Effects of the Vietnam War; 2; Moral-Political Impact

we gave our were you know there's only one answer which i can't take credit for a richer vein that i think is a good one that is untoward foolishly given has not made wise by keeping it you know someone may have made a volatile mario i think you hope that i can persuade him from keeping his word this is the second program in a series of five on the effects of the vietnam war on the american society the series was taken from a daylong seminar held early this year encana fly new jersey the ad hoc committee is sponsoring the seminar brought together experts in a wide variety of professions to discuss the war's impact on the number of facets of our lives in tonight's discussion on the moral political impact we will hear two ministers an attorney a history professor a businessman and a cartoonist for the new yorker magazine we will also hear excerpts from the winds of change a speech on political impact so the war delivered at madison square garden but i was democratic senator harold hughes the first speaker was a minister the reverend

birchall anderson mr anderson is pastor of the trinity lutheran church and can apply and is a member of the executive board of the new jersey senate of the lutheran church in america mr anderson noted that is the political issues become more and more fuzzy the moral answers become less and less clear he says that the war has demonstrated some rather unpleasant fact about human nature whether you lean politically to the right or to the left there are certain problems with this particular war makes all of us face they are unpleasant we may not like in the first has to do with the question of the conscientious objector there was a day when however involved and complicated the question of conscientious objection might have been today it has moved into a different category there was a time when we didn't really question whether our nation was right in its stance in its involvement the question was not about the country it was about the individuals theological perspective of what he was doing

that is what has changed the question today for the young man is it just isn't right to fight or does it not right to fight is the right fight now even if that made the right and another location isn't right now i am pleased that while i don't think my own the nomination has always represented being the first with anything they were the first group to support selective conscientious objection now whether we clergyman like it or not is we counsel with our young men going into the military this is a new problem we face whatever our own perspectives the new problem we face is that the young men are questioning this not on theological grounds a poll they may be theologically there maybe theological undercurrent but in a broader humanitarian morality not with theological definition they're not calling out a bible verse thou shalt not kill they're talking about much broader things and it's much more difficult to deal with these number

one you see fine the young man is at war with his father with his uncle and all the rest are suddenly i think the problem we are facing today is that we used to have a worldview of communism when i say we used to i'm oversimplifying it vividly but in general it was east versus west we need to come to a new understanding of how we relate ethically with a culture with an economic system which is a variance with arts as to whether we think we can only solve the problem by beating them out some of the attitudes of song our people remind me of this marvelous poster one of the kids on up in the basement of a church to the anger of a great many older folks that showed the fist with a gun in it and a big old coming down on him to help stamp out violence there are some people who assume this is the only way we will solve this attention i think we need to come tomorrow at the about this fairly the peace movement the civil rights movement any movement today for any issue was a mixed bag and whether we like it or not

it's a mixed that we don't like the company always that we must keep in this mix situation all right the coattails of movements for all kinds of ulterior motives the phrase that i use which i think we need to face very concretely is that is a communist fascist john purchase you name it they all fish and troubled waters but by sinking all of their boats you do not and troubled waters it is easy to get support from selective groups by shooting boats which you don't solve the basic problems its way this is a new problem for the clergy not a new one but one that has forced upon us now whether we want it or not for slate we are faced with a moral issue of what is patriotism what is the religious man's place in society is your patriotism nearly chauvinism is the greatest thing our country has the fact that we can gather here and say there are things we don't want as a fellow says love it or

leave it really the man was undermining the country in wanting to take away from its real distinction it's real hope for the future and i think also we need to face a moral issue of whether or not we deal with rumor or fact i hear a lot of stories about how we got into vietnam in my reaction is my god what newspapers do these idiots read or whether they get their information from it and a sense of history a sense of truthfulness and news coverage in what we read in what we believe is essential because in the end and all have truth is i have lived in that half lies even more potent than the half truth is i think the my lai massacre has made his face something we didn't want to face ever and this is another moral issue and that is if i may tell a little story about roman catholic monsignor who preached i shouldn't give him credit for that but he did he did what i should say credit he didn't wanna be said to have preached because he wasn't really supposed to but he spoke and my church when i was in jersey city in which he made the comment

