The People's Forum
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM The Pentagon Papers Dear Sirs: Congratulations to both The Progres- sive arid Erwin Knoll for his August issue article, "What We Know Now." It is the most succinct study...
...It has often been charged that we were in large measure responsible for starting the Cold War because we failed to under- stand the Russian national character, es- pecially their traditional fear and suspi- cion of the West and perhaps of anything foreign...
...otherwise the wild men running America will provoke World War III...
...What mass organization has worked harder to insure the full funding of those Federal programs meant to help the poor, the blacks, the school children, the youth, the elderly, than the AFL-CIO...
...Barry R. Toms Washington, D.C...
...It is potentially the most important revolution of the century...
...Quite some time ago Alan Barth wrote in The Washington Post: "Nothing that the agents of Com- munism have done or can do in this country is so dangerous to the United States as what they have induced us to do to ourselves...
...What mass organization has a better program to build the housing which the people of our country so desperately need, than the AFL-CIO...
...Stephen E. Ambrose, former Ernest King professor of history at the Naval War College, has pointed out that Stalin knew nothing about the Korean civil war until after it began and charges General Mc- Arthur with having forced China into the Korean War...
...Senate Foreign Relations Com- mittee, reportedly regaled his Washington cocktail party cronies with this story: "When Mr...
...May we not make the same error when we attempt to establish rapport with China...
...We undoubtedly failed to appreciate fully the immense sacrifices the Soviet Union had made to the com- mon war effort...
...It is imperative that we get these facts before the American people...
...I want to point out that The Confes- sion was and is displayed in several theaters in Santiago without the least disturbance...
...Moreover, we were not very understanding of Russia's obsession with security after the terrible ordeal of 1941-45...
...Women apparently always have been second-class citizens...
...Compare this, if you will, with the break- down of meaningful human relationships often characteristic of an "advanced" in- dustrial society (such as our own, perhaps...
...Hugh B. Hester Brig...
...And do not be misled by the Milton Mayer-Norman Mailer ape- man school...
...With few exceptions, these conspirators and their political col- laborators shielded their own sons from the consequences of their despicable folly...
...Pres- ident, if you will scare the American peo- ple out of their pants, the Congress will appropriate the money.' " He then con- tinued with a laugh: "We both delivered...
...C. W. Griffin Denville, New Jersey Dear Sirs: Please extend my compliments to Erwin Knoll for his stunning summation piece on Vietnam, "What We Know Now," in your August issue...
...Two not-so-minor points on other things...
...He should compare the $1,000- a-year his father gets from Social Security with what the rich oil magnates get for depletion write-offs, the tax loopholes af- forded the rich, and the subsidies paid wealthy landholders and farmers for not planting crops...
...Beautiful...
...He divided Korea and China and fi- nanced the French colonial war in Indo- china through Marshall aid until he took over the financing directly at the begin- ning of the Korean War...
...He divided Germany and Europe...
...Army, Ret...
...disasters since World War II...
...I don't think we would have been successful, since the United States and the Soviet Union rep- resented two entirely antagonistic ideol- ogies and systems...
...Dorothy W. Bingham Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Who's Primitive...
...He would then know who gets "welfare...
...The late Sen- ator Arthur Vandenberg, then Chairman of the U.S...
...Alfred A. Fraser Pennington, New Jersey Dear Sirs: To your excellent commentary on the Pentagon Papers' revelations, may I add an important point about the Establish- ment conspirators who led this nation into the Vietnam morass...
...I am somewhat distressed by your pub- lishing Sidney Lens' propagandist piece, "Letter From Kuwait," bought and paid for by one of the foremost slave empires in the world today...
...How blind can a son be...
...What mass organization works harder for, or has a better program in regard to changing the nation's tax structure in a progressive way, than the AFL-CIO...
...They still are, in America and throughout the world...
...and Mrs...
...Werner Rubens Santiago, Chile Defends AFL-CIO Dear Sirs: What mass organization works harder, or has a better program on full employ- ment for all at decent wages, than the AFL-CIO...
...What does he mean by "primitive...
...Leo Leopold East Hampton, Massachusetts Social Security 'Giveaway' Dear Sirs: I wish to take exception to Martin An- derson's letter to the People's Forum in the July issue in which he describes the So- cial Security system as "a huge giveaway of unearned" welfare...
...What organization has devoted more energy and money to the election of can- didates to office with a decent domestic program, even if it has disagreed at times with some of them on foreign affairs, than the AFL-CIO...
...The point that Robert Lasch drives home is that we are where we are because the Truman Administration planned it that way...
...Gerlof D. Homan Associate Professor of History Illinois State University Normal, Illinois Dear Sirs: Of all the wonderful articles I have read in The Progressive over the years, "How We Got Where We Are" by Robert Lasch, in your July issue, is tops...
...Dear Sirs: On Page 12 of your June issue, Poto- macus questions the sanity of "those who send American bombers against primitive Asian villages...
...It is the most succinct study of governmental chicanery I have seen...
...Asheville, North Carolina Correction on Chile Dear Sirs: J. Hardy Jones states in his excellent article, "Chile Inches Left" (May issue), that the anti-Stalinist film The Confession could not be presented in Chilean theaters...
