THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Fear of Ideas Dear Sirs: Why did the State Deparment refuse a visa to Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes? The official excuse—that Fuentes "might be" a Communist—is too absurd to...
...To be told that the amount of radioactivity released by the bombs was well within allowable limits did not abate their fears when all scientists admit that there is a definite possibility of harmful effects upon the health of the people of the world...
...One of the local papers (the Wisconsin State Journal) editorialized the next day that, "It [the protest walk] has no legitimate place in a free society where we govern ourselves by the ballot box and not street agi-ration...
...However, my doubts were completely dispelled when on the following day I read some quotes from the College Reporter, the student newspaper of Mankato (Minnesota) State College...
...Within twenty-four hours more than fifty women met to walk for peace...
...Carlos Fuentes is an articulate member of the Mexican Left...
...The American taxpayer may also begin looking for a clause in the constitution that sanctions such an expenditure...
...It should be fresh and imaginative, discarding the sterile negations of an Administration which enunciates pompously, "Communism in this hemisphere is not negotiable...
...They themselves guaranteed release with masking-out two months before they actually suppressed the film...
...Apparently, the United States is too close to the situation to move objectively...
...These women were mothers intensely worried over the milk their children drink...
...Virtually all practical problems, including the question of expropriated properties, could be thrashed out around the conference table by authorized experts in the various areas...
...Not necessar-lly, the powers behind the scene have made only a mess of this whole situation...
...John Holt Boston, Massachusetts Protest by Boycott Dear Sirs: We represent one of many groups of mothers all over the world who are concerned about the food they feed their families during nuclear testing...
...For one, you state that "those urging release of the film recognized that invasion of privacy was involved...
...As for negotiations, it is extremely unlikely that North Vietnam would negotiate an acceptable settlement unless it were clear that the brute-force gambit had failed...
...There is no longer any valid excuse for deferring diplomacy as the one effective means of achieving reconciliation...
...he was scheduled for a television debate on the Alliance for Progress with Richard N. Goodwin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs...
...The vast majority of these women had never been near a picket line in their lives...
...Lelia Bascom Madison, Wisconsin Free Press in Mississippi Dear Sirs: Readers of The Progressive will be interested in knowing that the first liberal Negro social action newspaper in the history of the state of Mississippi—the weekly Mississippi Free Press—was launched recently...
...Clubb fails to mention...
...A new, alternative policy, based on tolerance, trade, and travel, would enhance our moral influence throughout the world, as we turned from dollar diplomacy, power politics, exploitation, and armed aggression to work within our natural democratic procedures which have never failed us...
...Our children will receive their normal amounts of milk in canned or powdered form and will therefore not be deprived of any of their necessary nutrition...
...Any further inquiries should be directed to Women for Peace, P.O...
...I support and urge release of this film...
...I want Rubin for his pungent editorials and his choice of controversial topics with knowledgeable writers to discuss them...
...Do you maintain that racial discrimination in the rental and sale of housing is not a matter of legitimate public concern...
...I believe everyone should have the right to privacy and the right to equal opportunity while seeking a home and a job...
...For the past few months San Diego has been welcoming visitors and workers to its own Peace Information Center...
...At no point in your editorial do you even give the reader a definition of the "right of privacy...
...Doesn't his invitation to the general public preclude this...
...This unusual publication gives thorough coverage and interpretation to civil rights matters in this unhappy section of the nation...
...I suggest that he turn a few pages of the same issue of The Progressive and read O. Edmund Clubb's article on the U.S...
...The day that testing was scheduled eight women made a series of telephone calls to friends and neighbors asking them to join in a protest walk...
...I insist on adding: Discrimination is a dirty business— and it is immoral and un-American...
...mass murders in South Vietnam...
...What hypocrisy, when we recognize or trade with or give aid to countries all over the world, from Soviet Russia to Franco Spain, whote systems of government—Communist, socialist, fascist, dictatorship, military junta-are as "incompatible" with our Jefferaoni-an democracy as we claim Cuba's to be...
