THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Republican for McCarthy Dear Sirs: Our sons and daughters have lost their confidence in us (the Establishment). For one thing, they believe our insane war policy is leading...
...I and my family gave blood for saving the wounded people...
...You publish a biased, slanted, propaganda letter from Vietnam, but you say nothing about the bombs thrown at citizens on their way to vote for their own government...
...His greatest successes have been in defeating political opponents by the use of smear tactics...
...C. W. Griffin, Jr...
...We have listened to Nixon's language since he first campaigned for the Vice Presidency in 1952 right up to his appearance on television a few moments ago...
...It is one of leadership and the direction of the nation...
...Again, Kennedy calls for negotiating with the NLF, but McCarthy projects the fantastic impossibility of including the Vietcong in a coalition government...
...Speak—that I may judge thee...
...How can you expect anyone to pay to read the thin, flimsy writing of Sidney Lens...
...During all this time we have yet to hear him say anything witty, eloquent, profound, or memorable...
...Ira C. Tilton Valparaiso, Indiana Cover to Cover Dear Sirs: The April issue of The Progressive is a grand number...
...My uncle and children have gone to more secure area...
...Your biased, dull, false editorials have no substance...
...Johnson...
...Nixon has no intellectual framework, and therefore he is incapable of the moving utterance, the argument that kindles thought, the probing search for answers to complex questions...
...I wish everybody could read it...
...Which, in your view, represents the more realistic policy...
...This is the kind of thing one expects in The Saturday Evening Post or Look, but not in The Progressive...
...It is my view that Kennedy, together with Fulbright, Morse and a few others, but not including McCarthy, who have fought against this war for three years are responsible for the climate which gave McCarthy his symbolic victory in New Hampshire...
...He is the only candidate in either party who confronts this issue courageously and sensibly...
...His changes of position are frequent, but like the television cigaret pitchman he readily changes brands with the changes in the demands of the market...
...He has, in the naked display of his rage at Eugene McCarthy for having survived on the lonely road he dared not walk himself, done with a single great gesture something very few public men have ever been able to do: In one day, he managed to confirm the worst things his enemies have ever said about him...
...We must raise the question as to whether or not there is a proper balance in what we may gain" in what is projected as victory in contrast with "the loss of life, the loss of material goods, the loss of moral integrity and moral energy which goes with the effort...
...He did that from cowardice...
...This is a promise as foolhardy as it is unconscionable...
...On December 10, McCarthy said a bombing halt is necessary only if "it were preliminary to some kind of negotiations...
...February 25, New Hampshire) In this statement, McCarthy not only disagrees with Mr...
...The company quotes with admiring approval a letter from former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, assuring Dow that ". . . the precautions we take against injury by this weapon are as painstaking as we can make them without hamstringing our military operations...
...Martha C. Brittain Muncy, Pennsylvania...
...Laurence Shields Newaygo, Michigan 'Black Hope and Anger' Dear Sirs: Your editorial comment entitled "Black Hope and Anger" in the "Notes in the News" column of the March issue was well-written and interesting...
...The piece furnished nothing new on Nixon, presented an extremely superficial assessment of his motives, and was wholly lacking in real insight into what is fundamentally a vapid mind and a demagogic personality...
...I have carried on a correspondence with several of our servicemen in Vietnam...
...In other words, if atheistic Communists can commit atrocities against innocent civilians, so can God-fearing Christians, so Jong as our precautions are "as painstaking as we can make them...
...The history of the Nixon years in Congress does not reveal a single piece of important legislation which he authored or promoted...
...And there are about 300,000 victims...
...In this statement he demolishes the thought that issues are important, only who is in the White House...
...But the star-chamber methods used by Nixon and his un-American Activities Committee brought censure from the Department of Justice...
...There is simply Nixon, a man singularly lacking in ideas, principle, and intellectual integrity...
...We can see him now working for Joe McCarthy, tapping the phones of tax dodgers, setting a spy on Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations, sending good loyal Arthur Schlesinger to fall upon William Manchester in the alleys of the American Historical Association...
...For one thing, they believe our insane war policy is leading their generation to a grave in Asia for no purpose...
...It is difficult to believe the enormous deterioration that has occurred in The Progressive...
...Like the late Senator Joe McCarthy, he capitalized profitably on anti-Communist fears...
...E. E. Emerson, M.D...
...And the reason is patent...
...Now the Vietcong get the failure in their attacks...
...Samuel Bristol Vista, California Soft on Nixon Dear Sirs: Why are the liberal publications going soft on the Nixon campaign...
...For example, on March 5, 1968, at Hampton, New Hampshire, Nixon told 200 members of the American Legion: "I pledge you the new leadership will end the war and bring peace in the Pacific...