...It is difficult, however, for me to accept the contention that President Truman in- stigated the Cold War during his first few months in office, tie was rather naive about Russia's intentions and certainly missed an opportunity to instigate a harsh policy vis-a-vis Moscow when he refused to accept Churchill's suggestion not to proceed with the American and British evacuation of a large portion of the Soviet Zone of occupation of Germany...
...In view of this it is highly shocking to me to see in the July Progressive the ed- itorial entitled "Torpor in the AFL-CIO...
...Shane Stevens New York, New York Damaging Ourselves Dear Sirs: The lead editorial in the July issue, "The Climate of Repression," quoted ACLU's Melvin Wulf on Senator East- land's repressive bills: these bills "are the embodiment of that obsessive frame of mind which sees foreign and domestic subversion as the principal danger to the United States...
...Hasmukh B. Gandhi Bombay, India From West Germany Dear Sirs: After receiving a gift subscription to The Progressive, I want to give it to others...
...Asian villages might be "primitive" as regards industrial achievement, but I dare- say industrial societies are often "prim- itive" in the area of human understanding...
...Asian villages might be "primitive," but only when measured by that peculiarly Western yardstick, "progress"—i.e., mate- rial gain...
...They have a colonialist and slavemaster attitude toward half the earth's humans...
...However, I disagree with Lasch's inter- pretations of the origins of the Cold War, and tend to place more blame on the Soviet Union...
...It reminded me of a quotation I have used over and over again in my feeble attempts to combat the myth of monolith- ic Communism...
...Their view of women as sex objects and procreative factories is imperi- alism at its worst...
...What a tragedy...
...The tragedy, how- ever, is that we never tried...
...The Cold War was deliberately dragged from under the rug, where it quietly rested during the great "crusade," 1941- 45, for the express purpose of frightening the American people...
...This country has committed war crimes, and the war criminals are known...
...What mass organization works harder for, or has a better program in, the field of medical care for all, than the AFL- CIO...
...He should be grateful his parents don't have to come to him for a handout to make ends meet...
...I hope for his sake they never have to use it...
...How tragic the consequences of the Truman Doctrine have been is now obvious to many...
...Never in all my sixteen years in Europe have I been able to read such intelligent and truthful reporting on our problems...
...It is a frame of mind that by itself has done more to damage our free institutions than the 'subversion' it is designed to attack...
...Your editorial does nothing to further that and therefore will be greeted with joy by Nixon and his supporters...
...The article is not only factually incorrect in many instances, but what is equally disturbing is that such continued misrep- resentation can do nothing but fragment the coalition needed to replace the pres- ent conservative Administration in Wash- ington...
...And he is right...
...We could and should have made ef- forts to understand and analyze tradition- al Russian behavior...
...As for his complaint about Medicare, he should be more than grateful his parents have that insurance...
...No "pussy-footing" here...
...How We Got Here Dear Sirs: The Progressive deserves high praise for its outstanding article in the July issue, "How We Got Where We Are," by Robert Lasch...
...The "Commie haters," Harriman, Clif- ford, Acheson, Dulles, et al., mounted the "Communist containment policy" for propaganda purposes and used the slogan as a fig leaf to cover up their naked grab for world domination...
...Jeannette Scheerer Merzhausen, West Germany...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM The Pentagon Papers Dear Sirs: Congratulations to both The Progres- sive arid Erwin Knoll for his August issue article, "What We Know Now...
...From now on, if we loudly demand some sacrifice from our hypocritical super- patriots, they may less readily risk others' lives in the defense of their principles...
...That coalition is doomed to failure in 1972 unless its chief element, labor, is united in the forthcoming elections with all those elements seeking a better Amer- ica...
...What if his father only paid $140 in Social Security taxes before retiring fifteen years ago...
...Do not decry the feminist movement...
...Furthermore, it would have been a monumental task requiring much tact, diplomacy, and psychiatry to overcome the deeply ingrained Russian suspicion of the West...
...Truman, immediately upon becom- ing President, set the course that has led to most of the U.S...
...I agree with many of Lasch's con- clusions, especially those concerning the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine...
...Indo- china is part of the global grab for power...
...I find it difficult, no matter how much one can sympathize with the Soviet Union's con- cern for security, to minimize the impor- tance of the Communist subversion of Eastern Europe...
...Truman told me he wanted $400 million to contain Communism in Greece and Turkey, I said: 'Mr...
...Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, Hubert Humphrey, and Melvin Laird all kept their sons safely home while they cheered the slaughter from the safety of the side- lines...
...We were prompt in ter- minating Lend-Lease and refused to ex- tend to the Soviets a generous loan or some sort of economic aid to rebuild their economy...
...I would not call "primitive" any village within a society which had retained at least some sense of a human dependence of one person or family upon another...
...This charge is true but only in part...
...C. M. Henriques Berkeley, California Praise from India Dear Sirs: We enjoy The Progressive greatly be- cause it is most enlightening on many as- pects of American life...
Vol. 35 • September 1971 • No. 9
