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Essays | Autumn 1985
A Pith For World Harmony

itch for rl
armony

by S. Frederick Staw
Last January, the trustees of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago awarded grants totaling $25 million for a va- riety of studies of how the East-West arms competition might at last be (peacefully) ended. The news prompted a rush of proposals for fur-ther studies hom within and beyond academe-among them the fol- lowing, in a travel-stained envelope bearing a four-rupee stamp and a blurred postmark hom India:
A Proposal to the M...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Democratic Prospects

Democratic Samuel P. Huntington, in The Public In-
terest (Spring 1985), 10 East 53rd St., rospects New York, N.Y. 10022.
What is the future of the national Democratic Party after its rout Reagan in 1984?
"First and foremost, [the Democrats' prospects depend] on whether the New Politics coalition continues to dominate the party," says Hun- tington, a Harvard professor of government. "If it does, the party will remain a minority and its vision . . .that of a minority party."
New...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
A Confident People?

Seymour Martin Lipset,
in Public Opinion (Apr.-May 1985), Amer-
eople? ican Enterprise Institute, 1150 17th St.
N.W.,Washington, D.C. 20036-9964.
In 1983, Seymour Martin Lipset and William Schneider, Fellows, re- spectively, at the Hoover and American Enterprise institutes, pub- lished The Confidence Gap, a book documenting Americans' loss of faith in their leaders. Even President Jimmy Carter had warned in 1979 of "a growing disrespect for government . . . churches . . .schools, the...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Anti-Lynching Legislation

the National Opinion Research Center and Harris showed a drop in optimistic responses, from 48 percent in 1966 to 31 percent in November 1984-below the previous nadir of 33 per- cent (the average of three polls) recorded in 1973-74, during the Water- gate hearings.
Lipset believes that Americans' lack of faith in their institutions and leaders is not superficial. It cannot be explained simply in terms of past presidential difficulties, past economic woes, or the media's past obses- sion with "bad"...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
First Use, or No First Use?

trying to achieve so many objectives at once, Western strate- gists have twisted clear, logical policies into incoherent doctrines, "muddling" issues for everyone.
So much the better, says Betts, a senior Brookings Fellow. He be- lieves that policy inconsistency can be a virtue, that a little cloudiness in its defense doctrines gives the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) more room to maneuver in the event of a crisis.
The chief contradiction, Betts contends, is that "what...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Good Intentions, Wasted Dollars

Nick
Good Intentions, Eberstadt, in commentary (June 1985),
asted Dollars 165 East 56th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
For more than a decade now, America's foreign aid policies have cost the taxpayers much, but accomplished little.
So argues Eberstadt, a Harvard population researcher. A "perversion of foreign aid" has occurred not because Americans are stingy with their wealth or lack compassion for the world's poor. Rather, a pro- gram once aimed at Third World economic development...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Lessons or Non-Lessons?

PERIODICALS
FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE
Shortly after World War 11, Eberstadt explains, President Harry Tru- man initiated "development assistance," designed to promote eco-nomic self-sufficiency in poor countries overseas. The World Bank, beginning in 1946, was set up to "facilitate investment for productive purposes" in countries needing an industrial base. Even the United Na- tion's Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) was limited to pro- viding only "immediate...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Techno-philia

the previous one? Opinions vary, al- though most scholars' answer is No.
Were supporters of the gradualist Johnson policy in Vietnam correct when they blamed the news media for undermining vital public sup- port, or was the policy itself fatally flawed? For their part, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger believe that they negotiated a satisfactory end to the war in 1973, but that Congress, cutting aid to Saigon in 1973-74, made Hanoi's victory inevitable. Fromkin and Chace contend that merely holding...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Tokyo, U.S.A.

Fukushima, in Foreign Policy (Summer
1985), 11 Dupont Circle, Washington,
D.C. 20036.
In disputes over the causes of America's $36.8 billion trade deficit with Japan, tempers have flared on both sides of the Pacific.
Fukushima, an economist at the Nomura Research Institute, suggests that Americans listen to the Japanese side of the story. He believes that Japanese businessmen have been falsely stereotyped as economic ma- rauders, while in fact, "Japan has been playing a helpful, vital...

In Essence | Autumn 1985
Space, Inc.

making direct investments." American workers are now building Hondas; Japanese steel companies are selling ad- vanced cold strip mill technology to their U.S. counterparts.
Washington, Fukushima says, is using Japan as a scapegoat. With a growing deficit that absorbs two-thirds of all national savings, an over- valued dollar, a diminishing competitive edge in several key industries, and excessive borrowing from overseas, the United States is largely re- sponsible for its own economic woes....

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