that the reason he and i got along together so marvelously well was that he had discovered that i was just as lousy as he was you know we like to talk about our oneness with mankind based on the fact that they're just as nice as we are and that's why we fight the my lai massacre has brought home something that i say every sunday morning the configure almighty most merciful god we confess on to the that we are by nature sinful and on plain we discovered to our horror that we are not really better than other people now admittedly the north vietnamese have done much worse by more terrified by the man who takes his standards from the garbage can and says someone is worse than we are we have been made to face is usually we like it or not and that we will solve problems not by lifting her skirts and four and at last of all i think we are faced with the moral question that economic and political systems are to reflect what is it to be

human we have believed rather naive when the united states for a long long time that economic and political systems operate under self sustaining and self perpetuating laws and that they are not reflections of what the basic question is as the songs that's a long time ago what is man the power of mindful of you i think we need to face this issue very clearly very squarely and say we need to find an economic and a political system that does not say well in laura's we have better thai says with the increase shortage of raw materials with the increased takeover of common labor by automation cyber nation they all work ethic your business that we will survive because everyone works eight hours a day and i'm probably more radical than those were said to be radical because i think both the left and the right are hopelessly out of date where fast approaching an age where the assumption that we will get along because everyone is working in our today is naive that is a moral question because what is it to be human is it just to

work must we create work and stopped some of quote unquote progress well these are moral questions i n good that was the reverend brittle anderson pastor of trinity lutheran church and ten a flyer attorney michael allen the next speaker but that some legal questions surrounding our presence in vietnam when first told that the topic of this panel would be the moral and political impact of the war in vietnam and maybe even broader war in general i was a little taken aback by the precise cause of the topic it reminded me in one sense of an apocryphal exam question in college where you're supposed to be given one hour to light entrees the history of western civilization from sixteen hundred to the present i think that any attempt in the hour that is a lot of this panel to fully discussed the moral and political impact of war would be a futile effort

in some discussions in the last few weeks so there is people have mentioned to me certain aspects of the questions raised by the wall which bears some relation to the legal profession and the legal questions generally and the most i can do in the few minutes allotted to me is an attempt to throw out some of these questions in the hope that maybe some of the other panelists will comment on them and maybe it will evoke some additional thinking on the part of the various members of the audience it was very interesting to me when i attempted to get into the legal literature that has grown up around the war in vietnam and and as such questions whether it is legal or not to see the great amount that has been written in an attempt to place the us involvement in vietnam in some

perspective with the whole thing something like normal air no i think give up until two three years ago anybody had publicly try to draw any parallels between united states political activity and the sort of actions which were discussed at the nuremberg trial trials you would have been looked upon not as a leftist but as a plane not this was a concept that we in the united states or could never recognize we could never questioned that may be something that are government is doing something which is the policy of this government could actually be in violation of what we consider to be the norms of international law it is extremely shocking when one looks at the very simple principles that were enunciated nuremberg which by the way were not new to nuremberg that really wore a clarification of

principle that had been established by international treaties in the nineteen twenties and the three main aspects of nuremberg was to say that we have three types of crimes crimes against humanity crimes against peace and war crimes and the crimes against humanity are generally those which involves mass destruction in connection with crimes against peace or war crimes now many of those who support the war and even those who oppose it would object is saying that the united states has been involved in any sort of mass destruction but we can even pass that aside in the end it just such a nice broad questions as crimes against peace and walk ons even though it's an accepted approach that's someone a country has the right to go to the

defense of a friend who is attacked from the outside when we try to draw this as the legal justification for involvement in vietnam we come to another interesting question what happens with that friend in this case that the energy that exists solely by virtue of the support and forbearance of the country which now sixties its site its existence as a justification for its military actions we look at that the energy and said that as the legitimate government of south vietnam we have an obligation to defend south vietnam whether that was true or not let's go that therefore we are legitimately in south vietnam well what happens if you ask a basic question was the m regime the legitimate governments that vietnam what time does not permit to go into all these questions and i don't i don't think we've we had a whole day we could not even

get through the surface of the questions raised by this first issue but the point i was to make an album made some progress in that direction is to to get you thinking along these lines to realize that the implications of what the united states has done is doing must be looked upon not only from our traditional political legal and moral attitudes we must look upon these things in a broader range and when we look at it through this broader view we find some very frightening things and come to some very frightening conclusions i we're redefining what we mean by moral as we approach this tactic of them are political impact our next speaker is professor of history columbia university dr mark right and their historical

