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was doublecrossed in the way his name was

used.

Wirtz, however, denied reports he might not attend the 2-hour reception. "I will be there," he said. "I have to fly back from New York (where he will address the AFL

CIO convention) for it."

The letter signed by Sharon is dated October 19-4 days before the first stories were published about the invitations.

It reminds the recipient he has "received an invitation from Secretary Wirtz" to attend the party.

"I hope you can accept and thus assure that this occasion will be a triumphant one for a grand person and a great Senator," the letter says.

"New Jersey will be a key State in 1964. There the President won by the narrowest of margins in 1960. There the opposition is aggressive and well financed."

It then goes on to say how badly "PETE needs your help" and concludes with the second reference to Wirtz.

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reasons.

First of all, it seems to me that Senate ratification on May 21, 1963, of the treaty known as the International Coffee Agreement of 1962 has, under the Constitution of the United States, already essentially decided the question of whether or not we should unite with other major coffee-producing and coffeeconsuming nations in a collective effort consuming nations in a collective effort to attempt to stabilize the international coffee market. Mention has been made here on the floor today by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. PEPPER], the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. CURTIS], and others, that it would be eminently desir

able to have a constitutional amendment which would require the advice and consent of the House of Representatives to treaties as well as the advice and consent of the Senate. I would agree that such an amendment might be highly desirable. Nevertheless, we are faced here today with the fact that under existing constitutional law it is quite clear that it was the Senate alone which had the power to give its assent to the International Coffee Agreement of 1962 and that it has done so. Therefore, I am impressed with the argument that has been made that for this body to now repudiate the action taken by the Senate would in essence be offensive to our constitutional procedures and an act of poor faith on the part of the House.

Secondly, I shall vote affirmatively for this measure because it has as its announced intention the stabilization of the world coffee market in order to avoid

major and disastrous price fluctuations. The report accompanying this bill points out that in Latin America alone, more than 12 million persons depend on coffee for their livelihood. It has been pointed out by other sources that a 1-cent-apound decrease in the price of coffee results in an estimated loss of $70 million in the foreign exchange earnings of the 35 African, Asian, and Latin American coffee growing nations.

Earlier this year when the Foreign Assistance Act of 1963 was on the floor of the House, I was among those who voted to reduce the authorization for aid under that bill. I voted to reduce the amounts that the administration sought to make available under the Alliance for Progress. The actions of such countries as Brazil and Argentina in recent days have only served to confirm my belief that foreign aid, particularly so-called supporting assistance, which is nothing more or less than a "bail-out" to countries which are living beyond their means is not proving effective. Having thus voted to reduce the amounts of such aid that would be made available to these countries, and I refer particularly to the

coffee-producing countries of Latin America, I do feel that we should make every effort that we can to enable these every effort that we can to enable these countries to earn sufficient amounts of foreign exchange so that they will not be faced with a continually recurring deficit in their balance of payments. I will vote for this bill in the fervent hope that it will enable these countries by virtue of their ability to obtain more stable prices for the basic commodities which they export, in this case-coffee, to put their financial houses in order. I think that financial houses in order. I think that to the extent that commodity stabilization agreements are an alternative to massive handouts of foreign aid, they do deserve our support.

above, I would not vote for this bill were Despite the reasons I have enunciated it not for the fact the next Congress will have an opportunity to review what steps have been taken pursuant to the International Coffee Agreement. If I am a Member of the next Congress and I find this agreement has redounded to the I shall feel no compunction whatever in injury of the American consumer, then refusing to give my further assent to this type of effort to stabilize interna

tional commodity markets.

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this agreement the Government agreed to pay 24 percent of whatever damages are fixed in lawsuits growing out of the crash. This agreement represents a reluctant about-face on the part of the Government because it had been previously offered by the airlines involved in the crash, only to be vetoed by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency. Seven months, 15,000 pages of depositions, and more than $100,000 later the Attorney General overruled the decision of the Administrator and entered into the three-way agreement.

The Administrator has at all times maintained that the FAA did nothing to cause the accident and that it was in no

way responsible. The facts apparently lead to the opposite conclusion. From the testimony elicited during the depositions it is clear that FAA personnel made a number of departures from the rules on how air traffic should be handled, and FAA procedures were not adequate. This testimony is in direct conflict with the internal report of the FAA which states that there were no departures and air traffic control procedures were adequate.

As I have stated, this difference between the stubborn position of the Administrator and the facts has cost the American people more than $100,000. Perhaps the Administrator's behavior is a classic example of bureaucratic inflexibility and callous disregard for the human beings involved. But it seems that the Administrator does not represent the attitudes of all high Government officials, nor the public policy. The following editorial from the Washington Star, Sunday, November 10, 1963, comments further on this facet of the case:

MATTER OF CONSCIENCE?

