Correspondents' Correspondence
oirespondents' orresponaence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Prague's Second Party Prague—During the brief reign of...
...his mother complains of headaches...
...Now they do nothing, own nothing and face an uncertain fate...
...Pills distributed by government nurses do not seem to help...
...It is also responsible for the rapidly growing membership of the "second Communist party," whose ranks include those Czechs and Slovaks who still consider themselves Communists but have either been expelled or have left the Party voluntarily...
...Behind those sordid happenings, which took the lives of an estimated 1,000 persons, lay long-standing Cambodian enmity as well as fear of Viet-cong infiltration among this country's 400,000 ethnic Vietnamese...
...Misgivings are also widespread among the public at large, but a tenacious, if highly guarded, hope persists...
...proposal was considered primarily a tactical move, for the ministers who made up the majority are convinced the Arabs will sooner or later break up the talks rather than negotiate a realistic peace...
...A key question in determining this loyalty is their view on the Warsaw Pact invasion...
...Over the long haul, Federal excise taxes on gasoline, autos and auto accessories could be channeled into railroads and subways...
...1 heresy in the highwaymen's handbook—changing the highway trust fund into a general transportation fund...
...Of the 100,000 persons initially interned in Pnompenh, few had the chance to sell their property, settle business affairs or pack...
...In the meantime, the refugees will remain in limbo...
...Seven members of Nguyen's family also were forced aboard that truck, as were several dozen other Vietnamese from the same village, about 15 miles from Pnompenh...
...To date Husak has resisted extreme purge measures, because, both as Party chief and former expellee, he knows that sooner or later the first Party will have to deal with the members of the second party to keep the nation moving.—Donald R. Shanor Trapped in Cambodia Pnompenh—One of the saddest tales in this sorrow-filled country concerns the ethnic Vietnamese languishing, largely forgotten, in a dozen squalid refugee camps...
...by euahu salpei er Tel Aviv Despite the encouraging developments of the past few weeks, Israel's enthusiasm for the American peace initiative continues to be markedly restrained, and by no means universal...
...Yean...
...I have relatives there...
...Most of the blue-collar Communists are getting new cards without too close questioning...
...Obviously, nobody is prepared to handle such a situation...
...and Representative George Fallon (D.-Md...
...Dr...
...That idea never found much favor, even among the reform leadership, so it is all the more ironic that the post-Dubcek purges are in effect creating two Communist parties...
...Consequently, the first Party has no room for the rebellious writers and journalists...
...I hope I will be near Saigon," he says...
...The subsequent Rogers letter was a brief document merely concerned with how to get talks started, not with the substance of a settlement...
...The government's limited capabilities are illustrated by the case of Trang Van Nguyen, a 35-year-old storeowner who was herded to the capital on a truck commandeered by Cambodian troops...
...and Israel, and will manage to eke out one concession after another while offering Israel no guarantee of its security...
...You Kim Yean, vice president of the Cambodian Red Cross...
...sickly people, mostly elderly, are numerous...
...The majority were taken by ship to "re-groupment" camps in South Vietnam...
...still have controlling influence over the course of legislation for transportation, and they are ardent defenders of the status quo.—Walter R. Gordon WHY ISRAEL IS SKEPTICAL Cease-fire* Peace Talks-aticl Peace...
...Including a draft report to be written by UN Special Envoy Dr...
...Paris-educated, 41 years old, he is a troubled man...
...Rash-covered infants are everywhere...
...2) the parties' acceptance, as a basis for settleEliahu Salpeter, a past contributor to these pages, is a member of the editorial board of Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...
...Many of the nation's best administrators, engineers, scientists, and teachers are there with them...
...Most were craftsmen, white collar workers or shopkeepers who earned a decent living...
...His thoughts of the future are clouded...
...They are dependent upon the Cambodian government, which, somewhat repentant, supplies them with sufficient food and a modicum of medical aid...
...The exceptions are those workers who formed councils in 1968-69 to decide plant policy, including the hiring and firing of the managers, on the Yugoslav model...
...Despite the signs of progress, however, such powerful congressional spokesmen for the road gang as Senator Jennings Randolph (D.-W.Va...
...It contained fairly concrete outlines for territorial agreements, which all three parties rejected...
...Gunnar V. Jarring after it had been subscribed to by Israel, Egypt and Jordan, the letter established three prerequisites to serious peace negotiations: (1) agreement to a resumption of discussions under Jar-ring's auspices...
...Thus voting to accept the U.S...
...At this rate, the resettlement program may not be completed before next year...
...They felt, however, that Israel could not afford to reject a peace effort strongly urged by its most powerful and reliable ally...
...Congressional observers credit a new and skillful lobbying effort for part of the changed sentiment in the Administration and on Capitol Hill...
...But whereas the earlier proposals centered on creation of a new administrative and fiscal package to finance mass transit, the type of plan now being widely discussed would merely broaden the allowable uses of the highway trust fund to include a number of other activities...
...Except for the hacks and careerists, most of them are in the second one...
