The People's Forum
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Folk's POW 'Classic' Dear Sirs: I recently spoke to the wife of a POW. She seemed unhappy about the Son Tay raid and indicated that other POW wives and mothers were too. Now...
...Aren't these reasons enough for expelling the Taiwan regime from the United Nations and seating the People's Republic of China...
...Sara P. Walther Rocky River, Ohio...
...Needs a De Gaulle Dear Sirs: Professor J. K. Galbraith's "A Decade of Disasters in Foreign Policy," in the February issue of The Progressive, stated our most serious problem vividly and concisely: ". . . the bureaucracy . . . operates not in response to national need but in response to its own need . . . ," and in other equally ringing and succinct phrases...
...In fact, I shall regard myself as a revolutionary, enlisting in a revolution to be powered by courage rather than carnage...
...I would also like to agree wholeheartedly with your editorial finding value in Senator George McGovern's running now for the Presidency...
...I have also read some of his books, and I like them, too...
...With that idea, I have written a completely new pledge: "I pledge allegiance to the brotherhood of man and to the earth on which I stand, one planet indivisible, or no planet at all...
...These are serious charges, and "rural culture" is not alone to blame...
...E. Whealdon La Crosse, Wisconsin Offers War Research Material Dear Sirs: For a number of years I have collected clippings on matters relating to wars and revolutions...
...Moreover, the Taiwan regime is a U.S...
...But Professor Falk spells it out...
...I say that on the basis of comparing what Mr...
...Apparently the POW article was "different," and that constituted sufficient basis for publication, for it certainly can not be justified on any other merit...
...For an outsider to achieve such empathy is difficult in the case of the Naval and Air Force Academies, but virtually impossible in the case of West Point because it enshrouds itself with a veil of propaganda, secrecy, and—as Mr...
...McGovern, as a credible and announced candidate of a major party, is there to challenge the President and to get a hearing...
...His article "A.M.E.N...
...Johnson accurately states, "West Point is more than a small part of the Army...
...Because of failing eyesight, it seems doubtful that these can be used effectively by their present owner, who wonders whether any student or educational institution would be interested in having a condensed, but massive, view of international developments in recent years...
...Better try again, and don't let male emotionalism cloud the subject...
...Public Affairs Press, 1969...
...These have been taken from such periodicals as The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Saturday Review, The Times (London) Literary Supplement, The Progressive, The New Republic, The Nation, The Econo-omist, I. F. Stone's Bi-Weekly, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Scientific American, and others, with occasional extracts from many other sources...
...Hortense Miller Laguna Beach, California Seat Red China in U.N...
...It is the first step toward educating the public on the deficiencies in the operations at West Point...
...The parallels he draws between the "closed institution" on the Hudson and "the closed" incident of Mylai are sufficient evidence to alarm the public to demand reform of the tarnished Military Academy and its methods...
...Clearly, the Army can never be truly reformed until West Point is reformed, for, as Mr...
...But, meanwhile, the Peking regime governs about 780 million Chinese, more than fifty times the number for Taiwan...
...He uses the revolt as an excuse, but obviously he did not think better of women before...
...He must know that they have legitimate causes for revolt...
...Borland states that he is "not drawing judgment, but trying to clarify," but he does imply, at least, that the rural culture had more to recommend it as a way of life than urban culture...
...Johnson adds—deceit that even the other academies are hard pressed to match...
...is doubtless representative enough of the writer, but it is a new low for The Progressive...
...Because of inadvertencies, the clippings are not all in chronological order, but there are few aspects of war and revolutions which are not included...
...William K. Viertel Canton, New York Proposes New Pledge Dear Sir: You conclude one of your recent editorial notes, "Rewriting the Pledge," by urging that "we abandon such rituals of nationalism" as the U.S...
...J. Arthur Heise Liverpool, New York Dear Sirs: As a former cadet at the United States Military Academy, I fully subscribe to Robert Johnson's theory that the public knows little about West Point, and hence cannot understand the full implications of Mylai...
