Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR MEMORIAL FUND Please find enclosed my contribution to the S. M. Levitas Memorial Fund. I would like to congratulate those who have carried on since Sol Levitas passed away. The New...
...5. I readily agree that last year's December riots ended the Moslem passivity to which (writing in November) I referred...
...And reread it...
...Hahn's assertion that "the record will show that [Irving] Brown, [Sal] Tas and I have been pretty close to right in both our descriptions and predictions of North African events...
...If developments in these two countries can serve as guide to what would happen under an FLN dictatorship of Algeria, the Europeans dissidents as well as Jews will have a frightening if not dismal future to face...
...but the victims' party, the Algerian Nationlist Movement (MNA), blamed the FLN for the massacre and the French for using it as an excuse for refusing independence...
...I agree...
...The New Leader continues to be full of interest and value...
...For all that Brown, Tas and Hahn have fundamentally been right about is that life continues in North Africa whether the people live under French aegis or not...
...Enforceable by whom...
...If his friends can prove me wrong by answering that question to the satisfaction of the European minority, I shall be delighted...
...I too have been concerned with this problem...
...And ponder...
...3. I mentioned French repression, but I gave more space to terrorism because it has had far less publicity in Britain (where my article was originally published...
...This is really tendentious...
...Unhappily, the FLN has so described all Moslems who disagreed with it, however honorable their record...
...New York City Gail Ennis Thank you for giving me and many others the opportunity to perpetuate the works of Sol Levitas through Memorial Fund...
...But, of course, the real issue is whether life is better and the people freer under so-called independence than before...
...Writing for a French journal, I would have reversed the proportions...
...Good luck...
...Hahn seems to rest her case for predictability on what de Gaulle is doing with Algeria...
...1. He is mistaken in thinking that my facts depend on "the official French version of certain incidents (for example, the massacre at Melouza, the assassination of certain French personalities).' The French and the FLN each blame Melouza on the other...
...I said that unless it does, there will be a panic exodus of Europeans...
...New York City Clifford Forster ALGERIA In his letter of March 6, A. Chanderli criticizes my article, "Algeria in Focus" (NL, February 13), in reasonable and moderate terms, which deserve a reply...
...It just bit them...
...I could not help but be reminded of Will Cuppy's remarks about the wombat (How to Attract the Wombat, Rinehart, 1949): "It goodnaturedly allowed children to pull or carry it about, and if it bit them it did not appear to do so severely or in anger...
...7. Chanderli says it is for Frenchmen, not Algerians, to be Gaullist or anti-Gaullist...
...Why not...
...I wrote, "the attentistes are not without views on their country's future," and I quoted Germaine Tillion's opinion that 90 percent of them favor the FLN, while 60 percent want friendship with France...
...Please keep going...
...Morocco with full sovereignty is not less susceptible to Communist penetration, as Brown argued, nor are the Tunisian people enjoying higher standard of living under the authoritarian Bourguiba rule...
...Mrs...
...My point was that the revolt began just when, for the first time, a leading colon politician was at last trying conciliation...
...Sympathy for Arabs of the FLN variety is a great disservice to those who wish to maintain that modicum of respect for democratic principle which is necessary for peace and freedom in the complex multi-racial and multireligious society that prevails in North Africa...
...New York City M. S. Novik COLLOQUY RENEWED May I intrude into the colloquy between Lorna Hahn and Hal Lehrman ("Dear Editor," NL, February 27, March 13) over developments in recent years in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria...
...It is not clear what he ultimately intends, but if he proceeds to hand over Algeria lock, stock and barrel to the FLN then he certainly "is dead wrong" and without any conscience or regard for the rights of the substantial number of non-Moslems and other antiFLN minorities in Algeria...
...I cited no assassinated Frenchmen, and only named two Algerians: Ferhat Abbas's nephew, and Senator Cherif Benhabyles...
...6. I did not say that the French army "must" remain for decade after the cease-fire...
...My comments are directed to Mrs...
...on the contrary...
...Oxford, England Philip Williams THE WOMBAT In his February 27 "Washington—U.S.A...
...2. I agree with Chanderli—and said in my article—that up to 1953 the French repressed all peaceful nationalist efforts...
...Columbia, N. C. Gordon Tullock...
...I did not, as Chanderli implies, equate that passivity with indifference...
...Chanderli says negotiated arrangements (which I favor) are "the only 'guarantee' which is enforceable...
...You who hope to understand the wombat will do well to read that sentence again...
...Ottawa Lionel Gelber Special Assistant to the Prime Minister If the Nation folded, we'd still have the New Republic, and without Harper's we'd get along pretty well with Atlantic Monthly, but without The New Leader we'd be without our best and most reliable source of world news...
...column, Tristram Coffin says: "To old Russian hands in the State Department, this followed an almost predictable pattern—the warm handshake followed by a swift, cruel kick in the shins, as though to test the opponent, but without any deep malice...
...for both these murders, the FLN took responsibility...
...4. Chanderli rightly says that every revolution deals harshly with its own collaborators and traitors...
...But I gave evidence that many Moslems look to de Gaulle as the one French leader able and willing to meet their aspirations...
...and my sources used "Moslem Gaullism" as a shorthand term for this view...
Vol. 44 • March 1961 • No. 13
