THE STUDENT REVOLUTION: A Global Confrontation

The author went abroad, compliments of the Ford Foundation, to study youth and the establishment in ten countries of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The resultant report, rather brief and generalized, lacks the drama that the subtitle implies. Califano finds strong similarities, some differences, and no international conspiracy between home-grown and foreign-breed student radicals. The checklist of globally valid comparisons includes a numerically small hard core, fuzzy but sweeping objectives, an overbearing sense, of moral righteousness, a concern for individual freedom in the technological age, and a verbal veneration of Mao, Castro, Guevara, and Marcuse that cloaks a profound crisis of belief. But America is way out front in black-white tensions, drug problems, hippie elements, and draft-inspired immediacy of involvement with Vietnam. Anti-Americanism is rampant, of course, but the general position vis-a-vis the Cold War is ""a plague on both your houses."" Califano advises giving young people ""a piece of the action"" (e.g., putting them on draft boards) and Universities a larger slice of the budgetary pie. Though crash programs for minority groups are advisable, ""indiscriminate admission of unqualified students isa historical road to educational and societal disaster."" Few fresh insights for all those miles logged.