An Open Letter to Bertrand Russell
THOMAS, NORMAN
Norman Thomas Writes An Open Letter to Bertrand Russell My Dear Earl Russell: I AM one of many thousands throughout the world who owe you a great debt for your straight thinking and cogent...
...I do not boast when I say that I have better earned my right to correct the record than you to advance your sweeping charges...
...Would you uncritically have written an introduction to his book without independent examination into its allegations...
...When a sufficient state of terror has been produced by these means, the victim is informed that there is a way out...
...But some of your comparisons of America, for instance to France in 1793, are terribly far fetched...
...Your introduction to Mr...
...Your introduction would be excusable in a victim but not in a philosopher looking on the scene from afar through another man's spectacles...
...Lamont publicly became mildly critical of Soviet Communism...
...If you will search your memory or your files, I think you will discover that you were informed back in the Thirties of Corliss Lamont's defense of the Moscow purge trials and his attack on Professor John Dewey and others who organized a commission of inquiry into those trials...
...Nevertheless, I myself presided over a debate between him and Peter Viereck around the time of the Czech purge trial in which Mr...
...Sincerely yours, Norman Thomas...
...But he telegraphed a protest to Dr...
...Lamont's, but his book, and more especially your introduction, by their exaggerations help neither us Americans in our struggle for more perfect fulfillment of our own ideals of freedom nor you British in your understanding of those struggles and of America...
...Lamont spoke of "only two million slaves in Communist work camps," and seemed to accept at face value various charges already circulated against Communism's victims in Czechoslovakia...
...Therefore, it is with regret that I feel constrained to deplore in this open letter your introduction to the British edition of Corliss Lamont's book, entitled Freedom Is as Freedom Does...
...Here your exaggeration is so great as to approach falsehood...
...Other grave offenses have been committed in loyalty and security proceedings...
...So, alas, is your optimism about the degree of change for the better in Russia...
...Long ago, at a troubled time in my own life, your Free Man's Worship helped me to believe that life's struggle is not in vain...
...For example, you write: "Members of the FBI join even mildly liberal organizations as spies and report any unguarded word...
...The question is rhetorical, for I know that your answer would be no...
...I speak what I know from wide and long experience...
...However, it is simply untrue to allege that "anybody who goes so fains to support equal rights for colored people, or to «ay a good word for the UN" is liable to the treatment which you have reported...
...In view of the desire you have lately evinced, perhaps unconsciously, to use the blackest possible paint in depicting the American scene, I suppose I should credit your conscious effort at fair play when you admit that other countries are or have been "liable to waves of hysteria...
...Lamont had been an American concerned, with some reason, for the state of American civil liberties, who, back in the Thirties, had made the same kind of defense of Hitler's regime which he offered of the Stalinist terror...
...If you want an objective, up-to-date statement of the present situation, I refer you to Maurice J. Goldbloom's article, "New Moderation in Security," in the November issue of Commentary...
...Some years later, even before Khrushchev by example gave permission for Communists and their friends to find faults in Stalin, Mr...
...The FBI has been an agent (but not of its own motion the chief sinner) in proceedings which deserve denunciation...
...In a radio speech defending these Moscow trials, Mr...
...Insofar as vicious economic and social pressure on individuals is concerned, that is less widespread than you imply and is generally the work of unofficial groups (like the Communists themselves in the days of their comparative influence in the labor unions and elsewhere) rather than of the FBI...
...and we cannot believe that a system of justice is completely out of step with its splendid accomplishments in practically all other fields...
...Suppose Mr...
...Lamont's statements—since obviously his book is controversial not only as against McCarthyists, who are growing steadily weaker in the United States, but also as against individuals and organizations whose services to freedom have been at least as effective as his own, and which have not, like his, been compromised by the application of a double standard: extraordinary leniency in judging Communist crimes and great severity in denouncing, somewhat uncritically, every American abridgement of liberty in our exaggerated concern for security...
...Norman Thomas Writes An Open Letter to Bertrand Russell My Dear Earl Russell: I AM one of many thousands throughout the world who owe you a great debt for your straight thinking and cogent writing on philosophical and social problems of enormous significance to mankind...
...Your criticism of the official board of the Girl Scouts in letting their Hand-booh be edited by McCarthyists is just, but it does not take account of the fact that, even so, the edited Handbook contains accurate and favorable information about the UN, respect for which is increasing in America...
...There have indeed been outrageous offenses in America against individual liberty, notably in the Smith Act and its enforcement—which Communists enthusiastically applauded when Trot-skyists and alleged pro-Nazis were the victims...
...Anybody who goes so far as to support equal rights for colored people, or to say a good word for the UN, is liable to visit by officers of the FBI and threatened, if not with prosecution, at least with blacklisting and consequent inability to earn a living...
...I am deeply anti-Communist—as, I think, are you —but that has not prevented me from fighting our Smith Act and spending time and money in defense of certain of its Communist victims...
...Lamont said: "The Soviet regime and its achievements are indivisible...
...Lamont's book, you go rather beyond it in statements which his book does not properly support...
...Dewey attacking his committee's carefully argued declaration that the trials of Trotsky and others were frameups...
...Dewey an agent of fascism...
...Thus was the GPU vindicated...
...Let the Hungarians bear witness...
...Even with the subsiding of McCarthyism, civil liberties still need defense and enlargement...
...I write less in defense of my country than of the truth...
...Yet not only do you lend the weight of your great reputation to endorsing Mr...
...La-mont, who in 1938 was not a member of the Communist party but was national chairman of the Friends of the Soviet Union, remained silent when his Communist party associates called Dr...
...The FBI does not have spies widely distributed in "even mildly liberal organizations...
...I find it odd that a philosopher so concerned as vou with mathematical accuracy and logic should have accepted without more inquiry all Mr...
...if he will denounce a sufficient number of his friends, he may obtain absolution...
...Lamont's book does less than justice to recent decisions of our Federal courts and the general improvement of public opinion which you do, indeed, somewhat reluctantly admit...
...I respect your devotion to civil liberties, as indeed I respect Mr...
Vol. 40 • January 1957 • No. 1
