THE PEOPLE'S FORUM

...Civilian Control Dear Sirs: Many of us are grateful to you for the splendid, well-documented articles and editorials in your recent issues alerting readers to the danger of the military complex in this country...

...We just cannot allow this tiny piece of the white man's burden to fall from the pack so wearily hung upon our straining shoulders...

...But as a weapon in the struggle against the forces of the Right, the term could be extremely useful...

...Radical" has for so long been used in association with the extreme left and liberal causes as to be explained in this context in my Webster's Unabridged...

...For Canadians to imply that our mass programs are worse than theirs is hypocrisy, as anyone who has listened to private Canadian stations knows...

...petroleum interests...

...Army...

...It seems that Americans are unable to criticize their own shortcomings without convincing themselves that the rest of the world is morally superior, better educated, or less materialistic...

...Charles Lyman New York, New York Military vs...

...And, while we try to improve our country, we must learn to recognize that most of the rest of the world, although it may not have the money to be vulgar on the same scale that we can, is certainly no better than we are...

...When police aided by dogs are defying the rulings in these two states, the Department of Justice must be taking a very complacent attitude as to enforcement...

...Joe Glover North Hollywood, Calif...

...And urge all liberals and progressives to use them, too...

...Why not make it a point always to use them together, whenever they apply...

...Surely, if Federal funds totaling millions have been misused, it would be in the public interest to illuminate these areas of deception...

...We who live in this area of Fort Ord, and the other installations here, know first hand what goes on, and are deeply concerned lest some of our traditional constitutional freedoms are being lost...

...Fortunately, both Indonesia's President Sukarno and the Netherlands government have now accepted the proposal of the United Nations to negotiate this sticky colonial problem...

...The committee's failure to inquire into the substance of Mr...

...The only hardships being endured are on the part of those the rulings are supposed to protect...

...On the basis of a word count in the prefatory note, Wertham informs us that Fremiti's is a cold war document because the term "the West" occurs nine times...

...Documentation for the question I raise can be found in a letter over the signature of Frank Weitzel, Assistant Comptroller General of the United States, and addressed to Representative Chet Holifield in his capacity as chairman of the Military Operations Subcommittee...

...On the other hand, it is true that a government-run network can help to educate the public...

...One of the greatest domestic threats to our nation would seem to lie in the enormous power being taken over by our own military...

...This, of course, is the root of the matter...

...Usually your reviewers not only meet this minimum standard but manage to say something intelligent and informative as well, but the review (January issue) by Frederick Wer-tham of Erich Fromm's book on Marx was not only polemical and uninformative but downright ignorant of what Fromm wrote in the long essay with which he introduced Marx s manuscripts of 1844...

...I would refer Wertham, in case he still cannot be bothered to read Fromm, to recent writings by Sidney Hook, who at least takes cognizance of Fromm's thesis in order to attack it...

...Nehru after fourteen years of Portuguese procrastination in Goa, is losing his patience...

...Donald Overton Montreal, Canada...

...Wisconsin White Man's Burden Dear Sirs: A physician identifying himself as "a former medical officer of the U.S...

...Taylor Adams New York, New York Non-Violence Losing Dear Sirs: I have been among those who assumed that an ICC ruling on bus and terminal segregation would have some significance with some kind of follow-through as to enforcement...

...Much more descriptive seems to me to be "rabid Right...

...The many incidents contained in the letter should have generated an investigation by the Committee into the charges...

...Clearly Fromm is drumming us into a patriotic frenzy...

...Since they tune to our blood and thunder Westerns, it must follow that they like them...

...The punch line of the article seems to be a restatement of President Kennedy's "one stroke of the pen" speech on the subject of housing segregation...

...This out-moded doctrine of the white man's burden is deeply resented by the now-decisive Asians, Africans, and South Americans...

...Army officer, of the old arrogant belief in military might to maintain the world-dominance which we seem to have shouldered as the British empire collapses...

...Representative John V. Lindsay House of Representatives Washington, D.C...

...I would prefer the testimony of a competent anthropologist on this point...

...Moreover, if the appropriations were not used to provide the so-called protective measures that were claimed, those poor tortured individuals who might find some measure of safety in shelters will be greatly restricted in their attempts to scamper underground...

...Let us keep it there, and help this great world body to resolve it effectively and, above all, peaceably...

