Page 2 University Daily Kansan Thursday, Oct. 20, 1960
Red China and the UN
Once again, thanks to the efforts of the United States, the motion to seat Red China in the United Nations failed this year. Yet, the vote was so close (42-34 with 22 abstentions) that the proverbial handwriting is obvious — Red China will be admitted into the United Nations very soon, probably within the next five years. The position the United States will take when this happens certainly will be interesting. More interesting than this, however, is the manner in which this government will justify its position with the American people.
The United States supports and is deeply committed to the government of Chiang Kai-shek as the true government of China and that the Peoples' Republic has shown itself consistently to be what some term a war-mongering nation. What will happen when the Red Chinese gain admission into the United Nations?
Speculation has arisen in some quarters that the United States literally will go down fighting the issue. This certainly would be an unrealistic approach because it would embarrass the United States in the old Chinese manner of losing face across the globe. Other factions would have the United States pull out of the United Nations completely. This would be even more unrealistic. Even the Russians with their often-time spoiled-little-boy attitude have not done this. Probably what will happen is this: the United States will dicker with the Red Chinese on certain issues in
the hope of reaching an agreement. Then — if the United States is to attempt to maintain its reputation as the world leader — it must take a position that will favor the seating of the Peoples Republic. This would be a complete reversal of the present official position on the issue.
It is often difficult to get one person to admit that he is wrong. How then, can the government of the greatest nation in the world change its official policy in such a short span of time? And how does this same government resolve its position with its own people? Right now, Americans are being told that Red China is a threat to world security. In five years, Americans might have to believe that the Red Chinese want peace in the same manner as Russia does, or they wouldn't be sitting in the UN — believe this, inasmuch as it might be the official stand of the U.S. government.
Right now, any American who was told this probably would choke on it like a 3-month-old baby in his first bout with spinach. How could he picture the Red Chinese as war-mongers, then in a few short years be asked to totally revise his image of the Chinese Reds? Conceivably, this could be the problem the government might face when the Peoples' Republic gains admission to the UN, in which case the painting of an image for the American people might turn into something more than an Orwellian nightmare.
Doublethink, anyone? —Dan Felger
VARSITY: THE TIME MACHINE
COLOR
What will the world be like in the next decade? Countless numbers of years from now?
At the Movies
H. G. Well's "The Time Machine" gives one man's impression of the future of the world in this entertaining science fiction film which is based on a book written before our present stereotyped concepts of science fiction thrillers were conceived.
THE MOVIE RAISES one philosophical question. Can man control his destiny through time—the fourth dimension? The ultimate decision reached was that man can't, but the tribulations and events the movie portrays in making its point are enough to convince any watcher that it wouldn't be worth the trouble if man could.
His first stop is 17 years in the
The movie revolves around a young inventor in London at the turn of the century. He invents a "time machine", which can take man either into the past or future. He has no desire to relive the past and the uncertainty of the future pulls him forward.
future, 1917 and the middle of World War I. He is astounded by changes such as the automobile, but his second stop in 1940 during the Battle of Britain starts him questioning the direction in which man is progressing. Then, in 1966, he stops just in time to see our present civilization demolished in atomic war. Thousands of years go by before he is able to stop and examine the world again.
HE ENTERS a society which has no laws and does no work. The people he meets are all young in age and live entirely in the present without considering the past or future. Eventually he finds that these people are governed by another branch of our former society which has degenerated into cannibals, but they still possess mechanization to an extent. From the two decadent societies he finally finds enough strings of human goodness and will to pull the people out of the dregs into a decent life.
The movie, based on Well's novel, possesses none of the sensational aspects of most science fiction shows. With the exception of the time machine and Wells' projection of what the future civilization will
be like, the movie is quite down to earth and is highly entertaining.
... Letters ...
Watch Out, Cuba
The discussion on Cuba held under the auxes of the International Club on Oct. 7 was interesting though controversial.
One regrettable feature, however, was that the power of "guillotine" to end the discussion was exercised too soon. The second part of the program could easily have been postponed for about a half hour.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
The spirited speaker from Cuba made a significant remark which needs some comment. "Every nation," he said, "has the right to have and like its own system of government. You (Americans) think that your system is good. You have the right to do so. The Russians feel that their system is good. They are also right in thinking so."
