Polemics and Prophecies 1967-1970

Publisher:  Vintage Books, New York, USA
Year Published:  1972  
Pages:  497pp  
The major issues in the United States in the late 1960s are explored in this anthology of I.F. Stone's articles from 1967 - 1970. These include the Vietnam war, the social unrest in the nation, the conflict in the Middle East and the nature of the American political system, amongst many others. Divided into twelve sections, the book contains chapters with titles like "Why Not Timbuktoo or Easter Island?," "It Wasn't for Lack of Spies That the Czars Fell," "How the U.S. plays Out a Banana Republic Comedy in Greece," and "Nixon in the Footsteps of Popeye's Elder Statesman." It is an in-depth look into the situation of that time from Stone's point of view.

I.F. Stone was a reporter, editorial writer and columnist on the Philadelphia Record, PM, the New York Post, the Washington Star and the New York Daily Compass. He was Washington editor of The Nation from 1940-1946 and then published his own newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly.

[Abstract by Nabeeha Chaudhary]



Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: When Two Equals One
Who Are The Democrats?
Party of the Rich and Well-Born
A Grateful Patsy Against a Dirty Fighter?
The Candidate Least Likely To Make Peace
The GOP Convention Was Not Without Its Cheering Aspects
When a Two-Party System Becomes a One-Party Rubber Stamp
Why Hubert Is As Tricky as Dicky

Part II: 'Saigon Afire Now…'
The Monster with Little Brain and No Heart
The Fraud with Which Bomb Resumption was Excused
The Mendacities Go Marching On, Truce or No Truce
How TV and Press Were Led to Rehash Those Tet Supply Lies
They'd Do Anything For the Peasant But Get Off His Back
The Mindless Momentum of a Runaway Military Machine
If Daddy Keeps at It, Luci, One Day You Won't Wake Up
None So Blind as Those Who Will Not See
Saignon Afire Now - Will It Be Washington In April?

Part III: '…Will It Be Washington in April'
The Fire Has Only Just Begun
Billions for Missiles and Pennies for Poverty
The Mason-Dixon Line Moves to New York
Nixon About to Abolish Hunger "For All Time" - Again
The Real Meaning of Nixon's Judicial Philosophies

Part IV Nixon: The Evil of Banality
So What's a Little Isaiah Between Friends?
Uncle Sam's Con Man Budget
Same Old Formulas, Same Tired Rhetoric
Midway to a Nguyen Van Nixon Era
Nixon in the Footsteps of Popeye's Elder Statesman

Part V: The Menace of Militarism
McNamara and the Militarists
On National Defence, Space, and Foreign Policy, the New GOP Platform Reads as If Written by General Dynamics for a New Arms Race
A Goldwater to Head the Pentagon
Nixon and the Arms Race: The Bomber Boondoggle
Nixon and the Arms Race: How Much Is "Sufficiency"?
The War Machine Under Nixon
Heading for a Bigger Arms Race in the Seventies

Part VI Disarmament: A Century of Futility
How Earth Day Was Polluted
Why SALT Spells Fraud
A Century of Futility
Theatre of Delusion
The Test Ban Comedy

Part VII: That Barroom Brawl with the Lights Out Revisited
All We Really Know Is That We Fired the First Shots
McNamara and Tonkin Bay: The Unanswered Questions
The Supineness of the Senate

Part VIII: Endless War
Why Not Timbuktu or Easter Island?
Playing for Time to Continue the War?
The Willful Blindness of McGeorge Bundy
Why the Casualties Rise as Peace Talks Go On
The Best-Kept Secret of the Vietnam War
Immediate Withdrawal Becoming a Bandwagon
Lessons for Nixon
The Atrocities Nixon Condones and Continues
Nixon, Inflation and the War
Nixon's Iron Curtain on the Coast of the War
Only the Bums Can Save the Country Now

Part IX: The Mideast
Holy War
The Need for Double Vision in the Middle East

Part X: Pax Americana
How the U.S. Plays Out a Banana Republic Comedy in Greece
The First Military Dictatorship with a Free (but Suspended) Constitution

Part XI: 'It Wasn't for Lack of Spies…'
It Wasn't for Lack of Spies That the Czars Fell
The Mujik as the Negro of the Russian Revolution
The Rebirth of Freedom - or of Fascism?
Who Are the Real Kooks in Our Society?
Where the Fuse on That Dynamite Leads

Part XII: The Streets
The Rich March on Washington All the Time
They Pleaded Guilty of Burning Paper Instead of Children
In Defence of the Campus Rebels
Bitter Battles Lie Ahead

Subject Headings

• African Americans
• Arms Proliferation
• Arms Race
• Arms Race/Trade
• Disarmament
• Hippies
• Middle East Affairs
• Militarism
• Military-Industrial Complex
• Missile Defence
• Nuclear Disarmament
• Peace Movement
• Slavery
• Social Issues
• United Kingdom
• United States of America
• U.S. Culture
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• U.S. History
• U.S. Military
• U.S. Politics
• Vietnam War