GIVE LIGHT AND THE PEOPLE WILL FIND THEIR OWN WAY

# The Cleveland Press
A Scripps-Howard Newspaper

THOMAS L. BOARDMAN, Editor

GEORGE E. CARTER, Business Manager

Net Paid Circulation for Six Months Ending March 31, 1969

OHIO'S LARGEST EVENING NEWSPAPER

391,308

Friday, December 26, 1969

## Nixon Should Welcome Report From Eaton

President Nixon has said frequently he places top priority on his quest to end the war in Vietnam — or, at least, to end the United States' deep involvement there.

Pursuing this cause, he should spare no effort to inform himself as fully as possible of the thinking of North Vietnam's leaders. That's a difficult feat, in the absence of diplomatic channels.

But Cleveland industrialist Cyrus Eaton has just returned from a unique eight-day visit to Hanoi, during which he talked at length with top officials. He said these leaders are convinced that only President Nixon can end the war — and that he does not really want it to end.

A report from Eaton on what he learned in Hanoi could be immensely valuable in Washington. President Nixon should invite him to the White House for a conference.

LETTER FROM HELSINKI

A breakdown of the composition of the Soviet and American delegations in Helsinki. A look at what has happened at previous secret arms talks with the USSR, and a warning that there are three steps we must not take

Three Concessions We Shouldn't Make

ANTHONY H. HARRIGAN

HELSINKI, FINLAND—The pale northern light barely breaks through the cloud-laden skies at this season and a fierce wind off the Gulf of Finland whips through the streets of this former seat of the governors-general of a Grand Duchy of the old Russian empire. Helsinki thus provides a physically appropriate—even symbolic—setting for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) between the United States and the Soviet Union. There's only the faintest ray of hope that the preliminary SALT talks will induce the Soviets to slow down their drive for strategic superiority in nuclear weapons.

The SALT talks were planned as secret negotiations and perhaps this is the only basis on which the U.S. and the USSR can hold serious discussions without the latter using the conference as a propaganda forum. Nevertheless it should be borne in mind that Americans have traditionally abhorred secret agreements secretly arrived at. Americans old enough to remember the final political phase of World War II recall the debacle of the secret talks at the United States had with Russia at the Yalta Conference. Half of Europe, half of the old lands of Christendom, disappeared behind the Iron Curtain because the United States engaged in secret diplomacy and was ill-equipped for that very tricky game.

It is hoped that the SALT talks at Helsinki won't go down in the history books as another Yalta. Yet it is necessary to consider whether the United States has learned very much about negotiating with the Russians in the last quarter century. In appraising the American effort at Helsinki it is necessary to examine the make-up of the respective national delegations and to consider the assumptions on which they operate,

as well as the mandates received from their governments.

President Nixon's message to the American delegation was that the American goal is "a sustained effort not only to limit the buildup of strategic forces but to reverse it." No one can reasonably doubt that this public statement is anything but an honest expression of American desire. The United States has been committed to this objective since the Baruch plan was advanced in 1946. In pursuing a basic American purpose, the President nevertheless took pains to deal with a dogma of the disarmament-at-any-price advocates who view dismantlement of nuclear weapons systems as the only way to guarantee peace in the world. Mr. Nixon warned the U.S. delegation that he is "conscious of the historical fact that wars and crises between nations can arise not only simply from the existence of arms but from clashing interests or the ambitious pursuit of unilateral interests."

No one knows what instructions the Soviet hierarchy gave to its delegation here. The American public has the word of Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Semenov, head of the Soviet SALT delegation, that his country's actions would be "unswervingly guided by the principles of ensuring lasting peace and international security laid down by V. I. Lenin." In other words, the Communists promised to act like Communists. The full import of that simple but fundamental fact may be lost on some occasions of the U.S. public.

To handle the most sensitive negotiations of the nuclear age, the U.S. Government selected a five-man delegation headed by Gerald Smith, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency—a Republican lawyer who served on the Atomic Energy Commission in the Eisenhower Administration and later became John Foster Dulles' aide for atomic affairs.

THE OTHER U.S. delegates here are: Paul Nitze, former Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Secretary of Defense during the McNamara years; Dr. Harold Brown, former Secretary of the Air Force, another McNamara era figure; Llewellyn E. Thompson, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow; and Major General Royal B. Allison, a much-decorated Air Force officer with extensive experience as an assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Each of these men is able and dedicated. Yet the combination is somehow curious. Why were two McNamara men selected? It was during the McNamara regime at the Pentagon that the United States lost the immense lead in nuclear armaments it had enjoyed since 1945. The McNamara concept of parity with

DECEMBER 30, 1969 1311

The Russian Presence

HELSINKI, "Daughter of the Baltic," was well-chosen as the site of the first round of what are likely to be protracted negotiations between the U.S. and USSR. The city is rich in reminders of the sweep of Russian ambitions: A massive statue of Czar Alexander II dominates Senate Square in the historic center of Helsinki with its government buildings in the neoclassic Imperial Russian style. Above the inner harbor basin is the Orthodox Uspanski Cathedral with its gilded onion domes, suggesting the proximity of the Eastern world.

The Finns can't forget the closeness of the Soviet colossus. From 1809 to 1917 they were under Russian rule. They fought two wars with the Soviet Union in the 1939-45 period. The price they paid was loss of valuable territory and a de facto ban on association with states outside Moscow's orbit. By the terms of the peace treaty signed with the USSR, Finland is barred from possessing atomic weapons—even of a defensive nature.

Despite the arms limitation unilater-

ally imposed on them and their strict adherence to neutrality, the Finns believe in military preparedness. This week I had an opportunity to observe a tank-infantry team of the Uusimaa Jaeger Battalion make a mock assault on a rocky island where the Santa-hamina Military Academy is located. Machine-gun and recoilless rifle-equipped troops wearing green camou-flage uniforms for concealment in Finland's forests, smashed their way through birch woods supported by tanks with canon firing. They showed dash and zeal. The Finns don't emphasize that the Russians are a threat, but everyone understands. Certainly they don't imagine they could defeat a massive Soviet army, but they know they could inflict painful losses on an invader. Patriotism and national security are honored words in Finland. Ninety per cent of the nation's youth serve in the army or aboard the fast, gas-turbine driven gunboats based along the coast. The Russians know from experience that the Finns are tenacious, and respect the firmness of their small neighbor.

Deputy Minister Semenov is a Soviet diplomat with long experience. One of his earliest posts was in Nazi Germany in 1940. He attained his present rank in 1963 and was made a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The two delegates with a scientific and technical background are academician Alexander N. Schukin and P. S. Pleshakov, Deputy Minister of the Ministry for Radio Industry.

Whereas the U.S. delegation has only one military member and only low-ranking officers serve on the delegation staff, the Soviets have a full military complement. Serving as delegates are Col. Gen. Nikolai V. Ogarkov, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff, and Col. Gen. N. N. Alekseev. Gen. Ogarkov occupies a far more prestigious position in the Soviet military establishment than Gen. Allison fills at the Pentagon.

In addition to the general officers on the Soviet delegation, the Soviets' advisory staff includes three generals and one vice admiral. The U.S. delegation is without a naval adviser of flag rank.

Considering the fact that the SALT

talks involve professional military decisions, it seems unfortunate that the U.S. Armed Forces should have only one senior representative on the combined delegation and advisory staff. It is appropriate to mention that one reason recent Democratic Administrations made such tragic mistakes in the national security area is that they did not give professional military judgment an adequate role in the decision-making process. The lack of comprehensive U.S. military representation at the crucial SALT talks is a cause for concern.

One of the U.S. delegates in the conversation with Ambassador Smith—at which this reporter was present—emphasized his personal conviction that we should score gains “now,” and not worry too much about long-term dangers. While the delegate in question has a right to believe in the value of a short-term gain—presumably a quick agreement on a nuclear agenda—the United States has to bear in mind the peril that could result from hastily considered proposals.

There is immense pressure from anti-preparedness elements in the United

the Soviets in nuclear weaponry—a doctrine to which Nitze and Brown evidently subscribed since they were instruments of the U.S. defense policy then—constituted unilateral disarmament by the United States. Given this background and their continued association and identification with former Kennedy and Johnson Administration elements active in support of unilateral disarmament concessions to demonstrate American good faith, their inclusion in a delegation formed by the Nixon Administration seems illogical. Insofar as Ambassador Thompson is concerned, he is an able and knowledgeable diplomat. But the fact remains that he has been a party to the notably unsuccessful U.S. decision-making of the 1960s—in short, to the mistaken estimates of Soviet intentions that the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations made. With all due respect to the intelligence and patriotism of these three representatives of the United States at Helsinki, one may properly ask: Where are the new faces and authentic voices of the Nixon Administration?

