THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Strong President Needed It was good of The Progressive to give us Joel R. Connelly's piece on Senator Henry Jackson in the March issue because it reveals what is basically wrong...
...The major issue on which agreement has not yet been reached is that of mutual, versus unilateral, termination...
...As before, he is arguing earnestly that the Democratic Party must have a candidate and a platform committed to peace, new economic justice, and to more open politics...
...For example, in discussing the May 7th schools he says, "Of course, there were many who didn't like the idea at all back in 1968...
...What you say is for the most part true, but could also be said of Eugene McCarthy, whose campaign in 1968 raised most of the issues of which Senator McGovern talks...
...A simple condemnation by innuendo in your highly respected pages is not acceptable, especially when an objective piece of reporting on Jackson will reveal his progressivism and his strengths as a liberal alternative to President Nixon and a winning candidate in November...
...The extension of the vote to eighteen-year-olds is a direct outcome of their political involvement in 1967 and 1968 in the McCarthy campaign...
...These overlook Senator Jackson's criticism of the Cambodian incursion, of Thieu's "Communist-style" election, and his characterization of the Vietnam war as a "bottomless pit" as early as February, 1968—five months before Senator Muskie was defending the bombing plank at Chicago...
...Being in a "culturally deprived area"—a small central Illinois community—I consider The Progressive one of my links with the outside world...
...Thanks for helping me make up my mind...
...He writes in the February issue of The Progressive that I favor a "return" to the view that " 'the Cold War was the brave and essential response of free men to Communist aggression.' " These last words are indeed my own (from a Foreign Affairs piece of October, 1967), but they do not constitute, as Professor Ambrose suggests, a statement of my own view...
...wrote to correct an erroneous quotation in the book which was repeated by the reviewer...
...Despite the counter arguments raised by William L. O'Neill in his review (also in the March issue) of James MacGregor Burns's new book, our situation requires a strong President with a radically new approach...
...He has taken a stance against busing as a national policy, but then so has The New Republic recently in its editorials...
...Did Pickowicz really believe that he would hear serious criticism of such an important program—criticism voiced to an American...
...But to link Senator Jackson with Los Angeles Mayor Samuel Yorty, as Knoll does, as the right-wing candidates for the nomination, is irresponsible journalism...
...This does not mean that Washington, like Moscow, may not have mis-perceived the nature of the other's objectives...
...Arthur W. Hummel, Jr., Director Office for Micronesian Status Negotiation U.S...
...Micronesians would run their own domestic affairs, develop their economy in accordance with local desires, and have full control over all land in the area...
...The expanding Soviet armament program is not a creation of Pentagon propaganda, and as Hans Morgenthau reminded us recently in The New Republic we would be badly mistaken to relax our caution in regard to the Soviets as the result of the laudable progress in easing East-West tensions in Europe...
...He campaigned against Mayor Frank Rizzo, who now favors a municipal electric chair in Philadelphia, and hosted a party for Dan Walker, who is challenging the Daley organization in Illinois...
...I am astonished by Professor Ambrose's unquenchable talent for misquotation...
...American government saw it, was not at all between capitalism and socialism...
...Eugene McCarthy took on Joseph McCarthy when nobody else would, set up the Democratic study group, and when the antiwar march organizers had trouble getting a Congressional speaker, McCarthy said he would speak...
...I might add that, as Professor Ambrose must also know if he has read the piece, I explicitly regretted in the first footnote the crack that I had "somewhat intemperately"—my own characterization—made a year earlier about blowing the whistle on revisionism...
...McCarthy is now calling attention to the American economy which is producing much that does not satisfy human needs...
...Missionaries saw her as imminently Christian, wartime politicians as staunchly dembcratic, cold-warriors as the incarnation of evil...
...Is it possible for a scholar to be that naive...
...the most he could claim is that I misrepresented his position, but I did not...
...Are we then to assume (as the author wishes us to) that now the idea enjoys universal and enthusiastic acceptance...
...He is a recognized expert on farm problems and consistently fought for legislation to provide parity income...
...He made history...
...Edith F. Horns Minneapolis, Minnesota Committed to McGovern I was one of the people who staunchly supported Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and who was not enthusiastically committed to anyone in 1972, just against a few...
