Correspondents' Correspondence

...The final suggestion is to ask the congressman, "What can I tell my friends at home...

...Moreover, he said, it would set a dangerous precedent...

...It was Brezhnev who reviewed the troops after major maneuvers in Minsk, and who traveled to Kharkov for nationally televised declarations on the economy one day and foreign policy the next...

...Their ultimate aim is a network of loosely linked, cooperative units, each remaining autonomous...

...It wasn't that simple...

...Indochina) and avoiding the diffusion caused by tying it in with Black Panthers, the "power structure," campus amnesties, and so on...

...No pat arguments or statistics are provided?each student is urged to say only what he himself believes and knows, to be informed on the issues, and to be ready with specific suggestions on bills, amendments and resolutions...

...The history of extremist politics in Japan, however, has shown that Right and Left have sometimes worked together...

...Tokyo police say that because the group is so small (less than 200 members, and many of those in jail) they regard it as a dangerous irritant, not a major threat...

...Once we start getting involved like that, the involvement builds up its own momentum...

...embassy for help...

...many of our leaders are in jail," said the Red Army man, "but more are outside than the police think...

...The group now has branches in 48 states...

...Financial support for additional U.S...

...As the embassy's Minister-Counselor for Counterinsurgency, Tan-ham strove to curb his countrymen's tendency to take over and "get the job done right"—no less a temptation in Thailand than Vietnam...

...The dictator is shown as a very reasonable man indeed, listening to the recommendations of his generals between puffs on his pipe...

...The students' central philosophy is almost bleakly realistic...

...authorities insist things will remain this way...

...A Party congress is to be held this fall, and though the actuarial tables suggest the possibility of some changes at the top, there is little expectation here of any new departures in leadership attitude...

...So they did what came naturally: They called the U.S...

...Such indifference forced student leaders to acknowledge that large-scale demonstrations were no longer politically effective, and by April the protest movement was evidently moribund...

...The police are now investigating a long list of Red Army financial backers, people who for one reason or another would like to add a large dose of violence to an already unstable domestic political climate.—Michael Berger Thai Pressures Bangkok ?Fear of mounting pressure from Communist-led guerrilla forces in Thailand has not lessened U.S...

...First, that peace marches get more attention from the press than from Congress and the Administration...

...Correspondents' Cerrespondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Student Pragmatism Washington—In one of those gentle ironies that so delight historians, the national student protest movement appeared to be coming to an end just as President Nixon was beginning to recognize the political power of the moderate majority of college youth, and their severe alienation from many Administration policies...

...Ties with major labor unions are in the works, and coordination with similar college and university groups is expedited by a computerized information and communications network, called a "plug-in committee...

...But a week before the harvesters were to depart a second Red Army member was arrested, and the police contend that none of the extremists were among the group that finally left for Cuba...

...expertise, made available by like-minded alumni in Washington with the precise legal and political skills necessary for productive lobbying...

...officials say that a policy is bigger than the man who manages it, the drift of recent events in Southeast Asia has some people here wondering.—Arnold Abrams Soviet Festivities Moscow—Spring is a time for celebrations here...

...The first impulse in some embassy quarters also was to do what came naturally: launch a U.S...

...I don't think we had any other choice," Tanham said afterward...

...Although a Congressional amendment to the latest defense appropriations bill stipulated that none of the bill's funds could be used "to finance the introduction of American ground combat troops into Laos or Thailand," the measure can be sidestepped...

...It's true...

...Next, that President Nixon's decision to commit ground troops in Cambodia moved him out of his comfortable foreign policy stasis and made him politically vulnerable...

...In line with the present distaste for leaders, most of the student groups here seem to prefer a cellular method of organization to the standard vertical hierarchy...

...One example of this new student pragmatism is a group called the Continuing Presence in Washington (cpw), started by some Dartmouth man with the approval and support of the college administration and faculty, and now including young people from other schools as well...

