Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR KUDOS Please enter at once my subscription to The New Leader. Having recently been introduced to the magazine, I have been extremely impressed by the quality and perception...
...His review of America in Britain's Place was very welcome...
...These arguments are commoplace today...
...But the undoing of Wilson—with all its tragic consequences for mankind—supports what I have, said about defects in the American political system and not what Brogan says on its behalf...
...Such men do raise the average...
...It is British rather than American toes, I have been told here in London, that have been stepped on...
...For this a favorable balance of power in Europe was required...
...In view of the fact that the CGIL has been one of the chief agencies for social mischief in Italian affairs, reflecting the international Communist line on both labor and political levels, Nenni's expressed attitude is both provocative and dangerous...
...Robert V. Daniels D. W. BROGAN It is nearly a quarter of a century since D. W. Brogan reviewed my first book, and I recall with the utmost pleasure the way he treated my second book in the Spectator as long ago as 1942...
...But I do know that if we talk about positions that have been made public by both Fanfani and Nenni on NATO, on Berlin, on Germany, on the Rapacki plan and on neutralism generally, the gap between the two is wide indeed...
...This, of course, is concern for and a sop to the pro-Communist wing of the PSI...
...encouragement) split the party and formed the Social Democrats," Calamandrei writes...
...I do not, it is true, share the optimism of his own last major book on American politics...
...Under Nenni's active leadership and drive, the PSI had become nothing more than a stooge in the hands of Italian Communism...
...At the other extreme are those who are still unreconciled to the shift in primacy from Britain to the United States...
...The Suez chapter does not help at one extreme...
...Some of the reasons given by Mauro Calamandrei in his defense of the new line ("Italy Opens to the Left," NL, March 5) are of this nature and certainly call for critical comment...
...So does President Kennedy himself, and he is the one who must get credit for seeking out advisers who have both character and brains...
...I can appreciate the desire for a new deal in Italian politics, considering Italy's political instability during the entire postwar period and the crying need for certain basic social reforms...
...But, even if they do, the means will still be wanting to provide Cabinet officers with a sure footing in the American political system...
...That was not my purpose...
...5. Brogan suggests that I failed to foresee Britain's entry into the Common Market...
...In fact, not long ago Nenni announced that the PSI would abstain in the coming vote of confidence for the new Government, in order, he emphasized, "to assure the unity of the Socialist party...
...John Cleary...
...But let us not lose our sense of necessary caution and realism...
...In addition, it makes utterly ridiculous all those who, against the facts, keep on insisting that Nenni is on the verge of breaking with the Communists in the unions...
...It is exactly these basic differences in political matters which underscore the gamble and the dangers in this new embracing of Nenni...
...London, England Lionel Gelber OPENING TO THE LEFT Many supporters of the new "Opening to the Left" line in Italian politics are decidedly overoptimistic...
...And Nenni's is 100 per cent false, a criminally irresponsible rewriting of past history...
...Andrew Bogan Please enter my trial subscription for 38 weeks (at $3.25) to The New Leader, to begin with the issue immediately following that of April 16, 1962...
...Space does not permit me to document Nenni's position on these matters...
...Does this not imply a wastage of American political talent...
...Fromm is one of the few writers I have found who really understands the changed meaning and irrational function of Communist ideology, a point which impresses me because I have arrived at the same conclusion through an entirely independent historical study...
...should merit the thoughtful attention of your readers...
...I would like to take issue with three points: 1. Calamandrei writes: "By admitting them to the Government the Christian Democrats could help sever the Socialists' remaining links with the Communists in unions...
...2. "Shortly afterwards, however, Saragat (not without U.S...
...Saragat's decision to break was as necessary as it was courageous...
...3. One of my chapters questions the efficacy of the American political system as an instrument of leadership, and it is to this that Brogan devotes most of his dissent...
...Whatever its faults, May Man Prevail...
...Though the story appears to be an attack on the Russians, it is in reality another attack on the Nordic race in the archetypal Nazi image...
...Apart from that, Brogan will, I know, accept the assurance that I have not consulted "textbooks," good or bad...
...But the points made on this vexed topic (in the Commonwealth chapter and in later sections dealing with the future of France and Germany) are precisely the ones that the British public have yet to face...
...Nenni will not support the new Government for nothing...
...it covers numerous aspects of the Suez episode and its sequel that the Eden memoirs do not touch upon...
...I agree...
...Let's not embrace him before he is embraceable...
...Washington, D. C. Milton P. Thompson ERICH FROMM It is a pity that Martin Peretz, the reviewer of Erich Fromm's May Man Prevail...
...But it was from their own correspondence and memoranda that my initial study of American policy-making was derived...
...So again, I have leaned on the direct experience of Harry Truman, James Forrestal, Dean Acheson and others who have reported on current affairs from the inside...
...Is there not, however, some significance in the fact that a reaction such as his has come from a British rather than an American critic...
...3. "Actually, however, Nenni's present political position differs from Fanfani's much less than is admitted in public...
...But when wishful thinking becomes so heavy that one blithely bypasses difficulties and evades brute facts, that is a horse of a different color indeed...
...For in his article in the January issue of Foreign Affairs, "Where the Italian Socialists Stand," Nenni makes it quite clear that he has no such intentions: "This [i...
...Not only does Nenni insist on maintaining his alliance with the CGIL, which the Communists dominate completely, but he also wants the democratic unions, CISL and UIL (which he calls the "dissident elements"), to go back into the CGIL...
