The People's Forum
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Middle East Crisis Dear Sirs: The superb editorial, "War and Peace in the Middle East," in the July issue of The Progressive, was of such magnitude that I doubt anything...
...Item: Israel is the only nation that offers a haven of refuge to the harried, hunted, persecuted, exiled Jews of the world...
...If he really means by this (as many of his supporters on Capitol Hill clearly do) reducing Federal power so as to increase that of the states, he is obviously in blunt opposition to the progressive tides of history...
...This, in my opinion, is a wrong assumption...
...This man's chief sins were 1) his popularity, which augured victory for his moderately leftist Center Union Party in the elections scheduled for May 28, 1967, and 2) his drive for neutralizing Greece and withdrawing it from the U.S...
...It ruined my day...
...It came at just the right time for me as I was wondering the same thing, and Mr...
...News and World Report, has been very favorable to tax sharing...
...The Vatican should practice more of what it preaches...
...Item: These Arab nations have never ceased to declare their purpose to exterminate the Israelis and have renewed this vow in the wake of their crushing defeat —a purpose now backed by the Russian totalitarian police state...
...The editing of that passage makes it appear that my criticism is leveled at Soviet spying and persecution alone, in beautiful innocence of similar practices in the United States...
...His major complaint seems to be that I have mistaken his position: He does not really believe, he says, that the states have already exhausted the sources of revenue now available to them...
...should be diverted to peaceful and constructive uses as soon as those nations make clear that they have given up their declared purpose of exterminating the Israelis and are prepared to live in peace with their neighbors...
...Louise Rounds Santa Barbara, California Too Pro-Hanoi Dear Sirs: Please discontinue my subscription to The Progressive...
...Jerome Davis West Haven, Connecticut Burns The Progressive Dear Sirs: Please take my name off your mailing list...
...Orbach, a graduate student from Israel at the University of Wisconsin in educational policy studies, is president of the Israeli Student Association in Madison...
...A settlement requires that the two parties to the conflict come to the table and negotiate...
...Former Senator Paul Douglas cited one case where the United States paid $25 for an article that could be purchased in the store for twenty-five cents...
...Will the Arab governments come to the discussion table...
...R. Leslie Chrismer Pennsburg, Pennsylvania Dear Sirs: Certainly Milton Mayer's reverse (or inverse...
...For nineteen years Israeli leaders have been declaring that they are ready to negotiate peace with the Arab nations— the refugees' problem being the first on the agenda—any time, any place...
...Proof...
...According to Robert Easterbrook of The Washington Post American officials raised the question whether the Secretary-General's original aide-memoire of May 17 had not virtually invited Egypt to demand complete withdrawal...
...There was no response to Golda Meir's suggestion at the United Nations in November, 1962, that a settlement be negotiated, except the cry for war and the declarations that when the refugees return to Israel, they will return to drive the Israelis out, and into the sea...
...and I added: "Unfortunately, I did not need to go to the Soviet Union to learn that...
...patronage is to deal in illusions—as well as to misjudge what the American cold war out-thrust is all about...
...Since 1952 Israel has released accounts and safe-deposits of Arab refugees in Israeli banks to the tune of ten million dollars...
...Since when is the civil rights movement considered by liberals to be a "subversive activity...
...King and ask him to consider (as he must have already) running as a peace and freedom candidate for President in 1968...
...in your May issue, I felt I had to write to you and thank you for including it in your magazine...
...King to run, please speak out also...
...they say so, and that was all I claimed...
...What of the depression of living standards of the braceros themselves...
...2) will help the states to finance services that are not at present the beneficiaries of Federal aid...
...George Gati La Crescenta, California The Braceros Dear Sirs: I don't know your objections to the bracero program...
...She was only on the welcoming committee in Moscow...
...It speaks to my need...
...Eliezer Orbagh Madison, Wisconsin (Mr...
...King Constantine's dismissal of the Papandreou government in July, 1965 and the military coup of April, 1967 were directed less against George Papandreou (himself a premier of the anti-Communist governments in 1946-48) than against his son Andreas...
