LETTERS

EDITORIALS

ambassador in error

What Price Moondust?

Bakimore. Md
DEAR SIRS: The article on Brazil by Dom Bonafede in
your May 26 issue [Blunder in Brazll. Washington Backs
the Pooh Bahs] contams a number of hlstorlcal errors
which call for correctlon .
The charge that the U S armed forces acted as counsel and banker to the BradIan armed forces when they
deposed JOaG Goulart in 1964 has no foundatlon whatsoever As I testlfied m Senate hearings in 1966, that action was a purely Brazilian affair. We not only did not
instigate it butwere
unaware of a serious movement to
that end until a few days before It happened . . .
I did welcome the revolutlon when It took place because
the speeches and actlons of Goulart over the prevlous nlne
months, and especially from March 13 through March 30,
1964, made It crystal clear that hewas embarked on an
effort to estabhsh a Populist dlctatorship of his own, In
the pattern of hls mentor Getullo Vargas three decades
st111 belleve, that success
earlier I dld then believe,and
by Goulart in h n campalgn mlght well have led to a
subsequent Communlst capture of power, because of Goularts own weakness
.
The charge that I later became a virtual viceroy to
President Castelo Branco and was consulted at every
turn is equally unfounded My relations with Castelo
Branco were cordial and frlendly, buthe
consulted me
less than President Kennedy consulted Davtd OrmsbyGore in Washlngton. Our AID mlssion and I dldIndeed
consult extenslvely and frequently with Plannlng Minlster
Roberto Campos and Flnance Minister Octavio Bulhoes . .
The most extraordmary assertlon In Mr Bonafedes
artlcle is that the Flfth Instltutlonal Act of December 13,
1968, and the subsequent extremely arbitrary actlons of
the present reglme, were inevitable. They were no more
inevitable than the resignation of President Quadros in
1961. the clash between Castelo Branco and Carlos Lacerda,
and many other critical events in Brazilian polltlcal history.
F e n I wrote hopefully in July 1967 of prospects for
constitutional democracy, it was because much evidence
then pointed to the taking root of the 1967 constitution
with effective guarantees of press freedom ind of
individual civd llbertles. I turned out to be wrong. . . .
The real tragedy, which goes back to late 1964, 1s that
neither Castelo Branm nor Presldent Costa e Silva made
use of the opportunity to build a new politlcal infrastructure for Brazilian representatwe government on a more
stable basis than the three increasingly obsolete and lrrelevant polltlcal parties that dommated the scene from
1946 to 1964. From early 1965 on, I tned, as a frtendly
outside observer, to make this point with Presldent Castelo
Branco and his associates . . . It IS a true measure ofhow
little a viceroy I was that these efforts made no headway.
Lincoln Gordon

There is cause for genwne admiration, even awe, at

wh,at the Apolloprogram has accompllshed At this wnting, the spacecraft 1s on Its way, an,d there is reasonable
expectation that the rest of the trip wtll be accompllshed
on schedule. After the traglc failure in January of 1967,
American engineering talent took hold, and the most complex machme ever concelved by man has performed almost
faultlessly on every test. The courage and self-control of
the astronauts is to be applmauded; there may even be some
unforeseen benefit to mankmdmwhat
they brlngback
from the moon, but even the most unsurprlslng results wlll
serve to extend human knowledge of the universe.
But knjowledgeof another typecouldbe
gamed from
theundertaking.
knowledge of ourselves Our natlonal
responsetothe flrst Sputntkhas astonished the worldIncludmg, probably,the Russians Itsappearance In the
skles on October 4, 1957, triggered U.S. production of
adrenalln to a new recordNot
PearlHarbor,nor
Sen. .
Joseph McCarthys discovery of the
Communlst
consplracy, had caused the collective Amerlcan pulse to
pound at such a rate Had a flve-pomted Red Star, m place
of the moon, been seen In the heavens the following nlght,
our natlonal panlc could not have been greater. The event
was subsequently alluded to In NASAs public relatlons
pronouncements as a disaster. creatlng a nat~onalemergency Webbs Magical Flymg Clrcus was off the ground
fromthenon.
Had there been no Soviet satelllitein 1957, Amermans
would not by now be reachmg for the moon. Our whole
spaceprogramhas
been fuelled by the U.S. relactlon to
the f m t and subsequent Russlan explolts. A predictable,
almost Pravlovlan reflex has developed; the Russians and
the world have learnedmuch, in the process, of what
makes us tlck. Have we learned as much about ourselves7
Overthepast
twelve years, we have successlvely been
challenged,enraged and spumed Into action-and
have
demonstrated to all our courage, strength, speed, ingenuity
and technical sk~ll.
The Russlans role in thelunar rlvalry may perhaps
have been as reflexively competitwe as our own, or It may
have boen more sophisticated and more subtly motivated.
But wlth Luna 15, whlch was threatening at the last possible moment to beat us tothe
moonduststrlke
(at
a small fraction of the cost and risk), Pavlovs bell rang
oncemore.The
sallva hasalready started to flow. Mr.
Agnew has urged, as a new ob~ectlve,a landing on Mars.
And T m a s 0. Pame,who succeeded JamesWebbas
head of h.\SA, indlcates hls approval. It was Paine who,
afterthe successful return of the Apollo 8 astronauts,
defen,ded NASAs budget by saying thatthe technology
involved wou18d be helpfull m wlnnmg the next war, a
comment thmat somewhat barnislhes theSpaceOlympics
image of the moon race, anda further reason for greeting the agencys mnnulal budget demands with more than
leglslatlve huzzahs.

