Contrary to many optimistic expectations, the relative position of the nonwhite in the Republic of South Africa has not improved over the past several decades. To lay observers the existence of a state committed to racial exclusion and oppression seems an anachronism in our age of modernity. There is a naive belief that explicit racism is somewhere incompatible with futuristic office buildings, double-knit business suits, teaching machines or a degree in sociology. Yet these and other trappings of the modern age coexist in South Africa with absolute racial division.

In the midst of pervasive malaise America tries to look forward to celebrating its bicentennial. It is not an easy thing to celebrate a birthday when the body and spirit are sick. Little wonder that social analysts and critics are calling for a renewal of the American spirit, the recovery of an American tradition from the distortions of our recent past. It is this tradition that must provide guidance for the future that is already upon us. Daniel Bell, in his The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, is but the latest of the company of exhorters, which includes such critics as Sydney Ahlstrom, Robert Bellah and Gibson Winter.

Chile since the September 11 coup is a study in contrasts. There is the striking difference between the tensions and polarization of the last months of the Allende regime and the apparent calm and renewed sense of purpose of Chile under military rule. There is the contrast between the return to normalcy during the daytime and the repressive and chilling atmosphere during the nighttime curfew hours, when shots ring out periodically, helicopters fly overhead and armored cars patrol streets where only the occasional stray dog is moving freely.

The January announcement of a Libyan-Tunisian union, short-lived to be sure, was but one in a series of seemingly odd actions by Libyan President Qaddafi. In the Yom Kippur War he refused to participate in the Syro-Egyptian attack–perhaps out of pique at not being consulted beforehand. Two weeks later he angrily denounced the cease-fire and has since refused to participate in inter-Arab conferences called to discuss the post-cease-fire situation. The Israeli-Egyptian disengagement agreement, by which Egypt recovered the Suez Canal and a considerable part of Sinai, evoked only disapproval from Libya. Calling for ever greater oil embargoes against the West, Qaddafi's own adherence to the oil embargo is questionable. Qaddafi, known for his Islamic fundamentalism and fiery anti-Israel rhetoric, seemed for a time eager to join with Tunisia's Habib Bourguiba, a sophisticated modernist who has urged his fellow Arabs to accept the reality of Israel. Seeming contradictions abound. Yet Qaddafi's policies have a rationality of their own which may have as much to do with the Middle East's future as the impulses of those whom conventional wisdom calls saner.

In the perspective of a few thousand years of Indochinese history the decade of direct American military intervention that so wrenched our own country is little more than a minor subtitle in a rather brief chapter. Contrary to the declarations of those who opposed policy and those who made it, the United States neither started nor ended the warfare in Indochina. Although the U.S. inflicted great agony and destruction on some small countries, the suffering yielded no conclusion. Even after their withdrawal, Americans could find no satisfaction in a neat end to a bloody game.

As Americans celebrated Christmas in 1972 they read about national disasters in Nicaragua and North Vietnam. The capitals of both countries had to be evacuated. Communications and power facilities were crippled. Hospital complexes were reduced to rubble. An earthquake caused the damage in Nicaragua; American bombers were responsible in North Vietnam.

In the wake of worldwide humanitarian concern for both countries, the initial response of the United States was to announce the release of paramedical teams and a mobile field hospital for Nicaragua and to deny that the Bach Mai hospital facility in Hanoi existed and that it had been hit by American planes.

Dominating the lobby of Common Cause's very modern and very busy offices on M Street in Washington is a cork bulletin board nine feet high and six feet wide. Bold red letters proclaim news! Littering the board are newspaper clippings from all over the country, each bearing a red pencil stripe beneath the phrase “Common Cause.” Every working day over a thousand checks pour into this office, none of them tax-deductible. Membership in the organization has grown to 230,000 since its founding in 1970, and its membership renewal rate increased from a healthy 65 per cent in 1970 to a phenomenal 85 per cent in 1973. What sort of organization is this, and what can it tell us about our society and the individual's role in it?

What! Yet another article on the Vietnam war! Don't we know enough about it by now to avoid repeating it? The answer is no. We ought to, but we don't. In time there will be probing studies based on the Pentagon Papers and as yet unpublished documents and memoirs. But presently available evidence strongly indicates that the reigning explanations are one-sided and incomplete. So overwhelming has been the compulsion to blame the war on the mistakes of the civilian decision-makers that the military responsibility for beginning and prolonging the war has been virtually ignored.