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University Daily Kansan
Monday, April 27, 1964
Personality Gap?
1964 Race
Lyndon Johnson as the Democrat presidential candidate in 1964 is supposed to be unbeatable—or so say most of the political analysts. He is, obviously, in an extremely strong position—Soviet relations are improving, his legislation is moving well in Congress, there are no major world crises at this time, there is a big Democrat majority in Congress, and so forth. Polls indicate that if the election were held tomorrow, LBJ would win by an unprecedented majority.
However, he does have liabilities, and politics is a world of "ifs."
If, for instance, Johnson is forced into a television debate like the one between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 voters might flock to the polls to vote for the opposition. Johnson is anything but "videogenic," as the saying goes. His voice is halting, even unpleasant. Another point—Johnson is undoubtedly smart, but he does not give the impression of quick intelligence.
Consider, for example, the contrast on a TV debate between the President and the debonair Henry Cabot Lodge, who captured the public imagination in his one brief TV appearance as ambassador to the UN when he presented the "bugged" gift from the Russians on the floor of the General Assembly.
Flip as it may sound, LBJ's personality might lose him more votes than, say, a split in the Democratic party.
His rhetoric is far from stirring. For a time, speeches and pronouncements went along passably well in a neo-Kennedy fashion. Now Ted
Sorenson has left the staff to write a Kennedy biography, and Johnson's speeches go from bad to worse.
Two other specific points are worth mentioning.
One—the civil rights issue. If the Civil Rights bill does not pass this spring in Congress, there are indications that the South and the eastern industrial cities will be a bloodbath this summer. Voter sympathy for civil rights backers might be dimmed by violence or by, for instance, stunts such as the demonstrations held at the opening of the World's Fair. The administration in power, whatever its political stripe, justly or unjustly has to take much of the blame for what goes on in the country.
Point two—Southeast Asia. American failures there are becoming increasingly obvious despite the pretty words put out by Robert McNamara recently. Many of the leaders are talking about a shift of foreign policy towards that area which the Republicans might well interpret as accommodation.
When Secretary of State Dean Rusk was in Saigon recently, the Viet Cong raided only 14 miles from the edge of the city—apparently as a show of strength. Whatever happens in Viet Nam, the Democrats probably stand to lose by it. If they push the war harder, the old cry that the Democrats always get the U.S. in a war will come up. If they try to negotiate a sort of neutrality for our allies, there will be cries of appeasement.
It might be an interesting election . . . if . . .
The People Say.
KULAC Defense
Editor:
Tom Shores' protest against KULAC appeared in your April Fool issue, and I was delighted to read it, for I was about to decide you'd completely ignored the traditions of the day. My congratulations go to Mr. Shores for his deft satire, and I hope he won't be offended when I suggest that the subtlety of his treatment may have led some to take him seriously. A few words, then, to provide the obvious answers to Tom's attack—an attack which balances ingeniously on the line between the reality and the parody of the convention-bound, apathetic, hyper-conservative attitude.
KULAC, says he, seems to be involved in "every bit of unorthodoxy which exists on this campus." A condemnation? An exaggeration? Yes, both, for by "unorthodoxy" he can only mean political liberality—a position antagonistic to the Conservative (if not to the conservative) and frightening to those who seek security in apathy. He exaggerates also, for no matter how active and enthusiastic the organization may be, it can hardly be responsible for every expression of intelligent political concern on a large and progressive campus such as this. Nor has KULAC been involved in the less responsible bits of "unorthodoxy" which occasionally occur.
"Why does the same group of individuals back the SPU and CRCC as well as KULAC? Could it be that they are seeking only sensation?" Is there such a conflict between concerns for the survival of the race and for the rights of the individual? The frightened,
the selfish, or the unthinking may eling fearfully to the status quo, or may feel that membership, however inactive, in one such organization is enough to enlist their names "on the side of progress" without risking the dangers of real involvement. It is no surprise, though, to find the truly concerned and the unafraid actively engaged in as many "liberal actions" as possible.
"WHY DOES THE rank and file of this organization consist of individuals who could hardly be considered representative of the average KU student?" I'll tell you why, Tom. It's because the average KU student doesn't take the time to be informed (or just doesn't give a damn) about the issues with which KULAC concerns itself. The only real way in which KULAC members are "abnormal" students is in their refusal to conform to the norm of lethargy.
"That's How Decadence Sets In——First He's In Favor Of Living; And Now Better Living"
"Could it be that KULAC is designed to allow the nonconformist to alleviate his frustrations?" Of course! If one refuses to conform to the standards of his time—to the passive acceptance of injustice and irresponsibility—then inactivity is indeed frustrating. When one refuses to turn a blind eye to such wrongs, work in an organization such as KULAC surely does alleviate frustrations—at least as much as is possible until the problems are finally conquered.