dimension of the problem you know it gives a couple of concerns and one fashion our involvement in vietnam and its consequences really the perspective of our relations with the soviet block and i hope a little unsettling to illustrate world and the complexity and ambiguity any historical the situation gives rise to and therefore creates more problems and i think that's one of the reasons obviously novel in one of american involvement in vietnam well the assumption off the soviet threat and what is more important with the view that the soviet threat was coming from a single monolithic block this assumption which was based on experience we had during the second world war was a stalinist regime the fact that up too late forties the soviet bloc was indeed a single blog insofar as it was entirely controlled

by the soviet union and we attended saint of the world as being polarized between two big powers the soviet union on the soviet bloc with its ideological and thought man that's an art world and this gave rise to the field believe that if you let go somewhere or the whole thing will fall of the domino theory of power politics in beijing now there's an assumption wage as i said it was based on an experience also involved the belief that of the soviet bloc was aiming at a drive for world communism and said that we had to stop it wherever any kind of an expression of their drive my uncle out how now ma'am when i go on the practice of this view and i think it has to be very much qualified

as a result of our involvement in india we had a very paradoxical consequences occur with respect to the soviet block relay our involvement in vietnam because they tied our hands because it showed up on a weakness to some extent remember that the soviet bloc to loosen up and even to break apart to some extent at least sending conflicting forces which had been held back by the lava towering force off of the soviet union conflicting ideas within the communist world where able to make himself failed and create something of a pluralism in that blockade laurel isn't based on that americans of national interests of different interpretations of what communist ideology should be the path to the future and so now all this fast that the growth of

independent policy by various powers which before that had been under soviet domination that live updates of the colonization with various us so here's how the country is trying to benefit from it and finally and i think ahead as a byproduct a sharpening of the sino soviet conflict know this may seem as far as i have done as being have an argument in favor of war that it had a preview these unexpected beneficial results viewed from the point of view of american national interest mr cunningham thank you because it's through this is lauren the case because the same course that has remained of the breakup of a lot of plays and whistling is paralyzing us taking advantage of this situation we cannot

the causation has created new forces that could be used for the benefit of mankind not only of all and now they're in the position to make news i'll rule in vietnam also provides one continuing ongoing unifying element of unifying element he made money together so they're far from continuing process all the polarization after soviet world our involvement yet ma'am only makes it possible for the summit walk through the green fuse together enjoyed again a shot i think precludes what is the most essential of any task of government in flexibility in adapting the new situation every another kind of the president's offer a legit and static view

of our polling that fails to take advantage of and is incapable off by making use of the opportunities that are being offered to not only learn but also to change the whole constellation of our international situation does the reality than in fact give us an opportunity to work pragmatically justify a change in moral view which show perhaps brings our first come and stare with your eyes our next speaker approaches from still another vantage point cartoonist george price of the new yorker magazine mr price frequent contributor to the letters to the editor column of the bergen record read portions of a letter he had written but never submitted three years before it was remarkable he said in that it was as appropriate in nineteen seventy eight as it had been in nineteen sixty seven he called a letter the

year of the nave one of those caucus on the house on american activities committee was quoting stephen decatur on this us by show a couple weeks ago when the young rebel got up to remind him the my country right or wrong that was purely a lot from that after that moment of truth there was some appreciative applause but he's usually ortiz when i was loaded with those either too dumb to get the message out to cozy to do it to give a damn so once again the all american joker had had the collusion of apathy he required to darken issue of the liberal it didn't all the ports and four was the loss of those were pressed by the invincibility of the neighboring states britain announced an absolute anyone who has the temerity to this concept doesn't suggest the name loo and loses group within the millennium is out of his hole among the tricks and a jogger has forced on the nation's bills this past year with the

escalation or conquest the conquest and barbarism and the ring of a stupid political sham battle battle in which the war was no longer an issue of truth that was the last election three years ago and there may be acceptable under three changes gunsmoke of sony's own songs says brook to most americans but retsinas we're chemical could be at their international protection racket to doomsday without taking a respectable minority it was an enormous fraud to exploit the resources and the peoples of the world seems incredible that anyone could view the talk the total same except from the vantage point of the rat pack without being overwhelmed with the iranians to see an order under prevails it was indeed a good year for the navy and a good year to taste the quality of our

