Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR O'NEILL Lionel Abel, in his article, "O'Neill and His Critics'' (NL, January 6), is either very literal-minded or is determined to misunderstand. When I granted to O'Neill's critics...
...Of course, Alexander made exactly this point...
...New York City N. Dubrovsky MISSILES The "interview'' on missiles by "Wotan Thrust" (NL, January 20) would be more amusing if one of your own stalwarts had not recently been indulging in the same messy thinking satirized by Thrust...
...He points out that the Communists seek control of trade-union movements to hamstring exports of vital materials to the United States, and that in Brazil at least they'd be a military diversion...
...Could not the readers of The New Leader create a fund quickly—and I pledge my humble §5 toward such a fund—to enable the reprinting of Sidney Hook's article so that it could be mailed to as comprehensive a list of American scientists as possible...
...Whatever illusions Trotsky may have had, there was one he did not have...
...That regime was the one set up by the October Revolution...
...Again, "men of good will" normally have a disadvantage vis-a-vis the unscrupulous aggressor...
...This same type of confusion exists in other topics in his article...
...Unlike Djilas, Trotsky never rejected his past...
...Further, James asks why there was no "dual Communism" under other dictators, and mentions Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Colombia...
...I also know that, where the Soviet Union is concerned, he followed the Communist line faithfully...
...This is the best analysis yet of the causes which led to our present dilemma...
...When he saw this terrible regime in operation, he courageously denounced it...
...It is of course, says he, horrible: atheistic, immoral, etc...
...The struggle between Trotsky and Stalin was not one for personal power, but a profound struggle between revolution and CONTINUED ON NEXT PACE DEAR EDITOR CONTINUED counter-revolution...
...They've got to be taught to hate'' New York City E. Burton I was rather amazed by the illogic and even disingenuousness exhibited by, of all people, Sidney Hook in "The Missing Link in American Science.'' I believe Professor Hook is mixing up two things: (1) a warning against the political innocence of so many scientists, as again evidenced by their flocking to the banners of Linus Pauling...
...I suggest that you reprint it and make it available to all the schools and newspapers in our country...
...That is like saying that, since every arrow shows direction, all directions are alike...
...Neiv York City A. M. Wallach EAST EUROPE It is more than curious when a historian like Hugh Seton-Watson ("East European Intellectuals and the Populist Spirit," NL, January 6) finds the same basic social attitude among Russian Narodniks, Serbian Leninists, Rumanian fascists and Hungarian "village explorers...
...Witch-hunting is invariably the sign of a deeply troubled and confused society...
...C. . .. E._ M. Halliday...
...Bohn evidently feels that leadership in guided missiles, sputniks, trips-to-the-moon will save the world...
...Sol Feinstone Congratulations to you for printing, and to Professor Hook for writing, His exceedingly perceptive article, "The Missing Link in American Science...
...This is still a fine proposal and might still be adopted if enough pressure is exerted...
...The important element in Seton-Watson's remark is the casual manner in which he lumps together revolution and counter-revolution...
...Their very reasonableness becomes a plaything for an opponent who respects no reason...
...Not only does political naivete per se make many of our scientists victims of Soviet ambitions...
...What he was rejecting was counterrevolutionary Stalinism...
...and (2) an assertion that the lag in American missile technology is ultimately due to the unwillingness of American scientists to engage in weapons research...
...The remarks about Leon Trotsky are unworthy...
...What he rejected most emphatically was Stalinism...
...Reluctantly, I, too, came to the conclusion that Castillo Armas's administration "tended to reverse the 1944 Revolution," and the result of the January 19 election appears to indicate that the electorate of Guatemala shares the same view...
...For Communism does not have to put up with the confusion and inefficiency of freedom, which must be (we are forced to conclude) what is really wrong with democracy...
...Nor did he ever equate Stalinism with Marxism or with the October Revolution...
...I said that O'Neill was an effective writer nevertheless, and that seems to me to be just what Abel is saying, too...
...Everyone I asked in Brazil, whether Brazilian or in the American Embassy, said that there was absolutely no truth in this...
...That it would be known, were it true, is inevitable...
...The regime which Trotsky helped to build did not destroy him...
...First, he says "the author fails to stress" that Latin American Communists "could become serious menace in time of war...
...Tucson Joseph Wood Krutch LATIN AMERICA Daniel James, in his review of Robert J. Alexander's book, Communism in Latin America (NL, January 13), has made statements which, in my opinion, are not entirely correct...
...Edward J. Rozek Apparently, Sidney Hook's "theme song for scientists" comes straight from South Pacific: "They've got to be carefully taught to hate Before they are six or seven or eight...
...he quarreled with Codo-vila, but never with the Soviet Union...
...I would also send it to radio and TV interviewers and commentators...
...and even if they would, dictatorial control of scientific research is not the answer...
...Washington Crossing, Pa...
...but he sees a gleam of gold amidst the corruption...
...Where are his facts and figures...
...I am not sure that I do, but we can grant the point...
...He argued that the apristas and their like in most countries—but also Christian Democrats, Socialists, batllistas and others—play this role...
...there are still the icon-worshippers...
...As Fred Hoyle argued cogently in the New York Times Magazine last week, only an atmosphere of free intellectual inquiry will produce creative results in science in the long run...
...The former are too willing to forget the lessons of the past in the interest of a better future, too eager to see the other fellow in the best possible light, too quick to blame themselves and their side for failure to arrive at that heralded future...
