Remembering Irving Howe  

Not long ago Irving told me of a pact he and Alfred Kazin had made: whichever one died first would not be eulogized by the other. As it turned out, Kazin breaks the pact in these pages, as Irving would …



When G.M. Wrecked Flint  

Roger and Me, a radical documentary — marketed as a comedy —about the devastation of auto workers in Flint, Michigan, has, to everyone’s amazement, become a sleeper. At this moment it’s making pretty big bucks. Why? Go ask. Documentaries, let …



Assaulting the American Mind  

No one seriously interested in higher education can afford to read The Closing of the American Mind. Or so the late Dwight Macdonald might have put it. He practically did. Substitute “international relations” for “higher education” and you have the …



The Neocons & Contragate  

As we totter on the edge of a recession, Reaganomics, plus the foreign policy that went with it for seven happy-go-lucky years, seems just about totally discredited. So what else is new? Isn’t it obvious to everyone? Well, not quite. …



Dave the Slasher & Cap the Knife  

Is ectoplasm in short supply on Publishers Row? If not, I wonder why his publishers did not supply David Stockman with good ghosts for the manufacture of his best seller, cleverly but misleadingly called The Triumph of Politics. One darkly …



From Ramparts to Reagan  

In mid-March the Washington Post Magazine featured an article by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, best known nowadays for their encomium to Camelot, a bestseller called The Kennedys: An American Drama, wherein they lovingly explore every weakness of that villainous …



From Ramparts to Reagan  

In mid-March the Washington Post Magazine featured an article by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, best known nowadays for their encomium to Camelot, a bestseller called The Kennedys: An American Drama, wherein they lovingly explore every weakness of that villainous …



The U.S.A. and the UAW  

May 15-20. Dallas. No, not Dallas, a soap opera that holds much of the world’s population in its grip. Same scene, no doubt, but a different cast of characters. On this occasion, 5,000 UAW people, half of them delegates, have …



New Styles in Union Busting  

Mr. Reagan, like his hero Cal Coolidge, turns out to be an accomplished union buster. (Was ever a union more skillfully finessed than the Professional Air Traffic Controllers? The adroitness of it all may be comparable to that of Silent …





The Arabs of Israel  

As the mass media focus our attention on international relations in the Middle East, we are too often distracted from equally explosive internal affairs. Time bombs tick away and jolt us only when they erupt. (Perhaps an early warning system …



Women’s Place in Israel  

Long is the list of grievances. Some are militantly advanced by the small Israeli feminist community, others spoken more quietly by Israeli women unaffiliated with any movement. All told, they ramify in every direction of an extraordinarily diverse little society. …



CIA, DIA, FBI—and 50 More!  

After reading the Rockefeller Commission report, Senator Frank Church declared, “This is just the tip of an iceberg.” A little later it looked like the tip of a glacier. From December 22, 1974, when Seymour Hersh’s first dispatch on “Massive …



Scoop & Chou—Love at First Sight  

On July 9, 1974, Senator Henry M. Jackson, known affectionately but until then unaccountably as Scoop, finally justified his sobriquet. Scoop-watchers realized then that their man might be more than the deadwood of which most presidential timber is made. If …



The Example of Norman Thomas  

Ours is an omnivorous culture. Even the most prickly and apparently indigestible of critics, like Lenny Bruce and Paul Goodman, get cannibalized. Therefore, it ought to surprise no one that a socialist leader in America should be universally honored as …