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181
uncertain combinations, Rousseauism, Marxism, Maoism, nationalism,
Leninism, Buddhism, Pan-Islamism, the varieties of political Christianity,
tens of tribalisms. Economically , their doctrines range from piratical capital–
ism to
compradore
regimes, from state capitalism to state socialism, from
peasant proprietorship to Cambodian communalism. Mr. Podhoretz's own
political allies (George Meany and Henry Jackson) by sponsoring Solzhenit–
syn have indicated their belief in a pan-Slavic and agrarian Russian future .
There is no way any reader ofMr. Podhoretz's essay could learn that the
approaching electoral
success
of Communist-Socialist coalitions in France
and Italy confronts us with a new situation. The publics in these countries
obviously
seek
a new model of society. In France , the Communist Party is
electorially subordinate
to
a revivified Socialist Party . In Italy, the Italian
Communist Party has developed its own Communism derived from nation–
al
traditions-and is, in any event, reluctant to enter government without
the Christian Democrats . Mr. Podhoretz presumably approves of Henry
Kissinger's and Alexander Haig's warnings to the Europeans
to
vote our
ticket only . Coming from the men who ordered the end of democracy in
Chile , the warning is not without a certain authority. What, however, of
the suggestions from the Gaullist French Prime Minister and Social
Demo–
cratic German Chancellor, that Kissinger and Haig shut up?
Does
Mr.
Podhoretz suppose that the West Europeans are unruly children, who require
our tutelage-or, possibly, the stern regimen of a military academy? The
European right no doubt has its fanatics who are preparing for civil war. If
Mr. Podhoretz does not wish for this eventuality, would he not do well to
cease
taxing the rest of us with softness to ..Communism' ,?
I've intimated that Mr. Podhoretz 's essential interest is in our own
political life , not in the world beyond our borders. He observes that many
liberals no longer favor what is now termed the Imperial Presidency . I am
not
sure
that this is true when so many Democrats are so anxious for a
Humphrey candidacy . Still, a certain disillusionment has set in . In this
country, the strong Presidency has been our equivalent of the modern
Prince . It was, and is , the only institurion able to gather sufficient political
weight
to
strike at the dispersed and omnipresent forces of inertia and
privilege . Mr . Podhoretz ignores the domestic roots of recent criticism of
the presidency . Our federal bureaucracy is cumbersome and often unre–
sponsive to ' public or Congressional will. The Executive has been subject
often enough to successful pressures from the special interests it was sup–
posed to oppose in the public interest. We have no institutions adequate
to a decentralized democracy. Experiments in
these
are proceeding in Western
Europe , under auspices exceedingly uncongenial to Mr. Podhoretz . The
public mood mistakenly and short-sightedly interpreted as " conservative"