...After 22 years of frustrated hopes, most experienced observers here are skeptical that the 90-day cease-fire and the preliminary talks will ultimately lead to a just settlement of the Middle East conflict...
...Today repatriation is down to about 3,000 per week, according to Dr...
...Homeless in their adopted country and unwanted in their ancestral homeland, they have been lost in the shuffle of war...
...Most of the lucky ones escaped with their lives but little else...
...The minority, consisting of six Gahal ministers, feels the Russians and Arabs have merely set a trap for the U.S...
...I want to go to South Vietnam," he says...
...But despite government and relief agency efforts to furnish basic services and some sanitation facilities, conditions in the compounds—mostly school grounds—are abysmal...
...It is all terribly unfortunate," he says.—Arnold Abrams Highway Heresy Washington—Key Nixon Administration officials have just begun sounding out congressmen and senators about altering the highway trust fund—one of this capital's most enduring sacred cows...
...This is the first time we've ever encountered one force moving in one direction," a House aide said of the diverse and often uncoordinated urban lobbying groups...
...The 17 Cabinet ministers who voted in favor of acceptance—representatives of the Labor Alignment, the Independent Liberals and the National Religious party—were in fact highly dubious of the merits of the American plan...
...That is where I think they are...
...The first is made up of those Communists who pass the test of loyalty to Dr...
...The second party has no official standing, and indeed is subject to almost daily attack in Rude Pravo and other organs of the first Party...
...As Cambodian soldiers and police eased their pressure on ethnic Vietnamese, Saigon grew increasingly reluctant to increase its already-swollen refugee population...
...They are vulnerable to disease, exposed to the whims of nature...
...There is evidence that Husak is being pushed from his left wing to make the conditions of membership renewal even tougher...
...Official ambivalence was reflected in the Cabinet crisis that followed the government's approval of U.S...
...Nevertheless, in May the Saigon government mounted an effective rescue operation that resettled more than 20,000 refugees in three weeks...
...Gustav Husak and the Soviet Union...
...For a decade and a half it has remained impregnable to liberals, urbanists, minority spokesmen and mass transit interests eager to share the road bonanza with other forms of transportation...
...They are crammed into makeshift compounds, trying to forget the recent past, frightened of the immediate future...
...Now, completely unexpectedly, a wealthy former highway builder speaking for a Republican administration is leading the raiding party...
...Secretary of State William P. Rogers' proposals...
...These people were the target of widespread killing and harassment campaigns tacitly condoned in the spring by government leaders...
...The original plan (or, more accurately, plans, one for Israel-Egypt and another for Israel-Jordan) was drafted in the last weeks of 1969...
...A scheme of this kind is reliably reported to have been urged on the White House by Volpe some time ago, and to have foundered on the combined opposition of the Budget Bureau (wary of expanding the trust fund concept at the expense of restricting the President's flexibility in using general revenues) and the highway lobby...
...That drive started to lose steam in June, however...
...The government is making a maximum effort to take care of these people," says Dr...
...When President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and after him Prime Minister Abdel Monem Rifai of Jordan, approved the "Rogers plan" last month, they were actually responding to a later and more limited approach, the "Rogers letter...
...But in general, as reports from other parts of the country confirm, the aim of the Prague leadership is to have a small, ideologically pure, easily controlled Communist party...
...All have been interned since April...
...Some diplomats here believe that the left wing would be pleased with fewer than a million in the Party, which now has a 1.5 million membership...
...When the process is finished, this particular factory will be able to present an almost pure Party membership of workers...
...The man, of course, is John A. Volpe, Secretary of Transportation, who in the opinion of knowledgeable congressional observers is edging ever closer to the No...
...While a major shift in resources is still a long way off, this year Congress may provide for the $5-bil-lion-a-year highway program plus a $l-billion-a-year mass transit program out of general revenues...
...The children are feverish...
...But Husak's policy has made it the stronger force—if not in political power, at least in intellectual resources...
...In one factory near Prague, almost all the white-collar members have been expelled...
...Prague's Second Party Prague—During the brief reign of reform Communism here, the more radical of Aleksandr Dubcek's supporters were calling for the creation of two Communist parties, to alternate in power and opposition...
...They have enough rice and dried fish, Nguyen says, but he is concerned about the health of his children and mother...
...Was it indeed a friendly act to save Socialism, as Husak has been saying for the past year, or was it something else, as most of the nation said at the time and still says...
...Uprooted by hate and trapped by circumstance, about 50,000 of them are awaiting repatriation by now-reluctant South Vietnamese authorities...
...But he doesn't know when he will go there, where he will arrive, or the address of his relatives...
...The wrong answer during the exchange-of-Par-ty-card discussions is enough to terminate membership...
...Nguyen's family lives on several mats spread in the cluttered playground of a primary school...
...But there are limits to what can be done...
...Fringe parking facilities, expanded bus routes on expressways and beauti-fication are short-range possibilities...
...Hundreds of families are living in terribly congested quarters...
...Yean, a leader of Cambodia's committee on refugee affairs, is keenly aware of the thousands of Nguyens in this capital and their plight...
Vol. 53 • August 1970 • No. 16
