rl'iit' MiI lIGAN .fit'.L SUNDAY, JANUARY 9,49W UN Asr .Ya. JN ARY . )1VVV' The Ladejnsky Case: The Boys Who Cried Wolf A MAN, named by one government depart- ment as a security risk, has been appoint- ed with the full knowledge of the President to an important position in a pivotal Asian country. The statement sounds fantastic, impossible, like something Joe McCarthy might dream up. But what sounds like treason is merely tragedy, the farcical tragedy of an Administration with jumbled security -standards and whose poli- tical motivations dominate its personnel deci- sions. It all began very quietly when 22-year-old Wolf Ladejinsky immigrated to America from the Russian Ukraine after the Revolution. He learned English, did odd jobs, and finally be- came a citizen. For a year he worked as an interpreter for Amtorg, the Soviet trading agency. Later, he studied agricultural econom- ics at Columbia and got a job with the De- partment of Agriculture in 1935. Ladejinsky worked his way up in the department and was sent to postwar Japan as General MacAr- thur's aide on farm policy. Land reform pro- grams he engineered made farms easily avail- able to nearly four million Japanese peasants Ladejinsky was also an advisor on land prob- lems to the governments of India, Burma and Formosa. H E HAD been cleared for security and loyalty many times, most recently by the State Department, whose security chief, Scott McLeod has been attacked by many as "wrecking" our Foreign Service with his many firings of de- partment personnel. When a recent law trans- ferred agricultural attaches from the State Department to the Department of Agriculture, the latter promptly fired Ladejinsky on grounds that he had never "been close to American farming operations and problems," and that he was a security risk. The first of these may be disregarded as a rationalization included only to bolster a weak case. After all, Ladejinsky's job in the 'Far East did not require- a proximity to American farming-he was not working with American but rather Japanese farming. He is well known for his close contact with its operations and problems, after living in peasant huts and wading in rice paddies. The security case was founded on equally strong logic. The case rested mainly on three points: his connection with Amtorg;- alleged membership in two Communist-front organi- Lations (which he has flatly denied); and the possibility "he may be subject to coercion" since three sisters still live behind the Iron Curtain, though he has not heard from them In seven years. INTERESTING evidence is used to back the "coercion" fear-Ladejinsky's 20-year rec- ord'of writing against Communism. The idea is not quite as absurd as it may seem. As the agriculture department's chief security officer, John Cassity, puts it, "Would you write articles critical of the Communist government if close members of your family were living in Russia and you knew the tactics the Communists used?" He adds, "It is doubtful anyone would do it, unless he had reason to believe his famil was safe." The implication is clear. At first glance, the logic might appear to be valid. Fo the sake of argument' let us assume that Ladejinsky could have been sent over to America by the Russian Communists to gain an established anti-Communist record and the confidence of the American govern- ment, all in anticipation of the coming strug- gle betweei East and West. No doubt persons did immigrate at that time for just such pur- poses. But if Ladejinsky's whole purpose in being in America was secretly to do Communist bid- ding, if his whole value to the cause was his concealment and cloak of anti-Communism, why would he make the supreme blunders of working for Amtorg in a far-from-indispen- sible capacity, of making a trip to Russia in 1939 with American approval, and of allegedly joining two Communist-front organizations? The agriculture department's flimsy charges are self-contradictory because they accuse Ladejinsky of being two very different types of Communist: the undercover man, whose value is his secrecy and subtlety of influence: and the man who tries to promote subversive causes by openly organizing and joining front groups and influencing public opinion. But security officer Cassity's reasoning is hardly convincing, even in the absence of con- tradictory evidence. Many Russians have es-' caped from the Iron Curtain and spoken. 