Correspondents' Correspondence

...As every Yugoslavian schoolboy knows, Tito organized and led the Partisan troops that drove out the Germans in World War II, stood up to Stalin and saved his nation from Soviet intervention in 1948, decentralized the economy and promoted "self-management Socialism" at home, and created an international coalition of nonaligned "Third World" states abroad...

...Yugoslavia, however, is by no means a workers' paradise: Poverty, inflation, unemployment, privileged elites-all the problems of a developing country-burden the nation's 21 million people...

...It is the only Communist country where the word "defection" has no meaning...

...Suggesting that it is unrepresentative and ought to be removed is nothing less than treason under the martial law that has prevailed there for more than two decades...

...Far from being contrived glorification, the "cult" of Tito appears to have popular roots...

...Tito at 80 Belgrade-Celebrating his 80th birthday last month at a mass youth rally in this city's Partizan Stadium, President Josip Broz Tito quipped, "I'm the only man in Yugoslavia who can't lie about his age...

...and his life-or at least the next 15 years of it-may be lost as well.-arnold Abrams UAW vs...

...Authorities had linked Hsieh with the mysterious bombings of an American bank branch and a U.S...

...he explained...

...U.S...

...Hsieh, whom I met in Taipei in 1970 (see "Taiwan's Dissenters," NL, April 27, 1970), was first jailed from 1964-69 for helping to publish "A Declaration of Formosans," a political tract suggesting that the island be ruled by its native inhabitants...

...In the name of freedom and the cause of anti-Communism, the Chiang regime restricts civil liberties and pursues some of the same practices as Communist governments...

...In cafes and private homes, Yugoslavs mute their criticism of Tito, since one can still be arrested for slandering the President of the Federal Republic...

...Occasionally, Tito hints at retirement, as during the Croation crisis when he told his senior colleagues, "I have had just about enough of power and authority...

...His popularity is documented by the simple but significant fact that the nation's borders are open to the West as well as the East...

...government library on Taiwan...

...Nevertheless, the prosecution recommended death, and a 15-year sentence was recently handed down, according to reports from highly reliable sources...

...The charges were not only rigged but absurd in the light of his goal of independence...

...When a foreign correspondent recently wrote, incorrectly, that Tito's statue in his native village of Kumrovec had been pulled down by disgruntled countrymen, the government press office promptly flew reporters there to view the statue, standing straight and undamaged...

...Equally important, workers councils in factories and offices do have a voice in management...

...Yugoslavs say their leader had the wisdom and the courage after 1948 to base his rule on popular will...

...Hsieh, a 37-year-old former university instructor, has done both...

...I have no freedom to lose, not as long as I stay on Taiwan and Taiwan stays in the hands of this government...

...We want them in November," says Douglas Fraser, a UAW vice president...

...there are hundreds of Taiwanese political prisoners, and some have reportedly been executed...

...his collected speeches are widely published...

...And though the compulsion to quote him in print or official conversation seems slight, the bureaucracy and indeed many citizens are highly sensitive to what is said about him...

...Yet the marshal, who is affectionately called Start ("the old man") by his people, still defies his age, seeming to remain mentally and physically tireless...

...Increasingly, parliament and the press speak as the loyal opposition and public defender...

...Though some members have complained about the use of union funds for the anti-Wallace effort, UAW leaders hope the rank and file will forget, or at least forgive, and be persuaded to vote for the Democratic nominee...

...Well, whatever Hsieh had, it is gone now...

...That is nothing...

...Union leaders were fully aware of the Alabama governor's strength here, deriving from widespread anger and frustration directed against the institutions he has attacked so vigorously...

...Criticizing the government is a risky proposition on Taiwan...

...to his friends, a visionary revolutionist...

...Their dilemma, in fact, was a textbook case in the growing rift between them and their membership...

...His crime is his unyielding opposition to the domination of Taiwan's 12 million native inhabitants by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang party, which represents about 2 million losers of China's civil war who were driven from their homeland in 1949...

...Hsieh was arrested again, along with another Peng associate, in February 1971...