society that was george price cartoonist for the new yorker magazine reading excerpts from his letter of the year of the navy come a stringer as scott is united states service manager for the cabbie soul the vision of the locust electrical services is a member of the border region so luther college in teaneck new jersey speaking as a non american he attempted to debunk some of the myths surrounding us policy in vietnam following him david stow of the national council of churches will speak on the role of the church in a divided society thomas stringer i'd like to address myself to the audience as a freedom of them an alien and that raises a number of questions and i think maybe you could help people are saying my apprehension about the society we live in the united states as a millennial made similar bubble up difficult for my particular disappeared and the senate panel

what i've got myself more as a citizen of the world rather just of that any particular country but as a as an alien i think it's a poem for me to emphasize they engage foreigners might have of this country at least from they might run i sprung from someone and they extolling vultures that has always been the minds of most of my compatriots as they weight watcher marco extols the freedom of the individual but as a citizen are a resident off this country and i find that in this question those what a deal of ambiguity and for example even ideas and helium find many doors and opportunities open to me that a large number of great american citizens themselves at night i find myself looking at a society which in many instances are pursuing a number of less

nice about what the united states is what is doing and what's purposes i note for example they emphasize of being placed on the lawn order math and i look at this question a little polish way i sometimes ask myself and many of these advocates would have been on the side of king george first light as a british subject it been on the side of the revolutionary but the scene that without descending ambiguities hear in this question of a pursuit of myths which seem to have had a stronger hold african society i got to cut tension today this of the vietnam war and the law the next myself i'd just like to be small for a beef with that that's number one south vietnam as a

separate country which we are defending from aggression number two we are fighting to protect the freedom of south vietnam with number three our military progress have been considerable net number four by reasoning the bombing of north vietnam we can drive hanoi to its knees number five army in enemy is not vietnam that's number six we have commitments to the south vietnamese and if we don't owe them our word will not be trusted anywhere in the free world next number seven if we leave all sides the job will fall in or fall as domino's that number if we have support from much of the free world for for for our war in vietnam number nine we can fight the war and make much progress at all number ten the end of the war which is

you seem also been the pursuit of these myths we have created mice the same thing in our own domestic situation for example in our years media we have the conflict but what they are saying compared to what the governor says we have the credibility gap we have sort of activities that are going on which are reminiscent of what went on in nazi germany and this is not an unusual sort of article written in the newspapers today ex officer says army spies on civilian activists and conceivably might have such a group and here with us today i might alter say the yellow thing everybody's little bit more about christine lehmann is that lately business that god is always on our site because it's got a you know was back he's got the little box living off after that the tanker half acre in america

whereas god is the god of creation the concern of the whole universe thank you very much i had last member of our panel is david stern adopter of theology and assess the general secretary for the overseas ministries of the national council of churches i didn't deliberately planted that way but we're beginning with a preacher and ending with every thank you katie orr to take me off the hook of those that last march about the church before their previous bigger violin and the text i have a drama critic of the new york times you wrote the other day about a way which he said was a bad way because its aim to bring moral uplifting he said the season for a moral out west there is rather tame if you're more a lot will go to the church a thousand or a surprising compliment because i wonder how many people now really think you do know the church for moral and i think the vietnam issue and the lines they tremendous moral

dilemma that churches find themselves and i reviewed the reactions of the churches as i see them from the national council as through the years so that the vaulting their own arguments and what i see in the church is about the same kind of uncertainty as i see in our society at large a growing anxiety and nervousness a growing sense that perhaps we got a lot of the terrible the steak and finally for a general consensus that we are somehow get out of what an inability to come to a clear as sharp conviction and statement that this is an unconscionable situation and a regardless of political issues on moral grounds we must

conclude that the church has not been able to find its way to this i'm interested that on the edges churches have sometimes active unspoken more clearly the president of my own church for example one small illustration that a very prominent part in the last what was a nation and that was a very courageous action on his part we have granola church growth like georgia and led a concern of an extremely forthright and that even subversive in regard after the war the churches have the rules and said said something about selective objection which is a very important i think moral and france and the church's have committed themselves to a concern for the sixty thousand american draft refugees and canada which is slightly courageous i think going forward looking what i've come to the conclusion of a little bit blessed by asking myself about the meaning of the

