THE COLD WAR AND THE WEST
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6) It would be a major victory for sanity if someone in Wash–
ington-preferably the President-could bring himself to announce
in public that the United States is not opposed to "socialism"
else–
where.
This happens to be true, but needs to be said. Vague expres–
sions like "social reform" won't do, since the new political and
intellectual elites, for very good reasons, are sold on the word
"socialism." In fact Mr. Kennedy could probably win the cold
war at one blow, over large portions of the globe, if he made a
convincing statement to this effect. But that is doubtless too much to
hope for.
ROBERT LOWELL
1-6. I want to write a few sentences on the first six ques–
tions as a whole, and then go on to the seventh. What we have to
offer the world is some sort of what I would like to call parliamentary
socialism. That is an administration that provides for its subjects,
guarantees a good many human rights, and can be voted out of
office. This very great good is unfortunately, however, poisoned and
confused by a crusading nationalism and the amoral power struggle.
7. I am trying to think of some way of answering the seventh
question simply and strongly. No nation should possess, use, or re–
taliate with its bombs. I believe we should rather die than drop om
own bombs. Every man belongs to his nation and to the world. He
can only, as things are, belong to the world by belonging to his own
nation. Yet the sovereign nations, despite their feverish last minute
existence, are really obsolete. They imperil the lives that they were
created to protect.
MARY McCARTHY
It
doesn't seem to me meaningful to talk about "the West"
as though it were a political or spiritual whole confronting "the
East." The Western nations are divided and not just on what might
