The United States’
against Vetnam is one of the
biggest and lengest ever fought
by that country. An article in
the “Vietnam Courier” sets out
this argument with an impres-
sive history of the war to date:

“To make war on the 14 mil-
lion South Vietnamese, the U.S.
has committed to a theatre of ©
operation of 171,000 square
kilometres 1.2 million GIs, mer-
cenaries of its satellite coun-
tries and soldiers of the puppet
army. In June 1969, the U.S. ex-
‘peditionary corps reached its
550,000-man ceiling.

“To these figures should
be added the 35,000 Gls directly
involved in the war from the
7th Fleet, -48,000 others based
in Thailand and other tens of
thousands in Okinawa, Guam
and. the Philippines. To South
Vietnam, the U.S. has commit-
ted, according to Washington’s
Official figures, 68 percent of its
tactical air force, 19.5 percent of
its aircraft carriers, etc.

“Thus, of all the wars the
U.S. has fought since its. inde-
pendence, the Vietnam war
ranks next only to the 2nd
World War in terms of the
build-up involved. Yet, consi-
i ae the enormous dispropor-
tion between the extent of the
theatres of operations in these

war

Offering one of thé opening
shows of the new Toronto sea-
son, the Canadian Mime Thea-
tre, at Central Library, is wel-
come for four reasons:

It is a new group, it is a Can-.
adian group, it is non-commer-
cial, and it is very good.

C.M.T. was a summer neigh-
bor of the Shaw Festival at
Niagara-on-the-Lake. Back in
1966, on a makeshift stage in
an old store on Dupont St., a
tantalizing foretaste of C.M.T.
was given in a_ short-run,
sparsely-attended- showing of
-Poemime, in which Adrian
Pecknold, the new group’s direc-
tor, appeared in an evening of
mime and poetry readings with
John Powrie.

The current production is a

very sophisticated expression
of the art of mime. In white-
face, masked or maskless, in
variations of the traditional
costume of pants and T-shirt,
with only the barest of props
(a bench) and appearing on a
black-draped stage, the compa-
ny of six depend entirely on
their abilities as actors to illu-
strate simple themes of every-
day life, to capture moods, to
depict human behaviour in a
variety of typical situations,
and to evoke our -natural en-
vironment with its animals and
flowers.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 17,

oan

ee TQ 4

Gait, oi Se ff

two wars, the Vietnam war is
much bigger in terms of the
density of the troops and the
means put into action by the
most populous and most indus-
trialized country of the imperial-
ist camp.
e

“Surely enough, only nuclear
weapons have not been used
although some U.S. generals
and political figures have con-
templated it. It is because the
politico-military conditions in
the world and in the U.S. and
the aspect of the war in South
Vietnam do not permit this act
of madness which, like a boom-
erang, will entail incalculable
disastrous consequences for the
war dealers in Washington.
However, to kill our compa-
triots, the Pentagon has resort-
ed to an extremely varied pano-
ply of minutely worked out tac-
‘tics, and technical means and
weapons based on the latest
achievements of science and
technology: helicopters by the
thousands, supersonic fighter-
bombers, B-52 super-bombers,
ultra-rapid cannons and Car-
bines, rockets of all types, 7-ton
bombs, steel-pellet bombs, toxic
gases, poisons, napalm and
phosphorous shells, and so on.

“On March 24, 1969, in the
U.S. House of Representatives,
one of its members revealed that
every square mile of Vietnam-
ese territory had received an
average 25 tons of U.S. explo-
sives. The American press dis-
closed that since 1965, three
million tons of bombs have

been dropped on Vietnam, ‘or ~
150 percent of the bomb ton-

nage used by the U.S. from 1941
to 1945 in Europe, Africa, Asia
and the Pacific!

While the C.M.T. company
skillfully seek out and spotlight

the eyeryday truths of society,.
I would have welcomed some

treatment of the more urgent
realities of today.

Music is used effectively to
introduce the numbers and as
background. Members. of the
group, in a variety of poses,
hold notice boards captioning
the episodes.

The emphasis is on humor,
but there is also fantasy, deco-
rative imagery, tragedy, satire
and sheer poetry. I liked, par-
ticularly, the Vic Tanny itém,
the Golfers, the Bicycle, the
Western numbers and the Inn-
keeper (suggested by the Peking
Opera) but felt the Samurai
piece depended too much on
sound and bordered on racial
caricature. The Pygmalion myth
was beautifully and sensitively
enacted and created a deep im-
pression.

The company is led by Mr.
Pecknold, the traditional poetic
mime artist, complemented by
Harro Maskow, who is more in-
clined to eccentric interpreta-
tions. Appearing in a variety of
roles are four talented young
mime actors, Kevin Fenlon,
Randi Gregersen, Kenneth Stern
and Wendy Stern. Producer is
Richard S. Bennett.

—Martin Stone.

1969—Page 10

“ACD
;

Avss SST GN wn

‘directly

“The same source said that by
the end of 1966, the quantity of
shells fired by the Americans in
Vietnam had surpassed what
they hai used throughout World
War II.

