Word: argumentative
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...avoid this argument, the Administration has urged vague claims of "national security" requiring the operation of the Philadelphia contractor. Since the war, this firm has been awarded contracts in England totalling over twelve times the value of the present one, all of which have been in areas affecting the "national security" of Great Britain. To discourage British trade is to invite retaliation, which would reduce the business of the very American company whose continued operation is the alleged goal of the present contract. Critics also point out that earlier the Administration said the dam was not worth constructing...
...This argument, however, is short-sighted, for it assumes that missiles can be used practically only as defensive weapons. But until a disarmament agreement is reached, missiles and nuclear bombs are also, by their very existence, instruments of aggressive diplomacy. If both sides concede that total war would be cataclysmic, a sizable advantage in weaponry enables one side to push its case much more firmly. A weaker opponent cannot rationally afford to meet his opponents' raise, especially if each side knows the other's hand. If the Soviets can marshal a substantial missile margin they can force peripheral issues...
Sheer lack of sophistication is evidenced by the argument that the CDF-run MeBAC would represent "unfair competition" to independent drama groups, apparently on the theory that all the arts are in constant cutthroat competition and that a customer for one theatre is a customer lost to another. We are sure the CRIMSON does not seriously think that the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger museums subtract their visitors from the sum-total of gallery-goers, or that someone who buys a ticket for the Budapest String Quartet will not patronize the Boston Opera Group...
...chief political argument of the year concerns defense and the budget, the chief economic argument is about inflation. Last week, echoing his stern budget-message warning, President Eisenhower set up a special Cabinet committee to study the extent to which inflation is heightened by Government spending and federal activities...
...fact that he had kept the pressure on the Defense Department and the White House, arguing that B.L.H. should get the award because Philadelphia was then an area of "substantial unemployment." But under a 1954 Executive Order by President Eisenhower, even substantial unemployment is not a valid argument if a domestic company's bid is 12% or more above the lowest foreign bid. B.L.H.'s bid was 21% higher than English Electric's. ODCM Chief Leo Hoegh got around that by arguing that a contract award to B.L.H. was necessary for clear reasons of "national security...