Correspondents' Correspondence

...In an appearance at the 1974 commencement, he expressed his hope for enlisting more traditional students...

...But the Central Committee's show of unity was most of all an expression of fear on the part of its aged membership that a Cabinet crisis might force new Knesset elections and expose the dry-rot in the party structure...

...That element, he declares, thinks even a little learning ought to be enough to produce a degree...

...In short, the commission wants to increase participation and, perhaps more important, generate a sense of trust and belonging, a feeling that New York City's agencies care about the citizen's needs...

...But the most dangerous aspect of the deals may be their impact on the Kremlin's strategic capabilities...

...Among those told not to return next year is Phillip K. Shinnick, the athletic director and head of sports studies...

...A unit of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Livingston College has a student body that is 25 per cent black and 8 per cent Puerto Rican, and a large number of its whites come from noncollege families...

...The 12-member State-funded Charter Commission that proposed these revisions after two and a half years of work is the fifth commission in New York City's history...

...The second reform would increase the governing role of districts formed from "historic, geographic and identifiable communities...

...Withdrawal from the Gidi and Mitla passes and the Abu Rudeis oil fields was a much less emotional matter than even a minor retreat from the Golan Heights or the West Bank would be...

...generally receive less media coverage than elections involving flesh and blood candidates, and in an autumn of grave budgetary problems, agency layoffs and another teachers' strike, many voters understandably are unaware that the Charter revisions are even on the ballot...

...Far from insuring broad citizen participation and responsible bureaucracies, though, this system produces indifference and apathy among the voters and relatively independent municipal agencies...

...revisions of 1938 created the City Planning Commission to oversee development, eliminated the Board of Estimate's power to initiate laws and made a number of reductions in Council powers...

...Albeit merely advisory in nature, the Forum more closely mirrors the feelings of the rank-and-file than the Secretariat and Central Committee, both elected quite some time ago, and one of its main tasks will be to break the vicious circle debilitating the Labor party: As its official organs have ceased to be representative and thus lost their influence, party activity has come to a virtual standstill...

...The Chinese understand the military implications of all this better, perhaps, than Americans do, since they have experienced famine in their history...

...Los Angeles' 15 elected councilmen owe nothing to their mayor or to each other, for instance, and the result is widespread decentralization of authority...

...But the theory is considerably easier to articulate than it is to put into practice...

...Moreover, the resources available to different areas of New York vary tremendously...

...And these second-rank leaders and functionaries of past decades are simply not capable of speaking to a new generation of voters—be it to convince them how to cast their ballots or to mobilize mass support for government policies so as to head off any demand for new elections...

...Mesthene opposes open admissions, arguing that it is useless to raise the expectations of someone unsuited for college, and then waste several years of his time...

...The revisions of 1938, for example, instituted a City Council to replace the old Board of Aldermen partly because "alderman" had become an urban synonym for crook...

...Others merely tagged him an elitist educator out of place at a "working class" college, a rigorous scholar who should have stayed at Harvard, where he headed the university's Program on Technology and Society...

...He insists the trouble began earlier this year when he was subpoenaed to appear before a Federal grand jury investigating the case, and he has engaged William Kunst-ler, a lawyer frequently involved in radical causes to fight his removal...

...They were protesting a proposal requiring that students pass a test proving competence in reading, writing and arithmetic in order to graduate...

...Councilmen, however, would be provided with additional staff, and the majority leader would be given the position (and four votes) on the Board of Estimate currently held by an independently elected city controller, while the five borough presidents would again be granted major control over local streets and sewers...

...But community councils can hardly be permitted to tax when the city itself is in deep fiscal hot water...

...During the period 1976-80," Kuznetsov stated, "there are plans to build grain storage facilities with a total capacity of 40 million tons, including 34 million tons in elevators and 6 million in metal silos...

...If these bins and elevators are built and filled, the USSR will be in a stronger position to recover from a nuclear attack, and this, in turn, could influence the way it conducts its foreign policy.—Cresson H. Kearny Troubled Dean Trenton, N.J.—During the '60s, college campuses became accustomed to picketing, teach-ins, sit-ins, and other types of disturbances...

