during a demonstration against the shah of Iran last June, was freed by a West Berlin court December 1. More than 1,000 students staged a demonstration against the trial on November 24. The judge gave as his reason for freeing Teufel that he had already been held in prison for longer than he would have been sentenced if found guilty.
-1,029-
COPS MOBILIZED AGAINST DRAFT PROTEST IN NEW YORK
By Les Evans
Thousands of New Yorkers participated in the militant and effective "Stop the Draft Week" here December 4-8. Similar actions took place throughout the country, but we do not have full reports yet on those outside of New York.
The tone for the week was set here by the police who moved in in massive numbers, determined to split up and fragment the demonstrations. The focus of the antiwar protest was the Whitehall draft induction center in lower Manhattan island.
On December 5, 5,000 protesters gathered at Battery Park, near the induction center, at 5:30 a.m. The objective of the group, largely under pacifist leadership was to march to Whitehall where peaceful picketing would take place while a token number would stage a sit-in.
The police mobilized 5,000 cops with another 24,000 on standby. They set up wooden barricades surrounding the induction center. When demonstrators arrived they were herded into wooden "pens," allowing only a few hundred to remain in front of the Whitehall center, in violation of police agreements to permit a single unified demonstration.
At one point cops on horseback rode into the crowd, using clubs to drive demonstrators participating in the sit-in out of the street and onto the sidewalk.
The demonstration the following day was organized by the Stop the Draft Week Committee, a coalition of 50 student, antiwar and political groups.
Five thousand demonstrators, mostly students, were met by an equal number of cops. The committee had been promised by liberal Mayor Lindsay that they would be permitted to march in three groups from Battery Park to the induction center. The police, in violation of the agreement, set up mazes of barricades, cutting off the march and preventing it from getting near the building. One group of about a thousand was cut off by police, who forced it to march uptown, away from the induction center. Blocked at every turn by police, they marched for almost three hours trying to rejoin the main demonstration.
On Thursday and Friday demonstrators abandoned Whitehall, marching uptown.
Cops followed them on foot and horseback, mounting occasional brutal at-— tacks on groups which they succeeded in splitting from the main march. Almost 600 were arrested by the end of the week.
Large numbers of police provoca-
teurs were infiltrated into the demonstra-
tion. Many of these agents revealed them-
selves when arrests were made by helping
to arrest other demonstrators.
The effect of these agents -- and
small ultraleft groups, that advocate vio-
lent actions out of political conviction
-- was nullified by a large contingent of
volunteer marshals who maintained order
and prevented the cops from having an ex-
cuse for attacking the demonstration.
Thus, when the attacks and arrests
were made, it was clear to any fair-minded
observer that the police were wholly re-
sponsible. Even an army geologist who
witnessed a vicious police attack on sev-
eral hundred demonstrators in front of a
midtown army installation was driven to
say to the New York Times that "kids were
knocked over and stepped on....What the
police did was un-American, unchivalrous
and disgusting."
The aim of the police and of the
government, from New York's Mayor Lind-
say to Lyndon Johnson, is to isolate the
students from the massive sections of the
population who also oppose the war. Their
tactic is twofold: to make people afraid
to participate in antiwar demonstrations,
but even more important, to make the stu-
dents appear responsible for the violence
of the police.
It is extremely important that the
antiwar movement weigh very carefully the
demands it raises from the standpoint of
whether or not they can be accomplished
with the forces at hand, and whether or
not they lend themselves to distortion or
misrepresentation by the press and the
government.
One of the slogans this week was
"close Whitehall." Everybody in the demon-
stration recognized when they saw the .
cops that the police had the sheer mili-
tary force to keep Whitehall open. But
the cops used this "threat" as their ex-
cuse to break up the demonstration and
trample on the right of people to protest
a foul, undeclared, illegal war. The
press also took advantage of the demand
to "prove" that the demonstration had
been a "failure" because it had not suc-
ceeded in closing the draft headquarters.
There is a danger of substituting
radical talk for radical action. The
thing the capitalist rulers of America
fear most is the student movement forg-
ing links with the massive numbers in the
black ghettos and among white workers.
Then and only then will the antiwar move-
ment have the power to close down the war
against the people of Vietnan.
~1 ,030-
DEFIANT CZECH WRITERS PROVOKE A NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DEBATE
By George Novack
In the early stages of the struggle for democracy in East Europe and the Soviet Union, writers, artists and scientists have taken the lead in voicing the discontents of the people and mobilizing progressive opinion against the worst abuses of the bureaucratic regimes. This initiative of the intellectuals has been evidenced in Soviet life over the past thirteen years, from the first signs of the cultural thaw in 1954, which preceded the demolition of the Stalin cult two years later, to the latest tug of war between the liberalizers and the diehards determined to uphold strict party supervision over all forms of creative activity.
