The New Republic

READ MORE >>

For at least eight years it seemed reasonable to me to assume that sooner or later, no matter what we did in Vietnam, things would end badly for us. This feeling was not based on any desire to see us humiliated, or any feeling that the other side represented the forces of goodness and light; it just seemed that the only way to stave off an eventual Communist victory was with an open-ended, and therefore endless, application of American firepower in support of the South Vietnamese regime. READ MORE >>

A new book and news accounts from San Clemente depict Richard Nixon as he appeared to one of his White House writers before Watergate destroyed his presidency and as he is in exile and nearly total seclusion six months after his resignation. The book is William Safire's Before the Fall (Doubleday; $12.50). READ MORE >>

Last month as the UN General Assembly was passing resolutions in New York conferring legitimacy on the Palestine Liberation Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris, by excluding Israel from its European regional activities, was anticipating and, as Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre said in a remarkable joint statement, "justifying in advance Israel's physical annihilation." The Arab-inspired resolutions included terminating UNESCO's small aid to Israeli cultural institutions and asked that UNESCO's director general undertake to supervise e READ MORE >>

What would this country be without all those candies and cookies and cakes and sugar-coated cereals? It would be healthier and wealthier, with more good teeth and more to spend on products more essential than sugar. We are the world's most voracious consumers of sweets, as we are of everything else. An average American consumes about 100 pounds of sugar a year (not counting 30 pounds of other liquid sweeteners), a figure that marks him as a sugar addict when compared to his ancestors. READ MORE >>

"The Ruth," Heywood Broun once wrote, "is mighty and shall prevail." George Herman Ruth, Sultan of Swat, has prevailed, a quarter-century since his death and close to 40 years since he hung up his uniform as an active baseball player, to the extent of having four book-length accounts of his life and times appear this year. For a man who read and wrote only with difficulty, that is quite a bit of posthumous attention. READ MORE >>

Americans see nothing ignoble in riches, but we are suspicious of money used to elect or to sway politicians. This suspicion that big money taints politics slacked off somewhat with the emergence of big donors who are not beholden to big business. Rockefeller generosity to Republicans has been matched by big labor's generosity to Democrats. The liberal Committee for an Effective Congress came on the scene, followed by Common Cause. The Humphrey and McGovern lists of contributors were not lacking in millionaires. READ MORE >>

On October 2 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a public hearing on former White House aide Peter Flanigan's nomination by President Ford to be US ambassador to Spain. Even before it was officially announced the Flanigan nomination had stirred up opposition among Senate Democrats such as Majority Whip Robert Byrd and Thomas Eagleton. Byrd was bothered by Flanigan's role in the unusual settlement of the ITT antitrust case, and Eagleton had encountered Flanigan while investigating White House pressures on the Environmental Protection Agency. READ MORE >>

READ MORE >>

Insofar as goodwill can carry us through the next two years, the future is promising. Mr. Ford’s geniality, his informality, his sincerity and determination to do right lift the spirit. Watching the broad smile that never left the face of the Speaker of the House as he listened to President Ford address Congress last week, one knew that Mr. Nixon had really departed, that we had in his place a leader who is liked, who says what he means and means what he says. When the President spoke the word “candor,” it was as if one had suddenly met a long-lost and cherished friend. READ MORE >>