...Tougaloo, Mississippi Russian Pen Pals Dear Sirs: Persons interested in establishing correspondence directly with citizens of the Soviet Union, for the purpose of enhancing international understanding, may do so by forwarding to me two personal cards with address and four International Postal Union Coupons (available at any postoffice...
...Why not call an end to the brainwashing by Our State Department and misleading headlines of the United States press...
...Since milk constitutes the major part of the diet of young children, we are particularly concerned about the amounts of iodine 131 which will be found in fresh dairy supplies...
...When the individual utilizes mechanical means to record his experience, this recording may be restrained from being "published" if it is determined that it is libelous...
...It galls us, of course, to be supporting a dictator, and we should continually pressure him to liberalize his regime, but we have to work with the alternatives available...
...Dealing with the University of Wisconsin is like struggling with an enormous marshmallow...
...Further, they hatl worked out technical and cost details at this time...
...The State Department is willing to let its officials swap platitudes with "trained seals" of the Organization of American States, but it isn't likely to permit its spokesmen to participate in public debates with independent Latin American thinkers...
...The address cards will be given by me to interested persons while I am in Russia in July presenting a research paper to the Eighth International Cancer Congress...
...the air their children breathe...
...The landlord is protected against libel...
...What better place for an exhibition of our desire for and our willingness to work toward total peace...
...In more specific terms, the right of privacy has been defined as the right of a person to live without unwarranted interference from the public about matters with which the public has no legitimate concern...
...Fuentes would have had the opportunity to deliver effective criticism of the Alliance in free discussion with a spokesman for the U.S...
...If anyone would like more information about the San Diego Peace Information Center, please come in or write to: Peace Information Center 3465 University Avenue San Diego 4, California Co-ordinator: Etta Linton The Progressive is to be commended on its complete coverage of the peace issue...
...3. Settlement of legitimate differences...
...I differ cordially...
...We need both the Mayers and the Bor-lands, drawing our attention to Birchers and birches...
...A University administrator had informed one of the donors that the film was complete except for the masking out...
...It ought to be enough, or more than enough, to say that the spokesmen of the far Right are, among other things, uninformed, misinformed, dishonest, cynical, callous, reckless, malevolent, and driven largely by a fear and hatred that seems to embrace most of the world and its people...
...Surely a potential client, who has made an appointment with the owner or agent, to view an apartment for rent or a home for sale, is not considered a trespasser...
...2. Restoration of normal trade relations...
...Cuba is no longer our puppet but a sovereign state whose government is supported by an overwhelming majority of its citizens, most of whom are armed and could overthrow Castro at any time they became as sick of him as the Central Intelligence Agency and the Cuban exiles would have us believe they are now...
...Where the individual lacks recourse to relief from the courts or regulatory agencies (as is the case of the person suffering discrimination in housing in Wisconsin), it becomes doubly important that the individual be able to tell his story to the general public...
...Without compunction they sacrificed two years of effort by a citizen's committee and one year of a brilliant film-maker's creative life...
...it isn't enough...
...It is true that a small group of normally lethargic members showed that their first allegiance was not to civil rights, but to the University's image...
...Mayer compounds our anxieties, builds our frustrations and anger to a high pitch...
...I have read somewhere recently that the invasion of privacy is a dirty business...
...Goodwin would have been in the unhappy position of trying to defend an Alliance which is not likely to have any degree of success, since it is being directed by the same forces which are responsible for the poverty it is supposed to cure...
...You repeatedly refer to the film as an "invasion of privacy" without ever establishing that this is actually the case...
...The important question is, can an independent nation determine its own destiny...
...And also, is it in the interest of the United States to foster counter-revolution where it appears obvious that the majority of people involved (Cubans) are behind the present Cuban government...