..

..

.. .

Wadzingron, D . C.
DEARSIRS It seems that when on the defensive, Mr. Gordon resorts to the blunderbuss technique of claimtng his-

torlcal erroron the part of his critics, as he did in response to my article in The Nafion, and earller to The
New York Tzrnes editorial to which I made reference.
However, in a glarlng oversight he fails to support his
charge against the thesis ofmy
article with substantwe
evidence In no instance does he even attempt to cite one
error of fact Instead, he makes an impassloned argument
m defense of hls ambassadorial role durlng the 1964 Brazllian revolutlon. Yet he demolishes the appeal wlth hls
own words
As a case In point, hedenlesbetng
~n on the ground
(Conttnued on page 83)

66

THE

NATION/IU~Y
28, 1969

NASA has spent 8 total of $50 billion since the start,

half of which has gone toward the Apollo program. Much
has been qmte rightly sald abouttheuony
of spending
billions getting to the moon whde the mass of humanity
at home lives in a stew of exploding population, poverty
and pollution. But all that will be but as a pinprick in our
hide, should we senously decide to strike outforthe
planets. They are more than a hundred times more remote
than the moon in distance, in time, in economic and human
cost. The time of decision is here, and theeuphoria of
the moment-however
understandableit may be-must
not be allowed to obscure our jud,gment.

The ABM Debauch

Before much was said about the ABM in the Senate,
the public debate was conducted on a fairly high level. It
involved technical questions, such as the workability of
theproposed
system, and questions of foreign policy:
would deployment enhance or dimmish the chances of
reaching an arms-limitation agreement with the Sovlet
Union? W'hen the issue reached the Senate floor, the usua!
thmg happened-the debate plunged from intellectual respons~blllty into a political debauch, with the Nixon Administration andthe mllltary-industrial complex bidding
for the vo'tes of the uncommltted Senators,and some of
the latter holding out for the best price they could get in
the way o tangible benefits for important Interests in their
respective states, and the promotion of their own political
Interests.
It 1s a natural and perhaps inevitable descent. The technical questions are intricate, and few members of Congress possess thebackground necessary to differentiate
between heuristic arguments and those based on objective
engineering analysis. Such matters are alien to their temperaments and remote from their experience.
Nor are
the
Editor
Assoclate
majority of Senators and Representativesanymore
inclined to take a statesmanlike vlew of the great political
questions that the country faces at home and abroad. To a
man, they esteem themselves as patriots,but nothing is
easierfora
politicmn thanto identify his own interests
with those of the country-especially when the latter involve the dilemmas posed by 20th-century technology in
the service of 19th-century traditions and institutions.
Whattheordinary
Congressman doesunderstandis
power politics, whether mtheinternationalarena
or in
the give-and-take of the legislative process. Getting himself
reelected, and increasing hls influence among his colleagues, are the objectives closest to his heartThusthe
story by John Finney in theJuly 16 New York Tunes,
"ABM Debate Is Becommg a Pol'ltlcal Struggle for the
Votes of 3 or 4 Sen'ators," though it makes depressing
readlng, does not come as a surprise. Technical, military
and diplomaticarguments may play some part,but such
issues as oil drilling m Alaska, a nuclear rocket for New
Memco, a supersonic transport for
the state of Washington, a Naval shipyard in Maine, become the preoccupying
considerations. And so do promises and pressures known
TfIB

NATION/JUIY28, 1969

IN THIS ISSUE
Iuly 28, 1969

EDITORIALS
66

ARTICLES
70 New Poliltics:

More Mood ThanMovement

Jack Newfield

73 LatinAmerica:
Challenge from the Intellectuals

Manuel Maldonado-Denis

76 The Disney Imperative

Wesley Marx

78 Out To Get the Panthers

L . F . Palmer, Jr.