Dissident writers and intellectuals were stimulators and heralds of the 1956 revolts in Poland and Hungary. The recurrent warnings in the Maoist press since the launching of the Cultural Revolution against dangerous "revisionist" critics in the, Communist party who might constitute Petofi clubs shows how deeply the lessons of these experiences with the intellectuals have been etched upon the minds of the monopolists of political power from Peking to East Berlin.
After the showdown a year ago between the Gomulka government and its critics at the University of Warsaw, which resulted in the expulsion of the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski from the party and strong protests from the faculty and students against this action (see "Report of a Participant on the Kolakowski Case," World Outlook November 10, 1967), the center of the continuing conflict between the intellectuals and the bureaucrats has shifted to Czechoslovakia.
The present grievances of the Czech writers against the arbitrariness of the authorities go back to the ayppression of Tvar in the fall of 1965. monthly was one of the most sophisticated
literary publications. After a violent campaign against its "unabashed liberalism," the party Ideological Department demanded that the Writers Union name a new editor-in-chief and reorganize its editorial board. With some resistance and reluctance, the Union Presidium complied.
Then a group of young writers held a, public meeting reminiscent of the Petofi Club gatherings which adopted a resolution condemning the fact that administrative measures "once again replaced literary discussion." More than three hundred writers and artists endorsed this resolution.
Nevertheless, the Writers Union Central Committee, under pressure from the party higher ups, went ahead and upheld the decision and Ivar ceased publishing.
The Tvar affair deepened discontent with the cultural climate and, in the two years since, all the burning issues relating to creative freedom have been subject to ardent debate in intellectual and political circles.
Four tendencies have emerged among the writers and intellectuals of Czecheslovakia. To the right stand the sentinels of the Old Guard who want to maintain the system of strict state and party control over all intellectual, scientific and artistic activities with a minimum of concessions to the insistent urge for relaxation. Beside them are the more sensitive and flexible official liberals who are willing and even eager to institute and support reforms, provided the primacy of the party in intellectual matters is unchallenged and unchanged.
The most rebellious elements are divided into the "unbelievers" and the "believers." The former are scornful of politics, inclined toward individualism and skepticism, and disillusioned with the hypocrisies of the "Communism" they see around them. They expect nothing from the regime and are not disposed to engage in any effort to clean up the mess. Such attitudes are not uncommon among the youth in all East European countries today.
Thirty-three year old Vaclav Havel is a typical spokesman for the sentiments of this current. His best-known play, The Memorandum, points its criticism at the regime within the framework of the theater of the absurd. Its theme is a transparent parody of the tragedy of Stalinism and the farce of de-Stalinization.
A group of employees seize control of a company -- obviously a symbol for the takeover of Czechoslovakia -- and introduce a nonsensical new language called "Ptydepe" which they imply is sanctioned by the mysterious mighty ones above. Scores of people learn the new lingo, interpret and analyze it, write books about it, make and break careers, organize scientific seminars and ideological structures around it. The manager who resists feebly against it is pushed aside.
Then one day it turns out, through equally obscure channels, that "Ptydepe"
~-1 ,031-
had never been officially favored, that it had to be extirpated, and those responsible for introducing it punished. Meanwhile, another equally incomprehensible language called "Chorukor" is put in its stead. And so the comedy goes on.
There are not a few such novels, plays, films and poems which are thinly disguised polemics against one or another repressive or depressive feature of official society and an argument in favor of greater freedon.
The hopelessness, cynicism, frustration and sense of isolation that mark this tendency can make some of its exponents veer off in reactionary directions. One of its members, for example, deplored the role of de Gaulle as tending to disrupt the ability of the West to balance its power against that of the Soviet Union. And there is the wellpublicized case of Ladislav Mnacko, whose novel The Taste of Power is a vitriolic portrayal of a conscienceless bureaucrat supposedly modeled after Premier Novotny. The book is banned in Prague. Mnacko broke with the regime over the Arab- Israeli war, accusing it of anti-Semitism because of its opposition to Zionist expansionism, and sought exile in Israel.
There are a few other disoriented intellectuals who identify the intolerable practices of bureaucratism with Marxism and socialism and are disposed to "choose freedom" in the West on the model of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.
