Moynihan

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Moynihan had been a disappointment to me.

I first met him at Harvard when he was named to be director of the
Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies in 1959.  I was at that time
a graduate student in Urban Design at the Harvard Graudate School of
Design which was a component of the Jt Center. It was the Eisenhower
years, and many liberals were critizing the Administration for not
having an urban policy.  The Jt Center, financed mostly withg a Ford
Grant, was part of the Ford Foundation's push to solve urban problems.
As a graduate student, we had many seminars and discussions with
Moynihan who was a brigh, jovial and civilized professor.  He got along
very well with students and supported their progresive views and
creative ideas on how to tackle urban blight and poverty.

Under his directorship, the Jt Center eventually became a focal point
for conservative attack on the Urban Renewal Program, which deserved
criticism on its developmental errors and corruption but the Jt. Center
attacked the very idea of government intervention in urban problems.

When Moynihan came out in 1971 with his "benigh neglect" on Blacks, by
claiming that the racial problem in the US has been basically solved, he
became the darling of the conservatives.  It was a continuation of his
Beyond the Melting Pot.

Nixon appointed him to represent the US the UN, and again I had some
peripheral contact with him at the UN. The anti-UN position of the US
began with Moynihan, by accusing the General Assembly of anti-US and
finally resigned over protest that the GA was equating Zionism with
racism.  It was a pure play for Jewish politics in preparation for his
senate campaign.  His famous retort about Third World opinion: "We don't
give a damn." was the beginning of US unilateralism.  He advocated the
bombing of North Korea in 1994.  He advanced the concept of workfare to
cut down on the number of welfare recipients without supporting full
employment policies.  It is unforgivable because he was informed enough
to see the inconsistency.

Hilary Clinton gave a moving tribune to Moynihan on the Senate Floor. It
was a final statement on US politics: that art of power over principles.

Moynihan was no John Kenneth Galbraith whose lecture I also attended at
times at Harvard. The latter is an intellectual giant, the best of
Harvard, the former was a politician posing as an intellectual, the
worst of Harvard.