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September 24, 1965 - Image 4

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1965-09-24

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Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS

In Defense of My Own Depravity

t _ -

.ere Opinions Are Free. 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
Truth Will Prevail

NEWS PHONE: 764-0552

Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This mus t be noted in all reprints.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: LAUREN BAIR
Our Brinksmanship Continues
o ail in Viet Nam1

AS THE U.S. escalates its war efforts in
Viet Nam it becomes increasingly ob-
vious that our nation needs a new Presi-
dent for foreign affairs.
The great innovator on donestic poli-
cy has refused to veer from a foreign
policy in' Viet Nam which brings on
greater disaster with each passing day.
After 22 months in office the Presi-
dent still insists upon implementing a
policy that is based in delusion, operat-
ed in confusion and perpetuated in hopes
of a miracle.
President Johnson steadfastly follows
the foreign policies of John Foster Dulles,
policies more worthless today than they
were a decade ago.
WHAT ARE WE DOING in Viet Nam?
If you watched the President read
from his teleprompter on July 28 you
heard him explain:
"We insist and we will always insist
that the people of South Viet Nam shall
have the right of choice, the right to
shape their own destiny in free elections
in the south or throughout all Viet Nam
under international supervision and that
they shall not have any government im-
posed upon them by force and terror so
long as we can prevent it. This was the
purpose of the 1954 agreements which
the Communists cruelly shattered."
The 1954 Geneva agreement expressly
stipulated that free elections would be
held in Viet Nam and that no foreign
troops would be allowed in the country.
Who shattered it?
To begin with the United States re-
fused to sign the 1954 agreement. -
THEN, IN 1956, South Viet Nam's pre-
mier Ngo Dinh Diem cancelled the free
elections planned with regard to the Ge-
neva accord.
The reason, as even President Eisen-
hower acknowledged in his memoirs was
that if such an election were held, North
Viet Nam's Ho Chi Minh would win by a
4 to 1-margin. Washington stood behind
Diem's decision.
That the United States violated the
second part of the Viet Nam accord is
only too obvious. 125,000 U.S. troops are
now in Viet Nam.
As for the Viet Cong, it was only after
the denial of free elections that their
insurgency began. By democratic proced-
ures they would have won control of the
country. Denied what they knew was
rightfully theirs, they began their efforts
to take over their country.
The President's demonstrated refusal
to face the facts on the background of
the Vietnamese conflict illustrates the
basis of our strange policy there.
In'his July 28th speech the President
explained the American role this way:
"We did not choose to be the guardians
at the gate but there was no one else . . -
we are in Viet Nam to fulfill one of the
most solemn pledges of the American na-
tion. Three presidents . . . over 11 years
have committed themselves and have
Scond class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Mich.
Published daly Tuesday through Sunday morning.

promised to help defend this small and
valiant nation."
THE PRESIDENT is wrong. We chose to
be the guardians at the gate because
we were the only country deluded enough
to violate the Geneva principles and try
to stave off the inevitable. The solemn
pledge is nothing more than a pact with
a pack of dictators (nine in the past two
years) to help keep South Viet Nam safe
for American interests.
As vice-president, Lyndon Johnson
once called dictator Ngo Dinh Diem the
Winston Churchill of South Viet Nam. It
is sad to see that Johnson is still blind
to political reality there.
Looking to the men the President de-
pends on for advice and counsel one can
better understand the basis of his misin-
formation.
There is smiling Dean Rusk, the man
President Kennedy planned to bounce
after the 1964 elections. And why not?
For his entire four and a half years in of-
fice, Rusk cannot point to one positive
diplomatic achievement in South Viet
Nam. The present premier, Nguyen Cao
Ky, who enjoys our State Department's
support, recently commented that his
"one hero is Hitler."
Then there is efficient Robert McNa-
mara, the astute analyst who remarked
after a fact finding trip to Viet Nam in
1963 that he thought all American troops
could be brought home by the end of 1965.
As it looks now the only American troops
that will be returning from Viet Nam at
the end of 1965 will be the dead ones.
McNamara is the ex-Ford Motor presi-
dent who is always citing statistics and
pointing at his charts. Somehow one has
the impression the defense secretary fals
to realize he is talking terms of human
beings, not camshafts.
The President along with Rusk, McNa-
mara and others such as teach-in de-
bater McGeorge Bundy holds a luncheon
every Tuesday where the bombing tar-
gets for the next week are approved.
THESE MEN have guided the President
to his current policy. And the Presi-
dent would have you believe that we are
helping to save the Vietnamese from a
forceful Communist takeover.
This is simply not true. The unpleas-
ant but obvious fact is that if a cease-
fire were declared today and a free elec-
tion held the Viet Cong would win South
Viet Nam, just as they would have in
1956.
Controlling no less than 80 per cent
of South Viet Nam, the Viet Cong enjoy
immense popular support.
The majority of the South Vietnamese
apparently believe that the government
of Ho Chi Minh would be preferable to
the dictatorship of Saigon.
As far as they are concerned, what is
good for America is not necessarily good
for them.
BUT INSTEAD of facing facts the Pres-
ident continues on his crusade to res-
cue people who just want to be left
alone.
The President is going to save the Viet-
namese from Communism if he has to kill
every last one of them.
-ROGER RAPOPORT