...official circles think more carefully...

...With the Egyptian agreement out of the way, it is further argued, the Prime Minister will have to devote much more of his time and attention to this task if he wants to stay in office after the 1977 general elections...

...The literacy exam controversy, however, has switched the spotlight to Dean Emmanuel G. Mesthene, who came to Livingston from Harvard at the start of the last academic year...

...Is Harlem a community or are there a number of sociologically distinct sections within it...

...Shinnick maintains his dismissal relates not to teaching but to his emphasis on women's and intramural activities at the expense of varsity sports, and to his association with Jack Scott, the Leftist sports figure connected to the Patricia Hearst case...

...Mesthene has declared that he favors "pluralism" on campus and he denies firing anyone for political views...

...He does not deny being an elitist...

...If we admit more students that need help than we are able to help," he observes "we help none of them.' On the other hand, Mesthene has stated he believes Livingston should continue to nurture the talented and the promising, whether found in suburb or ghetto, because there are more elites than the "predesignated, self-appointed elite" that provides the majority of college students...

...the second is a relatively new approach...

...They were bypassing the college, he said, because of its bedraggled image...

...In addition, he has asked for faculty help in putting a cap on enrollment for remedial students...

...The significance of this was dramatically illustrated in the closing stages of the Sinai negotiations...

...The difference between this attitude and his own, he contends, is that while he deplores the fact that America has shortchanged blacks, "I do not feel personally guilty about it...

...Mesthene denies the charge that he is associated with Rand...

...Though he was once employed by the think tank, he severed his ties with it 15 years ago, except for minor and intermittent consultant work...

...Only the 1901 revisions strengthened the borough presidents and the Board of Estimate and Apportionment...

...What troubles him more is faculty opposition, which he attributes to "the soft pedagogical Left...

...Issue contests (charter revisions, constitutional amendments, etc...

...Antipathy toward him has created a common bond between blacks, Hispanics, and ethnic whites...

...Twelve years ago the mayor gained the authority to prepare the expense and capital budgets for submission to the Board of Estimate and the City Council...

...Nevertheless, the dean has expressed concern that for many academics "teaching becomes indoctrination...

...An article in Wen Hui Pao published this July, shortly after President Ford temporarily stopped grain sales to the USSR, concluded: "Another point is that the Soviet grain purchase at this time has something to do with its active preparation for war, particularly when important Soviet officials recently clamored about storing up grain to cope with 'eventualities.' In the light of the massive Soviet military maneuvering, shouldn't the U.S...

...He will also require such support if he decides to take unpopular austerity measures to reduce Israel's growing dependence on American economic assistance...

...Mesthene's statements made him a target of criticism at Livingston even before he took office...

...If genuine communities could be given genuine power, the idea would be provocative indeed...

...HINDY L. SCHACHTER...

...Chapter Nine is titled "Protecting Food and Manufactured Goods from Mass Destruction Weapons...

...The State legislation setting up the Charter Commission specifically urged it to make city government "responsive" to the wishes of the people, and the commission itself has observed that its proposals seek to reverse the "alienation of citizens in their communities from a distant city bureaucracy...

...And he argues that if you allow nontraditional students "to leave with an education that is less than first-rate, you're aggravating the problem rather than helping it...

...The dean also faces opposition from some of the school's staff and faculty, who contend he is purging "ideological dissidents...

...He also announced that "the ambitious program of elevator construction is designed to insure the rational geographical distribution of grain storage facilities throughout the country...

...Before there can be any discussion of giving power to communities, there must be agreement on some sort of definition that can be tested empirically...

...For although he was able to secure a 99 per cent majority when its Central Committee met to vote on the new interim Sinai agreement with Egypt, this did not accurately reflect the feeling in the party—not to mention the country—toward the accord...

...second strike would inflict such heavy damage on their agricultural distribution system that a minimum of a year would be required to restore nationwide grain production to subsistence level...