...Ira D. Cardiff Yakima, Washington College Idiots Dear Sirs: In your April issue, under the heading, "Notes in the News," you have an item on "American Ignorance" which I found most interesting...
...To forget or ignore the beauty and wonder of spring has the same effect...
...We should turn the other cheek...
...There was every reason to believe that Fuentes would win the debate, with the result that State Department policies would be more closely examined by numbers of U.S...
...Manfred G. Koehler Furth, Germany Bowles the Theologian Dear Sirs: It would appear from his article in the April Progressive that the former historian, Chester Bowles, has deserted his honorable profession and joined the ranks of the theologians—in the ever-open field of apologetics...
...Has the University now placed a ban on the use of hidden microphones and cameras in psychiatric studies...
...They were linked by a common concern...
...To establish that an invasion of privacy has occurred, one must first ascertain that a matter of legitimate public concern is not involved...
...I am satisfied to know that a man is an intelligent and, honest searcher for the truth...
...For those who wish to accomplish something worthwhile through their state agencies, our experience should prove instructive...
...Therefore, what right does The Progressive have to state those of us . . . "urging release of the film recognized that invasion of privacy was involved...
...I am not too concerned with how black or white members of-the local branch of the National Associate for the Advancement of Colored People feel regarding the motion picture...
...To ignore the important issues of the day is to push ourselves a little further toward the "suicidal imperative" of civilization...
...I had a small part in the motion picture on discrimination in housing...
...I feel NAACP generally is too conservative...
...This protection prevents a document that has been distorted by editing from being distributed...
...When this actual definition is applied to the film, a question inherently arises...
...To attempt to resolve the Cuban problem is not to "negotiate Communism" bat simply to sit down with a small sister state that is going through a traumatic experience, and see what the family can do about it...
...It is time to clean it up, peacefully...
...but beyond this safeguard, the person to whom he speaks has the full right to divulge and publish what he hears...
...Contrary to James Wechsler's opinion, I believe that the issue of Castro's "Communism" is a "wrangle of semantics" and is irrelevant in understanding what is happening in Cuba and Latin America today...
...The decisive factor in the present situation is terror, which Mr...
...Nan Cheney Margaret Moore Lee Zeldin Madison, Wisconsin Terror in Vietnam Dear Sirs: O. Edmund Clubb, in "Trap in Vietnam" (April Progressive), assumes that the Communist-dominated Viet Cong receive peasant support because of the tatter's dissatisfaction with the Diem regime...
...Subscriptions may be obtained from HiCo Publishing Co., 1072 West Lynch Street, Jackson, Mississippi...
...Whether Fidel Castro is or is not a "Communist," whether he said he is or didn't say it, whether we think he is or not—all these questions are secondary in importance...
...These women were teachers, office workers, nurses, and suburban housewives from all over the city...
...Doing so could have prevented you from perpetuating a number of simple factual errors...
...Marcus A. Bowen Columbus, Ohio Mayer and Borland Dear Sirs: What an excellent job of editing, giving us Milton Mayer and Hal Borland in the same (April) issue...
...Box 944, Berkeley 1, California...
...That their concern was active and overwhelming was evidenced by the unusual step they took to put themselves on visible display...
...I have quite a list of homes for rent and for sale (in all areas of the city of Madison) to eligible colored families...
...Why is it that the questions raised in the preceding paragraphs have not been discussed in your editorial...
...Establishment," with a nationwide audience watching the proceedings...
...Richard M. Schaefer, Jr...
...She is anxious to resume this trade because it is easier and cheaper to buy from us than from sellers thousands of miles away...
...Innumerable letters had been written to editors of daily papers, to Congressmen, and to the President asking that testing not be resumed...
...therefore, I also belong to other organizations, like CORE, that are strong in organized protest against all form of discrimination...
...Vietnamese peasants have always been dissatisfied with any government above the village level, and this will no doubt continue for decades to come...
...By restoring trade with the United States, Cuba's dependence on other sources would be lessened...
...Who issues these credentials...
