CORRESPONDENCE
COIUIESPOND. ENCE Prod I/1 Chicago, Ill. To the EditorS: One would think that an editorial titled "The Death of the Pope" [Aug. 18] would have elicited a modicum of good sense from...
...18] would have elicited a modicum of good sense from any writer in a magazine purporting to be what Commonweal thinks it is...
...Hruby wi, tl have to speak for himself...
...The practical limitations on freedom of speech, etc., in the Soviet Union are, in principle, justifiable in a world of Radio Liberty, of U.S...
...Let me say that I considered the conference as a whole extremely valuable, and in particular the openness of its sponsors to a wide variety of views and the spirit of participation among the registrants, which made for constructive dialogue in formal and informal gatherings...
...Cort himself, in a long and extremely inter29 September 1978:610 esting informal night session in the lounge, went into real McCarthyite extremes in this respect--insisting, for example, that the United, Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (IND), which Cort had a certain role in splitting during the McCarthy period, is "loyal to the Soviet Union...
...I considered it especially vital for a conference sponsored by an organization devoted to relations with European socialist countries, and focusing on peace and disarmament issues...
...Our press is free enough and our observation and experience clear enoegh to refute that kind of absurdity...
...VXCTO~ PERLe R~|g Victor Perle .is wel,l-advised to criticize the Us for not ratifying the U,N covenants on lmman rights...
...But to the extent that we do not, it remains absolutely essential that we do not permit our differences to deter us from uniting around the central task of fighting for disarmament and d6tente and non:intervention...
...Examination of the whole range of rights in these UN covenants, and comparison with the reality that exists, shows that the Soviet Union comes a thousand times closer to the UN covenants then any bourgeois democracy, including particularly the United States...
...I suspect that some of this reluctance is related to our refusal ~o do something meanir~gful about the right to a job...
...REV...
...Since I read my talk from a prepared text, what follows is, I believe, an accurate rendition of the relevant part of my talk: "The Carter Administration has used its human rights propaganda line to strengthen anti-Sovietism...
...And extending to some of the members of the CAREE Board who served as moderators and used crude anti-Soviet jokes as their "chairman's humor...
...That subject was the primacy of the issue of disarmament and the use of the "human rights" issue by its opponents...
...Lenin said the Soviet state is a thousand times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic...
...Peru has obviously failed to provide any evidence against him...
...You'll laugh at that...
...I am not familiar with his publication, but Mr...
...It is another example that can only merit contempt for the cynic, callow, calumnious, cavilling concatenation of rubbish that you have been propounding for the past ten years to discredit this good Pontiff and foster the division in the American Church over Humanae Vitaenas though a man's or mankind's life is placed below his belly button...
...What I said was that during the Thirties and Forties, when I could speak with confidence, most of ~hat leadership foUowed every twist and turn of Russian foreign policy, from being pro~Ronsevelt before the Hk, ler-SteJin pact, to being so antiRoosevelt during the Hitler-Stalin pact that they dumped J~mes B. Carey as preside~, to being pro~Roosevelt again a few weeks later a{'ter Hitler attacked his former ally...
...But anti-Soviet attitudes were a leit-motif of several speakers, beginning with Michael Harrington, whose engaging manner and sense of humor make his really extreme antiSovietism all the more dangerous...
...I can no longer speak with confidence about the cttrrent loyalities of the leadership of the United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers, and did (Continued on page 639) Commonweal: 611 CORRlCSPOHDL"HCE (Continued/rum page 611) not, during that interesting session in the lounge...
...But --to coin a phrase---"in the long run" you will finally discover that you are the avatars of agrophobia never having left your little elitist nest, but have allowed your flyspecked pages to masquerade as divine aMatus...
...JOHN C. CORT...
...As for my reaction to Mr...
...The announced theme of the conference was "The U.S...
...There is an objective criterion---the United Nations covenants on human rights, which have been ratified by most governments, but which have not been submitted to Congress and are virtually a secret document in this country--as are the real terms of the Helsinki accords...
...They include a different range of democratic rights than under capitalism and, I believe, a more effective range...
...l~he Soviet Union is not a very good model, which is not to say that ~he U...
...We do have to recognize that the standards of human rights and duties in a socialist society differ from those in a capitalist society...
...I was not disappointed...
...As for specific charges of this or that violation of human rights in the Soviet Union, a serious violation of our freedom of the press is the suppression in the United States of the complete, detailed Soviet refutation of most of these charges...
...SocioEconomic Order in the Next Decade" and surely the arms race and the war danger will be vital to those prospects...
...There's no question in my mind that these limitations will dwindle in direct proportion to the progress of d6tente and disarmament...
...In fact, others besides myself noted the failure of most speakers to address themselves to the subject of peace and disarmament...
...Perio's letter is that it continues and compounds a lamentable confusion, much in evidence at Rosemont, about the meaning of democracy...
...Mr...
...I did not expect to be...
...It's important that we all see this...
...Hruby's anti-Soviet tirade, it evolves that I hit a bull's eye in my guess that he was a Czarist 6migr~ counterrevolutionary: he is an editor of one of their publications...
...They also include those civil rights analogous to those embodied in our own Bill of Rights, with a national security proviso...
...As matters turned out, I consider that I was well advised to deal with the subject of anti-Sovietism as a major obstacle to peace...
...They include a wide range of economic and cultural rights which are realized in practice and of which the majority are deprived under capitalism...
...Your article will probably do much to keep alive the memory of Pope Paul and deepen appreciation for the self-sacrificing efforts he made to guide the Church along its way in these troubled times...
...MARK HEOENER, OFM Managing Director Franciscan Herald Press Milwaukee, Wis...
...It is flateering to democracy that everybody _9 to march behind its l~anner, but ~t would be more flaX~ering if they would just take the trouble to learn what it is...
...If I can presume to sit in judgment over the literary output of writers of such caliber as those who contribute to Commonweal, I consider your article beautiful, comprehensive, fair, just...
...SISTER EMILY CLEARY, OSF RiJhU & Wrmtffs Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y...
...nucleararmed bases surrounding the USSR, of the CIA lie and subversion and assassinatioo machine making the Soviet Union its main target...
...I like to think that "historical truth" fits better than "McCa~thyire extremes...
...I looked forward to the first issue of your publication to come out after his death, for I knew it would contain a worthy tribute to this great man...
...To the Editors: Heartiest congratulations on your excellent editorial on the death of Pope Paul [Aug...
...What is most depressing ~bout Mr...
...is the best possible model either, pa~tioularly in the area of economic democracy...
...and: above all, respectful and understanding of the weak and strong points that were apparent in the reign of this beloved Pontiff...
...But ~f the Soviet Uoiou has endorsed ehis right, it does not therefore follow ttmt the Soviets are "a thousand times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy...
...7'o the Editors: John Cort's promihent reference to my participation in the Christian-Marxist dialogue at Rosemont College (July 21 issue) distorted the meaning of my words but, more important, did not put them in context: he did" not mention the thematic subject around which I brought in the question of human rights and democracy in the United States and the Soviet Union...
Vol. 105 • September 1978 • No. 19
