Pont:
‘tinued from Bene 6

Pinski. c.. :, 3:

s ' favorite line of seeking to split off
istan S of the socialist camp with the as-
‘dig ace of the Maoists and East European

ii a not an area of stability and will
a me such until the Eastern Euro-
‘and Peaities regain their independence
tito Ome part of a larger cooperative
Pean framework.” :
me s Scare the attempt to destabilize
nti De, draw them into the aggressive
Ne Ron munist NATO alliance. Mention-
See and Yugoslavia as likely pros-
ent hie indulged Brzezinski’s most fer-
“y te : socialist Poland:
Poland - ore the recent infliction upon
Status s a constitution that ratifies its
ONstitutis Soviet satellite’ — that about a
h Jon 200 years old and revolution
The | Our own.
grclihood of Brzezinski as Secre-
ee in a Carter Administration is
ca make one shudder. He has much
ockef On with Kissinger—Harvard, the
ion eller connection, cold war opera-
f the an Brzezinski, a direct descendant
more defeated ruling classes, is even
Nti-Cy anatical, dangerous promoter of
Reunist intrigues than Kissinger.
bi ie Brzezinski is a whole phalanx of
Misi foreign policy and military
he ists in the Carter-camp:
Omen Manning, president of the
Oreign on Foreign Relations, the. chief
ellers ead organization of the Rocke-
gh iia and other top groups of
Thomas K. Finletter, an early NATO

org
meee and former Secretary of the Air

~

Michael Forrestal, son of James For-

» the first Secretary of Defense, wh
: ee cold war military buildup,
es Self crazy with his hysterical fear
ichael ussians and committed suicide.
traditio, was brought up in the cold war
Nav. At the age of 19 he was assist-
iby ty ‘al Attache in Moscow, quite pos-
do 7 drove his father to jump out of a win-
“Nation en he worked as a military and
al security’’ official in Washington,

© source of some of the scare stories

before becoming’ a partner in Shearman
and Sterling, tit ‘law firm of Citibank and
Dillon Read, the important investment
banking firm in which his father had been
a partner. Incidentally, Mrs. Phyllis -Col-
lins, the daughter of the head of that firm,
C. Clarence Dillon, is a Carter contributor.
Dillon Read has long been prominent in
Democratic Party finance.

— Richard N. Gardner, former state de-
partment official and McGraw Hill execu-
tive, is now a Columbia University law pro-
fessor, and active in the Trilateral Com-
mission, the Planned Parenthood Founda-
tion, and Freedom House, all Rockefeller
favorites.

— Milton Katz isa Harvard Law School
professor who played an important role in
the OSS, predecessor of the CIA, and then
was an early organizer of NATO. He is
chairman of the board of the Morgan-
influenced Carnegie Endowment for Inter-
national Peace.

The frequent mention of Rockefeller
connections does not mean that this group
has a monopoly on Carter. Coca Cola, men-
tioned above as a Carter connection, has
long been in the financial orbit of the Mor-
gan Guaranty Trust Co.

Burke Marshall, dean of the Yale Law
School, is a Carter supporter. He was for-
merly a partner in the Washington law firm
of Covington and Burling, close to Morgan
interests, and later senior vice president
and general counsel of IBM, also financial-
ly affiliated with the Morgan bank.

Reportedly close to Carter is Cyrus
R. Vance, a Lehman Brothers partner who
is also a director of IBM.

Some real estate operators traditionally
prominent in Democratic financing are in
the Carter camp. One is Arthur G. Cohen,
chairman of Arlen Realty and Develop-
ment Corp., a billion dollar company. Sev-
eral known Carter supporters are directors
of savings banks, which concentrate on
mortgage lending. These are the outfits
which set up and profit from redlining
and. strive to preserve ghettoes.and_all-
white communities. Carter’s ‘‘ethnic pur-
ity’ racism is a signal of his willingness to
serve these interests — not that he needed
any fresh stimulus, considering the evi-
dence compiled by Steven Brill in Har-
per’s exposing Carter’s screened racism,
implicit in his family’s profiting from the
racist pattern of Georgia life.

During the peak money-raising season in
early spring, New York supporters of Jack-
son, the Zionists’ early favorite, complain-
ed about the wealthy Jewish people who
were attending Carter’s fund raising af-
fairs. And soon some of them came out for
Carter: :

— Howard J. Samuels is an upstate cap-
italist, long powerful in New York State
Democratic Party affairs, and one-time gu-
bernatorial candidate. Now New York
finance chairman for Carter, Samuels is a
member of the board of governors of the
American Jewish Committee and of the
executive committee of the American Is-
rael Public Affairs Committee, among
other ‘similar connections.

_ Theodore C. Sorensen, prominent as-
sociate of the Kennedys, is also raising
money for Carter. Sorensen is a member of
the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Whar-
ton and Garrison, one of the leading largely
Jewish law firms, and particularly influen-
tial, through Simon Rifkind, in New York
Democratic Party politics.