'strongly against Communism. They have been highly praised for extreme courage in risking the lives of their loved ones, and not de- nounced as possible secret collaborators. No doubt if Ladejinsky had taken the other approach and not made a strong anti-Com- munist stand, he would be denounced as beig under Russian pressure. Such reasoning would label as a security risk any immigrant from a Communist-dominated country, be he vocally anti-Communist or not. PERHAPS another test should be advanced: that of Ladejinsky's affect on American foreign policy. Senator McCarthy has said that the only reason he ever suspected that there were Communists in the State Department was that policies seemed to him to be designed to favor the Communist cause, especially in Asia. Were there anything to indicate that Lade- jinsky influenced policy to the detriment of American interests, there might be cause to fire him. On the contrary, his record in Asia led author James Michener to describe him as "known throughout Asia as Communism's mc implacable foe and about the only Americab who has accomplished much in actually stop- ping the drift of all Asian farmers to Commu nism." He has received many awards for his work, including ones from MacArthur and from the agriculture department itself. BECAUSE Ladejinsky was well-known,' the press and radio publicized the details of' his now-notorious case. Had they not, he would have joined the 8,008 anonymous men whom the Eisenhower Administration proudly claims it has removed from government ser- vice as "security risks." The publicity given the Ladejinsky affair has served a double purpose. It caused Foreign Operations Administrator Harold Stassen, with the President's approval, to repudiate the agri- culture department's action by giving Lade- jinsky a job working on the land reform pro- gram for the precarious government of Viet Nam. His service there will undoubtedly be distinguished. The case also served the cause. of public education, in that the concept of "security risk" now has a far more realistic connotation in the public mind. It no longer means "Red" or "traitor" or even "pink"; the term now may signify nothing more than the figment of the imagination of an ambitious and politically- minded security officer. The Eisenhower Administration may some- day learn that if it shouts "Wolf!" long enough, it will find that no one is listening. --Pete Eckstein New Books at the Library Fatemi, Nasrollah Saifpour-Oil Diplomacy, New York, Whittier Books, Inc., 1954. Fermi, Laura-Atoms in the Family, Chica- go, The University of Chicago Press, 1954. Grossett, Harry-Down to the Ships in the Sea, Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1954. Lang, Daniel-The Man in the Thick Lead Suit, New York, Oxford University Press, 1954. Longstreet, Stephen-The Lion at Morning, Simon and Schuster, 1954. O'Neal, Cothburn-The Dark Lady, New York, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1954. DREW PEARSON: May Deflate Communist Bugaboo W ASHINGTON - Missourian Morgan Moulder, whose con- sistently moderate voice has fre- quently clashed with the raucous Committee on Un-American Ac- tivities, is ur g ing Chairman Francis Walter to hold hearings to calm the country's exaggerated hysteria over Communist subver- sion. He would have J. Edgar Hoover and officials of the Justice De- partment, the Central Intelligence Agency, plus other security watch- men, testify on their work in executive session. Then the Com- mittee would issue a report sur- veying their anti-Red activities. Congressman Moulder argues thatgthis would permit the public to learn just how well protected the nation is against subversion; also would permit the hysteria built up by Velde and McCarthy to subside. Note-ex-Chairman Martin Dies has somewhat the same idea, be- lieves fascism should be probed as well as Communism. It would be ironic if the Un-American Ac- tivities group applied itself to the task of deflating unrealistic fears of Communist infiltration after spending most of the last 10 years creating them. -Dixon, Nixon and Yates- Robert Gates Dawes, President of York, Pa., Junior College, is sending Washington friends the following views on the Dixon- Yates power contract, patterned after the old verse on Byron, 131.