Dear Editor

...The precision, delicacy and subtlety of Kempton's prose do more than express his ideas: They embody his ideas...

...July 20) sees Goldwater as having "only the farmers, the retired millionaires, the village . . . bankers, and the Southern racists" in his camp...

...But it does not follow from that that there is any gain in adopting a blind, simplistic, Birchite view of all that happens in the Soviet Union...

...I take sincere pleasure in informing you it was produced by Metropolitan Broadcasting Television and was presented on its New York station, WNEW-TV...

...DEAR EDITOR THE BRODSKY AFFAIR Andrew Field's article on the imprisoned Soviet poet, Iosif Brodsky ("A Poet in Prison," NL, June 22), otherwise informative and interesting, displays the author's poor understanding of Soviet repression practices...

...Moderation, a certain minimal standard of objectivity, the ability to perceive situations in their true complexity with both the good and the bad fairly shown — these are qualities which are too often wanting in the accounts of the Soviet Union which appear in even the best of our intellectual journals and newspapers...

...Kristol's logic is that of thinking aloud...

...was "the instigator of the campaign," the man who "threatened," who "pushed forward the case," etc...

...I think it ought to be stated explicitly...

...Stating that "Brodsky's harassment . . . was the direct result of personal initiative of Lerner," the author concludes that "the Brodsky affair is viewed with some bitterness by many Soviet writers as a sign of tolerance of higher levels toward rabid anti-intellectual elements and Stalinist methods...

...To this philosophy student, recently a reporter, it was itself "a case of the blind leading the blind...

...The simple truth (which requires a more complex explanation) is that all the important decisions in the USSR today are not made by Khrushchev and his immediate subordinates...

...Does he not overlook the main source of Goldwater's support...

...was conceived by Bennet H. Korn...

...Indeed, the story is told in such a way as to imply that the responsibility for Brodsky's misfortune lay not with the Soviet police or the Party leadership, but with a certain Lerner, who allegedly used Brodsky's case for "career advancement...

...Yet Bukharin's execution and Brodsky's arrest were decided respectively not by Radek or Lerner, but precisely by the "higher levels...

...Cambridge, Mass...

...The program, by the way...

...JOURNALISM'S METAPHYSICS The stone ("The Metaphysics of Journalism," NL, June 22) Irving Kristol wasn't "throwing at anyone" missed everything but his straw man...

...The answer lies not in so-called metaphysics or epistemology...

...Palo Alto, California David F. Thorrurn...

...With this said, it should be added that that is meager praise indeed...

...I feel his political conviction, but I don't see his facts, for I see no relevance to the Brodsky case in Bukharin's trial — the times, the individuals, and the nature of the trials could not be more at variance...

...I think, with the racial situation in our own South...

...Their "nostalgia" assumes the specific form of the appeal of a simplified, glorified past, in which Teddy Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill but did not press for anti-child labor legislation or set up a vast Federal conservation program...

...Neither argues with existential epistemology, which Kristol three-in-one-pills with ontological superstitions ("the Truth," "what really happens...

...you credited WABC-TV with producing the James Baldwin-Hubert Humphrey "My Childhood...

...Indeed, the news that Brodsky has been released — if it be true — would tend to confirm that account, and also to show that even the Soviet courts are capable of rectifying judicial errors...

...No person of good will would wish to minimize the terror, the harassment which face civil-rights workers there...

...was excellent except for one thing...

...If we admit Field's interpretation of the story, why not place the blame of, say, Bukharin's execution not on Stalin or Yezhov, but on Radek who, during his confession, clearly involved Bukharin...

...painted with all the disparate details it may involve (as, for example, in George Feifer's recent book, Justice in Moscow), is to my mind far more interesting and profitable than intellectually limited or dishonest (the choice is the reader's) cartoons...

...correct, the defeat of Goldwater is far from the certainty many of us would like to believe (and have believed, wrongly, over and over...

...Metaphysics," a philosopher's dirty word, refers, if anything, to systems of synthetic a prions, not meaningless assumptions like Kristol gives...

