The Capital Times from Madison, Wisconsin • 30

t6 THE CAPITAL TIMES. Monday, Jan. 13. 1968 An Analysis of Our Mews and Why the World is Puzzled: America's Different Attitudes On Vietnam By ARNOLD TOYNBi leiiu 06trvtr-Cwital Tlmti strvict) fN THE PACIFIC The ship on which 1 am trav ings that are waiting to be born in the course of the 2 billion years during which planet will continue to be habitable if our generation does not poison it. What kind of war is being waged by the United States on the opposite side of the globe from herself? The Admin istration in Washing ton.

D. would probably like to see the American people and the rest of the world view it as being, first and foremost, a war for America's own self-defense. The argument would run: "If American soldiers were not fighting 'the Communists' in Vietnam today, they would be having to fight them tomorrow somewhere else perhaps eventually in the United States itself." Many Americans believe that it was the policy of "containing" Russia, adopted soon after the end of World War II, which prevented Russia from attempting to spread Communism by force throughout the world. This belief leads to the conclusion that the same policy of "contain- elling from Hong Kong to England came within 120 miles of the coast of South Vietnam. It turned my thoughts to the war there.

At my present age (I am 78) my personal stake in the outcome is likely to be small, but fortune holds 12 hostages of mine: 11 r-andchildren and one great grandchild. Thse living endants symbolize for me 170 generations of my fellow human be IIIMIIIIMIIIIIilllllllllllMIIIIIIIIUIIIinillMMIIIIIIIIMIUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM 1 President Pr imary Plan I Snagged, Appears Doomed ment" should be applied to Communist China by maintaining American forces close to her borders, and being prepared to meet any aggression by China by giving military assistance I ary non-communist government which feels itself threatened by China. If we analyze the composition of the American people on the criterion of differing American attitudes towards the Vietnam War, we shall i tinguish three sections: the Pentagon, a numerically-tiny minority, though a powerful one; the dissenters, so a minority, but a gradually growing one; and the conformists, the majority who have the last word Constitutionally. In the end. they will probably also have the last word effectively; though, If they were eventually declare against the Pentagon they would find it more difficult nowadays to make their will prevail, because of the recent increase there, as in every other so-called "Democracy" in the relative power of the executive.

In the United States, the executive arm has recently been fortified by the mushroom-like pullution of a number of massive agencies, of which the Pentagon is only one there are also, for instance, the FBI and the CIA. These agencies are supplied by a docile Congress with vast revenues which the agencies spend at their own discretion. The revenues are big enough to have become a key factor in the economic life of the United States. By JOHN PATRICK HUNTER (Of The Capital Times Staff I A plan to build up support for President Johnson in the April 2 Wisconsin presidential primary, hatched in secrecy, appeared to be floundering today a week after it was first reported in The Capital Times. The proposal would have pro-Johnson delegates selected before the primary, in a move designed to force prominent Democratic "neutrals" to choose up sides between Johnson and Sen.

McCarthy ID-Minn). It was proposed at a recent closed door meeting here between a group of high ranking Democrats, including Ally. Gen. Bronson C. LaFollette.

former LI. Gov. Patrick Lucey, and David Carley. Democratic national committeeman. The suggestion, said to have originated with Lucey, was presented to John Criswell, the Demo cratic national committee's new treasurer.

Criswell. an Oklahoman. who is said to be the actual power behind the throne in the National Committee with strong ties to the White House, was in Madison for a briefing on Wisconsin politics. Only one prominent Wisconsin Democrat. Rep.

Clement Zablocki, Milwaukee, has endorsed the pre-primary plan. Zablocki. a leading Congressional supporter of the Administration's Vietnam war policy, told The Capital Times he supports the preprimary selection of delegates. George Berdes, Zablocki's administrative assistant, also revealed that the veteran Milwaukee lawmaker will serve as co-chairman of the Wisconsin Johnson for President Committee. Two of the leading neutrals.