...I don't recognize that an invasion of privacy is involved...
...No amount of resound ing platitudes can drive her out—not even the futile incantations of Punta del Este...
...In concluding, I would like to quote Pil-pel and Zavin's Right and Writers on privacy: "We are very far from having reached anything like a definitive law in this area...
...However, the major fault of your editorial is that you fail to establish the validity of the premise upon which your conclusions are based...
...They were members of no organization...
...You characterize Father John F. Cronin as having "an impeccably anti-Communist" reputation...
...When one advertises property for rent or sale to the general public, he owes that public the common courtesy of showing the property, particularly when a prior appointment has been arranged...
...To abridge the freedom of the individual to relate what has occurred to him is to deny him the right to complain about an injustice and seek its correction...
...Perhaps it is better from a long-range viewpoint for the law to develop slowly...
...ban on travel to Cuba...
...Richard Niebuhr Madison, Wisconsin Sloan E. Williams Racine, Wisconsin Dear Sirs: As the director of the suppressed film on discrimination in housing about which you editorialized in the May issue ("A Family Quarrel"), I would like to make this comment: Since the parties involved in the film controversy reside in the city of your editorial offices, it is indeed regretable that you did not take this opportunity to check the accuracy of your statements with the originators of the film...
...What a strange use of the word "impeccable...
...A more likely reason for the affront to Fuentes is the State Department's fear of ideas...
...William Rybarczyk Rice Lake, Wisconsin Cordial Dissent Dear Sirs: A recent letter to The Progressive (April issue) suggests that Editor Morris H. Rubin and Author Milton Mayer resign...
...Is the landlord or realtor who advertises publicly property that he has for sale or rent asking to be left alone...
...Needless to say, the motion picture on housing, in spite of all the controversial debate, already has been of great value with the repeated public implication of the bias it portrays...
...Miriam S. Breyer San Diego, California No Place for Picketing Dear Sirs: On April 26, the day after the resumption of nuclear testing by the United States, a group of women walked in protest around the Capitol square in Madison, Wisconsin...
...Opposed relentlessly by segregationist elements, the Free Press needs and warrants the financial and moral support of all democratic people...
...4. Lifting the U.S...
...At first I was somewhat reluctant to accept as fact some of the statements about the extent of ignorance among American college graduates...
...The Editors...
...Lewiston, Idaho Sovereignty the Issue Dear Sirs: The recent review of Herbert Matthews book by Sidney Lens, and the letter criticizing the review of Spencer Brown and the Lens rejoinder all ignore the basic issue...
...Pro-Castro," some will say...
...We find nothing to retract...
...it would be all too easy, in our zeal to protect privacy, unwittingly to interfere unduly with the basic right of people in a democratic society to acquire the information they need to conduct a democracy...
...After figuring the damage bill, the cost of military operations to stop the invaders, phis some agreed amount to recover money taken out by some refugees, it may be the 362 million ransom asked will appear cheap...
...Thank you, Editors of The Progressive, for helping us to maintain an involvement in the world, both complex andl simple, by regularly featuring these fine writers...
...We have not yet distinguished clearly between those matters which are relevant to what the public is entitled to know and those which will merely satisfy curiosity...
...Fresh dairy supplies that are produced immediately after testing are the most contaminated...
...Clearly, only a matter of what they believed to be a life and death issue brought them there...
...Erika Muhlenberg, Chairman Radiation Committee Women for Peace Berkeley, California San Diego Peace Center Dear Sirs: We want to extend our congratulations and best wishes to those who have put their effort and support into the Seattle Peace Information Center...
...For Cuba was born and reared within the American community and it anchored there immovably...
...I'll wager it will pay off...
...Possibly he can justify this undeclared war from a theological standpoint but the wives and parents of American boys whose lives have been sacrificed in this mad enterprise may feel differently...
...Are some anti-Communist students of Communist strategy more impeccably anti-Communist than others, and if so, how did they get that way...
