Correspondents' Correspondence GEORGE G. ECKSTEIN & DONALD KIRK & ARNOLD ABRAMS

...underneath are only dead bureaucrats and office seekers for whom the Party is primarily a means to get and hold a job...

...As a result, the Soviet economy is very inefficient, burdened by much unproductive overemployment...

...While he does not know West Germany's internal situation well enough to judge the Chancellor's domestic policies, he thinks Brandt has a superior grasp of the basic issues of our time, that he knows the Communist mind, and that he performs best when under attack...

...He appeared taller than I had remembered him, too, but he did not look well, despite the cure he was taking for a spine condition that has been plaguing him...

...The workers' councils in the factories are useful, but he does not consider them the panacea that many hold them to be: They work out well where a sensible leadership is working with competent plant managers...

...We are opposed to relations with China while Communist terrorists are threatening our towns and villages...

...the working class no longer exists in the old sense...

...Djilas at Home Belgrade - The Milovan Djilas I visited recently at a small resort on the Dalmatian coast, not far from his native Montenegro, seemed a different man from the Djilas I had met in the United States three years ago, just as the sunny terrace facing the blue Adriatic contrasted with that wintry Manhattan...

...Significantly, Thanat lost his job in the coup, despite his skill as a negotiator and his past success in engineering the Thai-American alliance...

...Moreover, there is still too much bureaucracy, taxes are very steep, and foreign debt is high in relation to the Gross National Product...

...Its depth and potential effect is hard to judge, he cautioned, but the political monopoly of the Party no longer seems so decisive...

...When or how this will happen, he doesn't know...

...Another factor contributing to the imposition of military rule in this sensitive period of declining American aid and influence was the demand made by three opposition deputies, at a press conference held only a week before the coup, that Thailand extend diplomatic recognition to China...

...We were not in favor of China's joining the United Nations while Taiwan was expelled...

...continued to decrease its investment here and to withdraw from the Indo-chinese theater...

...Since the information these sources provide is usually secondhand and often of questionable reliability, such sleuthing requires infinite patience and close attention to minute details: Missing adjectives, indirect criticisms and altered lineups at diplomatic receptions can be key clues to major happenings...

...China even now is building a road through Laos to Thailand's frontier," said Thanom...

...He noted that Yugoslavia's diminutive New Left preaches mainly a return to purer Marxism, and the official attitude toward it is one of manipulation instead of confrontation...

...Moreover, Thanom and General Prapas had organized their own United Thai People's party (UTPP) to marshal support in the first parliamentary election in February 1969...

...A group of students held a meeting to discuss the implications of the takeover, but dispersed when a university administrator advised them to leave...

...Television programs beamed from Canton, about 90 miles northwest of Hong Kong, give China-watchers another opportunity to actually observe the mainland...

...He immediately covered the question mark with his finger: Having grown up in the tradition of slow, laborious development of political theory and organization, he sees the shapleless emotional movement of upper-middle-class students as a passing phenomenon comparable to the anarchist waves of the 19th century...

...Drenched by frequent rains, they hoped to learn why Peking's National Day parade had been called off...

...But Djilas is confident that the rigid Soviet crust will eventually be penetrated...

...The danger remains, however, that Thanom's authoritarian gesture will only heighten tensions and thus speed the revolution he fears.??Donald Kirk Chinese Puzzles Hong Kong????The continuing mystery over the disappearance of Lin Piao, former heir apparent to Mao Tse-tung, illustrates the prime difficulty of that dubious art called China-watching: There is plenty to watch but little is seen...

...Then reports began surfacing about the disappearance of six other Politburo members and most of Peking's top military leaders...

...Of the Western leaders, Djilas rated Willy Brandt most highly, describing him as an "excellent man...

...In any event, he said, too many decisions are coming from above, and not enough initiative is left to the managers of individual enterprises...

...Few China-watchers accepted Peking's official explanation about simplifying the celebration????a move equivalent to Washington's canceling Presidential inauguration ceremonies????erely for economy reasons...

...Mao subsequently appeared at a reception for Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, but Lin has not been seen publicly since early June...

...Yet, ironically, it was they who inspired the government's anger more than the bribe-hungry UTPP members, whose eagerness for private slush funds resembled that of the military rulers themselves...

