Correspondents' Correspondence

...As for Wallace, while remaining an extremely unlikely nominee, he obviously plans to throw his weight about in party affairs during the next two years...

...He ignored the prosperous scene in the county after the transformation of its mountains and rivers, and chose dry riverbeds strewn with rocks...

...The fracas arose over a motion drafted by the Christian Democrats (CD) and the Socialists which condemned the Spanish regime for garroting a Basque anarchist and harassing the Bishop of Bilbao, a defender of Basque irredentism...

...Two years ago, Italian Christian Democrat Franco Maria Malfatti resigned as president of the EEC's theoretically prestigious Executive Commission to run for Parliament in his own country...

...How better to assess the Senator's chances of being elected than to determine his UQ...

...He ignored busy motor traffic on the highways and picked only ox-carts and wheelbarrows...

...China specialist Owen Lattimore-its primary target may well be the 76-year-old Premier, the man most identified with the influx of foreigners over the past two or three years...

...Moreover, when a member nation has a new government (as is now the case with Britain, Belgium, West Germany, France and Italy) previous deals frequently must be scrapped and fresh discussions begun...

...No doubt Harris was correct in his finding that Kennedy and Wallace dominate the Preference Ratings among Democrats...

...Similarly, on the eve of the '72 Democratic convention, Gallup recorded a Preference Rating of 46 per cent for McGovern, three points ahead of Hubert Humphrey, who was by then the only serious rival surviving...

...Here again it can hardly be doubted that access to the UQ of each candidate might have decisively affected the balloting...

...China watchers never seem to tire of playing this sort of game...

...The Preference Ratings of Barry Goldwater in '64 and George Mc-Govern in '72 looked, by convention time, respectable enough to justify their nominations...

...Preference Ratings are established by handing voters registered in a particular party a card listing its possible Presidential candidates and asking which one they would like to see nominated...

...Its members merely speak and at times listen...

...In each case the professional politicians suspected as much, but their views did not prevail...

...This is all the more important in view of the growing role of ideology in American politics, and the increasing participation of amateurs who are temperamentally disinclined to repair to a second choice unless persuaded by compelling evidence...

...Both of these developments strengthen the probability that the winner of the nomination may have a high UQ among large segments of the population...

...Since the Communists are, as a whole, a highly competent and hardworking group, the suggestion has often been made that the democratic members should increase their participation and improve the stature of their delegations: The French and Italians, in particular, are derelict in this regard...

...Sometimes they even come up with something of value, but usually they remain as ignorant as the rest of us about what is actually happening in the People's Republic...

...Yet to assess a candidate's electability, we need to know not only his Party Preference Rating but also what might be called his national Unacceptability Quotient (UQ)-the percentage of voters who would not cast a ballot for him under any circumstance...

...It neither advises nor consents...

...You may recall that Chiang Ching made the tactical error of praising Beethoven and Western music in general following a Philadelphia Orchestra concert in China last September...

...As a result, the Communists refused to vote on the final text, while the Tories, who thought the wording of the resolution too severe, ultimately abstained...

...And dreams are still the fundamental ingredient of major achievements.-silvio F. Senigallia Measuring UQ Lancaster, Pa.-the pollsters have already started surveying the public's preferences for the 1976 Presidential race and, as the various contenders prepare to launch their campaigns, we can expect these readings to appear with increasing frequency...

...only through an endless series of meetings and negotiations...

...During his visit to Linhsien County, one article commented, Antonioni "showed little interest in the gigantic Red Flag Canal and took very few shots of it...

...For if we have learned anything from 1972, not to mention 1964, it is that Preference Ratings can be misleading...

...Chinese Puzzles Hong Kong-What is going on in China, anyway...

...The British Tories are not the only representatives dismayed by the development of a Communist "bloc...

...The Council, however, is restricted by the fact that its decisions must be unanimous in order to be binding, and any agreement on important matters can be reached, if at all...