confessional senate we do and one where no there every week and a grain was my colleague that it is good to recognize that we're all sinners we're asking how long an institution and a society can live with a constantly repeated an accumulative sandwich we'd take know all a forthright steps to redress i think here probably church's with a society as a whole and perhaps the pictures from a live well help the church and the society move beyond this point which i think is terribly dangerous for all of us thank you ever in stowe are there some comments or questions from journalists to each other i think we raised them very important questions about mortality is this thing for mr oren new and reinterpretation of of morality in this context

of the war we will continue with a discussion on the moral political impact of the war following station identification this is not loving art and you're taking an active part in the community with this production of the public affairs unit <unk> alcon a community development specialist for the rutgers university corporate of service served as moderator of the panel says khan related questions from the audience to the panel between short run morality in a long run around it is there a difference between a human morality and a political morality well in fact i stuttered when i got to the point of scent of distinguishing yourself the politics and i would normally do so i think politics is it as in the sentence for morality in the journal science that it is my

conviction that nobody even henry kissinger really believes that it is moral political considerations which impel us to remain in vietnam i think it is self serving or short run or even republican political considerations which require that and i simply cannot believe that anyone longer identify the policy of maintaining the war with a policy of morality barium even a political sense well i was just interested in buying the mention of my lai which i think yesterday's news contain an item which i found quite shocking in relation to my life and that was that i don't think anyone has attempted until yesterday to defend the action in my life it would just

varying degrees of reaction when i find it extremely upsetting when we see in the newspaper yesterday that there are now groups that under the banner of patriotism and i must say that i think it's a complete a portion of the concept of patriotism are now rallying to raise money for the defense of the lieutenant calley who was charged and he has yet to be tried but he is charged with leading the massacre so to speak and that our country is now in such a shape morally that this becomes a politically acceptable you know and that not too many people seemed shocked by this if we start to think about it i really think it's a horrendous

situation and our eyes and individual cannot by any means see it as a justifiable attitude on the part of the american people for may even disability civil libertarians them i get comments from the audience on that point had from other members of the panel was this question of whether it is political party a private gala to religious morality or as a movie but there's something about this kind of question being asked the district's me not that it's passed now because there's still a kind of medicine we talk about the law and order expediency and so ana support it's interesting to me that traditionally in the judeo christian concept law was not a song as an entity in itself it was an expression of justice and of righteousness and therefore the political decisions that were to be made by

ancient is rumored to be expressions of that which was right it was its rightness of the term and the fact that it was a lawful now it's interesting that cicero quotes socrates in pretty much the same vein in his attempt to try to re save to save the republic of rome but there is in essence a sense of rightness and correctness which people seem to get it uses a term out of natural autism committee will scholastic some invented that phrase we're not which we are mostly on the new testament talks about them having a lot written on their hearts there's a sense of what is right for people of what is right for the land that might support people in the end which we all know that we make political and economic decisions about the saints and that when we tried to make a distinction between private morality and political morality we ought to be talking about rather superficial things like meat on friday but the basic issue of what is right and what was wrong i don't

think it's quite an arctic as big an argument is we like to make it out to be i think we know it's wrong to destroy a nation so that it can no longer supports people with food i think we know it is wrong for anyone to come in and say i may believe that i write but you must believe like it believe in order to function in order to have a relationship with me as to train and so on so forth i think these are questions which relatable and vietnam also i think we know what is right and what is wrong there and i think we also know that what is right will cost of something and probably the unwillingness to to make that up to me that prides as what's really behind the russians isn't the russians that we use it might make a comment about two phrases that occurred one was someone raise a question the people talk about we have given our word i quoted the date with a member of my parish who got so angry that he left about

we gave our word you know there's only one answer which i can't take credit for a richer vein that i think is a good one that is untoward foolishly given has not made wise by keeping it you know someone may have made a vow to murder you i think you hope that i can persuade him from keeping his word and the other is that i brought up the question that we recognize in my life but we are also capable of the most for her and the speeds as anyone else's in the world and i think we need to know that but the danger and contrition is that it's a most marvelous way to procrastinate repentance which means change of direction it is very pious the beach or breast and stats in which is a nice thing if you go on to chapter two but if you only stay vegas or chest yes forever never you know damn good unless it moves onto a change of direction that in itself can become the most devilish act of war is to repent is due to become trite but not repentant