“The wealth of the American
people wasted by their govern-
ments in pursuit of their Viet-
nam adventures was astronomic.
The official figures tell of an an-
nual budget of some 30 billion
dollars, and that means. 100 bil-
lion have been spent thus far.
Yet, in reality, things are dif-
ferent, because every year, bil-
lions-of dollars appropriated for
the war in our country are in-
tentionally classified in other
items of the huge U.S. budget:
Navy (7th Fleet) air force, scien-
tific and technical.

e

“The Americans have become
involved in Vietnam
since 1961 by sending to this
country a big contingent of ad-
visers, in fact a contingent of
cadres to conduct the war and
officer the puppet troops in the
“special war’ (1961-1964). Apart
from the 30,000 ‘‘advisers,” tac-
tical air units have also been
introduced to support ground
operations. With the last four
years of the “local war’ and an
expeditionary corps swelling
visibly, the Vietnam war turns
out to be longer than World

By JOHN: WILLIAMSON

A new book by Arthur M.
Schlesinger, The Crisis of Con-
fidence discusses some of the
problems worrying the serious
ideologues of American capital-
ism.

It not only declares that to-
day “America is undergoing a
crisis of self-confidence” but
that events “have slipped be-
yond our control.”

In his view America is in a

“double crisis—the crisis of our’ ~ :
“internal character .as a nation‘

and_the crisis of the relationship
between America and_ the
world.”

At the heart of the crisis he

‘sees America’s relations with

the rest of the world, especially
the Socialist and former colonial
lands. In a mental bout of writh-
ing, he moans that “The failure
of half a million American sol-
diers . . . employing the might
of modern military technology
to defeat a few thousand gueril-
las in black pajamas” has “‘shak-
en our faith in our power.”

While in effect excusing
America’s cold-war aggression
by referring to “Stalin’s para-
noia,” the author must “‘in retro-
spect” recognize “‘it is also hard
to see it as a pure case of Rus-
sian aggression and American
response.”

But even Schlesinger has to
conclude that America “posed
as God’s appointed messenger to
ignorant and sinful men” while
“looking to a world remade in
its own image.”

Much liberal balderdash is
served up, such as calling ag-
gressive U.S. imperialism a poli-
cy of “universalism,” meaning
that the U.S. “has an active and
vital interest in the destiny of
every nation on the planet.”

Fortunately, the harsh reali-

Cen 2 ae eS Oo Pia -

War II (1941-1945), the Korean
War (1950-1953), World War I
(1917-1918), the war against
Spain (1893), the War of Seces-
sion (1861-1865) and the war
against Mexico (1848). With
Richard Nixon who continues
to follow in L. B. Johnson’s
footsteps, there is every chance
to the U.S. press, if the Ist Divi-
sion took part in combat actions
the Independence War (1775-
1783).
e

On the soil of our South Viet-
nam, the aggressors can find
absolutely no haven. According
to the U.S. press, if the Big Red
One took part in combat actions
for only 158 days and 443 days
respectively during the First and
the Second World Wars, it has
had to stand on the alert for

more than 1,300 days since its.

arrival in South Vietnam.
“Confronted with this gigan-
tic effort of the U.S. imperial-

pe Bee a

ties of life—not because it was
wrong—force some new think-
ing called “the lessons of Viet-
nam.”

These include that America
“cannot do everything in the
world” and “cannot be the per-
manent guarantor of stability in
a world of turbulance” and that
“all problems in the world are
not military ... and military
force is not necessarily the
most effective form of national
power.”

This is really going back to
the significant ‘‘about face”
policy statement of the late Pre-
sident John Kennedy in 1961,
when he said: “We must face
the fact that the U.S..is neither
omnipotent nor omniscient.”

In dealing with the political
prospects for the ’70’s, urgency
is placed on giving “the perman-
ently alienated groups (the tra-
ditionally poor, the blacks, the
Indians, the Puerto Ricans and
Mexican-Americans) a feeling
of membership in\ the national

-part of the Eurasian ©

ists to subdue them, the Me
namese people possess quité
ferent trump-cards whose
has been eloquently affirmé
reality.
“We have behind us 2

tradition of struggle in
of national independence
back to the early years

dating
of th

d by

Jone

Christian Era. In this centut! . |

old fight, we have had pee ei
front enemies much super’

strength, from the famous ce de

rymen of Genghis Khan we

: ° on a :
ployed victoriously on net

to the colonial infantryme?
helped the French colon!

impose their rule on one tr

of the ‘inhabited land °
globe. The national sen
strengthened by the SP!
unshakable unity which 0U
ple have forged throughout
history has enabled
fathers to resist th
successfully.”

rit of

risis of contidence ©

5 col
in a genuine ‘ ao?
monwealth of reason, jus

process ...

opportunity.” {!
Reference is also M@’" ve
feeling of impotence bY ised
one in the face of being wa
into the electronics 48°
everyone “existing wt
shadow of vast uncontfO™ py
structures, _impervious
man desire or need.”

i

“nagging doubt” as tO il! pe
“our political structure pest!
adequate to the woes tha

usc : pe

What Mr. Schlesinger stl a
to learn is that the “intrane
Leninist ideology,” aS 4PP. 4, hi
American conditions, Wh!” jy
scorns, will, in the 10 c pe
give the positive ansWe™ she
cannot find. Nevertheless tet
book is worthwhile and nd
esting reading to underst@™
worries of Washington-

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