...We believe that there is everything to go on, because the outer must reflect the "inner" man...
...it is not easy to think of a public man I wouldn't...
...Ben Jonson wrote: "Language most shews a man...
...To look for more substantial changes in U.S...
...The positions to be taken by counsel on issues other than free speech must be shaped by the necessities of the case as developed at the trial, irrespective of how the Union may act on these questions...
...Certainly there is, to me, every reason why he should not hold any responsible place in government...
...Perhaps more could be accomplished in the field of anti-poverty if people could see what the results may finally add up to...
...Never forget we the agony of my people caused by the Vietcong...
...Nixon's pronouncements on foreign policy frequently had to be countermanded by the State Department...
...A review of numerous issues of The Progressive will furnish the evidence especially in the Forties and Fifties...
...To sum up, there is neither an "old" nor a "new" Nixon...
...The previous difference within the Union, now resolved, has not at any time been between hawks and doves, and the Union is not involved with attacks on President Johnson's Vietnam policy, irrespective of how strongly members may feel individually...
...A civilian, he was crippled by a sniper's bullet in the base of the spine several years ago...
...Thomas W. O'Malley Copiague, New York ACLU and the Draft Dear Sirs: The recent news stories reporting the American Civil Liberties Union's intended mode of participation, determined at a board of directors' meeting, in defense of the free-speech issues involved in the indictment of Dr...
...McCarthy doesn't even quite say it's immoral at all...
...I agree with them...
...His most effective coup was the indictment and final conviction of Alger Hiss...
...Lionel Harris Mitchell, Nebraska An Old-Timer's Praise Dear Sirs: As a friend and political contemporary of the late Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., the founder of The Progressive, I want you to know that you are doing an excellent job...
...he says we should raise the question: Are we getting full value...
...On the other hand, Kennedy calls the war immoral because it kills innocent people by the thousands and destroys cities and the basis of a civilized society at home, not because we are not benefiting from it...
...Readers of The Progressive who want to protest Dow's policy can take heart from the success of earlier protesters who forced one of Dow's erstwhile merchant-of-death competitors in napalm out of this atrocious business...
...This is conditional and not unconditional as stated in your editorial...
...However, I quote from a letter recently received from a young Vietnamese man of about seventeen or eighteen...
...Although a lifetime Republican, I am supporting Gene McCarthy...
...Under the first, you attempt to show that McCarthy's position on Vietnam is different from President Johnson's...
...I enjoyed everything in it—cover to cover...
...Ernest Angell Chairman American Civil Liberties Union New York, New York Vietcong Atrocities Dear Sirs: Your article, "How the Soldiers View Vietnam," brings to mind several comments...
...Democrats, Republicans, and independents, cast your vote for Gene McCarthy and his sane war policy...
...Put plainly, this is a pragmatic sort of moral position...
...Kempton, a noted liberal author, quoted a question asked Kennedy at the University of Kansas, gave the Senator's reply, and then went on with his own commentary as follows: " 'Question: Senator, what would you do if you were twenty-one years old, about to be drafted, and opposed to the war?' " 'Answer: I would respond to my own conscience.' "Is that the same conscience which permitted Senator Kennedy last January 14 to approve a resolution pledging the Democrats of New York State to 'continued loyalty and vigorous support' for Lyndon B. Johnson...
...Now Murray Kempton of the New York Post has said it for me, In a recent column, Mr...
...policy and personnel, we need Robert Kennedy for President...
...This, the sole issue within the Union since the indictment was filed on January 6, has now been resolved in favor of direct representation...
...It is going to be difficult for the American people to find in this picaresque character, with his posturing and postulating in all directions simultaneously, the answer to the critical problems now facing the nation...
...Gretchen Silver Bronxville, New York Kennedy, not McCarthy Dear Sirs: Are brand-new subscribers entitled to dissent...
...Candidate Nixon moves invariably on a pitchman's level, with all his remarks calculated to solicit votes, cultivate favor, and present an attractive "image" to the voters...
...and Senator Kennedy is just as much a coward when he comes down from the hills to shoot the wounded...
...Perhaps the majority of citizens realize that there are many Negroes unemployed at the moment, but the weight of the matter is comprehended best by statistical means...
...Why intelligent people would even consider him is beyond me...
...Johnson, as you say, but with practically everyone else, Kennedy, Rockefeller, and even Nixon...
...His sponsor, President Eisenhower, could not recall an instance in which Nixon's advice or counsel had been utilized in the making of policy...
...To register your protest, preferably with a pledge to boycott Dow products like Saranwrap, write: William B. Seward, Midland Division Public Relations, The Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Michigan 48640...