Useless Exercise?

In view of the mixed nature of the U.S. delegation, an observer also may question whether they have the shared understandings and common approach to issues that makes a group of negotiators an effective working team. Looking at the disparate backgrounds of the American negotiators, it is hard to believe that they hold the same views on the nature of power and the character and outlook of the enemy. Different points of view are understandable and fitting at the Washington level, but when American negotiators sit down across the table to deal with a Soviet delegation, which operates on the basis of a well-defined ideology and fixed methods, the U.S. delegation is at a marked disadvantage unless it is a close-knit group. Furthermore, Americans have reason to question the tough-mindedness of the U.S. State Department in the light of Secretary Rogers' statement that the Soviet delegates to the SALT talks seem to want “the same thing we want.” This comment certainly doesn't meet the standard of realism the public expects from the Nixon Administration.

The Soviet delegation sent here on a probing expedition, is much more security-oriented than the American delegation. First of all it should be noted that

1312 NATIONAL REVIEW

Russians respect strength. This is an aspect of the Russian psychology that one hopes the U.S. SALT delegation understands.

The Soviet delegates arriving at the Williamsburg-style red brick U.S. Embassy, resemble pallbearers at Stalin's funeral: squat, glum men in drab grey overcoats and Depression Era fedora hats. Their transportation for the occasion—a small fleet of black sedans that seem to be modeled on a 1959 De Soto.

The Soviet journalists here are far more colorful and sophisticated. They dress in well-cut Western suits and are on a first-name basis with American and European media representatives who regularly cover big power meetings. At the Finnish Prime Minister's dinner for the press corps—a lavish evening affair held in a portrait- and antique-filled countryhouse built by a Swedish landowner in the early nineteenth century—my table companions for after-dinner coffee and cognac were the deputy foreign editor of *Izvestia* and Pravda's former correspondent in the United States. They told amusing, satirical stories about the Chinese Communists, blandly discussed a summer junket aboard a Soviet cruiser in the Caribbean, and, when asked what had

happened to a Soviet press official who dropped out of sight, one said sadly "the booze got him."

The most amusing part of the evening came when the Pravda correspondent learned that I represented NATIONAL REVIEW. He said I was the first NATIONAL REVIEW writer he had met. I don't believe he could have been more surprised if someone at his table had declared he was a CIA agent. NATIONAL REVIEW really must get under the skin of Soviet journalists assigned to the United States, for the Pravda man spent the rest of the evening throwing verbal darts at the magazine.

Snow was falling as we walked out under the white portico with its tall Ionic columns and boarded our bus for the return trip to Helsinki. The Pravda correspondent continued to crack jokes. Finally, he leaned across the aisle of the bus and said: "You know of course, that the bus driver is drunk and the Soviet border is only a short distance away. We may stray over the border. Then we will have our hands on a NATIONAL REVIEW writer." Soviet humor to be sure. Still, I was glad to know that the driver was cold sober and the Soviet border far to the east.

—AHH

superpowers, the United States will have lost the position of nuclear predominance that has made possible freedom from nuclear conflict during the cold war. This doesn't mean that the SALT talks are a useless exercise for the United States. On the contrary, in time, the U.S. and the USSR may be able to reach agreement on limitation of certain types of arms, especially those weapons that are costly to both nations but that no longer represent key factors in the military plans of the two countries. If one or more weapon systems are of marginal importance to both superpowers, they should be able to agree to discard such systems and devote the resources thereby saved to peaceful purposes. The SALT talks and future negotiations certainly should take into account the fact that some military systems have been rendered obsolete by the advancing state of the military art.

## Stand-Still Proposals

While it is financially unsound to maintain obsolescent weapons systems the U.S. must be careful to avoid a "freeze" on key weapons systems under development.

In the first place, the U.S. will find it impossible to check on whether a "freeze" agreement would in fact be applied in the USSR. The United States is an open society and long ago endorsed the idea of international inspection of nuclear sites. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, is a closed society. It has no intention of opening its territories to nuclear inspection. Thus the United States has no foolproof way of verifying that agreements made by the USSR at the conference table are carried out. Satellite photography is good, but not all that good. Moreover, it is a matter of record that the Soviet Union resorts to deception. It promised to refrain from deploying weapons in space, and then moved ahead with the testing of orbital weapons. It regularly conceals tests of weapons until it is ready to spring the devices on the world.

The American public should understand that any one of the following actions—proposed by advocates of speedy disarmament—would place America in jeopardy:

1) A halt in the testing or installation of MIRV (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles).

MIRV is the one nuclear weapon in which the United States enjoys a clear

States and Western Europe for President Nixon to agree to discuss a freeze covering one or more nuclear weapons systems. The U.S. delegation, while declining to give press interviews or briefings, nevertheless cannot be unaware of the question of its image in the American news media and the expectation—almost the insistence—that the delegation achieve a breakthrough in these preliminary talks.

The Soviets, for their part, are free of such pressure. Public opinion and the power of the media are non-existent factors insofar as Soviet policy makers are concerned. They are free to proceed without hindrance or questioning by any elements outside the national command structure.

A specific danger associated with the SALT meeting is that the Nixon Administration will agree to a moratorium on vital weapons testing and development during disarmament talks. A unilateral halt in nuclear weapons testing or development would be a reversion to the bankrupt notion of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations that the United States must show its good faith

to the Soviet Union even if the demonstration retards progress in vital security systems.

Suggestions that the United States halt testing of multiple warhead missiles (the MIRV system) during the course of the disarmament talks are patently absurd. Such concessions don't impress the Soviets except as an illustration of the Americans' public relations attitude toward foreign and military policy planning. The net effect of a U.S. weapons test halt would be to confer additional military advantages on the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, some U.S. and Western press reports from Helsinki embody the basic assumption that the superpowers must bring their nuclear armaments into balance in order to ensure world peace. This is a fundamental misconception as the history of the nuclear age clearly illustrates. The threat to world peace results from the increase in Soviet military strategic capabilities—that is from the shift to equalization of the Soviet and U.S. nuclear arsenals.

If the SALT talks prove to be a step toward American acceptance of military technological equality between the

DECEMBER 30, 1969 1313

lead. The Soviets currently have more
land-based intercontinental ballistic mis-
siles than the United States (1,350 to
1,054). They also have the most power-
ful missiles—the 25-megaton SS9. The
lone advantage possessed by the United
States is in sophisticated warheads—the
MIRV—and it can't afford to toss
away this advantage.

2) A halt in testing and deployment of the Safeguard ABM (antiballistic missile) in return for a Soviet promise to halt deployment of the giant SS9 rocket.

The U.S. would abandon reason if it
dropped ABM defense in exchange for
a scrap of paper from the Russians. An
ABM takes years to develop. The
United States has its work cut out for
it in perfecting the Safeguard tech-
nology. The SS9 is completed military
hardware, with all technical problems
solved. Even if every SS9 were dis-
mantled, these weapons could quickly
be reassembled and moved into posi-
tion.

3) The scrapping of all land-based missiles and resort to seaborne systems.

While the U.S. has the most sophis-
ticated sea-based missiles (Polaris and
Poseidon), the fleet ballistic-missile
system was not designed to stand alone.
The submarine missiles are compara-
tively short-ranged. The Soviets have
increasingly strong attack submarine
forces with the mission of destroying
Polaris submarines. Finally, construc-
tion of Polaris submarines was halted
some time ago, while the Russians are
pushing ahead with building of missile-
firing submarines.

These three danger areas—or stand-

still proposals—must be avoided at all
costs. No one can say at this point
where free-ranging discussions will lead,
but the lengthy talks, preliminary or
substantive must not be allowed to
obscure the fact that military technology
is in constant evolution—and we can't
afford to take a holiday from research
testing and development.

Cynicism: Soviet or American?

Until such time as the possibilities of
arms limitation can be fully explored—
and the task may take five years—the
only safe course for the United States
is to strengthen its nuclear deterrent
power.

