|
Ivan W.
Parkins |
|
To order Dr. Parkins book, Perspectives For
American Society Contact |
|
©Ivan W. Parkins 2009, All articles, text, web pages property of
Ivan W. Parkins. Use of any material
requires permission of the author
and can be obtained by contacting,
info@americanpoliticalcommentary.com |
|
About Ivan W. Parkins: Dr. Parkins is a retired professor of
Political Science from Central Michigan University. He received his PhD from the University of
Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval officer
during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama.
He is a recent widower with three daughters, 3 grand children and 2
great grand children. Dr. Parkins has
written extensively, having authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column
for many years. |
|
Front Page |
|
In This Issue: THE BATTLE OF WORDS |
|
ACADEMIC CRITICS OF VIETNAM (From my
column, Daily Times-News, February 25, 1970.) By Ivan W. Parkins
Among academic authorities critical of American policy in Vietnam few,
if any, rank higher than Hans J. Morgenthau.
As a director and professor of the international relations program at
the University of Chicago, he had contributed to the education of hundreds of
specialists in the field. He is the
author of several books, dozens of articles, and scores of public addresses
on international relations. At least
twice in the past year the editors of the DETROIT FREE PRESS have relied
heavily upon his authority to support attacks on American policy.
Having a slight acquaintance with Professor Morgenthau, and a more
extensive one with some of his protégé's and writings, I
remain unconvinced by his stand on Vietnam.
Some of my reasons will, I hope, be of interest to others. For
one thing, in 1965, Professor Morgenthau’s articles in the NEW REPUBLIC and
the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE dwelt heavily upon the danger of war with China
and the possibility that our Vietnam effort would reunite the communist
world. In those matters he seems to
have been a very poor prophet.
Also, he relies, in virtually everything I have read or heard from
him, upon his great self-assurance plus the suggestion that his opposition is
naïve. At a meeting in Akron, Ohio
nearly twenty years ago, I witnessed his ridicule of Professor Frederick
Shuman, another leading authority on international relations. Professor Shuman was noted for his advocacy
of a more conciliatory approach to the Communists,
and for his concern with world opinion, while Morgenthau was then following a
more militaristic, power politics, line.
Especially in view of Professor Morgenthau’s position today, I have
some difficulty in excusing his attitude towards Schuman. If
I am too sensitive of Professor Morgenthau’s arrogance, it may be because I
was once the victim of it. As his
student, in 1946, I dared to dispute
some of his assertions and was cut down.
The point in dispute was the possibility of revolutions in the
future. He asserted in lectures, and
in his POLITICS AMONG NATIONS, 1948, that technological developments had made
revolutions obsolescent. Being much
interested in guerrilla warfare, especially the techniques of the Chinese
Communists, I questioned that, and was quickly made aware of my immaturity as
a scholar. The 1948 edition of
Professor Morgenthau’s book, a great academic success, took no notice of
political developments in technologically backward parts of the world.
Now, Professor Morgenthau is contending that revolutions of national
liberation, because of the faith of the revolutionaries, are virtually immune
to defeat by military technology.
Somehow, I have the feeling that his present view is no less extreme,
and no less myopic, than was his very different view of twenty-four years
ago. . .
. . . .
When one looks at some of the predictions of leading academic critics
of the Vietnam War—Schlesinger, that Khe Sanh would be worse than Dien Bien
Phu,, and Gailbraith, that President Thieu would not last two weeks after
Tet, 1968—it is difficult to believe that such people were making reasoned
judgments based upon study of the issue. The
most common theme of academic criticisms is that the American public and its
official leadership are prejudiced or naïve.
The Domino Theory, a moral crusade against communism, belief that
communism is still monolithic, and similar ideas are first attributed to the
public and to officials and, then, discredited as gross
oversimplifications. Granted that such
things may sometimes have limited public and official understanding of the
Vietnam issue, I see no reason for believing that the academic critics of our
policy have done better. Claims of the
academic critics to special probity regarding Vietnam would, it seems to me,
have to rest upon the degrees and positions that they hold rather than upon
their performance. |
|
NO CITIES RESPONSE From my
column January 13, 1971, in the Daily Times-News: By Ivan W. Parkins
What does “no cities response” mean to you? Does it relate to problems of our social
environment, to ecology, or to military policy? I confess that, until very recently, no
cities response was (unlike black power, synergetic effects, and the
military-industrial complex) new terminology to me. I was chagrined, therefore, to read that,
“No understanding of American national security policy is possible without
knowledge of it.” I
teach, or try to teach, a little about national security policy in
my American government courses. I’ve
checked the textbooks I use, they don’t mention no cities response. I’ve checked several competitive textbooks;
they have sections on national security policy, but no mention of no cities
response. It
was from Louis Heren’s book THE NEW AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH, that I got the
idea that no cities response might be something important. Heren is a Washington correspondent for THE
TIMES OF LONDON. He contends that no
cities response is “the military strategy of the United States, and as with
American diplomacy it has become the strategy that dominates the world.” Is no cities response a military
secret? Heren cites as its origin a
public address by Secretary of Defense McNamara at the University of
Michigan, June 16, 1962. I
gather from the growing emphasis upon seaborn nuclear forces, the scattering
of land-based missiles in isolated places, the efforts to develop more
accurate rather than larger weapons that no cities response is actually a
part of contemporary strategy and not some figment of Defense Department public relations. My concern at the moment is not with the
policy itself, but with why it gets so little attention. One
of the principal reviews of Louis Heren’s book, that in ATLANTIC, February,
1968, emphasized Heren’s treatment of national security policy. It did not, however, mention no cities
response. The next issue of ATLANTIC
was devoted to a denunciation of our military policies, under the title
SUPERNATION AT PEACE AND WAR. It
would be difficult to reconcile no cities response with the stereotype of a
military policy so narrow and callous that it can lead only to petulance and
self-destruction. Is that why it get
so little notice in the press and the textbooks? No cities response contradicts the picture
of our military policy which most journalists and professors are trying to
promote. |
|
SOME ISSUES RE: PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND WAR
Chance and my long interest in public affairs have revealed a few key
points to me. It began in my teens,
the later 1930s. Early in the 1940s I became a midshipman. With the USNA’s Color Company, I marched in
FDR’s third inaugural parade. The
brief comment that my classmates attached to my graduation picture, cited my
frequent discussions of public affairs. On
Monday, following the Japanese surrender, I submitted my resignation
from the Navy. It was accepted, and in
January 1946, I began graduate studies in philosophy and government. One of my early courses was with the
professor who would probably do more than any other in America to certify new
professors of international relations, and to shape their opinions. (Some with whom I became acquainted were
virtual “disciples.”) |
|
AMERICA’S INTELLECTUAL ELITE By Ivan W. Parkins
Charles Kadushin authored a book entitled THE AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL ELITE in 1974. It was a
systematic effort to identify 100 persons who, according to their mutual
regard, ranked at the top of America’s pyramid. John K. Galbraith was a widely accepted
choice for first place. Most were
writers, especially for elite periodicals, and many lived in or near New York
City. Among them, severely critical
views of our war in Vietnam was one point of general agreement.