...Richard A. Falk's incisive exposure in the March issue of the Administration's POW ploy should become a classic...
...He concludes by stating the need for Presidential and other political authority to extricate us...
...He seems to suggest, by his probe into the "motives" of the "doves" who deplore the North Vietnamese attitude, that these men and women are traitors to the anti-war movement...
...Al^ Negroes are happy-go-lucky and eat watermelon...
...Paul H. Adriance Moses Lake, Washington West Point Under Fire Dear Sirs: It is seldom—indeed, rare—that anyone treats the public to as candid a peek behind the gray, crenelated walls of West Point as Robert B. Johnson, Jr., does in "The Tainted Image of West Point" in the February issue of The Progressive...
...But it is a mistake to think that "urban culture," alone, was (and is) "not too much concerned with cause and effect except in terms of machinery and business...
...I realize this pledge tends to increase my vulnerability to tyrants...
...It was also responsible, and still is, for much waste and erosion of our precious topsoil, for the heedless destruction of forests and wildlife, and, more recently, for the pollution of land and water with pesticide residues...
...And, of course, decortication with paddles is the almost daily fare of freshmen...
...Ray Blanton Member of Congress from Tennessee Washington, D.C, A.M.E.N...
...Unfortunately, it is quite successful at achieving this aim...
...It is now in 1971 that President Nixon is doing crazy things in the Far East in an attempt to put the other side out of business in the crucial months before the election next year...
...All women are parasites whose days are spent in "nice long chats" on the telephone...
...Mrs...
...Specifically, this means I shall not violate this pledge in the name of law, justice, compassion, revolution, religion, or brotherhood itself...
...protectorate, while the Peking regime stands on its own...
...that the Taiwan regime governs fourteen million people, a larger figure than those of other United Nations member nations...
...Johnson's assertions check out on every point where I am able to make comparisons...
...Have we such a man...
...I spent twenty-four months at West Point (1966-68...
...The attempt to smear leading public figures who have asked North Vietnam to observe simple, elementary rules of human decency in regard to prisoners, is a central theme in Falk's commentary...
...Alfred A. Fraser Lovat Farm Box 339, R.D...
...But the real value of his piece is not merely its accuracy...
...And I shall not accept anything less than a brotherhood that embraces all, because I agree with those philosophers who warn that civilization's only remaining alternatives are Utopia or oblivion...
...Robert L. Kealy Oconomowoc, Wisconsin "Sloppy Journalism" Dear Sirs: The article by Richard Falk in the March issue of The Progressive seems to be so emotion-laden that it constitutes, at best, sloppy journalism...
...in the March Progressive is inexcusable...
...Actually, I was enlightened by the whole issue...
...Johnson's excellent article...
...If McGovern succeeds in forcing Nixon to try to defend his Southeast Asia claims with something more than empty rhetoric, the country will have a proper basis upon which to go to the polls next year...
...Charles S. Slap West Lafayette, Indiana POW Nonsense Dear Sirs: We are certainly indebted to Richard Falk and The Progressive for dispelling a lot of nonsense about the POW issue, in particular for citing Article 118 of the Geneva Code which does not call for return of prisoners until "the cessation of active hostilities...
...Now I know why...
...The data upon which national policy is being based and the methods being used to formulate it lie almost completely hidden in the minds of Nixon, Kissinger, Laird, and their staffs...
...Not but what I can still say "amen" to the main theme...
...As a former insider, Mr...
...Such articles can only injure you...
...For example, I have seen freshmen run around the huge parade grounds at VMI until they fell from exhaustion...
...This time I want to express sincere appreciation of The Progressive, which is our favorite magazine...
...Now, in Borland's article "A Time for Purification," in the February issue, I have found something with which to find fault...