In an unprecedented decision the U.S. Government now has agreed to pay a large part of whatever damages are awarded in lawsuits resulting from the fearful collision of two airliners over New York City on December 16, 1960. The decision overrules Najeeb E. Halaby, head of the Federal Aviation Agency, which runs the air traffic control system.

It has been Mr. Halaby's contention that the tragedy-costing 134 lives and involving an off-course United Air Lines jet and a Trans World Airlines piston-engined planewas in no way attributable to negligence on the FAA's part. He has therefore argued that the damages should be paid solely by United and TWA. However, while emphasizing that the action does not constitute an admission of legal liability, the Justice Department has indicated, without spelling it out, that there is ample reason why the Government should share the burden of the costs, which probably will run upward of $10 million. Perhaps this is a matter of Federal conscience. Although Mr. Halaby has made out a strong case for his position, there has been testimony that FAA traffic controllers departed from some of the rules of the book and that they might have been able, otherwise, to prevent the collision.

In any case, under the three-way agreement, United will pay 61 percent of the damages, TWA 15 percent, and the Federal Government 24 percent. This should eliminate protracted court proceedings and speed up awards to the survivors. Beyond that, of course, it sets a precedent that is obviously significant for the future of commercial aviation.

SHEVCHENKO-A MONUMENT TO

FREEDOM

The SPEAKER. Under previous order

of the House, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. DERWINSKI] is recognized for

15 minutes.

Mr. DERWINSKI. Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks we have been patiently witnessing in this city a performance of editorial inaccuracy that only confirms our convictions about the Shevchenko statue as a monument to freedom. I am proud to join my colleagues in this solid contribution to freedom and enlightenment. I take this occasion to refute the misinformation published by the Washington Post. In fact, by reading the editorials in their successive entirety even a person unfamiliar with the subject can detect their inconsistencies and contradictions.

MOSCOW AND POST OPPOSE STATUE

Before presenting this surprising spectacle I should like to point out that the Post was one of the few papers in this country which also opposed the Captive Nations Week resolution in 1959. It was joined by Moscow in denouncing that act of Congress. Unfortunately we find it sharing the same position with Moscow and its puppets in their opposition to the erection of a statue in honor of Taras Shevchenko. In reading the editorials again even the unfamiliar cannot but sense that the issues involved are far broader than just a statue in Washington. They involve the captive nations.

I would not stain our record with reproductions of all the bitter attacks made these past 3 years against the action of our Congress in approving a Shevchenko statue. Permit me to cite just these few examples. In Sovietskaya Kultura, December 24, 1960, supposedly a top periodical on culture, an article lambasts us for honoring Shevchenko as a patriot. Another in the Kommunist, March 1961, depicts Congress' work as one of "the most incredible and filthy distortions." The Literaturna Gazeta, March 21, 1961, sees it as a "filthy whimsical invention," Kommunist Ukrainy, February 1961, fulminates against us and lies that "Shevchenko as an implacable enemy of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism." Bourgeois nationalism throughout Eastern Europe means the spirit of national freedom and independence. One could go on and on, but my colleagues will cite others, including more recent ones. The crowning point is that this Shevchenko project stung both Moscow and its puppets, since they know its significance.

The Post editorials unfortunately in their opposition do an injustice to all of us, including the President. In both 1961 and 1963 the President extolled Shevchenko's freedom works to the world and praised the work of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, with which Albert Einstein and other world figures have been associated. Internationally, for example, the Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had this to say of Shevchenko:

What he sought for them he sought no less for the oppressed everywhere in the world.

Thus others, too, are being slandered by the malicious and intolerant contents of these editorials. As another example

of understanding the meaning of Shevchenko, the Governor of Michigan issued a Taras Shevchenko Year Proclamation in 1961. The great poet is not unknown in this country as the Post's editor would

have us believe. One could go on and on with these examples, but in this bipartisan achievement my colleagues will cite others.

A RECORD OF CONSISTENCY

Mr. Speaker, I introduce the first editorial on "Poetic Injustice," which misses torial on "Poetic Injustice," which misses the whole point of the Shevchenko statue project by injecting Shakespeare. In the light of a later erroneous reference to light of a later erroneous reference to anti-Semitism, it is interesting that the editorial overlooked Shakespeare's wellknown character:

[From the Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1963]

POETIC INJUSTICE

We yield to no one in our esteem for the Ukraine and that country's poet and hero, Taras Shevchenko. Yet, like most Americans,

we have never read a line of Mr. Shevchenko's verse, in Ukrainian or otherwise, and like ence until ground was broken last Saturday for a plaza and 14-foot statue consecrated to a distant national idol who died in 1861. A choice site the triangular plot bounded by 22d, 23d, and P Streets-will henceforth bear witness to Mr. Shevchenko's memory and to the potency of Ukrainian political pressure.

most Americans were unaware of his exist

Yet, without belittling Mr. Shevchenko, some murmur of wonder is in order from

those of us who harbor an incorrigible prejudice in favor of poets closer to our own tradi

tion. Next year will be the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. That the city has found precious space for the Ukraine's national poet and not yet found room for some comparable token to Shakespeare's genius is really remarkable.

