THE · Wor Built/up Deepens M.df. ~n~e!A~! Split in Ruling Closs Vol. 32 - No. 12 Monday, March 18, 1968 Price 10¢ By Dick Roberts New York Post correspondent Rob­ "Even more pervasive is the MARCH 12 - General West­ ert J. Donovan, "[Johnson] min­ comment, 'We don't really know moreland's request this week for gles less and less with civilians where we stand yet. Our informa­ gigantic reinforcements of 206,000 outside the White House. tion is poor.'" more troops to Vietnam has "When he departs Washington, The main line of the argument touched off an unprecedented de­ his destinations are now wrapped against administration policies put bate in the American ruling class. in secrecy and he is apt to seek forth by dissidents in the Pen­ Never in the course of the war haven on an aircraft carrier or tagon is that whatever reinforce­ has the division over Vietnam at an air base." ments Washington could send, policies been so deep. Few times Johnson declared this week, Hanoi and the National Liberation in American history have such "We are going to find peace with Front can always equal them. sharp disagreements in ruling honor. We are not going to be A March 9 dispatch from Can­ class circles come to public at­ Quislings, and we are not going tho, South Vietnam, described one tention. to be appeasers, and we are not of South Vietnam's "key gen­ going to cut and run." erals'' as stating "the enemy had The New York Times revealed Indicating the extent of de­ already conscripted enough troops March 10 the existence of a se­ moralization in the Pentagon to offset the 'severe losses' suf­ cret Pentagon report on Vietnam caused by the Tet offensive, the fered during the bloody Lunar attacking the administration pol­ New York Times stated March 10: New Year offensive." icies from top to bottom. "One high official commented One official quoted by the New In the course of the week, the that the enemy's Tet offensive York Times put it crudely and Washington Post and Newsweek was 'a body blow.' Another re­ brutally: "Essentially we are fight­ magazine, two of the most influen­ marked that Washington was 'still ing Vietnam's birth rate.'' At one tial news publications in the coun­ groggy.' Said a third: 'There's no and the same time this statement try, broke ranks with Johnson's disguising it - we got a real admits , the genocidal implication war. The New York Times itself punch in the nose.' Others speak .of Washington's attack on the delivered its sharpest editorial at­ bitterly of Vietnam as a 'bottom­ Vietnamese population - and the tack so far on White House pol­ less pit.' (Continued on Page 3) icies. And in the last two days Secre­ tary of State Rusk has been con­ fronted by bitter denunciation of Stu·dents in Poland the war from ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Com­ mittee before national TV audi­ ences. Deman·d Dem·ocracy This division takes place as the full extent of Washington's defeat ByLes Evans debris and broken furniture ..." in the Tet offensive is beginning MARCH 12 - Tens of thou­ Police brought out a water can­ to be assimilated - and to a cer­ sands of Polish students, joined non and a multiple tear-gas tain extent admitted - by top for the first time by large num­ launcher to disperse the crowds in policy makers. It occurs when bers of workers, battled police for the most violent upheaval in more casualty figures for American more than eight hours in the cen­ than a decade. soldiers rose above the 500 level ter of Warsaw yesterday. The official Polish press has vi­ for the second week in a row. The student demonstrations, ciously attacked the students as It has no doubt been stimulated which began March 8, were aimed "scum" and "hooligans.'' Slowo by the growing apprehension that at winning political and artistic Powszech<ne and other papers have some 6,000 troops are dangerously freedom from Poland's bureaucra­ made openly anti-Semitic attacks trapped in the northern marine tic rulers. The New York Times re­ on the demonstrators, charging Rose Karsner Cannon, 1890-1968 base at Khesanh. ported March 10 that students that the protests have been led by And administration critics have were chanting such slogans as, Jews and ·listing the names of Rose Karsner Cannon, a founding member of the American Trot­ by no means been calmed by the "More democracy!" "Down with some of ..the students who had skyist movement and dedicated fighter for socialism her entire near-paranoid reaction of Lyndon censorship!" and "Gestapo!" (to been arrested who were Jewish. adult life, died of cancer on March 7 in Los Angeles, at