Correspondents' Correspondence

...While some observers here are accusing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of practicing "royal diplomacy," most see the trip as a kind of national festival equivalent to the 1964 Summer Olympics, Expo '70 and the Winter Olympics next year...

...Besides, Rumania doesn't need such props for its independence—at least not if it can successfully diversify its trade and win the favor of both Washington and Peking by acting as their intermediary.—DONALD R. SHANOR Voice from the Tomb PARIS—Charles de Gaulle was already a figure from the past when he occupied the Presidency...

...It gives us a chance to forget our daily problems—high prices, pollution—and concentrate on a glamorous 'star.' Of course, it also enables Prime Minister Eisaku Sato to shift the people's attention away from touchy political issues...

...Therefore, they should not be allowed to make decisions on issues of vital importance to permanent residents...

...And they have called attention to the fact that although Shinto is no longer the "national" religion, it is still practiced in the traditional way within the royal family...

...If 18-year-olds were given the vote, NIU students could match the "townies" in numerical strength at the polls and gain control of three of the city's seven wards...

...The number of threats against Brandt's life, moreover, has increased so alarmingly that it is now kept secret...

...De Gaulle rants against other politicians, the Republic, the press, the political parties, the unions and the universities...

...In the Midwest, for example, students anticipating the enfranchisement of 18-year-olds have shown signs of local political interest in Ann Arbor, Michigan...

...Meanwhile, the Right-wing extremists and conservatives who support Franz Josef Strauss' Christian Social Union have stepped up their attacks on the Chancellor and his foreign minister, Walter Scheel...

...Only de Gaulle, "le personnage d'exception," is ever right, a giant among pygmies, Prospero in a land of Calibans...

...He had planned to write three volumes...

...Even the age-old villain in East Germany poses no real threat anymore...

...After the Crisis FRANKFURT—While the decision to float the mark appears to have succeeded, at least temporarily, in stemming the international currency crisis, it has left West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats in serious trouble at home...

...The directors of the state owned and operated radio and television networks are considering the adoption of proposals that would prohibit their newsmen from offering any editorial opinion on political matters...

...And while professional and working-class people have begun to protest the economic pinch, the country is by no means in a recession, nor is there any significant unemployment...

...The resignation of Finance Minister Alex Moller, the first member of Brandt's Cabinet to quit, suggests that some top officials may be losing faith in the government...

...Opponents of the SPD have mounted a particularly strong campaign to put the nation's "liberal" news media under tight controls...

...To help the Rumanians pay for this assistance, China has granted Bucharest a $250-300 million loan, featuring a $100 million hard-currency provision and long-term repayment at little or no interest...

...The students complain that Clabaugh and his supporters portray them in a strangely inconsistent fashion: sometimes as "wild-eyed radicals" intent on taking over their college town...

...He had time to complete only two chapters of Volume II, L'Effort, before he died...

...Student voters might not matter much in Chicago, but the giant University of Illinois student body would form quite a bloc in Champaign-Urbana...

...Readers also learned that though Hirohito (he is never called by this name in Japanese, but rather "Tenno Heika"—Imperial Majesty) is 70 years old, he looks "younger than his age," and weighs a constant 143 pounds...

...The same is true here in tiny DeKalb, site of Northern Illinois University...

...Paul Reynaud, who first brought de Gaulle into public life, and others to whom the General might have felt indebted, are treated with disdain...

...and sometimes as children who have their real interests back home with their families...

...I am glad the Emperor is getting the chance to go abroad for the first time in 50 years," said a young businessman, "but I hope it doesn't turn into anything political...

...They will supervise the construction of plants for the manufacture of textile, glass and asbestos products...

...Similarly, the opposition of some European groups, particularly in Holland, to the Emperor's visit this fall has received scant attention in the Japanese press...

...Princess Michiko, the daughter of a famous industrialist and the first commoner to enter the royal family...

...Despite his humanization by the media, most Japanese still treat the Emperor with infinite delicacy in public...

