OCR Text |
Show Cold War Of Nerves Continued attack on the Administration's Ad-ministration's defense program, the latest smear campaign, this time against Secretary of Interior, In-terior, and the decision of the California Board of Regents to fire faculty members for refusing refus-ing to sign a non-Communist oath all point toward the progressive pro-gressive nervous breakdown toward which America is heading head-ing with every new move by a calculating enemy. The pressure has begun to be felt everywhere. A cloud of darkness and suspicion seem to be enveloping the earth. In Russia a citizen must keep his opinions to himself, for any invective against the government, govern-ment, if overheard by an informer, in-former, may win him a free, government - sponsored trip to those proverbial Siberian salt mines. In the United States suspicion, sus-picion, guilt by association, or even political expediency may involve an innocent individual at any time in the web of Mc-Carthyism, Mc-Carthyism, better known as "irresponsible witch-hunting." Man's old confident self seems more and more a relic of the past. People, Russians and Americans alike, as well as the rest of the world, are scared stiff. Under continual strain the nerves are. beginning to give. With every move by Soviet Russia Rus-sia on the world chess-board, global blood pressure soars a little higher. Eventually there must be a stroke. Perhaps by that time the nerves of the antagonists an-tagonists will be worn so thin that atomic weapons will be forgotten for-gotten and the two sides will come at each other's throats with naked hands or the more refined club. I Because of the iron curtain, no one can tell with a great deal of certainty what continued tension is doing to the Russian man in the street. But in the United States much is apparent. The ouster of Secretary of Defense is the latest attempt by the Administration to pacify the mob. Not that Johnson himself is entirely to blame, and it isn't as yet certain that just blame can be leveled. The American public should have known all the time that U. S. armed forces were dwindling. dwind-ling. The Army was of skeleton proportion, much of the Navy was in mothballs, and even most of the Air Force was characterized char-acterized by quality rather than quantity. In the meantime the same Republican members of Congress who are now crying cry-ing for "billions for defense" were then moaning for a reduction re-duction of ' taxes, in economic aid to Europe, and, most of all, a reduction in the gigantic arm' aments burden. The Administration Adminis-tration could have played its cards much more carefully, but one can easily imagine what would have been the reaction of strict war regimentation on an American public during1 time of peace. Political expediency is determining the Administration's Administra-tion's defensive, as well as the GOP's offensive role. The attack on Secretary Chapman Chap-man and the action by the California Cal-ifornia Board of Regents serve best to illustrate the American fear complex. A neighbor is not to be trusted by a conservative, conserva-tive, if he advocates "radical" change (even so learned a man as John T. Flynn can't distinguish distin-guish the difference between a Socialist, Communist, and Fair I Dealer); on the other hand, the leftigts of the varigys shades figures no help can be expected from the "reactionaries" and "Facists" in an attempted solution solu-tion of the world ills. Both sides proclaim their infallibility. And no toleration can be felt for the "lost" middle-of-the-road thinkers, think-ers, who are branded from one side as "Fasciests" and from the other as "Communists". All refusing to sign the non-Communist non-Communist oath can be expelled from the state universities of California. At the same time President Hutchings, of the University Uni-versity of Chicago, says he will hire any professor fired in California Cali-fornia for political beliefs. The pot boils. The world shudders. GWH |