Rep. Robert Kastenmeier (Watertownl and Rep. Henry Reuss (Milwaukee both have said they will not renounce their neutral position to serve on the Johnson slate. Sen. Gavlord Nelson, the state's best known critic of the Johnson war policy, indicated today he will not accept a preprimary spot on the Johnson ticket, but said he would study the measure and issue a detailed statement later.

But one of the local Democrats who took part in the discussions of the plan with Criswell, Atty. Gen. Bronson C. LaFollette, has lost his enthusiasm for the plan. "It was simply an idea that was suggested," LaFollette said.

"This could hnrt the party because it is going to alienate McCarthy supporters who might otherwise join forces afterwards," LaFollette said. "We don't want to alienate any Democrats," he added. Prof. Michael Bleicher, Madison, co-chairman of the Wisconsin McCarthy for President Committee had branded the plan "political blackmail." The plan had won support of pro-Johnson Democrats, because it would have forced the neutrals to decide whether to drop their neutrality or risk losing a chance to go to the national convention as delegates, should Johnson sweep the primary race against Minnesota anti ar Sen. Eugene C.

McCarthy. Unless Sen. Proxmire, who is a supporter of the President's Vietnam policy, agrees to join Zablocki on the Johnson delegate list, and this appears unlikely, the plan appears to have foundered badly. The Republicans have reached a private understanding that extends to the supporters of all the major GOP presidential candidates slated to appear on the April ballot, that they will withhold naming convention delegates until after the primary. The GOP plan will keep Gov.

Knowles and all prominent Republican officeholders off the hot spot, since they do not want to support GOP candidates before the primary election. with her rapidly-growing nuclear power, constitutes a real threat, not oniy tc her neighbors, but to the United States itself. For the American Chiefs of Staff, Vietnam is, no doubt, a useful testing ground for various new weapons and methods of warfare as Spain was for Germany during the Spanish Civil War. Pentagons are designed to serve as war machines, and they naturally make war on as great a scale as they are allowed. This military point of view is also, I think, combined with a belief that it is America's "manifest destiny" to take the place of the European colonial powers which have abandoned their colonial possessions since 1945, and to maintain peace and order in East Asia.

"the Free World's" behalf. It supports the Pentagon and the President because it believes these public authorities' motives, too, are idealistic. Most still support their rulers, but they are becoming more and more uneasy. Is the Vietnam War a crusade for the free world against world communism? There is no such thing as World Communi m. There are China, Russia, North Vietnam and some other national states that are communist incidentally, but each puts its respective national interests first, and these national interests conflict e.

g. the national interests of China and those of Russia. "Free world? A world that includes Vorster's South Africa, Franco's Spafn, Ian Smith's Rhodesia and the Colonels' Greece? This is not a war between true believers and infidels, between God's servants and the devil's. The belief that it is a "holy war" is a delusion, but unfortunately this delusion is a political fact. It moves the majority of the American public to support the Pentagon It induces them to acqui- They can even be used for paying for propaganda for conditioning the citizens who elect the congressmen who vote the funds.

If the majority of the electorate were to be converted one day to the dissenters' point of view, they could probably impose their will on the executive and its agencies even now, but the battle would be as stiff as the physical fight for the possession of some jungle-clad hill in Vietnam. The Pentagon is naturally and rightly concerned with the defense of the United States, and in present condi tions may have some justification for thinking that China in her state of turmoil and American, French. British and Dutch colonial dominions in Eastern Asia is an irreversible historic event. Its effect is going to be greater and much longer lasting, than the effect of Japan's eventual capitulation after the dropping of the two atomic bombs. What nerved the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong to defy the Pentagon's portentous power? The short answer is "Pearl Harbor." The most "agonizing reappraisal" that the Administration and the Pentagon now need to make is a reconsideration of their interpretation of China's behavior and intentions.

The most natural explanation of China's present furious state of mind is that this is a reaction to the series of humiliatons that were inflicted on China by each of the great powers, except the United Slates, between 1849 and 1945. If China's present fury is a consequence of her past ill-treatment, then the most promising way of trying to abate her fury is to treat her more amicably now. Since the Communist Regime came into power on the mainland of China, the United States has been inflicting on continental China every injury that has been in her power. She has kept China out of the United Nations, she has tried to destroy China's foreign trade. She has set herself to "contain" China, politically and militarily.