...And unless either Eugene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy can wrest the nomination from Johnson, the liberal and independent voter is faced with a frightful dilemma in the Presidential election in November...
...Denville, New Jersey Disgrace to the Country Dear Sirs: Please cancel my subscription...
...It is an issue on which lawyers and informed laymen may differ in the light of their experience...
...The uncle is in a wheelchair, given by a private source in this country...
...Nehru, angered at Nixon's overtures to Pakistan, described him as an "unspeakable cad...
...in the national interest...
...Nixon's qualifications for President are at best exceedingly tenuous...
...His later years have confirmed my early impressions of the young politician—clever, ruthless, and wholly unscrupulous...
...How many citizens realize that "Negro unemployment is two to four times that of white...
...I also note just within the last day or so the deliberate shelling of an American hospital near Saigon and the killing or capturing of thousands of "village chiefs" in the last year or two...
...Benjamin Spock and others may have created a misunderstanding as to the nature of this action...
...Pat Bowles Long Beach, California Urges Dow Protest Dear Sirs: The Dow Chemical Company's recent decision to answer its critics has validated the wisdom of its former policy of remaining silent...
...But more important than either of these is the quality of the moral alternative offered by McCarthy, as against that offered by Robert Kennedy: McCarthy has said, "We must raise the basic question as to whether what is called our commitment in South Vietnam is morally defensible...
...My whole family have no injury, although the combat take place around us...
...nothing has happened since, except that President Johnson was bloodied in New Hampshire...
...The "whole family" and "uncle and children" lived in Cholon, which was raided...
...You omitted the following remarks by McCarthy: "The great issue of the contest is not Vietnam, or the rising violence in the cities, or rising prices...
...Osakis, Minnesota Kennedy the 'Coward' Dear Sirs: I have tried to no avail to express my bitter disappointment in Bobby Kennedy...
...If so, let me disagree with two "Items" you list in your editorial, "McCarthy for President," in the March issue...
...Frank M. Meyerend Morrisville, Pennsylvania Nixon as "Pitchman" Dear Sirs: Jules Witcover's article, "Is There Really a New Nixon...
...in the March issue was disappointing...
...In defense of its continuance as the sole remaining supplier of the barbarous incendiary substance, napalm, which has roasted tens of thousands of Vietnamese civilians, Dow parrots the inanities of Johnson Administration bunglers...
...We hate them with a vengeance...
...Nothing reveals the bankruptcy of the Republican Party so clearly as the determination of the old guard to name Nixon for their Presidential candidate in 1968...
...They killed thousands of civil people, even children, for their cruel and crazy purpose...
...Indeed, Witcover himself confessed his inability to penetrate into this man's mind and character: "About the inner Nixon, there is today, as in the past, remarkably little to go on...
...I suppose that I would prefer him as President to poor Mr...
...By contrast, the Vietcong have repeatedly carried on terror and murder campaigns directed against innocent civilians...
...Those who have replied have expressed no resentment at being there although one mentioned confusion and another the lack of initiative of the Vietnamese—who would have much initiative after twenty-five years of hopeless poverty and continual warfare...
...I quote: "Perhaps you heard about the event in my country, the attack of the Vietcong in South Vietnam...
...In foreign affairs Nixon is probably the hawkiest of the current hawks...
...At this same meeting the board made it clear that the Union does not assert that either the draft law or the war in Vietnam is or is not unconstitutional, or that the United States is or is not commit-ing a pattern of war crimes there, or is or is not violating international law...
...Let's give our sons and daughters reason to have confidence in us...
...The only difference has been whether that assistance would be more effective in the litigative posture of the Union as a "friend of the court" supporting those issues of civil liberties or by an attorney selected by the Union to appear in direct representation of one or more of those defendants...
...But Senator Kennedy is otherwise only a bitter thought, and I blame myself, not him, for all the years he fooled me...
...What Nixon has to offer in solving America's domestic problems is not clear...
...Your magazine is a disgrace to the country and to the men who founded it...
...George E. Delaney Boston, Massachusetts Impressions of Nixon Dear Sirs: I have followed Richard Nixon's career since I knew him as a student at Whittier High School...
...The young man's English is not perfect...
...Yet such is the weakness of the Republican Party and the abysmal stupidity of its convention delegates, that this political chameleon may capture the GOP Presidential nomination in 1968, just as a right-wing extremist like -Goldwater did in 1964...
...Apparently you agree with the evil forces that would impose barbarism on the world...
...His many visits to foreign lands brought no easing of tensions and no new pledges of friendship for the United States...
...There is and has been no basic division within the Union on whether to offer legal assistance in these cases...
...He accepts the present government as a viable segment of government, whereas Kennedy does not...
Vol. 32 • May 1968 • No. 5