...Mrs...

...Thus the belligerent doctor's plea is <|uashed by events, and we will be spared another overseas intervention by U.S...

...They would see a difference, I think, between defeating Japan and defending the seventy-five-year concession recently granted by the Dutch to a joint U.S.-Dutch corporation formed to extract the mineral, riches of New Guinea...

...Mrs...

...Weisbord would write at the present time in view of President Kennedy's recent refusal to sign such an order when it was placed before him...

...Agnes M. Bidweix Pebble Beach, California Reading and Reviewing Dear Sirs: May I urge you in the name of responsibility to find reviewers who will at least take the trouble to read the books they review...

...Roger Hagan Cambridge, Massachusetts Americans Not Inferior Dear Sirsi Your editorial note in the January issue stressing the desirability of a governmental television network is full of wishful thinking...

...The doctor speaks movingly of "our precious dead in unmarked graves all through New Guinea, who will have died in vain if we allow Sukarno to take over the island for his Malayan East Indians...

...Tip on Libraries Dear Sirs: I recommended Erich Fromm's article in the November issue to mv League of Women Voters friends, in their study of the Common Market, and was surprised to hear from several of them that they had not been able to find The Progressive in our public libraiy...

...Civil Defense Frauds...

...There seems little doubt now that the President will sign"—referring to a proposed and highly necessary executive order ending all discriminatory practices in all Federally-assisted housing...

...But peace-loving men and women will be none the less disturbed by this expression, from a former U.S...

...The doctor calls them "a wild lot" but is confident that "after a few years under the guidance of the local constabulary" supervised by Australians and Dutch, they will become "self-reliant and intelligent...

...The letter was dated August 1, 1961, and it presumably reached Holifield during the time his committee's sessions involving the August hearings on civil defense were being held...

...Weitzel's communication dealt with the possibility that Federal funds, appropriated in amounts up to one-half of local and state civilian defense needs, were fraudulently requested and subsequently diverted to non-CD uses...

...He threatens military action to force the Dutch to honor their treaty...

...Spiritually we have no small stake in seeing that non-violence does not lose out as a method of securing human rights...

...In this respect it is vital that civilians in high key positions, which are in any way connected with the military, be protected against reprisals, or attack, either open or subversive, from the military...

...I understand substantial compliance has occurred except in Mississippi and Louisiana...

...Dear Sirs: In the flurry of justifiable criticisms (in which I join wholeheartedly) of the deceitful and useless civil defense program, an important question regarding the possible dishonesty of some local and state civil defense personnel has apparently been overlooked...

...The world rings with accusations of "armed aggression," "Communist infiltration" and the doctor, with true military bluntness, pierces the smokescreen with this illuminating statement—"From our own selfish point of view, the island of New Guinea, the second largest in the world and vastly rich and fertile, should remain a bastion of the free world...

...Weitzel's charges raises a second question, the presumable reluctance of Holifield to examine fully the administration of the OCDM...

...armed forces...

...They do not accept the idea of the United States as the God-appointed overseer of the "lesser breeds," destined to save civilization at Punta del Este, on Taiwan, and at the Bay of Pigs...

...But the Negro is being denied the right to vote in many of our states, and he gets the tail-end of our prosperity...

...Kennedy, in his State of the Union message, struck the same note when he called on us "to bear with pride the burden of preserving freedom throughout the world...

...But it seems to me that if the former U.S...

...It was only a matter of a few moments for me to recommend The Progressive to the head librarian...

...in a letter to the New York Times (January 20) asks that our government "inform Mr...

...Meanwhile, Mr...

...We insist all over the rest of the world on our complete devotion to the right to vote and to share in prosperity...

...Very likely they have been used together many times...

...This is a tip for Progressive enthusiasts to look into the situation in their public libraries...

...What kind of leadership would you call this...

...The doctor pays lip-service to the principle of self-determination for the stone-age Papuan tribes of West New Guinea the Dutch have conveniently invented as a cover for their twelve-year stalling on their agreement, hammered out at the Round Table Conference at The Hague in 1949, to turn over to the new Indonesian Republic all of their former colony o; the Dutch East Indies...

...Next he states that if one believes Stalin's Marxism to have been a fraud, one is unscientific...

...For the full text of the letters, I refer to the document entitled "Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations— House of Representatives—Eighty-seventh Congress—First Session—August 1-9, Civil Defense—1961...