...I kept going back to that aching prose, that sternly muted passion of love and mourning...
...English needs no apology by me...
...The second error is more serious...
...Will others who want Dr...
...I have done field work (sociological) in northern Mexico...
...Two—You wrote that Israel overreacted to some "border incidents...
...None of the newspapers and magazines I read regularly has published such an excellent analysis...
...I assume that aliens don't matter...
...I am disappointed in you...
...Hazel Pye Binkley Hollister, California...
...So Greece's first moves toward democracy were smashed by the very forces we created, nurtured and supervised every step of the way...
...I can visualize the smile on Nasser's face when he read that...
...on the President as "contemptible...
...There are few modern parallels for government this bad...
...L. Gordon Lee State College, Pennsylvania Dear Sirs: I have just read your editorial comment on braceros in the May issue...
...Many will undoubtedly agree that the following quote has merit: "If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused, or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation...
...peace-keeping force and the temporizing attitude of the Western powers, including the United States, make clear that Israel must depend largely on its own resourcefulness...
...Huge profits are made in war supplies...
...If boys refuse to serve they may be sent to jail...
...I am awfully glad it is Lyndon Johnson who is our President instead of you...
...I find the tone of your articles too one-sided—anti-United States and pro-Communist Hanoi...
...In that note Thant said that if Egyptian consent "should be withdrawn or so qualified as to make it impossible for the force to function effectively, the force, of course, will be withdrawn...
...Your magazine is about as "progressive" as the Chicago Tribune...
...not with the hope of winning, but for the chance for him to speak again and again his words of great good sense, and for the chance for me, and no doubt many others, to vote for a man that we can honestly respect and believe...
...There is nothing ironic, accidental, or illogical about the emergence of this rightist junta in Greece...
...While the Vatican calls for reforms in other institutions, it is agonizingly slow to adopt meaningful reforms within its own power structure...
...Furthermore, in August, 1949, Israel offered to take back 100,000 refugees, an offer that was rejected by the Arab states...
...On the contrary, American actions, beginning with the Truman Doctrine itself, made it practically inevitable...
...Ulmer...
...Heller's positive arguments for tax-sharing come to this: that tax-sharing (1) is a method for helping the poorer states at the expense of the richer states...
...Item: It is perhaps the only one of the seventy nations born in the anti-colonial explosion which is a true democracy, governed by consent of the governed, and enjoying all the basic freedoms...
...I have been a reader of The Progressive for about five years and a regular contributor to your annual fund drive...
...Johnson and Mr...
...It has been a model of decency, enlightenment and progress—some of which it has already shared with some of the undeveloped countries...
...King's most recent thoughts on this issue also...
...I concur in his comment...
...The "leaders" employ violence the world over...
...In connection with the third point, he ignores the inequitable impact of tax-sharing on taxpayers in the more conscientious states, while not giving sufficient weight to the excellent methods available for encouraging the states to use the income tax as a source of state revenue, such as the plan recently proposed by the Committee for Economic Development...
...Kennan has put into words that which I felt to be the truth but could never have expressed myself...
...Item: No other nation in history has endured throughout its existence the declared war of a dozen surrounding nations, fifty times more numerous in population and occupying an area one hundred times as great...
...I have seen the impact of your program to end braceros on the employment of Texas Mexicans...
...Recently, the Vatican called for the downfall of a government party in Italy if it made good its threat to tax some of the wealth of the church in that country...
...You regard the "reckless, irresponsible personal attacks, etc...
...Carrie B. Edmondson Milwaukee, Wisconsin Gruening on Middle East Dear Sirs: Israel's uniqueness in the contemporary world justifies the imperative need to safeguard her future...
...We regard the object of these attacks as contemptible...
...Mrs...
...The Greek government favored by this classic illustration of double standard politics had earlier been described by Howard K. Smith (in The State of Europe) as a "discredited monarchy" with "blindly vengeful rightist supporters . . . [aided by] largely the police force that had served the Nazis...