...Instead, the basis for recommendation has shifted to the question of citizen satisfaction...

...It regards leniency as a kindness to the underprivileged, confuses permissiveness with freedom, and believes that "expressiveness is an adequate substitute for thinking and knowing and that it can justify depriving students of the public language of the United States...

...The proposals center around two reforms...

...And although the establishment of meaningful community councils in limited, localized areas might do just that, this cannot be accomplished until a better idea exists of what constitutes a New York City community, and of whether (and how) the councils can be provided with a fiscal basis for their operations...

...Once negotiations begin on the more sensitive areas, though, Rabin will need the full weight of the masses of his party behind him to insure an atmosphere that will make the heavy use of force by the police unnecessary...

...His office has announced that the Shinnick dispute concerns issues of competence...

...But a good candidate for the demonstration with the most chutzpah was conducted only recently when undergraduates at Livingston College in New Jersey marched on the office of the dean chanting, "The People united will never be defeated," and "We want a guarantee?no exam for literacy...

...What sort of a "community'' is mid-Manhattan...

...In their view, the select Leadership Forum is no substitute for hard, grass-roots level activity by new, younger leaders, and only through a concentrated effort by Rabin himself can these people be recruited...

...Such sentiments, though, have failed to build his prestige with the representatives of The People...

...But one thing is certain...

...Yet tens of thousands of protesters, most of them young and Orthodox, played havoc with traffic in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during the last round of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, while government supporters failed to mount any meaningful counterdemonstrations...

...this, in turn, has made it impossible to carry out the ideological and organizational work that is a prerequisite for new party elections, already a year overdue...

...The Charter Revision Commission has been explicit about the reason for its recommendations...

...But even a U.S...

...Shinnick says others may join him in a class action against the administration...

...The mayor would be denied a vote on the budget in the Board of Estimate, prevented from vetoing budgetary reductions, barred from switching funds from one program to another, and required to submit a preliminary expense budget each year by April 15 to allow ample time for consideration...

...Eliahu Salpeter Grain for Defense Oak Ridge, Tenn.—Grain sales to the USSR have provoked a controversy in this country because of their potential inflationary effect...

...This emphasis on academic achievement, he later noted, "was apparently conceived by some to mean that I am against minorities and other disadvantaged groups.' Shortly after Mesthene became dean last fall, rumors started circulating that he was a Rand Corporation agent sent to Livingston to cool down the aspirations of minorities for college degrees...

...If, before the outbreak of a nuclear war, the Soviets were to succeed in implementing their evacuation plans, the great majority of urban citizens would probably survive...

...and without extensive and well dispersed reserves, fatalities from starvation would be likely to exceed those that were caused by the bomb...

...Neither, indeed, was it a measure of his own position in the Labor hierarchy...

...Operation of Food and Clothing Distribution Facilities...

...In an effort to circumvent his party problem, Rabin has established a new body, the Leadership Forum, composed of individuals he has personally selected from the Cabinet, the Knesset and the Hista-drut, Israel's General Confederation of Labor...

...Allocating authority to arbitrary political units of a limited size is not the same as allocating authority to real communities...

...Thus all appointed community boards would be replaced with elected councils that would assume responsibility for local parks, recreation, housing rehabilitation and neighborhood preservation programs, and the enforcement of environmental protection codes...

...One demonstration now being planned—actually more in the nature of a processional—will depict Livingston as stricken by "a toxic injection of Mesthene...

...Each community council would appoint a professional district manager...

...Washington, of course, cannot fully know the factors motivating the Soviet leadership to erect additional modern grain storage facilities in relatively remote areas...

...White liberal guilt, Mesthene says, produces "two-track education...

...Although the school has devoted itself to developing the "nontraditional student" through remedial programs, its accomplishments have generally been overshadowed by quarrels with local police, resistance from neighboring communities, drug busts, a growing crime rate on campus, and various multiracial difficulties...

...Any diminution of mayoral power in favor of the City Council cannot help meet the revisors' stated objective—a return to citizen satisfaction in New York...

