THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Wechsler on Humphrey Dear Sirs: James Wechsler's attempt in the July issue to find extenuation for Hubert Humphrey's recent conduct in office reminds one of the well-known...
...The idea of finding a "face-saving formula" is utter nonsense...
...He replied, ". . . it would be irresponsible for me to say that we run no risk...
...In a larger sense we and the world need China, need the help and experience of every people in the struggle to relieve the agony of hunger, cold, and indignity which is spreading among ever-growing populations...
...How about Korea...
...It might then have been assumed he was quietly working for decency in the Administration...
...Lee Grant Detroit, Michigan Johnson's Counsel Dear Sirs: As The New York Times reports that the United States plans to build up its forces in Vietnam by another 100,000 troops by the end of the year and start on yet another offensive, it brings to mind advice given by Lyndon B. Johnson, then Vice President, to President Kennedy, after he returned from a visit to that country (as quoted by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr...
...Alice Franklin Bryant Seattle, Washington Before Fort Sumter Dear Sirs: Senator J. W. Fulbright's article, "The Higher Patriotism," in the July issue was, as I fully expected, fascinating and very much needed in this era of "consensus...
...How about Tibet...
...Are Chinese-trained commandos from off-shore islands raiding California...
...H. L. Curtis Guymon, Oklahoma Extremist Activities Dear Sirs: I would like to acquire information from Progressive subscribers about extreme right activities in their home areas...
...Vietnam...
...He said this represented a clear mandate by the people for him to run the country as he sees fit, and that this is exactly what he intends to do...
...Alert people are not impressed by McNamara's statement that the bombings will counter infiltration...
...McNamara continued to rely on his figures of so many killed in Vietnam, and so many estimated infiltrators, and on the advice sent by the CIA—the same organization which promoted the Bay of Pigs adventure and predicted that the Cuban people would rise and join the invaders...
...What a global tragedy that—as President Kennedy's adviser, Arthur M. Schles-inger Jr., charged on May 8—President Johnson lacks judgment to overrule wrong advice about Vietnam...
...Ernest Lazar 4547 Stevenson Boulevard Fremont, California 94538...
...Wechsler demonstrates an amazing sensitivity for "cruelty" to Hubert Humphrey and a monstrous insensitivity to mass murder...
...Far more irresponsible than saying that we run no risk was McNamara's advice that fuel dumps at Hanoi and Haiphong be bombed...
...Jessica Mitford Oakland, California Misinformation About China Dear Sirs: Why all the talk about China's "bellicosity," "expansionism," and "anti-Americanism...
...Checks may be sent to: Funds for Justice, Edward Stern, Trustee, 690 Market Street, San Francisco, California...
...Reynolds Moody Lt...
...It seems to me that these promises are still valid...
...But I was astonished to read that the Senator includes the Civil War as being among those which were "unjust, unnecessary, or both...
...On March 3, while being questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was asked, "Are we facing an increasing risk of war with China...
...Alston Anderson Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts Betrayed Dear Sirs: Our President recently told an assembly in Omaha that in 1964 the American people elected him by an overwhelming majority...
...Wechsler's article is quite atypical of the many perceptive items which you have published recently, and I write to complain only because I hate to see in my favorite magazine this attempt to minimize the revulsion that true progressives must feel for this American candidate for a war crimes conviction...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Wechsler on Humphrey Dear Sirs: James Wechsler's attempt in the July issue to find extenuation for Hubert Humphrey's recent conduct in office reminds one of the well-known story of the conversation between Shaw and the actress, of which the last two lines were: "Do you think I'm a whore...
...India...
...No one would even have faulted him for remaining silent...
...USMC (Ret...
...Do their spy planes trek across our skies...
...When an elected official so dangerously and grievously betrays the trust of the people, then he must be removed from office, however distasteful that may be...
...Has the Senator forgotten the infamous Missouri Compromise...
...Letters, telegrams, and calls to the Governor urging him to grant a full pardon would be in order...
...Governor Brown has the power to extend clemency to all the defendants, yet he seems paralyzed into inaction—some say out of fear of a certain television actor...