...Newsmen paid them some attention, but the young ignored them...

...rescue operation...

...He is a former college professor and Rand Corporation executive who came to Thailand in 1968...

...Nevertheless, the recent alteration in Southeast Asia's scenario has raised questions about policy reversal...

...This year, however, the familiar campaign died down somewhat as the anniversary approached, since Foreign Minister Gromyko was engaged in serious talks with a high-level representative of the German Federal Republic...

...cpw's informal guidelines tell the young lobbyists to express both their gratitude for and agreement with as many past positions of each congressman as possible, while emphasizing their current differences with him on Indochina...

...Thai officials desperately wanted to retrieve the craft, which had been forced to land but not destroyed...

...We were concerned too," he added...

...His hands-off policy underwent its most crucial and legendary test last year, when a Thai Army helicopter was shot down over a rebel stronghold in the north...

...The first two segments, already being distributed, are noteworthy not only for their lavishness but because they offer the first cinematic portrayal of Stalin in many years...

...cpw's plug-in committee will, moreover, provide this sort of data to any group with comparable aims, and hopes use of its computer will prevent the wasted effort of duplicate research...

...Thus far, cpw has been able to achieve the prerequisites for viable political action: time, granted by Dartmouth and other colleges...

...All this has served to turn Kremlin-watchers into Brezhnev-watchers, particularly after the recent illnesses of the First Secretary's colleagues...

...Several hundred American advisers and trainers are forbidden to accompany Thais into combat, and banned from insecure areas...

...The indignation and horror awakened by those events led to the spontaneous, and sponsorless, Washington gathering on Saturday, May 9. The students, finally getting then-message across, seemed to have generated near panic in the White House...

...George Tanham, exhausted after two years of dealing with Thai officialdom and the American military, went home earlier this month...

...And don't think there weren't people right here [in the U.S...

...Yet even more discouraging is the number of Russians who insist the trouble with the economy is that there is no strong man in control, like Stalin.?Irwin M. Chapman...

...But Tanham refused...

...an alternate commanded the nine who forced the jal jet to North Korea...

...For a quarter of a century, the Soviets have annually observed their victory over the Third Reich with reminders of the people's heroism and of the unquenched dangers of German revanchism...

...Several speakers who professed to leadership held news conferences afterward to consolidate their claims...

...he was determined not to repeat mistakes here...

...To add to the uncertainty in Bangkok, the man primarily responsible for the low American profile in Thailand is no longer here...

...The students were clearly bored insensate by the bloated oratory, the parade of "personalities" to the podium...

...A reliable embassy source offered more detail: "The Thais were screaming so loud they didn't need a telephone," he said...

...Thai officials were outraged by Tanham's stand...

...For without a leader they have already rapidly acquired practical political skills, and pioneered in techniques that had never before been applied to national politics.—George E. Herman Japan's "Red Army" Tokyo—The "Red Army" radical group which recently hijacked a Japan Air Lines jet to North Korea now claims the move was only a prelude to an international uprising this fall involving them and the American Black Panther Party...

...For example, a five-part blockbuster currently in production recreates the War's major battles...

...As for the centennial of Lenin's birth, the actual celebration proved something of an anticlimax after all the months of hortatory declamations, the outpourings of books, films, medallions, and posters, and the pledges to fulfill the latest Five-Year Plan with super effort in honor of the occasion...

...Now Tanham is gone and pressures for more American participation may soon mount, since Thailand remains targeted for a "people's war of national liberation...

...It finally boiled down, in effect, to George taking personal responsibility for that damn chopper...

...cpw has installed a console in its Washington office, linked to the Dartmouth computer in Hanover, New Hampshire, by Bell Telephone...

...Our organization is not destroyed...

...The views expressed in Brezhnev's Lenin Day speech—his castigation of liberals and humanists—are certain to be maintained...

...Approximately 30,000 Thai troops, police and militia participate in combat operations against rebel bands...

