Dear Editor

...Carmichael's innuendoes concerning the nature of her loyalty to Communism and her revolt from it and his suggestions that she is moved by anti-Semitism, because she criticizes things done in Palestine by the Israelis, are grossly unfair...

...Today one would search in vain for policy alternatives to those Niebuhr rightly deplores— anything, that is, beyond similar generalities and similar perplexities...

...30), I am moved to write this thank-you note...

...Since I did not join the British Communist party until 1928 and ceased to be c member in 1931, after few months of residence in Moscow with my Russian Jewish husband had thoroughly disillusioned me, there is no truth whatsoever in Mr...

...Washington, D. C. Freda Utley Mr...

...Nazi persecution...

...EVALUATION My subscription to The New Leader did not come about just by chance, but rather by buying and reading your publication during the last eight months number by number...

...While a public review board of prominent clergymen and educators may make a union more acceptable to the general public, I think it deprives the rank and file of its basic right to solve its own problems...

...Miss Utley seems enraged by my "smearing" her as an anti-Semite, though I confined myself to the observation that there was a "thin thread of plain, old-fashioned anti-Semitism running through the book,'' and moreover left this observation for the end of my review...

...Had I propagandized for the Communists "before the war," I might have saved his life and even possibly procured his release...

...Few are more qualified than Reinhold Niebuhr to move on from alarmist statements to i systematic consideration of plausible alternatives...

...My own sentence, which simply pointed out that she had been a "talented British Communist propagandist, but underwent a violent revulsion"—all before the last war—does not seem to me to mistreat the facts...

...America can influence behavior in the Arab countries, but to believe that this can be done at the expense of Israel— which, to repeat, is not a real threat to the Arab peoples—is simply to be taken in by a propagandist trap...

...Without compliment I have to state that it is one of the few manifestations of well informed, true and clear thinking in the U. S. in these troubled times...

...New York City Ernest van den Haag...

...And I refrained from writing my indictment of the Soviet system and the Communist philosophy for some three years after I escaped to England with our two-year-old son only because I knew that to do so would mean my husband's death or his perpetual incarceration in the Arctic slave labor camp to which he had been condemned...

...George Fischer MIDDLE EAST Joel Carmichael's review of Freda Utley's Will the Middle East Go West...

...Thomas seems to believe) on her criticisms of "things done in Palestine by the Israelis...

...New York City S. Halas UNION DEMOCRACY In his December 23 article, "Some Thoughts on Union Democracy," Jack Barbash says: "The idea of the public review board of the kind adopted by the UAW and by the Upholsterers offers additional possibilities...

...You and the Tamiment Institute did very well to publish it...

...The answer, and with it the hope of a strong democratic labor movement, lies with the rank and file...

...Surely any fair-minded individual must agree that it is dangerous business to say that the Israeli Government is so immune to criticism that to criticize it is of itself proof of anti-Semitism...

...I raise these questions not out of any cussedness toward the union leadership, but as signs pointing to further avenues for investigation...

...her unwarranted magnification of the numbers of Jewish Communists in Israel, plus an undue emphasis on the legal status of the party there...

...Nor is Mr...

...I was briefly deluded into believing that they had abandoned their aim of establishing their own dictatorship because they had been transformed by the logic of history into a peasant reform movement...

...Here I must also register my rejection of Mr...

...Detroit Frank Marquart DEFENSE Having just read the special section by Klaus Knorr, "The Crisis in U. S. Defense" (NL, Dec...

...Carmichaers description of me as an internationally famous Communist propagandist "before the war"—a phrase which implies up to 1939...

...In any case, I did not rest this observation (as Mr...

...I sincerely hope publications like yours will still be able to turn the tide in the heart of the U. S. public, though time is running out fast...

...Carl Dibble I wish to congratulate Professor Klaus Knorr on his incisive, comprehensive and very useful analysis of the military situation...

...Carmichaers calumny, as well as to give your readers some idea of the contents of my book, Will the Middle East Go West...

...and her otherwise incomprehensible slip in describing Commentary magazine (published by the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee) as Israeli...

...Carmichael's racial concepts about "Russians" and "Chinese...

...Until this is done, the gaping void will in itself remain a prime cause of the country's global "status panic.'' Cambridge, Mass...

...the fatuously complacent propaganda of the Arab bloc leadership seduced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs into believing that they would return for glory and plunder after the annihilation of the Israeli forces...

