European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 16, 1969, Darmstadt, Hesse Thursday january 16, 1969 the stars and stripes Page Max Lerner analyses of presidents with Lyndon Johnson going and Richard Nixon coming amid the Din and fanfare of the inauguration con anyone Kep his and in estimating the Quai Itie of a Good president the on who a a Saint yesterday May be a bum today and a pathetic but human figure tomorrow. The question of who s in and who s out who s up and who s Down is constantly being debated by scholar. Can it be otherwise in a period of assassinations and Vio Lence of the new left and Black Power and new racial hatreds to Are bound to go Back and re discover the dark and bloody ground of the past. In a time of wars and rumours of wars we Are bound to revalue past Lead ers in terms of How they got sucked into the War vortex or avoided it. In an age when a so desperately need human links with each other How can we help looking Back to be what leaders kept the potential vol John p. Roche Lence of their time in Check hitting the High spots of the presidency before the current Century i can report that the great figures Washington Jef Ferson Jackson Lincoln Are More or less under attack but in no great danger of losing their High place in history. Amid All the Radical re evaluation George Washington is supremely the Man of character and command. Thomas Jefferson is being attacked for his ambiguous record on civil liberties despite All his grand phrases about free Dom and for his ambivalent judg ments of the intellectual potential of the Blacks. Yet he remains secure partly because he managed to make a great leap Westward for America while keeping the nation out of War in Europe but also because of his Power of intellect his Grace of language and his capacity to take Radical positions which have largely with stood the erosion of time. Shape of tables not so trivial unless the american people Are prepared to cop out of Viet Nam by finding com pretend for a disguised surrender they should pay a Good Deal mor attention to the meaning of what prof. Henry Kissinger has called the Paris Vic president Nguyen by is not on of my favorite characters to is a sort of vietnamese version of Spiro Agne but the argument about the shape of the tables and who shall sit where is not the trivial affair that Many commentators have mad it out to be. Secreted in the argument Over procedure Are some vital questions of principle. Let us assume for example that in the Paris negotiation which led to american Independence Back in 1781-83, the French government which had provided the bulk of support for the revolutionary War had come in with the american delegation while the British insisted on appearing with a separate contingent of tories. One can Only imagine How John Adams John Jay and Ben am a Franklin would have reacted to this representation of the loyalist liberation As it was the treatment of to Ries or loyalists As they called themselves proved on of the harder negotiating Points on the Long Agenda. The american attitude towards the tories in fact was hard As nails. By comparison president Thlu and Viet president by look positively Zompa Tsionas. They Are clearly prepared to accept a greek solution that is the Pat Tern Weed in Orenee after world War ii involving the outlawing of aimed rebellion but thac Cep Tance of a communist front in try american simply kicked out the tories who populate new Brunswick and parts of Ontario and expropriated their property. Given this attitude toward the loyalist liberation front John Adams and his colleagues would certainly have made vice presi Dent by sound like a Dove if on Day the British had said to the French let s negotiate the american War. You bring your americans we will bring ours and the four of us can sit Down and work things like by with the National liberation front the americans absolutely refused to accept the tories As a political this did not mean that they re fused to recognize their exist ence or negotiate with them on occasion prisoners taken from tory regiments in the British army were not for example treated As traitors whatever logic might have suggested. How Ever Adams and co. Implacably refused to accept the legitimacy of american loyalist and the British who were tired and bored with fighting finally sold the tories out. Similarly i believe Saigon is absolutely right in refusing to accept the Elf As an equal in negotiations. The Elf is not equal it is a Hanoi creation which in fact has less vitality in South Vietnam today than at any time in the past four years. It is tragic that Fust at the time when even the most cynical commentators in Vietnam agree that there has been a tremendous improvement in the military Posi Tion of Saigon there i great pressure on the american govern ment to go easy in Paris the communists of course tens american War weariness and Are trying to pros in Paris a position they hav not won in Vietnam. 