Mr. Speaker, for a more balanced view I submit the article by the Post's staff reporter, Stephen S. Rosenfeld on "A Ukrainian Poet Gets Statue Billing," September 29. The contradictions now appear even between the Post's own writers:

A UKRAINIAN POET GETS STATUE BILLING (By Stephen S. Rosenfeld)

Next Memorial Day, if 40,000 people assemble for a ceremony on a small triangular park at P, 22d, and 23d Streets NW., in Washington, no one who knows Lev E. Dobriansky will be surprised.

An ordinary man-one who did not speak in the name of a small but solid ethnic minority—would never have believed that the U.S. Congress could be induced to authorize erection of a statue of Taras

Hryhorovych Shevchenko, a Ukrainian and a poet at that.

An ordinary man-one without a keen appetite for cold war-would not have imagined that a regional figure of the last century could be converted into the cutting edge of a propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union today.

Lev E. Dobriansky of course is no ordinary He is a 44-year-old Georgetown economics professor, born in New York of Ukrainian parents, who has energetically pursued twin careers as a dispassionate scholar and a passionate anti-Communist devoted to the Ukraine.

He is also the 14-year president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (which includes perhaps 100,000 of the estimated 2 million Americans of Ukrainian descent), an adviser on nationalities to the Republican Party, and an expert in ethnic leverage on American politics.

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This description does him no injustice. He is not just the most-perhaps the onlydistinguished poet in more than a millenium of Ukrainian history; he is a most distinguished Ukrainian.

For his poetry, Ukrainians both under and beyond Soviet rule adore him. Two nonUkrainian Washingtonians familiar with his work speak of him as "Pushkin and more," "ah, a Shakespeare." Few others know him and there is only one incomplete American edition of his poems, published privately in 1945.

Born a serf in 1814, Shevchenko had his freedom purchased by his artist patrons in St. Petersburg at age 24. Nine years later, for his part in a society of radicals and Ukrainian patriots in Kiev, he was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and exile.

He

died, under police supervision, 4 years after that in 1861.

He belonged to the fermenting, freedomminded Russian intelligentsia of the mid19th century and he was an ardent Ukrainian patriot. These elements, expressed both in his life and his poetry, caught fire and made him a regional celebrity in literate circles of his time.

The Ukraine was then controlled by Czarist Russia; it has known only fleeting intervals of independence from either Russia or Poland in its long history. Shevchenko sang of the exploits of Ukrainians and Cossacks against both of these nations. He also spoke for the oppressed serfs.

His poetry reflected, too, popular feelings about Jews, who had been persecuted in the Ukraine for several centuries-partially because of their enforced economic role as middlemen and their questioned loyalty to the Ukraine.

In his poems, he sometimes referred to Jews in the vernacular ("pig," "miser") and his epic "Haydamaki" glorified the Ukrainian

band which murdered thousands of Jewsand Poles.

In person, Shevchenko once signed a petition against anti-Semitism, a brave act for the time. This episode, related in the House document about the poet in order to blunt possible criticism, helped reassure those Congressmen who had qualms on this score.

Shevchenko's various themes and his enduring stature in the Ukraine have since led to a vigorous contest for his spiritual kinship between Ukrainians abroad and Soviets

at home.

The Soviets encouraged and then crushed a Ukrainian independence movement after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Ukraine is now a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.

Moscow treats Shevchenko as a latent Bolshevik who strained for brotherhood with the Russian people while opposing the oppressions of Czarism.

Ukrainians in the Dobriansky camp see Shevchenko as a fighter for human freedom and Ukrainian nationhood, with a built-in anti-Soviet passion.

Anticipating Moscow's celebration of the centenary of the poet's death in 1961, he determined to head it off. In 1959 various Congressmen began to learn of their constituents' interest in a statue for Shevchenko.

Dobriansky was already well known on Capitol Hill for pushing through the Captive Nations resolution of 1959-he considers the Ukraine "the largest non-Russian nation behind the Iron Curtain." He now became a virtual fixture.

There developed not only an awe for Dobriansky's devotion but a sympathy for the anti-Communist aims of the statue project. Even the skeptics thought it harmless and no one wished to be against it. As Dobriansky said in an interview, the goal was not just to venerate the poet but to "educate" Americans about communism and to use Shevchenko as a "psychopolitical cold-war weapon."

Senator JACOB K. JAVITS and his fellow New York Republican, Senator KENNETH B. KEATING, found themselves sponsors of a 1959 Senate resolution for the statue. A more florid House resolution, written by Dobriansky, was offered by then Representative Alvin Bentley, Republican, of Michigan, in 1960.

The Senate's resolution was tabled after the Interior Department protested that there were too many statue claimants and too few policy guidelines for selection.