THIS IS IN DEFENSE of sen-
sitivity, depravity and myself.
If anything will save this civiliza-
tion, it will be these three.
Last Sunday morning it was
still not apparent there would be
no Chinese invasion of India and
no United Nations army already in
the area to receive the provoca-
tions which might send U.S. bomb-
ers over China. Last Sunday
morning I thought seriously'of
calling a few friends, buying as
much food, scotch, soda, tobacco
and gasoline as I could afford,
piling everything into my panel
truck and heading north, where
there are no nearby automobile
factories and nuclear research fa-
cilities to attract bombs.
It is an interesting process to
list those friends one would take
on such a trip, at that last minute
when there is no fture left and
one only wants to be in good
company when he dies. Later,
when I thought about my list, it
struck me that all of us were
equally sensitive and depraved.
THEREFORE also lonely in this
world, for I am afraid our civiliza-
tion destroys its most sensitive
and depraved people, who are also
its most human people.
It is very difficult and very
lonely to exist at a kind of pin-
nacle like this: one senses too
many things (and often under-
stands them intellectually, though
this is not necessary) at too basic
a level about himself and about
people and situations around him;
one's reactions and emotions be-
come too finely sorted out, and
this obliges one to feel and be-
have at a very pure and basic
level.
Of course, this means being de-

praved. It means simply that one
is possessed by more or less pure
emotions, that feeling has not
been destroyed and feelings have
not been confused. One is just
as depraved if he loves purely as
if he hates purely (indeed, the
accurate term is lovehate); if he
can be sincerely playful as much
as if he is genuinely cynical; if
he is genuinely charitable as much
as if he is genuinely self-inter-
ested; as much in genuine with-
drawal as in genuine ambitious-
ness, as much if he is afraid as
if he is brave.
TODAY I am as tired as you
are of my expositions on how the
"technological and economic re-
quisites of social organization and
power differentiation" destroy
human possibilities. Anyone who
has been following this column
probably gets the picture. So I am
talking about what this all means
to Me As A Person, and if there
is any empathy between you and
me perhaps this will also mean
something to You.
I am reminded of George Orwell
and what his hero Winston Smith
feels after the first time he has
made love to Julia, in the Golden
Country:
In the old days, he thought,
a man looked at a girl's body
and saw that it was desirable,
and that was the end of the
story. But you could not have
pure love or pure lust nowadays.
No emotion was pure, because
everything was mixed up with
fear and hatred.
Their embrace had been a
battle, the climax a victory. It
was a blow struck against the
Party. It was a political act.
Winston was one of those sen-

