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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, March 4, 1968
Profs debate Schlafly book
(Editor's note: The following book reviews are published in the Kansan's Faculty Forum series. The reviews were written independently of each other, but each reviewer knew the review was intended for the forum.)
SAFE—NOT SORRY, by Phyllis Schlafly (Pere Marquette Press; $1.)
By Roy D. Laird Chairman, Slavic and Soviet Area Studies
Those who believe that all political scientists are liberals should read this book. This is the latest ultra right wing tract by the author of "A Choice, Not an Echo," who is a member of Pi Sigma Alpha (the national political science honorary society).
Those who believe the possession of a Phi Beta Kappa key and the attainment of graduate degrees are guarantees that a person is an intellectual ought to read this book of misinformation, half-truths and inexcusable uses of evidence. Although Mrs. Schlafly has an M.A. from Radcliffe, she casts aside any scholarly standards she may have learned and uses the propagandists' tricks to sell her emotional convictions as truth.
Mrs. Schlafly's charges and implied charges of treason, aiding the advancements of communism, and corruption on the part of federal officials is the same kind of game with the truth that skyrocketed the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy to public attention, great influence and ultimate personal disaster. This reviewer claims to be a liberal intellectual. To be consistent with the creed, I must admit that there conceivably may be some faint bits of truth in some of the lady's many charges. However, on most counts the balance of the additional evidence I've seen indicates that her conclusions and implied charges are divorced from reality.
Communist subversion runs like a red thread through the book. For example, much effort and much seeming evidence is offered in her attempt to substantiate a conclusion that America's race riots are Communist-inspired and led, and that the United States has suffered losses on the international scene because the State Department has "aided and encouraged communist takeover of country after country..."
Surely, the great bulk of social science evidence points to a conclusion that such factors as social inequality and deprived environment are at the root of the rising American race revolution. Indeed, advanced reports on the findings of the special President's Commission on Civil Disorders, looking into the causes of the race riots in our cities, indicate that the report will stress that the growing human deprivation of the urban ghettos has produced a climate wherein relatively minor incidents spark the spontaneous human combustion that has turned to burning our cities.
True, Communists often go where the action is, but the uprisings are hardly a matter of Communist planning. As far as U.S. international failures are concerned, I know no specialist on Soviet affairs who would agree.
How can a reviewer adequately grapple with her Phyllis-in-Wonderland disregard for fact? For example, Mrs. Schlafly writes, "I wish to make an unequivocal statement that the demonstrations in the streets . . . of the United States are . . . a direct support of the Viet Cong killing our troops in Vietnam, and the leaders (in both instances) are taking orders" from the Soviet high command. How does one grapple with the emotional appeal of an assertion that "communism is Speckism on a world-wide scale"? (Speck is the madman who murdered the Chicago nurses).
Such a devil's view of politics satisfies the superheated passions of extreme nationalism, but her Speckian analysis is diametrically contrary to what bits of understanding we have of Communist successes.
There has been an ideological and political reformation in the Communist world. Thus the Soviets probably hate and fear their old Chinese comrades more than they do the United States "imperialists." Communist movements have fed on human misery but their successes also have depended on positive promise of human progress. Instead of Moscow's calling the shots on Vietnam, there is reason to believe the Kremlin fears that war and wishes it would end.
To me this book is a sickening reminder of a great weakness in the Grand Old Party. Mrs. Schlafly is the first vice-president of the National Federation of Republican Women and too many members of that great party buy her brand of nonsense. Her book also reflects a growing sickness in our society.
Vietnam and race riots are working to tear America apart, and the new McCarthyites are attempting to exploit this human disaster for political purposes. The Phyllis Schlaflys in America may win positions of high power. If they do, I predict that the distress that America suffered in the earlier McCarthy era will look like a pleasant tea party in comparison with what the Schlaflys will do to this society.
By Albert W. Burgstahler Professor of Chemistry
At the famous trial of Col. William Mitchell in 1925, critics scoffed at his "mad" prediction that, unless the United States developed appropriate up-to-date defensive measures, we might find such a valuable naval base as Pearl Harbor destroyed "some fine Sunday morning" by a Japanese air attack. A decade later, when Japan was beginning to prepare to do this very thing, and Germany was feverishly rearming, similar warnings by Winston Churchill and other "war-mongering" leaders regrettably fell on the deaf ears of those who preferred to be bullied by the siren's call of unenforced disarmament treaties.
Now, as the crucial 1968 election draws near, we are again faced with a similar peril. In this book, the articulate and conservative first vice president of the National Federation of Republican Women and author of a 3-million copy 1964 campaign handbook "A Choice, Not An Echo," and co-author with retired Read Adm. Chester Ward of "The Gravediggers" (1964) and "Strike from Space (1965-1966), offers a sobering look at the troubled state of our nation—the deterioration of our military defenses, the recent riots in our cities, the continuing increase of crime on our streets, the consequences of wasteful government spending, the breakdown of integrity in high office, and so on.
