THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Press Standards Eroded Dear Sirs: The Washington Post's . account of the breaking of the Christmas truce in Vietnam displays how this war has warped journalistic objectivity...
...Those interested may write to Washington Peace Center, 2111 Florida Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., or call AD 4-2111...
...and what self-respecting protagonist would negotiate with such a man, who does not legitimately represent the people of Saigon, but represents only himself, his military establishment, and the United States...
...We ask for your aid toward the establishment of a fund that will offer these students and their teachers the needed financial support and confidence with which to continue their struggle for academic freedom and, in general, for democracy in Spain...
...The fact that there is no democratic philosophy underlying our foreign policy and that key foreign policy-makers (except the President) are Republicans facilitates protest in Democratic quarters...
...More than seventy per cent of the Havana population belonged to these clubs...
...freedom of assembly, of expression, of intellectual inquiry...
...Box 2114, La Jolla, California 92038...
...The fear of offending Johnson has apparently eroded the journalistic standards of our finest newspapers...
...Secondly, which government would be the principal negotiator for our side, the Saigon government or the government of the United States...
...Obviously it cannot be the United States because this is not our war...
...Thank you for a discerning and enlightening magazine...
...three professors were expelled recently from the universities of Madrid and Salamanca and two more received two-year suspensions...
...If so, we would be glad to mail them for the price of the postage...
...William H. Fischer Department of Education Texas Western College El Paso, Texas Spanish Students Need Help Dear Sirs: In recent years students in Spanish universities have fought courageously for recognition of their basic rights and freedoms: the right to elect their representatives, to organize their own associations, to have an active voice in academic affairs...
...Patrol Attacked As Reds Ignore Truce and Force New Fights...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Press Standards Eroded Dear Sirs: The Washington Post's . account of the breaking of the Christmas truce in Vietnam displays how this war has warped journalistic objectivity and denied the American people the dispassionate evaluation of the facts...
...that does not mean that there is free speech or a free press...
...McClatchy forgot to mention the "vigilance committees...
...Gelston McNeil Executive Secretary Washington, D. C. Liberal Lending Library Dear Sirs: As your readers may know, the area of southern Illinois, southern Indiana, western Kentucky, and Western Tennessee is not very progressive minded...
...We need books and literature on peace, civil rights, civil liberties, and social progress...
...It is the inability of the United Nations, under pressure from Britain and the United States, to make Pakistan give up her ill-gotten gains, and its fear of naming Pakistan the aggressor, that has made a "dispute" of Kashmir...
...Charles Heller Route 2 Eldora, Iowa...
...But just for the record, McClatchy must know that the largest class in Cuba was not the wealthy or poor class, but the middle class...
...Whatever American equipment India has used in this fighting is what she bought from the United States before the Chinese invasion of 1962...
...It is also well known that some of their teachers have been prosecuted and penalized for backing these aims...
...The lead paragraph tells us that the ". . . Vietcong chopped up a U.S...
...The author's opening words are: "Cuba today is not the island of misery, oppression, and starvation which it is pictured to be by many Americans...
...This fund is to be used impartially, without favoring any particular group or political party, with the needs of individual persons primarily in mind...
...Finally, in the seventh paragraph, the article cites "swelling evidence . . . that neither side had ever ceased military activities except for a few hours Christmas Eve...
...I see no other honorable course...
...It is incorrect to say that India "is using U.S...
...When students participating in peaceful demonstrations have been unable to pay these fines, they have been given jail sentences and, later, have been suspended from their universities...
...India has not used against Pakistan the U.S...
...Why not give all South Vietnamese people the opportunity to exercise this right in an election as provided by the Geneva Accords of 1954, without interference from non-South Vietnamese people, but supervised by the United Nations...
...In Cuba there is one newspaper, The Gramma, controlled by the government...
...equipment against Pakistan just as Pakistan is using U.S...
...Both actions, the Post reported, violated a pledge made by a U.S...
...But we did that before, when we overthrew Batista, and we are keeping to the same conduct without asking permission of anyone...
...To call every Pakistani attack on India a "dispute," to blame India each time Pakistan strikes, and to ask her to "stop fighting" have become stale jokes by now...
...The latter would have well fitted into the foreign office of Benjamin Disraeli's Nineteenth Century, expansionist Great Britain...
...Consequently they have encountered not only personal hardships, but financial obstacles in the form of heavy fines which are decisive and likely to endanger the future pursuit of their goals...
...No one tried to stop us or suggested that there was anything improper in what we were doing...
...John Stenhouse, Chairman Democrats for Democratic Foreign Policy Mercer Island, Washington Washington Peace Center Dear Sirs: Readers of The Progressive living in the Washington D.C...
...aid given to her to be used against China...
...The reason for my skepticism was that his offer to talk seemed an empty gesture in the light of his explanation to the American people that we would stay in Vietnam until our objective was accomplished...
...the few radio stations are also under tyrannical control...
...We know that the American policymakers are proclaiming now for a liberal and democratic government for Cuba...
...Outside Havana are beautiful beaches, ten miles long, that had always been open to anyone without regard to race...
...J. Godoy Coral Gables, Florida McGovern and Rusk Dear Sirs: Senator George McGovern's fine article on food as a "weapon" to win people to our side (in your December issue) stamps him again as one of the most thoughtful men in public life today—what a contrast with the singularly pedestrian pronouncements of Secretary Dean Rusk...
...This objective, when analyzed, appears to be the destruction of either the lives or the political freedom of the Vietcong, Since the Vietcong represent at least a majority of the South Vietnamese people, the result would be to deny them a basic principle of democracy, the rule of the majority...
