630
PAUL JACOBS
was a very good possibility the Dominican Republic would have
become another Cuba if the U.S. had not intervened. Would the signers
of the statement then have supported the U.S. actions?
I think this is the heart of the question and I do not think the state–
ment answers it or even deals with it. What should our policy
be
if, in
fact, a country within our sphere of interest, which seems to
be
world–
wide, does, in fact, opt for a Communist society? Two clear answers
are being given to that question today in America: one side says that we
must resist the spread of Communist societies wherever they may be and
to do that best in Asia, we ought to destroy Communist China now before
it has the opportunity to build up its military potential any further.
The other answer to the question says that other peoples' choices are
none of our concern even when, for very good reasons, we don't like
their choices; or that at least our legitimate concern over those choices
must stop at the point of intervention,
in any form,
into the internal or
external affairs of another country.
Both these views are legitimate ones, w,?rthy of
seri~us
debate. But
the statement in PR avoids such a discussion.
~nd
because it does, it con–
not be used as a basis for either discussing the main alternatives the U.S.
presently confronts or developing a range of other possible programs
which take into account the possibilities of bringing about a nuclear war.
PR asks for "new thinking" about U.S. policies. But that "new
thinking" must face the question I have raised: what should our policy
be toward other countries who choose some form of Communist totali–
tarianism, as all agree would happen in a free election in Vietnam and
might have happened in the Dominican Republic?
I do not suggest that any simple answers can be given to such
dif–
ficult questions. My own inclination is towards assuming that only the
most limited form of intervention is possible in an age of nuclear weap–
ons. But before any answer can be given, the existence of the questions
must be recognized.
Christopher Lasch
I object to the statement for two reasons.
In the first place, the attack on the teach-ins is both unnecessary to
the argument (since nobody involved in the teach-ins is advocating any–
thing, in the way of alternatives, other than what PR is advocating)
and inaccurate; it is simply not true that "most of the criticism" assumes
that the Cold War is an American invention. In treating the teach-ins as