The latter part of this statement, however, is not true and not acceptable. In the first place, the Russian people have never been given the opportunity to express their opinion of whether they like their system or not. Secondly, the defects of totalitarianism are too obvious to be ignored. Suffice it to quote an Asian observer who traveled and studied in China recently:
"China today is like a big zoo. Everyone is fed, clothed and taken care of when he'is sick. But there is no individual freedom, and the intellectual class has been destroyed. The Chinese masses are grim, stolid and purposeful. In all my travels I never saw any real happiness in any face."
They should also know that in spite of Mr. Khrushchev's "deep sympathies" with the Cuban revolution, he cannot afford to send his troops to the island or use ICBMs against the U.S. if the Cuban government should take such steps as would necessitate military intervention by the United States.
Let us hope that Mr. Castro and other leaders of the Cuban government do not have any illusions about totalitarianism.
Mr. Khrushchev could not send his forces to Lebanon in 1958, despite his threats to do so; and he knows the United States is more vitally concerned in the Caribbean than it was in Lebanon.
S. H. Hashmi
1547 Kentucky
the took world
By Calder M. Pickett
Acting Dean, School of Journalism
NIXON, by Earl Mazo. Avon Books.
"Who Is Nixon? What Is He?" sang the Reporter magazine in the title of an article several years ago.
Nixon, in the view of Earl Mazo, who has refurbished his biography of the vice president so that it may serve as a campaign document, is a brilliant, aggressive, fearless young man who is the best trained of all possible candidates for the presidency.
To others, Richard M. Nixon will emerge from a reading of this occasionally sparkling book as president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Americanism committee of the American Legion, chief tail-twister of the Lions Club.
HE IS A HUMORLESS CANDIDATE. WHEN HE UTTERS one of his homilies that remind one of James J. Metcalf or Eddie Guest, and self-righteously pushes out his jaw, there can be little doubt that he is firmly convinced of the rightness of his cause.
He is the best-trained candidate, says Mazo; yet one can ask where lies the substance in the Nixon talks and public statements. The American way is his theme. Bancroft may have cast a vote for Jackson on every page of his histories; Nixon casts one for Eisenhower in every sentence.
Yet this book isn't an orthodox campaign biography, and it is not one-sided. The whole picture is here — the fighting campaigner indulging in the Kitchen Debate with Khrushchev, the young vice president in dire physical danger on his American trip. This is the heroic side. There also is the campaign against Jerry Voorhis, and the one against Helen Gahagan Douglas. Mazo, a Nixon admirer, does not ignore the least savory passages in Nixon's career.
If Nixon wholeheartedly and honestly fought Communists in government, and played the key role in bringing about the perjury conviction of Alger Hiss, he also played footsie with McCarthy for far too long. If he helped to bring an end to the steel strike, he also had been a long-time apologist for the right wing in American business.
WHO IS NIXON, AND WHAT IS HE? HE PROBABLY IS neither the monster of the Herblock cartoon (the Nixon family keeps the Washington Post out of the house, so that the girls can be insulated from Herblock's depictions of their father) nor the all-American boy of the Mazo biography. He is a curiously divisive man, one who would not likely be a popular successor to Eisenhower.
Speaking of Eisenhower, perhaps the most interesting aspect of "Nixon" is the hands-off role that Eisenhower played for a time during the 1952 fund controversy and the long hedging on backing Nixon for re-nomination in 1956. All of this must have been trying for a man who so wants to be liked — especially to be liked by a man that he patently admires so much.
Worth Repeating
For example, although I myself do not drink, I always make a point of shaking hands with bartenders whenever I come across them, because their recommendations, voiced that moment when men's minds are highly receptive to ideas, carry much weight in a community.—Rep. Joe Martin
Young Americans exist. They must be educated. Whether or not we're pleased with them is irrelevant.-Herbert Wing
One always arrives late at night in Russia.—Seymour Slive
Anger and urgency assail me. . . . Anger that so rich and fat a country as ours, dedicated to individual personality, should still, so desperately late in history, be starving the educational and personal development of tens of thousands of able children whose only fault is that they are poor, or a wrong color—John U. Monro
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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