76-04-B8
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New Directions[edit]
Transcript[edit]Hang on to your hats. There's a new special interest group that's been launched in Washington, and its ambitions are big. I'll be right back. Common Cause, which has played to mixed reviews for about four years now, has concentrated its efforts on what it considers election "reform". It's had some successes; some failures, but it has limited its scopes to the United States. But, a brand new lobbying group called New Directions, launched in Washington, D.C. this fall, has no such limitations on its ambitions. It's motto might as well be, "Today America, Tomorrow the World," for it plans to tie into an international network of like-minded groups, meanwhile -- according to its brochure -- lobbying actively in Washington. New Directions, according to the brochure, will -- QUOTE--" ... attempt to influence the non-governmental shapers of national policy--corporations, banks, universities and trade association. It will organize people in local communities to respond to local manifestations of global injustice or irresponsibility. And, when necessary, it will take its case to court."--UNQUOTE The rhetoric continues with phrases such as "workable world order", "a revolution of human decency and global fairness", "world problems call for world action" and "we will work with citizen groups of like interest wherever they may exist, and we will encourage their emergence where they do not." Now, they don't spell it out but the New Directions people --in their choice of language and their choice of leaders-- sound very much as if they are going to have a familiar left-liberal tilt in their ideology and their lobbying activities. Can we expect them to push for big cuts in U.S . defense spending; for warmer relations with leftist dictatorships, coupled with stern rejection of rightest governments? Will they plump for massive new "aid" programs for the so-called Third World nations? Probably. The organization has a Governing Board which will set its course. Russell Peterson, formerly chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality is president of New Directions. Jack Conway, a former United Auto Workers' official and Common Cause executive is its "chairperson". Also on the Governing Board are a co-director of a radical think-tank, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, darling of the anti-war movement; and assorted ultra-liberals and leftists from the academic world, along with one-world advocates. Just how far the new organization will go in its efforts to lobby for a U. S. foreign policy and national defense posture of weakness instead of strength is hard to guess, but a not-too-many-years ago quote from Coffin may be a clue. He said, "We have to realize that Enemy No. 1 is nuclear warfare, not the Communists. And enemy No. 2 is poverty." He added that he thought that the Soviet Union wouldn't go about supporting "reactionary" and "oppressive" governments. He said that in 1969. Maybe he's been sleeping under a tree ever since. I wonder about his comrades on that New Directions governing board. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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Added Notes[edit]Common Cause Founding of New Directions (from New York Times archives) |