- ley, and Keats: "Dixon and Nixon and Yates are a trio of marvelous mates; for Dixon, it's said, often dabbles :a stocks; and Yates plays around with utilities blocks; while Nixon keeps occupied hurling large rocks at critics of Nixon, and sometimes of Dixon but mostly of Dixon and Yates." UnAmerican Clean-up Both Democrats i and key Re- publicans are moving in on the H o u s e Un-American Activities Committee to clean out some of its waterclogged, inflated person- nel. Not so the SenateJudiciary Committee, which has an equally inflated payroll. Congressman Francis: Walter, the Pennsylvania Democrat who takes over the Un-American Com- mittee, has the cooperation of con- scientious Republican Pat Kearney of New York in weeding out Leslie Scott, the Illinois weekly newspap- er publisher who this column re- vealed got a salary of $7,000 from the Committee out chiefly worked at mending Chairman Harold Velde's political fences in Illinois. They are also firing Mrs. Velde, who got $8,500 a year as a com- mittee stenographer Robert Ku- zig, the committee counsel who did about as much political cam- paigning as he did work for the committee; Charles E. Phillips, whom this column exposed for having submitted expense vouch- ers which included a trip to the Atlantic City race track; Larry Kerley, who had the temerity to call on press associations to com- plain that the rewspapers were not properly covering the antics of Chairman Velde. These and several others were enumerated as deadheads in this column on March 29, 1954, They will now go down the drain. In contrast, it looks as if the padded payroll of the Senate Judi- ciary Committee would remain. Like the now deposed chairman Velde, the late Senator McCarran gorged the Judiciary Committee's payroll with his political pets. And for some strange reason, usually forthright Chairman Langer of North Dakota seemed afraid to fire them.. Now Langer has been replaced by able Sen. Harley Kilgore of West Virginia, and he too seems cowed by the holdovers and hang- overs of Pat McCarran. Million-Dollar Influence T HE PUBLIC sei lom realizes backstage wire-pulling that takes place over the appointment of a commissioner to the semi- judicial agencies which govern the airways, the railroads, the TV- radio-telephone channels of the U. S. A. These commissioners are all-powerful. They can throw millions of dollars to certain air- lines or telephone companies; or they can throw millions to the American public. Such a backstage wire-pulling contest is now taking place over a key member of the Civil Aero- nautics Board-Oswald Ryan, con- sidered a stanch friend of Pan American Airways. "You Sure This Road b afe Now?" . + tf a N L. E7 j~C4 'THE HUGE SEASON': Flashback Contrasts Twenties with Present THE HUGE SEASON, by Wright Morris, Viking, 306 pp. $3.75. M ORRIS' SEVENTH novel is a flashback chronicle of the lives of four major characters during the age destined to be linked with jazz and prohibition: The Twenties. What distinguishes the author's work from similar narratives about this period is the striking use he makes of the time switch, the imme- diate flash from the present back into the past. Morris, by using a mechanical scheme of alternating the past and present by chapters, succeeds in presenting not only an effective contrast between what the main characters in the novel are now and were before, but manages as well a nice bit of broad description of the problem of readjustment with the society of our times that faced the survivors of that hectic decade. The book doesn't tell us anything new about the Jazz Age, or about the people who burned out their souls to keep it the bright, gay, blinding thing it was. But actually, no new insights have been given on that period since the death of the Spokesman of the 'Twenties, Scott Fitzgerald, in Hollywood, in 1940. Probably not until we are a few more years away from the past- World War II generation and try to analyze it will we discover a bril- liant new approach to criticism of that earlier post war society. THE REWARDING thing about The Huge Season is the honest pic- ture we get of a segment of the "Lost Generation": the credibility of the prep school and college years of Charles Lawrence, the rich tennis star, heir to the barbed wire dynasty, of Proctor who idolized Lawrence, and of Foley, the frustrated writer who narrates the story;. the familiar, sympathetic, mixed-up personality of Lou Baker, the Lady Brett-like comrade of the young men; and, strongly, behind them all, the moving force of the ideas, the philosophy of their Age, work- ing on them as surely, as irresistibly as Time. The author's point is that his characters, who have outlived the fabled period of their youth, are tragic figures, helpless in the midst of the society of our times; for it is a foreign society with which they are incapable of achieving full contact. The value of a general application of this specific theory can be disputed, but anyone who has lived the life of the Twenties or who has had friends with that history cannot deny that Morris has captured some of the flavor-bitter to the taste as it is-of this much-described period