If the nations of the world become
convinced that the Soviets enjoy com-
prehensive nuclear superiority, they will
offer little resistance to an increasingly
aggressive foreign policy. Even more of
a threat to peace would be the growth
of a firm conviction among the Soviet
leadership that the USSR is forging
ahead in nuclear war-making capabili-
ties while effectively curbing American
atomic defense through diplomatic
maneuvers at Helsinki and elsewhere.
The Soviets have felt some restraint in
the cold war years because of their
awareness—their fear, to be precise—
of America's immense retaliatory
power. If that fear is removed because
of mistaken American moves at the
SALT conference, the Helsinki meeting
could be a prelude to disaster for the
United States and its allies.

A real danger in disarmament talks
with the Soviets is that the American
people may lose sight of the fact that

parity with the USSR, not U.S. nuclear
superiority, is the real destabilizing
force in the world. The key factor in
the nuclear age is not the weaponry
but the men with the power to order
their use. America's leadership is firmly
committed to peace and freedom,
whereas the leadership of the USSR has
engaged in rocket-rattling on many
occasions.

American nuclear strength, therefore,
is not provocative to the Soviet Union,
for, despite their propaganda, the Soviet
leaders know that the U.S. doesn't plan
any assault on Soviet territory. Ameri-
can nuclear weakness, however, would
be a positive incitement to the Soviets
to achieve the goals of their expansionist
and totalist policy by resort to a nuclear
first strike.

Secretary of State William P. Rogers recently said "it is easy to be cynical about the prospects for the [SALT] talks into which we are about to enter." If there is cynicism, it surely is on the Soviet side. No responsible American wants to attack the Soviet Union. The USSR, on the other hand, has the motivation for a nuclear attack built into its philosophical system with its commitment to overthrowing capitalist states.

Thus America's nuclear defenses—
Minutemen, Polaris, Safeguard and now
MIRV—arise from necessity. Being
mindful of the requirements of necessity
is not cynicism.

In the final analysis, therefore, the
United States can agree to limitation of
its strategic arms only when the Soviet
Union proves by its deeds that it has
abandoned all thought of using force to
dominate free societies. ☐

1314 NATIONAL REVIEW

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# LETTERS

## "Rex Reed puts the whole sordid mess out of Hollywood into focus"

### L'ennui

The editors of HOLIDAY have made a terrible mistake in awarding the Prix d'ennui [December] to *Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone* when *Myra Breckinridge* really wins it hands down.

I gather it was a struggle between the two for top honors, but you came down on the path of least resistance; the Baldwin book is so obvious, but Mr. Vidal has really created an awful masterpiece of mistaken 1960's camp—at the end of the decade.

TOM RILEY

Los Angeles, Calif.

I have suffered many disappointments during the past year, but HOLIDAY has brought 1968 to a glorious ending by including Allen Drury's *Preserve and Protect* in the list of the worst books published in that non-memorable year.

DAN H. MCCULLOUGH

Toledo, Ohio

### Rexophobe, rexophile

"Skidoo. I'd like to make this vulgar, stupid attempt at comedy, by Otto Preminger, sound half as awful as it really is, but I know when I'm licked." [January]

Indeed, Mr. Reed, I find your attempt to write off Preminger's *Skidoo* in the humorous style of James Agee equally "vulgar and stupid." Don't let it happen again, because there is always someone who will pick it up.

MIKE MARCUS

Fountain Valley, Calif.

P.S. However, I did agree with the brevity and severity of the review.

If there is an award worthy of him, Rex Reed should have it. (How about doubling his pay?) Just about the time Hollywood was making me believe I was something left over from the Age of Reason, Rex Reed puts the whole sordid mess into focus.

A. MILLER YOUNG

Toledo, Ohio

Everyone familiar with Rex Reed's work and his appearances on TV knows

that he is a) clever with words, b) angry at Miss Streisand because she didn't treat him as the royalty he thinks he is, and c) "prettier" than Miss Streisand.

The last fact may be the reason for Mr. Reed's comparison of Miss Streisand's talent with the size of her nose. I've heard of left-handed compliments, but I don't think it was necessary for Mr. Reed to be so crude.

Miss Streisand is a phenomenal talent and a magnificent artist, and as such she deserves more at his claws. Mr. Reed's odd juxtaposition of praise and a sock in the nose makes me wonder if he's really as objective a critic as he protests to being.

LEO MCCONNELL

Hudson, Mass

We think beauty is irrelevant in this matter, but our readers are perfectly free to make a comparison if they care to do so.—Ed.

### Points south

I agree with John MacDonald who, in your December issue, deplores the littering along the Florida Keys. However, I think he underestimates the percentage of people who prefer to live in slovenly surroundings: he suggests five out of a hundred people, but I would guess fifty out of a hundred. Does the privilege of littering come as one of the American freedoms?

EDITH K. BISHOP

Glenshaw, Pa.

After being in Key West for two years, I can truly say that your article on the Keys portrays accurately the difference between the fact and the legend.

I hope that this article will bring to

Continued on Page 8

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4 HOLIDAY / MARCH

SPEAKING OF HOLIDAY

POST MORTEM

The death of *The Saturday Evening Post* set off a reaction in the American press that could well be anticipated, an unsavory blend of nostalgia and hypocrisy. The New York Times, which found the magazine's death agonies fit to print in every spasmodic detail, publicly lamented while it seemed privately to rejoice, an attitude more or less shared by other newspapers that undoubtedly felt that the advertising dollar would be spread a little more evenly with another magazine out of the way. The necrophiliac attitude of newspapers in their regard to magazines was painfully revealed. A new magazine—such as *New York Magazine*—is born unattended and in lonely silence, but the demise of a magazine—such as *The Reporter* or *The Saturday Evening Post*—plunges newspapers into an orgy of batons and hand-wringing, and sends feature writers scurrying to the newspaper libraries for material to be converted into essays heavily freighted with insincerity. The whole episode is distressing.

Having been a sibling, we suffered a private grief at the death of *The Saturday Evening Post*. As in the case of any family bereavement, we remember the *Post* at its least as well as at its most majestic moments, but it is the latter memories that most occupy our thoughts and cause us to mourn its passing.

SOLE FOOD?

We have nothing but admiration for the way the South has come along. A gourmet friend of ours was telling us recently of the delicious *quenelle de catfish* he had encountered in Memphis, rivaling, he said, the *hog-jowl stroganoff* that had earlier caught his fancy. Now we have received a letter from Miss

Linda Cheviot, public relations manager of the Kornfed Katfish Company of Houston, Texas, telling us of her plans to feature catfish raised on a diet of corn and high protein, to be served with hush puppies and coleslaw. It may well be the taste sensation of our time, and we wish both Miss Cheviot and the Kornfed Katfish organization the greatest success.

IN LIKE A LYONS

Alfred Bester, who is a senior editor of this magazine, is a well-known and respected author of books and magazine articles, the latter of which have dealt often with what is known in the trade as "personalities," which is another way of saying show-business celebrities. He recently kept pace for a fortnight—as best he could—with columnist Leonard Lyons, whose wanderings he describes in this issue of *HOLIDAY*. We recently asked Mr. Bester to catch his breath and tell us what he could about this kind of journalistic enterprise, and he deposed as follows:

"One of the more intriguing aspects of interviewing celebrities is the fact that you take color from them. You immerse yourself in their lives and become, for a brief time, a part of them. You almost become them. I was Sir Laurence Olivier in Hollywood, Sophia Loren in Rome, Fernandel in Paris and, recently, I was Leonard Lyons, the famous columnist, in New York. For a few weeks I was an intimate of the in-life of the Big Apple.

"This is the realization of a dream we all have had at one time or another—to be where it is and part of it. We all share the same vision; entrée to chic restaurants and clubs, first nights, invitations to private previews and élite parties, to be on

nickname terms with the glamour crowd. I call them 'Foure'y' and 'Steeno' and 'Trix,' and they call me 'Alfie,' and we laugh it up about 'Gin's' bash last night and the wild story the ambassador ('Chuck') told about the embassy.

"I had a lot of it following Leonard Lyons around on his beat. As soon as it became known that I was doing a story on him, haughty maîtres d'hôtel unbent and became positively effusive. They insisted on offering me the same charming attentions they gave Mr. Lyons. Bar tenders refused to let me pay for my drinks, and I'll bet that never happened to Chuck. Celebrities made it a point to remember my name and to address remarks to me. Best of all, my friends and associates were thrilled by my association with the glamorous life, and were constantly asking questions about it.

"Curiously, I learned that I couldn't give them honest answers. The truth is, this is not a glamorous life for Leonard Lyons; it's a demanding job that he handles with the concentration and expertise of a professional quarterback. He has so much distance to cover in so many plays, and he has got to get on the scoreboard in every column. For him, the scenes and celebrities are merely material.

"Naturally this rubbed off on me; after all, I was Lyons. 'What was Lee Radziwill like?' my friends would ask. 'Dull,' I'd answer. 'Couldn't get any copy out of her.' Disappointed faces; I'd have to fall back and regroup. 'But Foure'y and Steeno and Trix came over to her table, and Gin told a hilarious story about Chuck.'"

VISUAL AIDS

Despite demonstrations, protests, and the other yeasty disturbances

on campuses these days, things haven't changed too much insofar as the classics are concerned, if we can believe the story told us by a young man home for the spring holiday from an Eastern prep school. A Latin class there, he related, was translating Cicero with the unofficial help of ponies, when the instructor startled the students by announcing that the translation would be resumed where it had left off. "That's line four on my book," he said, "and line eight on most of yours."

HARDCOVER STUFF

Writing about a book that has captured your heart is a bit like trying to describe the air that you breathe. It satisfies you in almost every respect but you find it difficult to say why. *Treasures of the Pharaohs* (Skira) is such a book, and whether you are interested in the Egyptian dynasties is almost irrelevant; the dazzling beauty of the book is overwhelming.

We aren't sure exactly what the Nobel Prize for Literature means to the average reader, something certainly but perhaps not too much. But a publisher finds the winner's earlier works irresistible, and hastens to reissue them in the hope that the prize will providentially stimulate sales. Knopf has done this with *Snow Country* and *Thousand Cranes*, the only two translated works of Yasunari Kawabata, the Japanese winner for 1968, and it is a happy circumstance all around. Both novels explore the larger meaning of life by examining microcosms; both are done movingly and with great beauty.

33

# OUR MEN IN PARIS

## The trying, engrossing daily task
of the American ambassador and his 1,400-man payroll

by William Manchester

*Surtout, point de zèle. Above all, don't lose your poise.*

*—Talleyrand's advice to diplomats in France.*

In an old Paris house covered with vines live Ambassador Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., Eunice Kennedy Shriver, five children, twelve servants, two dogs, and—ever alert—a quick-thinking concierge who intervened two summers ago when a lurking madman tried to stab Ambassador Charles Eustis Bohlen.

Knifing envoys has been unfashionable since the Barcelona convention of 1266, and the Quai d'Orsay expressed horror. Bohlen gracefully decided not to press charges. Had he done otherwise he would have betrayed his mission, for every American minister has to cope with awkward incidents. Anyone under the impression that ambassadorial duties are confined to laying wreaths, delivering notes and marching in parades is ignorant of both diplomacy and France. Though shivs in the night are rare, other episodes can be equally trying. Consider three from the embassy archives, arising from misunderstandings over meat, a paramour, and a French name.

In the first, the government of Premier Léon Gambetta decided to prohibit the importation of United States pork. Paris lightly dismissed the issue as "*l'affaire des petits cochons*," but a new minister from Washington was outraged when Gambetta snapped at him, "We want no American swine here!" The insulted diplomat had repacked his bags and demanded his passports when a message from the Quai d'Orsay hastily explained that the premier didn't think he was a pig.

The paramour created a ghastly problem for an envoy named Joseph Brown, whose shy Louisiana wife was greeted at her first reception with the inquiry, "Are you *the* Mrs. Brown?" Flattered, Mrs. Brown acknowledged that she was. The reply created a sensation. Retiring in utter confusion, the ambassador's wife learned that to Parisians, *the* Mrs. Brown was the notorious English mistress of the late Duc de Berri; she had been gaily leaping from bed to bed since his death three years before.

The name *biche* (doe) changed Paris maps. President Garfield's envoy, Levi Parsons Morton, found the legation housed over a grocery at 95 rue de Chaillot. He moved it to more elegant quarters on the Place de la Biche, pleasing everyone except his wife, who shortly thereafter received a letter from a friend in Rhinecliff, New York, addressed:

MRS. LEVI PARSONS MORTON
PLACE OF THE BITCH
PARIS, FRANCE

Frantic notes were exchanged, the French shrugged, and the square was renamed Place des États-Unis. Anna Morton never quite recovered from the vapors, however, nor did she let her husband forget.

Nobody has called Shriver a swine, nor has been impolite to his wife. Indeed, Madame de Gaulle broke precedent by calling upon Eunice. American diplomats and their wives are more worldly today, and have a far better understanding of France. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of French understanding of the United States; no one at the embassy was greatly surprised when an indignant Frenchman recently asked them to apologize for Monsieur Jean Wayne's persecution of *les braves Mexicains* at the Alamo.

Sargent Shriver, ambassador to France, and our fifty-first envoy since Benjamin Franklin. He is in his office in the chancery that overlooks the Place de la Concorde in Paris, where the guillotine did its deadly work during the French Revolution. When foreign service officers speak of the embassy, they mean the chancery which is the embassy's office. After considerable confusion, the two terms are now used interchangeably.

Photographs by Arnold Newman

34

# LEONARD IN THE LYONS DEN

"I'm not a Broadway or a gossip columnist, I'm a unique columnist. I write news and stories about the dog-biters."

by Alfred Bester

The late 1920's and early 1930's were the heyday of the columnists; Walter Winchell, Mark Hellinger, Danton Walker, Louis Sobol, O. O. McIntyre, Damon Runyan, Ed Sullivan, Cholly Knickerbocker. These were the giants who ruled and sometimes tyrannized the New York scene. Everybody read them. Press agents dedicated their lives to placing clients' names in their columns. The mighty held court in their favorite clubs and restaurants. The world at large fawned on them.

All that's changed now—some have died, some shifted to other professions, some are ghostwritten, some have lost their New York outlets—and although they may be syndicated throughout the rest of the country, that isn't quite the same thing. New York is the center of society and entertainment gossip, and if your column doesn't appear in a New York daily paper you're no longer big league. There's really only one of the old-time gossip columnists left, the last of a vanishing breed: Leonard Lyons. *The Lyons Den* has been appearing without a break since 1934; how and why did Lyons outlast all the others? Let's start answering that by accompanying him on his regular daily beat.

12:30 P.M.: The Lyons apartment in the Beresford, Central Park West, on a high floor with a magnificent view of the New York skyline. Lyons is shot out of bed, as from a cannon, and bathe and dresses in a flash. He is a small man, slender, hawk-nosed, and looks like a melancholy Punch. He is in his early sixties and has the energy and durability of a sixteen-year-old.

His wife, Sylvia, serves him a quick breakfast: juice, cereal, sometimes matzos, coffee, never bacon, sausage or ham; the Lyons run a kosher kitchen. Meanwhile the phone is ringing and Lyons is taking messages from friends for possible use in his column. Then down to the subway and on to 42nd Street and the theater district.

1:00 P.M.: Sardi's on West 44th Street, the theater restaurant. Lyons slips in, unobtrusive, nicely tailored in a shadow-striped suit with tie and matching display handkerchief. He exchanges a few words with the headwaiter and then makes a quick circle of the restaurant, stopping occasionally to shake hands, kiss, chat. His sharp eyes never miss a face. His photographic memory never forgets a name or when and where he last met the owner.

He spends half a minute with James (Scotty) Reston, Jerry Field, Herman Shumlin, Leonard Field, Richard Herrick; then out and on foot east across 44th Street. He moves so fast that one has to trot to keep up with him. He is reckless crossing against the traffic lights. As we passed the dismal doorway of a derelict brownstone he pointed and said, "I saw Doris Duke standing there many times. There's a dance rehearsal studio upstairs."

1:05 P.M.: The Algonquin Hotel, also a center for the theater and arts. Lyons murmurs to the headwaiter, asking who's in the restaurant and grill, and then makes his quick rounds. Jason Robards, Jr. describes an incident of the night before: a woman in the theater where he was playing threw a program in his face. Bruce Catton told how appalled he was to discover that in his shaving mirror he resembled Richard Nixon. Lyons pulls out his tiny black notebook and jots cryptic symbols with a gold pencil.

