ARTICLE ON ROOSEVELT BLASTED AS 'EULOGY'

Pasternak, Harry

Article on Roosevelt Blasted as 'Eulogy From HARM PASTERNAK IT IS MY PRIVILEGE to differ with the article by Daniel James (The New Leader, April 16), eulogizing the late Franklin D. Roosevelt I...

...I may be wrong, but f am inclined to thmk tJtnt had Roosevelt lived to experience first-hand, as u>e nave, the naked realities of Russia?] postwar policy, he might have come to the same conclusions Mr...
...Pasternak and many others have been quick to denounce Yalta and, Teheran—yes, and our recognition of Russia in- 1933—as the primarty-iburces of our present dilemma...
...It is also far from the "l-hOte-Rooao6eM" position...
...As I stated in my article, these ore precisely the aspects of Mr...
...We have seen it in Germany before Hitler came to power, and in France during the Thirties when wise .men...
...Surely this is a far ery from a "eulogy" of Franklin D. Roosevelt...
...Some of them even tried to appease their prospective executors by telling them what to do in case the first attack should fail...
...Dear Editor The New Leader encourages mil letters, irrespective of tubjtct or point of view...
...Of course, not all the participants belonged to that same religious sect, nor can they sufficiently be defined by the word "fellow-traveller...
...Among them were people who, later on, after their country had been overrun, joined the resistance in a heroic attempt to correct their previous errors, the same people, by the way, who are now trying to prove to us, once again, that in the struggle between East and West both sides are equally guilty...
...As an artist, a scientist, an independant thinker who is concerned with abstract values, I may reject the alternative imposed upon me, by withdrawing into a World of my own...
...It is a new mass movement, a World SED, aimed at the control of the intellectuals, both here and abroad, and through them, of the means of mass communications on the eve of a possible new war...
...As: a foreign correspondent who witnessed this amazing spectacle in the midst of our enlightened century, I'm disturbed and alarmed by what I saw .during those days of collective trance, commonly known as the "Cultural and Scientific Conference on World Peace...
...They were not always premature collaborationists...
...But during that time, how many Americans did...
...To be frank, there is no such thing as a "third force" in politics...
...Fellow Travelers Guilty Of Intellectual Flagellantism From HANS SAHL DAflCERS, BISHOPS, WKVD-AGENTS...
...New York...
...Thit it your department...
...Its purpose is to divide* and split public opinion and to bring about the political and intellectual disarmament of the peoples of the West...
...When I read the meticulous accounts of their ideological bickerings and then, as in Sioux City, glance over the edge of the paper and see the prairie rolling away for a hundred miles, I am forced to conclude that such reading matter has very little nutriment for us...
...Your stand on totalitarianism is beyond a doubt the most logical, and deserves the gratitude of all freedom loving people everywhere...
...loft hear from you...
...But once I enter the political scene with the explicit purpose of taking part in it, I cannot remain the "impartial" observer of a conflict in which my own interest arc involved...
...How long will it take to recover from the effects of Yalta and Teheran...
...This'kind of intellectual flagellantism, of moral self - punishment, of voluntary submission to the very forces wt>ich aim at their destruction, is not new...
...Article on Roosevelt Blasted as 'Eulogy From HARM PASTERNAK IT IS MY PRIVILEGE to differ with the article by Daniel James (The New Leader, April 16), eulogizing the late Franklin D. Roosevelt I believe impartial and truthful history will appraise the man and his deeds separately...
...Chicago, 111...
...New York, N. V. Pay Your Money, Take Your Choice From BRUCE C. HOPPER f F I HAD the money I should be most happy to share it with The New Leader...
...In conclusion, let me repeat what I believe the core of my article to be: "This is the time," I wrote, "to express doubt and criticism, to begin tireless inquiry and research, to essay a fresh evaluation—for the 'Neu...
...Pasternak apparently belongs—which sees little but evil in it...
...I'm not so sure that history is susceptible to such an overly simple interpretation...
...tried to convince us that Hitler was tight in claiming the Saar, Danzig, Austria and half of Europe, including France itself...
...Los Angeles, Calif...
...No sooner had this strange exhibition started than outcries of ecstatic self-accusations were heard, inspired by an almost delirious desire to condemn this country as the birth-place of the Devil...
...By* the same token, it will probably become more generally known that his general desire for the 'limelight" or leadership caused him many times to desert his avowed intentions on the basis of political expediency...
...Granted that FDR did not have the most profound understanding in the world of tlie nature of communism...
...They behaved like people who while being attacked from the rear, wanted to "hear both sides" before being shot in the neck...
...From WALTER J, MILLARD YOUR OFFICE is the haven of European Socialists who have suffered at the hands of the Communists in their native lands...
...A Reply "J From DANIEL JAMES JUt > ¦ " IrlY PIECE ON FDR tried not to "eulogize" him, but to place him in some sort of perspective, t am equally inpatient with that school which sees nothing but good in Mr...
...Under the guidance of a near-sighted astronomer, they performed a kind of .religious black mass devoted to the Founder of a new Byzantinism, who, although his name was not mentioned, watched in holy absence his adherents' faithful services...
...Pasternak himself holds...
...Bo that we can print tht grealeil number of divergent opinions on dims* subjects, wo request you limit your letters to 250 words or lots...
...M There can be no question as to FDR's ability as a political leader, a votemaker, and a political strategist of the first water...
...Cambridge, Mats...
...His main interest was votes—not how he got them—because he often went far off the line of the truth to get the votes and often resorted to shady deals and plain distortion of facts...
...They don't think very much of intellectuals anyhow...
...Pacifism, once again, has become a weapon in the struggle for world conquest...
...Did he have title to Korea, China, Manchuria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Danube countries—so that he could calmly hand them over to Russia...
...i. e., his unquestionable Intentions on the one side and his ability to bring these intentions into being on the other...
...Consequently, your paper gives, not only, their serious essays, but their trivial bickerings, an undue amount of space—that is, if you are editing a paper for the whole country...
...Roosevelt's administration which require much more than superficial study...
...chrystallographers, playwrights, composers and mineralogists joined in one of the most impressive shows in the history of human self-degradation...
...These are wrongs of such depth that whatever or however good his intents may have been, he must go down in history as a most incompetent man, even to be invested with the powers lie had, acquired or took—or else he may have become medically incompetent in his last months or years...
...Deal' (and its later progeny, the 'Fair Deaf) is not adequate to the problems presented by our bitter postwar experience...
...Apart from the' true believers, there were believers without faith, half-innocent victims of a century-old liberal tradition which they were unable to adapt to the political realities of our days...
...Keep up the good work...
...Enclosed is ( ); my sincere appreciation of your work goes with it...
...Roosevelt's career, and with that—to which Mr...
...N. Y. He Likes Us Pram JOSEPH GOLDMAN In MY OPINION* The New Leader \t the foremost liberal weekly in America...
...Americans in general are inclined to minimise the effects of such a conference...
...From the time of the recognition of the Russian Soviets, when he was badly fooled by Litvinov, he steadily pursued a futile course in dealing with that savage government—a course that was so impractical and unfair to the rest of the world that one can easily believe the evils resulting from his dealing's with that gang of cutthroats will be felt for a thousand years or more...
...They were perfect hosts to crime, always eager to please their foreign guests, to comply with their demands and to suffer the propaganda blows which rained upon their tormented bodies...
...How many Americans understand it today...
...Of all the articles written about this conference, very few seem to have grasped the fact that what we are confronted with is not the accidental failure of some outstanding artists and scientists...

Vol. 32 • April 1949 • No. 18


 
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