and changing now while he was alive yeah that's right this is

great music and when some people as jesus if that was lawful to pay taxes to caesar as you said those images and pointedly said caesar says answer you know render assistance has been limited it was a business point is set in that concept that audience and he was speaking to they were all very much aware of the fact that all of existence bears the image of

god and that there are limitations on which a given temporary governing body may make claims of time you but there is nothing which ultimately is not subservient to a bigger claim and so that's the real goal of the company localized government is its awareness that it is perhaps temporary i hope wires hangs around for a while but it is temporary and the broad scale of human existence and therefore it's perfect in its morality must always reach outside of itself and so what we do in vietnam is not an expedient thing for ourselves if it is moral it is always world wide and its goal and in its rightness whether or not they can farm there for the next generation is are concerned because we are people of the world and it isn't just our own laws our own laws under an ongoing sense of history that's involved in this but i think it will

be over the hill in the long range view perhaps we're all confronted with this issue of way and how do we determine our moral position when even within ourselves to position seemed to conflict both of them being moral and ethical and meaningful and write and human david always those that and that we disagree with and those things that we agree with but even the two things that we agree with jose mario conflict and making the choices aren't implementing the win your answer the question is how limited our the results of your decisions i would hope that we could move into a more far reaching want not just is it good for us is a good for the next generation isn't good for people who are yet unborn

actually i was eager to say that i i do deeply believe on this line that the way out of this job polarization playing is lies in their conception of a trailer not just more moral authority inception of the national interest any realistic perception of america's real national interest for example a resolution of the free world are world cold war this is a matter of selfish national interest but i did actually isn't interested cause such cohen sighs when your intelligent about it would hit without that it will with that the panel on the moral political impact of the war ended we will hear now excerpts from the winds of change a speech delivered by senator harold hughes of iowa often considered one of the leading possibilities for the democratic presidential nomination in nineteen seventy two senator hughes spoke on march twelfth in madison square garden at a rally for the fund for new priorities that night in nineteen sixty at

a cleveland across the united states signing millions of americans to political action for the first hour some of those answer your middle aged and older americans searching for new options surgery grown so problems they see beyond solution a great manet were young americans deeply sensitive to the wrongs analysis to a hearing very much about correcting those roles it was a political movement of unique make up on purpose of the history of the american the leaders of the nineteen sixty eight drama are no longer on centers that bob kennedy is paul martin luther gay as piano gene mccarthy as step back for

the time being of the spotlight what the people say young and old who love this country deeply about want to venture a big move to change what his role was still there a few may have given up but most of them are still out there are eager to work to billy and did care again about getting our country out of the treadmill of death and decay maginot idealism as badly bruised but it's still in that and they're hungering to believe again and to move again and the crisis that existed in nineteen sixty eight is still smoldering today an accent join utah because the clock has been running what will happen

will the light of the new politics without the will of the leaders become non believers says simply chapel or will our energies be divided and parker by a government that at this time represents another three r's repression recession and repression willie older idea was said i'll work and become tv catatonic to join the verizon target country while the answer does not rest with nick zamora your mettle the answer is within ourselves what are we willing to go in terms of risk in terms of work and sacrifice to preserve this audience intended only today us in nineteen sixty eight the youngest principal precondition for meeting on there still needs there's no willingness to go for major change an outdated racial policies

either break cleanly and drastically with the past the springs the new politics into direct confrontation with the nixon administration ford is by skillfully applied modern rome waiting the trademark of this administration is its inflexible attachment to the traditional national policies that have brought us to a state of crisis at home and abroad mr nickson the adoption of new priorities simply means that they slip into a bowl obsolescent thousands ip the administration's policy on southeast asia's a classic example they're willing to make some tactical changes such as reducing the combat level of withdrawing some troops and transferring more of the burden to the killing two asian mercenaries hired by us what the basic strategic policy a continuing military buildup an auditor

ventured remains on the sergio the reincarnation of the old nixon it's supposed to write a new song the latino the next administration's political direction and the reasons based human level governor's conference in washington it is a taiwanese or the political prisoners a lot of the major leaders of this country the leader of the march back to normalcy is a superb slogan for this a political reaction for those too young to remember normalcy with a code word that the parting of ministers and that is exactly where the nixon i do administration is leaving us today backed