The "believers" are of a different sort. While also in open revolt against the regimentation of the Communist party, which they regard as worn out and discredited, they are willing to undertake political and ideological struggle against its evil influence and look forward to a replacement for it. Their most vigorous voice belongs to the highly respected 41-year-old Ludwik Vaculik, editor, critic and author of two novels attacking Stalinism, and a long-standing party member.
A confrontation between these tendencies occurred at the Fourth Congress of Czechoslovak Writers which was held in Prague on June 27-29, 1967. The sharp tone of the debates at its tumultuous sessions can be judged by the bitter indictment of the party's political and cultural policies made by Vaculik. Here are some excerpts from his speech.
"I am speaking as the citizen of a state which I shall never renounce, but in which I cannot be content...The first law of Power is that it will try to perpetuate itself...Since it can legally block all future challenges to its rule, Power evolves into a dynasty...
"The selection of people also occurs on the basis of their usefulness to Power. The men who are given responsibility are the ones who cause no trouble and ask no questions. The most commonplace people fare best while the more complex individuals disappear from the stage...
"Art cannot renounce the subject of government because to govern means to make direct or indirect decisions through administrative acts which affect the lives of men, their hopes and disappointments, and, what is more, their thoughts. Ideas are outside the province of administrative acts and yet decisions are made about them; this is where the activity of power affects the activity of art. And this is why art cannot renounce criticism of government...
"I see a persistent trend and an unmistakable danger that the old, bad days will return...I don't feel safe in the cultural situation because the ruling power can throw it into turmoil. Equally, I don't feel safe outside the walls of this hall, that is, this 'playground.' I am not being harmed and I have not been harmed. Things like that don't happen anymore. Should I be grateful? I get no joy out of it because I'm afraid. I have no firm guarantees...
"It must be admitted that not one human problem has been solved in the last twenty years -- neither such elementary needs as housing, schools, economic prosperity nor spiritual needs which the undemocratic systems of the world cannot provide for, such as the creation of a feeling that politics are subordinate to ethics, a belief in the meaning of humble work, the need for mutual confidence among people, education of the people as a whole.
"In conclusion, I would like to state explicitly what is surely implicit in my entire speech: I do not pin ny criticism of Power in this state on the brow of Socialism because I am not convinced that these developments were necessary in our country, and because I do not identify this Power with Socialism although that is just what the Power would like me to do. Not even their destinies need be identical. And if the people who exercise this power...were to come here and pose the question as to whether the dream of a government at one with the citizen can be achieved, they would have to accept the following answer as an expression of my good will and highest civic loyalty: 'I don't know.'"
Vaculik's question mark over the possibilities of reforming the regime is pregnant with revolutionary implications. He has reportedly given the following advice to party people who think like him-
-1 ,032-
self. "They should end this isolation from each other and begin to develop relationships among themselves. They must get to know each other, to count on each other, so that some day they can be ready - " This is the formula for a Petofi lub.
After a two-month delay the Communist party cracked down on the rebels. On September 27 the Central Committee ousted Jan Prochazka, one of the country's best-— known writers, as a candidate member of the committee, expelled Vaculik and two other writers, Ivan Klima and R.S.Riehn, and curbed the leading Czechoslovak literary magazine, Literarni Noviny. Although the actions came as no surprise, they were harsher than anticipated.
Prochazka belonged to the liberal wing of the party and, although not associated with the attacks on the party's monopoly of power at the Writers' Congress, he was probably punished because he worked to intercede for the dissidents.
Literarni Noviny, the most popular and outspokenly liberal publication in the country, was placed under the control of the Ministry of Education and Culture which effectively eliminates its independence. The Central Committee communiqué said that the magazine had "become an organ of opposition political views." The three critics expelled from the party were all on its editorial board and the communiqué charged that they had fallen under "narrow, sectarian and even foreign influences."
In the wake of the furor provoked by the party's disciplinary measures and the reinforcement of its censorship, the London Sunday Times printed a "manifesto" allegedly signed by 329 Czech intellectuals, whose names were not given, which appealed for help "to rescue the spiritual freedom and fundamental rights of every independent artist threatened by the terror of the state powers." [See World Outlook September 22, page 790.] This document was branded as spurious by the Prague government and is said to have emanated from a small group of emigrés in West Germany.
Despite its dubious character, the "manifesto" set off a series of declarations which have elevated the struggle of the Czechoslovak writers into an international issue. It specifically called upon three noted German writers, among other leftist intellectuals, to raise, their voices in protest, These were Gunter Grass, Heinrich Boll and Peter Weiss.