— Lehman Brothers partner Roger (Ch
Altman, along with Vance, supports Carter.

In a meeting with 100 Jewish leaders on
April 1, Carter supported permanent Israe-
li occupation of the Golan Heights and Arab
Jerusalem, and came out for Israeli set-
tlements in occupied territory. :

The mutual admiration between Leon-
ard Woodcock and Henry Ford II has been
evidenced before, and now they join in mu-

‘tual admiration of Jimmy Carter. Well, it’s

quite a day for the UAW when its presi-
dent endorses the man who ran against
repeal of Georgia’s Tight-to-work law in

- 4970 and did nothing to bring about its re-

peal, or other advances for labor, as Gov-

-ernor.

victor perlo

PEOPLE VS. PROFITS

Hearst's figures fakery
and the facts

A Los Angeles reader sent me an editorial from Hearst’s Los Angeles Herald ~

Examiner, with the headline ‘‘Inflation Hits Reds, Too.’’ The message of the piece i

. . . . “4 ; lece Is

that people in the socialist countries are suffering from galloping inflation ina by

compar ea is coat in ee United States are in clover. The moral is drawn that there

is no use attempting to control prices as the law of supply and

altered, even under socialism. La mgs ap
_ The figures cited give 1975 inflation rates of 18% or more in Romania, Poland

and the USSR, and 9% in Czechoslovakia. These fantasy figures are attributed to

“‘Sweden’s Central Bureau of Statistics.” (I didn’t know the CIA had a publicity

LS pach: via area The Hearst sheet claimed an inflation

ra only 3.3% for the Uni es — being perhaps the only publicati

ayreke so low a statistic for price sane nah 2 Zz ee ee

t any rate, here are the latest comparative statistics for socialist countries and

Ce United States as published in the July United Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statis-

ics. ;

Consumer Price Index, 1970 - 100

Country — All Items Food
Czechoslovakia 3/76 101.2 99.8
Hungary 4/76 119.0 1156
Poland 12/75 114.7 115.0
USSR 1974 annual 99.6 100.8
G.D.R. 1974 annual 99.3 100.7

United States 5/76 145.5 156.6

(In each case, the latest month available is shown. The Soviet Union, in its
annual economic report for 1975, reported that prices were stable then also).

aie are facts. Most of the European socialist countries maintain almost
completely stable prices at the consumer level, absorbing wholesale price increases
for imported products by means of price subsidies. Hungary and Poland follow a
slightly different policy, which permits slight price increases, averaging about 3%
per year. In contrast, the inflation rate in the United States has averaged 7% per year,

and this continues. .
I have seen CIA distortions put out by Congressional committees and by U.S.

journalists briefed by the CIA, which claim that there is “‘really’’ inflation in the
socialist countries. But their “evidence” is very thin, and usually limited to such.
claims as that a cheaper article was removed from sale, and a higher quality article
substituted at a higher price. That phenomenon undoubtedly does happen, and is
certainly matched in the United States by similar hidden increases not covered in the
consumer price index. On the contrary, the BLS makes “quality” adjustments, which
converts these increases into statistical decreases, as with new automobiles.

I is a tribute to the success of socialist planning that the USSR was able to
maintain basic food price stability in 1975 despite the drought-caused 30% drop in
grain production. Such a crop failure in a capitalist country, including the United
States, would have spurred a worse inflation blow than any we have experienced in
peacetime.

The people in the socialist countries have become used to stable prices and value
them very highly. According to my Soviet friends, when there are shortages, people
even prefer to stand in line to get their share at the regular price than to have the
prices increase and have a ‘“‘rationing” system governed by the pocketbook. The
recent uproar in Poland when the government tried to increase some prices with
inadequate notice and discussion is a further illustration of this point.

Stable consumer prices in the socialist countries are maintained in the face of
rapidly rising consumer incomes, which total 5 to 8%. per year in the different
countries, including allowance for population-increase. Socialist planning is able to
achieve a steady increase in the supply of consumers goods and services to satisfy the
increased consumer incomes. In the strongest socialist countries, this is ac-
complished with no price increases; in those with special problems, with very mod-
erate price increases.

I the United States, rampant inflation continues despite declines in effective
workingclass consumer purchasing power over the past four years. The moral is the

- opposite of that drawn by Hearst: the law of supply and demand doesn’t hold free

sway under capitalism. It is subordinate to monopoly power and its drive for profits.
: Under socialism, on the other hand, the law of supply and demand, while not
inoperative, is subordinate to the law of maximum satisfaction of the people’s needs
and the law of planned, proportionate development of the national economy. :

: To definitely end inflation here, also, it is necessary to end capitalism and build
socialism. However, in the short run it is possible at least to modify the power of
monopoly to impose inflationary price increases and to enforce, through mass actions
and votes for anti-monopoly candidates, reductions in particular monopoly prices
and the adoption of laws freezing prices of necessities.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 20, 1976—Page 7