...Interfering with the unalterable course of revolution is a ticklish business, as we ought to be learning in Cuba...

...These exhortations by the military doctor and our President brought to me only the faint echo of the thudding guns at Tinghai, at Delhi, at Khartoum, at Bloemfontein...

...It is indeed fortunate for us that this thorny question in colonial liquidation has been placed exactly where it belongs—in the hands of the United Nations...

...Such personnel in many places are finding it extremely difficult to function in the interest of the public because of the pressure applied to them both on the job and socially...

...Now the implication is that Americans should not inflict their Philistine taste on the culturally superior Canadians...

...Radical Right' a Misuse Dear Sirs: Before the phrase gets too firmly implanted in the minds of the unthinking, I rise to challenge the use of the term "radical Right" as a gross misuse and a derogation of a respected adjective...

...So far it is losing out in Louisiana and Mississippi, and it has not won voting rights in many other states for a large percentage of the colored population...

...Army doctor's plea is heeded, we risk another Korea, another Taiwan, another Laos or Viet Nam...

...I wonder what kind of an article Mr...

...Sukarno immediately, and in no uncertain terms, that we will oppose—with our military strength if necessary—any attempt of his to take over any part of the island of New Guinea...

...The author makes the statement...

...I would insist, however, that it is necessary to read it...

...A governmental network would not replace the offending programs...

...Wertham shows no awareness of the place of Fromm's argument in the current debates on Marx...

...I would strongly suggest that the readers of The Progressive insist that their state and national representatives demand a full investigation into the charges specified in Mr...

...The oversight now stands corrected, and The Progressive is there—we hope "for all time...

...Let us work to raise the standards in the mass media, but let us realize at the same time that since some people like gory programs, nothing short of censorship will take them off the air...

...He does not mention that if one accepts Fromm's carefully laid out thesis as to the essence of Marx's philosophy, fraud is the mildest word possible for Stalin's Marxism...

...Let the "rabid Right" try to equate democracy with capitalism and socialism with communism, but let not The Progressive tarnish the memory of Thomas Paine, Eugene Debs, and their ilk by carelessly misusing "radical...

...Weitzel's letter so that the dishonest individuals, if any, may be subjected to criminal or other prosecution for misuse of Federal funds...

...The tax-paying public is entitled to a full explanation...

...The substance of Mr...

...Christine Wise Appleton...

...Sukarno, like Mr...

...Moreover, evidence was presented in the letter relating to non-legal payments...

...Lee Grant Detroit, Michigan 'Radical Right' Useful Dear Sirs: Your December issue contains two words not ordinarily used together—"radical Right...

...If Canadians as a group had more culture than Americans as a group do, they would watch the excellent programs provided for them by the CBC...

...It is rather indicative of a desire for progressive reform, not retrogression, and in association with liberal policies, and just because the rabid Right seeks to confuse the issue with a misuse of terms, I see no reason for the liberal publications to give aid and comfort to the enemy...

...In fact, Wertham seems unaware that Fromm has any such thesis...

...Similar findings were presented in conjunction with the Surplus Property Program and the Survival Projects Program...

...I would not hold that it is necessary to agree with Fromm's view of Marx in order to write a responsible review of it...

...I seriously doubt that American mothers and fathers would again send their sons to die in these infested jungles to protect the Netherlands-New Guinea Oil Company, even though sixty per cent of its stock is owned by U.S...

...Thinking Americans have had inferiority complexes for too long...

...Suppose we face the facts...

...Here is a letter I have sent to President Kennedy: "Very simply, this is to ask that you make every possible effort to regain civilian control of the military complex of our country...

...And for the first time we have seen our jails used to penalize a request for observance of the taw...

...The Dutch efforts to make the world believe that the headhunting savages of the area, who cannot achieve any kind of community beyond a prehistoric village, will be ready for self-government by 1970, are sheer hypocrisy...

...Edward Schaar Pacific Palisades, Calif...

...The above items dealt with possible wrongdoing in the Federal Contributions Program...

...Finally, he closes on the proposition that Marx did not delineate a concept of man, without coming to grips with the many pages in which Fromm sets forth such a concept in Marx's own words as well as in paraphrase, discusses its intellectual history, and gives examples of its occurrence in Marx's later writings...