of the American Experience. --Donald A. Yates Michigan Print Exhibit, New Paintings Shown CURRENT MOVIES At the Michigan.., THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA with Ava Gardner MOVIES like this one are some- thing of a problem for the critic, being neither good enough for his applause nor bad enough to arouse the beast within him. He finds himself uncertain whe- ther to damn the venture with faint praise or praise it with faint damn. Except for the matter of Miss Gardner's shoes, The Barefoot Contessa was a pretty straight- forward affair. Those shoes were puzzling. From time to time Miss Gardner felt compelled to take them off and get her feet in the soil. On these occasions she also felt compelled to distribute her favors lavishly among gypsies, guitar players and other unworthy specimens of the lower classes. This deplorable tendency to slip out of her brogans follows Miss Gardner in her rise from per- former in a Madrid carabet to her marriage with a real live Italian Conte. Throughout this process she scrupulously withholds from the millionaires who lenC her a helping hand those same favors she distributes among the poor. I suppose this was intended as a democratic gesture, but it struck me as rank ingratitude. The first millionaire is an American who reportedly "owns Wall Street." He takes her out of the Madrid cabaret and enscon- ces her in Hollywood, where she becomes an immediate box-office success. But she refuses to honor his request for a token of her ap- preciation (she keeps a guitar player in her back yard). WHEN HE becomes overly de. manding she goes off with another millionaire, of South American extraction this time. He reportedly "owns the government," thereby going the Wall Street man one better. But even though he takes her to the Riviera on his yacht, he doesn't have any better luck than his American counter- part (there's a gypsy this time). Eventually she marries the Italian Conte and comes to a bad end. I'm sorry I can't report on the quality of the shorts, with the exception of the Magoo cartoon. I arrived at the theatre just in time for Magoo and after the fea- ture I was dutifully sitting through the first short when an usher ap- peared with a flashlight. "Pardon me, sir," he said, poking under the seats, "this young lady has lost her shoes." I darted a wild glance at the young lady hovering behind him and ran up the aisle and into the lobby where I could laugh without disturbing the clientele. The Magoo was excellent. -Don Malcolm At the State... TAKENFROM Walter Van Til- burg Clark's superb novel, The Track of the Cat, while not as good, is a fine movie. The novel was concerned main- ly with one man and his obsessive searching for a black panther. This film deals more with the family back home while the search goes on. Track of the Cat is a philoso- phical story with many symbols especially around the cat of the title. , In the compactness of the literary work, the thoughts of the hunter were easily expressed; on the wide CinemaScope screen, it is the interior scenes of the family that are expressed the best. AFTER HIS brother is killed by the "black cat," Curt Bridges goes after the animal, overtly for the skin so he can give his broth- er's girl a wedding present. By way of his mother and sister, we find that he is after the animal because of egotism and greed. Joe Sam, an Indian hired hand who forsees the tragedy (and can be made to symbolize many things),. the drunken father, the third and weak brother, his girl of a poorer social level, the old-maid sister and the callous mother are all handled very well under Wil- liam Wellman's direction. But the main stork of the track of the cat, and the illusions of Curt and his mental disintegration in a snowstorm are only hinted at and never really explained. THE OUTDOOR shots have ex- cellent photography and the harsher interior makes about the best use of CinemaScope yet for indoor shots. a Beula Bondi as the hardened mother gives a difficult role great depth in the film's best perform- ance. Robert Mitchum as the searcher does well in the exterior scenes where he has very little dialogue and must express. him- self mostly by facial expression. Teresa Wright as the spinster sister and Diana Lynn as the girl do well, though Tab Hunter as the timid brother is a little stiff. Track of the Cat is not a gleat movie. And even though too much may be read into it, the film is unusual and worth seeing. --Harry Strauss THE SUPREME COURT has postponed until January its hearings on how and when racial segregation' should end in state schools, since the