...Such information would not have influenced the McGovern zealots any more than the Goldwaterites before them, but it would have provided their opponents with a powerful argument-not otherwise available?to resist a choice that turned out to be calamitous...

...Hence certain interpreters believe the entire tirade against Western composers to have been inspired by Madame Mao's enemies...

...The images conjured up by such music, like an 'insane piano.' are a self-portrayal of the ugly soul of a declining class facing its doom...

...But for many others, it is more than a myth...

...Monthly sessions are held in Strasbourg at La Maison de l'Europe, the headquarters of the Council of Europe, an organization that, oddly enough, has no relation to the European Community...

...Accordingly, the polls should be refined to give results that, if still ambiguous, will better inform the decisions made at the conventions...

...Developments of the past few months, namely the energy crisis, the strains in trans-Atlantic relations, inflation, and monetary problems, have greatly weakened the Common Market (EEC), generating centrifugal forces that are destroying whatever unity was achieved during 15 years of economic boom, and reawakening a stubborn, old-fashioned nationalism that always lay just beneath the Community's surface...

...But their more sophisticated Italian colleagues, who are accustomed to the prominent role played by the Communists in their national Parliament, succeeded in overcoming the German resistance, and the candidates were nominated by acclamation in traditional style...

...At present the pollsters provide us with no measure of how well a contender might fare in pursuing this crucial post-convention objective...

...Because his weight derives from his standing in the polls, an Unacceptability Quotient revealing that he has little or no support beyond the ranks of those who name him as their first choice could sharply curtail his influence...

...The Executive Commission, composed of 13 international civil servants, simply lacks the authority...

...Many had hoped that the arrival of the British a year ago would help to change things, to streamline operations, since they are experienced in parliamentary affairs...

...Are you listening George Gallup...

...He skipped the stirring sights of collective labor and turned his camera solely on old people and a sick woman...

...To be sure, the Italian Christian Democrats are also firmly opposed to any joint action with the Communists, but they accept the numerical logic of the situation...

...Though they voice proposals and aspirations, denounce injustices and discriminations, nothing actually happens at this "theater of the Chinese shadows"-as an Italian representative calls it...

...Beethoven, in many of his works, reflected in a clear-cut way the political ideals of the German bourgeois revolution and became the foremost German classical composer," wrote the author, one Chu Lan...

...Indeed, Chu Lan noted, it was no coincidence that the noble "Internationale" appeared at the same time as Debussy's compositions...

...Where one expert sees a "neocultural revolution," another sees "mere sound and fury...

...Nonetheless, if one cannot make sense out of the current turmoil in China, one can still chortle over the more bizarre "critiques" of Western artists, composers and the like-and marvel at the depth of imagination that produces these tortuous extremes of political infighting.-Donald Kirk A Sagging EEC Rome-the noble dream of a united Europe appears to be fading, at least for the present...

...When the nine Italians, four Frenchmen and lone Danish Left-wing Socialist who make up the Communist parliamentary group joined the other delegates (with the exception of the French Gaullists) in supporting the condemnation, the CDs and British Tories responded by introducing a number of amendments, including a specific reference to Solzhenitsyn...

...He paid no attention to big and small tractors working in the fields and chose only a donkey pulling a stone roller...

...In any event, there can be no denying that convention delegates keep their eyes on the polls...

...Yet a number of delegates see themselves as performing rather obscure functions, far from the glow of the mass media, and resent being away from where the national political action is...

...Lou Harris-Richard F. Schier...

...Had the UQs of the four candidates been known, presumably one of the other three would have been nominated, and Republican strategy and representative democracy might have been better served...

...In other words, action by the Council hinges upon a sense of urgency, a feeling of solidarity and a faith in the European cause-three factors glaringly absent in today's divided Community...

...Typical of the "music criticism" emanating from the Middle Kingdom these days is an essay that appeared in the theoretical journal Red Flag...

...Instances such as this one lead many people to agree with Andre Malraux that Europe does not exist, that it is merely a pink spot on the map...