Out and up Sixth Avenue (The Avenue of The Americas) on foot and so fast that a posse could be after us. Lyons moves so deftly through

crowds that pickpockets could take lessons from him. He said, "Thornton Wilder once compared me to Horace Walpole. He said that if you write trivia, very often it turns out to be great literature."

1:30 P.M.: The Ground Floor in the new CBS Building, a restaurant mostly patronized by talent agents and the TV crowd. Again the quick circle, pausing only to speak to David Black, producer of the musical, *George M!* and then out to scurry east on 52nd Street.

1:35 P.M.: Toots Shor's. For the first time in his beat Lyons sat down and talked to Jane Nussbaum, associate producer of *The Lion in Winter* and *Hallelujah Baby*. The little black book came out and he made notes. Then a round of the main dining room with pauses to chat with Joe Levine and Benny Goodman.

He hustled east on 52nd Street. An autograph hound hollered to Lyons, "Hey, where's Martha Raye?"

"I don't know."

1:43 P.M.: "21." Stopped to talk to Mac Kriendler, then a check of the upstairs dining room and a round of the main dining room. Lyons stopped at the tables of Sonny Werblin, Mrs. Ray Stark, Mildred Custin (the head of Bonwit Teller), and Martha Stevenson.

We left and continued east toward La Grenouille. Lyons said: "They always give me a strawberry when I come in; it's a tradition by now. So I'm assured of at least two strawberries a day." He stopped to embrace and kiss Adele Astaire as she came out of the restaurant.

1:47 P.M.: La Grenouille. Lyons received his strawberry from a huge bowl near the entrance. When the headwaiter learned that I was accompanying Mr. Lyons on his beat he insisted on giving me one too. It was flattering. Lyons made the rounds and visited with Yves St. Laurent, Eugenia Sheppard, Mrs. Douglas MacArthur, Baby Jane Holtzer and Margaret Truman Daniel.

Out and east again, still on foot, still scurrying. From a passing taxi a woman yelled, "Hi, Lenny!" Lyons waved back. "Mrs. Sam Spiegel," he said.

1:55 P.M.: La Côte Basque. Lyons spoke to Ben Sonnenberg, Mrs. Jule Styne and Elsie Woodward, who asked him who the woman was lunching with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Lyons obligingly went over to the table and returned with the name. "Oh!" Elsie Woodward exclaimed, "She's a relative of mine. I wondered why she looked familiar."

2:10 P.M.: Le Pavillon. While Lyons made his quick, unobtrusive circle, stopping only to speak to Sybil Connolly and Emmet Hughes, the young manager of the restaurant, Stuart Levin, said, "I've got a great story to tell you about Lenny."

"It'll have to wait. He's coming out now."

"Oh, you'll be back. You'll be back tonight."

2:20 P.M.: Sardi's East on 54th Street. James Beard, a culinary giant in every sense of the word, was towering on the street before the door. Lyons asked him how his new cook book was coming. Beard said it wasn't finished yet. Inside, Lyons made a record-breaking round and headed for the front door.

"Anybody here?" I asked.

"Nobody but us chickens."

2:25 P.M.: The Brasserie. Nobody there but the Goodson-Todman production staff. Then a hasty scramble up an elaborate labyrinth of Photographs by Diane Arbus

44

fire and service stairs in the building to the Four Seasons restaurant.

2:26 P.M.: The Four Seasons, where Lyons usually stops for a half-hour rest and some black coffee. He never eats anything on his beat and he never drinks, period.

Outo Preminger was lunching alongside the pool and we sat with him for a few minutes. Lyons got into a political discussion with Preminger. At one point I agreed with Preminger's argument. Lyons turned to me, grinned and said: "You're supposed to take notes, not sides." The subject was why so many self-made men voted conservative. Lyons said: "In Europe the self-made man remembers his past and is a liberal. In America the self-made man wants to forget it."

Later Lyons inspected slips of paper he had drawn from his pocket. They were covered with notes of incidents and anecdotes that, in his meticulous, methodical manner, he had prepared for our series of interviews. I asked him whether any of the people ever complained about being misquoted.

"Yes," he said, "but don't forget I deal with drunks, and I'm sober. Also people object because I boil their stories down. Usually the complaints come from condensing; they want more space. If I printed their stories exactly the way they told them it would take an entire column."

He laughed. "Ben Hecht once complained that according to me, nightclubs are filled with people who speak in epigrams."

3:00 P.M.: By subway down to the New York Post building near the Battery. "Usually I take a cab," Lyons said, "but we wasted too much time at the Four Seasons." His office is on the top floor, medium size, newspaper-shabby, the walls cluttered with memorabilia and photographs. There are pictures of Lyons with Barry Goldwater, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, JFK, George Bernard Shaw, Orson Welles. A splendid portrait of John Steinbeck was taken by Anna Magnani. There is a candid of Ernest Hemingway drinking out of a wine jug at a bullfight arena.

Lyons removed his jacket, loosened his tie, sat down at his typewriter and started work on his column. He works one day ahead and his deadline is around two o'clock in the morning. *The Lyons Den* appears every weekday and Saturdays, fifty-two weeks a year, and is syndicated in more than a hundred newspapers. He estimates that he has some fifteen million readers.

While Lyons was working I went into the adjoining narrow office occupied by his secretary. He has two girls who alternate: Mrs. Anita

*The celebrities and scenes encountered by Leonard Lyons during a typical night-beat. Top row, left to right: Dolores del Rio (now Mrs. Lewis Reilly) at La Grenouille. George Balanchine, brilliant choreographer, in the Russian Tea Room. TV sports announcer, Bud Palmer, in El Morocco. Bucky Hearst (William Randolph Hearst, III) at a party given for the movie "Joanna." Second row: Mrs. Marc Chagall (right) at the opening of her husband's show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery. Toots Shor in his restaurant. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. at Sardi's. Lucia Chase, famous ballet patron, at Le Pavillon. Third row: Greeted by Lauren Bacall backstage at the opening of "Good-Bye, People." Greeting Leslie Caron in the Oak Room of the Plaza. Donald Pleasence, versatile British character actor. Producer Harold Clurman in the Russian Tea Room. Fourth row: Johnny Meyer, top associate of Howard Hughes, at Toots Shor's. Milton Berle, made up beyond recognition, backstage at "Good-Bye, People." Sybil Christopher (the former Mrs. Richard Burton) with actor Roddy McDowall at her "Arthur" discothèque. Producer-tycoon Joe Levine at Toots Shor's. Bottom row: Arthur Goldberg at the Four Seasons restaurant. Comedian Joe E. Lewis in the lobby of Toots Shor's. Natalie Cushing of the Newport Cushings in El Morocco. Acting star Kevin McCarthy, brother of author Mary McCarthy, during the intermission of "Good-Bye, People."*

Summer and Mrs. Sylvia Rose. Mrs. Summer was on duty this afternoon, and I asked her the question that perplexes many people: how in the world can Lyons produce a full column obituary within twelve hours after a celebrity dies?

She showed me the files that are the backbone of the operation. Every name that has ever appeared in The Lyons Den is filed and cross-indexed with the date, which paragraph it appeared in, the subject and/or the punch line. For example, Mayor Daley of Chicago is listed as: *Daley, Mayor (of Chicago)*. There are eight handwritten entries on his card. The first reads: *7/20/60—Paragraph 2. New image not political. JFK selects Johnson as VP. The last reads: 9/21/68—Paragraph 4. Alleged plot to dump LSD in reservoirs. Jackie Kennedy (who is now listed under "O") has twelve cards. Lyndon Johnson has fifty.*

Mrs. Summer had handed Lyons a neatly typed card of afternoon and evening events that he might care to cover. It read:

4:30-5:30 P.M. Hugh Auchincloss party at Café Pierre, Hotel Pierre
5:00-7:00 P.M. ACA Gallery. Preview of Anthony Toney paintings
5:00 P.M. Joe Levine cocktail party at Le Pavillon
6:00 & 9:00 P.M. Screening of *The Fixer* at MGM
6:45-7:30 P.M. Cocktails and dinner at PEN
7:00-9:00 P.M. Opening of new discothèque, Chez Jacques
7:30 P.M. Cocktails for Claude Terrail at La Mirabelle

Underneath was scrawled my name and the notation: *10:00 P.M. The Colony*. I begged off the afternoon events, left Lyons hard at work, and went home for a nap. Lyons covered the ACA preview and the Joe Levine party at Le Pavillon and went home, as he does almost every evening, for dinner at 6:30. He bathed, changed, and then went downtown again to begin his regular night beat. He covered the Terrail party at La Mirabelle and met me at The Colony.