...Surely, whether my book is right or wrong, I deserve a serious discussion of the issues I raise, not diatribe of this kind which serves only to blind the American people to the truth and prevent them from facing up to the challenge of Soviet imperialism and Communist hypocrisy before it is too late...

...Shifting this responsibility to an outside group is not the answer to the problem...

...Usually such opposition has been stigmatized by the leadership as "union wrecking...

...I am convinced that if we continue to deny the legitimate aspirations of the Arab peoples for unity, liberty and progress, the end result in the Middle East is likely to be tragedy...

...Isn't the struggle to establish vital union democracy a phase of the wider struggle to replace free-enterprise philosophy and marketplace values by ™ basic labor philosophy and broader social values...

...Repeatedly he refers to the role that leadership must play in communicating democracy to the rank and file...

...Although it has Niebuhr's customary trenchancy and relevancy, the article only alludes to the deep roots of current foreign policy in the whole makeup and tenor of American life...

...Toledo, Ohio Dan Thomas Jack Barbash is to be commended for stressing that the labor movement must assume the major responsibility for revitalizing union democracy...

...He is also to be commended for pointing out that "the labor movement will do well to explore further the kind of grooves that can be cut in the normal structure of the union and admit the give and take of opinion within the union...

...Barbash's emphasis on leadership calls to mind some critical questions...

...If leaders themselves lack these broader social values and democratic attitudes, how can they be expected to communicate them to the rank and file...

...I have known Miss Utley for ^ great many years...

...In fact, the whole concept of outside control is a little reactionary...

...But, after the evidence afforded by the Chinese Communist reaction to the Stalin-Hitler Pact and to the Russo-Japanese entente that followed, which caused the Chinese Communists to concentrate their fire on the Nationalists instead of on the Japanese, I realized and wrote that there could no longer be any doubt that they were as subservient to Moscow as all the other Communist parties in the world...

...I quite agree that a constructive program would be helpful, and that the United States could be instrumental in applying it—though not simply by taking Nasser at his face value as Miss Utley does...

...Berkeley, Calif...

...I was one of many indebted to her for her comparatively early revelation of the real nature of Communism in Russia...

...He says that "the union leadership must act out of conviction that democracy is worthwhile even if occasionally inconvenient...

...The real problems of the Arab states can doubtless be solved, but precisely by a constructive program of development which has been lacking so far and not by harping on arid generalities...

...Readers can judge all this for themselves...

...It is common knowledge that the overwhelming majority of the Arabs fled as a result of the war launched by five Arab states against the United Nations partition plan...

...It seemed to me relatively trivial point in view of the book's fundamental shortcomings...

...My main contention is that, whereas we paved the way for the Communist conquest of China by regarding Communists as liberals and progressives, so today, by reverse process, we are in danger of pushing the Middle East into Moscow's arms because we regard Arab liberals and progressives as Communists...

...My plea is for a compromise peace brought about by America...

...Carmichael replies: As I read Miss Utley's protest, she admits that she was a member of the British Communist party from 1928 to 1931 and that she did not recover from her "delusion" about the Chinese Communists until after the Stalin-Hitler Pact...

...This is the fact that the paucity of ideas is not at all restricted to one party or non-liberals or non-intellectuals...

...How many labor leaders are equipped with such a labor philosophy—how many possess what Barbash calls "the will to democracy . . . an awareness and sensitivity to the responsibilities and occasional inconveniences involved in the exercise of democratic rights...

...And it is silent about another neglected aspect of our present alarms and travails...

...It also requires that the Arabs forgive and forget the injustice done to them when Truman and Stalin used their joint influence in the UN to force through the decree for the partition of Palestine which resulted in the expulsion of 700,000 of its inhabitants to make way for the survivors of The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...

...It is rather his failure to inform your readers concerning the contents and thesis of my book...

...Surely union democracy (or any other kind of democracy) cannot be achieved without the rank and file being trained in the democratic processes and assuming the responsibility for implementing them...

...On some issues, she and I have differed very decidedly...

...Labor history records few leaders who made honest and determined efforts to build constructive opposition to their administration...

...Finally, isn't the fetishistic emphasis on the leadership principle inconsistent with the very spirit of union grassroots democracy...

...She did not, however, at once turn on all Communists indiscriminately, but for some time managed to find in the exotic Chinese many of the virtues she found lacking in the Russians.'' I trust that The New Leader will allow me space to refute Mr...