...he does not seem to have achieved very much other than a lowering of the political temperature...

...Columbus, Ohio...

...Even the Rumanians are not likely to undertake so bold a provocation of the Russians as the setting up of Chinese military factories...

...Volume I, Le Renouveau, appeared in 1970...

...He rarely makes headlines...

...If Pompidou's premiership was exceptionally long, this was due to exceptional circumstances...

...This is the style of the great perfidies...

...But whatever the attitude of the Japanese people, the Emperor remains, as always, a passive figure with an important image, subject to the control—or manipulation—of others.—MICHAEL BERGER Wild-Eyed Electorate...

...It is rumored that after his trip to Britain in 1921, the Emperor began eating an "English breakfast" of bacon and eggs, but the imperial staff claims this is not so...

...Most students have left the barricades behind, returning to their studies, romance, movies, music, and wine (instead of pot...

...The legislature is considering a bill that would prevent an individual from gaining a new voting residence merely by attending a college, forcing him to vote in his home town...

...In fact, he has never specified what he wants to eat in his whole adult life...

...We are careful, perhaps too careful," commented one reporter...

...now that Walter Ulbricht has retired, he seems a statesman-like, almost friendly, figure...

...Three or four of his ministers receive an approving pat on the head, but there is neither appreciation nor even a mention of the Gaullist party, the faithful organizers and militants who campaigned and got the vote out in every election and referendum...

...Under these regulations, broadcasters could report only the statements of public figures, each man's commentary would have to be presented as his personal observation and, where possible, the views of the opposition would follow immediately afterwards...

...and Madison, Wisconsin...

...Indeed, the accommodation of governmental and religious obligations was an important element in the planning of the Emperor's European itinerary, and he will be away between two Shinto holy days...

...If his premiership was reasonably successful, it was because he could not really fail—he had de Gaulle above him and he was propped up from below by the masses' loyalty to the General...

...Last time, at the end of the Weimar Republic, they prepared the way for fascism...

...Japanese need such events, because we have little else to focus on in terms of national pride," says Kunio Naito, a veteran political reporter for the Mainichi newspaper...

...No longer do West Germans feel compelled to band together against their foreign enemies...

...Nonetheless, he is as shrewd as he is cool—shrewder and more empirical than de Gaulle, as the British have discovered in negotiating their membership to the European Economic Community.—RAY ALAN Humanizing Hirohito TOKYO—The relationship between Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese people has never been quite the same since that New Year's Day in 1946 when he declared that he was, after all, only human...

...Even before the recent run on the mark, almost all of the state elections showed the Social Democratic party (SPD) losing ground to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU...

...As for Pompidou, de Gaulle's ostentatious failure to give him "a diploma of competence and fidelity" (as Le Monde put it) attracted the attention of all serious observers of the French political scene when Le Renouveau appeared...

...But L'Effort made little political impact, even among nostalgic Gaullists, and the last echoes of this voice from the tomb have already died away...

...The proposed legislation is sponsored by Representative Charles Cla-baugh, a Republican from Champaign—the home of the University of Illinois...

...embassy insists that there have been no meetings between the American and Chinese ambassadors here except for cocktail-party chats...

...Still, the conservative opposition is determined to make political capital of any potential unrest, and its prospects of regaining power in the 1973 national elections look good...

...today it seems as if he died years ago...

...A few months ago a cartoon in Le Canard Enchaine showed President Pompidou comfortably installed in a hammock slung between statues of Napoleon I and de Gaulle...

...DEKALB, ILLINOIS—A specter is haunting the college towns of America, the specter of Berkeley, where University of California students helped elect a mayor and three city councilmen this spring...

...L'Effort is concerned with the internal politics of the Gaullist regime...

...The measure has already passed the lower house (114-43) and is given a good chance of passage in the Senate...

...Voters who have supported the liberal policies of the SPD for years are now swinging over to the conservatives...

...General de Gaulle recently intervened in French politics again, briefly, when Plon published the incomplete second volume of what might be called his "Presidential" memoirs...