...It was because he ran on a peace platform against a war hawk whose platform he has subsequently adopted...
...This is our duty, not only to our country, but in this case to the entire world...
...Our face looks so bad by now that it is not worth saving...
...My undying thanks go to that portion of our press and the all-too-few legislators and others who have continued to maintain their faith in the power for good that is an informed citizenry, and to fight for it against all odds...
...In response to this invitation I am critical of Secretary of Defense McNamara, said to be "the power behind the President...
...Professor William H. Fisher Western State College Gunnison, Colorado Against Withdrawal Dear Sirs: After being in Vietnam a year I cannot agree that we should pull out...
...But does it make sense...
...So would cash contributions to help pay the fines of the demonstrators...
...Why this vindictive "justice" for civil rights demonstrators...
...Nothing could be more disastrous for our country's future than to continue to expand the authority of its diplomacy and dollars, of its bombs, marines, and armament makers while being held more and more responsible by a hungry, miserable half of humanity, burning with anti-imperialist wrath and claiming its rightful dignity...
...Is he not aware that this was what the war was about...
...Robert G. Gunderson Bloomington, Indiana Humphrey and Kennedy Dear Sirs: Permit me to comment on the letter by Elmer Bernard in your June issue in which he blasts Senator Robert Kennedy and defends Vice President Hubert Humphrey...
...It represents the kind of plain common sense and human decency that should have been motivating Americans since World War II...
...in A Thousand Days, pages 542-543): " The long-term danger . . . came not from communism but from hunger, ignorance, poverty and disease...
...I'm just curious about your price...
...A few days later counter-attacking Chinese pushed the Indians back into India...
...Barry M. Cohen Kingsville, Texas McNamara's Mistakes Dear Sirs: "Criticism is an act of patriotism," wrote Senator Fulbright in the July issue of The Progressive...
...This escalation assuredly increases the risk of war with China...
...Miami, Florida 4,940 Days in Jail Dear Sirs: The San Francisco hotel and Auto Row sit-in demonstrators, who made national headlines in March, 1964, won a series of remarkable victories hailed at the time by civil rights leaders...
...Again in 1954 at Geneva the United States agreed not to oppose the carrying-out of the Geneva agreements, then promptly proceeded to nationalize and militarize the southern sector of Vietnam and to oppose the elections scheduled for 1956...
...The United States still has an army in South Korea...
...Did China attack India in 1962...
...forces took on the Vietminh as allies fighting the Japanese, then switched over and helped France fight against the Vietminh...
...Instead' of Wechsler's soothing apologetics, publish what he describes as "the cruel taunts of the anti-Humphrey satirists...
...Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez are the hope of the human race not because they are intelligent but because along with their intelligence they love their fellow men and work with them to save their bodies and souls...
...Anyone interested may contact me for further explanation...
...This would require conviction and courage far beyond what most men have...
...When we gave him his mandate we expected him to honor his campaign promises, not to betray those promises...
...Arthur and Helen Bertholf Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Chavez and King Dear Sirs: It was a wonderful inspiration to those of us who have spent a long life among those who have seen only hardship and deprivation to read of Cesar Chavez in the July issue...
...Men like Dr...
...It is our patriotic duty to protest against such misguided policies...
...Werner Landshoff New York, New York Praises Robert Lasch Dear Sirs: Small wonder the Robert Lasch editorial ("The Containment of Ideas," June Progressive) won for him the 1965 Pulitzer Prize...
...This vast, almost uninhabited land had been under Chinese suzerainty several centuries before Mao...
...What is needed is a new face...
...McNamara advised that adventure, too...
...E. M. Bevilacqua Allendale, New Jersey Dear Sirs: It is dismaying to find in The Progressive an apology for America's number two exponent of genocide, Hubert Horatio Humphrey...
...to enunciate more clearly than we have . . . what we expect of these young nations...
...Is it China that is spotting the entire planet with atom bases and floating fortresses...
