The Word from Washington
The World from Washington The Army's recent embarrassment in the case of Brigadier General Eugene P. Forrester, whose Silver Star and Distinguished Flying Cross had to be revoked when The New York...
...There was speculation that the subcommittee regarded Antioch as a hotbed of subversion...
...The North Vietnamese and Vietcong have, with typical recalcitrance, expressed no interest in a reciprocal program of withholding medals...
...Just why the Committee wanted the list in the first place was never made clear...
...Nixon "also spoke to the press...
...Patrick J. Frawley Jr., whose generous contributions to the far right were chronicled by William W. Turner in the September issue of The Progressive, is one of the Council's chief angels, and executives of such corporations as General Electric, U.S...
...We would be delighted if Attorney General John Mitchell were to decide that this is a case where "law and order" must be upheld—despite the obvious interest of the White House in the success of Operation Alert...
...But it is undoubtedly large...
...Singled out as targets were six Senators who received a zero rating on the Council's "national security index"—Republican Charles E. Goodell of New York and Democrats Philip Hart of Michigan, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, William Proxmire of Wisconsin, Joseph D. Tydings of Maryland, and Harrison Williams of New Jersey...
...Before the court could act, the Committee withdrew its request, explaining that it had no further need of the information...
...For the moment, at least, the Great Antioch Scare in the District of Columbia public schools appears to have abated...
...The American Security Council has provided us copies of a very interesting analysis, which I thought you might like to have because of your interest in the subject," said a memorandum on White House stationery distributed in September to veterans' groups and other national organizations over the signature of Charles W. Colson, special counsel to President Nixon...
...schools could possibly have had," and went to court to seek an injunction against the Committee and the School Board...
...No filing was necessary, Mr...
...On Election Day, the Council's score was two out of six...
...in total number of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles by 3,500 to 2,260, and can launch a missile attack against the United States six times as powerful in megatonnage as any the United States could mount by missile...
...It takes one to know one, as the saying goes, so Mr...
...1 of the LEAA Newsletter, which describes itself as "another tool in our total effort to reduce crime in the United States and improve the criminal justice system...
...Agnew has been known to take offense at lapses, real or imagined, on the part of the news media, and since we have no desire to incur his displeasure or to be classified among the nattering nabobs of negativism, we take this first opportunity to convey to the readers of The Progressive the high esteem in which the Vice President is held...
...Nixon's praise is not to be dismissed lightly...
...Some interesting questions are raised by Operation Alert—questions about the legality of corporate contributions to political campaigns, questions about the efficacy of the filing provisions of the Corrupt Practices Act...
...The need to maintain a large corps of "awards specialists" in Vietnam could prove to be an obstacle to President Nixon's troop withdrawal program...
...A clue is at hand in the new monthly publication issued by the Justice Department's Law Enforcement Assistance Administration...
...The editors of the LEAA Newsletter apparently don't remember, for the President's gaffe is mentioned nowhere in their otherwise detailed account...
...James A. Weghsler The New York Post...
...The sooner the better...
...At a Washington news conference, the Federation of American Scientists denounced the Council's campaign as "scare tactics" and produced data demonstrating that "the United States is ahead, not behind, the Soviet Union by any important measure of strategic force effectiveness...
...Herbert Sco-ville Jr., a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency and now chairman of the Federation's Strategic Weapons Committee, said: "I hate to see the American public misled and led down the garden path...
...The featured article in the first issue —accompanied by two photographs of President Nixon—is an account of the President's attendance at an LEAA conference in Denver last August 2. That was the meeting, you may remember, at which Mr...
...The Washington Teachers Union, however, called the Committee's action "as close to a witch hunt as the D.C...
...For many months, however, a subcommittee headed by Representative John Dowdy, Texas Democrat (who had no trouble winning re-election last month, though he faces Federal bribery charges), has been investigating "radicalism" in the District schools...
...Fisher said, because the Council is engaged exclusively in "educational activities...
...Finally, it fell to the Republican national chairman, Representative Rogers C. B. Morton of Maryland, to announce that he intends to place Mr...
...The one he never seemed able to surpass was of the clubwoman who approached him after he had addressed her group and exclaimed: "Dear Mr...
...Not the least of the Vice President's contributions to the national discourse was his recent proposal that journalists ought to be subjected to some sort of public cross-examination by "a group of people in government...
...Though the Council spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on its campaign, President Fisher told reporters it had no plans to register as a political committee and thereby disclose the source of its funds...
...Almost overlooked in the hurly-burly of the late political campaign were some of the florid encomiums heaped on the Vice President of the United States by his ardent admirers...
...At least it makes it possible, once in a while, to get an inkling of what's going on...