The true Interest of each super-power is a negative one. Its interest is that the other super-power should not be present in the intervening Asian zone. These negatine Chinese and American interests are reconcilable indeed, identical. And here surely lies the way to peace. esce in the atrocities that are being com mitted in their name.

Wars of religion are notoriously savage, and the present war of religion in Vietnam runs true to its historical precedents. If your opponents are the servants of the devil, then anti-personnel bombs and napalm are heaven-sent weapons angelic flaming swords. The Quixotism of crusaders has invariably been exploited by cool-headed cynics for the pursuit of hard-boiled practical objectives. Mu'Awi-yah, the prophet Muham-med's fifth successor: Bohe-mond who pocketed Antioch and the Doge Enrico Dan-dolo, who partitioned the Byzantine Empire: Cardinal Richeleu who supported the Protestant princes of Germany against his Hapsburg fellow Catholics the catalogue of profiteers from "holy wars" is an endless one. Business corporations and the unions realize that the Vietnam War is a colonial war, but they also realize that, for themselves, this war spells good business.

This, however, is true in the short run only. In the long run this war spells disaster for the Pentagon, for the American corporations and unions, for the whole American people, and for all mankind. The 19th-century West-European coloni a 1 empire builders achieved their objective with ease because their Asian and African opponents were defeated psychologically already before the first shot was fired. In 1941 Japan called the West's bluff. She broke the spell of the West's supposed invincibility.

Japan's sen sational conquest, in 1941, of the The dissenting minority in America, however, sees the war in Vietnam as a colonial war of the 19th Century kind, and so is at daggers drawn with the Pentagon on the question of policy. The conformist a jority views Uie war as a crusade or "Holy War" against "World Communism" on illlllllllllUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Josenh Fayan's Report on Raee Problems There's a Feeling Riots Get Results' gan pointed out. centers around three a ideas: help in order to bring about the changes needed in the shortest possible time. "This is a big chance. Your response will have a lasting effect on the kind of Wisconsin and America we live in and hand on to our children," Fagan concluded.

add that we will pay too high a price for those we elect who breed or create more racial hatred." "A lot of changes to be made Obstacles and barriers will have to be removed. People in all walks of life will have to pitch in and JOSEPH FAGAN, chairman of the State Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations, has issued a report on his reflections of last summer's riots in Milwaukee and the challenges and opportunities ahead for 1968 Fagan. in a recent speech In Madison, declared that one of the biggest challenges ahead for Wisconsin people is to elect "political candidates in 1968 who dn nnt want to loiter or dawdle in meeting problems of slums." "We will pay too high a price for those we elect who breed or create more racial hatred," Fagan warned Wisconsin residents Local governmental efforts to solve problems. Housing opportunities are not available. Growth of employment opportunities is too slow.

The chairman said there is a vast gulf of opinion between whites and blacks on race relations and the progress made in civi' 'ights. "Whiles are overwhelmingly satisfied with progress and say its 'been fast Fagan said. "The Negroes, however, are in violent disagreement with almost all. indicating the pace has been 'loo appointee of Gov. Warren Knowles, has gained statewide and even nationwide attention for his studies on the civil rights problems of Wisconsin.

In a summary of his interviews and discussions with various Negroes and whites throughout the state, Fagan said that riots are as dis-taste'ul to Negroes as to everyone else. "But. unfortunately, there is an underlying feeling among Negroes that riots get results in focusing attention on problems, getting white sympathy and in doing something about the causes," he said. "This is probably fallacious when one considers the backlash." Fagan said the dissatisfaction of Negroes in Wisconsin The Capital Times: oh CAPITAL TIMES STAFF REPORTERS The department head, an Fagan said that one of the challenges for Wisconsin residents in 1968 is an open housing law. Although he made no direct reference to Milwaukee and its City Council's refusal to enact an open housing law despite strong pleas from the Negro community, Fagan said: "Citizens should stress public policy in open neighborhoods and enact open housing laws.