...All this, I agree, is not enough, but have the Arab states done anything...
...Lloyd Ames Seattle, Washington Insipid Editorial1 Dear Sirs: Contrary to your insipid editorial in the June issue, there are many who enjoy the vilification of "our leaders" and are gleeful with the ever-increasing "unrest" in the U.S...
...cold war orbit...
...Without an aggressively expanding economy (business), where would the money come from to support the liberal program (made possible via taxation...
...The Pope has never driven to work along a freeway in an urban area...
...Everything thus far I have read, including an article in U.S...
...Your logic and ability to achieve any benefits are lousy...
...3) will help to prevent greater reliance by state and local governments on regressive sales and property taxes...
...The United States, which alleges that it opposes aggression wherever it takes place and is engaged in a costly war to demonstrate that faith, should take the lead among nations in an effort to stop the Arab nations' aggression against Israel, and when that has been achieved to assist them in following Israel's example to sanitate, to irrigate, and to educate and likewise help them to resettle their refugees...
...we had no subsequent contact with her...
...First, the lady from Pravda did not accompany us on our travels...
...There can be no adequate war on poverty without strong birth control measures with government support in providing contraceptives and education...
...It seems to me that your description is based on the assumption that Israel, and Israel alone, should and could work out a decent settlement...
...Would that this "message" could reach Mr...
...As for U Thant, many well-informed people would disagree with you...
...I started to read the June issue and did not get the first column of your lead editorial, "McCarthyism: Ten Years Later," read before I put it in the fireplace...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Middle East Crisis Dear Sirs: The superb editorial, "War and Peace in the Middle East," in the July issue of The Progressive, was of such magnitude that I doubt anything written on the subject even approached it in scope...
...The four principal ingredients for peaceful settlement suggested by you, are, indeed, the cardinal goals that should be pursued at this time...
...Senator Ernest Gruening Washington, D. G. Corrections Dear Sirs: I would like to correct two errors which I find in the publication of my articles on the U.S.S.R., "From Russia, with Love...
...Toward the end of my original manuscript, I wrote that it is all too believable that "the ordinary citizen's" private life may become the object of elaborate official investigation...
...In another editorial comment, "Trouble for the Sponsors": FCC Commissioner Lee Loewinger is obviously partially correct...
...This was made quite clear by Secretary of State Dean Acheson in 1950: "Of course they [the Greek and Turkish governments] do not have exactly the same kind of institutions that we do...
...Lee Dresh ("The People's Forum" in the June issue) my reaction to Mayer's essay, "What A Man Can Do...
...I finally conquered my emotion enough to be able to quote a part of it in Friends' Meeting the next Sunday...
...Robert Neff San Francisco, California Tax Article 'Terrific1 Dear Sirs: A friend loaned me the May, 1967, issue...
...I must happily agree, of course, that Heller does not believe this, if he says so, but the fact is that his several supporters in Congress do believe this...
...The vast landownings of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America have become so scandalous a matter that progressive bishops and cardinals, under local political pressures, have begun to divest the Church of large landed estates...
...Utopian myopia, I imagine...
...No wonder the industries doing the most business in our Vietnam war show a two-year profit increase from 56 per cent to 176 per cent...
...and every time I read it I started crying again...
...in his book of that name...
...the shoe is now on the other foot and it is indeed most welcome...
...There is an opportunity now to start negotiations...
...In connection with the first point, Heller does not meet the argument that it is more efficient to help poor people (through specific programs designed for them) than it is to help poor states...
...Underlying Heller's staunch advocacy of tax-sharing, as he acknowldges, is his fervent desire to "revitalize" the states...
...Many will no doubt also agree that the expropriation should begin with what members of its own hierarchy describe as the world's richest corporation, the Catholic Church...
...My point, of course, was that U.S...
...Item: U Thant's yielding to Dictator Nasser's request to withdraw the U.N...
