European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 04, 1995, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday january 4, 1995 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13. Deal rethinking government s role George f. Will what May be the most interesting month  March 1933 has begun. Then a charismatic president produced by a desecrate crisis accelerated a process begun with intellectual ferment earlier inthe Century an alteration of the relation ship of the citizen to the Central govern ment. Now with neither a crisis nor a charismatic Leader the nation increasingly irritated by that Post new Deal relationship is re opening questions Lon considered closed recently at a panel discussion Bull gently titled what to kill first agencies to dismantle programs to eliminate and regulations to Stop Christo Pher Demuth of the american enter prise Institute said the title put him in mind of a bumper sticker seen on Newyork taxis so Many pedestrians so Little  he playfully said that Given Washington s suddenly expansive Sens of the possible perhaps the country should simply go Back to the articles of confederation and Start Over no but Back to 1900" is a service Able summation of the conservatives goal which is to reverse Many results of the _ Liberal project first formulated around the turn of the Century. That project was to concentrate political Power i Washington and Washington Power in the presidency and later also in the supreme court in order to Correct the in competence of the people and the anachronistic or worse nature of their local allegiances and institutions. With the new Century came burgeoning Faith in scientific management of society a Celebration of elites of experts who could direct the rationalization of society. Progress said progressives was being retarded by unqualified amateurish Citi Zens encumbered by retrograde parochial values. Progressive presidents should be galvanizing articulatory of the nation Al  y 7 a a \ on March 4,1933, Franklin by Rose yet in his first inaugural address Pecan mobilizing americans for  Washington urging them to rur pc As a trained and Loya army to sacrifice to explosives for the Good of a common  this intellectual Pedigree of the Liberal project is traced in an essay by Michael Joyce and William Schambra. For a boo forthcoming from the Hudson Institute. They note that National wealth has been steadily siphoned upwards for decades to support vast bureaucracies of social serv   "  our elites write Joyce an Schambra have spent eight decades explaining to the american people that modern circumstances Are far too Complex for them to Hope to govern themselves far better to shift Public decisions upward to sophisticated rational  but by now these elites Are associated in the pub Lic mind with what Joyce and Scha Bracall a Campaign to sap the authority of local institutions including the family by celebrating unfettered Salt cd prussion and by arguing that children Are better off without pedantry about right and wrong or that disruptive by immoral behaviour is just an alternative  _ today the nation is in revolt against what Joyce and Schambra Call liberalism s Cam Saign of civil  the revolt re acts widespread worry about the unravel ing of the orderly coherent moral communities that americans once built around themselves with Strong local institutions. Joyce and Schambra agree with de Tocqueville who marvelling at americans Talent for local organization believed that a weak Central government was an aim of the founders. 4 by today s Liberal disdain for state and local governments derives partly from the Dis reputable record of those governments re Garding racial matters during the formative decades of today s elites. But just As conservatives can no longer organize their pro Grammatic thinking around detestation of the soviet Union liberals must accept that the Mississippi of the 1960s is As gone As the soviet Union is. The phrase states rights is no longer encoded racism it is a reaffirmation of constitutional and philosophic principles older than and Superior to the Liberal project. Robert merry of congressional quarterly recalls Pat Moynihan s first Senate Campaign in 1976, against the con scr Atic incumbent James Buckley addressing a labor audience Moynihan said look there s this particular fringe and their one fundamental problem is the simply never accepted the new Deal Moynihan added did t Franklin Roosevelt Settle this Issue once and for All i mean do we really have to go Over it again yes we do because the fringe i marginal no More. Washington Post Dean Rusk s Good in Fen Oris Necef no apology Rich my life was More than the Vietnam War Dean Rusk told his son Richard during their collaboration on As savvy his 1990 autobiography. But that War was his defining moment making him in the words of his Washington Post obituary a focal Point for the scorn and vitriol of anti War Street do Man stators and other opponents of the War in  but for those of us who served there Acari Rusk was one of the very few political leaders who did not betray us. Unlike ills treacherous counterpart defense Secretary Robert s. Mcnamara. Eighteen years after the fact head fitted that As Early As 1965 he thought the Vietnam War militarily unwinnable even As he continued to Send Amer ican soldiers to their death the Sci he then bragged that Al the while he had been schmoozing with the anti War movement. Kusk Fuci Curty of the other hand extended both to the presidents whom he served As Well As to the soldiers on incline whose lives were at stake. "1 have served at both ends of military command he said receiving orders As an army colonel in the China Burma India theater during world War ii an giving orders for Vietnam in the 60s. In some ways it is More difficult to give orders although you can t Tel veterans that. But whethers Sung orders or receiving them i deeply regretted every casualty on All sides of every War fought in my  but in making decisions or obeying them i had duty to perform. It was that sense 01 duty that some one must do this Job and make those decisions an also my full belief in those principles that underlay our policies that sustained me As Secretary of state.". Incredible As it May sound today where duplicity in Public officials is the Norm Rusk actually believed i what he was doing. Since leaving office in january 1969," he wrote in 1990, i have teen offered Man chances to present a Mea culpa on Vietnam but i have hot availed myself of those opportunities. I thought the Prin Cipal decisions made by presi dents Kennedy and Johnson were the right decisions at the Lime they were  i supported those  live with that arid others can make of it what they wiil have not apologized for my role in Vietnam for the simple Rea son that i believed in the principles that underlay our commitment to South Vietnam and Why we fought that War. Myself would Hope that none of our men and women who served in Vietnam feel that they were engaged in shameful Enterprise. They served at the Behest of constitutional authority on issues perceived to involve War and peace and the survival of the. Human race the have nothing of which to be  but those were not the views reflected in his Washington Post obituary. Instead it noted that Rusk acknowledged in a 1973 interview with the Washington Post that 1 underestimated the tenacity of the North vietnamese and i overestimated the patience of the american people ". Not Tju Otid was Rusk s explanation for that North Harry g. Summers vietnamese tenacity. In retrospect without my wish ing to sound bitter he said in his autobiography the North vietnamese had Little incentive to negotiate Amend to the War. Americans opposed to the War. In effect said to Hanoi now just hang in there Fellows and you will get what you want politically even though you can t win it militarily could the Vietnam War have been won i think so if we could have maintained Solidarity on the Home front and if we could have accepted winning As de find by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations " preventing a North Vietnam s takeover of South Viet Nam by Force. Hut they were encouraged to Mick it Cut and they eventually got it  hut Dean Rusk s greatest contribution to his country May be not what happened in Vietnam but what did not happen in the world at Large As the Washington Post editor Ali cd after Rusk i death on december 20, 1994, " h e did t keep the country out of War but he worked to keep it out 6l world War  that work began Long before Vietnam what we arc trying to do is maintain peace find Security  general . Nuclear War Rusk told the Senate in1951 in the debate Over korean War strategy. Arid his actions during the 1962 cuban missile crisis were in Strumental in averting nuclear War. Again in Vietnam his fear of sparking a nuclear War with China was one of the major constraints on . Military strategy  to lose the War he believed than win it with nuclear weapons.  of tiros