82 Harry Golden

BOOKS Q THE ARTS

84 Kremllnology. Power and

86
87
88
89

Terror
The Poetry of Earth
Las Angeles' Golden
Goose
Accldent (poem)

Book Marks
90 Theatre

David Joravsky
Armand Schwerner
Anne Strick
Wdllarn Pillin
Sara Blackburn
Clurman Harold
Lawrence Alloway

92 Art
92 The Poor ManMoves Through
Washmgton, D.C .
Spring 1968 (poem)
Eugene Ruggles
93 Music
Hamdton David
Publasher

JAMES J

Publisher
STORROW
JR

Editor
McWILLIAMS
CAREY
Editor
Literary
Editor
Executive
BEVERLY
HATCH
ROBERT

Assoclate
GIFFORD PHluIpS

PmL KERBY

GROSS

Copy Editor, MARION HESS; Poetry Edltor, ALLEN PLANZ;

Art, MAXKOZLOFF,
Music,
BENJAMIN BORETZ. Science. CARL
DREHER:
Advertismn
T h e a t r e , HAROLD
CLURMAN;

M a n a g e r , MARY SIMON

Editorial Associate, ERNEST GRUENMG

Washington, ROBERT G SHERRILL, London, RAYMOND
WILLIAMS, Paris, CLAUDE BOURDET: Bonn, C AMERY;
C s n b e r r a , C P FITZGERALD, UN, ANNE TUCKERMAN.
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67

~~

SUMMER SCHEDULE
During the summer, The Nation will not appear ( ~
the following dates: July 21, August 4, August 18.
1

only to those concerned. Finney puts it as 0 common premnption that Sen. John G . Tower of Texas, the chairman of ~e Senate Republican Campaign Committee, was
instrumental in shifting the vote of Sen. Winston L. Prouty,
Vermont Republican, mto the pro-ABM column, when It
had been widely expected that he would line up with his
senior colleague, Sen. George D. Alken, one of the ABMs
principal opponents.
Or bake the case of a New Englander 0n the other side
sf the aisle, Sen. Thomas J. McIntyre of New Hampshire,
who at this wrltlng is one of the uncommitted. He is the
of a proposed compromise plan under which radar
i@ha
and computers, but not missllcs,would be Installed at
l ~ initial
e
twoSafeguard sites. This is a one-sidedcomprmise: one can be pretty sure that the missileswould
follow, but since the Administration isobdunateon passage of the complete system, the partlal installation satishis no one and the amendment IS expected to lose. Senator McIntyres inclinations are belleved to be against deployment, but he has h ~ sworries. One is the pro-ABM
Manchester Union Leader, t,he largest (and most venomous) newspaper @ New Hampshire. Then Mr. McIntyre
is understandably reluctant to lock horns with Sen. John C.
Stemis, who ischaimrman of the Armed Services Committee, of which Mr. McIntyre is a jmim member. Nor can
he afford to antagonize the Defense Department, which
wants to close ,the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
Yet the vote on the ABM is expected to be close and,
Mr. Aiken pointed out, if the Administration prevails
it might be a Pyrrhic victory,since the opposition will
have shown formidable strength. As always,Sen. John
Sheman Cooper has been a leader on the side of reason.
Suohmen are not invited to the White House sand subjacted to the Presidential blandishments; it would be a
waste of time all around. Frank Church of Idaho isanother of this stalwart band. The ABM controversy elicited
from Church a brilliant speech on foreign policywhich
was released July 11 and seems to have produced hardly
a ripple of interest in the press.
hk. Church points out thatregardless of the outcome of
the ABM debate, our military budget will not shrink sigr6fioantly as long as our foreign commitments remain at
the present level and there is no determined oppositionto
policy abroad that rests upon the premise that we must
be ever ready not only to repel an attack but to engage in
as many as three foreign wars simultaneously. If we can
but liberate ourselves from ideological obsession, Church
B ~ S from
,
the automatic association of social revolution
withoom,mumsm and of communism with Soviet or Chinese power, we may find it possible to discriminate among
disorders in the world and to evaluate them with greater
objectivity, which is to say, more on the basis of their own
~

6p

mntent and less on the basis of our own fears. Such observations serve to remind us that the degradation of plttics is by no means universal and that men of intellect and
enlightened judgment do manage to get into Congressand sometimes to stay there.

