The Word From Washington
The Word from Washington Picking up the newspapers in our customary early-morning haze, we feel our eyes jumping nervously from the headlines to the date at the top of the front page. It is...
...Food preferences...
...and North Vietnamese meetings, and on to South- east Asia and Tokyo, and resumed his discussion of the mess in Indochina— though his brief lapse left an unfor- tunate aftertaste...
...In consequence, the media and his rivals labeled him a "one-issue candidate...
...I will have very little public comment on the war from here on out," he said...
...His stance has therefore won the admira- tion of those who dwell with him in the obnoxious past—particularly the weary and cynical old men who pre- side over the nation's ossified labor bureaucracy...
...Many of them have formed a new group, Families for Im- mediate Release, to lobby for peace...
...That's the realistic answer...
...Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird spoke proudly of the Administration's decision to "go pub- lic" on the POWs...
...He bitterly de- nounces the "left fringes" of his party, and speaks up manfully for "law and order...
...The reason for all this snoopery and spookery, as Secretary of State William Rogers explained at a news conference, was that some information had appar- ently "oozed out" of the Department...
...Once again they were cross-examined on what con- tacts, if any, they might have had with members of the press...
...There is much talk among the Dem- ocrats about the twenty-five million young Americans who will be eligible to cast their first Presidential ballots next year...
...negotiating position in the stra- tegic arms limitation talks and about arms shipments to Pakistan...
...A near-quorum of Senate Democrats, and a few members of the House of Representatives as well, seem con- vinced in their heart of hearts that the future of the Republic hinges on their occupancy of the White House...
...Senator Fred R. Harris, the Oklahoma Dem- ocrat, is raising some of those issues in his attempt to propagate a "new pop- ulism" by attacking the entrenched special interests, but he is handicapped by being widely unknown outside his own state...
...There is obviously something here that we don't understand...
...Along what lines, precisely, if not "ideological," are political parties sup- posed to divide...
...Once again officials were called in to submit to lie-detector tests...
...The Administration has "gone private," though Secretary Laird doesn't brag about it...
...When reporters pressed Rogers on the lie-detector tests, he asked, "Is there anything wrong with investigating a crime when it oc- curs...
...America would lose "one of the coun- try's special ways of compromising dif- ferences in the interest of good govern- ment...
...Elaborate and costly cam- paigns are being mapped to register them and lure them to the polls...
...No more...
...The Administration's reversal can be dated precisely from the day in June when Communist negotiators at the Paris talks offered to begin releasing the prisoners as soon as Washington set a firm date for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam...
...But a week or so later it appeared he would abandon the abandonment when he went to Paris, the scene of U.S...
...How can dissidents be persuaded to "work within the sys- tem" when the system is engineered to provide no outlet for their point of view...
...The Word from Washington Picking up the newspapers in our customary early-morning haze, we feel our eyes jumping nervously from the headlines to the date at the top of the front page...
...Color of eyes...
...Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, the first of the announced Democratic contenders, began by talk- ing hard, good sense about the over- riding issue of the Indochina war...
...The Army mounted a daring (though unsuccessful) rescue raid...
...He offers no apologies for Vietnam and the Cold War, for he remains pro- foundly committed to both of these Democratic disasters...
...The prisoners presumably are still prisoners, but the issue has vanished as suddenly as it erupted into public con- sciousness...
...The New York Times warned of "a harmful and unnecessary consequence" if Lindsay's switch were to help bring about "a polarization of the two major parties along^ ideological lines...
...Potomacus...
...Why does the nation's political health depend on depriving the people of a substantive choice in politics...
...The conversion hardly came as a great surprise, but it occasioned some curious commentary in the press...
...A friend at the Pentagon reports that he and his associates have been advised to reduce nothing to writ- ing that might some day be published to the Government's embarrassment...
...He maintains that "the true test of a man is his stand on national defense," by which he means that there should be no limit on the amounts poured into the military rathole...
...There is no dearth of grievous problems in America, no lack of urgent issues that must be confronted in a nation that seems to have lost its way...
...Time was when even the most ego- centric politicians would deem it pru- dent to put on a display of seemly dif- fidence...
