In a time when idiocies such as the domino theory comprise a substantial part of American foreign policy one has to look hard for evidence that authentic national interest is anywhere being invoked as a rationale for external relations. That the Republic of South Africa seems to be a world power demonstrating innovation in diplomacy and putting shibboleths in their rightful place says something about the genera] bankruptcy of Western statecraft. While Ford and Kissinger flail about seeking justifications for American failures and misalliances, a moldy, outcast regime in Pretoria has embarked upon a path of diplomatic initiative which has effectively breached the wall of isolation that has surrounded it for two decades. The motives of the regime of John Vorster may be sinister and base, but there appears to be a far more sophisticated perception of long-term interests in Pretoria than in Washington.

The World Council of Churches was bom in the cold war era. That's important for present understanding. At its beginning John Foster Dulles warned against Christian obeisance to the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” And Josef L. Hromádka, the eminent Czech theologian, spoke of the future bliss of socialist “material trust, free responsibility and service.” The WCC has been repeatedly accused— notably but not exclusively by Western conservatives— of damning the evils of the West while closing its eyes to injustices in Communist lands. At the same time, doctrinaire Marxists dismiss the Council as a product of the West and therefore unable to understand or act upon socialism's criticism of capitalism.

Southeast Asia is now being stripped naked. Bewildered by the toxicants of modernization and buffeted by the gales of international politics, Southeast Asia has lost its sense of direction and suffers unfathomable despair. In this context Japan has become a strong target of criticism. This criticism is not wholly superficial, and if Japan is both to further its own interest and to contribute to this, area of the world it must understand and cope with that criticism. The most important feature of the anti-Japanese criticism in Southeast Asia is that it is based on “despair,”

Of books and studies on multinational corporations there is, apparently, no end in sight. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to the various factors that cause employee-corporation relations to vary from country to country.

From my trade union experiences in the USA and parts of the developing world I have learned that employee relations are heavily influenced by factors such as the strength of the trade union movement, national labor legislation, the labor market, and conditions affecting job security. Because these factors differ from place to place, it is impossible to generalize about the employee relations of any single multinational corporation; we often find multinational corporations with good employee relations in one country and poor relations in another.

The repeated victories of Israel's Armed Forces have prevented our enemies from annihilating us. But our military successes alone did not and could not bring about peace and normalization in the relations with our neighbors. More important, our victory in the Six-Day War of June, 1967, not only failed to guarantee our security, but, paradoxically, exposed us to a major enemy attack on two fronts for which we were not prepared psychologically, politically, even militarily. Indeed, our extraordinary victory of 1967 left us with a time bomb we refused to recognize and did not defuse. All this happened because we regarded the military triumph as something of an end in itself instead of an instrument to shape a political strategy for achieving peace and stability in the region.

I like licentious literature and hate Savonarolas. Voyages through the mysteries of the organism are not devoid of interest. We have long since become used to exploring the endless mysteries of the universe. We should now explore the wonderful potential of the body. Every body has its own biofeedback, and if probing into these hidden recesses is healing, so much the better.

But the exploitation of passing fads and lasting causes is quite another matter. Consider, for example, the recent imitation of Portnoy's Complaint entitled “Speaking From the Body” by Union Theological Seminary Professor Tom F. Driver (in Theology and Body, edited by John Fenton and published by Westminster in 1974).

What are the political, social, and moral obligations of a social scientist? How sure, for example, must a peace researcher be before advocating a particular policy? When does he or she pass over the line from the faithful searcher after truth to the possibly erring committed citizen? Questions worth exploring.

The government official is at one extreme on a continuum running from social theory to social action. The official's responsibility is to act, and in a modern industrial society the acts of a senior official can have enormous impact on the lives, the liberties, and the happiness off citizens. The official knows this and the citizens know it.