Reverse Fulbright

When asked once what he thought the U.S. could do to end the war in Viet Nam, Humorist Art Buchwald replied: "Just fly a planeload of German and Japanese bankers to Hanoi, and let them explain to the North Vietnamese leaders what happens to a country that loses a war to the U.S." Buchwald's fancy has a solid underpinning in fact. Under the Marshall Plan and a similarly massive rebuilding program in Asia, West Germany and Japan have enjoyed dizzying industrial growth and have flooded the U.S. market with Nikons and Leicas, Sonys and Telefunkens, Toyotas and Volkswagens.

The U.S.'s former enemies have prospered so handsomely, in fact, that they are now in a position to make tangible displays of gratitude. In a recent address at Harvard, Chancellor Willy Brandt pledged $47 million for the formation of an American-run cultural foundation to be called the German Marshall Plan (TIME, June 19). Last week Japanese Ambassador Nobuhiko Ushiba announced in Washington, D.C., that his nation was giving the U.S. a reverse Fulbright program.

The Japan Foundation will be officially launched on Oct. 1 with an initial investment of $32 million. It will underwrite the expenses of American scholars, economists and technicians who wish to study in Japan, and pay for Japanese scholars to study for six months in the U.S. The main point of the project, though, is to expand Japanese-studies programs at U.S. universities. Overall, the Japanese hope to improve somewhat strained ties with the U.S. Ambassador Ushiba praised the Fulbright program as a bridge to better understanding, pointedly adding: "This good will must be reciprocated."

Kid Stuff

In an age of spiraling teen-age crime, undercover agents have filtered into the schoolyard. One appeared --weirdly hooded and with a .38-cal. pistol tucked into her belt--before a congressional crime committee last week to testify on alleged drug abuse in New York City schools. She was Detective Kathleen Conlon, a petite 29-year-old who apparently looks young enough to pass for a teenager. That is just what she has done for the past three years in the city school system, in which, she told the committee, drug users and pushers operate freely. Asked what could be done about the problems. Miss Conlon replied: "Show these kids that you're going to stand for no monkey business, and they're going to straighten up and fly right."

The Legend of Whom?

No sooner does a generation unlearn a racial epithet than the stigma loses its sting. Consider, for example, the burgeoning controversy over the title of a new Western film. The Legend of Nigger Charley. Paramount released the movie with the "historical explanation" that the character of Nigger Charley was based on black cowboys who roamed the West after the Civil War --a period in which the term was in common currency and not necessarily derogative. But Charley's well-documented credentials failed to satisfy a number of newspaper, television and radio advertising executives. For example, the Oregonian first changed the title in its ads to read Black Charley, then ultimately switched to a dotted blank to replace the touchy word.

Fearing a hostile reaction from local black communities, some theater owners have followed suit on their marquees. As it turns out, no one has heard a word of black protest about the title. Indeed, the $700,000 film grossed a nifty $3 million within a few weeks after its release.

Charley himself, former Pro Football Player Fred Williamson, thinks the controversy is useless and that in fact the change seriously weakens the impact of the title. "Media people are expecting repercussions based on the significance of the word nigger to white people," he says, "but blacks don't have the same reaction to it any more. Changing the name just reflects the insecurity and guilt of some whites who think the niggers in their town will be offended and throw rocks at the theaters." Paramount Vice President Charles Glenn adds: "I wonder what the media would call a film of Joseph Conrad's The Niggers of the Narcissus."

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