DEMOCRATS SEEK TO CAPTURE U.S. ANTIWAR MOVEMENT ™
"A widespread malaise over the fighting in Vietnam arid fear of further escalation is resulting in a groundswell of antiwar activities in several parts of the nation, most recently in the Midwest."
That sentence is not a quotation from a "Trotskyist" resolution on. the. political Situation in the United States, although it sounds like one. It is the main conclusion of a study undertaken by the NewYork Times and reported in its issue of June 10.: The: study was carried out. by its reporters on a coast to- coast: scale.
"Students and other young people, often: found to be nighty motivated and articulate, are the backbone of the antiwar movement ; " reports the Times.
"Sitting in on their bull sessions," writes Paul Hofmann,
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reporting on the study,."the outsider was. struck by the vehemence with which most of the antiwar. and. antidraft students were committed to fighting the Establishment. ; oa "tThe Establishment is all that's wrong and rotten in America,' an earnest girl from an affluent Long:-Island home asserted.on a Midwestern campus in citing ‘President Johnson's consensus through fear, the: Pentagon, the Central: Intelligence Agency, foreign investment, the big business corporations, the two-party system that is really just one party, racial injustice, poverty amid prosperity.'
"'In this sense,' she went on, ‘the Vietnam war has been with us for decades.'" : oe - -~usava. Ibis the development of. this- mood on a wide scale that concerns: the New York Times and the sector of the ruling class for. which it speaks, for it poses a first-rate political problem -- how can this mounting opposition be blocked from breaking out of the two-party system? .-.:: : .
The tentative ‘outlines of a solution: have already been ‘progm. ected, to read between the lines of Hofmann's report.
A "National Conference for New Politics" has been set up. It is nominally headed by Julian Bond, the e6-year-old Negro candidate who. was barred from taking his seat in the Georgia legislature. because of his opposition to: the war in Vietnam, and Simon Casady, 56, a former president of the California Democratic Council, who was ousted from his post for speaking out against the war.
If the new organization represented a break with the twoparty system; it would be a most. welcome development. But it: appears designed instead to halt the tendency of the. antiwar groups to break down the fences.
"One of the promoters, who did not want to be identified," Hofmann declares, "said yesterday. he had reason to believe that Senator Robert F. Kennedy ‘welcomes the formation' of the conference.
"Another promoter, Arthur: I. Waskow, a senior fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies: in Washington, remarked yesterday that he had 'a suspicion' that Senator Kennedy would react favorably to. the new group."
The immediate aims of the new organization also reveal its. political purpose. "Jerome Grossman, a Boston executive who is chairman of the comparatively moderate Massachusetts Political Action for Peace (Mass Pax) and also a promoter of the new. conference, affirmed by telephone it 'could enter the mainstream' of American politics sharing the outlook of Senators Kennedy and J. We Fulbright of Arkansas on many issues.
Grossman said that "the conference would function as a ser-
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vicé organization, providing research, personnel and funds for can-. didates“it endorsed." These, of course, would be mostly Democrats claiming to be "peace" candidates.
JE "An immediate goal is the raising of $500,000 to support some 50 candidates’ throughout the nation, it was understood. "
- Evidently: there is big money available: for the new organization. to help 3 it in its political objective of molding the antiwar =
- If Robert Kennedy is really interested in the new organization, as seems quite likely, he is following well-established prece-= dents in American politics. The outstanding example is Franklin Rooseveit's New Deal, which ‘succeeded in sucking in the labor bureaucracy and both the: Social Democratic ‘and Communist party leaderships.
"The : antiwar hovement is torn by internal debate over .strategy, the role of civil-rights issues in its propaganda, and: political involvement with Reform Democratic or third-party efforts," Hofmann notes: This is an accurate observation. The formation of the new "Conference" with the hand of such figures as . Robert Kennedy clearly. visible, will inevitably sharpen the internal debate.
the "lesser. evil" argument will be. sounded in all keys, it can safely be predicted. The left’ wing.of the antiwar movement: will have its work cutout on the political’ field for the coming period; namely, to show how’ ruinous this policy has proved to be and to indicate a realistic. alternative.
Powerful! ammunition for their case is provided by the latest major "lesser evil": ¢andidate to win office on a platform of. "peace"; namely; President' Johnson. : :
MEREDITH