0 twi Kino of syndic the opinion pro in the columns my Wroten on thu pal apr it Tho of the author and a in no Way to Beon to re a or Una the View of the 8t�r end strip it of or of tit United Sut be Rani no Andrew Jackson also withstand attack. Despite his limited intellectual depth Hwa the first real populist in the Whit House joining the people on the farms with the people in the new cities. But it is Abraham Lincoln who is most in danger of the revisionists for they see in him the Man who refused to take a straight abolitionist position despite the later emancipation proclamation. His Central policy position was stated in his letter to Horace Greeley where he made the saving of the Union his prime goal and placed the question of slavery and liberation in the perspective of that goal. When Lincoln s birthday comes up this year i suspect he will not get undiluted eulogies. But for me he remains with All these doubts the greatest of the american presidents. It is with the 20th-Century presidents that the sharpest re evaluations Are being made. Theodore Roosevelt is Down because his bluster and his heavy emphasis Oil the military Virtues Are for the Young generation to take As is his emphasis on the strenuous William Howard Taft is up a bit because his legislative achievement despite his conservatism went far beyond . S. Woodrow Wilson is drastically Down in part because the Freud bullitt psychoanalytic Book Fias co though it was showed up his habit of equating himself with god in part because his Moraliz ing style of foreign policy grates on us today. Warren Harding is up just a Little if that can be said about a Man who in the new Francis Russel biography emerges As a weakling and erotically very human but not a blackguard. Franklin Roosevelt is decidedly Down mainly because he stayed too Long in the presi Dency and his military decisions in the War did t reckon with their political consequences. Harry Truman who has been up a Battleground for the historians was sharply up five years ago but is now under attack by the new left historians who see him As a cold Warrior and sem to ignore his remarkable list of successful decisions. Dwight Eisen Hower is up mainly for keeping America from War with China and from becoming too deeply embroiled in the vietnamese War. John Kennedy is up despite some of his foreign policy fumbling for his crisis management of the cuban missile confrontation for his decision on the space probe and for the Appeal he had and still has to the younger Genera Tion. Lyndon Johnson s and Downs Are for the future but i shall make my own size up Effort in another piece. Clearly these fluctuating Esti mates have less to do with the men themselves than the Way to thresh out our own intellectual and moral dilemmas in every area. C 1969, lot Angelet times Clayton Fritchey Russell key to Senate the surprising election of Edward Kennedy As the new assistant majority Leader of the Senate naturally attracted great attention but the headlines obscured an interesting simultaneous event the formal certification of sen. Richard Russell d-ga., As the real head of the Senate. For years the immensely influential georgian has been the acknowledged president of the club the inner Circle that Domi nates the institution. Now How Ever the August upper body has officially mad him president pro tempore succeeding Carl Hayden of Arizona who has retired at 91. This will not increase the pres Tige of Russell already at the maximum but it is by no Means an empty Honor for the presi Dent prot Moor is among Cibar things thud in tin of Suc cession to the Whit House pre ceded Only by the Vic president and the speaker of the Nous. Unlike some of i new Cabinet appoint or ident elect Nixon knows what makes the Senate tick having been a member himself. Young Kennedy and Mike Mansfield May have the leadership titles but Nixon is Well aware that the Fate of his legislative program and much else will finally rest with Russell and his Southern follow ers who run 10 of the Senate s 16 standing committees. Russell has Long been chair Man of the armed services com Mihee. Now he is taking Over the even More powerful appropriations committee yielding armed services to his old Friend sen. John Stennis a miss. Between them they exert almost limitless leverage on spending manpower military operations and con duct of the War. Russell could have been elected democratic Leader 15 years age. Instead he backed his protege Lyndon Johnson for this Post. Johnson has Seldom Don anything without consulting his Patron. A wis Nixon will do much the same. The new administration will make a Mistak if it assumes As Many do that Russell is a simple Hawk on Vietnam or an Asia first zealot. He has supported the War but grudgingly and because our forces and our Flag were the senator s attitude toward Vietnam Indochina and Asia has been fundamentally consist ent Over the last two decades. He has always opposed . Intervention in this area. In 1967 he said we need a new policy More than new troops in recently his think ing seems to have gone beyond that. Apparently he has come to the conclusion that we need a new policy for All of Asia especially communist China with whom he would now Exchange diplomatic representatives. There have been hints that Nixon also feels the . Should review its general posture in the far East. If this is so a May have the Good Fortune of finding a sympathetic supporter in the Dwan of the Senate. C 1�9, not duty. Inc
