European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 28, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes May 1985 columns William Buckley Vonnegut committee did no service with Book list Here is the kind of thing that happens to you when you get involved in Brace yourself in Congress set up something called the National endowment for never mind for the moment whether it was a Good but lets at least suppose that it is an organization designed to Praise dam Coralic practices and to stimulate in no democratic countries an appetite for the association of american which is what you think it sets up something called the inter National Freedom to publish it is charged with occupying a stall or two at the annual Moscow Book so it addresses itself to the question what books shall we include in the american Catalon the National endowment for democracy Steps for Ward and Here is toward the Hundred Odd you need to consummate your Moscow go ahead and select books that illustrate the diversity of publishing in As also the strength of its democratic the publishers set up a committee to select the and name As its head Kurt the name conjures of a writer highly highly and very much at Odds with american foreign in particular our policy of maintaining a nuclear deterrent the Vonnegut committee reports in a list of 313 a draft of the list is examined by Carl the head of the National endowment for he writes to the head publisher and this is not a representative in not suggesting you Cut out any of the books nominated by the Vonne gut but am suggesting that you add some books that will communicate to the soviet readers Dar ing enough to visit the american Booth that there Are actually a few american scholars and writers around who agree with such programs As Star such stands As nuclear deterrent the publishers representative raises his hand in James Reston horror go he says to the very thought of inspecting the list looking for balance sounds to me like keep it up and they will Bury you in i demand an apology before we publishers will even deign to accept balance due on your whereupon Patrick who has writ ten five books better than 50 listed in the none of which five is among the gets up on the floor of the Senate and says the craziest thing said on the floor of the Senate this he de mands that Gershman apologize to the publishers for saying that the list was ideologically now that is on the order of apologizing to the Arab states for suggesting that their policies have been anti the list is unquestionably a single reference Point is sufficient to demonstrate this where As Henry Kissinger monumental and monumentally important memoirs Are not Seymour Hershy criticism of Kissinger for everything from the fall of Adam to the assassination of Sadat is Vonnegut defended his list on the grounds that whatever failures there Are in it Are failures owing to fatigue and Resig one is surprised he didst fatigue and resignation owing to the cold War and the certitude of violent death for the whole now they Are All yammering about How it is impossible to come Forward with a balanced list of of Why doctors come out with balanced portfolio managers come out with balanced in Deans go to work and come out with balanced Why cant scholars and writers come out with balanced Reading lists that with defense with the Vietnam with the life of Lyndon Johnson granted it would be hard to come out with a balanced Reading list on the policies of the soviet unless you define balance As that position which lies Halfway Between the daily workers and the National but Lincoln warned us against that kind of did he not senator Moynihan has sought ardently in the Senate to support the National endowment for and presumably his goal in asking it to apologize is to snuff out the but there ought to be Contro Versy when people engage in so ostentatiously tendentious an act As the Vonnegut committee engaged and a Little controversy when someone who behaved As proudly when he served in the United nations in criticizing asks an apology of Carl Gershman for telling the Universal press Syndicate who lost Why did Reagan want of Scarf a tangle with Cuba the Reagan administration is stuck with so Many unavoidable prob lems these Days budget Trade that its a Puzzle Why it insists on punishing itself with additional avoidable its latest example of self inflicted after the presidents tour of the Pitburg was its decision to set up an official radio service to Tell the cuban people hours every Day How wonderful life is in the United states and How dreary it is in As if they didst they have been hearing this news from their families who have escaped to Florida and from the commercial radio stations on the main land that come in loud and Clear to Hava the official voice of with its relay stations in the with the possible exception of the the most reliable and detailed source of electronic news in the and can be heard from one end of Cuba to the too bad its ignored at the Reagan administration is spending a bucket to run radio named for one of Cubas greatest heroes of if it had been named radio Monroe to emphasize that the United states would not permit foreign nations to threaten the Freedom and Security of the Western that might have made but calling it radio Marti was As Offen Sive to Fidel Castro As it would have been real growth v to president Reagan if Castro had started broadcasting to the United states on radio the predictable result was that As soon As radio Marti proclaimed Buenos Castro who has the capacity to Jam All Broad casts with the flick of a switch announced that he had suspended his agreement with Reagan to release political prisoners and up to cuban immigrants a at the same he cancelled his commitment to take Back to Cuba the cuban criminals and mental patients now languishing in obviously this is self serving cuban propaganda and no doubt Castro will reconsider after a but with All the More important things it has to handle at Home and would the Reagan administration get into this silly controversy castros so called revolution has been a spectacular he has been surviving by borrowing from the soviet Union and stealing modern technology from the or elsewhere As Best he can and shipping his unemployed As military mercenaries to fight Moscow wars of liberation in Africa when he cant even liberate him self or his people from Moscow subs in his declining Castro has begun to wonder about his dreams of leading a communist revolution in the he is still fiddling with it in Nicaragua and the rest of Central Ameri but recently has been trying to reestablish diplomatic relations with the major nations of South America in the Hope they will lend him the Money they dont have and Are trying to borrow for Castro is no despite All his heroic Pride and bloated he knows that Cuba is Only 90 Miles from Florida and a Long Way from whose political and economic philosophy is rejected by every communist party that Ever heard about the invention of the so Why not let him Deal with the con sequences of his failures and the failures of the communist system Why Badger him Over 14 hours a Day with official broadcasts out of Washington telling the cubans that his system int when they know that better than any body else All radio Marti will do is revive the old bogey of Yankee domination maybe castros last Chance of but that not the Way Reagan sees four years being More interested in propaganda than in he decided that we should have a radio transmitter in Florida to educate the with the support of Hes got maybe he has a radio Marti will come into Cuba louder and stronger than Florida commercial stations or the voice of America More More More information about How pathetic they Are under and How wonderful it would be if they tossed him to the maybe this will but the guess Here is that the louder Washington shouts the less Havana will Lis my own silly View is that the Only things we have in common with Cuba Are geography and and if we could get an expansion latin Ameri can team into the big As we did with we might make More Progress than telling Cuba what bums they o1985 new York times Syndicate