KANSAN Comment
Nixon's peace is no peace at all
Fifty years ago, Woodrow Wilson scored a spectacular success at the negotiating table in Paris. The Peace Conference voted on Jan. 25, 1919 to incorporate the League of Nations as an integral part of the Versailles treaty.
This effort for peace was waylaid immediately by Republican critics in America, ironically, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, who introduced a proposal signed by 39 senators or senators-elect, saying "the constitution of the League of Nations in the form now proposed to the peace conference should not be accepted by the United States."
Wilson's position at the negotiating table in Paris was weakened and his stance for peace lost much of its firmness.
In his address to the nation Monday evening, President Nixon said Wilson's dream for a "just and lasting peace" was "shattered by power politics." In truth, Wilson's hope was shattered by his fellow Americans—both the Republican senators and the muddled-headed majority who voted for a boob like Harding in a clear rejection of the ideas for which Wilson had fought.
I assume Nixon has read his history books—but on this issue of Wilson's failure he completely missed the point Monday evening.
Faced with the present situation.
Nixon is also missing the point. He confronts large numbers of Americans—in seats of power and those with no power but the ballot—who want to see America abandon outmoded imperialistic "save the world" goals, Nixon's "fellow Americans"—as he so constantly alludes to the populace—are urging him, in increasing numbers, to withdraw all troops from Vietnam and order a unilateral cease-fire.
We saw a demonstration of this Oct. 15.
In a recently released Louis Harris poll in Time magazine, it was shown that today only 55 per cent of the general public and 49 per cent of the leaders still say the Vietnam war is necessary to resist Communist aggression in Asia, a severe drop from 83 per cent of the public who professed this view two years ago.
And most Americans polled agreed that the war has tragically kept America from facing her own problems at home.
Wilson's efforts for world peace, his call for an abandonment of American imperialism in his 14 Points—were destroyed by opposition from Americans more interested in saving face than promoting peace.
Today, the situation is reversed. More and more Americans call for a withdrawal of American forces from
Vietnam, and the rest of Asia, and Europe. More and more Americans would like to see the abandonment of the unworkable imperialistic "America is the hope of the world" policy in favor of a less condescending, supercilious role in world affairs. Today the President is the chief apologist for "saving face." America's first defeat in history would involve a deplorable "collapse of confidence" in America, he said, both abroad and at home.
If Americans would see the horrors of Communism entrenched in South Vietnam, they would be overcome with remorse and guilt about leaving the South Vietnamese at the mercy of the Communist murderers, Nixon said. He cited the bloody massacres of Hue, strongly hinting that this would become common practice.
And well it might.
But what moral right does America have to assume responsibility whenever evil crops up in this big bad world? Nixon's scare tactics reflect the "Big Brother" concept which has led to equal horrors - yes, and even murder. (remember the Spanish-American war? And how about other American intervention in Latin America and South America?)
"America is the hope of the world." Nixon said solemnly Monday night.
"We Americans have no commission
Hear the people, Mr. Nixon
By MIKE SHEARER Arts & Reviews Editor
The three beers of early afternoon had worn off.
I, an impudent snob and ideological eunuch, was soberly braced in front of that perpetual screen. I was ready to meet The Man.
But The Man wasn't ready to meet me. Hiding behind a blond blue suit and framed on both (both!) sides by an American flag sat as much of The Man as The Man would put forward. To his right, very noticeably, was a framed picture of Pat and the family. Beneath his desk, I imagined, lay a sleepy Beagle or maybe a yellow cat—nothing ferocious. A coffee pot was no doubt steaming near by.
And as much of The Man as The Man would reveal began to talk.
Lyndon Johnson started the war in Vietnam, he said in a soft voice.
That's irrelevant, I yelled, demanding he tell me what he was going to do.
Withdrawal, he said, would be 'a disaster of immense magnitude.
The war is a disaster, I yelled, tos ing patience with this I-have-a-plan man.
Then The Man did something that changed my policy. For years I had scrupulously concerned myself with not using the word "murder" in reference
to war deaths. In all of my rampages, with a few forgivable exceptions, I had tried to escape that petty and passionate argument. But The Man used it. Bloody reign of terror, atrocities, nightmare, MURDER! But our half of the murder (which according to James Turpin—"Vietnam Doctor"—has been more pronounced and ugly than the other half's part of that abomination) is "protection of American fighting men"—is "not the easy way, but it is the right way"—is "defense of freedom"—is anything but murder. So my policy now includes the use of the word "murder."
I aimed my finger at the tube, ready to unsheath a few words I'd saved from my early days of reading chalked obscenities on sidewalks, but The Man had something else to say.
If infiltration and American casualties increase while we are scaling down our part in the war we will stop scaling down the war, he threatened. This is not a threat, he added.
Then he spoke to the vocal minority, equating our suggestions with the opposite of reason. He continued: To the young people of our nation concerned about this war (a lengthy euphemism for impudent snobs and ideological eunuchs and I suddenly were stricken with a pang of respect for Spiro Agnew), I want to say nothing more than peace.
Then, using the old onion trick, he said he had written 83 letters last week to mothers—mothers who no longer had sons. He wanted nothing more than a continued decrease in that number of letters. But he hinted that if he didn't have to send any next week that would be a little too drastic.
Then, he addressed himself to the silent majority (i.e. the apathetic majority) and said some encouraging, meaningless words about peace.
Lastly, he said he would be sustained by my prayers.
I leaped to the floor, ready to be heard. But he was gone, vanished into that big electronic box, hidden from me, gleeful, no doubt, that he had sewn his rhetoric into the FCC's air then disappeared before I could say a word.
So I wandered outside, where I knew I could be heard if only by those FCC gusts of relatively clean air. And I really didn't expect the president to hear me, but I talked to him.
I quoted Edna St. Vincent Millay saying, "I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death./ I am not on his pay-roll."
Addressing myself right to the president, I said, "Man, The Man, I will
from God to police the world," Benjamin Harrison said in 1888. Harrison's sentiments seem to be spreading among Nixon's fellow Americans" who want to return home to take care of the ghettoes, the slums, the boiling racial hatreds, the starving children in the cities and Appalachia, the polluted, stinking air and water, the fierce rifts between the young and the old, the black and the white, the rich and the poor.
In increasing numbers, Americans would like to come home and stay home for a long, long time. They have a lot of housecleaning to do which has already waited much too long while they were out trying to tidy up the neighbor's homes.
Nixon says he wants peace—the "just and lasting peace" for which Woodrow Wilson longed. As long as he maintains his imperialistic posture, standing like an eagle with talons eager to draw blood wherever Communism pops up, I just can't believe him.
Joanna K. Wiebe
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not pray for your mysterious plan. I will not pray to give you the faith to continue the murder of the Vietnamese people and of our own troops. I will not pray for you.
"I don't believe, sir, that peace is dependent on Hanoi—as you said. And now I know that it does not depend on you.
"I know now, better than ever before, that peace depends on me and people like me."
And then I was quiet in the night. I glanced at some lit windows and hoped no one heard a mad man addressing another mad man far away.
Then I walked down the appropriately dark street and I prayed. I prayed prayers that have perhaps been prayed so often that they have lost all of their drama with who ever it is who listens to such mumblings in the night.
And I prayed for victory. Not victory in Vietnam but for victory in the struggle to remove men from bland blue suits and put them in new robes before it is too late.
Then I said "amen" and watched the word drift into the air as if it knew that the air would always be there. And I hoped it would.
GRIFF AND THE UNICORN
by DAVE SOKOLOFF
Griff & the Unicorn, Copyright, 1969,
University Dally Kanan.