...To piece together the jigsaw puzzle of Chinese domestic politics, journalists and diplomats here are constantly monitoring broadcasts, reading propaganda, interviewing refugees and talking to each other...

...The combination of weak signals and mountainous terrain compels would-be viewers to venture into the nearby New Territories, select a mountain-top site, then station a portable set and high antenna upon it...

...the crash of a Chinese Air Force jet deep in Mongolia, killing its nine passengers...

...This, he feels, is true both in the East and the West...

...And last month a joint editorial in Peking's major publications charged that "chieftains of opportunist lines" were plotting against Communist unity in China...

...Once Parliament met, Prapas calculated that he could buy or intimidate enough deputies to win passage of key legislation...

...Still, as a patriot and a prophet, he suffers from having his writings banned in his own country...

...After years in prison, he has attained a detachment and serenity that give his thoughts and opinions special value...

...The mere thought of detente with China was enough to provoke Thanom and Prapas, for they still view Peking as their foremost enemy...

...Djilas feels the several hundred thousand Yugoslav workers abroad would be a greater benefit to the economy if they could more readily invest their savings in small enterprises of their own...

...Indeed, he foresees no quiet in our lifetime.????George G. Eckstein Casual Coup Bangkok????Perhaps the most revealing feature of Thailand's recent reversion to total dictatorial rule was the casualness with which it was executed by the government and accepted by the people as a fait accompli...

...Nonetheless, even at 60, he has retained a boyish smile, and his eyes bespoke a compassionate humor...

...In this respect, he argues, the USSR has taken over Germany's role in the first half of the 20th century...

...In Russia, Djilas sees much intellectual and political ferment at work within the new managerial class...

...In practice, the country was already under the control of Thanom, Deputy Prime Minster Prapas Charusathira, and the small clique of senior military officers named to the governing National Executive Council the day after the coup...

...Besides wanting to preserve his own intellectual and moral probity, Djilas is aware that the interest his ideas have stirred in the outside world contributes to his physical security at home in Yugoslavia...

...It was hard to visualize this sensitive man as a tough revolutionary, or to perceive the fiercely independent spirit behind his gentle features...

...The Party is largely an empty shell, drained of all vitality: Different groups and individuals compete for power at the top...

...He was just carrying to a logical conclusion what Thai officials had been saying about a 'dialogue' with Peking," observed an American resident here...

...Travelers from the mainland said rumors there allege that Lin had attempted to assassinate Mao and was now either under house arrest or dead...

...Though there was still a certain shyness about him, he was more at ease on his home ground...

...Although he took the precaution of stationing tanks at strategic locations and calling in paratroops to bolster regular police patrols, there was scarcely a murmur of protest...

...Serious opponents????those who thought the old regime was basically rotten and ought to go?were a very small minority, possibly a dozen or so out of 217 elected deputies...

...they become yet another cumbersome mechanism where this is not the case...

...Once you start worrying about the possible consequences of every word or about how a phrase might be interpreted, Djilas explained, you lose your peace of mind and get sucked into corrupting compromises...

...Those, too, made a lot of noise, but in his judgment left no permanent mark on history...

...Arnold Abrams...

...The Prime Minister, a slight figure behind gold-rimmed spectacles, also accused the representatives in Parliament of undermining "law and order" and inciting students to oppose the government...

...The opposition Democratic party, led by Seni Pramoj, a polished "liberal" of royal blood who had always opposed military rule, swept all the seats in Bangkok...

...Biting winds, chilly weather and the prospect of seeing nothing more than several hours of Chinese opera and stale propaganda footage normally keeps the Hong Kong audience down...

...He strongly emphasized that the world is undergoing profound social change, and that neither the cold war dogmas nor the old Socialist concepts are adequate today...

...To their disappointment, a much-heralded "special announcement" turned out to be Premier Chou En-lai's welcome to foreign delegations, followed by an Albanian gymnastics display...

...His remarks constituted an admission of the government's failure to stem insurgency in the northern provinces...

...He feels that the regime, by allowing him to publish abroad, may also want to demonstrate to the world its relatively permissive nature...

...and the escape of former Chairman of the Republic Liu Shao-ch'i to Russia...

