ACTING OUR AGE

...If so, is the United States best equipped to give such aid, when we are ourselves loath to plan, and our technicians are generally trained for far more advanced economic conditions than the underdeveloped countries can possibly achieve in this century...

...But with a nation, as with a woman, skin-deep beauty treatments will not win admiring glances if the hitherto unattracted onlooker detects VERA MICHELES DEAN, world traveler and for many years research director and editor of the Foreign Policy Association, was director of the Non-Western Civilizations Program at the University of Rochester...

...Since World War II we have provided dollars, technical skills, and arms to some eighty nations around the world— allied, non-aligned, and Communist—through gifts, loans, and sales...

...Our second liability is that, because of the linking of aid with anti-Communism, we find ourselves again and again in situations where ends become confused with means...

...Our aid, usually called foreign, but better described as mutual security aid, has proved an important asset in creating a favorable impression about the United States abroad...

...It is high time we stop talking about the image of the United States, and, instead, concentrate on making sure that our country is the image that reflects what we want others to admire in us...

...No longer certain of her capacity to excite love and admiration, she constantly wants to be reassured, no matter how mechanical the response she thus evokes...

...But because our aid is sought, we feel free to tell recipient governments that they must stage revolutions...

...We also need to review the content of our aid...

...Today we must face the fact that if we mean what we say—if, for example, we mean that the Alliance for Progress must really bring progress in Latin America—then we shall have to support, not just tolerate, actual revolutions...

...But in many respects the nation faces problems comparable to those of individual citizens...

...While eggheads are no longer scorned and ridiculed here, the presence of professors on the Washington scene (unless they are physical scientists) is still viewed with suspicion, if not dismay...

...How can this advice be applied to the United States...

...our desire to improve education and welfare for the masses...

...We know ours is a rich nation...

...By applying this standard, we appeared to find Franco and Trujillo, Chiang Kai-shek and Syngman Rhee, Batista and Ngo Dinh Diem more to our taste than leaders of revolutions (President Lopes Mateos of Mexico brought this point home to us when, in greeting President Kennedy, he expressed satisfaction that the Mexican revolution started half a century ago was "now finally understood in the United States"), or those who have declined to join either the Western or Soviet bloc, like Nehru...

...Another example of the frequent discrepancy between ideals and realities is our lack of respect toward scholars and teachers—a lack which never ceases to astonish visitors from other lands, where the educated man or woman is regarded as a treasured asset...

...Yet today and for many years ahead, the greatest contribution within our power to make, the one most welcome among peoples in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, who hunger for education even more than for food, is that of teachers and librarians...

...But it has incurred several liabilities...

...The second item is technology...

...our vigorous and growing concern with cultural values...

...When Copernicus first used the word "revolution" to describe the movement of heavenly bodies, the term meant "the natural movements of events, in which the old is constantly turned over and replaced by the new"—in short, change...

...Given our assets, what is the best use we can make of them...

...This emphasis has failed to reflect our greatest national asset, which for some reason we tend to keep under wraps: our genuine desire, as a people, to help human beings in need...

...and that the test of a good life is not to be liked by everybody but to act in accordance with one's beliefs, whatever the cost...

...The third (for some Americans the first) item is armaments...

...and, third, remember that you are no longer a youngster—act your age...

...Ours is, or should be, the age of a mature nation whom it ill becomes to live on illusions, to strut about when it would be more ap-propiate to take measured steps, to stage tantrums in public when the neighbors cross us...

...For these mistakes, if such they be, it must not punish by obloquy—or permit private citizens to do so— those of its public servants whose policies, honestly pursued, prove to be unpopular...

...Anxious discussions along Madison Avenue and in Washington about "What's wrong with the image of the United States...

...If the governments of other countries should give us such advice we would feel not only shocked, but angry...

...Thus we seem to come full circle, demanding democracy in countries we aid, yet actually—if inadvertently—helping non-democratic forces gain power because of our previous distorted emphasis on anti-Communism as the litmus test of international comradeship...

...When the jealous queen in the old fairy tale asked this presumably rhetorical question, she expected to receive but one answer, and was terribly put out to find that the mirror did not agree with the evaluation she had made of her own charms...

...The unfortunate result of this approach is that now, when Congressmen realize that fifteen years of aid to scores of nations has not toppled the key Communist governments of Russia and China, they feel understandably dubious about the efficacy of this otherwise praiseworthy enterprise—particularly when aid is earmarked for Communist countries like Poland and Yugoslavia, or non-aligned nations like India...

...Yet when democratic, orderly elections indicated the possible victory of the Leftist, but non-Communist Apra party of Haya de la Toree (opposed by the army, and some thirty years ago also opposed by Washington), and the military seized power, arresting president Pra-do, the United States suspended both diplomatic relations with and financial and technical aid to the new regime, some of whose leaders have been trained by us for anti-guerrilla warfare and other activities against Communists...

...But we can make use of our non-material assets only if we constantly put them to work at home, and not let them deteriorate from non-use...

