Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR KENNAN Donald W. Treadgold, in the course of atomizing "George Kennan's Neo-Isolationism" [NL, September 3], writes that "a la Arnold Toynbee" Kennan speaks of a "mellowing process...
...Obviously, then, if one accepts Toynbee's analysis of history, the theory of "containment" is foredoomed to failure...
...He was ousted, however, because of his opposition to World War I. Milwaukee JOHN M. WORK...
...This, he claims, gave the Reds an "excuse" to continue the war for an extra five weeks...
...The Communists did not need an excuse to start the war, nor did they need excuses to drag out the truce talks for two bloody years...
...Viewers also must have recognized that, while the civil-rights fight was to some extent unveiled to the public by the Democrats, it was kept under wraps by the Republicans...
...Indeed, there was more than one "flash of genuine excitement" at the Chicago "carnival," but none on open display at the San Francisco "coronation...
...Once the prisoners were released, the Reds fought only long enough to impress people who think in terms of "excuses...
...As I read Toynbee, one of his key historical axioms is: "When a frontier between civilization and barbarism stands still, time always works in the barbarians' favor...
...DEAR EDITOR KENNAN Donald W. Treadgold, in the course of atomizing "George Kennan's Neo-Isolationism" [NL, September 3], writes that "a la Arnold Toynbee" Kennan speaks of a "mellowing process which overtakes sooner or later all militant movements.'' I suggest that it is unfair to Toynbee to imply that this quotation puts him in the same intellectual camp with Kennan...
...New York City CHARLES W. WILEY SOCIALIST I read with great interest William E. Bohn's August 20 column on Julius Gerber, and I fully agree that Gerber was especially endowed with talent for political activity...
...They stopped fighting when they had more to gain by talking...
...Washington, D. C. SIDNEY KORETZ KOREAN WAR In his letter in the August 27 NEW LEADER, Richard Leibowitz attacks Korean President Syngman Rhee for releasing the anti-Communist prisoners of war in 1953...
...Havre de Grace, Md...
...When the war became stalemated, the Communists continued fighting in the hope that we would turn over the prisoners to them...
...The latter certainly gave the public a glimpse of men presenting their views with passionate sincerity...
...MONTGOMERY M. GREEN CONVENTIONS William Henry Chamberlin's "Into the Home Stretch" [NL, August 27] minimizes the differences between the Republican and Democratic conventions by saying: "The one flash of genuine excitement in either convention was the Democratic balloting for the Vice Presidential nomination.'' Television viewers, I am sure, found other exciting flashes in the Chicago parley...
...Berger himself was elected to Congress and had an excellent record...
...The great tragedy is that the prisoners were not released two years earlier...
...statements to reporters on the civil-rights issue by Senators from the North and South...
...Chamberlin obviously missed or ignored the debate within the California caucus and the THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 teords...
...They fought in Korea when it suited their plans...
...He built up the Socialist movement in Milwaukee to the point where it elected the Mayor and majority of the City Council...
...Leibowitz does not mention that the Korean War had been raging for three years before President Rhee took this action...
...I should also like to call attention to another Socialist who displayed unusual ability in politics, Victor L. Berger...
...They not only cleaned up local corruption but did such good job that Milwaukee soon became nationally recognized as the best governed city in the United States...
Vol. 39 • September 1956 • No. 38