WHY NOT?
By JEFFREY GOODMAN
sitive and depraved persons, and
as O'Brien, the man assigned to
his reintegration into the Party,
later said, he was the last man.
He was the last man whose feel-
ings derived from the roots of his
existence as a human being rather
than from the propaganda ma-
chineries of the state. He was the
last man who could feel love and
hatred and act existentially upon
them in full knowledge that he
was doing so.
THE PARTY, however, also act-
ed existentially. As O'Brien told
Winston:
The Party seeks power en-
tirely for its own sake. We are
not interested in the good of
others; we are interested solely
in power. Not wealth or luxury
or long life or happiness; only
power, pure power.
So there were two opposing
existential forces, both depraved.
in the sense that both were pos-
sessed by pure emotion, both in-
tensely sensistive to the meaning
of the existential acts of others
and themselves. The essential dif-
ference was that the Party sought
to destroy man by destroying one
class of his instincts and by con-
trolling the others, their oppo-
sites, in its own interest-which
destroys those instincts controlled
as well, for it turns them into
mere predictable reactions to pre-
dictable stimuli.
Winston, on the other hand,

sought to preserve instinct-and
therefore humanity-by express-
ing it fully and depravedly, by
using it as a tool to destroy the
Party in an act of existential self-
defense (in this way ensuring that
instinct would be uncontrolled).
I IDENTIFY with Winston in
this struggle and therefore re-
joice in my depravity and in the
sensitivity which enables me to be
depraved (and in the intellect
which enables me to understand).
I rejoice because I am very much
afraid that, were I not depraved,
I and my friends on that list
would lose this struggle and lose
some of ourselves and lose some-
thing for man.
Perhaps what makes me most
afraid is that what I find myself
struggling against is by no means
a purely existential entity, yet.
That is, it does not know and
does not proclaim unashamedly
what it is about. It is not honest.
It assures you it is seeking one
thing, it believes it is seeking that
thing, yet it acts quite differently.
This means there is never op-
portunity for confrontation on the
level of pure motivation and emo-
tion. The enemy is continually
slippery and elusive (though I
think it is getting less so; soon it
will sound like O'Brien). Its out-
ward proclamations can always
label one evil when one insists
that it is trying to destroy him:
the system of justifications has
been accepted as legitimate (it's
easier for people) even though it
is not true.
THE ENEMY therefore tricks
and obfuscates; there is no pure

knowledge left and we are not
given a fair chance to fight about
what really matters.
Moreover, someone like me who
is depraved can never be wholly
sure of his sanity, for the con-
fusions perpetrated by the enemy
occasionally sound legitimate even
to me and occasionally actually
confuse even me. So I find myself
constantly compromised and
therefore potentially less myself
and less human.
(There is a good deal to be said
for wearing long hair and dirty
clothes and proteest buttons, as I
do. It is a way of living very
wholly what I am very wholly.
Moreover, it offends, and often I
feel like offending.)
SO I GUESS I shall continue
being:
self-centered;
appreciative of nice things
people do for me;
tedious;
good to people I like;
occasionally overbearing;
in love with a small number of
women;
civilly disobedient;
idealistic in my writings;
too tired many mornings to go
to my classes;
a good cook for my roommates;
occasionally bitchy;
kind to small animals;
an appreciator, as I often am,
of the pure act of lovemaking;
rather lonely.
CIVILIZATION NEEDS more
people like me. Moreover, this is
the only way I can live. If you
don't believe I can do it, think
of how much unadulterated gall
it took just to write this damn
thing.

Britain Reveals Its Plan for Stability

ALTHOUGH the large volume
published in London last week
is called "The National Plan,"
Americans who read it will have
to bear in mind that it is less an
announcement of government
policy than a statement of inten-
tions and hopes.
The plan is in effect a theoreti-
cal consensus, put together by
expert civil servants after exten-
sive study of the economy and
questioning of managers and labor
leaders. The plan is a national
estimate of what could be done in
the course of the next 10 years
to modernize the British economy.
It carries with it the commitment
of the government to take such
measures as will help, will prod,
pull and compel managers, labor
leaders, investors, bankers and
public servants to carry out the
plan.
Compared with the customary
behavior of British industry since
World War II, the plan seems very
ambitious. For example, it pro-
poses a 25 per cent increase in
the national output before 1970.

