Word: solzhenitsyn
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...Seeing Solzhenitsyn...
President Ford's refusal to see Solzhenitsyn [July 21] is the refusal of a midget to see a giant for a very obvious reason. He would have to look...
...liken Solzhenitsyn's voice to that of an Old Testament prophet. I liken it to that of a dangerous extremist and warmonger. His contention that the U.S. should still be fighting Communism in Indochina is blood chilling...
Much of that emotion has lately been contributed by the exiled Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who has spent the past month wandering in and out of Washington to fulminate against American policy. If Ford had welcomed him and shaken his hand, his criticisms might have attracted less attention, but Ford's advisers, notably Kissinger, unwisely urged him against such a meeting. That made Ford look like someone who had to defer to Soviet displeasure. Ford changed course as far as anyone could, offering Solzhenitsyn a standing invitation to the White House, but Solzhenitsyn last week preferred to issue statements...
...exaggerated into a moral disaster. Ford later retorted: "It has been my policy ever since I entered public life to support the aspirations for freedom... of the peoples of Eastern Europe ... by every proper and peaceful means." That was a way of endorsing Kissinger's earlier response to Solzhenitsyn: that there is no alternative to coexistence, for all its dangers and moral ambiguities. By week's end, Ford was off to Helsinki via West Germany and Eastern Europe, whose people may have their own doubts about détente, but who also understand the lack of alternatives...