...To fully appreciate how it has gone about this, it is necessary to take account of the clear distinction between transferring power to City Council members and to elected community councils...

...As for community councils, within the Commission Edward Costi-kyan and Assemblyman Albert H. Blumenthal led the drive for them with the aim of allowing each neighborhood to handle its own affairs...

...Rabin's indirect revival plan would appear to be ingenious...

...Its recommendations represent an almost 180-degree turn from the commission recommendations of 1898, 1938 and 1963, when the slogan was, "Centralize, enlarge, increase mayoral control...

...Despite noisy complaints, the police managed to restore order with a fairly moderate amount of force...

...Mesthene says he expects further disruptions and demonstrations this year, but calls them nuisances rather than serious problems and claims The People consists of only a small core of students...

...One had only to look at the tired faces of the assembled Committee members to see a main cause of Rabin's difficulty: Hardly more than a handful of people in the hall were below 60...

...Where do we draw lines...

...Only a limited number, he believes, can be accommodated with the available funds for tutoring and guidance...

...The updated and authoritative 1974 edition emphasizes the need to stockpile foods in "grain elevators located outside of large cities—potential targets of enemy attack...

...The Rabin of autumn 1975 is certainly more experienced and more firmly in control than the political neophyte of spring 1974...

...For this reason, Russian defense experts have always stressed the necessity of keeping adequate food reserves on hand in case of nuclear devastation...

...Warren Sloat Revising a Charter New York—On November 4, with little fanfare or sense of expectation, this city's electorate votes on nine amendments to the City Charter...

...Unfortunately, it appears to have been less than successful in coming up with the means for achieving its objective...

...The first has often been tried and found wanting...

...First, mayoral power would be curbed in favor of City Council and borough president prerogatives...

...Neither a concern for efficiency nor a desire to eliminate party patronage activities appears in drafts of the 1975 proposals...

...At present, mayors in many large cities have less power vis-a-vis their City Councils than New York's mayor has...

...From 1898-1963 Charter proposals were primarily designed to increase municipal efficiency and combat the patronage system...

...Yet they embody what has come to be seen as a new urban imperative —decentralization...

...Similarly, a recent article in Sel-skaya Zhizn by the Deputy Minister of Procurements, K. Kuznet-sov, outlined what has developed into a high-priority project for building modern grain elevators and bins...

...The story, probably apocryphal, is told of a distinguished New York gentleman who once threatened to sue a friend for listing among the man's accomplishments his service as an alderman...

...Their passivity, particularly when contrasted with the considerable agility and militancy of the opposition, helped to create the mistaken impression that only the police backed Rabin and his colleagues...

...Rabin's Party Problem Tel Aviv—Recent denials of impending Cabinet changes by sources close to Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin are an indication of the problem now facing him within his dominant Labor party...

...The 1898 Charter consolidated New York's five boroughs into a single city...

...After all, the argument goes, the people best able to decide the makeup of local parks, recreational programs or housing rehabilitation needs would seem to be those who most often use the parks, participate in the recreational programs, live in, and endure, the rotting structures...

...He wants the school to be guided by a respect for and desire to learn from "cultures and values other than those of white, middle-class society...

...For one thing, it is always difficult to define community in the "historic, geographic and identifiable" sense, and in a large urban area neighborhoods rarely come close to the semirural, social ideal...

...For another thing, it is impossible to have genuine political power without access to or influence on the purse, and the proposed community councils will lack the ability to tax...

...Strengthening the City Council in New York, one might realistically conclude, will do nothing to alleviate the problems the Charter Commission is attempting to resolve...

...The 1969 Soviet handbook Civil Defense, for example, discusses the role of food in a national recovery, and details the measures necessary to protect grain and farm animals against radiation fallout...

...Nevertheless, political observers doubt that it can succeed...

...Because when they get outside, they will be unable to compete with the people who have the better education or the better degree—and at that point I think they would have a perfect right to come back and tell us that we gave them the final screwing...