...I would add a few thoughts...
...The fact is that the Communists did practice this policy in Venezuela, Peru, Nicaragua and Cuba...
...Thus a Soviet-tinted line is presented to the public not as such, but with the prestige of being the opinion of a well-known scientist...
...and, moreover, that we ought to be ready to give up a few fundamental freedoms for the sake of it...
...In times of crisis—and we are in a major one—people must get up and do things themselves...
...What I meant was precisely what Maugham meant when he called many of the greatest novelists (including Dostoyevsky and Dickens) "bad writers"—i.e., without the grace, the economy, the precision, and the ear for sound itself which are all essential characteristics of what is ordinarily called "a good writer...
...I would like to help spread reprints of it throughout the academic field...
...The Kremlin still cashes in on these ideals it so often and so brutally flouts...
...He helped to build up the monstrous Stalinist (Titoist) dictatorship over his country, thinking it was revolutionary Marxism...
...All of these, however, are of the democratic Left...
...On Guatemala, the reviewer attacks Alexander because he "seems to believe that Carlos Castillo Armas, who drove the Communists out in 1954, 'tended to reverse the 1944 Revolution,' whose goal was to create a modern democratic state...
...Washington, D. C. Serafino Romualdi HOOK I was deeply impressed by Sidney Hook's "The Missing Link in American Science" (NL, January 6...
...The White House conference proposed by Sidney Hook several years ago went into limbo, like so many more good ideas...
...Third, he says that "it is difficult to accept Alexander's thesis that Argentine Communists actually led a double life under Peron, maintaining pro-Peronist party—the Movimiento Obrero Comunista of Rodolfo Puiggros.'' It may be "difficult to accept" this, but I am familiar with Puiggros's activities, and I know that he was and is both a Communist and a peronista...
...The author says that only after Trotsky was driven into exile "did he criticize the regime which he had helped to build and which had destroyed him...
...As far as we know today, three factors are responsible for the lag: the Administration's long-standing failure to grasp the importance of missiles and its consequent reluctance to dole out the necessary money...
...When I granted to O'Neill's critics that he was "? bad writer," quotes were always either used or implied...
...It is hard to throw away an "icon," belief based on the original idealistic concepts of the revolutionary movement...
...No doubt he thinks his distinction between "'good writing" and "good rhetoric" more precise and illuminating...
...Finally, James says "it does not necessarily follow, as Alexander seems to feel, that only the 'democratic Left' can bring these conditions about," that is, conditions which will thwart the Communists...
...I trust that after our experience with McCarthy-ism we have learned enough not even to attempt to repeat that performance...
...I like, also, Professor Hook's suggestions on the preparation of our scientists for meetings with the Soviet group...
...This is exactly what Professor Alexander did stress...
...To say that Trotsky did not carry on this struggle while still inside Russia, both openly and conspiratorially and at the risk of his life, is to betray unusual ignorance for a historian...
...Nevertheless, he carried on what he considered important to the very end...
...No one except Hook hasi so far asserted that American scientists are to blame for our present predicament...
...It is disquieting to see a champion of human freedom like Bohn beguiled into thinking that the way to outfox the Communists is to hamstring freedom...
...While Professor Hook is to be commended for making bis first point, especially at this time, he is to be censured for coupling it with his unproven attack on American scientists...
...Boulder, Colo...
...and inter-service rivalry...
...But sputniks will never save the world...
...He knew that even in exile he lived on borrowed time, that sooner or later Stalin's murderous hand would reach beyond the frontier to snuff out his life...
...This is just not so...
...With what exactly did Djilas become disillusioned...
...Among those unconsciously contributing to Soviet propaganda because of political naivete must be included the numerous interviewers on radio and television who so nonchalantly bring the views of many scientists before the vast public...
...Raleigh, N...
...To credit all alike with the ideal of service to the people merely asks us to forego all use of our critical faculties in distinguishing among social movements...
...This would be an invaluable service to the people...
...He says "no single ideology, party or group is going to lead the 'Latin American revolution' of which Alexander speaks, but different elements arising out of different national environments...
...Perhaps following the lead of Reinhold Niebuhr, who in the same issue (January 13) advanced the dangerous idea that democratic freedom may be "incompatible with scientific advance," William E. Bohn discovers that there is something good about Communism after all...
...Brooklyn, N. Y. Susan Bod an As one of a few who have been trying for more than 30 years to awaken our educational institutions to the need of objective courses on the world's revolutionary movements—Socialism, Fascism and Communism—I am grateful to you for Sidney Hook's very important article...
...The regime that destroyed him was that of Stalin and the bureacracy, of the victorious counter-revolution...
...Second, James repeats his pet story that Luiz Carlos Prestes is leading guerrilla columns in the interior of Brazil...
...The mistake of these scientists, stemming from their political naivete, is too often compounded by the interviewer's inability to produce even well-known facts in refutation of the opinions expressed...
...Well, I was personal friend of the late Carlos Castillo Armas and had frequent contacts with him and many of his Government advisers...
...But he is as wrong as Seton-Watson and others in thinking that he was thereby rejecting Marxism, which he had never understood...
...a hydra-headed, self-perpetuating bureaucracy...
...They are also practicing it in Egypt and other countries, as attested by Walter Z. Laqueur in The New Leader of December 16, 1957...
Vol. 41 • February 1958 • No. 5
