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PARTISAN REVIEW
valry between foreign powers pursuing their selfish interests - and
the dangers arising from that conflict as.something to be avoided at
any price. Political education, however, is also a task for the parties
of a democracy . At the turn toward detente, the Social Democratic
Party leaders rightly felt a special responsibility to explain to their
members and followers that the normalization of relations between
the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union and its allies
did not end the basic contrast between the Social Democratic and the
Communist view of freedom, social justice, and human rights, and
they arranged for the writing and printing of a basic pamphlet on
"Social Democracy and Communism." The pamphlet was duly dis–
tributed, and after a brief interval a second edition appeared with a
preface by Willy Brandt. But what ought to have become a continu–
ing effort soon was forgotten, and the many thousands of new young
members who joined the party in the coming years were never in–
structed in this spirit. They learned to defend the policy of detente,
of better relations with the East, against the then still passionate op–
position of the Christian Democrats; they did not learn why the con–
flict with the Communist world did go on. When the crisis over the
stationing of nuclear missiles developed, they were easily won over
by the "peace movernent."
III.
Criticism of antagonistic powers, with whom negotiations have
nevertheless to be conducted, often is expressed in highly aggressive
language in America- not by responsible people , but by people in
responsible positions . And often Americans reply to criticism of such
conduct, if uttered by foreign friends of the United States, by refer–
ences to "rhetoric" geared to domestic consumption. Also, highly
dramatic proposals for military planning and armaments, put for–
ward by an official in the Pentagon or even the President's Security
Council, often are published by the media as sensational news about
administration policy long before a decision has been made and the
President is committed to them. The standard reply to foreign
criticism of such practice is that the United States is an open society
and that the freedom of the press to reveal such plans, whether
classified or not, is part of its democratic process. But what most
Americans do
not
know are the unintended and sometimes lasting
effects produced abroad by those American customs .
