Correspondents' Correspondence
BERGER, ARNOLD ABRAMS \ DONALD SHANOR \ JOHN COTTIN \ MICHAEL
Correspondents' Corresgonaence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Eyes on China VIENTIANE—The thaw in Sino-American...
...Tora...
...The Soviets may be so eager to obtain the Bonn parliament's ratification of last summer's Moscow treaty that they are willing to pay for it with Berlin concessions...
...Rich, white and Republican, Altorfer was plucked for the Commerce post from a successful reign as president of Pioneer Industrial Park in Peoria, Illinois (population: 104 white-owned businesses and one black caterer...
...announced that Ulbricht was not feeling well, and proceeded to read his speech for him...
...Student activists quickly seized upon this theme...
...Tora...
...In March a dissident group of black, Indian and Mexican-American members of the Advisory Council stormed into Stans' office to protest Altorfer's installation...
...The crown colony's Communist weekly, Ta Kung Pao, ran a story a short while ago on Chinese recollections of the War, headlined: "Jap Aggression Recalled...
...Brezhnev spoke of progress in the four-power ambassadorial talks...
...Meanwhile, Peking is eliciting friendly gestures from Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma...
...So does Percy, whose term is up...
...The Japanese swordsmen may win in Tokyo, but not in Taipei or Hong Kong...
...It is possible, of course, that on the morning prior to his speech Ulbricht really was stricken with a "circulatory disturbance" (the same ailment, oddly, that forced Wladyslaw Gomulka's "retirement" in Poland...
...The United States' major security interest in the Chinese vis-a-vis Laos centers around a road-building project in the north requested by the Laotian government...
...Tora!, the re-creation of the Pearl Harbor attack, did a solid box-office business for months, as did a film produced by the Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army, The Red Lantern...
...East Berlin radio was still reporting that Walter Ulbricht would deliver the opening speech...
...Japanese tourists, for example, are looked upon by Asian merchants as an "easy sale...
...Privately the Americans voice similar concern: they concede that Chinese forces in Laos have to date not acted hostilely, but are continuing to watch the construction project very closely...
...There were no recriminations...
...Ironically, a source of comfort has been the fact that Communist Chinese authorities have known for some time about the missions...
...The Congress opened a day late without explanation, and unlike four years ago no live broadcasts or telecasts of the proceedings were permitted...
...American embassy officials here are said to believe local security needs justify the continuation of the maneuvers...
...He told Stans to use the office to get racial minorities into the ownership end of the economy, because that would make them good, law-abiding, middle-class citizens...
...An estimated 14,000 Chinese workers, including several thousand soldiers, are constructing a route leading toward the Thai border...
...All an affiliate must do is hand out ombe information on how to become a capitalist...
...witness his appointment last February 16 of John H. Altorfer as Assistant Secretary for Minority Enterprise...
...Altorfer has known "Chuck" since they broke into politics together in 1964...
...The Thais have repeatedly expressed great uneasiness about the road's potential as a supply line for Communist-led guerrilla forces...
...The Congress supplied some tentative answers: Honecker's criticism of the economy, reflecting disappointment in the German Democratic Republic's failure to maintain its momentum of a few years back...
...MICHAEL BERGER...
...The Americans are still fighting in Vietnam, they have a military presence on Taiwan, and they are standing by their treaty commitments to Chiang Kai-shek," one high-placed observer said...
...Instead, he demonstrated his good faith by opening the Office of Minority Business Enterprise (ombe) in Maurice Stans' Commerce Department...
...The 78-year-old Ulbricht had also been active in the weeks following his "retirement," visiting factories and attending regional Party meetings to make final preparations for the Congress...
...Here in Hong Kong, the three most successful movies this year have all involved combat with Japan...
...Thus, the officials reason, Peking will continue to tolerate such territorial incursions as long as they are solely for intelligence-gathering purposes...
...Through collectivity, we come to terms most effectively with subjectivism, with righteousness, with viewing things through rose-colored glasses...
...Its main job is to recruit affiliates—independent ghetto-business-development firms that attempt to make the necessary loans and management expertise available to people interested in owning a business...
...We know Japanese groups all buy together," said a Taiwan clerk, "and prices for them are special—more expensive...