...Anne Roseen San Bernardino, California Ulmer Replies to Heller Dear Sirs: Having read Walter W. Heller's July issue reply in The Progressive to my May issue article, "The Tax-Sharing Fallacy," I am struck by the poverty of the argument that even so able an economist can muster for what I hope is a dying cause...
...Evidently, the reactionary cardinals in the Vatican have given no thought to the problems of air and water and waste pollution caused by increasing numbers of humans...
...It would be interesting, therefore, to have him distinguish his position...
...I couldn't stop reading it over and over...
...This desire to make the country truly independent is precisely what neither Washington, the King, nor the Greek military could swallow, since it would have undercut the real bases of their power...
...Democracy or—as you appear to imply—opposition to dictatorship has been at best a secondary consideration...
...This whole item shows the usual "liberal" anti-business bias, which I can't quite comprehend...
...Although this article was not directed to the Vietnam situation, I have heard and read Dr...
...I didn't dare attempt the last part, though...
...I am appalled by your glee about being proven right as expressed in your editorial comment, "The Bracero Sequel," in the May issue...
...Now, in our country, "the home of the free and the land of the brave," why should we not conscript at cost all military supplies and reduce expenditures and taxes enormously...
...Why not conscript supplies at cost...
...But this is the position of a romantic reactionary, hardly befitting a liberal of Heller's stamp...
...In your attempt to be scrupulously "fair" you ended up being unfair to Israel, a nation which has attempted to live in peace with its Arab neighbors but has met unrelenting hostility and been subjected to repeated terrorist invasions...
...Dan Holle Sheboygan, Wisconsin Mayer Misunderstood Dear Sirs: It seems incredible to me that people intelligent enough to read The Progressive should misunderstand Milton Mayer's article in the April Progressive on A. J. Muste, as did two readers who expressed themselves in the June issue...
...I've just read "July: Summer and Reality...
...Dear Sirs: Your July issue editorial on the Middle East was very disappointing...
...The only question that we should ask is whether they are determined to protect their independence against Communist aggression...
...It is, of course, the answer to Milton Mayer's own question, "What Can a Man Do...
...Harry C. Dillingham Cincinnati, Ohio George Kennan's Truth Dear Sirs: After reading George F. Kennan's article, "Why Do I Hope...
...I find that I don't believe the lies of "our leaders" any longer...
...Your editorial is the most objective interpretation I have read...
...citizens suffer from official spying, invasion of privacy, harassment, and unjust reprisals, just as Soviet citizens do...
...Had you lived in a kibbutz on the Israeli-Syrian border, witnessing thousands of sabotage cases, seeing Israeli farmers murdered, observing almost daily minings and shootings, all systematically planned and carried out, would you still term them "border incidents...
...Melville J. Ulmer Professor of Economics University of Maryland College Park, Maryland King for President Dear Sirs: I was impressed with the intelligent, eloquent, and inspiring words of Dr...
...Sue Davidson Gottfried Seattle, Washington Catholic Church Criticized Dear Sirs: Donald Grant's praise of a recent papal encyclical in his June issue article, "The New Name for Peace," is premature...
...Kosygin...
...The Church's attitude on population problems has been appalling...
...I hope that this authentic point of view will be heard on television...
...To think that any other outcome might have been possible under U.S...
...Harry Saxon Chicago, Illinois Dear Sirs: Your editorial, "War and Peace in the Middle East," in the July issue is a thoughtful presentation of the problems which have prevented the achievement of peace between Israel and the Arab nations...
...Your chronic apologies on behalf of the corrupt are becoming wearisome and but for Milton Mayer I would have cancelled my subscription many months ago...
...But, for nineteen years the Arab leaders have been declaring that they want to annihilate Israel and its people...
...Two decades afterward, the Greeks are in the grip of a fascist-military dictatorship instead...
...Katherine Bauklis Craigmore, Rhodesia Borland a Bonus Dear Sirs: I like you and most of all I like you because you not only give us interpretations of the news—but as a fine bonus you give us Hal Borland...