This means that the rate of out-
put of each worker must rise by.
3.4 per cent per year instead of
by 3 per cent as it now may be
rising.
Though the difference looks
small, it would in fact require a
great leap forward in technology
and habits of work.
While no one is in a position to
say that the leap forward cannot
be made, it is not at all certain
that Britain has in the present
Labor government, or could have
now in a Conservative govern-
ment, the kind of government
which is strong enough to make
the national plan workable.
AS AGAINST THIS, it can be
said that the principles of the
plan have in fact been carried out
successfully in 'France. originally
under the leadership of M. Jean
Monnet, and that the French re-
covery and reconstruction which
began in the pre-Gaullist years'
has been carried on under Gen. de
Gaulle too.
In fact, it would be fair to say

TODAY
and
TOMORROW
By WALTER LIPPMAN

that this kind of planning in what
the French call the "concerted
economy belongs to advanced,
highly developed economies in
democratic societies and that var-
iants of it, in greater or lesser
degree, have in the modern world
replaced socialism as a method of
reforming the abuses andthe
weaknesses of laissez faire capi-
talism.
The plan is, one might say, in
tune with the times. But, applied
in Britain, there are certain spe-
cial conditions which must give
us pause. Britain has difficulties
which are not shared by the great
West European powers.

Thus as a matter of fact, all
the West European countries, ex-
cept Portugal, have liquidated
their pre-war empires; none has
the kind of global responsibility
which Britain still bears from Aden
to Singapore. It is a very serious
question whether the British Isles
can provide the economic basis to
support this remnant of the old
imperial system.
BRITAIN DIFFERS also from
the flourishing West European
states in another important re-
spect. The Europeans do not have
the burden, as well as the benefits
of having a currency which is
an international reserve asset.
To carry on the remainder of
empire in Asia and to keep the
pound sterling as an international
reserve currency, the combination
of these two enormous commit-
ments makes the reconstruction
and recovery of Britdin different
in kind as well as in degree from
that of France, Germany, Italy
and the rest.
Yet, it is this very combination

which concerns us in America
very deeply. Britain today is not
filling, is not able to fill, the role
of a first-class power. The B*itish
government has felt itself to be
so weak at home and abroad that
it has not been able to play the
part of a true ally. A true ally has
to be an independent friend and
supporter.
THE PROBLEM of working out
the relations between the Western
world and the Asian continent
cannot be done by American mili-
tary and economic power alone.
For it is beyond the experience
and wisdom of any one power to
play so great a part. President
Johnson has had little or none of
the kind of help that a true ally,
especially an old and experienced
one like Britain, can and should
give him.
More than that, just beyond the
horizon lies the possibility that
if Britain cannot play her role in
the East. we shall be called upon
to provide the replacement.
(c)1965, The Washington Post Co.

4

4

I

Some Dissenting Views on Who Is Killing the UN

To the Editor:
MR. MICHAEL BADAMO'S ar-
ticle of September 19, 1965,
entitled "The U.S. is Slowly Kill-
ing the United Nations," is based
on a very superficial analysis of
the basic principles and facts
which underlie the present demise
of the United Nations.
Basically, I think we all can
agree that the purposes for found-
ing the UN were to preserve peace,
to encourage self-determination,
to provide health and education,
and generally to provide for law
and order inour turbulent world.
However, these 'goals gain the
strength for fulfillment from the
principle that the nations of the
world will adhere to them and act
in unison to preserve them.
With this universally accepted
principle in mind, we can readily
understand the demise of the
United Nations and the position
which our United States are forced
to take.

THE PURPOSES of the UN are
very similar to the purposes em-
bodied in our own American Her-
itage. Hence in the past, we have
always been anxious to insure the
success of the UN and have ac-
tively supported it. It is an un-
impeachable fact that we have
always accepted the "lion's share"
of expenses incurred in UN opera-
tions.
Likewise, we have contributed
more manpower and have sacri-
ficed more lives than any other
member nation. On immortal bat-
tlefields in Korea, we offered the
cream of American youth to pre-
serve the purposes of the UN char-
ter. Our record has been one of
continual sacrifice in order that
the UN might prosper.
ON THE OTHER HAND, the
purposes of the UN are not so
similar to the purposes of the
communist bloc nations. Instead of
- encouraging self determination,