...Even before the trip was announced, the Emperor's day-to-day activities were being publicized by regular television, radio, newspaper and magazine coverage, often featuring his grandchildren and Crown Prince Akihito's attractive wife...

...The general reaction was typified by one young girl who responded to the news with a casual, "That's nice...

...Clabaugh told his colleagues, "You can read in the newspapers about student leaders, most of them wild-eyed radicals, who are laying plans to have students register to defeat or elect certain candidates...

...The Emperor eats what is put before him...

...The general's brother-in-law, Jacques Vendroux, jabbing at both President Georges Pompidou and Premier Jacques Chaban-Del-mas, has described the present governmental majority as haphazard, excessively confused and certainly not Gaullist...

...Government supporters are referred to less and less as "Gaullists...

...Trade between the two countries has grown steadily, from $4 million in 1962, when the Rumanians were still cautious about violating the Soviet-led quarantine of China, to $27 million in 1969, the last year for which figures are available...

...The U.S...

...Thus the announcement that he and Empress Nagako would visit seven European countries in the fall—an unprecedented move that would have stirred bitter controversy in prewar days—was greeted with almost unanimous public approval...

...Typical human interest stories have been concerned with the Emperor's diet and daily schedule...

...One hears occasional ritual references to Gaullism in political speeches, just as one sometimes hears a reference to the Church, but it is hard to say what either stands for nowadays or which is more remote from the concerns of the average Frenchman...

...Since Brandt's conservative opponents also have little interest in talking to anyone, the tentative move toward rapprochement between the two Ger-manies seems likely to be blunted...

...it was not a tribute to the resources of Pompidou's personality...

...Le Monde observed of de Gaulle's comments on Pompidou: "One could hardly say less in so many words, or insinuate more in so few...

...He sees no purpose in contacts between the two German states unless Bonn and its allies are willing to grant full diplomatic recognition to the gdr and settle the Berlin situation on the East's terms...

...efforts to improve Sino-American relations...

...Many seem to feel that Brandt's foreign policy victories have been more than offset by his neglect of domestic problems...

...The 1970 total is reliably estimated to be 50 per cent higher, and a similar increase is predicted for the current year...

...One remains impressed by de Gaulle's monumental vanity—and his cyclopean ingratitude...

...In fact, though, many students—especially graduate students—are married, and some have children of their own...

...Like most young couples they may live in apartments and pay no property taxes, but they will frequently stay in town for as long as many of the mobile young executives who are transferred in and out of the communities surrounding universities.-HARVEY D. SHAPIRO...

...In addition, preparations for the trip have reminded many Japanese that the Emperor, who was stripped of his political power by the postwar Constitution, continues to formally approve government appointments and documents...

...There has also been speculation that the textile, glass and asbestos plants the Chinese will build here may do more than satisfy Rumanian consumer demands: All these materials, it is noted, could be used in the production of military equipment, and Rumania's wish to be more independent of Moscow in defense matters is well-known...

...But such conjectures are highly implausible...

...What is more, since students pay no property taxes and often live in tax-exempt dorms, they do not deserve an equal voice in deciding how to spend the taxpayers' money...

...The only thing we never serve him," said the imperial chef, "is globefish . . . because it could be poisonous...

...There is no comfort here for those who fell for the propaganda line that Pompidou was de Gaulle's choice for the Presidency...

...The 1969 figure for China represented only 2.5 per cent of Rumania's trade—compared to a 25 per cent share for the Soviet Union —but the trend is clear: By diversifying its economic ties, Rumania hopes to shore up its political independence against pressure from the Russians...

...De Gaulle admits that he intended Pompidou to assist him only during a specific phase of his regime...

...Shukan Shincho magazine interviewed the grocers and butchers who serve the imperial family, and discovered that though the food is carefully selected, nothing out of the ordinary is served in the Palace...