Grass addressed an "open letter" to Czech President Novotny supporting the demand of the Czechoslovakian artists for freedom of expression and an end to censorship. "In just a few years the Czech artists have won worldwide esteem for your country," he reminded the head of state. “And it is not in the uniform opinions of your party meetings where you sullenly deliver your dictums that we hear your message, but in the Czech poetry, the Czech film, the new Czech theater which has reached, moved, and changed us. And you want to give up this wealth?"
Grass went on to say: "I also write in a country that has known terror. The damage that remains after every political terror has not been undone here either. It continues, whether it is in the creeping censorship called ‘voluntary self-control' or in the recently uncovered criminal measures of Springer's spies. [Springer is the West German press lord. ] So we have no ground to harp on the freedom of the West. There is no room for arrogance and for that reason I refuse to write this letter from the popular podium of anti-Communism. The crisis of democracy is worldwide. If the Communist states petrify under the dictatorship of Party bureaucracy the Western democracies stagnate because their parliaments are corrupted by the bonds of interest groups."
His plea was seconded by Heinrich Boll who pointed out that “our position here is also very difficult and ambiguous. A number of Western writers issued reports against both the arrest of Daniel and Sinyavsky and the Vietnam War. All the several hundred West German newspapers published our protest against the arrest of the two Soviet writers, but only a few printed our protest against the Vietnam War. You can see how easily the freedom which every newspaper here enjoys is transformed into self-censorship, by using this freedom to report only the news items that are convenient..."
Grass's letter elicited a reply from the rebel playwright Pavel Kohout who explained that he was "one of the four participants at the Fourth Congress of the Czechoslovak Union of Writers whose names were stricken from the list of candidates for the new Central Committee of the Union." He repudiated the "manifesto" and declared it to be a fraud on its very face because it resorted "to the terminology of frayed anti-Communist propaganda."
Kohout stated that "the frank revelations of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the simultaneous recognition that the revolutionary power in our own country had also become despotic, was a hard psychic blow to Communist artists in particular. Yet, the team-generation was already too mature to scatter in all directions like a gang of young kids in front of a smashed window pane. With few exceptions, they understood there was only one possibility
-1 3033-
for them: continuance of the revolutionary process... "The struggle for genuine Socialism pervades my entire party and all strata of our society. People are joining together in the struggle not by virtue of their occupation but on the basis of how mature their thinking is. You will find more than one intellectual amongst us who rejects this forward movement because it would bring an end to the conformist period in which his meager talent found recognition. On the other hand, you will find 'functionaries' who for years have consciously been clearing the way for this movement...
"IT have no intention of saying, dear Gunter Grass, that your rush onto our battlefield was useless," he continued. "It is never useless to raise one's voice in defense even when it is the result of an error. An error of this kind is a hundred times more honorable and useful than indifference to the fate of others which can lead to overlooking crimes. I am writing to you because I recognize this. It is good to know that none of us lives on a desert island, that the awareness of a common human fate also exists in our insane, divided world and that it is growing..."
Upon his return from a two-month stay in Cuba, the internationally known dramatist, Peter Weiss, the author of Marat Sade, entered the controversy in connection with an invitation from the Czechoslovak Union of Writers to attend an international writers' conference scheduled for Prague on November 29, 1967. He, too, doubted the authenticity of the document for valid reasons.
Nevertheless, he stated that "I consider it extremely necessary to discuss the issue of freedom of speech and opinion publicly, of creative freedom and the abandonment of political censorship. I am, therefore, requesting the Czechoslovak Union of Writers to take up again the theme of the writer's position in a Socialist society..
"We Socialist writers who are mainly active in the West are just as much affected by the cultural restrictions in the Socialist countries as our colleagues in the East...We believe the Socialist countries are strong enough today...to have the courage to accommodate openly a major cultural conflict, deal with all inflammable questions and refrain from suppressing any of their aspects. Socialist and other progressive international writers can no longer accept having the conflict pushed aside by partisan party decisions.
"It is extremely important to me to have my works discussed not only in the Western world but in the Socialist countries as well. My own evolution to Marxism passed through many stages, from surrealistic experiments...to a radical political position. Isee no reason why artists in a Socialist state should be hanpered in their own natural development... Let us not forget that this society is incomplete in many respects and full of contradictions and that criticism and opposition are signs of vitality which can contribute to the progress of humanistic Marxism.
"We must examine how far the required freedom of expression can be extended before it can be exploited by reactionary and counterrevolutionary tendencies...We must discuss what we mean by progressive art.