...He was not afraid to discuss such things openly with a journalist, Hsieh said, because he no longer had anything to lose...

...Though the real center of power is the Party apparatus, the more than a million members of the League of Communists are split into enough factions that most dissenting views are expressed...

...Jonathan Cottin...

...The way I must live-Is that freedom...

...Certainly it is not Tito's revolutionary mystique that draws the masses...

...Its only saving graces are its fundamental clumsiness and ineptitude, about which I learned in a long, late-night interview with Hsieh two years ago...

...Wallace Detroit-Weeks before George Wallace won 51 per cent of the vote in the Michigan primary, there were plenty of long faces around Solidarity House, headquarters of the United Auto Workers (UAW...

...Our main goal is a change of President...

...To his enemies, particularly among active emigres, he is a ruthless autocrat...

...Nonetheless, as far as outsiders know, there is no samizdat here about Titoism, and certainly no negative words in the establishment press...

...And he continues to rule his country with a firm hand, as he demonstrated this past year by forcefully putting down a nationalist upsurge in Croatia...

...And when the commanding figure of Tito finally passes from the scene, Yugoslavia may join the ranks of small, relatively poor nations struggling for a secure, quiet place in the sun...

...They like to keep secrets on Taiwan...

...Today, the octogenarian is a recognized world statesman whose declarations on foreign affairs command attention in the international press and whose counsel is sought by powerful nations...

...Yugoslavia's Communist party presented him with his second Order of National Hero in recognition of his many accomplishments...

...his birthday was a national event...

...to Yugoslavs generally, a warrior hero, ruling eminence and, perhaps, surrogate father...

...it is more like that of de Gaulle than Stalin...

...And they knew they would be unable to stop him...

...Inevitably, a personality cult has grown up around Tito: His photographs hang in shops and factories...

...My freedom...

...The second arrest was a secret affair, as was the trial, the charges and the judge's identity...

...The foremost figure in that case was Professor Peng Ming-min, who served his jail sentence, subsequently escaped from the island, and now is at the University of Michigan...

...But reports throughout the state indicated so much Wallace support that open warfare would have been foolhardy...

...that is why he has spent most of the last decade in prison...

...Hsieh's case is not unusual, of course...

...UAW political-action strategists considered launching a massive anti-Wallace campaign among the union's 600,000 members in Michigan...

...As a compromise, some officials made a low-key pitch for Hubert Humphrey or George Mc-Govern-both of whom had been endorsed by the UAW state leadership-and the union printed up 300,000 brochures criticizing Wallace's Alabama labor record...

...His story is noteworthy, though, for what it reveals about the petty dictatorship we have supported so avidly for two decades...

...officials in Taipei know Hsieh and are fully aware of these details, but are unwilling or unable to interfere in the matter...

...An issue of the Ljubljana university student newspaper was banned because it objected to the marshal's attending the extravagant 2,500th anniversary fete in Iran...

...This has given rise to speculation that the military may yet play a strong political role should a civilian post-Tito leadership falter.-Mark Hopkins Taiwanese Freedom Hong Kong-Somewhere on the island of Taiwan, often described by its leaders as a "bastion of freedom," Hsieh Tsung-nin languishes incommunicado behind prison bars while his jailors weigh the merits of keeping him locked up for 15 years...

...One Yugoslav speculated that the country enjoys a more comfortable living standard today than most Marxist states partly because Tito himself has never equated Socialism with proletarian deprivation...

...His well-publicized love of fine clothes, villas and automobiles dates back to his early days in the Communist underground, and he has few qualms about revealing his present luxurious surroundings...

...This spring, after Tito's disappearance for three months to his Brioni Island retreat spawned rumors that he had suffered a heart attack or stroke, Tito said he could go anytime and the Yugoslav system would survive...

...He has become a legend, a "phenomenon"-as one Yugoslav journalist put it-of the century...

...But the collective Presidency-a body that is supposed to assume greater responsibility for managing the country-has not proven its competence...

...The Kremlin took time out from its talks with visiting President Nixon to observe Tito's birthday by awarding him the Order of Lenin, the Soviets' highest decoration...

...they're just not very good at it...