...907 Princeton Place Lakeland, Florida...
...should "immediately mobilize for total war...
...These errors of fact and other textual evidence indicate that you took the background for your article from accounts in Wisconsin's daily press, hardly the epitome of accuracy...
...Certainly the right of a human being to a private life which Warren and Brandeis so eloquently espoused has not been established...
...The University administrators did a disservice to the scholarly role of the University by having failed to consider fully the implications of its decision on the film...
...I want Milton Mayer for his gentle irony and his willingness to say "we" instead of "you" when he gibes at something that needs reforming...
...Is Cuba a sovereign state in international law or not...
...Three examples will suffice...
...Let us forget the word "ransom" and ask for a bill of particulars of the damage done Cuba...
...Since this attitude may prove pernicious to the civil rights movement in the future, we will take your invitation to reply as a pretext to analyze a state of mind of which the recent candid film suppression is only a symptom...
...Until they are secure from selective assassination, the peasants will continue to support the Viet, Cong with sons, food, and information, no matter how many schools or irrigation works Diem builds for them...
...The policy-makers got cold feet, and decided to bar Fuentes on grounds of "Communism...
...But then the University withdrew its guarantee and decided to suppress all candid footage...
...Then Borland reminds us that spring is here, that rebirth comes at this time every year, heedless of world tensions and challenges to freedom...
...Information, by reliable sources, on all questions relating to international peace are available to all who are interested...
...citizens...
...I made the list from numerous calls by good, intelligent people who want to help...
...We are involved in such facets of the peace issue as economic disarmament and alternatives to war...
...When the editor and one staff member of The Progressive screened the film, they suggested that masking out would even enhance its dramatic impact...
...First, we are perplexed by errors of fact in your article...
...Second, you state that it was our proposed solution "to mask out faces and house numbers, but that the University argued that this was impractical technically, and—more importantly—inadequate ethically...
...The first problem is security, as our representatives have correctly judged...
...These mothers realize that regardless of political arguments, there is contamination of food, and that the younger the child the greater is his vulnerability to it...
...We have to say of them exactly what they say of their opponents, that they are unwitting agents of (shudder...
...You imply that there are degrees of anti-Communism, and that a man's virtue and wisdom must be judged acording to where he falls along the anti-Communist spectrum...
...Lee S. Bigelow New Haven, Connecticut Cuba A Family Affair Dear Sirs: The time has come for a new, alternative policy in our relations with Cuba...
...The address of the Russian person will be forwarded to the corresponding individual in the United States...
...Radioactive iodine collects in the thyroid gland and may cause thyroid cancer, particularly in children...
...This is a grave misrepresentation of my position...
...that a man's home is his castle, etc...
...Curiously, those in the University administration who had worked out what we considered a compromise in good faith are the same ones who now circulate the tale that masking out is technically impossible...
...Eventually, we will talk with Cuba, why not now...
...At the moment the only alternative to our present policy is to let the Viet Cong win and to accept meekly the consequences for the rest of Southeast Asia...
...The University took our idea, they accepted our money, they produced what we asked them to and then, and only then, they told us—there is no other word for it—to go to hell...
...Ben H. McConnell, M.D...
...It should now be clear that raw force will not solve the Cuban difficulty—neither invasion, arm-twisting of the OAS, nor brutal economic pressures...
...and U.S.S.R., then the U.S...
...The editorial which, under a presumptuous title ("A Family Quarrel") appeared in your May issue criticizing our documentary film project on housing discrimination exposes an attitude long prevalent among self-proclaimed liberals...
...As for the prisoners held by Cuba since the abortive invasion of a year ago, we are in no small way responsible for them...
...As for the principal position expressed in our editorial comment, nothing in the letters disturbs the conviction we emphasized last month that "it is morally wrong to seek the achievement of a civil right by violating a civil liberty...
...i suggest consideration of the following four points in discussion of a settlement with Cuba: 1. Restoration of diplomatic relations...