"Is Socialist realism progressive in relation to modern, socially critical works of art that have their origins in the bourgeois world, or does this realism live on forms which stem from a lower middle-class view of reality? The ques-— tion must be asked whether it is the task of cultural institutions in Socialist countries to encourage statements that are historically and socially truthful about the complex structure of society, or whether they should engage in nurturing a conformist and idealistic picture of the present situation.
Weiss asked for an answer from the Union of Writers before he would consent to participate in its international synposium. We do not know whether he received one or what he decided to do.
The questions concerning artistic and intellectual freedom posed by Peter Weiss do transcend national boundaries and even opposing social systems today; they are of common concern to writers of both East and West. The students and writers of West Germany, faced with the reac-— tionary Springer press combine and the restrictions of the Bonn Republic, and the dissenting American intellectuals demonstrating against the Vietnam war, who are beaten by cops and accused by Johnson and his echoers of aiding "the enemy," are engaged in the same battle for freedom of expression as the Czechoslovak and Soviet writers. As Grass and others indicate, it is not easy to conduct this struggle in a principled way and avoid entanglement in the webs of imperialist propaganda and intrigue against the countries with a socialist economic base and the colonial revolution. Yet it is unwarranted to remain silent and shirk solidarity with the persecuted intellectuals on either side.
The ferment among the Communist intellectuals in Czechoslovakia testifies to the irrepressible thrust of the de- Stalinization processes which were long delayed in that country. They began only
-1,034-
in 1963 but have moved quite fast since then. They are bound to go further.
Novotny's repressive measures against the unorthodox writers should do more to stimulate than to stop the demands for reform in many spheres which reflect deep dissatisfactions within Czech society and reach into the upper
JOHNSON STARS IN ROLE
Admirers of Lyndon B. Johnson were greatly heartened by a sudden reversal in the steep decline of their hero's popularity. After dropping to a low of 23% in a Louis Harris poll of confidence in the president's handling of the war in Vietnam, a poll released December 4 by the same source showed a remarkable recovery of 11 points. Johnson now stands at 34%.
The leap upward from the bottom of the barrel came between the first and last weeks of November. Connoisseurs of political images were quick to point out that this was precisely when the "old" Johnson died and the "new" Johnson was born. November 17 was the historic day when Johnson appeared in public for the first time "wired for sound"; i.e., with a microphone hidden under his coat so that he became free to pace the stage and rise to the height of his unusual talents as an elocutionist.
Among the most elated of the president's admirers was Johnson himself. On the day the latest poll figures were released, he felt in such fine fettle that he even tried his hand at humor.
He started his day, reported Max Frankel of The New York Times, with "innocent merry-making." Before signing legislation, in a show of the president at work, "he played the role of stand-up comic, deftly tossing off a dozen gags that he and unknown writers had assembled for the occasion."
These went over so great, that the president put on another performance in the evening, again resorting "to the use of gags."
"This group of jokes was built around Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who, he said, had asked for offices and entertainment rooms on the seventh and eighth floors of the building because that was ‘too far to jump and too high for the pickets to climb.' circles of the party itself.
"The writers' protest," observed Richard Eder in the November 12 New York Times, “is the most dramatic event that has taken place" in Czechoslovakia since the Communist conquest of power. It may be taken as the precursor of bolder acts of opposition to come.
OF "STAND-UP COMIC"
"'But Dean forgot all about the birds,' he said, noting that Mrs. Rusk gave the Secretary a bag of crumbs each day for which sparrows and other birds were grateful. But he discovered that there was ‘just no pleasing the appetites of these damn doves,' Mr. Johnson said.
However, on coming into New York December 7 to attend the rites for the late Cardinal Spellman, Johnson apparently decided that the crowds there, many of whom were in the streets demonstrating against the war in Vietnam, might not have a sufficient sense of humor to appreciate his jokes.
And so he slunk into town unheralded and unannounced, arriving in the greatest secrecy at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Although he braved entering by the front door, he decided it the better part of valor to leave in a less conspicuous way, slipping out under heavy guard by the rear door.
"This was a profound disappointment to the waiting crowds on Fifth Avenue who had applauded his arrival at the main entrance," said The New York Times, which is highly skilled at reading the minds of an assemblage of people in the street and totting up the consensus.
Five pickets, displaying placards, were hustled off in an unmarked car by the police. Their signs read: "Napaln: Johnson's Baby Powder" [a play on the trade name of a well-known talcum powder in the U.S.]; "Vietnamese Should Die So Good"; "LBJ, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?"
