Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR The New Leader welcomes readers' comment, regardless of point of view. For space reasons, however, we prefer letters under 300 words. Straight Line Still Shortest Distance Between Two...
...It just happened that both expressed criticism of American foreign policy on grounds which seemed to me unsound, and I criticized their criticisms in a single article...
...On the basis of this comment, Professor Davis attributes to me a doctrine of "objective disloyalty" which he characterizes as dangerous and implicitly totalitarian...
...I don't know whether or not John Carter Vincent was disloyal, but the record abundantly proves his ignorance and incompetence...
...Strike out" certainly suggests something far rougher than the right to criticize political views, which Mr...
...I feel, however, that I ought to make one point of clarification...
...No man can be held responsible for the opinions of those who quote him, and I would not have made so much of this quotation from Mr...
...Messrs...
...On the other hand, I agree completely with Mr...
...This is unjust alike to employe, administrator and public...
...Such tactics make rational political discussion quite impossible...
...Could Robert R. Young help it out...
...It was in support of this statement that they quoted Mr...
...Burnham properly asserts at the end of his letter...
...I want to revive the right to argue, without dragging in the question of "security" or "loyalty," that a man is mistaken on political matters...
...I concluded merely that he (and his policies) should not guide the affairs of the nation...
...In an article on the Wechsler hearing before the McCarthy Committee, I wrote last year: "It is not necessary to determine that Wechsler and his political associates are traitors in order to prove that they are mistaken in their convictions, false in their analyses, wrong in their advice, and through the results of their actions injurious to the interests of the nation...
...The Stalinist doctrine of "social-fascism" held that the Socialists help fascism come to power and are thus "the same"?objeelively'" or "historically" speaking—as fascists...
...Instead, they try to find evidence in their opponents' past of subjective or objective disloyalty which will rule them out of the patriotic community and put an emotional taboo on them, so that their arguments need not be answered at all...
...Similarly, I never objected on any grounds of disloyalty to Charles Bohlen's nomination as Ambassador to Moscow...
...Burnham...
...They wondered whether McCarthy's attack on Adlai Stevenson during the campaign was "a conscious effort to narrow the limits of tolerable opinion so as to exclude left-wing liberals...
...Our current obsessions are illustrated by the fact that it has become almost impossible to discharge Government officials for being incompetent, ignorant and stupid, or for supporting policies contrary to the duly adopted policies of a given administration...
...A review of Wechsler's The Age of Suspicion by Charles Alan Wright, in the Progressive, cites it as one of "a number of recent instances in which we have betrayed our democratic heritage...
...Straight Line Still Shortest Distance Between Two Points While reading your June 21 "Between Issues" column, I came across a real "how's-that-again...
...Wechsler himself, in his book, calls it a revival of the Communist theory of "social-fascism," and paraphrases my view as follows: "Though I [Wechsler] might not be a 'conscious' traitor, I deserved to be hanged because of what Dr...
...This is an embroidery by Wechsler, whose ethics in controversy do not invariably measure up to New Leader criteria...
...Kent, Conn...
...James Burnham It is very good indeed to have James Burnham dissociate himself on principle from the Mc-Carthyite intellectuals, to whom he is so vastly superior in integrity and in devotion to intellectual and cultural freedom...
...Or did you mean Wilmington, North Carolina...
...If I were going to Wilmington, I would be getting off about 100 miles this side of the capital...
...If William E. Bohn has been passing through Washington, D. C. without getting off on his way from New York to Wilmington, Delaware, he is wasting considerable time and money...
...I have never questioned his right to edit his newspaper, though I think it a lousy newspaper...
...Burnham in one of the most disquieting passages of their book...
...They themselves clearly endorsed such a limitation, going on to say: "Some day, the patience of America may at last be exhausted, and we will strike out against liberals...
...Almost the only way to get rid of a man is to prove, or pretend to prove, that he is a security risk or disloyal...