...Today there is no Hitler around, but there are plenty of politicians who don't want their country to become too liberal.HANSJUERGEN ROSENBAUER Rumania in the Middle BUCHARESTBucharest—The black Mercedes limousine of Communist China's ambassador is getting hard service here this spring...

...Recent studies of public attitudes toward the imperial family reveal that though most Japanese- per cent or more—favor the humaniza-tion of Hirohito and his continuance as a national symbol, they want him to remain merely a figurehead...

...They threaten to strike if the new rules are implemented...

...Not so long ago, Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Er-hard could successfully ridicule him or describe him in the most dire terms as the archenemy who wanted to sneak through the iron curtain and take away every farmer's cow and every worker's home...

...He is still there, playing everything cool...

...Further advancing the relationship with Peking, President and Party chief Nicolae Ceausescu spoke warmly of China last month in a four-hour speech commemorating his Party's 50th anniversary The Rumanian leader once again urged that the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) make it possible for other nations to join, defended Rumania's exchanges of military delegations with China and praised U.S...

...After years of relative political calm in West Germany, despite chronic student unrest and the usual complaints about Axel Springer's press empire, the new polarization of Left and Right comes as something of a surprise...

...Here in Illinois some politicians are hoping to eliminate this threat to their power before it can get off the ground...

...He warned legislators opposing his bill that "the curse may fall on you...

...It is a pathetic little work, though rich in what French commentators have called "posthumous fury...

...Editing or cutting interviews without the permission of the subject would be forbidden, and no interview could be aired without a preceding summary of the scope of the whole story...

...Pompidou, however, merely smiles at such criticism, and the man in the street couldn't care less...

...Finally, radio and tv journalists would not be allowed to quote any person without his express permission—a condition they say would make their job impossible...

...Ulbricht's successor, Erich Hon-ecker, born in the Saarland—now part of the West, where his sisters still live—may become the new bad-man...

...But diplomatic sources claim that Ceausescu raised the China issue during his Washington meeting with President Nixon last fall, and that since then frequent visits by Rumanian delegations to China have provided him with ample opportunity to act as a go-between...

...sensibly enough, since most party labels here are meaningless, the fashionable term for them is simply la majorite...

...Ironically, one of the major sources of dissension within the Federal Republic is its remarkably successful reconciliation with the rest of the world...

...The first Chinese technicians to set foot in Eastern Europe (except, of course, for Albania) since the Sino-Soviet break are expected here soon...

...I kept encountering the car—and Chinese diplomats and journalists—all over town: at the Foreign Office, at diplomatic receptions, and at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Rumanian Communist party...

...Megalomania is not his disease...

...While the United States has just taken its initial steps toward improving relations with China, Rumania is already enjoying the political and economic benefits of friendship with Peking...

...Campus residents reply that they, too, must obey laws passed by city councils—often, as in the case of liquor laws and curfews, in matters immediately affecting their daily lives...

...The Emperor," reported Bungei Shunju magazine, "neither smokes nor drinks . . . shaves with an electric razor . . . lives in Western style . . . does not like brown suits . . . usually retires around 10 p.m...

...and arises at 7 a.m., and spends most of his routine time signing documents frcm the government ( 1,255 signings two years ago) and giving audiences (287 in 1969...

...Then Brandt opened the dialogue with the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and suddenly the villain became human...

...A Sankei newspaper poll of 1200 readers, taken earlier this year, found that 70 per cent favored this publicity...

...Many who fear such developments argue that students are only transients who stay for four years, if that, and then move on...

...Ceausescu is widely considered a key figure in the efforts to bring Washington and Peking together...

...In L'Effort he at last sprinkled a little tart praise on his former premier, while making it clear that he considered Pompidou's competence and usefulness limited...

...When Red Chinese papers called Hirohito a "war criminal" earlier this year, only one Japanese paper—a Right-wing weekly—published the report, using it to launch a verbal counterattack against the Communist regime...

...Thus, after finally gaining control of the government for the second time in Germany's history, the Social Democrats are in danger of failing again...