Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR Djilas Appeal The excellence of Milovan Djilas's book, The New Class, the manuscript of which had to be smuggled out of Yugoslavia, should again arouse widespread American interest in...
...Pastore is right when he states that he did not join the Communists in the "permanent cause" amendment to the agrarian-con tracts bill...
...It contains grave inaccuracies concerning my attitudes which I should like to correct...
...I overdid it by omitting three words...
...labor federation...
...In short, isn't the public joining our two Presidents in "hoping and believing" all over again...
...Truman sat down to negotiate and two years later Eisenhower signed on the dotted line at Panmunjon...
...Moreover, we publicly affirmed our agreement "with that part of the proposed law which would have assured the sharecroppers 15 years' stay on their farms...
...They were joined in this view by the left wing of the Social Democrats and by a group of Christian Democratic labor chiefs led by Giulio Pastore, general secretary of the CISl...
...DEAR EDITOR Djilas Appeal The excellence of Milovan Djilas's book, The New Class, the manuscript of which had to be smuggled out of Yugoslavia, should again arouse widespread American interest in his fate...
...It is probably true that reasons of public policy compel us to bid against Russia for this dictator's favor...
...Carbon copies of such letters might well be sent to our own State Department...
...He continues: "Then came the United States decision on Greece and Turkey, the Truman Doctrine Communist seizure of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin airlift...
...And isn't a bigger series of eye-openers coming in Poland, East Germany, Hungary and maybe the Middle East, Africa, Vietnam and Korea...
...The slip I made was u. result of my desire to simplify matters for the American reader...
...Roosevelt and Churchill told them so...
...New York City Norman Thomas italian labor Having just returned from the World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Tunis, I have just had an opportunity to read Sigfrido Ciccotti's June 10 article on "Italy's New Cabinet...
...For example, in discussing the controversy over the bill on agrarian contracts, Ciccotti says: " but the Communists and Nenni Socialists moved that the 'just cause* provision be permanent rather than of 12 or 18 years' duration...
...Benton says: "In 1945, millions of Americans hoped and believed that the Western world would get along with the Soviet Union.'7 Quite correct...
...The sentence should have read: "They (the Nenni Socialists and Communists) were joined in their opposition by the left wing of the Social Democrats and by a group of Christian Democratic labor chiefs led by Giulio Pastore, general secretary of the CISL labor federation...
...Benton's list of eye-openers was followed by another sleeping pill which was administered, according to your pages, by two great leaders...
...Rome Giulio Pastore Mr...
...I see from the newspapers that Tito, having accepted aid from the United States, has now worked out a deal for economic aid with the Soviet Union...
...Ciccotti replies: Mr...
...could list the Berlin and Geneva conferences in 1954, the Indo-China agreement, and the Geneva conference in 1955—with Joe McCarthy's dying voice scarcely heard in protest...
...I should suggest a flood of letters and postcards to the Yugoslav Ambassador Leo Mates in Washington, urging Djilas's release...
...In the name of humanity, he should at the very least be given an opportunity to seek sanctuary outside the land which he has loved and sought to serve...
...But he introduced other amendments to the law to which the Segni cabinet had attached the confidence vote, and this opposition, along with that of the Nenni Socialists and Communists, contributed to the downfall of the democratic coalition government...
...And finally, one could add the Johnson-Wang conferences in Geneva over the past three years, UN activities in Korea since the truce, the Suez settlement, and the current disarmament talks in London...
...Certainly it can use unofficial, if not official, influence in this case...
...New York City Alfred Kohlberg dialogue Your special July 8 feature, "Dialogue With a Soviet Writer," was fascinating...
...Probably his government sins less than Moscow against fundamental human dignity and rights, but I hate this process of competitive bidding for the favor of a dictator...
...From an absolutely reliable source, I learn that his family and friends doubt if he can live through another winter in the jail where he is confined for the crime of writing an article for The New Leader and criticizing dictatorship...
...Tito might at least allow his old friend and comrade a chance to live rather than to die in an unheated prison...
...Can you not go along with Benton and conclude that 1 bigger and better McCarthy will be justified on the second round of dissillusion-ment...
...Without taking issue with any of his statements, which speak for themselves,*I am surprised that in writing the introduction and printing the piece you did not draw the conclusions that should, it seems to me, have struck anyone who has been a reader of your magazine for the past three years...
...The fact is that not only were the CI SiDeputies, and I with them, against the Communist and Nenni Socialist demand for "permanent just cause," but we were the only ones who courageously denounced the purely propagandists and demagogic character of the position taken by the two extreme left parties...
...Los Angeles Robert H. Killwyn...
...At the very least, we American citizens and taxpayers should make plain our opinion of the man and the government which keep Milovan Djilas in jail because he has dared to think out loud—and brilliantly—in criticism of Communism and praise for democratic socialism...
...Truman and CONTIMTD ON MAT PACK Eisenhower...
...atomic weapons in the Soviet Union, the fall of China, and finally the Communist aggression in Korea But why not carry this further—from material appearing in The New Leader...
...McCarthy Former Senator William Benton's article, "Europe and McCarthy" (NL, July 22), does show him to be a liberal of better than common judgment, as you say...
...Then you...
...Ivan Anissimov was the Russian lamb led and polemically slaughtered (so neatly) by Ignazio Silone...
Vol. 40 • August 1957 • No. 32