...That Schlesinger has backed away from his own unfortunate phrase, "blowing the whistle on revisionism," is of course gratifying, but backing away from an ill-chosen phrase is much different from backing away from a long-held position...
...It would take a number of volumes to refute the inaccuracies in Schlesinger's last paragraph, beginning with his implication that the Americans worked happily with socialist governments...
...asked that the problems of the poor be dealt with including assured income...
...Certainly McCarthy proposed alternatives to present policies: his proposals divided those who would prop up the status quo and those committed to nothing less than the reversal of the nation's priorities...
...After all, a good many Marshall Plan countries had socialist governments...
...The ultimate question, of course, is the growing power of special interests raised by Mark J. Green in this same issue of The Progressive...
...Stephen E. Ambrose Department of History Louisiana State University New Orleans, Louisiana Myths about China I was disturbed by Paul Pickowicz's article, "Inside China Today," in your January issue...
...The Village Voice, January 27, 1972, quoted McCarthy on this question: "I'm not late in announcing...
...Immediately after the editorial was mentioned on a radio call-in show, I got six telephone calls asking for my copy of the magazine...
...Since then he has been a sponsor of every major civil rights bill, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965...
...Speaking of naivete, one could hardly top this: "During the Cultural Revolution there was this tremendous upsurge of feeling for him [Mao...
...Americans seem to have a strange proclivity to see China as they wish her to be rather than as she is...
...and the retirement of J. Edgar Hoover...
...Again, why does he tell the readers of The Progressive that this is my continuing purpose...
...As for the phony Truman quotes, I am astonished at the undaunted complacency of scholars like Professors Ambrose and Griffith...
...amnesty for war resisters...
...The Progressive does its readers a disservice in fostering a new myth as far removed from a complex and not always pleasant reality as the old ones were...
...he asked for equal rights for all Americans, including women...
...The issue, as the American government saw it, was between democracy and Stalinism...
...I announced in Grant Park the night they nominated Humphrey...
...Going far beyond cheap political cliches and gimmicks, McGovern provides us with concrete alternatives such as tax structures and transition from a war to a peacetime economy...
...Arthur Schlesinger, Jr...
...May all independents and those sick of political dominance by vested interests support McGovern in his quest for the White House...
...He had then and has now creative proposals advocating fundamental change...
...In fact, I was the first to declare...
...Robert L. Kealy Oconomowoc, Wisconsin The Case for McCarthy I have read your March editorial endorsing George McGovern for President with some amazement...
...like him I invite any interested reader to consult the originals and decide...
...It also makes it clear that American concern over the possible Stalinization of Europe was primarily based on political and strategic and not on economic considerations...
...In their overall records they are all sitting on chairs only marginally different from the one the President occupies...
...I commend you for your early support and reporting of George McGovern's views...
...His letter and responses from Griffith and Ambrose appeared in the February issue...
...Under the terms of the compact, Micronesians would adopt and amend a constitution of their own devising...
...and Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, who considered American reaction to Soviet pressures unduly and naively slow in these years, had deeper roots in the working class than any other prominent figure on either side...
...more important, they indicate to me that Schlesinger is well within the mainstream interpretation of the Cold War...
...He led the effort to curb the CIA long before the CIA acquired its current notoriety, and early in his career called attention to the plight of the migrant worker...
...We might as well roll with the punch, and start planning the institutions we will need to govern the economy when concentration reaches the point where business leaders will no longer be able to manage without also having direct political power...
...Then the March issue of The Progressive came with its informative editorial about George McGovern, and I am no longer uncommitted...
...I said I would never lead a movement under the current system where the people were humiliated...
...Arthur Schlesinger, Jr...
...Schlesinger is simply wrong about the Fleming/Warburg/Truman business...
...But before this reform can be made only a strong President has a chance of overcoming the special interests which have the House in their grip...
...In this ideological competition, we must insist on an Open Door for trade throughout the world...
...Most recently in Illinois he refused to sign the Communist disclaimer, required of a candidate to run in the Illinois primary...