...In his criticism of one-man rule, for example, Honecker asserted: "Our Party adheres...
...to the basic rule of collectivity as the highest principle of work in all elected leaderships...
...Hermann Axen...
...The nation's minority leaders have more than Altorfer to document their frustration with Nixon...
...One leading university in Thailand has just established an "anti-Japan club" (even Japanese journalists on assignment in Thailand have expressed horror at the conduct of some of their overseas countrymen...
...Why Altorfer...
...In Nixon-ese, that translated as "tearing down the economic iron curtain which surrounds the black ghettos of the country...
...Unmoved by his pledge, the poor blacks voted overwhelmingly against him that year...
...Besides barely mentioning Ulbricht, it included many passages that could only be interpreted as a repudiation of the past leadership...
...But the President was not vindictive...
...A few days after Altorfer was named to the Commerce slot, it filed a report with the President complaining that "too often, a lack of access to the power structure breeds an atmosphere of frustration and anger . . . blacks, Americans of Spanish-speaking ancestry and American Indians are all too frequently unrepresented when decisions are made in the high councils of government...
...But like everyone else, Souvanna can only guess at the intentions of China's leaders...
...Conducted for years by the cia, these involve the dispatch of reconnaissance teams from northern Laos that penetrate as far as several hundred miles into China's Yunnan province...
...What's more, most of these development firms already offered the kind of information ombe gives them to disseminate...
...There are now 31, one of them bordering on bankruptcy...
...Although Ulbricht remains chairman of the Council of State?the nominal head of government?the post is expected to be merely ceremonial under the new leadership...
...They won't have any constructive opposition...
...Not so long ago, he says with barely concealed pride, he nominated a black man (the head of the local Urban League) to the board of directors of the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Peoria...
...It will be interesting to see whether the iron is made to melt in the hot air of 1972.—JOHN COTTIN The Ugly Japanese HONG KONG—The growth of Japan's economic and military strength in recent years has had its negative effects, particularly among Asians still bitter about their wartime experiences...
...several Meo teams have been captured in recent years...
...Thus has Richard Nixon dealt with the "economic iron curtain" he perceived in the course of his 1968 campaign...
...he was the gop candidate for lieutenant governor and Percy sought the governership...
...In a recent interview, the 70-year-old prince stressed China's traditionally nonag-gressive attitude toward Laos...
...Since the Meos are not sent on commando raids or sabotage efforts, and Americans do not accompany them, concern about torpedoing even the tentatively friendly steps being taken by Washington and Peking is largely discounted...
...When a Japan-China dispute over ownership of the Senkaku Islands near Okinawa prompted a demonstration outside the local Japanese consulate, the phrase "Jap Aggression" was seen on a number of banners...
...Ulbricht, who had been replaced as Party First Secretary by Erich Honecker in May on the grounds of illness, looked as sprightly as any other member of the delegation that greeted Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev the day before...
...Eyes on China VIENTIANE—The thaw in Sino-American relations has not halted U.S.-directed intelligence operations deep into Communist Chinese territory...
...The ombe, for example, has been without a director since April...
...Now the Japanese are usually in that role...
...The man himself admits some confusion...
...now he apparently hopes that China will help to restrain further North Vietnamese aggression...
...excuse to reverse the thrust of their Ping-Pong diplomacy, they can find a better one than these operations...
...In fact, he managed to outdistance Honecker, 19 years his junior, as the East German group moved forward on the runway to welcome Brezhnev at planeside...
...Team members are native Meo hill tribesmen (whose ethnic stock is prevalent in that part of China) recruited, equipped and trained to obtain information on troop movements and political developments...
...A few moments later, however, the Congress chairman...
...That wasn't enough to endear him to Nixon's Advisory Council on Minority Enterprise, however...
...I'm not sure how I got here, other than I've been a friend of Chuck Percy," he says...
...If Ulbricht was indeed ausge-bootet, the question remains why...
...And the cia will continue to use his country as a springboard for intelligence operations designed to at least make informed guesses possible.—ARNOLD ABRAMS Ulbricht's Illness' BERLIN—At 9:00 a.m...
...Brezhnev's warm endorsement of the new leadership while neglecting Ulbricht...
...on the first day of the Eighth Congress of East Germany's Socialist Unity party...