The Indicted Diplomat

David Dellinger has organized numerous demonstrations against the Vietnamese War and is under lndlctment
in Chicago on charges arising out of the clashes during
the Democratic National Convention last August. More
recently he has been functioning as the American negotiator forthe release of three U.S. fliers, offered by the
North Vietnamese (not without ulterior motives) to assist
in the celebration of the American Independence Day. In
these negotiations Mr. Dellinger is in effect representing
the State Department, which made it clear to the U.S.
Attorney in Chicago and the federal judge having jurisdiction thfat the travel restrictions imposed by the indictment
should be lifted to enable Dellinger to fIy to Paris.
On July 8 the State Depafiment confirmed th.at Dellinger had arrived in Paris to confer with North Vietnamese
officials abowt the release of the prisoners. Dellinger returned to the United States on July 12 and told reporters
at Kennedy International Airpo,rt that a team of negotiators, of the same persuasion as himself, would leave shortly
for North Vietnam to brmg the men back. He added that
he had assurances thcat the U.S. Army would not intercept the released prisloners atter theyleft Hanoi (see
The Petty Route Home by Howard Zinn, The Nation.
April 1, 1968) and that the arrangements precluded their
assignment to further war activities against North Vietnam.
Of cou,rse Mr. Dellinger did not act officially on behalf
of the U.S. Government.He went to Paris in his capacity
as chaiqman of the National MobilizationCommitkee to
End the War in Vietnam. The Nomh Vietnamese had requested that #adelegation representing the Amerioan peace
movement be sent to arrange for the repatriation of the
prisoners. The State Department had no choice but to
comply or leave itself open to the accusation &hatit had
refused to cooperate in the freeing of the men. Thus it
came labout that an arch-peacenik was empowered to o n duct the talks instead of Ambassador Henry C a h t Lodge,
who is not having conspicuous success in the broader task
of negotiating an end to the war.
Theseodd,
though nat unprecedented, negotilations
throw still another revealing light on the politioal schizophrenia of @heNixon Administr,ation. A few days before
Mr. Dellinger flew,to Paris, our fatuous Vice Resident
rebuked U.S. critics of the Vietnamese War for allegedly
undermining our negotiations for peace and p l o n g i n g
the war. It is not enough that those who warned SUCcessive administrations against the course that led us into
Ohe qwagmire shoulld be ignored-now it is they who are
prolonging the war! Yet m the DelQnger matter it is most
unlikely that the State Department acted without Presidenw m

NATION/JU~V
28, 1%9

tial approval. If s
o
, one of the principal peace activists
was assignd by the Nixon Administration to a mission
thatcouldnot
be handled effectively m any other way.
Evidently these people have their uses. And where does
that leave Mr. Agnew?

Security in HEW
.