...What the polls failed to show, however, was that both Senators possessed extremely high Unacceptability Quotients...

...Henry Cabot Lodge and William Scranton were close behind with 21 and 20 per cent, respectively...

...What is more important, the European Parliament is a parliament in name only...

...Since the campaign contains a strong anti-Western element-featuring condemnations of Beethoven, Debussy, Respighi, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and once-favored U.S...

...We've never seen a foreigner like him who doesn't want to take pictures of the Red Flag Canal but is only interested in things he thinks useful for his evil intentions.' '" While some experts consider such remarks to be veiled assaults on Chou, others suggest the denunciations of Western music are really attacks on Chou's opponents, especially Mao Tse-tung's wife Chiang Ching...

...These "despicable activities," stated the writer, identified as first secretary of the county committee of the Party, "met with resistance and opposition from the local revolutionary masses, who said indignantly: 'This fellow has bad intentions...

...Since those who favor a particular candidate seldom form an electoral majority, successful Presidential politics usually requires a party's nominee to put together additional support from voters who find him an acceptable alternative to the man they would have preferred to see on the ballot...

...A bureaucratic committee, it works on specific issues, drafts proposals and prepares the agenda for the Council of Ministers -where the real power is...

...Nor is this syndrome limited to those in the European Parliament...

...The third EEC body is the European Parliament, with delegates elected from and by the various national legislatures...

...Yet there is much uneasiness in party circles about the Chappaquiddick Factor...

...After observing that the lyrics of the Ninth Symphony "spread bourgeois humanitarian ideas," Chu Lan proceeded to condemn Debussy as well, complaining that the French composer's efforts "are rife with decadent fin de siecle moods of despondency...

...Lou Harris, for instance, announced last March 31 that Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts was the favorite choice of 44 per cent of Democratic voters, followed by Alabama Governor George Wallace with 17 per cent and nine others who commanded the affections of 1-8 per cent of the party faithful...

...Its secretariat is in Luxembourg, and its committees in Brussels...

...UQs could be determined by handing the same voters a card with all the potential candidates and posing the follow-up question, "Which one(s) would you find unacceptable as a candidate for President in 1976...

...it is a dream...

...On the eve of the '64 Republican convention, for example, George Gallup reported identical GOP Preference Ratings of 22 per cent for Goldwater and Richard Nixon...

...Because Beethoven and other classical composers reflected social content from a bourgeois class stand they could not help have the prejudices of this class...

...What do Beethoven and Debussy have to do with Madame Mao...

...As a Kansas Republican told an interviewer in 1968, "We're for Frank Carlson, our favorite son, on the first ballot and for George Gallup forever after...

...The "rectification campaign" that began there last February with attacks on Confucius and Lin Piao-the former defense minister who was killed in a 1971 plane crash following an abortive anti-Mao coup-has veteran China watchers here disagreeing on everything from its origins to its aims...

...The problem is compounded for the Democrats because their new requirements for proportional allocation of delegates seem likely to assure multiple candidacies supported by considerable ideological enthusiasm...

...The German Christian Democrats strongly objected at first to the appointment of Communists to the vice presidency of the Parliament and three committees...

...At least that is one way of interpreting such phenomena as a series of articles that appeared recently castigating Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni for the movie he made about China two years ago...

...Aside from the fact that it is a little early to judge what the popular mood will be two years hence, it is questionable just how helpful this kind of information is by itself...

...During the European Parliament's session last March, for example, the British Tories distinguished themselves by rushing to defend Franco's Spain and violently attacking the Communists in the assembly-who represent the large Communist contingents in their respective countries...

...Well, they have been instrumental in establishing a question period, but their contribution to substantive matters has been more dubious...

...But the reality is that the three groups set up in 1967 to give the EEC a central structure seem incapable of providing the necessary leadership and cohesiveness...

...In particular, observers have puzzled over Chou En-lai's role in the confusing events...

...In these circumstances, it is perhaps understandable that many look upon the EEC's central institutions as the only bodies in a position to halt the growing disintegration...