May 6, 1966 Predictions
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pose of seeking membership overlaps roughly aware of how this procedure with "officially subversive" organiza• of exposure works and be prepared eastland strikes at new left tions. to combat it. And members ought not If the coming hearings run true to to be suprised when SDS's turn comes The Hon. James O. Eastland, Sena• The hearings which will follow the form, they will concentrate on naming up for "exposure". Although the new tor from a plantation in Sunflower speeches are aK>arently aiming at members of the CP working in other left has always made clear the basic County, Mississippi, and Chairman of avoiding the "witch-hunt" label and se• organizations. The governments fetish• fncompatibility of Leninism with its the Senate Internal Security Subcom• curing the active cooperation of the like preoccupation with the CP as an conception of democracy, participation mittee, has leaked to the press his Justice Department. The FBI is ex• organization may be broken this year, in movement h£is been based on the intention to introduce a new compre• pected to "surface" several undercover however, by the inclusion of the Pro• honesty and commitment of the indi• hensive anti-subversion bill. This agents working in the movements to gressive Labor Party in the list of vidual ~ rejecting the mechanical comes in the wake of Supreme Court "name names". officially recognized demons. The hear• "screening procedures" of the McCarthy decisions setting aside most of the pro• The potential targets of both the ings, of course, will serve little or period. Quite naturally, SDS has a small visions of the Internal Security Act hearings and the legislation include no legislative purpose and will con• membership overlap with every liberal of 1950 (the McCarran Act). the DuBois Clubs, the National Coor• centrate on trying to illegitlmatize and left-wing organization in die coun• Eastland pledged to begin making dinating Committee to End the War in movement organizations. try detailed speeches soon revealing the Vietnam, local war on poverty advisory All SDS members ought to be tho• (continued on page 8) extent of Communist infiltration of boards, and independent community peace, war on poverty, and student organizations, as well as SNCC and movements. The new legislation ap• SOS. During the last few weeks the parently will be aimed at "infiltration" National Office has been repeatedly rather than another attempt to outlaw notified by local chapters of attempts the Communist Party (CP) as an or• by the FBI to get their local mem• ganization. bership lists, apparently for the pur- new left notes comments on oglesby an internal newspaper of students for a democratic society from Chicago 1103e. 63rd st. Chicago, il In his report from Italy Carl Ogles• "It was Togliatti who, in 1960, with by presents a mishmash of factual Italy paralyzed by a general strike . .. error, false impressions and baseless refused to take the power that was Vol. t. Mo. 16 loff Ifio poopio doddo May 6, 1966 predictions. Militancy based on an virtually within the palm of his hand". effective radical analysis of society I don't read Italian, but I read French. may have a future; but based on di• All through the 1960 crisis, I read gross erratum vorce from reality it can only lead regularly the French new left publica• to disillusionment. tions that were sympathetic to the youth• Two serious errors were made in re• is being planned by a group of parents Some specifics: According to Ogles• ful left elements, particularly in the producing my article about community from the community. They originated by. in the 1963 elections the Christian left of the PSI, that were directly activities jn Boston in the issue of the idea, they are planning it, they Democrats received 9 million votes, responsible for the anti-Tambroni de• April 24, p 4. First - a whole half are organizing it, it is their school. the Communists 8, Socialists 3, Re• monstrations. These were France-Ob- of the article, the part in the middle I thought I explained carefully in the publicans 1, Social Democrates 1/2, servateur, and Tribune SociaUste, describing somebody's philosophy a- last part of the article, that we can The correct figures were: CD 9, Com• organ of the PSU. Never did I read bout Freedom Schools, this whole sec• no longer properly be regarded as a munists 6, Socialists 3, Social Demo• a claim that the Communists or the tion of tiie article was not written "project", and thus the headline was crats 1 1 /2. Republicans 1 /2. This left generally could have taken power by me, was not in the article I sent ill chosen on two accounts. gives a different picture of the relation• then. in, does not describe anything that ship of forces, to put it mildly. Oglesby's claim that the PCI doesn't is going on in Boston, and I wish I peace Next specific: "the PSIUP, formed want 51% of the votes in the near knew how this piece got stuck into the after the last elections when Nenni middle of my article. It gives a very Larry Gordon, took PSI into the government". But the future is a senseless statement. Since misleading impression. I emphasize, Roxbury, Mass. PSIUP participated in the elections, as he says "thev don't see it", this the whole middle of the article, from getting 2% of the total vote! means tiiat 51% could come about only the second paragraph after number 2 Ed. Note: I agree that it was a gross under different conditions. If such con• till the second paragraph in the last error, but I still cannot discover how ditions did come about, what would column, is somebody else's article and it was done, for the copy that I typed from new york city they do, tell people not to vote for them? and had justified included the mistake. Oglesby says they do foresee 35%. does not refer to Boston. This indicates to me that I typed the The Italian left has asked Oglesby As party rhetoric such figures may Second - the Boston "project" is copy as part of one article. Now, con• the right questions (1) the role of the be thrown around. But the history of not planning the school, as the head• fusion grips me as I don't know who / working class in the anti-war movement Italy in the past twenty years shows line mistakenly implies. The school sent in the other article. (20 when will the new left get an ideo• the same pattern of very slight per• logy, e.g. will it become both anti- centage change in voting patterns that * capitalist and revolutionary socialist in has been characteristic of all Western sunyab students sit-in its perspectives (3) when will it become Eutope parliamentary regimes during political. It seems to me that the time that time. (continued on page 8) As this is being written, approxi• a public meeting on the SUNY/B cam• is at hand for a widespread discussion mately forty State University of New pus, has turned into a determined within SDS and all "new left" ranks or militant opposition to the war. Nor York at Buffalo students are staging effort to demonstrate to the University about these issues. can we afford to dismiss the concern a sit-in in the anterooms of the Pre• the significance of the question of The question about the role of the with working class passivity or outright sident of the University. Dr. Clifford student and faculty involvement in those workers in the development of the left in hostility against political dissent in our Furnas, The sit-in was precipitated by decisions which affect their lives and America Is not merely a reflection of country. a refusal by Dr. Furnas to discuss in academic careers. In response to the "social pathos arid class nostalgia." European workers may not be revolu• public meeting the University's com• Administration's repeated refusals to High wages and low unemployment can• tionary in this period of their own rela• plicity with the Selective Service sys• accede to the group's requests for the not explain the failureof any significant tive prosperity. But they vote socialist tem concerning the upcoming draft President's appearance at a meeting to section of American workers to develop and create crises for non-socialist deferment examinations. ItwasFurnas' explore the relation of the University class conscious socialist commitment. (continued on page 7) contention that no real conflict of func• and the Selective Service and the es• tions would result from the use of sentially unfair nature of student de• University facilities for the admini• ferment, these students have proposed stration of the exam, empirical evi• to sit in the President's offices until may 1 nac minutes dence (if any was needed) of the power they can come to a satisfactory ar• elite syndrome and pervasiveness of rangement with the University admini• The NAC meeting was attended by ference to launch the test program. the military-industrial complex. Fur• stration. members Mike Goldfield, Lee Webb, The draft contained a radical criti• nas, it might be added, is a former Bob Speck, and alternatives Paul Booth cism of the war and the discussed Undersecretary of Defense and pre• Members of the University faculty and Aerlin Weissman. Eric Chester the class bias the draft and the test. have expressed a growing support for Webb disagreed with the draft state• sently holds a position on the board this movement on the issue of academic was also there. ment and thought it should concentrate of directors of the Marine Midland freedom.