Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR RADICALISM IN AMERICA Whatever John Roche's other abilities-a question I won't go into--he is a formidable proofreader. I did misquote Sidney Hook as saying that the Soviet Union was a...
...Then Lasch could have turned his attention to my substantive assault on his book...
...I already know that I am a formidable proofreader, but these columns would be an ideal place for Lasch to check out my "other abilities...
...Tolischus states that American policy «hands the unification issue on a silver platter to Ho Chi Minh...
...Why is Secretary MacNamara adamant in insisting that to defeat the National Liberation Front it will be necessary to have 10 soldiers friendly to American war aims to everyone opposed...
...When is he going to give us a detailed commentary on a really serious, first-rate effort...
...Since he has not utilized this fine opportunity, I hereby convey my option to Sidney Hook, who can perhaps provide Lasch with a few fundamental lessons in logical analysis...
...Or is he going to be content forever with sticking pins in butterflies like Elizabeth Taylor...
...I did misquote Sidney Hook as saying that the Soviet Union was a "system of...
...I wonder if the victims claimed by the disease discussed by John Simon in his article, "Severe Glaucoma" (NL, August 16), might not include Simon himself...
...The important word is total, the use of which reveals a utopianism Which Hook's "pragmatism" doesn't quite conceal...
...When so many of the liberal journals were enamored over the prospects of detente, THE NEW LEADER refused to waiver...
...whereas in fact, as Roche points out in his review of my book...
...But does he...
...Clearly, the proportions should be exactly reversed if Simon really believes what he is saying in this piece...
...In another essay he refers to the "total censorship," whatever that means, which characterized Stalinism (his italics...
...New York City GEORGE FIELD Executive Director Freedom House BLIND CRITIC...
...I do not propose to belabor the above odious comparison between our purpose in Vietnam and the Russian mission in Hungary but I do raise the question as to why I should help support an "open forum" which repeatedly provides a literary platform for the above point of view...
...My judgment about Hook still stands: "To describe the Soviet Union as a 'system of total terror' was all too obviously to make the same mistake as upholding it as a system of total truth...
...Article after article, especially if a name writer can be bagged...
...This misquotation affects the tone but hardly the substance of the passage...
...Iowa City, CHRISTOPHER LASCH John Roche replies: Christopher Lasch's apology to Sidney Hook (which sounds curiously like an attack on Hook for not saying what Lasch attributed to him) could have been made in a sentence...
...Later in the same essay, Hook describes Communism as posing a "total threat to the life of the free mind...
...If we judge him by the amount of space he devotes to some of the worse-and predictably the worse - pictures of all time, his claims to superior taste have a very hollow ring...
...total e,:"or...
...Even if at times it overemphasized its position it nevertheless knew where it stood on this crucial issue...
...Politically, it is hard to distinguish between total terror and total error...
...New York City R. S. LESTER...
...The elections of 1956 were to have been held under international auspices...
...I apologize to Hook for misquoting him...
...He admits that the necessary ideological adjustments are "perhaps impossible ones," but, says he, "our present policy threatens us with the same loss of moral prestige which Russia experienced when it suppressed the Hungarian rebellion nine years ago...
...now takes the detente line...
...NIEBUHR In a most important respect, I liked the old NEW LEADER better than the new one...
...Frankly, I miss this in THE NEW LEADER'S reincarnation since the death of Sol Levitas...
...The New Radicalism III America, 1889-1963 (NL, August 16), Hook said that it was a "system of total terror...
...He ignores the fact that, as a former President (Eisenhower) and a ranking Senator (Richard B. Russell) have explicitly stated, the Diem regime did not allow unification elections to be held in 1956 because it knew perfectly well that Ho Chi Minh would win them...
...He argues that Diem refused to hold reunification elections in 1956 because of the failure of Ho Chi Minh's regime to end "Communist terror and totalitarian control" in the North...
...What American commentators like to call the apathy of the South Vietnamese is clearly apathy toward us...
...Only an affliction of that order could explain why a critic would bury a review of "one of the most moving movies of all," namely, Family Diary, after carrying on for nearly two pages about trash like The Sandpiper, Harlow, and Ship of Fools...
...Elections in Vietnam," by Otto Tolischus (NL, August 16) does not offer answers to any of these questions...
...nine years ago...
...Why does the NLF control three-quarters of South Vietnam...
...Had Diem been confident of winning these elections one would have thought that the dissaffection produced by Communist methods would have assured Ho's defeat...
...It had a strong bias in favor of freedom as against Communist totalitarianism...
...A case in point is Reinhold Niebuhr's recent article ("Roosevelt and Johnson: A Contrast in Foreign Policy," NL, July 19), which draws this conclusion: "Perhaps the only solution possible would be to forget our rigorous anti-Communist virtue and reach an understanding with the USSR...
...Chicago, Illinois JOHN O'NEILL VIETNAM Almost the entire American press has neglected to consider one important aspect of our current Vietnamese problem: How is it possible for 65,000 guerrillas (our estimate) to defeat 100,000 American troops plus a South Vietnamese Army of 400,000 troops...
Vol. 48 • September 1965 • No. 18