Neeroes can enter normal market with open housing laws. They do not have to have special handling to get homes. In addition, open housing laws put all brokers nn the same level. None has to feel that he's sticking his neck out by selling to Negroes." The chairman went on to call for a "bigger effort" by people with "the power to get in touch with hostile youngsters." He suggested direct hiring of youngsters as community aides, the establishment of "youth patrols" similar to Atlanta, Boston. Dayton and Tampa, the improvement of public and private parking lots for ''sketball and football, street dances -id celebrations, neighborhood improvement programs and so on "City governments must make efforts to get minorities to believe they arc on their side," Fagan continued "Negro discontent is serious, especially in Milwaukee with city reluctance to encourage racial understanding, integration and harmony." "We must elect political candidal in 1968 who do not want to loiter or dawdle in meeting problems of slums," Fagan contended "Also, I Fagan added that most whites are sure riots are caused by "outsiders" like Rapp Brown.

Stokely Carmi-chael and others like them. Negroes, on the other hand, feel that po're activitv, iob frustrations and lack of housing opportunities are the main cause of the riots. "Based on experience in the joh and housing areas, Negroes have a fecllne that efforts are being made to improve conditions, even though thev know that many of the problems Wito," a a said "We must remember hat progress must be real because unreal' eH evnectations of improved conditions may increase frustrations and the likelihood of violent response." The chairman said that the new generation of Negro youths actually have less contact with the wnite community than prior generations. "This is particularly true in Milwaukee primarily berause of the white flight from thr central city and suburban growth and contentment," Fl- That's a Compliment REP. VERNON THOMSON (R-Richland Center) who has received his share of editorial barbs from The Capital Times during the past 25 years drew laughter from a legislative conference in Madison this weekend when he said the atmosphere in Washington is not much different than Madison.

"You have The Capital Times and we have Drew Pearson and the Washington Post." Alvin the Newscaster X)NG. ALVIN O'KONSKI (R-Mcrcer) isn't just happy owning a television station, he's got to do the news-casting too. During the present recess of Congress. O'Kon-ski has been pinch-hitting on his new station, WAEO, Channel 12 in Rhinelander. "It isn't enough that he gives the news," said one listener, "but he's got to give his own little editorial about every news item too." O'Konski's television appearances could stir a little controversy, especially since this is an election year.

Labor Will Miss Charlie VETERAN WISCONSIN labor leader Charlie Hcymanns retired last week. Probably the most colorful of state labor leaders. Charlie is going In be sorely missed. Already the national AFL-CIO has abandoned Region 12. which was composed of Wisconsin under Charlie's directorship since 1955, and combined it with Region 11 in Detroit.

The regional offices take care of local organization! that an not affiliated with a national union. No Room for Everyone A FOUR-COLOR PICTURE of Gov. Knowles has replaced the state flag on the back of the 1968 Official State Highway map. Heretofore, the governor's have been content to have their black and white photo on the inside of the map. But Knowles has knocked off not only the flag, but the state flower, the violet, the state fish, the muskic, the state animal, the Badger, the state tree, the sugar maple, and the state bird, the robin.

Hull Connor Reappears THE FIRST NAME listed on the roster of members of the Democratic National Committee handed out to reporters last week at the committee's Chicago meeting is that of Eugene B. "Bull" Connor, Montgomery, Ala. He is the former police chief of Birmingham, whose police dogs sent on Negroes, was one of the prime reasons for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That Nasty Telegram A RED-FACED John M. Bailey, Democratic National Committee chairman, spent nearly 20 minutes going through his pockets and his suitcase last week trying to find a wire from Sen.

Eugene McCarthy (D-Minnl. McCarthy has asked to present his Vietnam views to the national committee. Bailey turned him down, hut couldn't find the telegram to show to The Capital Times. After a fruitless hunt that even included looking under his Chicago Hilton suite bed, Bailey finally found It tucked away In hii brief case..