Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR PORNOGRAPHY Congratulations to The New Leader for publishing Stanley Edgar Hyman's forcible tract, "In Defense of Pornography" (September 3). I have one small nit to pick: Mr....
...this, of course, is not the same thing as disarmament...
...I grant that at the moment this appears extremely unlikely...
...It has reversed course often and may do so again...
...I doubt that the Kremlin will call the cold war off...
...Not so, since society is not always able to recognize "serious works" at the time they are published...
...Jacobs has dealt most knowledgeably with the issues implicit in the present assessment of the treaty...
...Much more can be achieved both with France and China by, on the one hand, organizing strong world public opinion critical of their refusal to join the atom test ban and, on the other, offering certain inducements to them to accede to world public opinion...
...I do think a case can be made for the moral admissibility of such a course of action, although this is not the place to argue it...
...or the Soviet Union to sabotage Communist China's nuclear establishment is surely a serious possibility...
...Every one of our policies has been a riposte to its thrusts...
...But "conceivable" is about the strongest term one can use...
...Aubumdale, Mass...
...He says, "This forecast may seem extravagant...
...It seems to me unwise to threaten, either through or outside the UN, to use force to prevent France and China from conducting atomic tests...
...Does it need defending...
...and the Soviet Union, how can either one or both of them safely disarm...
...As in the past, the temperature of the cold war will continue to depend almost entirely on the Kremlin...
...It is also a salutary reminder to think back on Soviet-Yugoslav relations...
...Jacobs' parallel between Sweden and Cuba is not, however, the most compelling illustration...
...T expect that the Russians aie in a strong position to discipline the Chinese, decided to do so, and were adding insult by sitting down with the Americans before the frustrated Chinese had even left town...
...I doubt that...
...New York City Sidney Hook Norman Jacobs expects that in "enforcing" (sic) the test-ban treaty we and the Russians will develop a mutual interest that leads to a radical change in alliances...
...Yet, as I write this letter, I am about to be sentenced to prison for a maximum of 140 (sic) years because Eros has been judged obscene in a Federal Court...
...Hyman's), the future of pornography seems fairly assured...
...His argument is that the proliferation of atomic weapons has disturbing implications...
...They will fight in the future as they have in the past only when they believe they have a sure victory or when they themselves have no alternatives except either to fight or to surrender...
...And we may possibly be in the middle of a massive change in Russian foreign policy...
...Jacobs...
...I am also in agreement with Professor Hook that the prediction that the test-ban treaty will be a precursor to nuclear disarmament is a doubtful one...
...Lillian Picken What moral urge impels Stanley Edgar Hyman to come out "In Defense of Pornography...
...nonetheless, there can be no question that a China armed with atom bombs will acquire an increased military and political leverage that must disturb not only Washington and Moscow but also New Delhi and most of the other capitals bordering on or near China...
...I agree that the Soviets must be worried about the possession of nuclear weapons by more countries...
...I do think it is interesting that so qualified an observer as Denis Healey, writing in the August 19 issue of The New Leader, categorically asserts that Moscow and Washington have decided that the "arms race can be halted only if each puts cooperation with its opponent before cooperation with its allies...
...I agree with him that the Chinese Communists want to survive...
...It is a little hard to see, though, on what grounds the United Nations would empower them to do this, as Jacobs suggests, in consequence of a treaty that depends on voluntary association and does not make weapon tests an act of aggression...
...This is reminiscent of Bertrand Russell's proposal in the late '40s to atombomb the Soviet Union if the Kremlin reThe New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...AU one can say is that if it is, it will be because the two nuclear superpowers regard the maintenance of their monopoly over the balance of terror as increasingly more important than their other foreign policy goals...
...If Khrushchev can kiss the man whom Pravda called "a running dog of American imperialism" and worse, he may some day kiss Mao Tsetung...
...It does...
...We should, however, by multiplying effective cultural contacts with the Soviet Union make it more difficult for Khrushchev to resume the old stance if he has a mind to do so...
...Schelling himself says that "the use of violence by the U.S...
...As orthodox Marxists of extreme vulgarity they are buoyed up by the assurance that history is on their side...
...Let him, for a change, come out for sexual continence, delicacy, and, above all, privacy...
...Norman Jacobs' article ("Freezing the Balance of Terror," NL, August 5) is the most provocative analysis I have yet read of the implications of the atomic test-ban treaty...
...We are likely in for at least a few years of peaceful coexistence...
...I know the following statement will convulse some readers, but I regard my quarterly, Eros, as a "serious work," too, and I am confident that future generations will recognize it as such...
...it all hardly seems worthwhile for the Russians otherwise...
...fused to accept international control of atomic energy...
...It doesn't scare me at all, for despite their rodomontade the Chinese Communists want to survive, too...
...Belmont, Mass RICHARD PIPES TEST-BAN TREATY Dr...
...The prediction that the test-ban treaty will be a precursor to further nuclear disarmament seems very doubtful to me, aside from the Soviet refusal to permit adequate onsite inspection...
...A conventional air bomb attack on test-site facilities—preceded by warning—should be adequate to the purpose...
...Cambridge, Mass Thomas C. Schelling Like most New Leader articles, Norman Jacobs' article is brief, but has a high specific gravity...