Evidently these five, like many other Americans, had not yet been turned on by Johnson's new image and his skill as a jokester.
Nevertheless, that eleven point rise on the popularity dial was a gratifying turn for a performer who had expected only a new hail of wilted vegetables and poorly preserved eggs from the audience.
-1 3035—-
A NEW VERSION OF THE EXECUTION OF ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA
A new version of the execution of Ernesto Che Guevara was published in The New York Times of October 4. The previous version, emanating from Bolivian army circles and passed on by journalists to the world press, was that the revolutionary hero had been executed by a bullet fired from a pistol through his heart. The new version is that he was machinegunned. The two versions are, of course, not contradictory. Guevara may have been machine-gunned and then given a coup de grace by a Bolivian army officer.
The latest details were supplied by Juan de Onis, special correspondent of the Times, in a December 2 dispatch from Pucara, Bolivia.
"Mr. Guevara was captured near La Higuera by the Bolivian Army on Oct. 8," writes de Onis. "Two days later, the army's high command announced that he had been killed in a clash between Government troops and the guerrilla band he was leading. An army spokesman said that Mr. Guevara had admitted his identity before dying of his wounds. On Oct. 17, the army said an autopsy report showed that loss of blood from nine bullet wounds had caused death."
The Times correspondent then reports his own findings after investigation in the area:
"It was learned in this remote mountain region thut Mr. Guevara had been held as prisoner in the La Higuera schoolhouse for a night after he was captured, slightly wounded. On the following day he was machine-gunned by a Bolivian nonconmmissioned officer."
Juan de Onis provides the following additional information:
"On Oct. 8 Mr. Guevara, a hero of the Cuban revolution who tried unsuccessfully to recreate in Bolivia the exploits of Fidel Castro's guerrilla insurrection, was captured in a gorge a mile from La Higuera during a battle with Bolivian troops.
"Mr. Guevara was taken to La Higuera with wounds in one leg and a flesh wound in the back. He was held overnight in the schoolhouse, questioned by Bolivian officers, and executed the morning of Oct. 9 on orders received by radio fron armed forces headquarters in La Paz, the Bolivian capital. .
"In La Higuera, a hamlet with about 20 houses, the circumstances of Mr. Guevara's death are common knowledge. Many people in Pucara have relatives in La Higuera and have been there recently."
According to de Onis, the death
and subsequent disposition of Che Gue-
vara's body remains a touchy subject
with the Bolivian military.
"Capt. Gary Prado, the infantry
officer who led the troops that captured
Mr. Guevara, has submitted a battle re-
port dissociating himself from the execu-
tion. He said he turned over his prisoner,
along with papers, including a campaign
diary found in Mr. Guevara's knapsack, to
Lieut. Col. Andres Selich on the after-
noon of Oct. 8.
"Colonel Joaquin Zenteno, comman-
der of the Eighth Division, arrived by
helicopter in La Higuera on the morning
of Oct. 9. About 11 A.M. bursts of gun-
fire in the schoolhouse were heard. A
noncommissioned officer with a machine
gun was in the schoolroom at the time.
"Shortly after the shots were
heard, the body of Mr. Guevara was
brought out, with bullet wounds in the
chest and neck. The wounds had not been
there when Captain Prado turned over Mr.
Guevara, who had been able to walk with
assistance at that time.
"The body of another guerrilla,
identified as Aniceto, who had been
brought to the schoolhouse as a wounded
prisoner, was also brought out. Mr. Gue-
vara's body was lashed to the landing
sled of a helicopter and flown to Valle
Grande."
Barrientos, it appears, would now
like to wipe out even the scene of the
crime:
"La Higuera, 10 miles from here,"
Juan de Onis reports from Pucara, "has
been placed out of bounds for all visi-
tors. According to villagers, the school-
house is being torn down and a new one
will be built."
The Times correspondent also re~
ports that the top officials in the dic-
tatorship continue to give contradictory
versions about what they did with the
body.
"At one point, Gen. Alfredo Ovando
Candia, commander of the armed forces,
informed the Argentine Embassy that Mr.
Guevara, who was born in Argentina, had
been cremated. Last week, during a visit
to Rio de Janeiro, General Ovando was
quoted as having said that there had been
no cremation of the body, rather a secret
burial.
"Yesterday, armed forces headquar-
ters said in a statement that the gener-
al's words had been misinterpreted and
~1 ,036-
that the body had been burned. The location of the ashes is a military secret, according to the statement."
