The dramatic shifts of recent years in the fortunes and policies of the nations involved in East Asian affairs are forcing Japan to undertake a basic reappraisal of its foreign policy for the first time since the end of the American occupation in 1952. This will be a difficult and painful process for the Japanese in view of their past unhappy experiences in Asian politics, domestic disagreements over the appropriate role for their, country and widespread uncertainty about the pattern of relationships that is evolving in the area.

My first contact with Germany was in 1921 when I visited European countries in a party conducted by that indefatigable world traveler Sherwood Eddy. We visited the Ruhr and Rhineland, where Germany was offering "passive resistance" to the efforts of Poincare to extract from a reluctant, vanquished nation the reparations which subsequently were found to be excessive and which were in effect paid by American loans (Dawes plan and Young plan). The French occupation of the Rhineland became ever more oppressive in the heat of the struggle and wrecked the economy of both nations. The British occupied the section of the Rhineland with Cologne as die center and rather ostentatiously disassociated themselves from the French designs.

Being a woman," said Joseph Conrad, "must be a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealing with men." And for men, women have forever been a mystery—less a separate gender than an alien species to be prudently admired or nervously ridiculed but almost never understood. Eternally misperceived, women have been systematically disadvantaged: undereducated or overprotected, denied employment or unequally remunerated, excluded from the professions then excoriated as inept, driven to the limits of reason then indicted as hysterical. They have been used as property, abused as servants, neglected as things, patronized as children, idealized as fictions and enshrined as myths. When they have not been belittled by vilification they have been maligned by idolatry.

In these dark days when our very own Prime Minister is waging a personal rearguard battle on the fields of Washington, when President Nixon is full of reproach and his Secretary, of State feigns anger, when Commander Sadat still won't decide on the meaning of "year of decision," we should stop for a moment to acknowledge that we have more luck in having Golda than in anything else. Just two and a half years ago the leadership of her splintered party rescued her from oblivion as a compromise, and the whole country—including this writer—cried out against the misfortune wrought from above.

At a recent meeting of the editors of Worldview Richard Neuhaus enlivened the proceedings by another one of his acutely perspicacious political opinions. He opined that the White House appointment of General Haig proves that the United States is adopting the Peruvian military model of development. He is wrong. The true import of the Watergate affair is more sinister: The government of the United States is being taken over by multinational corporations under the control of the West German tourist industry.

Any observer schooled in New Left methods of analysis should, of course, have suspected something like this from the beginning. Why alt these Germans? Only bourgeois social scientists can be satisfied with an explanation in terms of a Novaldan resurgence of ethnic genius.

Nearly a dozen years ago I coined the term "Covenant Theology" (Commentary, July, 1961) to designate the central thrust of an emerging existentialist interpretation of Judaism. Since then the expression has had some currency, though questions have been raised as to its adequacy. In my own work over the years, looking at Judaism as a Covenant relationship has proved so consistently useful that I consider my old coinage to have been quite a happy one. (I capitalize to indicate I am referring to God's Covenant with the people of Israel rather than any other covenant, say, that with the Sons of Noah.)

In 1947, as I wandered the streets of my village after a day of school, what excitement the next day promised. I wore a k'fiah and, on my head, in a very grown-up way, the traditional Arab agahl. I shouldered a rifle of wood and rubber and became one of the fighters for a free and independent Palestine, my birthplace and national home. From among the boys of the neighborhood I raised a regiment of brave fighting children, and we took upon ourselves the burden of protecting and defending our village against the Jews, our enemies.

In the end we fought neither with wood-and-rubber weapons nor with the weapons of our parents because our local council decided there was no sense in fighting. So the Jews, the Jewish army, took the village with peace talks, without firing a shot.

It seems as if we are entering an era similar to the period after die Congress of Vienna. The cold winds of reaction have prevailed. The fires of domestic reform have gone out, extinguished by the excesses of some reformers and by the tactics of the forces of the status quo. The nation that gave birth to the A-bomb has succeeded in shocking the numbed consciences of the world by carrying out on a peasant nation die most destructive aerial bombardment ever unleashed. As Russia, England, Austria and Prussia conspired in Vienna to put out the danger of revolution, so now Russia, China and the United States are cooperating to save South Vietnam, the United States's ally, to halt the rain of bombs on die troublesome, sometime ally of the Chinese and the Soviets, to put out die fire mat threatened for so long to lead to a major power conflagration.