...Wright and Wechsler is one I do not hold...
...Burnham's use of the analogue of "social-fascism" makes the totalitarian nature of such tactics very clear...
...I do not wish to raise any controversy over a review which, though I naturally disagree with certain of its conclusions, is well within the limits of critical propriety...
...Of course I never said that Wechsler ought to be "hanged" because, as tested by the objective consequences of his predictions and acts, he has been wrong...
...I refuted and rejected Senator McCarthy's inference that Wechsler might still be a Communist, and his entire mode of reasoning to that effect—showing, incidentally, that it would apply a fortiori to Senator McCarthy himself...
...The line I take from New York, the Pennsylvania RR, goes through Wilmington on the way down to Washington...
...Paris William Henry Chamberlin...
...Brooklyn, N. Y. Stanley H. Brown Burnham Denies Supporting Idea of 'Objective Disloyalty' I have just read Professor Robert Gorham Davis's thoughtful discussion of my book, The Web of Subversion [The New Leader, May 10...
...There is no implication that Perry and Lippmann are in complete ideological agreement...
...But, at the same time, from the fact that Wechsler, or X, is not a Communist it does not follow that we must all pin medals on him, appoint him to the State Department, and adopt his policies...
...Why not once in a while throw a man out because he is no damn good...
...Burnham had not, in his enthusiastic endorsement of Medford Evans's The Secret War for the A-Bomb, given reason for supposing this his opinions were closer to those of Medford Evans and William Buckley Jr...
...As for Mr...
...Burnham decided were, the grievous consequences of my acts...
...Buckley and Bozell had quoted from Mr...
...Burnham in McCarthy and His Enemies if Mr...
...Robert G. Davis Denies Any Attempt to Link Views of Perry and Lippmann In connection with P. L. Duffy's letter in the July 12 New Leader, I would like to say that I made no attempt to link Ralph Barton Perry and Walter Lippmann in my article of June 14...
...Professor Davis quotes it not from its original source but from Messrs...
...I objected because he had upheld—and stated to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he still upheld—the Yalta policies...
...If I have written any words that suggest it to "an objective reader," then I hereby repudiate those words...
...Actually, I have seldom made any reference to "loyalty," except in a strictly formal and legal sense...
...One purpose of my critique of the Wechsler hearing was to combat any contemporary analogue of the theory of social-fascism—any theory, let us call it, of "liberal-Communism" —and any such doctrine as Professor Davis's "objective disloyalty...
...That seems to me reason enough to have ousted him from the high places that he occupied for so long...
...Unfortunately, as I see it there is nothing in Nehru's record on Korea, Indo-China and other issues of Communist aggression to suggest that he would react to the most flagrant case of Communist expansion with anything more effective than his contribution in Korea: an ambulance unit, a few jute bags and a great deal of defeatist back-seat driving...
...Buckley and Bozell's book on Senator McCarthy...
...A modest history has already become attached to this sentence of mine...
...than now appears to be the case...
...The doctrine apparently attributed to me by Professor Davis and fastened on me by Messrs...
...Stalin summarized: "Social Democracy and fascism are not opposites but twins...
...Therefore, he concluded in the early '30s, Communists should treat Socialists exactly like fascists...
...It is characteristic of the McCarthyites' tactics that they do not analyze arguments or try to put forward proposals superior to those of their opponents...
...Maybe the Pennsy does not know where it is going...
...Duffy's point about "winning" Nehru, this would certainly be desirable if it could be done without complete, appeasement of aggressive Communism...
...Burnham that the fact that someone has been attacked by McCarthy is not in itself any reason for supposing that his views are sound or his character impeccable...
...Northampton, Mass...
...At the same time, I assert, and will continue to exercise while I can, my right to criticize political views that I judge to be mistaken or injurious, and to endeavor to weaken the public influence of those who hold them...
Vol. 37 • July 1954 • No. 30