In a December 4 dispatch from La Paz, Reuter identified the "armed forces headquarters" statement as having been issued by the interim commander in chief of the armed forces, General Juan José Torrez, and said that he had explained that the misinterpretation of Ovando Candia's statement in Rio de Janeiro was due
NORWEGIAN STUDENTS REGRET SOVIET
[The following message, issued by the SUF (Sosialistisk Ungdomsforbund -- Young Socialist League -- a youth group of the left-socialist Norwegian People's Socialist party), was published in the November 11 issue of the Oslo weekly, Orientering.
[It was signed by the national leaders of the SUF, the national leaders of the Sosialistisk Studentforbund (Socialist Student League) and the following individuals: Hartvig Saetra, Asbjgrn Smevik, Bjgrn Furre, Odd Dalen, Kjell Bygstad, Svein Johansen, Magne Skrindo, Oddvar Groder, Arne Byhre, Bjgrn Flakken, Leif Nilsen, Ragnhild Smevik, Rune Skarstein, Einar Jetne, Bernt M. Fgrre and Ole Kapreitan.
[The translation is by World Outlook. ]
*x* * *
Fifty years ago, the October revolution was a source of great inspiration to revolutionists in all countries. At a time marked by imperialist war and the darkest reaction, the founding of the Soviet Union gave new hope to the oppressed throughout the entire world -hope for a world delivered from oppressors. The Soviet Union's subsequent industrial development and rapid economic to his superior's "poor understanding of Portuguese."
In Rio de Janeiro, however, Gen. Ovando brushed aside the explanation made by his subordinate. "I don't know what the intentions of my government are concerning the future disposal of the mortal remains of Guevara. So far as I am concerned, I suppose that they will be turned over to his family, as they should be.
COLLABORATION WITH WASHINGTON
growth made it clear that poverty and economic underdevelopment can be eliminated when the people take their fate in their own hands and go to work.
Freedom-loving people in all countries gratefully remember the resolute struggle of the Soviet people against fascism. And this is true especially for the people of Norway, who will always owe a debt of gratitude to the Soviet Union for the liberation of Finnmark [the northernmost province of Norway, which was liberated by Soviet troops from the Nazi occupation forces at the end of World War II]. The Soviet Union's respect for Norway's territorial integrity can stand as an example of the very best sort of relationship between a great power and a small country.
It is therefore with the greatest regret that we at present witness a policy of collaboration between the Soviet Union and the USA. This collaboration is an insult to the revolutionary movements which are engaged in a life and death struggle against American imperialisn.
As true friends of the Soviet Union and its fifty-year-old revolution, we express our hope that the Soviet Union will again find its place on the side of the revolutionary movements. Such would be in keeping with the spirit of its revolution.
AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS DEBATE "CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE"
By Arthur Maglin
The deepening antiwar mood among the American people is evident from a whole series of signs, including polls, letters to congressmen, the voting in certain areas and on certain issues like antiwar referendums, and rallies and denonstrations. One of the important indicators is the division occurring among the intellectuals and the tendency of the liberal wing to talk in a more radical language than has been heard since the thirties in the U.S.
A sampling of opinion in these circles was offered by the November 26 New York Times Magazine under the title, "Civil Disobedience, 1967." Those selected for quotation range from prowar "hawks"
-1,037-
to a figure like Paul Goodman, who has actively participated in demonstrations.
The editors, as dependable guardians of the bourgeois order, carefully excluded spokesmen of the revolutionary socialist movement in their round table. They did not include a single one of the key figures active in organizing the mass demonstrations that have begun to have such a strong effect on calculations among all tendencies in the American political scene.
The political purpose of excluding such figures from the symposium is quite obvious. The Times itself has been critical of the course followed by the Johnson administration in Vietnam, but on purely tactical grounds. The editors fear that Johnson has overextended the U.S. and provoked unnecessary dangers both abroad and at home. They are in favor of less belligerency and halting the bombing. They are not in favor of the U.S. withdrawing from Vietnam; in fact, they are in favor of keeping U.S. troops there, maintaining "enclaves."
Their attitude toward the domestic opposition corresponds with this view. They are against any kind of opposition that tends to put in question the capitalist system itself. They condone only an opposition that confines itself to tactical differences with the White House or Pentagon. They insist that even this opposition make clear, both in its declarations and in its deportment, that it accepts the basic premises of capitalism. Anyone who goes beyond polite "civil disobedience" is thus beyond the pale, so far as the editors of the Times are concerned. They are particularly exercised over the young militants of draft, if not voting, age who have engaged in organizing street demonstrations against the war in Vietnan.
