Articles by G P D

HENRY KISSINGER will be succeeded by Cyrus Vance in the US Department of State this week. Kissinger's eventful career of eight years at the National Security Council and later in the Department of State has been the envy of many in the US and outside. One has only to think of the scores of Indian academics who thought (and still think) of themselves as the Brown Kissingers of India's foreign policy to appreciate the enormous impact the man has made. To a host of Third World Brahmins he became a modern-day Chanakya. He seemed to represent to most of them an 'ideal type', a type to which one day they themselves hoped to belong. They did not like his arrogance, and yet they hoped that they could themselves be one day as powerfully arrogant as he had been for the last eight years, Kissinger seemed to represent the "intellectual politician". Arrogance goes well with intellectualism. The problem is how one carries it off. Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried it, but failed. Without quite meaning it, he became an unwelcome critic of the Third World leadership. Kissinger somehow carried his "intellectual arrogance" very ably. Intellectuals all over the world hated him perhaps, but did not admire him the less for that. This was true of the Americans themselves and was, therefore, naturally true of Third World politicians, a large number of whom are educated in the West. It is different to think of a single individual whom elites all over the world tried to emulate so much as Kissinger.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Saving Thailand from Democracy G P D At last this long-expected piece of workmanship has made its appearance! At last ... Prussia has passed over to the ranks of constitutional countries... The fettered German press itself stammers words which' allow no other conclusion but that the movement party in Prussia are quite aware of the sly intentions of their "open-hearted, generous" king. The question then is this: will the king succeed in his plans? Will the" Central Assembly ... he either stupid or cowardly enough to guarantee a new loan, without securing to the people extended liberties, and thus give the king the means to continue: the present system for an indefinite ength of time?

boycott on Ugandan imports after the Indian expulsion, the United States refused to follow suit; instead, it taught the whole of Uganda's coffee crop

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Outlines of a China Policy G P D IN another month and a half K R Narayanan will present his credentials in Peking. By itself, the act of presentation of credentials will not have more than symbolic value; and yet, international politics in our part of the world would have taken a turn

amongst ASEAN countries: (a) long term quantity contracts; (b) purchase finance support at preferential interest rates; (c) prefrence in procurement by government entities; (d) extension of tariff preferences; (e) other measures agreed upon. The economic ministers also considered joint approach to other world economic problems and HAROLD Wilson has decided to quit. Liberalism is hopelessly out of fashion these days. Otherwise one would have said many nice things about the rather sweet British habit of retiring from politics. British Prime Ministers may or may not do a good job of governing the country. But they certainly seem to know when to say enough is enough. We live in a world where renunciation of power does not come very easily to most people, Wilson with a mere eight years in power has decided to give up. It seems that he has been at the helm of little England's affairs longer than any Prime Minister has been during this century' This is unthinkable on this side of Suez. We in Asia have a tradition of life-long presidents. Barring the 'capitalist roaders' in Mao's land, the premiers and the presidents do not take challenges to their power very lightly. Bhutto has in fact made a former Prime Minister's son, Khairuddin, a stateless person. Now Prime Ministers' sons are not normally treated in this manner. But Khairuddin's problem was that his father's prime ministership was a matter of history. In any case he is now a sateless person for the simple reason that he has opposed his prime minister. Wilson's trouble is that he was not born a South Asian. Otherwise he would have thought of better methods of solving the problems of the Labour government.