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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 20, 1983
PAGE 10
More important, we should recognize that the entertainment indus
try probably has a greater moral impact on the young than any in
stitution but the home. And that industry has been at war with
many of the values and attitudes which apparently reduced crime
in Britain and the U.S. from the mid-19th to the mid-20th cen
turies.
The above reminds one of a statement attributed to U.S. Chief Justice
Warren Burger, as reported in U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, May 31, 1982: "We
have virtually eliminated from public schools and higher education any
effort to teach values."
Some Germans Beginning to See Need for Own Defense
Following up on our report two weeks ago regarding the pro-nuclear freeze
position of the American Roman Catholic bishops, the cartoonist, Benson, of
the ARIZONA REPUBLIC depicted Chairman Yuri Andropov and President Reagan
engaged in a chess game.
"I move my
anxiously:
thing."
pawn," said Mr. Andropov, to which the President replied
"Hold it. That's my bishop!" Mr. Andropov responded: "Same
The growing nuclear freeze campaign, now joined by the bishops, along with
America's inaction in the face of an open Soviet challenge in Central
America, is bound to have an impact upon U.S. allies overseas, who rely on
American military power to protect them.
Today I received a letter from a man in Bonn, West Germany, Mr. Erick
Sontag. I met Mr. Sontag two or three years ago. He stopped in to see me
in my office while on a tour Gf the United States. He is an avid reader of
the PLAIN TRUTH. Mr. Sontag is an expert in Soviet propaganda techniques
and operates a small museum in Bonn where he exhibits posters and other
propaganda material.
From reading his letter, Mr. Sontag, who is a staunch believer in democracy
and admires the United States very much, is beginning to question the value
of America's protection for his country. He sent me a copy of a telegram he
sent to the House of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol.
(He mentions at
the bottom the names of those he sent copies
to:
Genscher [ Bonn Foreign
Minister ], Jack Anderson [ U.s. columnist] , Hogberg and Weckbachmara [of
Germany's Springer Press].)
The copy of the telegram to the congressmen read as follows: "IF YOU CANNOT
BOX YOUR WAY OUT OF PAPERBAG NICARAGUA AND YOUR BISHOPS FREEZE NUKES, WEST
GERMANS BETTER GET OUR NUCLEAR DETERRENT FROM ISRAEL, SAME MONEY."
The last two words are a bit vague, I realize, but Mr. Sontag's frustration
is nevertheless clear. He penciled an additional note on the telegram copy
he sent me: "May sound crazy, but reflects changing attitudes of even the
conservatives here."
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau