ASKING CIVIL QUESTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503830004-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: April 6, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503830004-2
ON PAGE
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Flora Lewis
Asking
Civil
Questions
DALLAS
T here was an hour between
planes. A man behind two bro-
chure-laden card tables was
calling out in a midway voice, "Step up
and learn about our space program."
So I approached. I had always won-
dered about the intense young people
who man the Lyndon LaRouche stands,
but I'd always been in too much of a
hurry to stop and talk to them.
The sign said things like "Better
beams in space than Soviet missiles
here," and "Send Gramm and Rud-
man to Siberia," and "Support nuclear
energy.,,
do you back him?" I asked In a
conversational tone. He glowered and
replied, "Do you support our space.
program?"
"I mean, why are you for La-
Rouche?"
"Do you or don't you want a strong
defense?"
"Oh, I see, you ask questions but
you don't answer them."
He was thin, with short, tightly
curled hair, and his ferret face was'
getting redder and more tense by the
moment. His voice, wary from the.
start, became hostile. "Do you want
to buy some literature?"
I said I was more interested in
hearing him explain his point of view.
Clearly he was annoyed, but he ac-
cepted what he took as an unavoid-
able challenge.
"He's against liberal traitors, and
I'm against liberal traitors."
"And what do you mean by that?"
The pale young woman behind the,
adjoining card table came to her com-
rade's rescue. He was a hawker, not a
NEW YORK TIMES
6 April 1986
talker. "Do you know the word -P&-'
triot?" she asked accusingly. An eld-
erly man with a cozy smile wandered
up, and they turned to him in relief,
pointedly ignoring me.
Maybe it was my voice, maybe my
clothes, I don't know how they decided j
so quickly to consider just another air-1
port transient as the enemy. But they!
did. I wasn't looking for a fight, I was
just curious. The whole conversation
lasted less than two minutes and would
obviously get nowhere.
As it happened, I was on my way to;
Austin for a conference at the Univer.
sity of Texas entitled "The Future of ! '
U.S.-U.S.S.R. Relations: Lessons from
40 Years Without World War.".Tbe
idea, we were told, was that for all tbs.,
troubles, something must have gone' .
right and if we could figure out bow Mi
years without world war were
achieved, we might be able to keep!
peace for at least another 40 years.
There were current and former offs-
cials from the National Security Coun
cil, the State Department, the Ponta
gon, the C.I. academics and scien-
tists of rand a few important Rue.
sians at the conference. There were ar-
guments, of course, and keen aware-
ness of the fact that hostility between
the U.S. and the Soviet Union is the big.
gest danger for the world.
But compared with the LaRouche'
people's reaction to a casual ques-
tioner responding to their invitation '
to step up and be informed, the at-
mosphere was positively amiable.
Among Americans and Russians,
there was no trouble agreeing that se-
curity and survival were the prime
and common needs for everybody.
At his summit with Mikhail Gorba-
chev, President Reagan indulged in the
f' ntasy that if the earth faced an inva-
sion by Martians, U.S.-Soviet quarrels
would be quickly set aside in. the com-
mon defense of our planet.
When the reference was made in
Austin, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a former
National Security Council member,
said whimsically that he objected on I'
behalf of Martians, who shouldn't be,
presumed to be hostile. It was a good:
point, and a reminder of the question
about the LaRouche people. Whom are
they so. instinctively against, and why?
At the time of the industrial summit
in Bonn last year, elections were ap-
proaching for the important West Ger-
man state of Rhineland-Westphalia.
Mr. Reagan, and all the rest of us on
the trail, came to a town where lamp.
post after lamppost was emblazoned
with posters carrying snide, thinly die- -
guised neo-Nazi messages. On investi-.
gation, it turned out they were organ-
ized by Mr. LaRouche. His candidates
got nowhere in the German elections,
but they tinctured the atmosphere.
His people made a pitch in Francs.
There is no sign that they had any in-
volvement with the extreme right
wing party of Jean-Marie Le Pen, but
they stood on the main streets of
Paris shouting the same call to arms
that they pitch at Dallas, Dulles, Ken.
nedy, etc. They have disappeared
from Paris, presumably because of
French resistance to such a foreign
brand of rabid xenophobia.
This is a time when Americans are
worried about all kinds of fanatics,
for good cause. And free speech and
free press require us to tolerate our
own fanatics. But we have the right to
.question them in a civil way, and if
they can't give a civil answer, they
reveal themselves incapable of tbs .
rational discourse- on which d-%40-
racy depends. a
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503830004-2