...The private sector, however, consisting of small farms (up to 25 acres), artisans, tourist inns, and service shops, seems to him rather marginal...

...Because the leadership arrangement in the parade's reviewing stand traditionally reflects the formal pecking order of power, initial speculation centered around the health of Chairman Mao, 77, and Defense Minister Lin, 64...

...He has no need for the dialectical contortions of other oppositional thinkers in the East????the Kolakovskis, Lukacses, Havemanns...

...The spokesman, leader of a tiny party called the United Economic Front, Thep Joti-nuchit????who visited Peking several years ago and subsequently served a long prison term????also recommended resuming trade with China as a means of easing tensions between the two countries...

...If the bloodless "coup against Parliament" seemed to have little impact here, it was because most citizens felt that nothing had really changed...

...not even his historical novel about Montenegro can be printed here...

...In fact, lower-house opposition was virtually negligible last year...

...The Communist encroachment in the north was Thanom's final justification for the coup: "It is necessary for the government to introduce strong measures to keep the situation from deteriorating further...

...Some of the deputies made nasty attacks on Prapas and myself," complained Thanom at a press conference held to explain the coup...

...I brought Djilas a copy of my book, published last year in West Germany, USA: The End of the New Left...

...But the UTPP won an easy plurality because of its hold over the countryside, where impressionable peasants tended to vote as government administrators advised them to...

...And they tried to interfere with the administration of their home districts...

...On the other hand, Djilas was greatly impressed by the Cox report on the Columbia rebellion, its analysis and recommendations...

...As Seni noted, the real troublemakers were members of the progovernment UTPP, who insisted on pork-barrel doles for their home districts as a precondition to ordering the budget bill out of a special "scrutiny committee...

...Beside him, the rotund, porcine Prapas, sporting a pencil-line mustache and sunglasses, leaned back in his chair and silently puffed on a cigarette...

...The Constitution had provided only for the election of a lower house of Parliament—the upper house was appointed by the King????and had given the regime the right to veto any legislation it found distasteful...

...American diplomats were fond of telling correspondents that the nation was "well on the way toward establishing a democratic system...

...In recent months the guerrillas have easily won over many mountain tribesmen who regard the lowland Thais as marauding tax collectors...

...official was always careful to qualify his praise for Thai progress by pointing out that every deputy knew he could offer no more than limited, almost token, opposition?or risk losing his job...

...One U.S...

...His strength is his directness rather than subtlety, his use of the concrete instead of the abstract...

...He was transferred some time ago, though, and the American embassy, as usual, was caught completely by surprise when Thanom and Prapas, vexed by prolonged debate over the budget bill in the lower house, finally decided they had had enough of democracy and would sanction nothing but total support for their policies...

...As the scraps of evidence about Peking's latest power struggle mounted, Hong Kong's China-watchers settled down for an unusually hot winter of painstaking detective work...

...And it is true that for months Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman had been urging his nation to "look elsewhere for friends" if the U.S...

...Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachom simply declared in a nationwide radio broadcast that he had abolished the Parliament, suspended the Constitution, dissolved the Cabinet, and imposed martial law...

...But more is involved than settling in a soft chair and turning on the tube...

...At the moment, Djilas observed, pressures for change are being deflected and delayed by Russia's imperialist activities...

...the social and political struggle expresses itself in subtle shifts in the bureaucracy and in various managerial groups...

...Yet he declared at the outset, simply and without bravado, that he would speak his mind freely and openly with his foreign guests...

...In October, however, American television crews and a large number of Sinologists spent several nights huddled miserably on the high sites...

...And, of course, he regrets that he is again being forbidden to visit the Western European universities that have invited him to lecture...

...In Djilas' view, Yugoslavia is not a Socialist state, but a mixed system, experimenting with various forms of organization and control, striving to increase economic efficiency...

...Without explicitly saying so, Djilas implied that the New Left is a symptom of our political problems even though it does not contribute to their solution...

...We have to comprehend the new realities and rethink our positions, he suggested: There are no simple class antagonisms as in the last century...

...Even though they can now go behind the Bamboo Curtain, the closed nature of Mao's society forces this colony's China-watchers to do far less looking than listening and reading...