European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 23, 1968, Darmstadt, Hesse August 23, 1968 the stars and stripes Page f it la be a wide open demo convention if internal Struggs u .1 vitality a torn. German soloist has a the demo party today i Max Lerner hot it i through a time of troubles from which it May � int Fri try � to red thing of no particular Beau h we won t know until after , there seems Little likelihood of peace or Unity at Chicago. There is a Thicket of challenges of the state Delonga Lions which affects on out of five delegates. There is the likelihood of big demonstrations out Side the convention and the Chance of secretly organized Little demonstrations inside at strategic moments. There is a bitter platform fight looming. There is the question of How the City will handle the expected descent of marginal groups of Young peo William or. Pm who Promise Matt til Downs and love ins on the Park lawns. And after the Ball i Over there it the possibility of a fourth party emerging to bedevil the democrats from the left As the George Wallace third party is Al ready promising to bedevil the republicans from the right. Open convention if it were any More open it would be a Cave of the winds and Chicago could make a claim to be culled chaos City. While anything can still happen on the nominations the probabilities Are overwhelm ing that Hubert Humphrey will be the nominee. But what a ill he win and what will be left to preside Over it is interesting to contrast the Serene Assurance of each of the democratic candidates with Thi Prospect of a storm to come Humphrey moves in a Royal Progress from state delegation to state delegation greeting each with Bland Benison saying Little of the Man in the White House he Hopes to succeed but celebrating every governor As a National statesman and every county chairman As a Deputy deity preaching loyalty and new Domestic Marshall plans exhort ing promising cajoling. Eugene Mccarthy presiding Over a Camelot of amateurs preaches discreet rebellion and alternately rages against the reigning divinities and assures everyone that he has a 50-50 Chance of becoming one. While he opens a door for the Viet Cong to get into a coalition government at Saigon he opens a casement window for an array of republicans including John Lindsay s brother and Nelson Rockefeller himself to get into his own coalition Cabinet some Day if he is elected and if they agree. As for George Mcgovern the candidate of the Kennedy forces who brings too Little to the convention too late he campaigns with a resigned sense of fatal ism knowing that he con t outdo Mccarthy in Vietnam attitudes that Only the widest Accident of presidential lightning could strike him and that his Best bet is a Humphrey nod for the vice presidential spot. Thus each of the three Candi dates carries with him a vision of his own destiny As he moves toward the storm Center at Chi Cago but the republicans should not anticipate any Victory by de fault or disintegration. Man an boy said or. Dooley to or Hennessey i be seen the dim Mccratic party hanging to the ropes a score in times. But tis Niver so Good As Whin tis broke an Whin it has no Lead ers an on y wan principle to go in an take it away for m the other despite or. Dooley the democrats suffer from so Many principles that there will be a protracted Battle Over them when the platform comes before the convention. And while it has no one towering figure did the re publicans have one it has a profusion of leaders who Don t suffer by comparison with those we witnessed at Miami Beach. A three have had National experience All Are liberals of one Brand or another All have had a Chance to Deal with global policy All Are from the Middle West and have a concern about the Farmers and the Small town of Well As about the scars of War in the cities. Curiously also All three candidates Are former College professors having taught political philosophy and history and per haps also some practical poli tics. They Are in this sense the most Concrete evidence that there is a new politics in the nation and that the political establish ments Are already responding to the most important suffrage group in the nation that of the Young of age and heart. Cohn s Book highly revealing a few weeks ago a Book appeared by Roy Cohn on sen. Joe Mccarthy in which the author contributed his own recollection of what had gone on Dur ing the army Mccarthy hearings and the period immediately be fore when Cohn served of chief counsel for Mccarthy s investigating committee. The Book is by All accounts a fascinating Docu ment. Indeed the editors of Esquire who Are not to be con fused with Mccarthy ites excerpted a Large hunk of it and ran a picture of Cohn on the cover with a Halo round his head to make it absolutely Clear that they considered the whole thing something of a joke. Still it was an interesting editorial decision. It said at least this that there is a considerable appetite even now so Many years after Mccarthy s death for what the whole business is All about and that Cohn s Book is highly revealing for anyone who has such an appetite. As indeed it is. This has Noth ing a All to do with the indisputable fact that Cohn s Book is self serving on the other hand Cohn did t write the kind of Book the critics could most easily Hove dealt with namely one which uncritically supported everything Mccarthy did or said during the period of their association. Rather Cohn s Book ays in effect this 1 Mccarthy is a Complex Man whose movements were frequently Dis organized 2 he was never the