Japan, it is said, is advancing rapidly on the road to great power status. On that assumption, people ask how Japan's domestic and foreign policies will be shaped by its new status. In attempting to respond to that question I will begin by challenging the assumption.

The so-called "big power status" really means nothing to the ordinary Japanese, and no domestic issues have ever arisen because some Japanese demanded domestic or foreign policies appropriate to that status. So far, the notion of Japan's being a "big power" has been entirely foreign in origin, and the Japanese, gasping in the world's most polluted air and feeling sick with the world's worst food and water, can scarcely think of Japan as a big power. Under the circumstances it will be very difficult for the Japanese government to conduct its foreign policy in ways historically associated with the behavior of big powers.

It is almost a year since we returned to the States from Israel. A number of things have changed since then and some of our memories have dimmed. And not only for us. The Tel Aviv airport massacre, which occurred while we were in Jerusalem, is probably dimmer in most people's memory than the horrifying killings at the Munich Olympics or the Libyan plane disaster in Sinai. Still, we believe we learned some things that endure, that will not readily fade from mind.

We lived in Jerusalem for four months and we travelled the country like nomads, trying to catch the peculiar essence of Israel. But it's silly; born Israelis can't even catch it.

After twenty-five years of a nuclear-military arms race, it is possible to define significant limits of military power for national security. These limits apply with special force to the nuclear superpowers. These same limits of military power also define new requirements for a disarmament process.

Underlying the long discussion of disarmament among nations has been the understanding that lowered levels of armaments produce mutual advantage: the prospect of physical destruction is reduced; and the cost of armaments can be applied to constructive uses. The arms race from 1946 to 1971 between the United States and the Soviet Union has not improved the military security of either nation, and the economic cost to these two countries has exceeded $1,500 billion.

If the American public, after more than twenty years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, remains confused about the politics and objectives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, it is primarily because of a steady diet of misinformation conveyed by the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments. The agents of this misinformation are primarily journalists and scholars who depend on the two governments for their facts.

During the long struggle in Vietnam it has been vitally important for successive U.S. administrations and their client regimes in Vietnam to persuade the American public of the justification for the intervention that is aimed at keeping local anti-Communists in power. Frequently, therefore, the same political warfare techniques used in Vietnam have been aimed also at the American public.

In order to be truly the body of Christ in the world, the Church seeks the right to give free, unrestricted expression to its basic functions such as worship, proclamation, fellowship, service and teaching. In an avowedly Christian country it legitimately proceeds on the assumption that this right is given. Apartheid legislation and custom, however, place serious restrictions on these basic functions, as well as on the overall administration of the Church.

Apart from specific restrictions contained in legislation, there is also the inhibiting factor of uncertainty engendered by the wideness and vagueness of many regulations and laws. A climate of opinion has developed, encouraged by the plethora of regulations and laws, which makes even legally permissible actions seem doubtful and possibly dangerous.

Senior editor Arnaud de Borchgrave of Newsweek writes (July 10,1972):

Today, Western Europe is a collection of nations united only in disunity. Within the last month, I have spoken with more than a dozen of the top foreign policy planners in Europe. Never before have I seen them so gloomy; never before haye I heard so much talk about Europe's confusion and disarray. “The spectacle we are presenting to the world,” one expert told me, “is truly lamentable.” It is more than lamentable; it is highly dangerous. For Western Europe faces the threat of “Finlandization”— which is to say, of finding itself effectively dominated, so far as foreign affairs are concerned, by the Soviet Union.

