The Dedijer Case
P., M.
THE STATE DEPARTMENT has denied Vladimir Dedijer admission to the United States and has thereby prevented him from taking up his duties as a visiting professor at MIT. That the government...
...It was his instinct of independence that thrust him forward...
...On each occasion, frightened authoritarians have sought to keep his voice from being heard in their land.—M...
...There is much to be said against the Stockholm proceedings...
...Moreover, he has often been accused of, and punished for, being pro-American...
...But that has nothing whatever to do with admitting him to the U.S...
...THE STATE DEPARTMENT has denied Vladimir Dedijer admission to the United States and has thereby prevented him from taking up his duties as a visiting professor at MIT...
...So while keeping Dedijer out of the country is at bottom an affront to liberty, it is also evidence of how panicky Washington has become...
...Having recently participated in the Russell COMMENTS AND OPINIONS tribunal, he has brought down on himself the official enmity of the United States, where, over the years, he has won many friends and admirers...
...and the wisdom of Dedijer's service in them may well be ques tioned...
...But there is a particular irony in the Dedijer case...
...first, as a resistance leader against the Nazis, second, as one of Tito's allies against Stalinism, and third, along with Djilas, as a defender of freedom against the Tito regime itself...
...That the government should so fear a critic as to shut our doors to him is a revealing commentary on the Johnson Administration's self-confidence...
...Dedijer is a maverick in the Communsit world...
Vol. 15 • March 1968 • No. 2