Questioned regarding their chief sources of information on the war,
they cited three particular individuals most frequently. The only one who was primarily a professor
and international relations expert was Hans Morgenthau. Also in the top three were Bernard Fall, a
man who had specialized academically and journalistically in French Indo
China and in France’s war there prior to our own. David Halberstam, an American journalist
with broad experience in combat coverage for the NEW YORK TIMES and lesser
journals was the third key source. My
brief acquaintance with Fall, also with General Maxwell Taylor, occurred in
1966 at Asheville Biltmore College (now UNC-A). A senior retired Foreign Service officer on
our staff had set up a public forum on the Vietnam War. As ranking faculty member and chairman of
political science, I was invited to join General Taylor and others at
luncheon, and to escort the General around campus, visiting classes, in the
afternoon. General Taylor had been an
ambassador to Vietnam, aide to President Johnson, and Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. With Mr. Fall and
President Highsmith of ABC, I spent a leisurely dinner and discussion. My
principal questions to both experts concerned whether or not the public
information available, if I chose it wisely, was sufficient to explain the
issues relating to our Vietnam War effort.
Both men seemed to agree that all essential information was available
to a private person who looked for it thoughtfully.
Although the two men’s views differed greatly regarding our pursuit of
and progress in the war, they did not suggest that any information vital to
understanding it was unavailable to the public. My basic viewpoint, that
unequal emphasis and neglect of
equally pertinent facts by our media of information was more important than
any government misinformation or censorship was reinforced. But, the backlog of
disinformation and suspicions imposes upon Americans a handicap that makes
any favorable outcome quite uncertain. |
|
WHOSE TYRRANY? By Ivan W. Parkins From my
column: the Daily Times-News, November 29, 1972: This article is an illustration of the
use of words and it’s purposeful misinterpretation .
James Reston, in a recent column, charges President Nixon with
contributing to a tyranny of words.
Reston says that corruption of our political thinking leads to misuse
of words, and that imprecise use of words further corrupts our political
thinking. With that major premise I am
inclined to agree. But Reston comes to
his anti-Nixon conclusion by choosing “permissiveness” as his contemporary
example of misused words. President
Nixon, Reston charges, equates permissiveness with slackness and selfishness
of character. I doubt that the
President’s usage constitutes any gross abuse, and I further doubt that
permissiveness is one of the most abused words in our contemporary politics.
“Genocide” has been used by antiwar protesters and by black militants
with a recklessness sufficient to disregard even growth in those populations
allegedly being exterminated.
Mr.Reston’s own paper, THE NEW YORK TIMES, greeted President Nixon’s
Cambodian incursion as a “Compulsive Escalation,” in spite of the fact that
Richard Nixon is one of the least compulsive and most calculating men ever to
lead this country. “Escalation” was
also the scare word of the antiwar movement for our response to the massive
North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam last spring. .
. . .
Reston charges that the President is permissive toward “the most
wasteful military establishment in history.”
Mr. Reston deals so recklessly with the awesome history of military
waste that we are almost stunned into overlooking the fact that President
Nixon has actually reduced the portion of this nation’s wealth which goes to
the military to the lowest level in a quarter of a century. And his obscuring that fact leaves Reston
guilty of something more serious than stretching the meaning of
permissiveness. THE BATTLE OF WORDS The previous article is an illustration
of the constant misinformation war that has been going on for a very long
time and this battle of words is constant reminder that truth must be
promoted in all endeavors, but especially in the realm of public information
and America is losing that battle By Ivan W. Parkins It
has long been, and it is, my conclusion that the greatest battle America has
been losing is the battle of words. A
minority of Americans, favorably situated in the institutions that provide
most of our public news and views, has deprived America of key elements of
truth.
That has been mostly a matter of emphasis and neglect. Nearly all of the most pertinent truths
have remained available “somewhere,” often in common references and public libraries. But the capacity of a minority:
journalists, teachers, and artists, to make some items common knowledge and
to ignore other items that are of equal or greater pertinence has become a
threat to the future of America.
Now, in 2009, we have on our hands a crisis that is, in part, the
product of our decades long war of words.
The information media are becoming more competitive. But, the backlog of disinformation,
suspicion, and illusions imposes upon Americans a handicap that makes any
favorable outcome quite uncertain. |