But Dobriansky, who gives much credit to Representative PAUL C. JONES, Democrat, of Missouri, saw the House resolution past Interior's shoals.

In June 1960, a resolution proudly submitted by Representative JOHN LESINSKI, Democrat, of Michigan, authorized the House's printing of the 45-page "biographical documentary of the life and character of Taras Shevchenko." Dobriansky wrote the foreword.

His monumental efforts were crowned with success on September 13, 1960, when President Eisenhower signed the House resolution into law. It authorized erection of a Shevchenko statue "on public grounds in the District of Columbia * * without expense to the United States."

Details remained: collection of about $250,000 for the statue; approval of Leo Mol's design by the Fine Arts Commission, and selection of the site by the National Capital Planning Commission. The NCPC balked a bit and again Dorbriansky had to patiently minister to doubts.

Last July, Associated Public Relations Counselors of 1028 Connecticut Avenue NW., began to put out publicity for the ground breaking.

The publicity made much of a poem in which Shevchenko had asked for a Ukrainian George Washington "to promulgate his new and righteous law." This particular passage was embellished by at least four of the speakers at the ground breaking last Saturday.

The Congressmen honored at that occasion included all those so far named, plus Senators HUGH SCOTT, Republican, of Pennsylvania and THOMAS J. DODD, Democrat, of Connecticut, and Representatives MICHAEL A. FEIGHAN, Democrat, of Ohio, RAY J. MADDEN, Democrat, of Indiana, and THADDEUS J. DULSKI, Democrat, of New York.

At Dobriansky's request, DULSKI has submitted a House resolution to honor Sheychenko with a champion of liberty stamp next year when the statue is unveiled.

Dobriansky reports that the 200 people at the ground breaking made up the largest such crowd in the 40-odd years of Washington history recorded by the Board of Trade.

And that is why those who know Lev Dobriansky do not doubt that the multitude he envisages for the unveiling will be there.

Following this, we now read the first controversial editorial titled "The Shevchenko Affair," October 18. By the Post's own admission, a heavy volume of mail criticizing this editorial for its tone and errors has been received. Up to this time_few have been published and at that I understand with careful deletions. Along with the editorial I submit in full text the letter written by Dr. Lev E. Dobriansky of Georgetown University, from which references to House Document No. 445 and Dr. Frederick Brown Harris'

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The Shevchenko statue should never have been approved by Congress. There is no legitimate reason why a 19th century Ukrainian poet, a cipher to the vast majority of Americans and an object of intense manipulation by the few who know him, should be honored with a statue at an enviable location in the Nation's Capital. Ground has been broken for the statue but it is still not too late to call the whole affair off.

There are two reasons why the project has gone this far and neither is good. The first is the efforts of a tiny group of Americans of Ukrainian birth or background who managed to convert an errant private passion into a public cause. The second is the misguided and careless reception given the statue proposal by Congress, which allowed itself to be swept along in order to please some insistent constituents.

The Ukrainian-American sponsors conceive of the statue as a blunt weapon in a fierce cold-war propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. They are using

it to advance their own peculiar notion of how to fight communism and their own implausible goal of Ukrainian nationhood.

Many people feel that Shevchenko was a fine poet, but his artistry is of no moment to the statue sponsors. If it were, the statue would still be objectionable, simply because as a poet Shevchenko has no universal significance for Americans. He is the pet of a small minority, whatever his poetic merit.

It has not been possible to assess the rivalries and suspicions which have foamed up around the edges of this project. It is perhaps enough to say that both in the writings of the poet and in the efforts to exploit him there are elements which are offensive in various ways to Americans of Russian, German, Polish, Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox, and even Ukrainian background. A statue of Shevchenko would be a monument to disunity and recrimination among Ameri

cans.

The Congressmen who were persuaded to support the Shevchenko statue-Senators JAVITS and KEATING, Representatives LESINSKI, PAUL JONES and others-should at once act to reverse their earlier error.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 19, 1963

I trust you will afford me the same opportunity of replying to your October 18 edition on "The Shevchenko Affair" as you did in July 1959, concerning an editorial on the Captive Nations Week resolution. Your opposition then was based on a medley of factual inaccuracies; bearing the same trait, your present opposition to the Shevchenko statue sounds almost desperately vindictive and, to say the least, unbecoming to an organ of your reputation.

Two questions immediately arise after reading this misleading piece. One, why this editorial at this time? Second, how expert have your writers become on this project in the span of 3 weeks? The factual answers to these questions are sufficient to indicate the degree of editorial irresponsibility reflected in this self-indicting performance.

It is very easy to pontificate and hide behind juggled words after a given event. But where were your sheltered writers these past 3 years while the subject was widely reported and discussed in this country and in Soviet Evening Star, the Chicago Tribune and many Union; The New York Herald Tribune, the other papers satisfactorily covered the subject in 1960; and, as in the case of the Captive Nations Week resolution, for a period of 7 months the organs of Moscow and puppet

Kiev registered a malicious opposition similar to yours now. In fact, it appears that your own writers don't bother to read the Post itself. Reports on the project and the open congressional hearing were published on April 2 and September 14, 1960; March 7, 1961, October 18 and 26, 1962. Where were your interest and comments then? If the element of dictated pressure has characterized anything, it certainly has this contradictory editorial.

