Bill of Indictment
HUITT, RALPH K.
Bill of Indictment A Nation of Sheep, by William J. Lederer. Norton. 194 pp. $3.75. Reviewed by Ralph K. Huitt This book hits a sensitive nerve. American foreign policy recently has taken a...
...In the interaction of nations, old and new, the results have been mixed, some favorable to us, others unfavorable...
...For information, of course, they would have to rely on the sources which we have already been told are shamefully undependable...
...Without doubt there is much truth in what Lederer says, and there may be some good m telling it again, although more of us have heard it already than the author thinks...
...To most of us, that is...
...Newspapers print what people say without telling us whether it is true or not...
...Congressional investigators frame hearings to get headlines...
...Most newspapermen are incompetent or take pay to puff foreign tyrants...
...At home, public officials seek publicity but use national security as an excuse to keep their failures secret...
...He endorses the Peace Corps idea uncritically...
...Americans abroad are suckers for wily natives who can feed us their propaganda line because we won't learn their language or get out and live with the real people...
...What happens in the world depends, too, on what other nations do in reacting to our initiative as we do to theirs...
...With so sweeping a bill of indictment, Lederer's suggestions for reform are startlingly slight...
...Lederer himself usually manages to find the One Good Indian Who Tells Truth to White Man...
...William J. Lederer is here to help them...
...Not only will citizens become more knowledgeable, but also our elected officials and governmental agencies will be forced to become expert in the fulfilling of their difficult duties...
...What is lacking in Lederer's statement is balance and fair play...
...For one thing, he would appeal to the women's clubs of America...
...It is good to bring foreign students here but we choose the wrong ones and mistreat them after they get here...
...American foreign policy recently has taken a series of very public pratfalls...
...He would improve the Central Intelligence Agency and foreign service personnel and make the foreign student program more effective...
...If the pressure and common sense of millions of clubwomen is applied to the problem of keeping the nation informed, nothing could resist them...
...No amount of information will ever free the responsible official of the fearful necessity of taking calculated risks...
...Everybody is ignorant of what is going on in the world—the President, the foreign policy establishment, Congress, the press, and the rest of us...
...The few good ones who tell the truth catch hell from American officials...
...He is not new to the task of assessing blame...
...But assuring them that fifteen minutes a day with that old thinking cap will greatly enhance our prospect of success only fosters, I think, a cruel delusion...
...Encouraging people to know more about foreign affairs is, most would agree, a good thing...
...Translators and local politicians lie to us...
...We could do with a bit more awareness of the magnitude of our difficulties, a measure of modesty about what each of us can do, and a hint of compassion for the frail human vessels who bear the burden of decision...
...It is no service to minimize their difficulties nor to tell us that they are boobs who must be compelled by an aroused public to develop competence...
...We are second best in Cuba and Laos and outer space...
...It seems highly probable that a lot of Americans are asking who should be blamed...
...In this roving inventory of American inadequacies, he broadens the scope of his criticism to take in nearly everybody...
...with Professor Eugene Burdick he wrote a novel called The Ugly American which took the hide off American diplomats abroad...
...We will never know precisely what their reactions will be nor what they plan to do...
...The result of all this is that our foreign policy stumbles from one disaster to another because public officials and the public alike are too ignorant to do any better...
...More than additional information we need understanding—which we will not get without an attempt, at least, to keep things in proportion...
...Since World War II we have turned up with disconcerting regularity on the side of the status quo, shoveling out dollars to corrupt politicians or soldiers who won't fight...
...His theme is that "our great national failure is our lack of information...
...Our personal observations can't be trusted when we go abroad...
...Other ideas for increasing knowledge are public affairs games for families at the dinner table and scrap-books on foreign countries kept by school children...
...On occasion our officials have acted with foresight and courage and this, too, should be told...
...What cannot be told ahead of time or afterward is the consequence of a different course of action...
...It is easy to say that a policy was a mistake when it seems to turn out badly...
...But the heart of his book, I think, is his insistence that the "nation of sheep" inform themselves and make their leaders do better...
Vol. 25 • June 1961 • No. 6