10:00 P.M.: The Colony. "It's a dull night tonight," Lyons said. "Not much doing."

"How was the Levine party?"

"My God, I never saw so many rich people. It was a roomful of money."

10:00 P.M.: The Spanish Pavilion on Park Avenue. Sidney Buckman, the film producer, was the only notable there. Lyons spoke to him, remembering exactly when and where they had last met—four years previous in a restaurant in London.

10:14 P.M.: Le Pavillon. Lyons chatted with Mrs. Peter Duchin, Mil-dred Custin of Bonwit Teller and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Revson.

10:30 P.M. La Côte Basque.

10:33 P.M. La Grenouille. More strawberries. Lyons spoke to Lady Jean Campbell, Lord Beaverbrook's granddaughter, and John Revson, Charles' son.

10:40 P.M.: "21". "You never stop working," I said.

He made a face. "People often say, 'You don't recognize me because I'm not important enough.' They don't understand that when I walk through a room I'm working."

"The New Yorker once said that Leonard Lyons knows no non-celebrities outside of relatives. Would you like to hear about a dinner I gave last week for my Uncle Max? No, you wouldn't. The Uncle Maxes are great in novels, but the front pages are reserved for the dog-biters."

11:24 P.M.: Toots Shor's. We talked about his pet game of introducing people. "I introduced Milton Berle to Dame Edith Sitwell, Marilyn Monroe to Paddy Chayefsky—that was after he wrote *The Goddess*, Ethel Merman to Perle Mesta—when Ethel was starring in *Call Me Madam*, and Two-Ton Tony Galento to Noel Coward. Galento said, 'I can lick this bum with one*

*Continued on Page 94*

47

Of all weathers, rain is a Happening
by Alastair Reid

The second of a series

Nobody—except those who inhabit a few freakish localities on the earth's crust—nobody is indifferent to rain. Rain represents the unpredictable, the sudden exception to smooth expectations, the odd weather out. As such it is my element, an eccentric and unfashionable one. We have sun-lovers and snow buffs, but not many declared rain-fiends. You can tell them from a distance on scudding afternoons, stepping lightly, with faint, wet smiles on their faces, while everyone else is bowed, scurrying, shelter-bound. Of all weathers, rain is a *happening*, and usually an obstructive one that cancels out sporting events, flower shows, spectacles, picnics, transforming the passivity of open air into something alien and wet. But to look on rain as something that spoils and prevents is not really to see it at all.

Just as nobody ever replaces his childhood landscape—it recurs in dreams and visions—so nobody reacts more vividly to any weather than to the dominant weather of those towering days in childhood when the weather affected one's whole world, or seemed to. My dominant weather in Scotland was rain—if not actual rain, at least rain-in-the-offing—and I have only to feel the same building-up before rain now to experience a kind of nostalgic excitement, to feel suddenly open and alive, to fall into the proper brooding mood—half-inside, half-outside—from which insights come.

An architect once told me that, when he had finished a house and was ready to photograph it, he would spray the surroundings first with a hose. "There is no building in creation which does not look better after rain," he said emphatically. Just as there is no day that does not feel better after a shower.

Later in life, when we achieve the greatest possible luxury, that of choosing where we wish to live, we gravitate naturally to places where the sun shines. This seems to me now a bit naïve. I lived on the Mediterranean for some ten years, in a balm of sun, but with a vague disquiet that stemmed from the very continuity of the weather. My rhythm was one of changing seasons punctuated by rain, so that I was at odds with the perfection of the climate. There, when the rains came, they bucketed down like movie rain, flattening the garden, eroding the soil into the sea in great brown swaths, filling wells and cisterns at a gush. Rain there meant water rather than mood, and we lived most of the year in the anxiety of drought, watching the level of the well, looking for a break in the sky, made conscious of rain by its absence, devising homemade rain dances in the sandy soil.

On the island of Arran, in Scotland, where I spent the mythical part of my childhood, rain fell every day—at least, if it did not exactly fall, it hung in the air as a tangible wet mist, and the small hall of the cottage was always cluttered with boots and oilskins, and the clinging smell of wet. Rain never kept us indoors nor did it confound our plans, because we always expected it—it was the mood of the place. Many years afterward, in the Basque provinces in the north of Spain, I was delighted by the same rain, the *chirrimirri* that sprinkles San Sebastián every morning. *Continued on Page 100*

Photograph by Hiro

48

ENRICO'S

*Continued from Page 90*

feeble overhead heaters warm those who stay outside to watch the old Chinese couples, the kids, the hookers, and the shock waves of the nightly tourist invasion.

A couple of years ago, the topless clubs started reaching to keep the tourist and convention business. Then Saigon Sally and other pioneers went bottomless; even the Topless and Bot-

tomless Shoeshine Parlor appeared. Next? Upstairs from Enrico's is Finocchio's, which for decades has starred female impersonators. Maybe it will lead a new movement. Meanwhile, on Broadway, barefoot, bearded guys go about hawking the *Berkeley Barb*, the major West Coast Underground newspaper.

Now tourists usurp many of Enrico's sidewalk tables at night. When they line up from their buses to enter Finocchio's for the drag show, they block the view from the patio. Many of Enrico's

regulars just retire inside. But as Enrico said, neither the Beach nor his place has been destroyed. In fact, the boom has brought theater, jazz and clubs with big-name entertainers to the neighborhood, so some of the old posh evening crowd is drifting back.

Even at night you will sometimes see a marvelous mélange of people at the outside tables—two elegant Negro ladies in furs, an attractive suburban matron with two pretty teen-age daugh- ters, four decorously intoxicated homo- sexuals, what seems to be three ranch-

ers from Colorado, and a very tall, majestically ugly girl with high boots and long black hair absorbed in sketch- ing stage designs on a big pad.

North Beach has survived being Bohemian, beat, hip, topless, bottomless and drag. It will probably survive what- ever else comes. Enrico's will still draw Herbert Gold and Saigon Sally, *Ram- parts* editors and speed freaks, bibliophiles and dj's, visiting film makers and the Midwest mom-and-pop tourist trade. What more could you ask?

THE END

LEONARD IN
THE LYONS DEN

*Continued from Page 47*

hand.' I said, 'Tony, Mr. Coward uses his hands to type. He's a famous English playwright.' Galento said, 'Oh! Glad to meet you indeed.'"

11:40 P.M.: Sardi's on West 44th Street, by cab. A quick circle through the jammed main room, a quick visit to the Men's Room upstairs, and then out to walk west toward Eighth Avenue through the after-theater crowd.

11:53 P.M.: Jim Downey's, the hang-out for young actors. A young waiter-captain asked if we wanted a table. Lyons smiled, refused, made his rounds, and we left. "He's new," Lyons said quietly. "Didn't recognize me."

12:07 A.M.: The Russian Tea Room on West 57th Street. After a quick circle we sat down at a table with Harold Clurman and Joe Julian, the actor. "Joe can play tunes by squeezing his palms together," Lyons said.

12:35 A.M.: El Morocco, yet again by cab. I was beginning to suspect that Lyons might be running out of gas, but I was wrong. After the rounds we sat down at a table. Lyons nodded to Ed Sullivan across the room, was served black coffee, pulled out more notes and began telling stories about Ingrid Bergman and Rossellini and the fights the Italian director would pick with photographers to impress Lyons; Lyons's own quarrels with Conrad Hilton (he disapproved of his political speeches at hotel openings) and Bennett Cerf (Lyons says a full third of Cerf's first book was cribbed from his columns) and the Shubert Brothers, who barred him from their theaters for four years.

1:25 A.M.: P. J. Clarke's. The saloon was boiling with the Mod Squad. After the usual circle we sat down at a table with Jack E. Leonard and friends. Fat Jack did most of the talking. Lyons is a good listener. Fat Jack said he was abandoning his routine of audience abuse; it was beginning to backfire on him. "When I worked San Francisco I told 'em that when we came in for the landing the pilot said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching San Francisco. Set your watches back a hundred years.' They didn't like it."

