I bought this June 1968 issue of Galaxy magazine because of the Harlan Ellison story. I’ve been an Ellison fan for 40 years. (If you don’t know anything about Harlan Ellison, I would encourage you to get acquainted with him.) This story is included in one of his books but I enjoy reading stories in their original form.
When I opened up the issue, I found something more interesting. Pages 4 and 5 contain two lists. The names on the lefthand page are science fiction writers who support U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The names on the righthand page hold the opposite view.
There are well-known writers on both pages. Supporters of the Vietnam War — at least at this point in the summer of 1968 — include Poul Anderson, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Fredric Brown, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Fred Saberhagen, Jack Vance and Jack Williamson.
Opponents of Vietnam include Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Samuel R. Delaney, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Philip Jose Farmer, Damon Knight, Ursula K. LeGuin, Fritz Leiber, Gene Roddenberry, Robert Silverberg and Kate Wilhem.
The Galaxy editor, Frederik Pohl, devotes a few pages to explaining the two advertising pages. “About a hundred and fifty of your favorite science-fiction writers, and ours, have taken a stand on America’s activities in Vietnam,” he writes. He explains that the ads were paid for by the people who signed each page: $250 per page for a total of $500.
Pohl writes that “there has never been in the past century an issue which has so thoroughly and passionately divided the American people.” And he laments that “this sort of polarized debate … makes opponents of people who should be friends.”
To try to break this impasse, Pohl announces a contest for the magazine’s readers to submit the “most immediately provocative ideas on what we should do about Vietnam that, in fact, we can do.” There will be five winners, each of whom will take home $100.
I don’t know the results of this contest. Pohl says they will be published “in a forthcoming issue of Galaxy.” I’m going to see if I can find a copy.
The polarized politics of 2023 seem a little different from the polarized politics of 1968. In 1968, people retained some degree of hope that reason and compromise would prevail. I would like to believe we can muster that kind of idealism today, but it seems unlikely.