...But whether he fully grasps the plight of the black poor is highly uncertain...
...and on the part of both Honecker and Brezhnev, a more flexible position on Berlin than Ulbricht had taken...
...They think they are wiser than the collective...
...They think they are infallible and inviolable...
...The data may be helpful, but as one small-business-development firm's director said, the affiliates "are not delivering any dollars to help these people get started...
...The most telling evidence, though, was provided by Honecker's long keynote speech...
...The third movie deals with two legendary swordsmen, one Chinese, the other Japanese, who clash like Hector and Achilles...
...In addition, the embassy reportedly feels that if the Chinese want an...
...If the Chinese are looking for something to whip them with, any one of the three will do...
...Indeed, in some countries the Japanese now receive treatment previously reserved for Americans...
...A week later Ulbricht was also eased out of his second-to-last major office when the Volkskammer made Honecker his successor as chairman of East Germany's National Defense Council...
...My friend's children in school," said a recent vistor to Canton, "play war games in which the enemy always used to be the Americans...
...But it must be openly stated: There are certain comrades who have forgotten what criticism and self-criticism mean...
...Nearly two years ago Stans vowed to have 100 mesbics within a year...
...Stans lures these groups into ombe affiliation with grants from another subsidiary in his departmental conglomerate, the Economic Development Administration...
...They are started with a minimum of private capital and a three-to-one cash match from various government agencies, including the Small Business Administration...
...Make that credential...
...Before the South Vietnamese invasion, he was warning of possible open intervention by Peking in the Indochina war...
...What could be more tidy than to avoid a divisive primary by installing the popular Altorfer safely in Washington, helping the poor folks while the Percy-Ogilvie team rides through the primary and on to the general election...
...When Stans isn't pushing affiliation (there are now 33—the result of a year-long campaign), ombe plumps for another gimmick...
...But other signs pointed to a political putsch by Honecker and the apparatchiks who have risen through the Party ranks with him...
...This one is called mesbic, Nixonese for Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Company and a refinement of the Small Business Investment Company idea, mesbics are designed exclusively to fund minority business ventures...
...Significantly, Ulbricht's name was not mentioned once during the parliamentary session that removed him from control of the Defense Council...
...And reports from the mainland indicate that the Japanese are the new enemies of the people...
...Although Souvanna probably still harbors private fears about Peking's long-range designs on his neutralist government, his current stance is markedly different from the one he assumed earlier this year...
...He observed that the unhappy history of this landlocked kingdom is replete with tales of invasion by neighboring Thais, Cambodians, Burmese, and Vietnamese—but not by the Chinese...
...Despite the mystification about his appointment, Altorfer has no qualms about flashing credentials for the job of getting minorities into business...
...One participant recalls that Stans tried to soothe his indignant guests by telling them: "I know what the Negro community wants...
...He raised millions for Nixon in 1968 and is prepared to do the same again next year...
...Could the thought also have crossed the minds of Nixon and Stans, who desperately need a unified Republican party in pivotal Illinois...
...Although they lost that one, Percy wound up in Washington as a senator and Altorfer nearly unhorsed Governor Richard B. Ogilvie in the 1968 party primary Ogjlvie wants to go again next year...
...In such a situation, Walter Ulbricht's visibility becomes a distinct liability.—DONALD SHANOR Nixon Stans-still WASHINGTON—When Richard M. Nixon was running for the White House in 1968, he proposed a plan to wipe out poverty: Simply hoist the poor into the middle class by giving them all businesses to run...
...Criticism and self-criticism in the Leninist sense promote internal democracy in the Party...
...The resident Japanese businessmen and officials, however, often incite local animosity with their arrogant posture...
...Honecker, for the first time, dropped the old Ulbricht formula of a "special political entity" and omitted the customary clause about West Berlin being in East German territory...
...Two endings to the story reportedly have been produced, each appropriate to a particular audience...
...According to the official press service, the 500 representatives in the chamber rose to their feet and wildly applauded Honecker's appointment to the position Ulbricht had held since 1960, when he created the Council...
...Stans knows a lot about making money...
...And it is generally assumed that he will lose even this last token of power after the national elections, now scheduled for November 14...
Vol. 54 • July 1971 • No. 14