...Israel should also assist financially to achieve this resettlement, and could probably get substantial support from its numerous contributors in the United States who have been buying Israeli bonds and helping Israel financially for years...
...In connection with the second point, he does not explain why the states do not raise such funds themselves, if they need it—since Heller now agrees that they have the ability to do so...
...Raymond Mostek Church and State Committee Third Unitarian Church Chicago, Illinois Dear Sirs: In the June issue of The Progressive Donald Grant includes several quotes from Pope Paul's encyclical regarding the poor people of the world...
...Could Israel be expected to solve the problem without any cooperation on the part of the Arab nations, or, even worse, could Israel be expected to do much more than she did when, as you mention in your editorial, the Arab governments incite the refugees to permanent warfare...
...The Vatican should end its ancient attitudes on humane abortion laws...
...But I would like to share with my fellow Muste fans Frank Pettit and Mrs...
...Scot Blue Brown University Providence, Rhode Island U. S. Policy in Greece Dear Sirs: I note one flaw in your otherwise fine editorial, "Tragedy in Greece" in the June issue, where you write that "The supreme irony of the rightist dictatorship in Greece is that it crowns twenty years of the Truman Doctrine . . . initiated in that country as a bulwark against Communist dictatorship...
...It will be recalled that tax-sharing provides funds to the states with no strings attached...
...Without question, it contains the key to the solution of the cardinal problems involved...
...nor does he seem concerned about the loss of wildlife and open spaces caused by increasing human numbers...
...It is not enough for the Pope to call for more food to be brought to the banquet table...
...In effect, all that Milton Mayer said of A. J. Muste was that he was too good for his own good in this wicked world...
...As a free-thinker who respects, even envies, Christians with the courage and character of men like A. J. Muste, it seems to me to be another example of the fact that such people are most misunderstood not by unbelievers but by conventional Christians...
...It would be well indeed if the leaders of all nations could be urged to read it...
...I found the article on "The Tax-Sharing Fallacy" by Melville J. Ulmer the most terrific article I have read on this subject for a long time...
...Martin Luther King in your June issue ("A New Kind of Power...
...Our Greek intervention in 1947 represented the first step in what was to become a consistent anti-progressive, counter-revolutionary foreign policy...
...In light of these facts, I would like to take this opportunity to speak through The Progressive to Dr...
...The funds which the United States aid program has used to supply arms to Jordan and other aid to various Arab nations —such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, etc...
...The American people should insist that not a single boy be conscripted unless all military supplies are conscripted at cost...
...Howard Keats Hagerstown, Maryland Dear Sirs: I was delighted to see that Senator Gay-lord Nelson entered your July issue editorial, "War and Peace in the Middle East," in the Congressional Record of June 27 with the observation that it was a "brilliant, editorial analysis of the Arab-Israel conflict...
...It was comprehensive, factual, lucid, unbiased, discerning, and it pointed out conditions unknown by almost all people...
...Therefore, it seems clear that Israel must keep such terrain it has taken in its four-day war as it may require for self-defense—at least until her future security is guaranteed by her enemies and a concert of the powers, who should likewise assist in eliminating the refugee problem which has been kept alive as a justification for continued warfare on Israel...
...I agree with Mr...
...Richard B. Du Boff Department of Economics Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Conscript Military Supplies Dear Sirs: We are conscripting our boys for an undeclared war in Vietnam while conscripting no military supplies...
...So far, the Arab governments have not been willing to negotiate with Israel, however...
...Yet, there are some points in your analysis of the situation with which I disagree: One—In describing Israel's part in the conflict you wrote that little or nothing has been achieved by Israel in working out a decent settlement of the Arab refugee problem, while, at the same time, you made no mention of the refugee problem when enumerating the Arabs' contributions to the conflict...
...There is an old Jewish proverb, "Don't judge a person till you come to his place...
Vol. 31 • August 1967 • No. 8
