In March the Venezuelan government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez celebrated its second anniversary. I was in Caracas that month, posing questions about Venezuela's role in hemispheric and world affairs to a variety of Venezuelans—government officials, opposition politicians, journalists, and people from the private sector. At the end of my stay I spoke with President Pérez—often referred to in the Venezuelan press by his initials, CAP—and asked similar questions of him. I have grouped my questions and his responses around several major themes.

The truth about one of the worst crimes of the twentieth century has long been embargoed. Ten years ago General Suharto's accession to power in Indonesia brought the massacre of nearly a million people and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands more. Yet continuing allegations about the murders and sweeping arrests that followed receive scant attention. Scattered articles mention conditions in Indonesia, but there is little comprehensive coverage of the ongoing repression by the present regime or of United States complicity. It was only recently that the House Sub-Committee on International Organizations, chaired by Representative Donald Fraser (D.-Minn.), began a series of hearings on the treatment of political prisoners in Indonesia. The hearings will evaluate the legality of security assistance to Indonesia under Amendment 502B of the Foreign Relations Act, an act prohibiting U.S. military assistance where there are gross violations of human rights.

The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that the CIA was not responsible for the deaths of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu on November 2, 1963. This conclusion only reaffirms a point that too few Americans understood—Vietnam's destiny lies ultimately with its own people.

Ngo Dinh Diem met his death at the hands of his fellow countrymen in a coup d'etat planned and executed by the Vietnamese Army to achieve political goals important to the Vietnamese people. The story of the coup against Diem has been told in English by Marguerite Higgins, David Halberstam, and Robert Shaplen.

It's nothing new in Chinese history to impress the foreigner for the sake of the country's face,” said a young escaper last year in Hong Kong, who by no means intended to denigrate his country. “When people from other countries came to the ancient capital of Ch'ang An in the Tang Dynasty, it was so gorgeously decorated, those foreigners were astounded….If the rulers today desire not to let foreigners see anyone wearing patched clothes, that can easily be arranged. And if they want to show foreigners trees in Peking with silk hanging from the branches, that is also possible.”

Visitors from afar viewing today what B. Michael Frolic describes as “the peaceful blues and grays and whites of Chinese cities” would certainly smile at the thought of brocades waving in the breeze.

In 1969. eight years after his armed usurpation. President Park Chung Hee of South Korea had his country's constitution amended so that he could seek a third term. Three years ago, in October, 1972. as he was serving his last term under the new rules. Park declared martial law, dissolved the National Assembly, and suspended the constitution. He did all this, as we were told then, in order to cope better with the “stark realities of a rapidly changing international situation.” Park was referring to East-West détente, which he viewed as a deadly threat to one of the twin pillars of his legitimacy; anticommunism and economic modernization.

Anyone seriously interested in applying traditional just war theory to current international affairs finds it difficult even to begin. Part of the problem is that the theory itself is badly misunderstood. Some people—proponents and detractors alike—think it is first and foremost a product of Christian theological wisdom and a repository of Christian principles having relevance to relations between states. A Catholic who points to recent popes, to John Courtney Murray, or to the tradition of Thomas Aquinas when evoking just war categories adds weight to this conception of just war theory. So too does a Protestant who goes to Martin Luther or Paul Ramsey for information about just war. It is true that just war doctrine was advanced and preserved by Christian theologians and canon lawyers. But these were not the only contributors to the tradition of just war thought, nor have they been the only important preservers of whatever wisdom it contains for limiting war.

My heroes are all either dead or dying, especially me. I am much older now than I was before. Somewhere within me are memories of past bravery inspired by my American flag marching in parade, flanked by a band's martial music; more important to me now is the fear I feel—despite my intelligence—of the noise of a roaring subway train through a lonely station at night.

In my past there were a few mornings—a very few and never close together—when, upon awakening, a nagging, inconsiderate conscience pestered me to consider if I truly knew anything at all about all the things I thought I knew. Now I have those kinds of mornings every day, all day, and late into the night.

Religion and the process of modernization have encountered each other with dramatic consequences in various parts of the world. Southeast Asia is now undergoing such an encounter, with consequences still to be determined. For Buddhism presents itself in this encounter in ways that are quite different from those of other religions.

Recent trends in international politics suggest the beginnings of a new relationship between the industrial nations of the world and the Third World countries. The traditional worldview of the affluent—in which developing nations were assigned a secondary or supporting role—has undergone a radical change as these states increasingly influence global events.

As Napoleon's armies were advancing into Eastern Europe, a Jew ran gleefully to his rabbi. “Master, the liberators are coming! At long last we shall be free and secure, treated like human beings, given dignity and….” But the sage shook his head. “Yes, we shall be rich and safe. And we shall forget all about God and His Law, break His commandments, run after worthless goals. I'd rather have us poor and oppressed as we are now, but faithful to our Judaism.”

A war is ended ingloriously, the promised honor is missing; a President, overwhelmingly elected, resigns, and the law seems both vindicated and confused; our economy of life appears out of control; and democracy is increasingly out of favor in the world. We are troubled with good reason. We sense our difficulties and doubt we can relieve them safely. Perhaps the beginning of wisdom in dark times is to search for the foundations of propriety and purpose; the alternative is to grasp at straws.

The fall of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to the forces of communism in the spring of 1975 heralded a distinct shift in the balance of power in the West Pacific. The United States had lost its footholds in the Indochinese Peninsula, was being forced to evacuate military bases in Thailand, and faced a demand for the negotiation of new arrangements to govern the use of naval and air bases in the Philippines. There was a rise in Asian nationalisms, and a corresponding growth of local trends toward neutralism with respect to American “security” projects.

The domino effect of those developments had been less pronounced than some of the American “worstcase” analysts had speculated a quarter-century before; the setback was nevertheless of a magnitude that seemed to call for a massive revision of our grand strategy for Asia. In fact, certain basic American strategic concepts were projected unchanged into the future.