The contributors to the symposiun, insofar as they stand in opposition to the war in Vietnam, all come within this frame, at least in the judgment of those who sponsored the discussion.
These limitations deprive the sanpling of opinion of any claim to being genuinely broad or an accurate reflection of the range of current opinion on the question of the U.S. role in Vietnan. Nonetheless it is of sufficient scope to show how the popular opposition to the war is affecting the intellectuals and tending to divide them into opposing camps.
Here are some typical statements included in this long article:
Professor John Dollard of Yale University argues that the Vietnam war is necessary: "For the next times I am in
favor of keeping the world peace as much
as possible -- which means, in practical
terms, not changing the power balance
between developed democracies, Communist
nations and less technically advanced cul-
tures and peoples. To this end, the Viet-
nam conflict seems to me a necessary
measure in checking Communist China's
second aggressive thrust in Asia within
20 years."
Professor Noam Chomsky of Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology speaks
out against the war: "Those who defend
American policy speak vaguely of Commu-
nist '‘aggression.' Just when did this
‘aggression' take place? Was it in 1959,
when Hanoi radio was urging that the
leaders of the insurrection desist, when
Diem spoke of having an Algerian war on
his hands in the South while his agents
were being parachuted into North Vietnam?
Or was it perhaps in April, 1965, when
North Vietnamese troops were first dis-
covered in the South, two months after
the bombing of North Vietnam began --
400 in a guerrilla force of 140,000, at
a time when more than 30,000 American
troops were helping protect the Saigon
Government from its own population? Or
is it now, when a vast American army of
occupation has taken over the conduct of
the war, with about as many South Korean
mercenaries as there are North Vietnamese
troops in the South? Or does Hanoi's
‘aggression' consist in the sending of
supplies and trained South Vietnamese
cadres to the South? By these standards
our aggression in the South has always
been incomparably greater in scale, and
we are engaged in such aggression in
half the countries of the world."
William F. Buckley Jr., editor-
in-chief of the right-wing magazine,
National Review, supports the war with
the following argument: "If the head of
the American Bar Association were to de-
cline to support the Vietnam war on the
grounds of its shaky constitutional gene-
alogy, that is one thing. But when the
Constitution is suddenly discovered by
Dwight Macdonald, one puts that down (or
at least I put that down) to opportunism."
This argument is countered by Paul
Goodman, the author of Growing Up Absurd
and People or Personnel, who strongly
opposes the war: "The great majority of
resisters do not consider themselves as
lawless, whether they impede the draft,
refuse war taxes, or try to bar recruit-—
ers and war contracts from the campuses.
We hold that it is the Vietnam policy
that is illegitimate. It has been created
by a hidden government of military-
industrial lobbyists and the C.I.A.; the
Executive has gone beyond his mandate;
there has been no genuine debate and
voting in Congress; the public has been
lied to and brainwashed."
-1 ,038-
Professor Herbert C. Kelman of the University of Michigan also takes up the question of who is "legitimate": "The war in Vietnam is inconsistent with certain fundamental values of American society and is, in fact, abhorrent to wide segments of the population. Many of us see it as a violation of international law and morality, as an act of aggression against a small and weak people, as arrogant suppression of the forces of social change in the developing world, and as a resort to brutal means in the pursuit of questionable ends. The Administration's actions in Vietnam are illegitimate, then, because they violate the values that we feel this nation has stood for and ought to stand for."
The well-known novelist, James T. Farrell, who once considered himself a revolutionary socialist, complains: "Have we reached the point in history where civil disobedience is writing dirty words on a fence about the President of the country? Or calling members of his Administration names? I support the policy of the United States in its present commitment. And for my political views, I have been insulted by mail and by students during lectures."
Lewis S. Feuer, a prominent sociologist, gives vehement backing to Lyndon Johnson: “An American departure, as Southeast Asians themselves generally recognize, would probably uproot such fragile growths of democracy as now exist. Draft evaders in World War II used much the same arguments as the draft-card burners today. The New Left is using all the worn arguments that the Old Left used against American involvement during 1939 to 1941. The draft-card burners and the New Left have just as little moral justification."
Irving Kristol, a noted essayist, lines up behind LBJ: "Even were I opposed to the Administration's policy in Vietnan, which I am not, I would not regard this case as one in which civil disobedience is justified. The opportunities for dissent are obviously abundant, and even Ho Chi Minh seems to think they can be effectual."
Professor Sidney Hook of New York University gives his Social Democratic view of the U.S. Vietnam policy: "I do not believe that civil disobedience with respect to American Vietnam policy, if one is opposed to it, is justified. The