...They merely note that Mr...
...That may be the end of the affair...
...Oh, won't that be nice...
...Colson's memo was a red-white-and-blue brochure entitled Operation Alert compiled by the Council, a high-powered combine of corporate executives and retired military officers dedicated to preserving American "strategic power" by promoting limitless military expenditures...
...Nixon made quite a bit of news by telling the press, well in advance of a jury finding, that Charles Manson was "guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason...
...Teachers hope so, but they can't be sure...
...The Justice Department has taken note of these questions, and has said it is conducting an investigation...
...The Washington School Board, eager as always to avoid offending the Southern potentates who control the city's purse-strings, hastened to comply with the request...
...Steel, and Motorola sit on its Senior Advisory Board...
...It seemed, for a while, that applicants for teaching jobs would be asked to execute non-Antioch affidavits, or to swear that they were not and had never been residents of Yellow Springs, Ohio...
...Potomacus A Stevenson Story At [the recent] birthday remembrance for Adlai Stevenson, there were inevitably recollections exchanged of stories (real and apocryphal) fie was fond of telling...
...Senator Strom Thurmond, South Carolina's gift to the people of the United States, was even more enthusiastic about Mr...
...If that's the kind of journalism Mr...
...There's always the possibility, for instance, that Mr...
...By next year, or 1972 at the latest, the writing of award citations may be ready for "Vietnamization...
...Each of these decorations had to be substantiated by appropriate "documentation...
...Agnew has in mind—and we're inclined to suspect it is—we think we prefer the present system, for all its faults...
...The House District Committee, which exercises sovereignty over this lost colony of the American empire, has dropped its request that the school system furnish a list of all of its teachers who ever attended Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio...
...If these Senators and Congressmen are re-elected," wrote the Council's president, John M. Fisher, "they will have a clear mandate to reduce our military strength further...
...The number is probably classified in the interests of national security...
...That's something to look forward to...
...We would be delighted, but we won't hold our breath...
...is ahead of the U.S...
...Stevenson, your speech was simply superfluous...
...Just what the Great Nullifier and the Confederate generalissimo had in common with the incumbent Vice President, Senator Thurmond did not make clear, but we are certain his comparison made at least as much sense as most of his other political pronouncements...
...Agnew, describing him as "the greatest man this country has produced since John C. Calhoun and Robert E. Lee...
...Agnew's political exertions lacked the imprimatur of the White House, declared in the last days of the campaign that the Vice President was "doing a wonderful job...
...The suggestion set us to wondering about the kind of news judgment that might be exercised by the Vice President and his associates in the Federal apparat if they were charged with the responsibility of purveying information to the American people...
...The principal thrust of Operation Alert, however, was not its strategic analysis but its political message—a message to defeat members of Congress who support what the Council calls "the disarmament lobby...
...The World from Washington The Army's recent embarrassment in the case of Brigadier General Eugene P. Forrester, whose Silver Star and Distinguished Flying Cross had to be revoked when The New York Times disclosed that the awards were based on wholly fictitious citations concocted by "awards specialists" in the Awards and Decorations Office of the First Cavalry Division (airmobile), has inadvertently provided some overdue recognition to a band of unsung heroes among the American forces in Vietnam: the men who work tirelessly to keep open an uninterrupted flow of medals and decorations to the men at the front (and in the rear...
...Since Mr...
...Nobody knows how many "awards specialists" are on duty in Vietnam, daily running the risks of imaginative breakdown and typewriter fatigue...
...Dowdy will beat the bribery rap...
...President Nixon, disposing deftly of the naive suggestion by some Republican "liberals" that Mr...
...Fortunately, however, the South Vietnamese army is proving itself as adept as ours at handing out decorations...
...To which he said he gravely responded: "Thank you, I hope to have it published posthumously...
...The President added, "I must say that he's one of the greatest campaigners of all history...
...Operation Alert, which the Council distributed by the millions this fall and reproduced in advertisements in leading newspapers, carried the alarming news that "the United States has been unilaterally disarming by cutting back on both numbers of strategic weapons systems and on deliverable megaton-nage...
...We are in receipt of Volume 1, No...
...Agnew's name in nomination for a second Vice Presidential term in 1972, and furthermore that "in 1976 I intend to nominate him for the Presidency...
...Last year, according to the Pentagon, almost half of the Army generals returning from Vietnam—and about one-tenth of the other officers and enlisted men—were awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, or the Bronze Star for valor...
...As a result, the Council concluded, "the U.S.S.R...
...The "very interesting analysis" referred to—and enclosed with—Mr...
Vol. 34 • December 1970 • No. 12