As to the second question, it is actually amusing to compare this editorial with the one on "Poetic Injustice" that appeared in your September 23 issue. In the latter, the 3-week experts start out in this vein:

*

"We yield to no one in our esteem for the Ukraine and that country's poet and hero, Taras Shevchenko." They even admit that "we have never read a line of Mr. Shevchenko's verse **" Three weeks later the reader is fed the supposedly studied and quite absurd conclusion that a "statue of Shevchenko would be a monument to disunity and recrimination among Americans." Earlier, Shevchenko was a "country's poet and hero"; now, he is "the pet of a small minority." With such capricious thinking, one can well imagine the abusive interpretations they've formed by references to his poetry out of historical context. Shevchenko scholars in the United States and Canada have devoted lifetimes to the historic works of this immortal freedom fighter; your writers, with brazen self-contradiction, have rendered their expert judgment-all distilled in 3 weeks.

If there is anything offensive in various ways to the intelligence of our American people and to their unity against the Soviet Russian threat, it is this brand of irresponsible editorializing. Your fictitious points on some errant private passion of certain Americans, the misguided and careless reception by Congress, and other specimens of groundless rhetoric not only violate available facts but have been openly exploded while your editorial writers slept these past 3 years. Solid reasons for the statute are clearly set forth and explained in House Document No. 445, which was circulated throughout the country and inspired worthy contributions for the statue from Americans of all backgrounds. What did you do with your copy 2 years ago?

On how to fight communism, the record of your notions is scarcely an enviable one. Taking just the two issues mentioned here, it is most revealing how, in fact, your protests have coincided with Moscow's. The reasons, of course, are different. Moscow is fearful of any outside support given to the powerful force of nationalism among its captive non-Russian nations in the U.S.S.R.; you've been too blind to understand this.

Thank God we have countless Americans who do. As just one among numerous examples, you might profit from reading Dr. Frederick Brown Harris' recent column in the October 13 Sunday Star, wherein he states: "For the years to come this statute will be an altar of intercession for the emancipation of all captive nations. This statue will publish the fact that America is well aware that the U.S.S.R. is not a nation, but a colonial empire claiming sovereignty over non-Russians numbering more millions than there are Russians." The statue is obviously not for those who would appease Moscow by burying or distorting truths which are essential to our own national interest. In its wisdom Congress has recognized this; let us hope that in time and beyond consistent error you will, too.

LEV E. DOBRIANSKY.

MILWAUKEE, November 1, 1963. Attention EDITOR, THE WASHINGTON POST, Washington, D.C.

GENTLEMEN: Your recent editorial, "The Shevchenko Affair," was a sad commentary on how dangerously far we've drifted from

the American political philosophy of the right of self-determination of nations.

You oppose the erection of a statue of Shevchenko in Washington, D.C., when Shevchenko represents the right of selfdetermination of Ukraine, a nation of over 40 million people and the largest non-Russian nation of the Soviet empire.

In the 83d Congress, I had the honor to be the chairman of the House Select Committee on Communist Aggression which documented the Communist takeover of the captive nations, including Ukraine. The nine members of our committee-four Democrats and five Republicans-held the common belief that no nation should be subjected to outside domination against its will, either by Russian, Soviet or any other form of imperialism.

These are sorry days when our foreign policy experts seem to be considering such things as a European nonaggression pact, acquiescence of Moscow domination of Cuba and a general alinement that legalizes Soviet domination of a large number of captive

nations.

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What has been truly characterized as a literary monument to ignorance is the third editorial, titled a "Monument to Ignorance”—November 1. It is noteworthy that whereas in the preceding editorial concern is expressed about a "fierce cold-war propaganda campaign," in this one there is fear about Khrushchev laying a wreath on the memorial. Moreover, the reader is introduced to additional absurdities such as the poet being an "idol of the Communist Party" and that Shevchenko's flaming nationalism is "an affront to members of the Polish minority." Also the employment of the anti-Semitic issue continues, although on page 32 of House Document No. 445 Shevchenko's early indignation against exploitation of whatever type is clearly pointed out. I request that, following this editorial, the unpublished reply by Dr. Dobriansky also be printed, along with a supporting Post report of March 7, 1961, on "Reds Decry Ukrainian's Statue Here":

should have approved such a memorial, when
all of the offended minorities are among their
constituents. The larger reason, however, is
simply that Shevchenko is neither a uni-
versal poet nor a national poet of this coun-
try entitled to recognition in the United
States. It is inconceivable that a statue
would be dedicated to him in Tel-Aviv or
in Warsaw, for example. The only tenuous
connection he has with American national-
ism consists of a single overworked quota-
tion voicing the wish that the Ukraine had
a George Washington.