...Walter Marseilles, he explicitly declared that if war resulted, which he considered likely, the destruction of Western Europe would not be too high a price to pay "to wipe out Communism...
...You have put out some fine, thought-provoking articles...
...could persuade the General Assembly that such testing posed a threat to the peace which required effective counter measures by the UN...
...But I have been disturbed by several of your book reviews...
...The forecast which he finds so extravagant is nothing more than the description of a possibility which, if I read him right, is—to use his own word—"conceivable...
...In a letter to Dr...
...Hyman says that the battle for the right of "serious literary works" to be published has been won...
...For if Communist China refuses to sign the treaty, and if it shows continued hostility to the U.S...
...When there are so many fine, challenging books published today, I cannot imagine why any magazine like yours can possibly want to publish such filth...
...Surely it does, but the forecast still seems extravagant...
...They seem to have no defenders left...
...Lady Chatterley's Lover had to be banned for 30 years and scores of bookmen had to be imprisoned for selling it before society recognized it was a serious work...
...It is conceivable that the Soviets have determined to devote all their energies to policing the world in partnership with the U.S...
...and the U.S.S.R...
...It would be morally inadmissible to destroy millions of lives merely to prevent pollution of the atmosphere...
...The premises of the author are quite mistaken...
...The prospect that Red China will some day have atomic weapons provokes shudders in Dr...
...Those who are getting ready to open their arms to Khrushchev, as if he were about to join the camp of freedom, should reread carefully the documents in which Moscow replies to Peking...
...Finally, although it is doubtful that the UN will take strong action to prevent any nations from conducting nuclear-weapons tests in the atmosphere, I don't think that the text of the treaty would constitute a significant obstacle—if the U.S...
...They will see that the quarrel between them is over which methods can bury the free world most effectively and least expensively...
...An interesting question is how we would know if we were winning or had won the cold war...
...When Khrushchev asserts that the survivors of a nuclear war will envy the dead, Jacobs finds the chances of future U.S.-Soviet confrontations à la Cuba remote...
...Suppose they were to refuse, as they probably would...
...Therefore I must ask you to cancel my subscription at once...
...If this policy does not succeed, I do not know what other policy can...
...It stands to reason that no sane government will employ nuclear weapons if it is convinced that their use will be a preface to its own destruction...
...In the past I have been pleased with most issues of The New Leader...
...If China refuses to sign the test-ban treaty no one will compel it to...
...In sum, the situation with respect to the Communist crusade against the free world remains the same: neither war nor peace...
...The use of violence by the U.S...
...New York City Norman Cousins Editor, Saturday Review Norman Jacobs replies: 1. Despite Professor Hook's sang-froid over the prospect that Communist China will develop nuclear weapons, I still find this frightening...
...New York City Ralph Ginsburg Editor &. Publisher, Eros Last December I became acquainted with your magazine and was so much attracted to it that I subscribed...
...or the Soviet Union to sabotage Communist China's nuclear establishment is surely a serious possibility," a statement I am almost tempted to term extravagant...
...The fact is that the right of serious works to be published has not yet been won and will not be won until the right of all works to be published, whether society regards them as serious or frivolous, has been won...
...I did not mean to suggest the use of nuclear force...
...It's a first-rate piece...
...It is terribly important to be alert to possible "radical changes in existing alliances" and the "bond of mutual interest" with the USSR that Jacobs thinks he perceives...
...so perhaps it is unnecessary to add that I did not make it...
...Whatever the technical advantages and disadvantages of the treaty are, it is politically unthinkable that we should refuse to endorse the treaty we proposed...
...2. I wonder whether what seems to be the principal difference between Professor Schelling and me is not more a matter of formulation than substance...
...I made no prediction as to whether this possibility will in fact be realized...
...Quotations about 300 million dead Americans, Europeans and Russians, together with references to Swedish and French nuclear weapons, just do not persuade me that in the test-ban treaty we have laid the institutional foundation of the new grand EastWest alliance...
...Nuclear weapons would still have to serve as a deterrent to Red China, as in the past they served as a deterrent to Soviet Russia...
...The test-ban treaty, hopefully, will slow down the proliferation of nuclear weapons...
...They must have seemed just as remote a year ago, before Cuba, when Khrushchev had already made such statements...
...Some recent commentaries sound as though the Russians, after living in sin with the Chinese for a decade, have at last come home to marry the girl who has been waiting, and that what we witnessed in Moscow last month was a hasty engagement ceremony...
...Chinese economic developments in the last few years may have reduced, not increased, Russian concerns...
...France fundamentally is no problem and will become tractable when de Gaulle goes...
...In speaking of the possibility of the threat or use of force to prevent weapons tests by other nations...
...As long as we have "courageous" Putnam's, willing to battle for liberty with Fanny Hill, and "heroic" Grove Press, ready to perish for the sake of Lady Chatierley (the adjectives are Mr...
...And if we cannot make the assumption of sanity, no treaty with such a government would be worth anything...
...But as a forecast it does seem extravagant...
...Maybe we have not done as badly over the last dozen years as, in our pessimistic moments, we think we have done...
...But it is not absolutely excluded, and history has provided us with more surprising turns...
...I am not sure whether he is attributing that prediction to me...
...In Defense of Pornography" is horrible...
Vol. 46 • September 1963 • No. 19
