ustxtxb_obs_1971_01_08_50_00024-00000_000.pdf

country he has again enraged the Democrats and demonstrated the cheapness and the shallowness of his political motivations. Nixon may be trying to build a middle and right-wing party that leaves the liberals adrift. This is probably his intention. Johnson wanted to do it in 1960 but could not because the Democratic Party was too liberal for it. The Republican Party may be too conservative for it; maybe not. But Connally is hardly the man with whom Nixon can seduce Democrats into his camp, if that is his purpose. There were three unique dimensions to the Republicans’ losses in November. The Nixnew Smear-’em strategy backfired in the Nixon-Muskie juxtaposition election eve. There was a latent hostility to the continuing Vietnam war. And there was an entirely overt resentment of Nixon’s economic policies. Connally fits in well with the very policies the Democrats have every reason to anathematize. He helped Bentsen smear Yarborough with the ,Nixnewish line identifying Democrats with violence. He upholds Johnson’s war policies without a whisper of dissent. And he is an economic conservative who joined Bentsen’s political rhetoric against Nixon-Period economic policies, but shares the underlying subservience to the big national corporations which is the foundation of Republican politics. Nothing will be simpler than the Democrats’ helping drown Cpnnally politically, especially since he leapt overboard without asking their leave, except, perhaps, Johnson’s. If, however, the Democrats accepted Connally as Nixon’s emissary among them, 24 The Texas Observer that would signify exactly that “something fundamental” Nixon had in mind, the defeat and maybe the death of the Democratic Party. And this is why, one watchfully assumes, the Democrats will not. Nixon people have sought to ease the pain of their President’s cynical move by alleging, even in the White House, that it poxed “the Muskie-Connally ticket.” Such a’ ticket, let us further hope and assume, was never more than ludicrous Connally self-puffery. In 1968, as is now well-known, Hubert Humphrey vetoed Connally for vice-president despite what one key Humphrey adviser reported described as incredible pressure from Johnson to put Connally on the ticket. Muskie would hardly have made the mistake in 1972 Humphrey refused to make in 1968. It’s obvious why Nixon offered Connally the appointment. The puzzle is, Why did Connally take it? Surely he well knew after 1968 that he could not become President from within the Democratic Party. His I have noticed several Observer readers threatening to cancel their subscriptions because they feel the Observer has taken a dangerous drift to the left. It might be of some slight help if I explain that I will not be renewing my subscription for quite contradictory reasons. In my view, the Observer is cruising steadily down the stultifying middle of liberalism, which for me lost its relevancy as a result of the 1968 ,ampaign and its aftermath. Don W. Allford, 1505 Cloverleaf, Austin, Texas. 78723. Psychic research valid After reading Claude Walbert’s “Decline and Fall’ in the Dec. 11 issue, I wonder why the Observer would publish such an article. Does Mr. Walbert know as little about parapsychology as is apparent, or is it a subtle parody that my year in the English Department has left me still unprepared to understand? Mr. Walbert’s mental leap from parapsychology, to the occult, to a black mass is parallel to a treatise on the constitution by way of the FBI and the 1968 Democratic Convention. To say that all political theory presented in the Constitution of the United States is invalid because there were fights in Chicago in 1968 is not unlike saying all parapsychological research is invalid’ because ridiculous magazines present articles on astrology and witchcraft. Both are faulty syllogisms. I would suggest that Mr. Walbert \(and motives in joining Nixon have to fall within one or both of two groups of explanations. Explanation one runs like this: Being one of those “Texas conservatives” who are in politics to make money, Connally took the job with that same view in mind. As Johnson inner-circler Les Carpenter says, Connally “hungers to be rich.” By this interpretation, Connally has no further political ambition and correctly assumes that any former Secretary of the Treasury can easily get even richer than Connally already is. The second group of speculations comes down to the insight that Connally, having concluded that his ambition to be President could not be realized as a Democrat, decided he might as well try the other side. Either in 1972 as Agnew’s successor or in 1976, he may hope that the Republicans, in some extremity, will turn to him. I believe that if he thinks this, he has made a mistake. Those who use a Judas goat know exactly what he is doing and do not honor him for it. R .D. IDialogue I and life “readings” of Edgar Cayce or the relationship between recent discoveries about the brain’s alpha waves and Eastern meditation. This is only a small part of the documented parapsychological research which is continually ignored by an ignorant \(without understanding yet able to Walter Earl Bissex, 5 N. Dod, Princeton University, Princton, N.J. Rise, decent folks I feel compelled \(emulating those many vile, filthy, obscene pornography which so often fills the pages of your tabloid. Too many times have I perused the Observer only to have my optic tract singed by such words as “Preston Smith,” “Bentsen,” “Agnew,” “Dallas,” etc., ad nauseam. If only decent folks would rise up and prevent the printing of such. If only my wife and I had children so that we could hide the Observer from their innocent eyes. As it is, I’ve had to stop our puppy from pissing on old Observers no telling what she might pick up. I trust my words shall not go unheeded. Thank you. Jim Faulkner, 109 Teachers Drive, St. Louis, Mo. 63103. Reader bailing out