1:45 A.M.: End of the night beat. We walked west from PJ's. Lyons said: "I once had a date with Dietrich. I took

her home and when we got to her door she asked me if I'd like to come up for a drink. I wanted to, but at the last minute I got scared. I said no, I had work to do, and went down the street, looking for a cab. And she stood in the door and hollered after me, 'Chicken!' My wife said if I was going to cheat she'd prefer I cheated with Dietrich."

Lyons bought the morning papers and magazines at a stand and took a cab home. He would read everything and work on his column until six and then go to bed, to be shot out at 12:30 P.M. and start all over again. In addition he covers movie and theater openings, exhibits, testimonial dinners, fund raisings, political events—everything that happens in New York, including happenings. This is his life, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, and this has been his life continuously now for thirty-five years.

I do not believe the old cliché that behind every great man there is a woman; too many great men have made it alone or in spite of women. But I do believe that if a man is lucky enough to have an able woman behind him she doubles his powers. Lyons is lucky, and he knows it. Sylvia Lyons (nee Schonberger) is a pretty, vivacious lady in her late fifties, energetic, wittier than her husband, remarkably perceptive. When I pleaded, "Mrs. Lyons, you must help me . . ."

"Sylvia."

"Thank you, Sylvia. I've been with Lenny two weeks and it's been nothing but universal admiration. Everybody loves him for his hard work, his modesty, his kindness, the fact that he will never print anything derogatory about anyone; and no reader in the world will buy such a paragon."

She nodded at once. "I know. You need a drop of poison to make him believable. All I can tell you right now is that he's too tolerant. He's slow to anger, but he can get sore. He concentrates so hard on his work that I have to take a cab downtown with him to get his car and even then I'm not sure. And no matter when I'm ready it's always ten minutes too late for him."

We were with Lyons in their apartment in the Beresford which, like his office, is a complete reflection of his work. The living room is half office. It, the three bedrooms, the dinette and the terrace, are crammed with memorabilia dating back to 1934, the year The

Lyons Den first appeared in the New York Post. There is a unique collection of art books, each inscribed with drawings and dedications by the artist: Pietcasso, Chagall, Braque, Grandma Moses, Dali, Van Dongen, Diego Rivera and scores of others. There is even an old street sign on the terrace wall commemorating Lyons' Rivington Street origins.

Both Sylvia and Lyons are natives of the lower East Side and extremely proud of it. Many of the lower East Side people have that pride; they feel like pioneers. Lyons was born Leonard Sucher, on September 10, 1906, the youngest of seven children. His father, Moisha Leib Sucher, was a sweatshop worker who died when the boy was seven. His mother opened a candy stand to support the family.

"Not a candy store, a candy stand," Lyons said. "She sold cigarettes two for a penny. It took me years to find out that cigarettes came in packs."

He went to the High School of Commerce, to City College at night, to St. John's law school, passed the bar exam and as a result of his fluent command of Spanish went to work for a Wall Street law firm specializing in Latin-American law. He said he had been all set for an important job in Cuba for his firm but gave it up for Sylvia. "I told that to the Duke of Windsor. He said, 'You mean you gave up your career for a woman? Tell me more.'"

Lyons had met Sylvia Schonberger at a social-club dance. She said, "I was . . . well, not the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, but pretty." That was easy to believe. "Lenny started writing me letters and I was impressed. Most of my beaux were writing, 'I am fine. How are you?' You know. Lenny always had something original and different to say and so I pestered him to go on with his writing."

"I sent a contribution to Mark Hellinger's column in *The Mirror*," Lyons said, "and he printed it." He took out a scrapbook to show me the original item. "Then I started sending items to Louis Sobel, Winchell, Bide Dudley and Louis Chapman, and they were printed." He showed me more scrapbooks. "I used to write them on the subway going home. I got paid with tickets to prize fights, movie theaters and ball games."

It was around 1930 that Leonard Sucher submitted a sample column for the English page of the *Jewish Daily*

*Forward.* He was hired at fifteen dollars a week with one major stipulation: the editor changed his name from Sucher to Lyons. His father's middle name, Leib, means lion in Yiddish. Incidentally, the only jewelry that Lyons wears is a seal ring engraved with a lion in intaglio.

He was still practicing law and writing in his spare time. In 1934 he applied for the job of Broadway columnist at the New York Post and won over five hundred other applicants. "I started at fifty dollars a week. I was absolutely green and lost a pound a day trying to learn my business. Then I was raised to sixty dollars a week and married Sylvia."

They have four sons—George, thirty, a broker; Warren, twenty-eight, a producer; Jeff, twenty-four, in law school; Douglas, twenty-one, a senior at Berkeley. Jeff is the most versatile of the Lyons boys; he played football at college, sang in the Metropolitan Opera chorus, and did everything in between. "Once George Plimpton was here," Lyons said, showing me the memorabilia in Jeff's room, "and when he saw all this he said, 'Jeff is the real George Plimpton.'"

And this is, perhaps, the single drop of poison that makes this remarkable man real. After thirty-five years of column writing it is no longer possible for Lyons to engage in normal conversation; when Lyons speaks he can only speak in anecdotes. Almost everything he says has a beginning, middle and end, preferably with a punch line, and always boiled down to the minimum. He lives and speaks columnese.

It's only an occupational disease, of course, and most hard workers suffer from that sort of thing, but it does make him seem slightly unreal. Just once you'd like him to talk to you man-to-man, but he can't do it. He has dedicated his life to his job and now the job is the man.

But this isn't the secret of his continuing success. The secret lies in the fact that despite thirty-five years of intimacy with celebrities, cynics, syconauts, the whole sophisticated New York scene, he remains pure. As one intimate put it: "Lenny is childishly naïve and absurdly honest. He operates in the 20th Century with 19th Century principles." Lyons is not only the last of the Broadway columnists, he may be the last of the 19th Century idealists.

THE END

94 HOLIDAY / MARCH

UN Secretary General
Complicates Viet Peace

By Vicente Villamin

2657 Maytubig, Malate, Manila, Philippines

U THANT, Secretary General of the United Nations, declared in Paris very recently that before South Vietnam can negotiate peace with North Vietnam she must have first a government with a "broad base," that is, a representative government.

That condition already exists in South Vietnam. But U Thant's declaration implies it does not. In any event, he has no right to place that pre-condition to a peace negotiation. The two countries have been fighting a war; if they want to have peace, they can negotiate for it without questioning the status of their governments.

The Secretary General knows that South Vietnam has a Constitution and that three years ago there was a free and honest general election participated in by over 65% of the voters, which is more than the average voters' participation in older democratic countries. Does he now question the integrity and legality of that election, and what right does he have to do that? The charter of the United Nations does not give him that right or duty. As a foreigner, he has no business to meddle in the international affairs of any government. In passing, does his native country, Burma, have a government with a base as broad and representative as South Vietnam's? It does not.

The South Vietnam government has received the formal recognition of many foreign governments. Is U Thant considering that recognition null and void, and who gave him the right to do that? If he were not the Secretary General of the United Nations, he would have been free to make the statement that he did and just be taken as having given his personal opinion which on its face happens to be baseless, mischievous and irresponsible.

U Thant placed himself completely on that side of Communist North Vietnam and the Vietcongs who have been saying that they would not talk peace with South Vietnam because its highest officials, President Thieu and Vice President Ky and their administration "represent nobody." He tacitly approved their arrogant and illegal position. Moreover, he has never questioned if the North Vietnam government itself has any "broad base" at all. He must

know that as a Communist government its base is as narrow as the ideas of the few men that dominate it.

The position of U Thant on the Vietnam war is well known by now. He does not condemn the aggression of North Vietnam and he does not sympathize with its innocent victim, South Vietnam. He does not like the idea of America going to its aid and frustrating the object of the aggression. He has never said a good word for the present Nixon-Thieu plan of ending the war by the gradual withdrawal of the American troops from Vietnam to be replaced by South Vietnamese troops. Evidently, he wants North Vietnam to have what she wants at the expense of South Vietnam. He should know that that is prolonging the war indefinitely.

Before the peace conference in Paris was held, U Thant kept saying that North Vietnam really wanted to have peace and urged the other side to meet her to talk about it. Now nearly two years have elapsed since that conference meeting every week, was held and nothing had been agreed upon towards the achievement of peace. U Thant had said nothing about it. He had not expressed any disappointment. He had not urged North Vietnam to be less intransigent. And now it occurred to him that South Vietnam after all has no standing to talk peace because its government, according to him, does not have a "broad base." He could have said that from the beginning and saved all the useless discussions and misunderstandings at the so-called Paris peace conference, but he did not.