...As for Professor Ambrose's ungrateful claim that Professor D. F. Fleming misled him by "quoting [the fake phrases] directly from Truman's speech" and not from J. P. Warburg's Put Yourself in Marshall's Place, this is refuted by footnote 12 in volume I, page 436 of Fleming's The Cold War and Its Origins...
...It is perhaps true as you say that McGovern's opposition to the Vietnam war antedated that of McCarthy, but McCarthy had the courage to challenge an incumbent President of his own party...
...The fact that Wallace accompanied such declarations by opposition to the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and so on and by let's-be-kind-to-Stalin recommendations makes abundantly clear the disconnection between economic views about the Open Door and political views about the character of Stalinism...
...But to move from these minor matters to more serious ones: both Professors Ambrose and Griffith argue that the need of American capitalism for "an Open Door everywhere" (Professor Ambrose's phrase) is the permanent explanation of American foreign policy and the cause of the Cold War...
...When an amendment was offered to require Presidential approval before National Guardsmen could use live ammunition against American citizens after Kent State, it got only two votes, McCarthy and Edward Kennedy...
...As Roy Wilkins has publicly acknowledged, Senator Jackson's civil rights record is unflawed, from his support of every major civil rights bill through his opposition to Haynsworth, Carswell, and Rehnquist...
...But then Senator Muskie's liberalism is suspect too, isn't it...
...In addition to saying that the Vietnam war must be ended, McCarthy was saying that we should recognize China...
...On civil rights, McCarthy in his first year in Congress in 1949 supported legislation to abolish the poll tax in Federal elections...
...I said then we would have to change the politics of 1972...
...Fortunately, these volumes have already been written by competent historians and are widely available...
...Anne McNay Atlanta, Georgia...
...Foreign affairs and defense would be the responsibility of the United States, which would consult with Micronesian leaders on all such matters of local importance...
...Anyone who wants to check this contention should read the text of the Baylor speech in Truman's Public Papers for 1947, pages 167-172...
...The Micronesians have taken the position that either party should be able unilaterally to terminate the association at any time, an ability which we believe would undermine the stability of not only the U.S.-Micro-nesian association, but, perhaps more important, the internal union of the widely spread peoples of Micronesia themselves...
...Yet shouldn't we expect a good deal more objectivity of a China scholar...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Strong President Needed It was good of The Progressive to give us Joel R. Connelly's piece on Senator Henry Jackson in the March issue because it reveals what is basically wrong with the Senator, and with Muskie and Humphrey, as candidates to oppose Nixon...
...I can agree with much of what Pickowicz had to say about conditions inside the People's Republic of China, and I certainly sympathize with his obvious feeling that it is now time to present a positive image of that much maligned nation...
...in retrospect, it would seem that each nation was taking what it regarded as defensive measures but which the other regarded as intolerable threats...
...He has taken many unorthodox and courageous positions...
...Steve Dick Eureka, Illinois Defends Jackson's Record As a subscriber to The Progressive, I have come to expect far more sophisticated political appraisal than that contained in Erwin Knoll's "Climate Control," in the February issue, on the candidacy of Senator Jackson for the Democratic nomination...
...McCarthy campaigned for a black peace candidate in Washington against Senator Henry Jackson...
...proposals, Micronesia and the United States would be associated by a compact, which would govern the relationship...
...These things were not in the 1968 Democratic platform and when all the other Democratic candidates, including McGovern, stood on the platform after the speech about the politics of joy with their arms raised to the convention, McCarthy was in Grant Park...
...K. Scott Gudgeon New York, New York Quotes and Misquotes Editor's note: In the January issue of The Progressive Robert Griffith reviewed a recent book, "Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938," by Stephen E. Ambrose...
...Why was he so late in announcing...
...The politician who talked most about the Open Door in these years was not Truman nor Marshall nor Acheson nor any of those wicked fellows but the leading opponent of their policies—Henry A. Wallace...
...Schlesinger is quite right about Henry Wallace, which only goes to show how deeply imbedded in the American mind is the attitude that the solution to our problems is an ever-expanding market place...
...Executive branch delegation I headed...
...The stumbling block has been the House of Representatives...
...Schlesinger does not like revisionist history very much, as all readers of The Progressive surely know...
...I disagree sharply with both judgments...