...Senator Hubert H. Humphrey set the style for the '72 sweepstakes when he declared earlier this year that he was veritably licking his chops at the prospect of making the race...
...It will require a candidate—and a par- ty—willing to break with the past and face the tough problems of the present and the future...
...You can still see the bump- er stickers, but they are starting to look a little ragged around the edges...
...It is, The Times asserted, "a politically healthy state of affairs" to have both parties clustered, indistinguishably, at the center of the political spectrum...
...Scoop Jackson most ac- curately reflects George Meany's point of view," one union leader told the Wall Street Journal...
...What ever happened to the prison- ers of war...
...It is uncertain at this writing wheth- er Mayor John Lindsay of New York will enter the crowded Presidential field, but he has taken the first step by proclaiming himself to be a Democrat...
...All this premature Presidential ac- tivity would not bother us so much— though, to be honest, it would probably still bother us some—if we saw any sign that the potential candidates were making a serious effort to elevate the tone of the national debate...
...Let this cup pass from me, they would say, before reluctantly reaching out to grab it...
...If this advice is heeded, the paperwork flow should be substantially reduced...
...The Government lost interest in the prison- ers that day and, remarkably, the me- dia did too...
...Certainly not—especially if the crime is the heinous one of telling peo- ple what their Government is doing...
...The POWs will come home...
...we have not, somehow, mislaid a full year...
...If we settle the war itself," says a spokes- man, "all the rest will follow...
...The prisoners remain what they have always been—hapless victims of America's decision to wage war in Asia...
...The FBI, he says, "is the last line of protection for our cities...
...Once again, just as in the great loyalty purges of the 1950s, FBI agents roamed the corridors in Foggy Bottom...
...Perhaps some kind reader who wasn't playing hooky that day will ex- plain—to us, or The Times, or Mr...
...Kraft, whichever seems appropriate...
...The Administration wishes they wouldn't talk that way...
...JESS...
...An Administration determined to shape and execute its policies behind closed doors must, of course, take se- vere precautions...
...Last month he appeared to cave in to the pressure, and seemed about to abandon the issue...
...For all the early hurly- burly in the headlines, young people still wait for a sign that the 1972 elec- tion will be worth a commitment from them...
...Since publication of the Pentagon Papers in June, the Administration has had an advanced case of "national se- curity" jitters...
...It is still 1971, we are reassured to note...
...Hair style...
...The families of the POWs, whom the Administration organized, paraded, and shamelessly exploited, are sadder and wiser now...
...the Presidential elec- tion is more than thirteen months away...
...The bumper-sticker printers made a mint...
...Barely a year ago their plight was Topic A—the subject of moving Presidential addresses, solemn joint sessions of Congress, indignant newspaper editorials, dramatic televi- sion documentaries...
...The papers had printed news they were not supposed to know about the U.S...
...It is entirely possible that we were cutting classes on the day it was explained in school...
...The propaganda spigot has been turned off...
...He is, in brief, a "liberal" Democrat who seeks the Presidency as an Agnew—or Martha Mitchell—Republican...
...There are announced candidates, and candi- dates who have announced they will announce, and candidates who have announced they may announce, and candidates who have announced they will definitely not announce unless they happen to change their minds...
...This effort is bound to fail, we think, if it relies on Madison Avenue gimmickry...
...In a similar vein, Washington col- umnist Joseph Kraft saw danger in a political realignment that would leave "the left clearly connected with the Democrats, the right unmistakably bound up with the Republicans...
...There is hardly a Sunday school picnic, fire- house raffle, or Venetian blind string- ers' convention that cannot count on a potential President of the United States to drop in, sample the fried chicken, press the flesh, and deliver a few amiable words...
...Old-timers at the State Department felt an eerie sense of deja vu last month...
...The headlines suggest the contrary, for they tell of platoons of Presidential candidates, real or imagined, roaming the countryside in pursuit of whatever candidates pursue at this early stage of the game—percentage points in the public opinion polls, cash contribu- tions, names to drop in the shoeboxes full of three-by-five cards...
...Senator Henry M. Jackson of Wash- ington, on the other hand, has issues galore...
...The extreme moderate who leads the Democratic pack, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, avoids the problem of being called a "one-issue candidate" by running as a no-issue candidate instead...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 10