The Department of Health,Educationand

Welfare
clings to a security system so redolent of the Joe McCarthy
erathat it sometimes barsfrom its consultative committees scientists who are serving the Department of Defense
in the same capacity.An investigation conducted under
the direction of Bryce Nelson andreported in the June
27 issue of Science implies that HEW is perhaps the most
hagridden of the Executive depa~ments-and with the
least excuse. The magazine found that several professors
who were serving on high-level Defense Department or
National Science Foundation advisory panels were not
clearable by HEW.
That such HEW organizations astheNational
Institutes of Health or the National Institute of Mental Health
should be so afflicted, and should continue to spread their
contagions among the countqs physicians, psyohologists
and life scientists, is surely a matter warranting the early
attention of Secretary RobertFinch
himself. Whathe
says-and
more, what he does-will
go far toward enabling the scienti,ficcommunity to gauge his ultimate stand
in the political conflicts raging within the Nixon Administration,andtomake
thei,r organizational Nand personal
decisions accordingly.
While HEW has some 100,000 staff employees, Science
was not,concerned with fihese. lts investigation was limited
to the advisory groups, which draw on outside scientists
for counsel. These groups are largely composed of scientists not emploved by bhe government. They are customarily recruited for a few days a year at a fee of, usually,
$50 a day plus expenses, practically always on nonsensitive, nonsmrity mattens. Why such people should be so
rigidly screened is understandable only on the hypothesis
that since it is not a defense agency, HEW is so harried
by fear of Congressional budgetcuts,in reprisal for refusal tocontinue zealous engagement in the witch hunt,
that itwill do almost anything to avoid suspicion.
But this defensive postureentails
two consequences
which shouldconcernSecretaryFinchand
his top subordinates. One is that debarments on security or suitability grounds may deprive the department of assistance
from the men best qualified. The other effect concerns the
scientists themselves. If you havent been )asked to be on
one of these groups, one sctentist noted, It looks as if
you havent made it in your field.
When questioned by Science, Secretary Finch said that
he was looking into the matter of security and suitability
checks for HEW advisory groups. But he must do more
than look; if he does not act, inertia will continue to rule
in the lower reaches of the bureaucpacy. One HEW ofof least
ficial remarked: Most officials takethecourse
resistance; we dont have enough people with guts in govTHE NATION/JUIY28, 1969

ernnent. A formerhead of theNationalInstitute

dl
Mental Health feels that many people In government m
scared all the time. They are afraid that if they protcst
the security system, the secu,riity people may stam to wonder about them.
Of course, Science concludes, with some display of
interest from Secretary Finch or from the White House,
the whole system of swwity checks for partltime advisers
in nonsensitive areascould be thoroughly reviewed and
revised. If this were done at the initiative of the present
occupant of the White House, it would be something of a
miracle, bat perhapsMr.
Finch can steer one of Mr.
Nixons ztgzags in ,the right direction.

The Loss of Mboya

A few weeks after the murder of Tom Mboya on a
street in Nambi, world opinion seems it0 be gravitating
to the opinion that the deed was a poht~calassassination
brought about by strains within Kenya. It is know^ that
Mboya himself, who two years ago was fired upon by a
sentry (officially declared deranged)stationed to guaia
his house, believed that developments in Kenya inoreakd
his personal danger. According to The New York Tim8,
on his last trip to Amerioa he told friends here that the
general elections planned by President Kenyatta for lator
in the year would inevitably call upon hi,m, 0s secretary
general of the Presidents party, io play a leading role, and
thsat his enemies would bespurredto silence him. And
on a plrane ret,wning to Africa, he wrote to one d these
friends, saying that he had determimd to hire the bodyguard his American wellwishers had been urgimg on him.
One thing that hlis foes held against him was that
Mboya liked and wastable to communicate wilth Americans. Andanotherthing was thathehad moved out of
the tribalcontextthatstdlthwartsAfrican
development
tn all the new states south of the Sahara, and stood as a
leader of his natlon. As the New Statesman remarked
recently, the fact that he had no tribal base was at once
his greatest polltical weakness and his greatwtpotential
contributionto Kenya. Mboyarose to prominence in a
highly contemporary m,anner: hmis support from the skmt
camefromthe detribalized workers and unemployed of
the cities, Nairobi and Mombasa, and he acted for them
as a modemtrade union politxian, educating thein,
the New Statesman continues, in nationalist politics,
Tribalism is a sentiment of great emotional powerindeed emotion is the essence of its power-and
bow
may well have spumed it at the cost of h u life. Whether
or not *hatwas the reason, and whether or not we eves
know the reason, it isclear that Kenpa, as well as the rest
of Africa and indeed the international community, has suffered a loss it cannot easlly overcome. Mboya was probably admired more widely than he was beloved-he never
minced words mover whlat he saw as the problems ahead,
-and he never tailored his words to the expectations of
his audience. He wrote recently in The New York Times
Magazine that whereas thereweremany similarities between the African and black Amerlcan struggles f o r polit-

ap

icd and euonom,ic freedom, black Amerioam sihould not

hope to flnd an escape for the problems stdl confrontlng
them in anybacktoABlca
movement, m fact or m
spirit. He was a very modern man, of whom Mrioa has
too bw; and he was a very stnaightforward political leader, of whom the world has too few.

