September 10, 1968

Joseph Heller Draws Dead Bead on the Politics of Gloom

By ISRAEL SHENKER

he world of Joseph Heller never looked gloomier. He is violently opposed to the war in Vietnam and it continues. He was for Senator Eugene McCarthy--and the Senator has discontinued. He wrote a play that more or less bombed in New Haven, and it opens in New York Oct. 16.

The play--with the what's-that-again title of "We Bombed in New Haven"--is antiwar. Mr. Heller sat through the first Broadway run-through yesterday, and he at least found the play magnificent.

And on second thought should he really be upset about Senator McCarthy's disappearance? "It's not my thing." Mr. Heller said. "I don't care enough about politicians to think it matters much who wins."

That leaves only the war in Vietnam, and it's not so easy for Mr. Heller to console himself about that particular conflict.

"I don't believe in dying for a decision of Dean Rusk or Johnson," he explained. "Let them go out and die--it's their mistake. If the cause were popular people would rush to enlist, and they're not."

Mr. Heller's qualifications to sound off about war are 22-karat pure. His first and only novel--"Catch-22"--has been the most successful of antiwar books in the last generation, becoming unholy writ on the idiocy of war.

It came out in 1961 and was promptly flailed as disorganized, unreadable and crass. What else was new was very simply that it summed up some people's feeling that war was a terrible way to ruin a country, and that it also killed people.

Out in 1961

Basic to its success was the satire (you're crazy to fight and get killed, but if you want to get out of the army you're obviously not crazy so you have to stay in). The hero--an Assyrian World War II bombardier named Yossarian--was heroic enough to be cowardly and cowardly enough to want out.

The book also happens to be hilarious, and Heller goes through life carrying the double burden of message and yacks.

Pausing between run-throughs of his fist play, he insisted that the important thing was the message. "I don't see myself as a humorist. I see myself using humor to emphasize conclusions--a technique rather than an objective. I employ humor as I do adjectives or adverbs. In the rewriting of 'Catch-22' and 'We Bombed in New Haven,' one of my tendencies has been to decrease the humor.

"Humor has a place in our lives, though, and most people, try to have a good time even when a war is going on. We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist. Most of the time we don't drench ourselves in the war."

Since his play is no less antiwar than his book, Mr. Heller finds it hard to keep from soaking himself in the Vietnamese war. "I loathe it," he says. "I detest it. I oppose it. I think we should stop and get out--using rear guard action. We're losing the war. We're not winning it at least. If our men are there we should protect them. But if we really want to protect them we should bring them home, where they'll be safer."

Mr. Heller is convinced that the sons of important people are not going to Vietnam. "Sons-in-law don't count," he insists. "They're expendable, especially Johnson's. The problem is: How can Johnson get out without accepting the stigma of defeat or without admitting he miscalculated shockingly. We did not go into World War II--as somebody should remind Dean Rusk--until after Pearl Harbor."

Advice to Draftees

The author's advice to draftees is simple: "I say keep out by one means or another--if you oppose the war. Don't die for something in which you don't believe. It's easy for me to advise young men to go to prison or to Canada. Actually it's not easy: I don't know Canada that well. I'd choose London or Paris. And what alternatives are there for someone who doesn't want to go to prison? Go to war."

"There are sergeants," Mr. Heller admits, "who enjoy being sergeants. Anybody who likes war deserves war."

Anybody who likes peace deserves freedom, says Mr. Heller. "When you go into service you give away the freedom that the Constitution forbids the Government to take away from you."

Because this subject was so close to his heart, so fundamental in his art, Mr. Heller was prepared to do what he was unprepared to do; campaign for a political candidate.

Since Senator McCarthy was the leading antiwar candidate, that meant Senator McCarthy. The two men had met at Sardi's East (adjoining tables), and when the call came Mr. Heller answered.

"The issues were so stark," he said, "that in good conscience I had to get involved. I gave him money and I made speeches and signed my name. I gave very good speeches. He lost because of the nature of American politics. I don't think I was personally responsible."

"Every place I went I would ask if I would embarrass anybody if I wore a McCarthy button.." He quickly discovered that he was doubly welcome on campuses if he wore two McCarthy buttons.

"McCarthy was an easy man to defend," Mr. Heller said, "maybe because we don't know as much about him as we do about Nixon and Humphrey.

Can Use Humor

"All the candidates can use humor and they can all use better argumentation than they did. Even Senator McCarthy, the most intelligent of them all, could have done better."

Though he would like to forget it, Mr. Heller cannot help remembering that he once--"to my everlasting shame"--wrote a speech for President Johnson in his campaign against Senator Barry Goldwater.

"It was good," said Mr. Heller, "because I was a good advertising copywriter. It was good enough considering the man it was written for. I'm ashamed of myself. I think Johnson could have won even if I hadn't written the speech."

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