The Word from Washington
The Word From Washington The President summoned the White House correspondents into his presence to make a momentous announcement. He had been in touch with Soviet Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin, who...
...Still, the speech buyers must be getting something for all that money, and we suspect that they suspect it's something more than just a speech...
...poto magus...
...Halstead's cover was blown by one James V. Cowin, a sort of free-lance undercover agent, who told HISC that he had spent three nights stuffing envelopes at NPAC headquarters to get the real lowdown on the movement...
...No, it wasn't Richard M. Nixon on May 20, 1971...
...According to reports filed recently with the Senate Select Committee on Standards and Conduct, seventy-three Senators were paid almost $650,000 last year for lecturing and writing...
...We have noticed that even correspondents who are paid handsomely to listen to Senators tend to prefer the intellectual challenge of penny pinochle games...
...These negotiations will be actively pursued," said the joint announcement issued in Washington and Moscow on May 20, 1971, and President Nixon called it "a significant development in breaking the deadlock...
...Unions and their political committees bought $16,450 worth of Senatorial oratory...
...He is the observer of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam at the Paris negotiations...
...This action will lead to the end of corruption and dictatorship in Saigon, to the release of political prisoners, to the restoration of religious and civil liberties, and to the formation of a peace government that can get the overwhelming support of the Vietnamese people...
...And the energies of the entire Administration were harnessed to an all-out campaign to persuade the people that American industry, unaided by public funds, could never get a supersonic transport plane off the ground...
...Banking and financial organizations, for example, disbursed $21,550 to ten Senators—most of whom, as it...
...military forces from Vietnam and to announce a timetable for such withdrawal...
...Two—to pledge complete withdrawal of all U.S...
...Dairy groups paid out $20,500 to eight Senators...
...In affluent America, no commodity is so outrageously expensive that someone can't be found to pay the price...
...The Secretary of Transportation, John Volpe, is convinced that only Government handouts can keep the railroads running...
...A few weeks ago he visited Washngton—perhaps his last such visit, since Saigon has announced it is revoking his passport—and offered these "three steps that the United States can take to end the war in Vietnam": "One—to declare unilaterally an immediate cease-fire, stopping all aerial bombing and ground missions and the use of chemical defoliants, and withdrawing to positions of self-defense...
...Rampant stat-ism...
...yVe have seen Senators desert the floor in droves when one of their colleagues rises to deliver himself of a few thousand well chosen words...
...This action will assure Vietnamese who support the National Liberation Front that foreign soldiers are not going to be in the country any more, and there is no reason to support a war that kills only Vietnamese...
...Still, it is startling to learn that so many people are willing to pay so much hard cash to hear a Senator speak...
...It was a "breakthrough," he said...
...The most urgent of these steps, the indispensable step, is a ceasefire, Thich Nhat Hanh insisted...
...This action will not only stop the destruction of human life but will also clearly prove the American intention to end the war...
...There are takers, even in the Nixon economy, for $400 suits and $8,000 automobiles and $80 imitation alligator shoes...
...About half the money was derived from honoraria for speaking before trade associations and other special interest groups...
...In a voice barely audible, he said: "The Vietnamese people are so tired of war...
...In his brown Buddhist robes the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh is a slight figure who seems, but for the suffering in his eyes, to be barely out of his adolescence...
...Why hasn't some alert anti-subversion agency—the House Internal Security Committee, say, or the Subversive Activities Control Board—looked into the Nixon Administration's blatant efforts to undermine public confidence in the American free enterprise system...
...Cowin's testimony demonstrated to HISC Chairman Richard Ichord's satisfaction—and ours—that the Trot-skyists play a dominant role in the peace movement...
...For many months now Secretary of the Treasury John Connally has been assuring Congress that the dominoes of capitalism will fall from Marietta, Georgia, to San Diego, California, unless the taxpayers come to the rescue of the Lockheed Aircraft Company...
...Had it not been for the intrepid investigations of the much maligned House Internal Security Committee, we would not know today that a notorious Trotskyist had captured control of the peace movement's most strategically placed soda pop machine...
...It should be noted that Halstead was his party's Presidential nominee in 1968—a distinction he shares with Richard M. Nixon, Hubert H. Humphrey, and George C. Wallace...
...Galloping socialism...
...It will draw considerable sympathy and support within and without Vietnam...
...Three—to stop supporting the present Saigon government in its attempt to impose itself longer on the Vietnamese people...
...The dramatic disclosure—one of the most memorable in the bulging annals of domestic counter-intelligence —came during HISC's recent hearings on "subversive elements" in the National Peace Action Coalition, which sponsored the anti-war rally at the Capitol April 24, and the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice, which led the subsequent Mayday demonstrations...
...It will also allow Vietnamese on both sides to come together to seek a political settlement...
...In fact he is forty-four years old, a monk since he joined a Zen community at the age of sixteen, the author of ten books, including three acclaimed volumes of poetry...
...What we need most, what we need now, is an ending of the killing...
...It will encourage Vietnamese on both sides to stop shooting at each other...
...It was Lyndon B. Johnson on March 2, 1967, announcing the agreement to enter into the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks which finally got under way in November, 1969, and which are now in their fourth round...
...happened, were members of the Banking and Currency Committee...
...Medical, dental, and pharmaceutical associations dispensed $14,479...
...Capitol Police, who said the demonstration "went as smoothly as could be expected...
...We have seen tourists in the galleries suddenly remember that there may still be time to climb to the top of the Washington Monument...
...It had been common knowledge even before the HISC sleuths went to work that Halstead had served as chief of marshals for the April 24 rally —a difficult job which he discharged efficiently and with remarkable good humor...
...It all sounds very un-American to us...
...Where are the Red-hunters now that we really need them...
...Halstead had even won praise from the Chief of the U.S...
...The Committee established beyond a reasonable doubt that Fred Halstead of the Socialist Workers Party had engineered a fantastic coup against the Coke machine at NPAC headquarters...
...All things considered, we think we'll wait a while before we break out the champagne...
...The payoff for Cowin came on the second night of his vigil when, he said, Halstead "came out and looked at me and another girl, and when the Coke machine broke down, he opened it with a key and took out the jammed nickels...
...Since 1966 Thich Nhat Hanh has been in exile from his native South Vietnam, unable to return because of his outspoken opposition to the war and to the military rulers in Saigon...
...And we suspect they may be right...
...What was not realized was that Halstead's peace-keeping chores were merely a convenient cover for his soda pop plot...
...Such extravagance is something of a mystery to those of us in Washington who are exposed, more or less regularly, to the rhetoric rife in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body...
...He had been in touch with Soviet Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin, who had "confirmed the willingness of the Soviet Government to discuss means of limiting the arms race \n offensive and defensive nuclear missiles...
...Vietnamization is just an attempt to continue the war with fewer American troops but more American arms...
...The President was obviously elated...
...You can be sure none of them has a key to NPAC's soda pop machine...
Vol. 35 • July 1971 • No. 7
