Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR HOOK ON RUSSELL I wish to express my complete agreement with Sidney Hook's article, "Peace and Freedom" (NL, April 11). I feel that his comments are both morally and historically...
...Ex hypothesi the motive of solidarity against an external enemy would have disappeared as a restriction on internal fights for power...
...Much that is desired can hardly take place, including the "cure" of grandfather, who will inevitably die (a gratuitous opening for a liberal riposte, but still true...
...It is important that the name of the author of The Hidden Russia be linked with that of his illustrious grandfather, who had done so much to inform the world of the hideous crimes of the Soviet regime since its inception...
...Could there he any other issue...
...In line with Hook's hope of calling "attention to problems which many well-meaning people throughout the free world would rather not face," I shall try to bring this article to the attention of my friends here at the Harvard Law School where I am currently a student...
...The choice actually open to mankind may be acceptance of some risk of nuclear war in the immediate future with the hope of securing a genuine nuclear disarmament system or the THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...Anyway, here is a rousing cheer to Hook for unfailing clarity, directness and enmity to hokum, however nobly phrased...
...LINDSAY OF BIRKER Us long-hairs don't often write fan letters, but I think it's about time I sent one...
...Shall we begrudge the few pennies required to "cure grandfather" merely to pander to the gargantuan anti-social selfishness of the "opponents of the Forand Bill...
...As a former student of Russian history, both at the University of Washington and at the Columbia University Russian Institute, I find his fears well-founded...
...A divorce is the usual outcome, but many do not resort to that, hoping the wife's condition will be cured, which in rare instances happens...
...Los Angeles BENJAMIN AARON HAVELOCK ELLIS The point made by George Kimmelman ("Dear Editor," NL, March 7) that Havelock Ellis did not drive his wife to suicide by his infidelities, but that prior to any such infidelity the wife admitted to lesbian affairs, is essential to an understanding of the matter...
...If he gets a divorce, he is a scoundrel who breaks up a home, because some people regard lesbian behavior as if it were a bad cold...
...All lesbians are psychopathological according to Dr...
...Could it happen here...
...acceptance, through surrender, of a much greater risk of nuclear conflict within a Communist-ruled world...
...While I have always found Hook's writings valuable, especially those dealing with Marxism, articles such as the last one are especially important to me...
...Cambridge, Mass...
...The problem of providing medical care to the aged is not simply choosing to help the "good guys" win their inevitable victory over the "bad guys...
...Avoca, N.Y...
...It is Krasnov, the grandson of the famous general and anti-Communist author, Peter N. Krasnov...
...I am especially glad Hook returned to the debate with Bertrand Russell, because I was appalled by Russell's naivete in responding to Edward Teller on television recently...
...And the type of man who rises to the top in totalitarian systems often becomes paranoid...
...Clara Thompson, a psychiatrist at St...
...Or is efficiency in this field a foul idea dragged in to mask cruel indifference to unecessary suffering...
...Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington...
...What will happen to our working population when they find themselves on a waiting list, unable to obtain hospital care required to maintain their productive abilities...
...Their suicide rate is very high, whether in marriage or in an unmarried state...
...As a "liberal," I am frequently uneasy at the position on this issue commonly taken by my contemporaries...
...New York City LEO ROSTEN MEDICAL CARE THE NEW LEADER does well to call attention to the tragic consequences of the impact of aroused expectations on the inadequate social structure of Latin America ("Communism in Latin America," Richard C. Hottelet, NL, April 4...
...From beginning to end your reviewer, Norbert Muhlen, gives the name as "Krashnov...
...Thus, surrender to a totalitarian system might only remove the immediate risk of nuclear war at the expense of making nuclear war more likely in the future...
...I wonder what Robert E. Fitch, your reviewer, would advise...
...If he takes mistresses, as Ellis did, he is a "fraud" and the villain of the piece...
...The "conservatives" are likely to be against any efforts at reaching a settlement...