appointment of the new Justice, Judge John Mar- shall Harlan, will not be confirmed until the new Senate meets. -The Economist L.' I DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN s+ iv. ART REVIEW: Alumni Hall Features Japanese Folk Art TWO SHOWS again occupy our attention in this space: one is a travelling exhibition of the Michigan Print Makers Society and the other is an exhibition of paintings selected from the col- lection of the Museum of Art. The print show is a nicely bal- anced presentation of a variety of artists and a variety of techni- ques. Probably the most striking work is J Ghooond work is John Goodyear's color lithograph Yellow Man. It is a Sixty-Fifth Year Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigar under the authority of the Board in Control of Student Publications. Editorial Staff Eugene Hartwig ......Managing Editor Dorothy Myers..............City Editor Jon Sobeloff ........Editorial Director THE SHOW of Contemporary Folk Art of Japan at Alumni Hall is a small one; four showcases of pottery, one of lacquer work, a few textile and paper prints, and some basket work. This seems somehow right, for in a country that has, in the manner of modern countries opened its arms to industrial technology, there remains a proportionately small number of peo- ple who continue to be backward, who continue plying, their trades and producing what is to me the most intrinsically complete and beauti- ful folk art in the world today. It is not so much a resistance to modern ways as that the old ways are so strong and traditional. The exhibit contains a hand printed map of Japanrshow- ing the country dotted with some forty or fifty local potteries; a similar map one or two or five hundred years ago would not have been greatly different. The pottery in the show represents the best of these outlets; the kilns of Hamada, Funaki, the Onda prefecture, and the rest. On some there is the mark of the master himself, as in Hamada's case, and others are the products of anonymous craftsmen imbued with the same traditional methods, perhaps without the extra something of the artist to whom each piece is quite different in effect from the more sophis- ticated small-patterned silks. The hand printed papers are equally as handsome, and there are a few with an inter- esting effect something like a repeat pattern of Rorschachs, done with colored dyes on ab- sorbent paper. The lacquer work too is excellent; the tradi- tional black and red combination is a wonder- ful contrast to the earthier colors of the stone- ware pottery. I especially liked an ingenious bowl and ladle set. THIS IS the kind of show that comes once in a great while. It is one that presents no aes- thetic problem to the viewer, no necessity of elaborate analysis or evaluation. In fact it seems quite inappropriate and unjust to in- dulge in this sort of thing in the face of work that is so simple, and direct irl its expression. Every last piece in the show is absolutely complete in its realization. It seems that each is so right practically that it cannot help but be right aesthetically. And although the appre- ciation of the beauty of these objects in a glass case is far from what it would be if one were engaged in their actual use, is in fact an en- simple and loose arranger.ent of yellows and line brought into an arresting unity by a powerful blacl' oval. It sparkles in color and vibrates in design like no other print in the show. On the other hand Emil Weddige's Ten- ants Harbor, also a color litho- graph, strikes a more somber note evoking through overlays of blue and red a dense and glowing image. Some might feel that this lithograph 's just a little involved, a criticism with which I would tend to agree. Of course this brings up the en- tire question of the purposes and limits of certain techniques, a knotty problem which I do not have the space to discuss here. However, Emile Gele's Snorkel, in- taglio, is a case in point where in spite of the complexity of technique and the rich variety of textures and tones, the work is so delicately controlled, so surely integrated that its labyrinthian character never degenerates into confusion. AS FOR the paintings, let no one consider them to be just another collection of familiar works too often seen. On the con- trary, over a dozen new purchases are shown including a painting by that English "older modern" Gra- ham Sutherland, one by the Polish abstractionist Jankel Adler, one by the Italian Afro Basaldella and an effective work by a younger Frenchman, Pierre Soulages. One can't help being reminded of those exhibitions decades