As a practical matter, during this period
of thaw, a memorial to a favorite poet of
the Communist world may be in the spirit
of the times. If Khrushchev should visit us

again, he could lay a wreath on this me-
morial. But the climate may change and
it seems premature to consider a permanent
memorial to detente.

Let us make it clear that we are not asking
that any of the memorials to Shevchenko
in the Soviet Union be torn down, or that
his memory in any way be defiled. It just
seems to us very doubtful wisdom to place
in the midst of a city that knew him not,
a memorial to a poet who knew nothing of
this land and who spoke neither to its past
nor its present generations. The Congress
ought to reverse a decision that can be
explained only on the grounds of ignorance.

NOVEMBER 4, 1963.

To the EDITOR OF THE WASHINGTON POST:
Regarding the forthcoming erection of the
Shevchenko statue, it is obvious from the
evidence at hand that a distinction must be
drawn between the neurotic output of the
editor-meaning Mr. Wiggins-and that pro-
duced by other writers of the Washington
Post. The contrast is one of night and day,
between fumbling falsities and approximate
accuracy, between a base motivation and an
attempt at honest objectivity.

Your November 1 editorial is genuinely a
"Monument to Ignorance." In fact, all three
editorials on the subject so far constitute a
literary monument to ignorance. From an
educational viewpoint, this series of monu-
mental ignorance well justifies additional
constructive projects in honor of Shevchenko
on the 150th anniversary of his birth next
year. The editorials will serve as prime evi-
dence for the need of such educational en-

deavors.

October 19 letter, there was no oversight of
Despite your calculated deletions of my
the real occasion for your opposition to
the statue. In your demonstrated ignorance
you well described the occasion by the one
consistent strand that infuses some intel-
ligibility to the three editorials; namely,
imagined "Ukrainian political pressure" and
your ludicrous attempt to counter it by in-
nism against the statue project. Russian
despots have long used this technique, but
one would never have dreamed that an edi-

[From the Washington (D.C.) Post, Nov. 1, citing a hoped-for Jewish and Polish antago

1963]

MONUMENT TO IGNORANCE

Objections of this newspaper to the proposed memorial to the Ukrainian poet, Shevchenko, have inspired a great many letters. The writers of these letters seem to have overlooked the real occasion for our opposition to the statue of Taras Shevchenko. It is not just that Shevchenko said many anti-Semitic things that are an affront to the Jewish community of this country-in this he was a product of his time and shared the antipathies of his class and his region. Moreover, he did oppose Jewish persecution on one occasion. It is not just that the poet is the idol of Communist Party members who have caused the Soviet Union to flower with libraries, collective farms, plants, villages, and memorials to his name. It is not just that his very name is, by reason of his flaming nationalism, an affront to members of the Polish minority, which also is a very large one in this country.

These reasons, to be sure, make one wonder why gullible Senators and Representatives

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fables, Shevchenko by his own convictions did, too.

In your editorial of ignorance the height of garbled nonsense is reached when in the same paragraph, Shevchenko is painted as "the idol of Communist Party members" and also a flaming nationalist whose patriotic trait is supposed to be offensive to a "Polish minority" here. Again, for the beginning of your education on this, you might start with the report in the Washington Post issue of March 7, 1961, captioned "Reds Decry Ukrainian's Statue Here."

My previous letter pointed out the puerile contradictions between your first two editorials. Now your "Monument to Ignorance" contradicts "The Shevchenko Affair." In the latter, you stressed the "peculiar notion" of conceiving "the statue as a blunt weapon in a fierce cold war propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union." Now the reader is told the memorial conduces to a detente with Moscow, and Khrushchev "could lay a wreath" on it. Surely a greater respect could be shown toward your editorial readers. The joke circulating about town today is "What's the Post's latest view on Shevchenko?"

For one who only 4 weeks ago "never read a line of Mr. Shevchenko's verse" and, in this time, doubtless hasn't perused the dozen and more volumes of his works, you display an intellectual arrogance beyond cultured expression in your crude brushoff of Shevchenko as a universal poet or as not being uniquely related to our great American tradition. Once again, for the commencement of your education you might look into

Clarance Manning's introductory work "Taras Shevchenko" and, after considerably more reading, perhaps in time you will come to understand Shevchenko's stature not only as a universal poet but also as a powerful East European spirit of freedom who was inspired in many ways by our own tradition. If you knew something about the harsh suppressions in the Russian Empire in mid-19th century, you wouldn't denigrate the poet's call for a Washington.

Clearly, among its many other purposes, the Shevchenko statue in the capital of both our Nation and the free world will serve as a beacon of enlightenment for the ignorant and uncultured among us. In the current struggle we could ill afford their presence, particularly where a public medium is abused to vent the ignorance of a supposed opinionmaker.