...Then, too, does Calamandrei know Nenni's intentions better than Nenni himself...
...It should bring up short those who, like Calamandrei, talk as if Nenni has already practically completed his break from Communist influence...
...No American reviewer has intimated anything of the sort...
...Having recently been introduced to the magazine, I have been extremely impressed by the quality and perception of its reporting and interpretation...
...Perhaps all future Presidents will choose advisers as Kennedy has...
...But on some crucial issues Brogan registers strong dissent: 1. I am puzzled, first of all, by Brogan's impression that I have ungenerously assessed the burden borne by the American people since 1945...
...Where Nenni is concerned, a "We're from Missouri" attitude is eminently in order...
...Nenni's charge that he was forced into the Communists' hands because of Saragat's break is as transparent as it is dishonest...
...2. Brogan assumes that I attempted an exact comparison between British leadership in the past and the part the United States is now playing...
...He will demand his quid pro quo...
...It salvaged something, at least, of a Socialist movement faithful to democratic principles and inimical to Communism...
...As a Scotch-Irish married to a German, and bringing up three Nordic boys (who are blond, with blue eyes, strong builds and freckles), I am personally getting fed up with the contemporary writer's trick of using the Nazi archetype to sell a story...
...6. As for Suez, Brogan seems to think that I have relied unduly on the Eden memoirs...
...4. One thing that pleases Brogan about the American political system is that it allows men like Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara to emerge...
...You may as well have published chapters from Katherine Anne Porter's disgustladen Ship of Fools or a few strips of sex and crime comics...
...Washington, D. C. Harry Goldberg NAZI ARCHETYPE...
...I can only ask others to read his article and judge...
...And however one interprets the tactics of the Italian Communist party in the present situation, behind Nenni is still the shadow of the Italian Communist leader, Palmiro Togliatti, for the latter has agents inside the PSI...
...in certain matters it is practically unbridgeable...
...What I have done, in analyzing the American policy-making process, is examine the records of the chief actors...
...Woodrow Wilson did, of course, write a textbook, and then, alas, ignored its lessons...
...Certainly American social democrats and the Italians in the American trade-union movement were naturally concerned about Nenni's pro-Communist policy, but the decision to break on Saragat's part in 1947 was his independent decision, based upon what was happening to the Socialist party in its alliance with the Communist party officially promulgated the year before...
...Claremont, Calif...
...John Hay, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge the elder, would not, I presume, figure as writers of textbooks...
...The Captain in the story is created in the blond, heavy build, unemotional, superior image, and is given the role of a man with a goal who is ruthless in carrying it out...
...itself—should be reminded of what they have owed to British oceanic supremacy...
...Your decision to publish Milovan Djilas' "The War" (NL, April 16) came as a surprise...
...Everything that D. W. Brogan writes on American and contemporary politics commands great respect...
...I can, therefore, understand the psychological basis of the hopes for success of the new experiment...
...e., his present political position] does not conflict with the defense of trade union unity, which we Socialists not only wish to preserve in the General Italian Confederation of Labor [CGIL], but which we also seek to extend to the dissident Italian Confederation of Independent Labor Unions [CISL] and Italian Workers Union [UIL...
...Burlington, Vt...
...They were not commonplace two decades ago when Brogan himself defended my right to put them forward...
...My book, as a matter of fact, was written from the vantage point of long residence in New York and close familiarity with the United Nations...
...Calamandrei evidently wants more than the new Government has permitted at present, for it has not admitted the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) to the Government...
...This statement uncritically follows Nenni's own declaration in the aforementioned article: "Saragat's withdrawal literally threw the Socialist movement into the Communists' arms...
...Brogan is consoled by the assignment of secondary posts to a few who have held office near the top, or even to Adlai Stevenson...
...Fromm's Logic of Surrender," NL, March 5), reacted so strongly to Fromm's disarmament optimism, and neglected or belittled some of the very significant points which the book makes...
...I tried to suggest the difference...
...Camarillo, Calif...
...But I do think free countries overseas—above all, the U.S...
...Calamandrei's charge is 97 per cent canard...
...America in Britain's Place has again evoked generous comment ("Advantages of an Archaic Ox-Cart," NL, February 5) about my work in general...
...but I do cite in my new book his brilliant essay on the illusion of American omnipotence...
...If this were merely a matter of personal temperament, one could pass it by...
...Why should so eminent a British authority be more sensitive on this score than Americans themselves...
...While Fromm may not be realistic about some of the hysterical attitudes ingrained in the Soviet—not to mention the Chinese—leadership, he is much more realistic than most of his critics on 1) the nature of Soviet society, 2) the nature of popular American thinking, 3) the instability of deterrence, and 4) the critical trends in the underdeveloped countries...
...I don't know if Calamandrei has a private pipeline to Fanfani...
...This would throw things back to before 1948, when democratic trade union elements of various political persuasions left en masse from the then-unified and Communist-dominated trade-union organization after the sad experience of finding they couldn't work with Communists...
...The deeper, in-built structural frustrations that I have attempted to describe in my book remain...
...It is too bad that Fromm's critique of the simplistic view of the Communist threat has evoked so much emotional disagreement that his main contribution is lost sight of...
...I have already bought the one for April 16, which indicated to me what a superior periodical you publish...
Vol. 45 • April 1962 • No. 9