Citing the authoritative Schriver Report prepared at the request of the House Armed Services Committee (and made available to the general public by the U.S. Government Printing Office in July 1967), she charges that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara deliberately failed (for political reasons) to maintain the strong defensive position achieved under President Eisenhower's administration. In terms of deliverable nuclear megatonnage, the United States has been slipping steadily since 1962. In this same period, the Soviet Union has been vigorously increasing its nuclear capability, so that by 1971 it may have as much as a tenfold advantage over the U.S.
Singled out for special criticism is the TFX (F-111) supersonic fighter-bomber—McNamara's "Flying Edsel"—which Tom Alexander in Fortune (June 1, 1967) independently castigated as "McNamara's expensive economy plane" (cf. U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 5, 1968, p. 10).
To Schlafly, the lagging TFX program has become a colossal, multi-billion dollar blunder that tragically "threw away five years of precious time in which we were not building the aircraft, the nuclear weapons, or the anti-missile defenses we need to stay ahead of our enemies." It is thus also one of the main reasons why we are unable to win a prompt victory in Vietnam. In short, we are no longer "safe" and may soon be "sorry."
On the domestic scene, she sees the bankruptcy of self-serving government programs and the erosion of morality and credibility in high officials as the most urgent campaign issues of 1968. It is not easy to dismiss the sworn testimony and first-hand accounts she quotes showing that recent major civil disturbances were aided by the misuse of funds from the Office of Economic Opportunity, and that ultra-leftists and openly pro-Communist leaders were intimately involved in staging them. Current federal policies that coddle law-breakers and are aimed more at vote-getting than at seeking lasting justice and protection of the innocent have interfered gravely with the constitutional responsibility of government to "maintain domestic tranquillity."
To this reader, one of the most fascinating chapters in the book is the revealing story of the "purge" of conservatives from positions of leadership in the Republican Party, following the defeat of Sen. Goldwater in the 1964 election. The illegally bussed-in delegates, the clear-cut violations of voting procedures, and other grave improprieties resorted to by the Rockefeller forces of the Eastern Liberal Establishment to prevent Mrs. Schlafly from being elected president of the National Federation of Republican Women at the latter's Washington convention in May 1967 represent some of the sorriest examples of corrupt politics ever to be witnessed in America. One can only hope that such conduct will not surround the selection of the Republic Party's nominee in Miami.
One also can hope that Phyllis Schlafly's stark military warnings will not be arbitrarily dismissed as "extremist propaganda." Like Billy Mitchell and Winston Churchill, whose "hawkish" predictions were too disquieting to be readily accepted, Schlafly unfortunately may prove to be right about the consequences of our not maintaining defenses adequate to deter any and all potential aggression.
Letters to the editor
Hamilton Salsich answers his critics
To the Editor:
Let me respond briefly to my two critics.
1. Mr. Laurence Day suggests (Feb. 28) that, because I am a "loose" teacher, I am somewhat like a field mouse. In order to better understand the comparison, I consulted a scholar and a poet on the nature of mice. The Encyclopedia Americana states that field mice are best known for their legendary sexual prowess. And Walt Whitman says that "a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." I thank Mr. Day for the compliment.
2. Mr. Judson Briegel's main criticism (Feb. 29) seems to be that my article was "a patent attempt to propagate my own peculiar philosophy of education." Very true. Whose philosophy would I propagate? My mother's?
Assistant instructor of English — Hamilton Salsich
Assistant instructor of English
To the Editor:
Anyone who didn't read Mr. Salsich's "tough teacher," editorial before reading Mr. Day's "loose teacher" reply missed all the fun.
Mr. Day's piece was one of the
best satirical put-downs I've seen in a long time.
-Lowell E. Brown Hayward, Calif., graduate student
-Lowell E. Brown
To the Editor:
* *
Lest anyone reading "Coes cook meals for profit" in the UDK Thursday come away convinced that Miss Thomas is mute and that Miss Wade talks too much, let it be known that the interview consisted entirely of a confused telephone conversation with Miss Wade.
The only important point made during that conversation was the
following; in any write-up of our project an appeal should be included asking other penniless female apartment - dwellers who cook, to take pity on the many hungry men around and adopt a couple themselves—for profit, of course. Since we have the names and telephone numbers of a dozen or so men ranging from curious to emaciated, interested coeds should call VI 2-9354.
Miss Thomas,
London, Ohio
graduate student
Miss Wade,
Columbus, Ohio
graduate student
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