ago, with pictures crowded on to walls from ceiling to floor, which drove certain artists delt--rately to create smashing effects just to (Continued from Page 2) Levy, of Princeton University, will dis- cuss "Some Aspects of .Structural-Func- tional Analysis" at 7:30 p.m. Mon., Jan. 10 in the west Lecture Hall of the Rackham Building. Open to the public. Correction: Doctoral Examination for Esther Marcia LaRowe, Education; the- sis: "The Influence of Certain Non- School Factors on Children's Response to a Sixth-Grade Physical Education Program." Mon., Jan. 10, East Council Room, Rackham Building, at 10:00 a.m. Chairman, M. E. Rugen. Doctoral E.amination for Branch Price Kerfoot, Jr., Electrical Engineering; the- sis: "Transitors in Analogue Comput- ing," Mon., Jan, 10, 2518 East Engineer- ing Bldg., at 2:00 p.m. Chairman, L. N. Holland. concerts Stanley Quartet Concert Cancelled. The concert by the Stanley Quartet scheduled for Sun. afternoon, Jan. 9, in Rackham Lecture Hall, has been can- celled due to the illness, of Robert Courte, violinist. Exhibitions Museum of Art, Alumni Memorial Hall.Michigan Printmakers Society, Jan, 3-23; Contemporary Folk Art of Japan, Jan. 8-25. Hours: 9:00-5:00 p.m. week- days, 2:00-5:00 p.m. on Sundays. The public is invited. cluding Sat. and Sun., extra showing wed. at 12:30. Michigan Christian Fellowship: "An Archaeologist Looks at the Bible," Dr. Francis Steele, Home Secretary, North Africa Mission, 4:00 p.m., Lane Hall. Refreshments. Wesleyan Guild. Sun. ,Jan 9, 9:30 a.m. Discussion: Basic Christian Beliefs; 5:30 p.m. Fellowship Supper; 7:00 p.m. Wor- ship Service and program, Bishop 0. Bromley Oxnam guest speaker. Informal Folk Sing at Muriel Lester Co-op, 900 Oakland, Sun., Jan. 9 at 8:00 p. Coming Events Women's Research Club will meet Mon., Jan. 10 in the East Lecture Room of the Rackham Building at 8:00 p.m. Miss Winifred Moore will speak on "Preview of Operation Cactus." Democratic Party Day, sponsored by the Michigan Citizenship Clearing House, the Poli. Sci. Dept., and the YD's. Rackham Aud. Mon., Jan. 10. Professors and students from various Michigan colleges, and State Party offi- cials will take part in a morning panel discussion, afternoon group discussions, and a luncheon in the Union Ballroom at 12:15 p.m. Featured speaker will be Phillip Hart, Lieutenant-governor of Michigan. Those wishing to participate in the whole day's activities, register in the lobby of Rackham Hall between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. Undergraduate Mathematics Club will meet Mon., Jan. 10 at 8:00 p.m. In Room 3G of the Michigan Union. John Ulrich will speak on "Plucked Strings and the One-dimensional Wave Equation." Lane Hall Folk Dance Group will meet for the last time this semester Mon., 7:30-10:00 p.m. in Lane Hall Recreation Room. The first meeting of the second semester will be Feb. 7. Beginners are always welcome, and there is instruc- tion for every dance. La P'tite Causette meets tomorrow from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the left room of the Union cafeteria. Undergraduate Zoology Club, Room 3126 Natural Science Building Mon., Jan. 10, at 4:00 p.m. Election of next semester's club officers. Mathematics Club will meet Tues., Jan. 11, at 8:00 p.m. in the West Con- ference oam_ R a.v . nIckham'flitldin .y flnf_ Pat Roelofs ... .Associate City Becky Conrad........Associate Nan Swinehart ...-Associate Dave Livingston .... AssSports Hanley Gurwin ...rAssoc. Sports Warren Wertheimer Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Events Today Hillel Chorus Rehearsal. Sun., p.m. in main chapel. Hillel:Sun. Supper Club 6:00; followed by record dance. 4:30 p.m. ;1' r"- e- .... .Associate Sports Editor Roz Shlimovitz . ..W omen's Editor Joy Squires ..Associate Women's Editor Janet Smith .Associate Women's Editor Dean Morton . ..,Chief Photographer Business Staff Lois Pollak........Business Manager Phil Brunskill, Assoc. Business Manager Bill Wise . Advertising Manager Mary .Jean Monkoski .Finance Manager Telephone NO 23-24-1 Episcopal Student Foundation. Can- terbury House breakfasts following both the 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. services Sun., Jan. 9. "Faith of the Church" lecture series, 4:30 p.m., Sun., Jan. 9, at Can- terbury House. Epiphany Festival of Lights and Alice Crocker Lloyd Memo- rial, 8:00 p.m., Sun., Jan. 9, at St. An- drew's Church, followeA by coffee hour at Canterbury House. Unitarian Student Group will meet Sun., Jan. 9, at 7:30 p.m. at the church. There will be a "final exam blues" plr- ty with hot dogs and marshmallows. ~ l