...After a century of unsuccessful trust-busting I think the verdict is in: Our political and legal institutions cannot arrest the growth of big business...
...He called for massive effort on the scale of the Federal highway program to provide decent housing for all Americans, and he was one of labor's most steadfast friends in the Senate...
...I will accept a criticism of Senator Jackson by Knoll, but on the basis of a review of the record...
...Cortlandt Smith Assistant Professor, Political Science University of the Pacific Stockton, California Micronesia's Future In Donald F. Smith's article on Micronesia in your December, 1971, issue, there is no mention of the most recent discussions oil Micronesia's future political status, held last October, between a delegation from the Congress of Micronesia and a U.S...
...Now Schlesinger replies to Ambrose's response and Ambrose responds to Schlesinger's reply...
...Department of the Interior Washington, D. C. Insights and Humor With I. F. Stone retired, we need The Progressive more than ever...
...party reform...
...Under the new U.S...
...open the door toward Russia...
...Rarely in the history of our republic has such a man of candor and honesty run for office...
...We are hopeful that this important issue, as well as other less critical ones, can be resolved in a satisfactory manner at the next meeting of the delegations, which is expected to take place in April in Micronesia...
...I told the people in the park I would never allow them to be taken in again by the politics of 1968...
...What I wrote was that it seemed to me that he wanted to return to the views of "most American scholars" concerning the origins of the Cold War...
...cut the space program and use the money elsewhere...
...Good Lord, one would think that we had learned nothing at all about totalitarian regimes in this century...
...And Senator Jackson's no-nonsense stance on national defense has irked the Left, though I have never divined why a balanced national defense program is an extreme-rightist posture...
...Albert Schweitzer Chair in the Humanities The City University of New York New York, New York I did not misquote Professor Schlesinger...
...Admittedly, Senator Jackson's slow conversion to his present position in favor of an immediate withdrawal of combat troops from Vietnam has been condemned by the holier-than-thou elitists typified by New York's Paul O'Dwyer...
...But the issue, as the...
...He says these are not his views, but the single most direct statement in the Schlesinger article I quoted from reads: "The Cold War could have been av6ided only if the Soviet Union had not been possessed by convictions both of the infallibility of the Communist word and of the inevitability of a Communist world...
...Exposed trafficking in fakes (obviously as a result of carelessness, not of intention), they continue to insist that in some higher sense the fakes are authentic...
...Recall, for example, Wallace's declarations in the famous Madison Square Garden speech of September 12, 1946: "We cannot permit the door to be closed against our trade in Eastern Europe any more than we can in China...
...Anyone wishing to judge this point for himself might take a look at the article, which is reprinted in my book The Crisis of Confidence (Houghton Mifflin, 1969), pages 99-144...
...Sooner or later we will have to reduce its size to make the individual member responsible and to lessen the distortions of regionalism...
...Let us see how these words look in context: "The orthodox American view, as originally set forth by the American government and as reaffirmed until recently by most American scholars, has been that the Cold War was the brave and essential response of free men to Communist aggression...
...The proposition that the search for an Open Door made hostility to the Soviet Union inevitable is easily disproved...
...It is not mine...
...From at least the time of the Populists onwards it has been the preferred solution for radicals as well as conservatives...
...People in all walks of life felt a great urge to show their appreciation, and as a consequence, they idolized him...
...As it does every month, The Progressive for March provided a rich spectrum of thought on these and other issues...
...Let us at long last come to grips with the real China...
...On a broad range of issues, from the economy to the environment, Senator Jackson has solid credentials which even Senator McGovern may envy...
...The insights and humor (especially Potomacus) make the journal worth every penny...
...Far from urging a "return" to this view, I went on to contrast orthodox and revisionist interpretations and then to set forth my own view which, as Professor Ambrose surely must understand, differs from both...
...I am puzzled that he should seek to identify me with a simplistic position that, if he has read the whole essay, he must know I do not hold...
...And again, "But the most rational of American policies could hardly have averted the Cold War...
...Ruth T. Baker Fargo, North Dakota As a new subscriber to The Progressive, I have just discovered your refreshing independence and candor in reporting and analyzing the news...
Vol. 36 • April 1972 • No. 4