...John R. Salter, Jr...
...Cuba's Foreign Ministry has agreed to mediation by other countries...
...Dimetra Shivers Madison, Wisconsin The Progressive did not seek its facts from the heated supporters of either side, but relied on sources whose objectivity we respect...
...This we categorically deny...
...Have they removed their one-way observation mirrors...
...Five years ago Cuba bought seventy-five per cent of her imports from us...
...And third, you state that the local NAACP was split sharply along racial lines by the controversy...
...Iodine 131 decays to at least one-half its initial radioactivity after a period of eight days...
...The official excuse—that Fuentes "might be" a Communist—is too absurd to be taken seriously...
...Stuart Hanisch Madison, Wisconsin Dear Sirs: I should like to comment on your editorial, "A Family Quarrel," in your May issue...
...Simply expanding your quote from Justice Brandeis to include the words immediately preceding those that you did select would have provided the reader with a general definition of privacy—that is, the right to be let alone...
...Thus, the Right wing smears the Turn Toward Peace movement by saying that it serves Communist ends...
...However, had you been at the last NAACP meeting you would know that a resolution was passed without dissent praising both the film director who resigned and the committee and its chairman for originating the project...
...As you can see, it is a vastly different proposition when the concrete definitions are applied rather than unsubstantiated charges that the film violates some undefined, abstract principle...
...The recurring charge of factual error in the three letters above actually shakes down to points of emphasis and interpretation about which there is sincere difference of opinion...
...It is our hope that you will print our letter so that other women who share our concern will learn of our plans...
...This prevents the reader from testing for himself whether or not your abstract charge stands up to the test of empirical application...
...This great national organization has made the best progress by law in the courts...
...Just how idiotic can a person be and still be admitted to—or graduated from—an American college...
...Objective observers, watching them shift position hke a weathervane in a high wind, Have had no trouble seeing that they have contradicted one another, lied to us (and apparently to you), and generally displayed a lack of scruples that would make Richard Nixon blush...
...You, in turn ("Notes in the News," April) quote with approval and even relish the statements of two leading church bodies that the far Right is, in The Progressive's words, "serving the cause of the Kremlin...
...Those are credentials enough for me...
...In former years our people flocked to Cuba's sunny shores, spending millions of dollars which returned to us through Cuban imports from the United States...
...Taylor Adams New York, N. Y. Clean Up Cuba Mess Dear Sirs: Some people who can see the forest regardless of the trees in the Cuban situation would like to see this whole mess peacefully resolved...
...As both a protest against nuclear testing and a preventative measure, we are therefore refraining from using fresh milk for at least eight days following any explosion producing nuclear fallout...
...the Kremlin...
...Have they told the social scientists that they may no longer carry out research or publish studies in which the possibility of identifying any of the individuals studied exists...
...This was not our solution, but the University's...
...This college newspaper is quoted as an advocate of the following United States policy toward the Soviet Union: Immediate severance of all diplomatic relations, and if such severance of relations does not improve the relations between the U.S...
...However, no one has charged the film with being libelous...
...But no...
...However, the mothers of this coua-try are not able to vote on nuclear testing nor do they have the resources of a newspaper to put their case before the public...
...In a conversation between landlord (or realtor) and the home seeker, the landlord cannot assume that what he says will not be repeated to other people...
...Victim of McCarthyism Dear Sirs: It is interesting that The Progressive, like most American liberals, has fallen for the McCarthyite view that the test of the worth of an idea, or lack of worth, is how it affects Communism...
...What is unaccountable is that with all the participants of the controversy located in the same city as your editorial offices, you never saw fit to contact any of the people you criticize to get your facts straight...
...Lee Miller Long Island, New York More Than 'Family Quarrel' Dear Sirs: When men set out to change social ills, it is essential that they accept the responsibility of seeing that their motives, goals and methods are not distorted...
Vol. 26 • June 1962 • No. 6
