Galbraith: An Ambassador's Journal

THE afternoon of Thursday, April 22, was an emotional one at Harvard. A group of SDS members, leaving University Hall after Dean Dunlop refused to talk into their tape recorder, marched to the CFIA, to confront Samuel P. Huntington, Thompson Professor of Government. When they reached the CFIA, Harvard police, alerted by walkie-talkie, had locked the building, and were guarding all the doors. The marchers separated, covering both front and back entrances. As they milled around, discussing strategy, they became aware of a towering presence in their midst. John Kenneth Galbraith, Warburg Professor of Economics and chronicler of the Affluent Society, emerged from the building. Galbraith, less than twenty-four hours back from a sabbatical in England, joined the group, leaning on the back of a white BMW. Soon, almost all the marchers had joined him, sitting on the car's trunk, or grouped around in a semicircle before him. Huntington and the CFIA were forgotten, as the crowd stood transfixed by the voice of the ambassador emeritus.

Galbraith was friendly to the crowd, patiently explaining his views on American politics, world affairs, and the state of the University. He first established his credentials:

"The Left now, generally speaking, are the people that espouse the Galbraith theory of capitalism. Back in the good old days, before I got onto the raffish fringe of the establishment, I was regarded as an extreme left-winger."

Asked about academic freedom and professional tenure, Galbraith defended the right of both Henry Kissinger and Hilary Putnam to remain on the Faculty, citing his own past: "When I first became a professor, they held up my appointment for over a year, because I was too radical. My impression over about thirty years at Harvard is that it's the Left that has been generally protected by academic freedom. I owe my own presence here for about ten years to the fact that I couldn't be fired."

One of Galbraith's auditors was skeptical about the professor's effectiveness in opposing the war, asking if the kind of opposition which consists of "big shots talking to other big shots" could work. "I don't consider myself a big shot, I don't usually use that term," said Galbraith. "A great, perceptive gentleman, that would be the phrase."

As Galbraith continued his remarks, Thomas Schelling, professor of Economics, emerged from the back door of the CFIA to find Galbraith and the marchers covering the white BMW. After a quick assessment of the situation, he made his move.

"Ken," said Schelling, "would you mind asking your friends to get off the car?"

"Sure," the ambassador replied, moving people off with a wide waving motion of his tweed-jacketed arm.

"Thanks, Ken," Schelling said, disappearing back into the building.

Galbraith went on with his discourse. "Let me say just a word in defense of traditional liberalism. There were about five or six of us-Ernest Gruening, Waync Morse, myself-who first started the opposition to the war. We didn't have any help from the communists in those days, we didn't have any help from the left, we didn't have any help from the labor movement. I've been on George Meany's shitlist ever since for that. The labor unions pulled out of ADA when I became chairman, largely because of my stand on the war. It was the old-fashioned liberals, on the whole, the older generation of liberals, who really initiated the opposition to the war in this country about ten years ago."

An onlooker asks, "Do you think capitalism is a good thing?"

"No, certainly not," Galbraith replies.

"Do you think communism is a good thing?"

"No. I would redesign the society more or less to my own views. I'm in favor of a classless society. The reason is that I regard the problem as essentially one of bureaucracy rather than of capitalism. It's the bureaucratic power we're really involved with, rather than the ultimate power of capitalism.

"Generally speaking, the inhibiting power in our time, both in this country and in the Soviet Union, is the bureaucracy rather than the capitalists.

"I have some quarrel with this generation of radicals, which goes back to pre-Galbraith views. I have always thought that the Pentagon was more responsible for Vietnam than the Capitol. I'm saying that the Left, generally speaking, lets the Pentagon off the hook, by saying they're the deus ex machine , that they've been manipulated by the capitalists. I would rather put the blame right on the Pentagon."

The afternoon wore on, and one by one, the crowd departed. Huntington never emerged from the building, and, after an hour or so, there would have been no one left to greet him if he did.