Our request for the names of the "scholars" who regard the poet as "minor" and the "grumbling" local planning officials, allegedly quoted in the Post's belated October 25 article, has not yet been satisfied. Again, let's not hide behind irresponsible words and opinions. Indeed, out of respect for our many informed legislators and officials supporting this project, are you liberal enough to open up your medium for an article by one of the Shevchenko scholars in our counLEV E. DOBRIANSKY.

try?

1961]

REDS DECRY UKRAINIAN'S STATUE HERE The Soviet press has jumped with both feet into the campaign to limit the monumental statuary of Washington.

As a 4-week expert on Shevchenko you're really going from bad to worse. Like [From the Washington (D.C.) Post, Mar. 7, Shakespeare, Dickens, and numerous other expressionists, Shevchenko put into verse and prose what he sensed among the people at the time. Only a small measure of historical perspective, not to say honest intellectuality, is needed to understand this. Your brazen attempt now to associate the poet with whatever prejudices prevailed then among segments of the Ukrainian nation is not only morally despicable but also plainly insulting to the intelligence and stature of Americans of Polish and Jewish backgrounds. For your education you had better bone up on free world developments in close PolishUkrainian and Jewish-Ukrainian relations against despotic Russian domination and suppression. We Americans strongly support these relations and, contrary to your

Translations of Moscow and Kiev publications received here show that they have devoted major articles to oppose plans of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America to erect a monument to Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian poet and national hero.

A principal target is Lev E. Dobriansky, professor of Soviet economy at Georgetown University, who was described in one article as being one of the "political intriguers and criminal renegades" backing the statue.

Dobriansky was one of the main backers of legislation last year authorizing the mon

ument. He predicted at the time that the Russians would try to "claim this historic figure as one of theirs," and said that the poet actually belongs to the Western tradition of freedom.

The Moscow publication, Soviet Culture, contended that Shevchenko would not be popular in the United States, because in one of his writings he "favorably mentioned George Washington, who is not now at all popular in the well-known [House] Committee on Un-American Activities."

Mr. Speaker, after reading of this controversy it is necessary for us to view this vitally important project with candor, balance, and perspective. Two among many presentations excellently provide the necessary view. I refer to Robert J. Lewis' article on "The Status of a Statue" which appears in the November 10 issue of the Sunday Star and the address on "Human Destiny" delivered by the Honorable MICHAEL A. FEIGHAN on the day of the Schevchenko ground-breaking ceremonies, September 21. I include both the article and address at this point:

for the small landscaped park and Shevchenko statue. The Fine Arts Commission likewise approved the program.

On September 22, 1963, the 14,000-squarefoot plot was dedicated to the memory of Taras Shevchenko-102 years after his death. More than 2,000 persons attended the ceremonies.

Last week-to complete the record-a motion was made in the National Capital Planning Commission that approval of the site be rescinded so that a statue cannot be erected to Taras Shevchenko.

Whatever the merits of the reasons for this action-which failed but which may bob up again-the effect would be negation of the will of Congress by an agency which does not have the right to do so.

Withdrawing a site at this late date also could constitute an affront to many Ukrainian-Americans and others who have raised nearly $250,000 to pay for this memorial.

Frustrating this effort also could well have cold-war consequences, since killing the memorial doubtless would be seized on by Soviet propagandists as evidence the U.S. Congress was not sincere in its desire to honor a freedom-loving Ukrainian.

[From the Washington (D.C.) Star, Nov. 10, would seem to dictate the proper course. If

1963]

THE STATUS OF A STATUE

(By Robert J. Lewis)

On March 25, 1961, President Kennedy sent a telegraphic message to the Shevchenko Scientific Society in New York, as follows:

"I am pleased to add my voice to those honoring the great Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko.

"We honor him for his rich contribution to the culture not only of the Ukraine, which he loved so well and described so eloquently, but of the world.

"His work is a noble part of our historical heritage."

The object of this presidential praise was a Ukrainian nationalist hero who was born a serf on February 25, 1814, and who died 47 years later, on February 26, 1861, as a much-respected poet and symbol of Ukrainian patriotism and aspirations for freedom from Russian domination.

The Shevchenko symbolism has continued to inspire the Ukrainian people down to the present day.

His name also has become a weapon in the cold war on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Both the Soviet Union and nationalist Ukrainians claim him as their own because his life and work were so valuable in their symbolism and so exemplary in their dedication to freedom.

It is for a statue of this man that Congress authorized the use of public grounds in Washington, in a resolution passed by both Houses and approved September 13, 1960, by President Eisenhower.

The obvious and proper objective of honoring this man as a symbol of the hope for freedom was to demonstrate, once again, to the world and to the Ukrainian people, that the cause of liberty is one which this country can always be depended on to champion.

In the congressional resolution approved 3 years ago, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized and directed to select an appropriate site upon which to erect" the Shevchenko statue.