More Fat for the Germans

In
innocuous story (buried on the back pages of
most local newspapers), the Associated Press recently indioated that West Germany would cover about 80 per
cent of #&hecost of matntainmg U S . forces inGermany
for thenext two years, leaving but a mmimal dramon
the U.S. balance of payments. As rts part of the bargain,
West Germany will buy a b u t $295 mdlion m U.S. goods
&d smv~ces(presumlably instruments of war). The agreement hather provldes that Bsonn will lendthe United
States an additional $760 milllon per year.
And is thk supposed to reimburse the American Baxpayers for money spent on military forces in Ger,many?
We spend bd1,nons m Germanyon mllltary installations,
and theGermans kindly agree to lend us funds! MeanWhil,e the German economy becomes stronger, and the
German mark among the strongest cjull;rencles in the world.
By continuing this wasteful policy, the American Govm e n t addsto the German cotfers while mismg taxes at
home. WorGt d all, borrowing abroad in order to spend
abroad stimulates idlation, land Amencans wlll pay
dwbly for this govement folly.
(

The Resistance
For a long time, almost the only effectlve COngreSSiOnd
opposition to the Uetnamese War was furnished by Senators Gruening and Morse, who simply refused to approve
the money. Deaf to the argument that they were letting
the boys down, they voted no on the apprOpriatlOn
bills. They knew how fraudulent ahat argument was.
There is always enoqgh miaterial in the pipe line to support combat aotivltles, whether defensive or offenswe, for
an indefinite period.
Now thatGruenmg land Morse, to the countrys loss,
are no longer in the Senate,othershaveadopted
Oheir
courageous tactx, and in far greater numbers. On July 9,
forty-nme Representatives voted against the Supplemental
Approprlatlon bdl, which not only contatnedfunds for
Vietnam but increased the amount. These forty-nine oast
negative votes, despitethe
fact h t the b,dl provided
funds for domesticpurposes to which they had no objection.
The overrldmg objective was to show disapproval of
the war in the most emphattc terms .available t o a member
of Congress. The best people in the Holuse are onthat
roll of honor Brown, Burton land Edwards of California,
Mrs. Ghlsholm, Conyers, Dlggs, Farbstem, Kastenmeler,
Ottinger, Podell, Rosenthal, Ryan, Saylor, Scheuer among
them. One may hope they wdl be joined by a stillgreater
number who will vote against any appropr<mtionsfor the
prosecution of the war, regardless of other purposes that
may be served, aad will explam to their constituents why
they are doing so.

NEW POLITICS

JACK NEWFIELD

Mr. Newfreld is an amstant editor of The Vlllage Voice, New

York. H e 1s the author of A Prophetic Mlnorlty ( N e w Amsterdam Llbrary) und Rubert Kennedy: A Memoir (Dutton).

The new technology or the new pohticsoal1 it what you

wdl-has arrrved.
James M. Perry, The N e w Polirrcs

The New Politics IS becoming a hucksters phrase, mvoked by plashc poktlclms, to con what they thmk is a
gullible electorate. It is as much a cliche as the New
J ~ ~ r n d ~crrs m
the New Theatre. It has become like Silly
Putty, belnt and (twisted into dozens of dlstoated and unnatural shapes by careerlsts tryhg to redefine it to theK
particular advantage.
Jacob Jawits, whco campaigned last autumn for Richard
Nixon, proclams himself m
a partisan of the New Politics
because it means problem solving. Theodore Sorensen,
who tried to convince Robert Kennedy not to speak out
70

agaimt the war icn Vietnam, says he is for it because it

meanspartmpatlon,hke
giving 18-year-olds the vote.
Orgaaizatim men like Jesse Unruh and Sradey Steingut
dah to be pa^$ of the New Politics. James Perry and
Penn Kimball have wdimen whole books d e f h g the New
Politm exclusively in teFmsof manipulative techncdogy,
computers and mass communiontrioas. Hubea Humphrey
and Fred H m n say they are for the New Po18itics.But
,then AlbertShanker says he is for decen,tra&izatim and
Mayor Richard Daley says he is for civil liberties. It all
makesone seoall Geolrge Orwells propheticquote:
Xn our h e , political speeoh and wrjlbings are lmgely
Ithe defense of the indefensible. . . . Polhiad language has
come to consist largely of euphemism, queuestion-begging
andsheer cloudy vagueness. . . The hklated style is
itself a kind of euphemism. A mam of Lattin words falls
upon the fa& like soft snow, blurring the outlines and
covering up ,dlthe details.
The sociologist Daniel B m t i n has written perceptively
mm NATION/JUIY28, I969