back into the valley of material complacency and social unconcern choice twice in my lifetime i have see this nation under the hypnosis of acute political reaction the first time was in the early nineteen thirties when senator joseph raymond mccarthy was inside information to believe that liberal political figures of the government were ominous so apollo problems of the second time yesterday the hour of makes you a little unclear i mean i am sure the others of my age how the sense of history repeating itself when mr agnew began the administration's as the whipping of the communications media in a nationally televised speech from no more no

more when the justice department made an abortive effort subsequently withdrawn to subpoena the private notebooks and monitor the phones of nice really no news there is no comparison between these two performances the nixon that your performance and also an entire political administration the most sophisticated the deal is in the public opinion in the history of this great nation it is only because of this that they had temporarily succeeded in selling the american people on that meant that the so called policy of vietnamization as the same piece rather than the prolonged nation of our involvement in asia which is the grand

reality beneath the power of america call i'm convinced that the people sense that these things up we simply locked into the policies of the last suicidal policies of gradualism of compromise postponement and a devotion to the proposition that if traditional approaches have failed the proper antidote is to double our efforts and directions already proven wrong today as in nineteen sixty eight we know what is required change not superficial change with major surgery his words to the zoo those who would make musical revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable it's

been are the american people at this time they called on the nixon sea of tranquility all of accepting the strong medicine and the answer must be a qualified yes and to go and make the difference you then if you awaken to the potential of your own story once a man suddenly you're not only about your main rebel and i can tell you that he was right and i believe that it's possible the n the angry against injustice and yet the compassionate unreasonable toward all human beings i would like to believe that this was the whole lot of them in politics we did not need to sit back and wait complacently for decides to overtake the us we do not need to leave our country to an administration who's resistance to meaningful change will never itself and

whose policies are a blend of benign neglect mulligan reaction and slip salesmanship what can you do in a nonviolent way to help achieve the needed changes in our political and social and economic system the first minute you're putting aside money for your sons or daughters future education well but that is a percentage of your income to see that his sons and daughters level theater and in contrast to the national policy opinions for war let us about a nationwide grassroots campaign for pennies for peace and the new priorities second at the neighborhood in committee and regional levels lead has organized groups to study the issues to spread the word to every family in america only enlightenment a daughter at

about this propaganda on behalf of the status quo and third from your support behind the moment to reform the political party system in america the political parties are co wrote it with bosses and discrimination and in many ways i've become un representative of all the people so if we don't have a political system that is responsive we've been cut off at the pass in our effort to change our national goals and priorities are here again you people and make the difference next it is imperative for the future of this country but to take an active role in the precinct level or not to elect candidates were much too pc and pursuance of the real necessity i like it like for you to consider for a moment the importance of the band of senators and congressman who stand for peace importance to our hopes for breaking the death grip of the

war party in this country consider how important that doesn't liberal senators are such issues as the atm the voting rights of programs of social reform what happens in the senate in progress to races in the states of the midwest of the south and the far west as well as the northeast you'll kill you make the difference in some of these key races and you are helping break a player support of this row of the night you're gonna like the communications media know you prize for freedom of the press and you appreciate it when they resist government intimidation you can contribute to that offensive citizens lose constitutional rights era bridge and some courts of justice is truly beyond the power of the president establishment in

washington is like a mighty pleasure of reaction moving backward too in front of an old discredited policies instead of toward new options are new priorities upon others be alexander's the fitzgerald's the people of courage and commitment are being forced out on local and regional levels in the government as they are in washington and your resistance to this kind of action and you know you must think things through in order to see them through and then you must do that was senator harold hughes speaking on the winds of change this program was the second in a series of five on the effects of the vietnam war on the american society this discussion on the moral political impact featured talks by the reverend brittle anderson the reverend david stow attorney michael allen columbia history professor mark raves thomas strainer of lookers electrical services and cartoonist george price the panel's moderator was mrs ethel khan this series is heard each evening this week it's up

and thirty and is repeated the following day at noon tomorrow at this time three professors three students and the minister of christian education will discuss the impact of the vietnam war on student and faculty relationships this program was recorded for wypr by peter soto and was prepared for broadcast under the technical supervision of walter bobo this program was produced by william dunlop this program was a production of the public affairs unit of wypr new york