Acting in accordance with these directions, Secretary Udall had his representatives go before the National Capital Planning Commission on October 25, 1962, with site recommendations.

At that session, the Planning Commission voted to defer action, but on December 6, it approved a small triangular site at 22d, 23d and P Streets NW. as the spot for the statue.

On April 4 this year, the Planning Commission approved the site plan and design

A sense of perspective and understanding such a course is followed, Washington will be graced by a memorial to a significant figure in the continuing battle for liberty. It will also have cause to rejoice that human brotherhood and understanding once again have affirmed the cause of freedom.

HUMAN DESTINY

(Address of Hon. MICHAEL A. FEIGHAN, U.S.

Representative, 20th Ohio District) The curtain was lifted today on an epic

chapter in the great book of human freedom which for too long has remained closed to

the Western mind.

That is the real meaning of the dedication ceremonies which took place today in connection with the memorial to Taras Shevchenko, soon to take its rightful place among the monuments to freedom which grace our Nation's Capital.

For Taras Shevchenko was a unique champion of full freedom for all men and independence for all nations, just as he was an avowed enemy of tyranny, despotism, and imperialism.

Shevchenko stands among that small but select group of gifted men whose toils and sacrifices over a lifetime have won them a lasting place of honor in the annals of their native lands.

He shared as well as sensed the sufferings of his countrymen under the oppressive yoke of Russian imperialism.

He sensed as well as shared with moving convictions the aspirations of his countrymen for a life of freedom and human dignity.

He was able to see beyond the travail of his own people and the despotism of their oppressors and thereby to understand the spirit of the new hope which had been lighted up across the seas by George Washington.

With gifted pen he recorded all these things and communicated them to his people in a style which won for him the enduring role of poet laureate of Ukraine.

exile and prison for his efforts, have met the fate he predicted for them.

The empire over which the hated czars ruled crashed and was broken in 1917 and 1918 by the power of the national independence movements, unleashed by the circumstances of World War I.

Ukraine won its national independence, as did more than a score of other non-Russian nations long submerged by an evil concert of empires.

Petrograd, the seat of despotic Russian power, temporarily rid itself of a corrupt aristocracy when the chains of its historic imperialism were broken.

The world, so it then appeared, was on the threshold of a new era of peace in which freedom and the independence of nations long submerged was assured.

This illusion of peace was short lived. The vacuum of imperial power in Petrograd was soon filled by a new batch of despots, who

sailed under a red banner and called themselves revolutionary Marxists.

They were not long at the task of fixing their dictatorial power over the Russian nation-who Shevchenko called the Moskals. These so-called social revolutionaries were unable to reform or contain the chauvinism or the imperial spirit of the Moskals.

But they did manage to change the name of the Russian nation from Muscovy to that of Russian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic and to make Moscow the permanent seat of imperial power.

Wars of subversion and aggression were soon launched by the Red Moskals against all the newly independent non-Russian nations-in an effort to reconstruct the Russian empire.

By 1923 the Red Moskals had destroyed

the national independence of Ukraine, along with that of Byelorussia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkestan, Cossackia, Idel-Ural, and the Republic of Siberia.

But the theories of Marxism were embar

rassed by the dominance over the practice of those theories exercised by historic Russian imperialism.

So the Russians solved this embarrassment in 1924 by announcing the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The formerly independent nations recolonized by the Red Moskals were labeled "Union Republics."

This served and continues to serve as a cover for the reconstructed propaganda

empire of the Russian czars. Lenin, the oracle of Russian Marxism, recognized before he died that the theories of Marx and Engles had become the victim of Russian despotism and imperalism. He made

"There can be no doubt that the insignifthis deathbed prophesy in 1923: workers will drown in the great Russian sea icant percentage of Soviet and sovietized of chauvinist riffraff like a fly in milk."

The 40 years since his death have proved Lenin's prophesy to be correct.

World War II restored by force of arms the former imperial Russian colonies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the U.S.S.R. and added a new crop of Russian colonies, called peoples republics or socialist republics.

While the new crop of colonies were not forcibly incorporated into the U.S.S.R., the A century has passed since the death of spirit and national life of these colonies are Shevchenko.

But the message of his literary works burns more brightly today in the hearts of his countrymen.

The reasons for this are all too obvious. Ukraine remains a victim of Russian imperialism and her people now suffer the tyranny and exploitation of the Red czars.

During the century since the death of Shevchenko much has happened and much has changed in the affairs of men and of nations.

The autocratic czars, who felt the literary barbs of Shevchenko and who put him to

imprisoned by imperial Russia.

It is proper, therefore, to observe that while much has changed in the affairs of men and of nations during the century since the death of Shevchenko, Russia, the Russians, and their empire have not changed in substance.

They are little different today than they were in the days of Shevchenko. Some alterations in form and tactics have been forced upon the Russians by the pressures of time and change, but the rock bed substance of Russian national life and purpose remains as imperialist and chauvinist.

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