And unemployment figures and statistical analyses ought to reflect these differences...
...According to a September 21 syndicated column by John Chamberlain, a survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses indicates that 500,000 jobs which used to exist for teenagers have been wiped out by the 1966 wage amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act...
...Should we ignore them...
Vol. 52 • November 1969 • No. 21