...It is because Miss Utley's book restricts itself to the most superficial level of political discussion that I thought it so unsatisfactory a performance for an experienced writer...

...As regards the Middle East, the term "anti-Semite" is totally meaningless, since the Arabs have at least as good „ claim as the Jews to be regarded as Semitic...

...This requires that Israel abandon her aim of "ingathering'' the Jews from all over the world, and thus allay the Arab fear that, with U. S. financial support, Israel will further expand her territory and expropriate and expel millions more of the original Arab inhabitants...

...If we would admit the Arabs' legitimate grievance, cease supporting Israel right or wrong with American dollars, give some assurance to the Arabs that it shall not happen again, and in general pursue the principled line followed by President Eisenhower during the Suez war, I think there is hope that the Middle East will not turn to Moscow in despair of securing justice, equality and security in companionship with the West...

...6) is so wide of the mark that I can only regard it as a deliberate smear...

...To my mind, the book is a. forceful and well-reasoned presentation of this thesis: Unless the West promptly and wholly rids itself of not only colonies, but also the relics of colonial privilege and of a colonial state of mind, the Middle East, like China, will fall to Coimmunism...

...However, he apparently believes that, if democracy is to become viable in the trade union movement, the initiative must come from the top down...

...Now, I do not regard it as a crime to have been a Communist or to have admired the Chinese Reds: I made this point about Miss Utley's several changes of heart simply as evidence of what I think it perfectly fair—and hardly a "calumny"—to call political instability...

...As I see it, the Arabs who have turned to Moscow for aid —as a last resort—are no more Communist than Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, who similarly turned to Moscow for aid in 1923-27 and thus opened the door to the Communist conquest of China a quarter of a century later...

...Now, every student of the labor movement knows that opposition and conflict form the lifeblood of union democracy...

...Carmichael any more truthful in what he writes about my attitude toward the Chinese Communists...

...But Mr...

...He has no right to base his criticism so largely on his suppositions (often erroneous) concerning the author rather than on careful examination of her contentions...

...As all who have read my 1940 book The Dream We Lost recall, I stayed on in Russia until my husband's arrest in 1936 only because he, being a Soviet subject, could not leave...

...But my greatest regret is not Mr...

...Instead, following the Stalin-Hitler Pact, I decided that he himself would have wished me to write my book, even though it would destroy all hope of his release and might mean his death if he had not already died as a result of starvation and overwork...

...New York City C. Dickerman Williams I was shocked by the whole tone of Joel Carmichael's review of Freda Utley's book and by his innuendoes against its author...

...New York City Norman Thomas It seems almost incredible to me that The New Leader not only permitted Joel Carmichael to smear me as an anti-Semite in his "review," but allowed him to publish the following statement which is the very reverse of the truth: "Before the last war, Miss Freda Utley acquired considerable international reputation as one of the most talented British Communist propagandists, but underwent a violent revulsion and emerged as characteristically dedicated anti-Coimimunist...

...Anyone familiar with the liberature on American military defense policy can tell you that your study is the best short summary of the topic available to the public...

...Her book's reference to Toynbee's equation is all the more significant since a pivotal point in her letter is again the myth that the Arabs were somehow "expelled" from Palestine during the establishment of the State of Israel...

...True, in 1938 in China I thought that the Chinese Communists would maintain their united front with the Nationalists against Japan...

...Car-michael has every right as a critic to differ sharply from many of Miss Utley's opinions...

...It will certainly be a tragedy for Israel, which will be wiped out if ever the Arab states throw in their lot with the Soviet Empire and are thus enabled to "drive Israel into the sea...

...In searching out inferences about union democracy, isn't it advisable to explore and expose the increasingly refined techniques by which so-called democracy in most unions actually becomes "controlled democracy"—the kind of democracy under which major decisions and even the union members themselves are manipulated by the leadership at all levels of the union hierarchy...

...I regarded as significant the following points: her use of the word "forfeit" (Jews "forfeited" their claim to the Holy Land) ; her use of Toynbee's notorious equation of the Jews and the Nazis...

...Carmichael's personal smear of me...

...As for Miss Utley's exculpation of herself by her reference to the Arabs as Semites, it seems to me that neither she nor I should waste New Leader space on this confusion of philology with politics...

...I consider both the Russians and the Chinese as the victims of Communist tyranny...

...I never repudiated or indicted "the Russians" or found them lacking in "virtues" possessed by "the Chinese...