On Vietnam, as in other international questions before the United Nations, the Secretary General of that world organization must maintain a strict impartiality to promote better understanding between the parties and thereby facilitate the peace negotiation. From his utterances, nobody can honestly say that U Thant is impartial on Vietnam. The Vietnam war has lasted too long already. If the Secretary General of the United Nations cannot help in ending or shortening it, he should not do or say anything that will complicate the peace negotiation and thus prolong the war. That, unfortunately, is what he is doing now. He must stop it for the sake of an early peace. ●

(Reprint from EXAMINER, The Asia Newsweekly, January 31, 1970,
67 Dr. Alejos St., Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City, Philippines.)

# 'New' Nixon Policy Has a Truman Ring

By Marilyn Berger

Newsday Diplomatic Correspondent

Washington—President Nixon has proposed a
blueprint for what he calls a new look in foreign
policy for the '70s, but on paper at least, the Nixon
drugline looks a lot like the Truman Doctrine—and
the Marshall Plan—of the '40s.

Nixon, introducing his report on
U.S. foreign policy for the '70s, said
that it "marks a watershed ...

Analysis

(It) shows a very significant shift from those policies of the past to the new policies dealing with the world situation as it is today."

The basis of his new policy, the President wrote in the message sent to Congress today, would be "the "Nixon Doctrine" which he announced at Guam last July 24. As he defined it, the U.S. "will participate in the defense and development of allies and friends, but

that America cannot, and will not, conceive all the plans, design all the programs, execute all the decisions and undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world. A more responsible participation by our foreign friends in their own defense and progress means a more effective common effort toward the goals we all seek."

In other words, the other nations of the world would have to pull their own weight. Except for the fact that the Nixon Doctrine is designed to apply to all world situations, the philosophy is no different from that of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, which were designed to meet specific problems. The Nixon Doctrine appears to be more of a return to the principles that guided the Truman administration than anything else. One State Department source said that Nixon's plan is a reaction more to the troubles of the '60s, when the country slipped into the morass of

Vietnam, than a basic reordering of American foreign policy.

The theme of the Truman administration was also self-help. Truman's Secretary of State George C. Marshall, in his famous speech at Harvard in 1947, said that the nations of Europe must do their part in the reconstruction of their war-torn region. "It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet ... this is the business of the Europeans," he said. "The initiative ... must come from Europe. ... The role of this country should consist of friendly aid."

President Truman, requesting congressional support for aid to Greece and Turkey to prevent Communist subversion, said: "I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes." Truman asked for and received funds and authorization to send advisers who, as it turned out, advised and did not participate in the war.

Despite the clear similarity of intent, Nixon Administration sources called the conception of the Marshall Plan "appropriate to the realities of the '40s and '50s and early '60s." They said: "We are attempting to find conceptions that are appropriate to the realities of the '70s." The realities of the '70s, these sources said, are that the postwar era has ended, that the U.S. is no longer the only nation in the world with its economy and society intact and that it need not assume a predominant role.

The general guidelines of the Nixon Doctrine might not always work, the President himself noted. "Even with careful planning," he wrote, "we will always have to consider a basic and delicate choice." In another part of his message, Nixon spoke of cutting down the number of U.S. conventional forces. Yet he projected a long-term presence of U.S. troops in Europe.

Russia Warned on Mideast

—Continued from Page 5

no benefit to us in the intensification of that conflict, and we have no intention of taking sides. Nor is the U.S. interested in joining any condominium or hostile coalition of great powers against either of the large Communist countries. Our attitude is clear-cut: a longing peace will be impossible so long as some nations consider themselves the permanent enemies of others."

Much of the message consisted of an expansion of previously stated Nixon concepts. Scattered throughout the document were direct quotes from Nixon's formal remarks and toasts during his trips last year to Europe and around the world. And among other points Nixon raised in his message were:

* That any sharp increase or a cutback of the

Johnson administration's nuclear posture would be unwise. In that decision, Nixon rejected the so-called "minimum deterrence" nuclear strategy, which would rely primarily on missile-carrying Polaris submarines to deter a Soviet attack.

* That the U.S. will adopt a one-and-a-half-wars strategy, budgeting for its military needs with the strategy of being able to fight simultaneously a brush-fire skirmish and either a Soviet attack in Europe or a Chinese attack in Asia. U.S. policy under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had been a two-and-a-half-war theory, figuring on the capability of fighting the European, Asian and brush-fire wars simultaneously. Under the Nixon theory, administration sources acknowledged, the Vietnam war would be considered a brush-fire skirmish, not a full-fledged war.

S. Viets Alone
In 10 Yrs... If

Combined News Services

Washington—The head of the U.S. pacification program in Vietnam said yesterday that the South Vietnamese could take over complete responsibility for defending their country within 10 years "if nothing else arose."

Deputy Ambassador William L. Colby gave that estimate to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as President Nixon told a group of White House visitors that the military part of the Vietnamization program "is scheduled." Nixon made his comment after receiving a firsthand report from Secretary of Defense Laird, who returned Sunday night from a visit to Vietnam. The President is basing his U.S. troop withdrawal decisions in part on the progress of the Vietnamization program.

Colby also testified that "some aberrations ... some illegal killings occur" in the so-called Phoenix program of taking Viet Cong civilians out of action. But he denied that Phoenix is a "counter-terrorism operation," and said that U.S. policy is directed to "tightening up the procedures with a disciplined approach." Colby, chief of the Civil Operations in Rural Development Support program, testified in the first of week-long Senate Foreign Relations hearings on pacification and the Phoenix program.

Phoenix, which was begun in mid-1968, coordinates efforts of the police, the military, and civil government institutions to "neutralize" the Viet Cong in the civilian population—a number estimated at from 75,000 to 85,000. It has a quota of "neutralizing" 1,800 Viet Cong a month. Neutralization, Colby said, can involve jailing, killing or rallying Viet Cong to the government.

Committee chairman J. William Fulbright said he was aware that it is not government policy to "go out and kill civilians." But he added that he is worried, under the circumstances as they exist in Vietnam, whether it is "possible to carry out such policies in a reasonably humane manner." "Incidents keep being reported," he said. "I do not believe the American people want to be a partner to inhumanity, no matter how much it aids our overall objectives."

Colby agreed, and said that constant efforts are being made to see that the policy is administered responsibly. "Some illegal killings occur ... aberrations do occur," he said.

In Vietnam, South Vietnamese artillery fired into the big U.S. Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon last night and early today in an accidental bombardment that killed three Americans and wounded 20 others. Five 105mm artillery shells hit the base in what the U.S. Command said was "an accidental delivery of ordinance" by the artillery unit. An investigation was underway. On the war front, allied forces reported killing 157 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in three large-scale engagements yesterday, two in the Mekong Delta and one near the Cambodian border northeast of Saigon.

AP Wirephoto

PRISONER. A Viet Cong prisoner whose hands are tied is pushed from an armored personnel carrier yesterday during South Vietnamese Army operations along the coast south of DaNang. The prisoner was interrogated, then taken by helicopter to a command post.

Amateur Lobby Has New Touch

—Continued from Page 6

steps of the Capitol, small splinter groups circulated among the legislators with varying degrees of success. Meanwhile, nearly 3,000 pressed into the hallway outside Gov. Rockefeller's office, but the governor was in Washington for the day.

Mrs. Mallory and nearly a dozen other persons wandered through the unfamiliar, columned corridors before they finally located Senate Minority Leader Joseph Zaretzki (D-Manhattan). She explained that she was working at a city day-care center for $350 a month. With rising taxes and living costs, she and her son needed a supplemental income, she insisted.

Zaretzki and other Democrats who met with

the small groups agreed. Sen Waldaba Stewart (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill calling for a guaranteed annual income of just over $6,000 for a family of four. The Democrats also announced a series of welfare-reform proposals including a state takeover of aid for the blind, elderly and disabled, the restoration of Medicaid cuts that affected 200,000 persons this year, and a state task force to audit welfare charges. They also called for a federal takeover of major welfare programs.

Republicans are still reviewing possible revisions in the welfare program, but Duryea said he doubted that final recommendations would include a guaranteed annual income.

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