...The first item that usually comes to mind is money and material resources...

...and what can or should be done to "improve our image," raise the vision of our great and powerful and richly endowed country acting like a worried, aging woman before her mirror...

...no deepening of character behind the glossy facade...

...yet when internal reform results in a change such as nationalization of American property we are dismayed...

...This annual aid melodrama conveys abroad not a picture of considered wisdom and superb efficiency, two qualities of which we are capable, but one of double-talk and disorganization regarded by Americans as characteristic of politically backward countries, and certainly not a credit to a democratic system...

...A mature nation cannot hope to be always right...

...Politicians, parents, and administrators plead for more and better teachers in our bulging educational institutions, yet most of them are reluctant to offer a financial reward that would result in upgrading teaching standards...

...second, work with what you have, and make the best of it...

...Even today, in spite of our unrivaled facilities for education and communication, we are still inclined to jump to the conclusion that, whenever things we do not like happen anywhere around the globe, they are due solely to the machinations of the Communists.— the best publicity the Communists get is our insistence that no significant change occurs without the intervention of Moscow—or to the imbecility, if not treachery, of our diplomatic service...

...Our third liability is the very fact that by stressing so heavily our resources of money, technology, and weapons we fail to display to the best advantage our other, admittedly less tangible assets: our genuine belief in the democratic process...

...As a nation, we cannot project an image unsupported by reality...

...In the past, we have been more impressed with the anti-Communist professions of political leaders the world over than with their concern for human welfare...

...We might recruit a Peace Corps for use at home, to work in our own underdeveloped and distressed areas, our slums and our wastelands of unemployment, and to provide sorely needed teachers at all levels of the educational ladder...

...Had this desire been made clear by our political leaders and government officials whenever they spoke out in support of foreign aid, the face the United States presents to the world would more closely resemble the face of peace...

...At the same time, let us not forget that some of the worst impressions of the United States abroad are created by our educational and social failings—by juvenile delinquency, the increasing number of our young people who leave school before completing their studies, the violence which dominates our television screens...

...We urgently need to review the purpose of our aid, to make sure that it is not given merely as a reward to governments which claim that they oppose Communism yet take no steps to alter conditions on which Communism thrives...

...Our main difficulty today is that, as compared with other peoples, the United States, in spite of its vitality, its "go-go" spirit, its constant building and rebuilding of physical plant, often gives the appearance of ideological old age...

...that when losses come, they must be borne with equanimity, and preferably with grace...

...She has left that post to become professor of international development at the Graduate School of Public Administration at New York University this month...

...It is bound, by the law of averages, to make mistakes...

...If others, in our opinion, should accept change, so must we...

...We believe that we have primacy in nuclear weapons, if not in conventional forces...

...She would tell her three things: first, take stock of your assets and liabilities—and be honest about both...

...The mature individual has learned that life is not a bed of roses, that no one can hope to rake in all the chips at the end of every game...

...What advice would a wise beauty expert give to a woman under comparable circumstances...

...What are our assets...

...The first of these liabilities is that in giving aid, whether economic, technical, or military, we have officially emphasized not so much the need of the recipients as our own determination to create a barrier against world Communism...

...that true love is a rare blessing...

...If we are to make the best possible use of our assets, we shall have to take time out of our busy lives to rethink the world in which we live, and catch up with our era...

...If there is one single event that has beclouded our judgement in the past decade, it is the assumption that China would have had no Communist revolution if it had not been for the mistakes— or misdeeds—of a few American diplomats, including General George Marshall, who "lost" China, as if China were a needle easily lost in a haystack...

...A nation is obviously not a replica of an individual...

...Take one example...

...But many of our policy-makers believe that the most effective way of persuading Congress to vote aid funds year by year is to use the argument that aid will "defeat Communism...

...We often have to be reminded of these assets by thoughtful foreign visitors who are more interested in our theatres or clinics, our schools, or our family life than they are in our banks, our factories, and our nuclear testing sites...

...Technicians from countries who have experience with underdeveloped economies could be used, and expenditures by recipient governments scrutinized by international accountants without danger of charges that such scrutiny constitutes "imperialism," "foreign intervention," or "strings attached...

...We might benefit from learning how other peoples have dealt with similar problems...

...For in effect we are urging men of property and power in other countries to redistribute their lands, build housing for the poor, pay higher taxes, and thereby voluntarily relinquish part of their wealth and power...

...Nothing is gained if we merely talk about racial equality, and even urge it on the multiracial new nations emerging in East and Central Africa, and then fail to understand the urgent aspirations of our Negro fellow-citizens...

...Slow as the pace of change in the South may be —and the pace is indeed deliberate, when one compares the century that has elapsed since the Civil War with the year or two of independence in most African states—even more grievous for our reputation in world affairs is the complacency of our North, East, and West, where even the most talented and enterprising Negroes have to wage a constant and demeaning struggle to achieve standards of education, housing, employment, and other amenities even remotely comparable to those of whites...