...The "liberals" seem to feel that to insist upon any safeguards is a mark of bad faith...
...I do not quarrel with his proposals for speeding up the drive to obtain equal rights for minorities in unions, but I am convinced that further measures are necessary...
...New York City BERNARD HERMAN 'TELL THE WEST' It might be well to correct the misspelling of the name of the author of The Hidden Russia (NL, April 18...
...I have long been an admirer of Russell's non-political writing and thought, but his political mystifications in the past five years simply baffle me...
...Washington, D.C...
...what occasions this billet-doux is his most recent article...
...That is the only practical way, it seems to me, in which unions can be compelled to conform to the national labor policy and to the constitution of the AFL-CIO...
...I think that this article provides arguments against both extremes...
...I have read Sidney Hook with unfailing interest and profit over the years...
...New York City J. ANTHONY MARCUS...
...tell them of the suffering of our Russian people...
...Russell argues that previous empires have not been permanent...
...I favor one additional, and admittedly drastic, legislative remedy: an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act which would forbid the recognition or certification as exclusive bargaining representative of any union that discriminates in the admission or representation of minority groups...
...The moral is that no one should marry a lesbian, which would have the astonishing consequence of 40 per cent of all women not being married and so ruining our population statistics...
...Rather, it is a race with time, with a medical profession mired in traditional habits, attempting to keep pace with an explosion of aroused expectations...
...In the light of the above, it was a difficult problem Havelock Ellis faced, and one requiring sympathy for him because no one, not even a world famous sexologist, knows the solution of that problem...
...After all, is not the issue crystal clear...
...Does the Forand Bill provide for that increased supply of medical and hospital services implied in its promise...
...Try to see, hear and remember everything...
...I feel that his comments are both morally and historically sound...
...Does a governmental appropriation of money automatically guarantee efficiency in utilization of human skills and material resources...
...The relevant and important practical questions are legion, and surely require thoughtful consideration if we are to avoid irrevocable changes that solidly entrench inefficient and anti-social practices...
...he fails to note that their break-up has usually involved internal wars...
...FLOYD VERNON SMITH Sidney Hook does not mention one basic fallacy in the argument of Bertrand Russell's Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare—namely, the assumption that surrender or destruction through nuclear warfare are mutually exclusive alternatives...
...In its way it is stunning...
...If some group of men obtained world hegemony through demonstrating their readiness to destroy mankind by unrestricted nuclear warfare rather than give up their ambition for power, would they not be equally ready to use nuclear warfare in any future internal quarrels...
...I hope Hook will follow up the point on "the wish to surrender"—which is quite profound insight, and deserves spelling out in terms of what the current lingo calls "the dynamics of personality structure...
...If you ever come out alive from this hell," he said to his 27-year-old grandson, "tell the West the whole truth, without coloring, without exaggerating...
...To embattled liberals, whose viewpoint toward the Forand Bill is mildly expressed by Julius Duscha (NL, April 4), such a question raised must appear the ultimate in perverted arrogance...
...This relationship is also important because The Hidden Russia is the result of General Krasnov's testament to his grandson, spoken in the bathhouse of the dreaded Lubianka prison in Moscow just before he was hanged...
...Since the defeated party in a totalitarian system is usually liquidated, the men involved would have no personal motives against using the most extreme measures to avoid defeat...
...If he tells people his wife was a lesbian, he is accused of lack of dignified reticence and is no gentleman, because gentlemen do not call lesbians "lesbians," but refer only to a mysterious "incompatibility...
...Yet these problems are casually ignored by liberals wrapping themselves, like Fidel Castro, in the mantle of supreme virtue justified by the purity of their benevolent intentions...
...HAROLD KORETZ, M. D. NLRB AMENDMENT Harry Fleischman's article, "Labor and the Civil Rights Revolution" (NL, April 18), is a balanced and informative discussion of one aspect of our principal domestic problem...
Vol. 43 • May 1960 • No. 18
