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1969-10-15 ""The New Prairie Primer"" Page 12
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New Prairie Primer, October 15, 1969, Page 12 54 AMERICAN AUTHORS ON VIETNAM Edward Albee Hanson Baldwin James Baldwin Ted Berrigan John Berryman Robert Bly William Buckley, Jr. Truman Capote Noam Chomsky Eldridge Cleaver Lewis Cozer James Dickey John Dos Passos Jules Feiffer Lawrence Ferlenghetti Allen Ginsberg Paul Goodman David Halberstam Michael Harrington Lilliana Hellman John Hersey Irving Howe William Inge James Jones Alfred Kazin Jack Kerouac Penn Kimble Walter Lippman Robert Lowell Staughton Lynd Mary McCarthy Dwight Macdonald Norman Mailer Bernard malamud Arthur Miller Ashley Montagu Vladimir Nabokov Harold Pinter Philip Roth Bayard Rustin Cornelius Ryan Harrison Salisbury Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. W.D. Snodgrass Susan Sontag Terry Southern John Steinbeck I.F. Stone William Styron John Updike Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Robert Penn Warren Richard Wilbur Tennesee Williams Excepting one, they're all American; excepting one, they're all living; and excepting a couple, they address the point. Comments remain dated. Documentation available: just send in a card or letter. Additions welcome --Compiler, Bruno Niceswanger Susan Sontag Right now it seems to me one task of the American writer is to be yelling at the top of his voice at the folly and ugly self-righteousness, at the immorality of and terrible danger entailed by our government's policy and behavior in Vietnam. Jack Kerouac Ginsberg got interested in left wing politics... like Joyce I say, as Joyce said to Ezra Pound in the 1920's "Don't bother me with politics, the only thing that interests me is style." Tennesee Williams The senseless war... Harold Pinter The other night I watched some politicians on television talking about Vietnam., I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a flame thrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then inquire from them how they would assess this action from a political point of view. I.F. Stone The whole Air Force drive in Vietnam is to transform the war we can't win to the war we might from a war for the loyalties of the Vietnamese people into a war to destroy them. Ashley Montagu The United States has no right to be in Vietnam and it has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of other peoples. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. I do not see that our original involvement in Vietnam was per se immoral. What was immoral was the employment of means of destruction out of all proportion to rational purposes. John Dos Passos ... it might turn out to be cheaper in money and lives to win that war than to lose it. Hanson Baldwin If we lose, our children and grandchildren will face tomorrow a far worse problem than we face today. Robert Penn Warren People who are raised barefoot are cheap, But we who wear shoes are dear, and All wars are righteous Cornelius Ryan Would it be so bad if we pulled out of Vietnam? LEATHERNECK ! WORKING REPLICA OF FIGHTING U.S. MARINE FULLY EQUIPPED, EASY TO ASSEMBLE PUTS YOU IN THE ACTION AUTHENTIC BATTLE FUN BATTERIES INCLUDED (C) 1966 R. COBB ALL RIGHTS RESERVED R.COBB Edward Albee We'd all like to get out of Vietnam, would we not ? If everybody would get out of Vietnam it would be very nice. Max Lemer was saying a couple of weeks ago that one thing the American kids can't learn is that since the United States has decided to be a world force. It's going to have to get a little ugly. World power is ugly. James Jones As a matter of fact, I am at the moment trying to write a novel, a combat novel (The Thin Red Line) which, in addition to being a work which tells the truth about warfare as I saw it, would free all these young men from the horseshit which has been ingrained in them by my generation. Walter Lippman I don't think old men should promote wars for young men to fight. I don't like warlike old men. I think it's their business to try as best they can, by whatever wisdom they can find, to avert what would be an absolutely irreparable calamity for the world. Cornelius Ryan (I asked my son) "What do you think about Vietnam?" "We shouldn't be there at all. Terrible damn thing." "What happens if you've got to go?" "Naturally -- I'll go." No doubt about it, he'll go because the country asks him to go. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I've got four boys of military age and none of them are going... It's a decision they reached on their own. I've certainly not brought any leverage one thing I've said to them, too, is that if I were them I would go. Out of morbid curiosity. This exasperates a lot of people. But, knowing myself. I think I probably would go, although I'd be sick about it the minute I got there and realized I'd been had. Richard Wilbur (Insofar as these kids denounce our institutions), I can't sympathize with them . Though I can share all their objections to our Vietnam policy, I'm all for institutions, for working in and through institutions, and if that means being in the establishment, why there I am. James Baldwin I consider the American adventure in Vietnam a desperate and despicable folly, for which future generations will pay heavily. I do not think any American soldier should be there. But to send - Negro soldiers there - to ask Negro soldiers to die there, while one is busily destroying their kinsmen at home -- is of an impertinence so arrogant, an immorality so flagrant, as to take one's breath away. Eldridge Cleaver It is no accident that the U.S. government is sending all those black troops to Vietnam. Ted Berrigan It's New Year's Eve, of 1968,& a time for resolution. I don't like Englebert Humpeldink I love the Incredible String Band The War goes on & war is Shit. Robert Lowell We are in danger of imperceptibly becoming an explosive ans suddenly chauvinistic nation, and may even be drifting on our way to the last nuclear ruin.. I feel I am serving you (LBJ) and our country best by not taking part in the White House Festival of the Arts Arthur Miller, John Berryman, Jules Feiffer, Lilian Hellman, Alfred Kazin, Dwight MacDonald,Bernard Malamud, Mary McCarthy, Philip Roth, W.D. Snodgrass, William Styron, Robert Penn Warren, and others We support... Lowell in his decision not to participate in the White House Festival of the Arts... We would like you to know that others of us share his dismay at recent American foreign policy decisions. We hope that people in this and other countries will not conclude that a White House program testifies to approval of Administration policy by the members of the artistic community..." John Hersey Like many others, I have been deeply troubled by the drift toward reliance on military solutions in our foreign policy... It has been my intention to CRISIS LINE 266-1913
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New Prairie Primer, October 15, 1969, Page 12 54 AMERICAN AUTHORS ON VIETNAM Edward Albee Hanson Baldwin James Baldwin Ted Berrigan John Berryman Robert Bly William Buckley, Jr. Truman Capote Noam Chomsky Eldridge Cleaver Lewis Cozer James Dickey John Dos Passos Jules Feiffer Lawrence Ferlenghetti Allen Ginsberg Paul Goodman David Halberstam Michael Harrington Lilliana Hellman John Hersey Irving Howe William Inge James Jones Alfred Kazin Jack Kerouac Penn Kimble Walter Lippman Robert Lowell Staughton Lynd Mary McCarthy Dwight Macdonald Norman Mailer Bernard malamud Arthur Miller Ashley Montagu Vladimir Nabokov Harold Pinter Philip Roth Bayard Rustin Cornelius Ryan Harrison Salisbury Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. W.D. Snodgrass Susan Sontag Terry Southern John Steinbeck I.F. Stone William Styron John Updike Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Robert Penn Warren Richard Wilbur Tennesee Williams Excepting one, they're all American; excepting one, they're all living; and excepting a couple, they address the point. Comments remain dated. Documentation available: just send in a card or letter. Additions welcome --Compiler, Bruno Niceswanger Susan Sontag Right now it seems to me one task of the American writer is to be yelling at the top of his voice at the folly and ugly self-righteousness, at the immorality of and terrible danger entailed by our government's policy and behavior in Vietnam. Jack Kerouac Ginsberg got interested in left wing politics... like Joyce I say, as Joyce said to Ezra Pound in the 1920's "Don't bother me with politics, the only thing that interests me is style." Tennesee Williams The senseless war... Harold Pinter The other night I watched some politicians on television talking about Vietnam., I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a flame thrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then inquire from them how they would assess this action from a political point of view. I.F. Stone The whole Air Force drive in Vietnam is to transform the war we can't win to the war we might from a war for the loyalties of the Vietnamese people into a war to destroy them. Ashley Montagu The United States has no right to be in Vietnam and it has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of other peoples. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. I do not see that our original involvement in Vietnam was per se immoral. What was immoral was the employment of means of destruction out of all proportion to rational purposes. John Dos Passos ... it might turn out to be cheaper in money and lives to win that war than to lose it. Hanson Baldwin If we lose, our children and grandchildren will face tomorrow a far worse problem than we face today. Robert Penn Warren People who are raised barefoot are cheap, But we who wear shoes are dear, and All wars are righteous Cornelius Ryan Would it be so bad if we pulled out of Vietnam? LEATHERNECK ! WORKING REPLICA OF FIGHTING U.S. MARINE FULLY EQUIPPED, EASY TO ASSEMBLE PUTS YOU IN THE ACTION AUTHENTIC BATTLE FUN BATTERIES INCLUDED (C) 1966 R. COBB ALL RIGHTS RESERVED R.COBB Edward Albee We'd all like to get out of Vietnam, would we not ? If everybody would get out of Vietnam it would be very nice. Max Lemer was saying a couple of weeks ago that one thing the American kids can't learn is that since the United States has decided to be a world force. It's going to have to get a little ugly. World power is ugly. James Jones As a matter of fact, I am at the moment trying to write a novel, a combat novel (The Thin Red Line) which, in addition to being a work which tells the truth about warfare as I saw it, would free all these young men from the horseshit which has been ingrained in them by my generation. Walter Lippman I don't think old men should promote wars for young men to fight. I don't like warlike old men. I think it's their business to try as best they can, by whatever wisdom they can find, to avert what would be an absolutely irreparable calamity for the world. Cornelius Ryan (I asked my son) "What do you think about Vietnam?" "We shouldn't be there at all. Terrible damn thing." "What happens if you've got to go?" "Naturally -- I'll go." No doubt about it, he'll go because the country asks him to go. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I've got four boys of military age and none of them are going... It's a decision they reached on their own. I've certainly not brought any leverage one thing I've said to them, too, is that if I were them I would go. Out of morbid curiosity. This exasperates a lot of people. But, knowing myself. I think I probably would go, although I'd be sick about it the minute I got there and realized I'd been had. Richard Wilbur (Insofar as these kids denounce our institutions), I can't sympathize with them . Though I can share all their objections to our Vietnam policy, I'm all for institutions, for working in and through institutions, and if that means being in the establishment, why there I am. James Baldwin I consider the American adventure in Vietnam a desperate and despicable folly, for which future generations will pay heavily. I do not think any American soldier should be there. But to send - Negro soldiers there - to ask Negro soldiers to die there, while one is busily destroying their kinsmen at home -- is of an impertinence so arrogant, an immorality so flagrant, as to take one's breath away. Eldridge Cleaver It is no accident that the U.S. government is sending all those black troops to Vietnam. Ted Berrigan It's New Year's Eve, of 1968,& a time for resolution. I don't like Englebert Humpeldink I love the Incredible String Band The War goes on & war is Shit. Robert Lowell We are in danger of imperceptibly becoming an explosive ans suddenly chauvinistic nation, and may even be drifting on our way to the last nuclear ruin.. I feel I am serving you (LBJ) and our country best by not taking part in the White House Festival of the Arts Arthur Miller, John Berryman, Jules Feiffer, Lilian Hellman, Alfred Kazin, Dwight MacDonald,Bernard Malamud, Mary McCarthy, Philip Roth, W.D. Snodgrass, William Styron, Robert Penn Warren, and others We support... Lowell in his decision not to participate in the White House Festival of the Arts... We would like you to know that others of us share his dismay at recent American foreign policy decisions. We hope that people in this and other countries will not conclude that a White House program testifies to approval of Administration policy by the members of the artistic community..." John Hersey Like many others, I have been deeply troubled by the drift toward reliance on military solutions in our foreign policy... It has been my intention to CRISIS LINE 266-1913
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