is so Long overdue namely a thoughtful reexamination of the great Mccarthy controversy. What makes Cohn s Book so very interesting is its Confirma Tion of a Basic Datum of con temporary America. It is that cer Tain Points of View Are not publicly tolerated for fear of end ing As Mccarthy did drunk invalided discredited. Mccarthy produced in the opinion of the reviewer for the new York times a healthy revulsion against the reckless kind of super american ism he represented. He May in deed have run the demagogue business into the ground for the next generation or so. At least we have had Only a few card Board imitations of the Breed since he passed this i read the situation differently. What has happened most anxiously in the last two or three years is a banquet of Wanton anti americanism which has come about in part As a result of an Over reaction to mccarthyism. And to this a reaction in turn is now brewing. The undiluted anti americanism of such Folk heroes As Benjamin Spock and the pot set intellectuals is creat ing a Resolute though Unver bal sized opposition. It is at the moment weak and i wish that under its current leadership it is tightly wound into the George Wallace movement it would stay weak. But the impulses to opposition Are there and they Are nurtured by those americans who believe that what Mccarthy was All about was the Effort to affirm an american consensus which excluded certain things. Certain things As yes in american. The repression of mccarthyism so brutal so total drove these sentiments underground. There they gather and May Well do much More damage than the motion who bullied the poor defense less writer who confessed an admiration for Stevenson. C s of. Defense dept. Cutting muscle not fat s up to something something Lesof considerable National significance and 3 in any Case contumely to which he was subjected was out of proportion o his offences. Fair enough one would think. A but of How the guardians of he demonology have leaded one reviewer recalls How my rth ism hit him in his particular circumstances causing one Matron to report him to the of a Security risk 1 after i cd publicly confessed Admira on a Adlai Stevenson which Moy be in , �9"� silly matrons but hardly 009 against Mccarthy or Cohn. Needless to say unlikely Flat Cohn Book will Couse what Ira c. Eaker the congressional Man Date to reduce the Federal budget for next year by $6 Bil lion resulted in a decision to take about $3 billion of this Cut from the depart ment of defense All present Evi Dence indicates that Dod has elected in this extremity to Cut the muscle and spare the a reduce troops and weapons and keep the overhead. Already the Navy has announced plans to retire eight air squadrons and so ships. The Fly ing squadrons reduce the anti submarine forces and the ships include at least one nuclear Powe Iod submarine several do stroy is a transport seve Iol mine sweepers and support ships such As repair vessels and oilers. The reduction of out naval forces is All the More inexplicable in View of the heavy commit ment to the vietnamese Wor Ond la to intelligence Iep Oil confine ing rapidly growing russian sea Power. The air Force to meet its directed reduction will retire air defense squadrons eliminate ele ments of the defense Early warn ing line de defer air plane purchases and reduce combat troop strength. Air Force military personnel for 1969 will be several thou Sand less than for the present year despite the fact that the shortage of pilots has made it necessary to borrow fling instructors from Germany to meet the quotas of the flying train ing command. The army plan to Odd an additional division has now been scrubbed troop strength will be reduced and there is such a dire shortage of Heli copter pilots that some ate be ing returned to combat is l lit i ii Sif 111 Fth 1 � hrs of to sic 1-1,1 St ii j tie More than a year in the United states and others will soon begin a third tour m Viet Nam. The Reserve and National guard will take heavy cuts. Air National guard transport squad Rons which have contributed tremendously to the air lift requirements in Vietnam Are be ing inactivated this undoubtedly is the first time in our history when our military forces Are being deliberately reduced during the Prog Ress of o War and before there is any sign of a successful conclusion of the conflict. Hearings before congressional committees indicate it was hoped that any of the $6 billion Cut assigned to Dod would come out of overhead. The last year of the Eisenhower administration the office of the Secretary of defense budget was about s225 million currently the defense Secretary s office costs More than $2 billion pre Robert Mcnamara less than 500 employees reported duct 13 the Sec j i t , to than 20,000 do so. This cancerous growth of Dod with its crate for centralization of functions and creation of new operating agencies has not resulted in a corresponding de crease in the staffs of the army Navy and air Force if the defense Secretary s of fice were Cut by a billion dollars the staffs and overhead of the army. Navy and air Force could be Cut by a like amount a without loss of efficiency. The Senate foreign relations committee recently disclosed that Dod is spending Many millions on social science studies and International Relo ions projects with think tanks which Ari More approx pan e or the state department or a disarmament Agency. Congress when it n september can alter present Pentagon retrenchment plans Cut muscle keep fat since de sense authorization and Appio Bills for 19o9 Are i of o i e it