...But it is not an old age serene and philosophical, but, rather, sentimental about "the good old days" of a golden era of laissez-faire and untrammeled free enterprise, an old age fretful about social changes at home and power shifts in the world community...

...Is United Nations Acting Secretary-General U Thant right when, in his recent report on the United Nations Decade of Development, he contends that what the underdeveloped nations need most is not money, but adequate planning, staffing with technically skilled personnel, and increased opportunities to sell their products in Western markets...

...When we see these failings through the eyes of other nations, we might well ask ourselves: Is this really America...

...What do we have to give...

...that only a person without principles can call all men friends, and that anyone with convictions is bound to acquire some critics, and even enemies, of whom one can often be proud...

...Are we, perhaps, spending not too little money, but too much, in some instances for the wrong purposes, through ineffective governments whose members are more interested in their own enrichment than in the public good...

...Should not the United States, and the industrial nations of Western Europe, in addition to following the easy road of spending money for aid, also tackle the much more difficult task of adjusting international trade relations, deploying far greater efforts to provide markets for the products of the newly-emerged nations...

...Thus, Republican and Democratic Administrations alike find themselves hoist by their own arguments which, in a state of misguided realpolitik, they thought were guaranteed to win Congressional support...

...By contrast, the non-material contributions we can make (and let us not be afraid to sound corny about these if we want to) do reflect, and will continue to reflect as long as this nation exists, the inner values of our multi-national, multi-racial, multi-religious state whose very structure and interrelationships, in spite of many weaknesses and defects, foreshadow the character of a future international community...

...Can these things be tolerated in a country so proud of its wealth and its technical knowledge...

...Our children are discouraged from entering the teaching profession, in favor of more lucrative occupations...

...When even this kind of response is withheld, from the nation as from the woman, then come resentment and panic, and a frantic search for new, usually superficial, means of improving "the image...

...The dramatic contrast between the respect officially shown in Washington toward presidents and premiers of the new African nations, and that shown toward our own Negro leaders, cannot but shock the outside world, even if most of us seem comfortably unaware of our glaring inconsistency...

...If this is the case, might we not do better to allot considerably less money than we now spend on bilateral aid, but far more than we now give to international agencies, for the work of the United Nations and the specialized organizations—for world health, food, and agriculture, the international atomic energy agency, and others...

...The French have a wise saying which, roughly translated, goes like this: "The most beautiful girl in the world can give only what she has...

...Are we too easily satisfied with inadequate accounting, if any, by the recipients of our aid...

...On this issue we now have to take a clear stand...

...Once you believe that "they" lost China, then it is easy to assume that other "theys" are now losing Cuba, Peru, South Korea, or some other place—an assumption which saves us from the burden of having to deal with the world's realities, which even Communists have to face...

...We had been urging Peru to carry out by democratic means economic and social reforms that would qualify it for aid under the Alliance for Progress program...

...A mature nation must not be swayed by this crisis or that, however black it may loom in newspaper headlines, but learn to take a long view of history, preferably by accepting some lessons from historians...

...We talk so much about our material possessions and tangible powers—our dollars, skills, and bombs—that we fail to realize how little we discuss internationally our achievements in the realm of the spiritual, the cultural, the non-material...

...Above all, a mature nation can look unflinchingly in the mirror and avoid asking for comparative answers about its beauty...

...otherwise we shall keep the rest of the world in a state of confusion concerning our purposes...

...Had they been told in the first place that it would be good for our souls to give aid, irrespective of ideology, they would not now be surprised or alienated...

...We regard the United States as the most industrially advanced nation in the world...

...Mutual security aid is indeed desirable—but not if it is used as an escape from responsibility for improving conditions in our own homeland...

...So while aid is eventually, though grudgingly, voted year by year, it usually arrives only split seconds before funds formerly appropriated are about to run out...

...Take, for example, the problem we faced in our relations with Peru following the July military coup there...

...Yet banks, factories, and nuclear sites are wasting assets—not in the literal sense, although even that might prove to be the case if deflation, devaluation, and disarmament should come to pass, but in the sense that many other countries now and in the visible future, from Japan to Russia, from India to Nigeria, already have or can soon acquire some of these assets, even though on a less impressive scale than ours...

...Dean is the author of many books on world affairs, among them "The Nature of the Non-Western World," "New Patterns of Democracy in India," and "Builders of Emerging Nations...

...The third thing, then, that we need to do if our outward appearance as a nation is to reflect an improved inner self, is to stop acting in world affairs like an irresponsible youngster indulging in whims and fancies and candy every day, and start acting our age...

...A nation can marshal the most impressive propaganda, yet fail to impress...

...This has already been demonstrated on a modest scale by the warm reception given to those enrolled in the Peace Corps...

...It may hope to improve its appearance as a result of self-scrutiny, but it must not ask the mirror to flatter or deceive, and must accept wrinkles or gray hair as evidence not of lack of attractiveness but as honorable marks of experience and maturity...