...Those unable to pay the fines must serve an additional day in jail for each five dollars, which in some cases amounts to forty-four days...
...This month, two and a half years later, 169 men and women charged with misdemeanors are beginning to serve jail terms totalling 4,940 days and must pay fines totalling $13,289 for their part in the sit-ins...
...Why won't China and North Vietnam negotiate...
...Two years ago, I would have agreed with Mr...
...The majority of these prisoners are young people whose lives are being bitterly disrupted by these vicious sentences...
...Few people believe, I think, that Humphrey should resign...
...China has no military forces outside her frontiers...
...our investment in lives, personal sacrifice, and assorted resources is now too great...
...And the fact is that, on the basic issue of our times, the war in Vietnam, Senator Kennedy is far more in the moral camp than is Hubert Humphrey...
...A man either has high moral standards and the courage to defend them or he does not...
...At the height of the demonstrations the San Francisco Hotel Association, representing thirty-three major hotels, signed an agreement meeting all of their demands...
...I am reliably informed by lawyers who represent pimps, shoplifters, bookmakers, and the like that the usual outcome for the convicted first offender may be a suspended sentence or a token fine...
...Mrs...
...No more need be said...
...For the past fifteen years all the Americas have been flooded with misinformation about China...
...I'm both surprised and disappointed...
...China repelled Mac-Arthur's army from her Manchurian frontier buffer state, then withdrew from North Korea...
...Does a mighty Chinese fleet rove about our shores...
...Why do you waste space by letting James Wechsler say in your July issue that Humphrey remains "a warm, sentimental, serious man" when he wanders about the country yapping like a Chihuahua in defense of the Administration policy of bombing, napalming, and gassing in Viet Nam...
...President Johnson would be well advised to listen to his own counsel when he was Vice President instead of the military and to remember that a great part of the American people elected him on these premises...
...We've already established that...
...The Human Rights Commission has acknowledged the pioneering demonstrations facilitated its work...
...Later, a similar agreement was negotiated with car dealers on Auto Row...
...Outside the San Francisco Bay Area there has been hardly a word in the press about these mass imprisonments...
...Those liberals who are critical of our policy there for its failure so far to achieve those goals are idealistic but impatient...
...What our President seems conveniently to overlook is the reason he won by such a great majority...
...Politicians are to be judged by results, not intentions...
...From their viewpoint the United States has already doublecrossed them twice in Vietnam...
...We must supply adequate counter-pressure to that of war-hawk Presidential advisers...
...Those liberals who believe that the Vietcong are the way to democracy are either confused or Communist...
...Father Thomas J. Endel APO, San Francisco Confused or Communist Dear Sirs: Neither religious toleration, nor social reform, nor democracy will come to South Vietnam by the guns of the Vietcong...
...American combat involvement . . . was not only unnecessary but undesirable because it would revive anti-colonial emotions throughout Asia...
...But no more...
...From a business point of view we need friendly relations with China, a vast market, a competent, industrious people with a reputation for fair dealing...
...The Chinese army promptly released many thousands of prisoners, and retired to the disputed border where they are still waiting for India to negotiate...
...It would be useful...
...press reports on October 12 and 13 quoted Nehru as follows: "Indian troops are under definite instructions to free our territory" (the border land claimed by India...
...Is he not aware that the South, for years prior to the war, was insistent that all territories acquired by the United States henceforth and forever be slave, and not free...
...Moreover, it could be a war with both China and Russia while our allies sit on the sidelines...
...Had such been the prevailing influence, we should not now be tortured night and day by the suffering and bewilderment we see via television on the faces of the hapless Vietnamese people and by the thoughts of what our dutiful servicemen are presently experiencing...
...He chose to do something else—to come out publicly in support of the mythology of the Johnson position in Vietnam...
...His optimistic predictions have been disproved too consistently...
...While trying to keep his foot (for the future) in everyone's camp, Humphrey has turned into even more of a warmonger than President Johnson...
...Bernard—all the way...
...Is China twisting international arms to keep the United States out of the United Nations and world markets...
Vol. 30 • September 1966 • No. 9
