Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR BUCKLEY'S REPLY Apropos of your criticism in "Between Issues" (October 5). I will start from the beginning: (1) I ridiculed New York Mayor Robert Wagner's hypocrisy in welcoming Soviet...
...The choice before it would be the cultivation of Hebrew or Yiddish...
...3) I wrote the Times to say—Look...
...This should be clearer to you than, evidently, it is...
...I have never yet heard it proposed that criminals be put quietly to sleep with drugs before being executed, in order to eliminate the pain of death...
...Communist movement—of greater interest to you, one supposes, than the fact that we want private power to build up Hell's Canyon while you want public power...
...Linguistically, Russian Jewry is reaching about the same stage in its development as American Jewry, with the disappearance of Yiddish as the spoken language on the part of the majority...
...When one talks about Catholic– Protestant–Jew, as I did, the reference is to the Jewish religion, not to a Jewish nationality or ethnic group...
...SOVIET JEWS I want to congratulate you on the special issue on "Jews in the Soviet Union" (NL, September 14...
...New York City EDWIN KENNEBECK...
...Chicago ABRAHAM G. DUKER DEATH PENALTY In reference to Edith H. Myers' letter (NL, September 7), I would like to ask why, if the death penalty is only to rid society of an unfit person, such horrible and painful methods are used for it...
...I should think you would have found it more relevant in characterizing National Review ("our arch–conservative contemporary" was your designation) to comment on the stamina and resourcefulness of our opposition to the THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...I was being ironic...
...New York City WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR...
...I intended to say nothing on the question (which doesn't interest me), Whom does Khrushchev hate most—a Jew, a Protestant or a Catholic...
...In relating the persecution of religious minorities to Mayor Wagner's conduct...
...4) You write a lumbering protest against my insensibility to the unique plight of the Jews in the Soviet Union...
...I will start from the beginning: (1) I ridiculed New York Mayor Robert Wagner's hypocrisy in welcoming Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev so soon after refusing to welcome King Ibn Saud...
...What I found missing in the report is an emphasis on the need for permission to study Hebrew, not only Yiddish...
...Why didn't you, by the way...
...2) Mr...
...Gassing, electrocution, hanging—there is more to these than merely the extermination of life...
...The responsibility for the misunderstanding is yours, and before you, Teller's...
...Judd Teller wrote to the New York Times suggesting that I had implicitly downgraded the severity of the persecution of the Jews—by offering as a possible reason why Wagner did as he did the fact that Catholics and Protestants are also being persecuted and killed, and therefore Khrushchev, unlike Saud, was at least not guilty of discrimination...
...Teller has missed my point altogether...
...I have found it very illuminating and useful, even for a specialist...
...When you write about the Bahamas, the Azores and the Canaries, you don't mean two sets of islands and one species of birds...
...Jews in the Soviet Union should, therefore, have the right to study Hebrew as the outstanding national language of the Jewish people today...
...My point is that, roughly speaking, Communism is equally opposed to all supernatural religions and persecutes people, yes and even kills them, for the offense of practicing their religion...
...To which I reply: I have been talking about the persecution of religious groups, not ethnic or nationality groups...
...It is my proudest belief that persecuted minorities—of every religion and race—had they the opportunity to survey American periodical literature, would point to National Review as pre–eminently combining compassion with their lot and the determination to press for a foreign policy that would bring them relief...
Vol. 42 • October 1959 • No. 38
