OPINION: Forlorn Illusions

In the literary fashion of the '30s, young (22), fiery Playwright Irwin Shaw wrote Bury the Dead, a moving, pacifist play about some dead soldiers who started an army mutiny by refusing to be buried.

The play, wrote Shaw in the New York Times, "reflected a belief, which now seems impossibly naive, that by appealing to reason and sentiment war might be forever halted. [But] the rulers of Russia have demonstrated that the gentle hopes of 1950 are as naive as they were in 1935. Invading, killing, destroying, they proclaim with monstrous cynicism that they are the supporters of world-wide peace. Their adherents in this country wave peace pledges and petitions while Communist guns are killing American soldiers. It is to balk these double-tongued gentlemen, with whatever small means are at my disposal, that I have withdrawn my play. I do not wish the forlorn longings and illusions of 1935 to be used as ammunition for the killers of 1950."