Dear Editor
Dear Editor Exodus On first thought it may seem that Robert Gorham Davis has a point when he claims that in Exodus and Revolution Michael Waltzer's effort to draw liberal conclusions from the...
...With such arguments as this, one could prove anything and its negation...
...By the time the USSR invaded Afghanistan, in December 1979, we ourselves had already lost our chief ally in the area, Iran...
...Ditto when we turn Jesus Christ—who told his contemporaries that he had come to set brother against brother and father against son—into a symbol of universal love...
...Hottelet claims that the "old balance of power failed to prevent two World Wars...
...What is the alternative, though...
...Soviet interests were in every way secure...
...had received a blow they have yet to overcome...
...When as Americans we hold up the Founding Fathers as champions of liberty—although many of them were slave owners—we are taking the same tack...
...For that matter, the argument is equally astounding in the case of the Warsaw Pact countries...
...Yet in the very next sentence he adds that "the harsh words gushing forth in debate and resolutions have hardly been meaningless: They helped bring down the Portuguese empire...
...I am referring to Daniels' belief that (as Shub puts it) the "Soviet intervention in Afghanistan [should be seen] in the same defensive context as previous interventions in Eastern Europe" ("Fear of Foreigners," NL, April 22...
...Nor, I think, has Hottelet clearly sorted out the World Organization's impact on American policy goals...
...Yet Waltzer merely followed the course that must almost always be taken by anyone who wants to use old texts—or, indeed, the past itself—to support modern conclusions: He stressed whatever helped him make his case and ignored anything that did not...
...Denver Edward Potter Aggressive Defense I was astounded by the mischievous notion Anatole Shub endorses while reviewing Robert V. Daniels' Russia: The Roots of Confrontation...
...Perhaps it did, but the League of Nations also failed to prevent one of them...
...Chicago Peter Redmond UN Diplomacy Richard C. Hottelet applauds Thomas M. Franck's belief that if the United States played "the game of diplomacy with more muscle and greater skill" in the United Nations it could "minimize damage" to its interests and "make better use" of the UN's opportunities ("The U.S...
...interests...
...Even Hottelet, moreover, concedes that despite the UN, conventional wars have killed some 20 million men, women and children in the years since 1945...
...The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...Of the two superpowers, surely the United States had the better right to paranoia...
...On the one hand, he tells us that "Nothing has ever happened in the Assembly or the Security Council...
...Unfortunately, neither Hottelet's review nor Franck's Nation Against Nation satisfactorily demonstrates that such opportunities exist...
...Before Moscow imposed a Communist regime on Afghanistan, in 1978, that country's government was already pretty subservient to the Soviet Union, especially in foreign affairs...
...in the UN," NL, April 22...
...Dear Editor Exodus On first thought it may seem that Robert Gorham Davis has a point when he claims that in Exodus and Revolution Michael Waltzer's effort to draw liberal conclusions from the Pentateuch is defeated by the il-liberalism of the sacred writings themselves ("The Torah According to a Social Democrat," ML, March 11...
...that by itself hurt the strategic interests of the United States...
...those of the U.S...
...Surely the manner of Portugal's collapse was positively harmful to U.S...
...In fact, the whole notion that Soviet foreign policy is based on "aggressive defensiveness"—Daniels' phrase, which Shub quotes approvingly—so erodes the distinction between aggression and defense that neither is at all meaningful...
...Boston William Spiers...
...By contrast the balance of power kept the peace from 1815-1914, except for the relatively minor Crimean War, whose casualties were low...
...Certainly Dpvis is right in the sense that these ancient documents will never be confused with the 1972 Democratic Party platform, or with the works of John Stuart Mill, Thomas Jefferson and Roger Baldwin...
Vol. 68 • July 1985 • No. 9