...India has no illusions left as to who are her friends, and whatever the obstacles the "democracies" may put in her way, she is determined to preserve her secular, democratic way of life for which end every section of her multi-religious society has already sacrificed so much...
...But the most important point to make clear is this: When we fought the Batista tyranny we intended to free Cuba in every respect, without the interference of either the Soviet Union or the United States...
...We are merely allies assisting the Saigon government in their war...
...S. Mehta New Delhi, India Democratic Foreign Policy Dear Sirs: At a recent King County Democratic gathering our group of active Democrats distributed more than a thousand copies of a "Think Sheet" strongly attacking our foreign policy...
...Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, Robert C. Elliott, Claudio Guillen, Gabriel Jackson, Richard H. Popkin, Jean-Pierre Parisot University of California San Diego, California In Defense of India Dear Sirs: While congratulating you on your editorial note, "Donors of Death," in the October issue of The Progressive for so clearly pointing out to your government the evil effects of "military aid" given to its "allies," I would like to mention the inaccuracies in your comment...
...We need the help and support of your readers...
...Under these conditions we can easily profess a willingness for "unconditional discussions" from now until doomsday, but with no prospect of achieving peace...
...The people of Jammu and Kashmir have freely chosen their own government in three elections based on adult franchise and have repelled, at great cost and sacrifice to themselves, the two attempts at invasion by Pakistan...
...C. W. Griffin, Jr...
...I agree with McClatchy that the wealthy upper class were indolent and indifferent and must be blamed for many of the misfortunes suffered by the Cuban people...
...The lurid headline panders to chauvinistic passions...
...During the "truce," it seems, American forces had kept up "defensive" artillery fire and had sent out patrols...
...Please send letters and contributions to— Richard Chinn 600 Third Avenue South Providence, Kentucky 42450 Offers Back Issues Dear Sirs: We have been getting The Progressive since 1949, when my brother gave us a gift subscription...
...The intensification of National Liberation Front attacks was of secondary importance to this buried news, which was doubtless overlooked by most readers...
...It charges the "Reds" with violating a truce that was obviously never observed by either side...
...Denville, New Jersey Peace Talk 'Conditions' Dear Sirs: There are two unfortunate discrepancies that we overlook when professing a willingness for "unconditional discussions" to end the war in Vietnam...
...Marine patrol Christmas Day during the thirty-hour cease-fire which a U.S...
...Would there be anyone who could make use of copies, nearly complete, from 1949 through 1960...
...The much talked-about "plebiscite" on which Pakistan and her friends harp was conditional on Pakistan vacating her illegal occupation of a part of the states of Jammu and Kashmir, because the plebiscite, if effected, would have been applied to the whole state, including the part invaded by Pakistan...
...When one reads Rusk's tired, worn statements, it is easy to imagine that we are in the Nineteenth Century...
...Benjamin E. Lull Rochester, New York McClatchy on Cuba Dear Sirs: The article, "Castro's Cuba Today" by C. K. McClatchy, in your December issue, in some ways is accurate, but in many ways misleads your readers...
...Not until after the Vietcong is charged with launching "84 significant actions" is there an explanation of this cryptic clause...
...First, and most obvious, is our precondition of negotiating only with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) as principal negotiator, rather than with the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Vietcong), which is our most direct and principal adversary...
...McClatchy said that before Castro there was a "small strip of beach open to the public among the twenty-two miles of beaches surrounding Havana...
...We hardly want to part with old copies, but, for lack of space, we should dispose of them...
...Mrs...
...A report on the use of the fund will be sent to all those who have contributed to it...
...equipment against her...
...Please make your check payable to: Committee for Aid to Spanish Students, P.O...
...I suggest that our government open the door to negotiations by recognizing that freedom of choice of type of government is an individual's human right, regardless of his political philosophy...
...area may be interested in the work of the Washington Peace Center...
...The peasants do not now have more land than they had before, and their production must be sold to the government at fixed prices...
...We have come to depend on it so much that we could not do without it...
...Negotiations conducted by Premier Ky are doubly impossible: Ky says he will not enter into negotiations...
...military spokesman...
...To say that the war between Pakistan and India was over Kashmir is not true...
...Several friends and I have sought to correct that by working toward the establishment of a liberal lending library...
...Reynolds Moody Miami, Florida Vietnam Democracy Denied Dear Sirs: After President Johnson's offer to "talk peace," I did not share your optimism that it would bring the Vietcong to the conference table...
...The city of Havana had a dozen different private clubs, some of them with fees of $5 a month, or as much as $15 a month for an entire family...
...Pakistan got its $1.5 billion "military aid" from the United States by duplicity with the sole and deliberate purpose of fighting India...
...military spokesman conceded today was never really in effect...
...There are more than 150,000 of them, covering every block in every city of Cuba—people who watch you day and night...
...But further on are sentences like this one: "A group of students in two different schools in Santa Clara reported classmates had been expelled for not having a sufficiently good revolutionary attitude...
...This organization, which is now three years old, services the community with films and film discussion leaders, as well as speakers on a wide variety of peace issues...
...The proper headline for this story is something like, "Evidence Mounts That Both Sides Violated Vietnam Truce...
...McClatchy wrote that people do not complain about the absence of free speech...
...We need money and stamps to defray costs...
...In the Post's story a headline shouts, "U.S...
...We hope that other recognizable Democrats will be encouraged to express themselves in Democratic gatherings...
...We had expected some hostility, but were pleasantly surprised not to encounter any...
...In its handling of this story the Post seems guilty of something close to yellow journalism...
Vol. 30 • February 1966 • No. 2