BY SUGGESTING that one should join or contribute to KULAC only "if he is able to identify with the leadership." Mr. Shores shows us one element basic to the attitude he parodies—the conviction that all student organizations are primarily social, not political, and that though we may talk of motives and ideals, these are not really so important as being with a nice, compatible bunch of fellows. One should be pretty careful about association with anybody but white, midwestern, middle-class Protestants.
Again I apologize to Tom Shores for feeling the need to explain his humor, and I hope that by doing so I haven't spoiled the joke for anyone. Many may, like myself, have seen the point and been stimulated to join KULAC, but I fear that Kansan readers just aren't used to any but the bluntest sort of satire, and some may have missed Tom's real intent.
Lawrence graduate student
BOOK REVIEWS
JFK: The Man and the Myth—
I read Victor Lasky's "JFK: The Man and the Myth" during spring break. Given the American attitude at this point in time, it was—I suppose—a slightly irreverent thing to do.
The word given me about the book was that it would move any citizen of good will into believing that the late president was now suffering the trials of perdition.
I started reading with the honorable intention of refuting in my own mind Lasky's case against President Kennedy. On page five I noted that the author quoted Westbrook Pegler, one of the less reputable syndicated columnists. Page six, a quote from the National Review, a conservative pulp sheet edited by William Buckley Jr. Page nine I focused my attention on a quote from a paper of noted demagoguery, the New York Daily News ("Junior—Bobby Kennedy—is an egg-head to end all egg-heads.")
SIX HUNDRED PAGES later I was a bit worn down, if only by the force of attrition.
This book, you will remember, was published shortly before the assassination. It was billed as one of the most controversial books of our decade. The day after the Dallas murder, it was taken off the bookstands as a token of respect for the dead president.
The book's publication was resumed shortly, and for several months it vied with "Profiles in Courage" for the top spot on the non-fiction best-seller list.
The Lasky message, in a few words, is this: John F. Kennedy had two main attributes—charm and money. They got him into the White House. Kennedy's idealism, says Lasky, was contrived, synthetic. His principal motivation in life was to gain power.
He was the pawn of his father's frustrated political ambitions. Kennedy's 1960 campaign was conceived in the cynicism of manipulating voters by hook or crook; the fruit which,it bore was an administration all tinsel and shiny things, but lacking in essential guts.
KENNEDY'S ELECTION to the nation's highest office was, according to Lasky, a victory for Madison Avenue, money unlimited, IBM machines, the pollsters, and Kennedy's "videogenic qualities." The issues on which Kennedy campaigned were contrived — the "missile gap." U.S. protection of the off-shore Chinese islands, the Russian rate of economic growth, etc.
Although the book is saturated with anecdotes, facts, and "documentation," Lasky made no apparent attempt to be objective. His purpose seemed to be to destroy the widely-held belief that President Kennedy is (now, was) an honorable man and worthy of high office.
The author finds himself today in the position of writing irreverently of the dead. If he firmly believes what he wrote, he has no need to feel apologetic. If what he set out is true, the adulation of John F. Kennedy in death is an absurdity.
Tom Coffman
POLICY AND POWER, by Ruhl Bartlett (Hill and Wang, $5).
For some students of American history, few subjects prove as constantly engrossing, and even entertaining, as that of foreign policy. Here is a broad but thoughtful study of two centuries of American foreign relations, written by a professor of diplomatic history at Tufts University, and published in the new Hill and Wang series on American history.
This book is not as thorough or as documented as, say, the well-known histories by Samuel Bemis or Thomas Bailey. Bartlett is not pretending to do as much. He is, flatly, trying to offer in brief form a summary of foreign policy developments in this country, from the days when the United States was a struggling new nation down to the modern period when the word "colossus" much better describes the American nation.
Bartlett believes the need for an intelligent citizen understanding of foreign policy is even more imperative today than in the past, and that this need complicates the matter, because foreign policy has become so complex. He comments, of course, on the very way in which foreign policy has become a critical domestic issue.
For many readers, the recent chapters may prove most valuable. Most of us are still too close to the Truman era, the cold war, the bitterness over Korea, the British-French-Israeli action in Egypt, Communist penetration in this hemisphere, and disputes over our relations with Yugoslavia and Spain, to evaluate any of these properly.
Bartlett calls his final chapter "The Continuing Crisis," which seems an apt summing-up for a question—that of foreign affairs—which will never reach final solution. We seemed able to retreat at one time into peace and quiet. That is no longer the case. Even the most nationalist-oriented politicians have to make some admissions that we have a stake in the affairs of the world. All of this Bartlett makes plain.-CMP
Dailij Hänsan
111 Flint Hall University of Kansas student newspaper
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