...Mark Davidson Senior Lecturer in Telecommunication University of Southern California Los Angeles, California Rural Culture Critic Dear Sirs: During all the years that I have been receiving The Progressive I have been admiring and saying "amen" to the articles of Hal Borland...
...It is well-publicized by VMI that its aim is to transform young men into automatons in four years...
...I didn't believe the Administration was capable of sacrificing the POWs for the glory of the Republican Party...
...A.M.E.N...
...Johnson did not face these hurdles, making it possible for him to write by far the best article I have read recently about what goes on behind the Gothic facades on the west bank of the Hudson...
...Any suggestions as to the useful disposition of this material would be greatly appreciated...
...And I shall not mock the spirit of this pledge by classifying my adversary as non-human, or by citing his cruelty as an excuse for cruelty of my own...
...Since such "schools" as West Point and VMI are important cogs in what Lewis Mumford calls the present day "mega-machine," their well-earned demise can not come too soon...
...Unhappily, I doubt it...
...Charlottesville, Virginia Dear Sirs: Many of the faults of West Point stated by Robert B. Johnson in the February issue are attributable to other military colleges as well...
...In other words, we need a man of the stature of Charles de Gaulle, who had to call on every last bit of his tremendous prestige to extricate France from the Algerian mess...
...I also appreciate Richard Pollak's "The Plunder of Alaska" and "A.M.E.N...
...Wilbur Whitten Lafayette, Louisiana U.S...
...I pledge that I shall neither take nor jeopardize the life of any human being, regardless of how the justification is sweetened with the saccharine of pseudo-idealism...
...Ben Brockwell, Jr...
...This explodes very neatly the President's argument that Hanoi is acting illegally in not returning them now while the war continues...
...by Milton Mayer...
...Mayer sneers with pettiness, sheer meanness, and hatred towards half the human race...
...Let's not forget that "rural culture" in the United States was largely responsible for the enslavement of the black man, and the killing off and displacement of the red man...
...New Low' Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer must know that women have been and are discriminated against...
...The role of McGovern will now force them either to take part in the national teach-in, or lose votes...
...I commend The Progressive for publishing Mr...
...I knew nothing of any cheating scandal during 1965, so you can imagine how closed that incident was...
...On what merits, the author is vague...
...In addition, a modest library of volumes on war and peace—and social problems— has accumulated during the study of political trends around the world...
...It's that bit about the point at which "rural culture—encountered and began to be overwhelmed by urban culture...
...1 Pennington, New Jersey Favorite Magazine Dear Sirs: We usually write editors when we do not approve...
...Rarer still is the accuracy of his piece...
...A case in point is the Virginia Military Institute, of which I am a graduate...
...Dear Sirs: I have written the following note to Secretary of State William P. Rogers: "Those who favor retaining the Taiwan regime in the Chinese seat in the United Nations maintain that doing so is in keeping with the doctrine of universality of the United Nations...
...Statements are made throughout the article without evidence to support the contention...
...It is one of the best case studies since Machiavelli of a government's immorality and hypocrisy...
...Thank you especially for Milton Mayer and for your good book reviews...
...pledge of allegiance, because "the highest form of allegiance, [is] to the human race...
...his primary contribution is his ability, as a Military Academy graduate, to place the facts into the perspective of the West Point insider...
...But I accept this risk in order to call attention to the more serious vulnerability of mankind, including tyrants and victims and bystanders...
...Johnson writes with what I turned up in the course of independently investigating the country's three major service academies for a book (The Brass Factories: A Frank Appraisal of West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy...
...A glaring example was the contention by the author that "on the merits it seems to me that North Vietnam had a reasonable basis for regarding the captured pilots as potential war criminals...
...in terms of leadership and attitude, it is the Army...
...I shall not use this pledge to shield me from my responsibility to intervene against the threatened destruction of human life or dignity...
...As at West Point, dehumanization and inhumanity are the order of the day with the honor system used as a club to keep students "in line...
Vol. 35 • April 1971 • No. 4
