CONTEMPORARY CRISIS
WHILE AMERICA BURNS
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Mr. Ba"ett's letter and William Phillips's reply are
part ofa continuing series ofcomments on the political and economic
crisis in Amenca and Western Europe.
William Phillips
Editor, Partisan Review
Dear William:
In trying to collect my thoughts on the present situation, I found
myself persistently going back to the time more than twenty-five years
ago when I was connected with the magazine. A great deal has hap–
pened in between; but it
seems
to
me that the situation then, or the
situation as
Partisan Review
then faced it, might serve as a channel–
marker against the present turbulent currents. You were then both
mentor and friend; and as my mind turns back in that direction, it
seems
only natural that I should be addressing my thoughts
to
you.
The great and overshadowing difference between then and now,
it seems to me, is in the relative positions of power of the United
States and the Soviet Union. America has become much weaker,
markedly so after Vietnam and Watergate; and Russia much stronger.
Everything else in the contemporary scene comes under the shadow
of this shifting balance of power. If the United States were to go
under, liberty would disappear for mankind. I don't say this out of
any patriotic conviction of America's messianic destiny. History has
simply dealt the cards in this way. If the American presence were to
disappear, western Europe would slide quickly into the Soviet bloc.
Britain would be left an isolated island with a faltering economy and
severe class conflicts; and Japan would be similarly isolated, with
mounting internal pressures of its own. Anything, then, that weakens
the strength of the United States weakens the cause of liberty.