the age Johnson himself. "Deeply preoc­ the police) . Another cry was The press claimed that the stu­ of 78. As we go to press, memorial meetings have been scheduled cupied with military policy and "Long Live Czechoslovakia!" in­ dents were "well-to-do'' reaction­ in Los Angeles and New York. battlefield reports," according to dicating that the students were aries. The large turnout of work­ aware of the growing turmoil ers yesterday seriously undercut over liberalization in that coun­ the credibility of these slanders. try despite an almost total black­ The "riots" began when War­ out of news from Prague. saw University students met The Times reported March 12 March 8 to demand the reinstate­ Rose Karsner Can.non Is Dead, that "Demonstrators sacked a ment of two students expelled last building of the Culture Ministry Jan. 31 for demonstrating against in the central section of the cap­ the closing of a classic anti-Czarist A Forem~ost Woman Trotskyist ital and fought policemen with (Continued on Page 4) By Evelyn Reed at home." But Rose quickly dis­ Rose also became acquainted with the luminary of American Rose Karsner Cannon's life covered that the longed-for lib­ Fred H11lste11d Dec/ores eration meant "freedom to work socialism, Eugene V. Debs. "I at­ spanned four critical generations, tended all his mass meetings in extending from the heyday of cap­ in sweat shops at substandard wages and to live in crowded, the New York-New Jersey area , italism to the beginnings of so­ where I went through the au­ cialism. Along with serious set­ bug-infested ghetto tenements." Pl11n to Visit Vietn11m dience selling The Masses," she backs to the world revolution, she College was for the rich and even recalled. Rose came to know Debs NEW YORK, March 12 - Fred istration propose? It is consider­ witnessed enough victories to con­ a high-school education was be­ yond her reach. more closely after her marriage Halstead, presidential candidate ing sending as many as 200,000 firm her conviction that the hopes to Dave Karsner, a newspaper more troops. But this won't save Rose started her political life of the Socialist Workers Party, an­ and aspirations of the oppressed man, who was a friend of Debs the American men there. This for a better life through socialism at the age of 18 by joining the nounced here today that he is New York Local of the Socialist and his first biographer. planning to take his campaign for will only lead to greater escala­ would be fulfilled. Explaining the magnetism that Party. This was in 1908, an elec­ the immediate withdrawal of U.S. tion and LBJ will be responsible Rose was herself one of the poor Debs exercised, she observed: "It for the deaths of even more Amer­ and oppressed. She was born in tion year, and after listening to troops from Vietnam to the wasn't the radicals alone; Debs American servicemen stationed in ican men. The only solution for Rumania in 1890 and migrated a speaker at a street corner rally, was loved by the great mass of saving American men at Khesanh she signed a membership applica­ Vietnam and Japan. Halstead said with her family to the United workers, some of whom were op­ and throughout Vietnam, and to States, the overseas haven of gold­ tion. She came to know such lead­ he is planning the trip sometime ers as George R. Kirkpatrick, au­ posed to his ideas of socialism. this summer. stop the death and destruction of en promises, in the 1890s. The But Debs exuded love for humani­ Vietnam and the Vietnamese, is to gates of Ellis Island were then thor of "War, What For?"; Rufus ty and conveyed a sincerity and "Most Gis are fed up with the W. Weeks, a Christian socialist; get out of there - now!" wide open for European emigrants passion about his convictions for Vietnam war," the socialist can­ Art Young, the famous cartoonist; Halstead said he expects the who provided a plentiful reserve a better world for everyone, re­ didate said at a press conference and Bertha Mailey, secretary of American authorities to see that of cheap labor. gardless of race, color or creed. held at the Socialist Workers Par­ he is given the same courtesies as In an interview on her 70th the Rand School for Social Sci­ He was among the first to take ty headquarters. "They want to ence, in which Algernon Lee and they have accorded other candi­ birthday, she told me, "We came a vigorous public stand against get out of this mess. I want to go dates who went to Vietnam, such W. H. Ghent were instructors. to this country to flee oppression discrimination of any type." to Vietnam and show them that as George Romney.