the communist nations clamor
for world domination.
Instead of encouraging peace,
the communist- nations commit
acts of aggression and foment
world trouble spots. Instead of
promoting education, the com-
munists encourage and thrive on
ignorance. Instead of promoting
law and order, the communists
promote violence.
Examine the record. What hap-
pened to self determination in
Eastern Europe after World War
II? Why have millions of people
fled to the West? What happened
to self determination in Hungary
in 1955? Wasn't it a communist
nation that invaded South Korea?
And look at China in action on
the Indian border. Look at China,
who through her lies and arms
encouraged the ignorant Simba
tribesmen of the Congo to commit
acts of violence, massacre, and
cannabalism.
IT IS LITTLE wonder then,
that the communist nations refuse
to suport UN operations. It is
little wonder that they are delin-
quent in their contributions to UN
operations.
The truth of the matter is that
the communist nations have con-
tinually attempted to harass,
hamstring, and hang the world
organization.
The point here is that the Unit-
ed Nations cannot achieve its
goals under these circumstances.
Hence, it does not deserve the un-
qualified support and loyalty of
the United States. It 'is time for
us to realize that if we truly want
to preserve the ideals embodied
in the UN charter, we, and our
allies when possible, must accept
the task unilaterally.
This realization suggests a two-
point foreign policy. First, we must
encourage the education of the
masses. We must eliminate the
circumstance of ignorance on
which the communist liars thrive.
Secondly, we must preserve, with
force where necessary, the con-

amazing. United States support,
in the form of men and money,
has been the only thing keeping
the United Nations together, es-
pecially when some major powers
refuse. to abide by the charter and
do not pay for their fair share of
expenses.
HIS STATEMENT concerning
the India-Pakistan conflict, "with-
out arms the war could never have
been fought," is entirely without a
factual basis.
For example, the U.S. has sup-
plied India with 25 transport
planes and 30 tanks, while Great
Britain has supplied4b43 planes,
430 jet fighters or bombers, and
290 tanks. France also has sup-
plied 100 jet fighters, with Russia
accounting for another 32 planes,
according to Newsweek.
Red China's entrance into the
UN Security Council would only
hasten Mr. Badamo's predicted
demise of the UN.
-William Louis Clyne, '68
To the Editor:
IN HIS EDITORIAL of Septem-
ber 19th, Michael Badamo as-
.serts that the United States is
slowly destroying the United Na-
tions by refusing to maintain the
principles of the preamble of its
charter. In the following para-
graph he claims that the U.S. has
handcuffed the UN by invoking a
section of its charter! He blames
the U.S. (who by demanding that
the- UN be given its just and
badly needed revenue' seeks to
protect the organization from fi-
nancial collapse), rather than the
nations which realy ignore the
charter's important Article 19, for
the holdup.
The logic of this argument
somehow escapes me, as does his
tie-in of the Viet Nam war and the
new war in India and Pakistan
(wars of two completely unrelated
types and origins), and most of
the rest of the "reasoning" in the
article.

be no doubt, but there also should'
be no doubt that the protesting
students are not questioning the
American fighting soldier's ability,
nor his courage or conviction.
Rather, in their haste to indicate
their abhorrence and hate of war
these crying students mistakenly
attack the symtoms of war (Ma-
rines arriving in San -Francisco
by train for embarkation to Viet
Nam) instead of attacking the
causes of war (breakdown of di-
plomacy and communications; ig-
norance and poverty; charismatic
and poor leadership; adherence to
die-hard, hard-line communism;
impatience to await the better
things of life which the normal
and present channels of growth
cannot immediately provide).
These few students have failed
to perceive this difference, while
the vast majority of students have
failed to inform them that they
might better serve the cause of
peace and eradicate the causes of
war by demonstrating their talents
in the Peace Corps instead of
demonstrating their stupidy on the
streets of Chicago or at the gates
of the White House.
POWER AND FORCE, unfor-
tunately, are paramount in Viet
Nam regardless of how the U.S.
got involved, regardless of political
instability in South Viet Nam, and
regardless of how important eco-
iomics, sociology, and Asian psy-
chology may be.
The general American public
has far more accurately assessed
its Viet Nam role and purpose
than a handful of college profes-
sors and students. The purveyors
of age-old aggression are the cul-
prits.
The U.S. will always be com-
mitted as long as there"are gov-
ernments who believe that military
aggression is both tenable and
necessary for the building of the
Great Communist Society.
But if we contain the Chinese
Communist ambition to.proliferate

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