Word: erhards
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Lyndon Johnson is not the only Western leader to suffer the slings and arrows of criticism by vociferous intellectuals. As West Germany's election campaign gathers momentum, Chancellor Ludwig Erhard is also hearing the wrath of eggheads. Their complaint is hardly so dramatic an issue as Viet Nam is in the U.S.; they grumble that der Dicke and his party have been in power far too long, seem to suggest that there is far too much German prosperity for the good of the German soul...
...contribution was a partisan poem, Hochhuth's an essay in pseudo economics arguing that while Germany's rich are getting richer, the proletarians are being lulled into impotence by their proliferating cars, "which they can pay for but cannot afford." What's more, declared Hochhuth, Erhard was to blame for the low state of German education and science, and for the high rate of deaths in childbirth...
When Hochhuth's article appeared in the weekly Der Spiegel, Erhard, ever sensitive to personal criticism, could restrain himself no longer. "Today it has become fashionable for poets to be social critics," he exploded in a speech at Düsseldorf. "If they are, it is of course their good democratic right. But then they must permit themselves to be addressed as they deserve-as philistines and nitwits who pass judgments about things which they simply do not understand." In another speech he snapped that Hochhuth was a kleiner Pinscher (small terrier). As for Grass, Erhard growled: "There...
...Monstrous Abuse." The ruling Christian Democratic Party has repeatedly denied that there is any emergency, and Chancellor Ludwig Erhard angrily dismissed the student demonstrations as a "monstrous abuse." Still, many Germans were sufficiently shocked out of complacency by the protests to study anew the somber statistics cited by Picht, whose book, The German Educational Catastrophe, set off a national debate last year. "If the government and the [state] parliaments fail to act now," he warns, "one can already pinpoint who will be responsible for the third debacle in 20th century German history...
...with 43% of the votes cast. And though the Free Democrats won only 8.3%, losing nearly half their 1960 strength, their margin was sufficient to preserve the ruling coalition. Both major parties last week issued the same verdict: "An excellent starting basis for the federal elections." In fact, as Erhard and Brandt are aware, their parties are still neck and neck as they turn into the stretch -with an estimated 23% of the nation's voters as yet undecided...