...namely, the new upper-middle class wealth (Eastern as well as Mid- and Southwestern...

...Yet at the same time one should be aware of the individuals, cities, and areas in the South which are striving to resolve this great problem of our society in a just and peaceful manner...

...The owners of this wealth owe their success to the upward mobility inherent in the "liberalism" of American society, but now feel threatened by demands that mobility be maintained for others, if necessary through Federal power...

...I have no basis upon which to doubt the truthfulness of this source...

...president of Metropolitan Broadcasting Television...

...Kristol's use of "metaphysics" is howling (his singular use of "metaphysic" doesn't improve "metaphysics...

...then "all journalists worthy of the name find it to he in violation of the 'authenticity' of their experience...

...Arthur W. Wright KEMPTON I should like to add a footnote to Karl Meyer's fine review of Murray Kempton's America Comes of Middle Affe (NL, June 8...

...Chiefly because of these qualities...

...Congratulations, too...

...New York City David Gordon Public Relations Director WNEW-TV Channel 5 POLITICS OF NOSTALGIA Reinhold Niebuhr ("The Politics of Nostalgia...

...Gestalt—no crazy twoweek quest for impossible correlation with vague, chaotic, infinite facts and meta-encyclopedias of pattern discoveries...

...What is the source of David Anin's information that Brodsky's arrest was instigated "precisely" by higher authorities in the Soviet government...

...It implies a viewpoint, news "peg...

...Kempton's book attains to the stature of literature...

...Eric A. Eldred THE DANGEROUS DIVIDE Your recent "On Television" column by David Boroff, "The Dangerous Divide" (NL...

...Journalists can and do perform their task, they do change opinions, readers do understand second-handness conventions, their won't be any disaster, and it's all done without metaphysics...

...Kristol's "conceivable" metaphysics is "unthinkable," thus it's "hardly ever actually and genuinely" thought of...

...It happens that I have very intimate knowledge of Soviet "repression practices," and I feel quite strongly about them...

...Among contemporary social critics Kempton seems to me virtually unique because he uses language creatively, not merely as a medium of exposition but as a medium of art...

...Little of the article is relevant to the stated problem: why second-hand information is less satisfying than first-hand, and what to do...

...Among others: Journalism's "metaphysics" is first "unchallengeable" and then "spurious," first "the most self-defeating circumstance" and then "nothing more nor less what is wrong with journalism...

...Less than anywhere else can a person in the USSR, even a denunciator, "instigate" or "push forward" something without the initiative or at least active connivance of the higher-ups...

...I did not give an "interpretation" of the Brodsky affair, I merely set down the account of events prior to his imprisonment — including the objection raised to his detention by the Public Prosecutor — which was smuggled to the West by friends of the young poet...

...Munich David Anin Andrew Field replies: Western commentators on the Soviet Union are, by and large, many times more objective than their Soviet counterparts...

...While it would be absurd to deny that among Soviet "careerists" there might be many Lerners, it is inadmissible to shift the responsibility for Brodsky's persecution to such a degree...

...Logical atomism (Kristol's "dogmatic pseudo-empiricism") is one of metaphysics' natural enemies...

...Reporting isn't eternal audio-visual reproduction...

...It is a scandal not only because of the elegance and brilliance of Kempton's vision of American life, but also because of his astonishing gifts as a writer of prose...

...to Charles Frankel for "A Conservative Autopsy.'" Concord, Mass...

...If the foregoing is even approximate...

...Thus, the "instigator" and "initiator" is Lerner while the higher (Party and police) levels are merely passively tolerating the persecution of a young and gifted poet...

...Meyer's article perHaps takes this for granted...

...The pattern has to be different—this isn't to say at worst it falsifies...

...The whole picture...

...Journalism's is "never really questioned," The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on am of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...

...A good analogy may be drawn...

...Meyer is surely right when he observes: "It is a cultural scandal that this book has been so inadequately reviewed...