Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR BRODSKY Peter Viereck, in his interesting article about non-conformist Soviet writers ("Literature of the Thaw," NL, December 7), writes of "the recent reported release" of Tosif...
...It took place about one month before Khrushchev's downfall...
...This has evidently been a cynical and clumsy attempt on the part of the Soviet authorities to quiet the storm in the Western press, and the protests of Western intellectuals about the Brodsky case...
...of course, because of the ambiguity of reports reaching this country that Peter Viereck, who, like the editors of The New Leader, was aware of Henri Pierre's article in Le Monde, carefully referred only to Brodsky's "reported release" in his article.—Ed...
...The Brodsky and Ivinskaya release stories have been linked together by several widely-read American observers as evidence of the liberal intentions of the new Soviet leadership...
...Pasternak's friend, after she had served half of an eight-year sentence (on a trumpedup speculation charge...
...September 14), communicated it in good faith in the West...
...This has since been confirmed by completely trustworthy sources...
...The fact is that Brodsky has not been released, despite the stories emanating from official and quasi-official sources in Moscow to this effect...
...It is to be hoped that, in the future, newsmen, diplomats and travelers in Russia will be wary of accepting anything short of actually seeing Brodsky at liberty themselves...
...Ivinskaya's release has been confirmed...
...New York City Patricia Blake Research Associate...
...like George Feifer ("Brodsky: Reactions in Moscow," NL...
...It was...
...Misjudgments abroad of Brodsky's fate were compounded by the announcement this past November of the parole of Olga Ivinskaya...
...The Soviet authorities on two separate occasions, in July and then again in late October 1964, have systematically planted a false report of Brodsky's release among newsmen, diplomats and Western visitors to Russia who...
...DEAR EDITOR BRODSKY Peter Viereck, in his interesting article about non-conformist Soviet writers ("Literature of the Thaw," NL, December 7), writes of "the recent reported release" of Tosif Brodsky who was sentenced to five years in the Arkhangelsk region for the peculiarly Soviet crime of "parasitism"— i.e., in Brodsky's case, for devoting himself to writing and translating poetry instead of sticking to a steady, "socially useful" factory job...
...The fact is, however, that the new leaders have not clearly shown as yet what their policy is to be vis-â-vis the arts...
...Henri Pierre, the Moscow correspondent of Le Monde, reported on November 26 that Brodsky is still in detention...
...Russian Institute Columbia University We welcome Miss Blake's letter clarifying the important point about Iosif Brodsky's "release...
Vol. 47 • December 1964 • No. 26