As Moscow and Washington move toward a second round of SALT, analysts in both capitals raise serious questions—not only about the accords concluded in 1972, but, with still greater concern, about the agreements that will be considered in the years ahead. Communists may well ask: If revolution is the stepchild of war, should we welcome conditions that make international stability more likely? Western skeptics, for their part, ask whether Soviet leaders will not exploit a nuclear stalemate to advance the Communist cause through subnuclear diplomacy or nonmilitary means in which the West is generally at a disadvantage. Some U.S. strategists, for example, contend that there is a basic asymmetry which turns the SALT agreements to Moscow's favor. Since Moscow's objectives are unlimited, they contend, they may be effectively pursued as long as the USSR enjoys at least rough equality with the United States. For America to deter Soviet probes, overwhelming superiority is needed, both in strategic and other arms.

The Church and State in Poland are now passing through a period of relaxation. There are innumerable small changes that testify to this, but the most important are these:

• 1. Declarations by representatives of the Party and the Government have stressed equalirv of opportunity for each citizen regardless of his religion. The ultimate criteria in the evaluation of a worker are to be his work outlay, his capabilitv and his knowledge, and not his relationship to the Church.

• 2. The properties of the Catholic Church in the western territories were nationalized in 1961, and since then the Church has been in the position of tenant in that area. Now these properties have been returned. Elsewhere in Poland the Church remains the private owner of sacred objects and of small agricultural plots.

• 3. Talks between the episcopate and the Government, long suspended, have been resumed.

• 4. There has been some liberalization in the policy of taxation of the Church.

• 5. The policy of granting passports has been liberalized, and a greater number of permits are now being given to priests for trips to non-Communist countries either for scholarly purposes or in connection with agencies administered bv them.

At the height of the Chicago Seven (originally Eight) trial in 1969 the defendants came to our suburban synagogue to raise money and plead their cause. Almost a thousand people filled our auditorium to meet them and hear from each. They were by turns reckless {Abbie Hoffman), touching (John Froines), strong (Tom Hayden), stoned (Jerry Rubin), humorous (Lee Weiner) and intellectual (David Dellinger). But the chief spokesman, the one who stated their views most brilliantly and persuasively that night and often later, was Rennie Davis. Coming from a background of the 4-H Club and the Boy Scouts of America, middle-American Davis was the model of committed radical activist. Less flamboyant than most of the others, he often seemed more focused and more professional. Indeed, he was so courageous that some on the far Left rumored that he was a plant from the FBI.

Our bishops," says Father Frans Haarsma, professor of pastoral psychology at the Catholic niversity of Nijmegen, "made their fatal mistake at the time of the upheaval about the Dutch catechism. Cardinal Alfrink then minimized the objections of the Vatican as not being serious, a matter of minor corrections. Instead, he should have put his foot down and used the occasion to affirm the legitimacy of difference in theological viewpoints, while at the same time asserting the fundamental commitment of the Dutch Church to its unity with Rome. Pluriformity implies that one dares uphold the legitimacy of differentiation in theological viewpoints and that there are limits to Roman authority."

Living with the oppressive reality of death is difficult for most societies. Israel is no different in this respect. But there is a way in which Israel is impertinently different. Here death is somehow more fitly celebrated. Not in a macabre fashion, but accepted for what it is: both a tragedy and an opportunity for celebration. It is celebrated in the true meaning of that word: “solemnized, with appropriate rites and ceremonies.” Anthropologists studying primitive peoples find the rites associated with death a clue to many values of the tribes. I believe that a trenchant sociological analysis of societies from the perspective of funeral rites may get us closer to the inmost core of values than their other analytic strategies.'This essay is to be understood in that light.

After witnessing ten years of carnage in Vietnam and the defeat of George McGovem who promised a moral (as opposed to an "honorable") way out of the war, the moral-religious community is left in the lurch. Too idealistic to give up and too realistic to do without results, we are in for some deep analysis of our ethical foundations.

I believe our problem is not that the churches have been involved,in too much politics, requiring of us now a return to evangelism or group encounter. Rather, we have been involved in too much of the wrong kind of politics. Whether Democratic or Republican, we have accepted the politics of Realism as the only way. If the Episcopal Church is "the Republican Party in prayer," the rest of the liberal church community may well be regarded as the Democratic Party in caucus.