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Fred Warner Neal was a professor of international relations at Claremont Graduate University in California. He was also a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and a consultant on [...]

Presents letters to the editor concerning articles about U.S. politics. Incorporation of an article in a national constitution renouncing war as an instrument of national policy; "Stagflation" or economic problems of the U.S.; Failure of the market to operate to restore employment after a recession; Politician George F. Kennan's opinion on the military threat that the Soviet Union poses against the U.S.; State of professional contentment of economists.

Presents letters to the editor referencing articles and topics discussed in previous issues. Accomplishments of former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy; Decision of the California Democratic Convention to choose a slate of delegates to the 1968 National Democratic Convention; Information on a research project to ascertain the cultural and economic effectiveness of New Deal patronage of the visual arts.

The major problem of United States foreign policy has long been a cold-war immobilisme that arose in the administrations of former U.S. President Harry S. Truman. Some few statesmen have perceived--however dimly--the need for change, but have been inhibited from action by a public rigidity which, if it were not itself created by administration policies, was molded by them. Only intelligent and courageous Presidential leadership can break such an impasse. One does not have to endorse all U.S. President John F. Kennedy's positions to recognize that he seems now to have taken some steps toward breaking out of the strait jacket, and to applaud him for it.

This article reports that the cold war appears now to have entered a new phase, marked by fissures and schisms in both the Communist and Western blocs. The new phase offers to the U.S. unprecedented opportunity for bold diplomatic moves which could ease world tensions and lessen the danger of thermonuclear war between China and the Soviet Union. At the same time, if the opportunity is muffed, it is a phase that may turn out to be more dangerous than any that preceded it. Meanwhile, the growing split between the Soviet Union and China should help destroy a favorite American cold-war myth.

The Cuban crisis is likely to be some kind of turning point for either good or ill, in the cold war. Given imagination and wisdom on Americans' part, it could become an opportunity for building the peace. The upshot of the Cuban crisis, as of last weekend, appeared to be a clear-cut the U.S. victory. And it was; Americans were about to achieve what Americans wanted to achieve, i.e., withdrawal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. But it was also a Soviet victory, despite what appears as a serious loss of face for Moscow, Russia. The proclaimed Soviet policy of offering protection to revolutionary regimes, while at the same time insisting that thermonuclear war could be avoided, is an important facet of Soviet foreign policy in both ideological and power terms.