...At 48, Tanham is one of the least publicized and most enlightened American counterinsurgency experts...

...Although its methods of political action are extremey flexible, cpw operates on three fundamental realities...

...embassy] also applying the screws to Tanham...

...The computer helps it retrieve information regarding lobbies that have been most influential with individual congressmen, the arguments that seem to move him, and how he responds to various matters...

...He held firm, however, and the Thais ultimately retrieved the craft unaided...

...had blundered military and civic operations there...

...Following a year spent directing provincial operations in Vietnam for the Agency of International Development, he had come to believe the U.S...

...The Red Army began its activities last year by throwing Molotov cocktails in a Tokyo train station, and has since declared repeatedly that it intends to use whatever means possible to blow up not only Expo '70, but the entire Japanese establishment...

...forces in either country could be channeled through various Pentagon contingency funds...

...The day itself was noted simply with speechmaking, and was not even declared a holiday...

...While the students left en masse that day, many have since returned, their goals more limited and realistic...

...Charles Palmer, president of the National Students Association (nsa), told me there was a definite, increasing antipathy to the idea of leaders—a fear, one might say, of a personality cult...

...The principal speech was delivered by Leonid Brezhnev, who has been assuming an increasingly prominent public role in recent weeks...

...Among the factors that could produce further change are the implementation of threats made by Communist leaders at their Indochina summit conference late last month, and Thailand's continuing importance as a U.S...

...They did express some concern," recalled Tanham, who is inclined toward understatement...

...Yet despite its remarkable effects on the President, May 9 may prove to have been the swan song for mass protest as an instrument of political response...

...A member of the ultra-extremist faction told the weekly magazine Asahi that North Korea was informed of the hijack plan, and had guaranteed a Red Army leader permission to proceed to Cuba for June talks with American and West German revolutionaries...

...A cellular entity usually evolves into an organism with a head, but students are certain to strenuously resist this development...

...They recognize that political power resides predominantly with the middle class, which they cannot afford to irritate with New Leftist cant, or even use emblems like long hair and unconventional attire...

...money, donated by corporations, alumni and parents...

...Still, the World War II victory remains for the Soviet film and television industries what cowboy-and-Indians are in the United States and samurai swordsmen in Japan...

...There will be a simultaneous uprising in America and Japan this fall...

...That move, he argued, would put American personnel in a potential combat situation...

...Then came the Cambodian invasion and the shootings at Kent State...

...The Red Army leader originally bound for Cuba via Pyongyang, Takanori Shiomi, was arrested by Japanese police 16 days before the hijacking...

...Only last November, the President had preferred to watch professional football rather than hear the grievances of the quarter of a million young protestors amassed in the capital...

...While U.S...

...Brezhnev who celebrated the Lenin legacy in three hours of oratory, and whose photo making the speech was carried high by May Day pa-raders, following his recitation on that holiday...

...They've got to do it themselves," he insisted...

...We don't know if the substitute leader has been permitted to go to Cuba," the interviewed member said, "because we had no guarantee about him...

...But we all finally agreed that it was best for them to handle it themselves...

...officials' determination to avoid Americanizing this nation's counterinsurgency campaign...

...We met the Black Panther representatives who came to Japan last year," said the Red Army man, "and we've been in contact with them ever since...

...Other Red Army radicals later tried to reach Cuba by joining Japanese volunteers who flew to Havana on May 3 to help harvest the sugar crop...

...Lenin Day (April 21) and May Day were followed in short order by Victory Day (May 11)—which the Soviet Union commemorates later than the Western Allies, having accepted the German surrender in 1945 three days after the documents were signed at Reims...

...bastion in this area...

...Third, that the most effective results are achieved by concentrating on one issue at a time (at the moment...

...we are not kidding...

...When I asked him if that was why there were no Mario Savios or Mark Rudds in Washington, he reflected: "Whatever happened to Mario Savio and Mark Rudd...

...Before you know it, we're taking over and things get very sticky...