For the Record

■ Recent mini-antiwar demonstrations show that the peace movement is dying. Who’ll pick up the pieces? It’s a big fight with, at the moment, the Communists holding most of the cards. The CP dominates the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ), and that group has enlisted under its banner women (Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom), veterans (Vietnam Veterans against the War), Quakers (American Friends Service Committee), students (National Student Association), Communists (both the CPUSA and the Young Workers Liberation League) and a smattering of farm workers, welfare recipients, Puerto Rican nationalists, etc.—but, interestingly, no major black organization. . . . Doing much less well, the Trotskyist National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) which, the Maoist Guardian notes, failed to get them out on the streets on November 18 although it had been “preparing for the mass demonstrations since August.” . . . Militant (Trotskyist) meanwhile is fighting back; charges that Communist Party mounted a shadow-box presidential campaign this year, a “barely disguised pro-McGovern effort.” . . . Radicalization of Vietnam Veterans against the War progressing. It was they, says Guardian, who fought off anti-Communist Cubans who tried to break up a pro-Fidel rally at Boston’s Community Church in mid-November. . . . Out of the past: Bill of Rights Journal of party-lining National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee has put on its yearly honor list Dr. Irving Peress, dentist (of “Who promoted Peress?” fame). And this year’s winner of Committee’s Tom Paine Award: NY Timesman Tom Wicker.

■ No changes: Sen. Robert Griffin has written a little note to his Republican colleagues asking them to support him for Whip again next year. Meaning: he won’t be bucking for Sen. Hugh Scott’s job as Minority Leader. . . . No changes expected on Democratic side either. Mike Mansfield and Robert Byrd (W. Va.) are expected to be renamed as Majority Leader and Whip. . . . Well- informed Paris paper Le Figaro says Henry Kissinger has a new plan for peace in the Middle East and that he’ll unveil it early in the new year. Among the provisions: a reopened Suez Canal, the establishment of a “Palestinian entity” on the West Bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip. . . . Washington surprised that Donald Rumsfeld, regarded as a hotshot in Nixon entourage, got the not-so-prestigious job of ambassador to NATO. Commented Rumsfeld (a former congressman and former head of the Office of Economic Opportunity), this assignment would “round out” his education. Some conjecture that Ambassador Rumsfeld might be trotted out against Adlai III in ’74. . . . Postmortems on Allott loss in close Colorado senatorial race continue. Some in Colorado believe he lost because of a single tactical error: He thought people were for the Winter Olympics in Denver and campaigned for it, but the people threw it (and Allott with it) out.

Featured Tags

■ Recent mini-antiwar demonstrations show that the peace movement is dying. Who’ll pick up the pieces? It’s a big fight with, at the moment, the Communists holding most of the cards. The CP dominates the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ), and that group has enlisted under its banner women (Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom), veterans (Vietnam Veterans against the War), Quakers (American Friends Service Committee), students (National Student Association), Communists (both the CPUSA and the Young Workers Liberation League) and a smattering of farm workers, welfare recipients, Puerto Rican nationalists, etc.—but, interestingly, no major black organization. . . . Doing much less well, the Trotskyist National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) which, the Maoist Guardian notes, failed to get them out on the streets on November 18 although it had been “preparing for the mass demonstrations since August.” . . . Militant (Trotskyist) meanwhile is fighting back; charges that Communist Party mounted a shadow-box presidential campaign this year, a “barely disguised pro-McGovern effort.” . . . Radicalization of Vietnam Veterans against the War progressing. It was they, says Guardian, who fought off anti-Communist Cubans who tried to break up a pro-Fidel rally at Boston’s Community Church in mid-November. . . . Out of the past: Bill of Rights Journal of party-lining National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee has put on its yearly honor list Dr. Irving Peress, dentist (of “Who promoted Peress?” fame). And this year’s winner of Committee’s Tom Paine Award: NY Timesman Tom Wicker.

■ No changes: Sen. Robert Griffin has written a little note to his Republican colleagues asking them to support him for Whip again next year. Meaning: he won’t be bucking for Sen. Hugh Scott’s job as Minority Leader. . . . No changes expected on Democratic side either. Mike Mansfield and Robert Byrd (W. Va.) are expected to be renamed as Majority Leader and Whip. . . . Well- informed Paris paper Le Figaro says Henry Kissinger has a new plan for peace in the Middle East and that he’ll unveil it early in the new year. Among the provisions: a reopened Suez Canal, the establishment of a “Palestinian entity” on the West Bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip. . . . Washington surprised that Donald Rumsfeld, regarded as a hotshot in Nixon entourage, got the not-so-prestigious job of ambassador to NATO. Commented Rumsfeld (a former congressman and former head of the Office of Economic Opportunity), this assignment would “round out” his education. Some conjecture that Ambassador Rumsfeld might be trotted out against Adlai III in ’74. . . . Postmortems on Allott loss in close Colorado senatorial race continue. Some in Colorado believe he lost because of a single tactical error: He thought people were for the Winter Olympics in Denver and campaigned for it, but the people threw it (and Allott with it) out.