Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR NEW POLITICS I write to protest some clear misstatements in Jeffrey Hodes' article on the National Conference for New Politics (ncnp) in Chicago ("The New Left in Disarray," NL,...
...There never was a black caucus, just as there never was a black position on the 13 resolutions, nor black unanimity Continued on next page DEAR EDITOR on cooperating with the conference...
...In the event of war Russell expected Russia to occupy Western Europe: ". . . unless Western Europe can be preserved from invasion," he wrote, "it will be lost to civilization for centuries...
...An accompanying footnote quoted Russell's own words in stating, in 1948, his later repudiated position...
...ARNONI VS...
...As soon as Russia rejected the Baruch proposals, I urged that all nations favoring international control of atomic energy should form an Alliance, and threaten Russia with war unless Russia agreed to come in and permit inspection...
...and that the most dangerous period for us is the next two years...
...I did so primarily on the basis of Russell's letter to Dr...
...Few white radicals are willing to believe that the black militants are reproachable, or to recognize just how alienated and dangerous they are...
...Each day the caucus represented different people— moving in and out of Chicago??trying to articulate their demands above the demagogic ranting of local nationalists who attempted to intimidate everyone...
...But I have lost votes on resolutions before, and I expect I will do so again...
...Communism must be wiped out, and world government must be established...
...Marseille written May 5, 1948, from Trinity College, Cambridge...
...Your proposal is, in effect, ihe same, for the compulsory inspection you advocate would be...
...Even at such a price...
...The idea is absurd...
...It pointed the way to the possibility of a meaningful coalition of white and black radicals, and it created an organizational base wherein that coalition could be forged...
...pilot's letter which Arnoni published with the admitted collaboration of ihe North Vietnamese Communists, whose cause he so resolutely serves...
...that the economic recovery and military integration of Western Europe should be carried further before war begins...
...The footnote he cites above refers to something else??a talk delivered by Russell at the Westminster School in 1948, which did not in the least indicate how far he was prepared to go...
...I think war would be worthwhile...
...During a speech which was part of a panel that had been scheduled for some time, James Foreman made some joking remarks about being a dictator...
...I voted against that resolution and would do so again...
...But if...
...As others have learned through bitter experience, the will to believe is not easily given up, nor is the ability to perceive reality easily attained...
...In fact, however, at the conclusion of the Chicago conference the black and white Left were more united than ever before in the recent history of this country, and the black caucus had demonstrated a serious willingness to engage in mutual activity on an equal basis...
...I think all (including Stalin) are fatuous and ignorant...
...I frankly do not remember making the remark that Hodes attributes to me concerning flagellation of white consciences...
...Either he was unaware of this letter (published by Dr...
...Malcolm Burnstein Jeffrey Hodes replies: Malcolm Burnstein's outburst tragically confirms the New Left's political impoverishment...
...Arnoni's strategy of total denial is designed to throw dust in the eyes of his readers...
...If Russia overruns Western Europe, the destruction will be such as no subsequent re-conquest can undo...
...In the course of a diatribe against my views in the October 1963 issue of his magazine, he charged me with deliberately misstating Bertrand Russell's position...
...what happened to Polish intellectuals...
...There are some things of which Europeans are more vividly conscious than Americans...
...It would take as much space as the original article to make the full range of corrections, but I will mention a few items in this letter...
...Passaic, N.J...
...One would hope that a writer for a national political magazine would be able to distinguish between a speaker's forensic technique and an abuse of the parliamentary procedure in a plenary session...
...What Burnstein would like to believe happened at the ncnp unfortunately, has little relevance to what did happen...
...But I hope I am wrong about this...
...Communism must be wiped out and world government must be established...
...The Russians, even without atomic bombs, will be able to destroy all big towns in England, as the Germans would have done if the War had lasted a few months longer...
...pilot's published letter...
...Oakland, Calif...
...The evidence is canned for posterity on cbs teletape for anyone who cares to look...
...where most will die of hardships and the survivors will be turned into animals...
...I am requesting the editor of The New Leader to reprint Russell's letter to Dr...
...Marseille in the October 16, 1954, Saturday Review) or he chose to ignore it...
...1 have no doubt that America would win in the end, but unless Western Europe can be preserved from invasion, it will be lost to civilization for centuries...
...Instead of making honest inquiry about my sources, it was simpler to project onto me his own deceitful practices and to charge I was making it up out of whole cloth...
...Indeed, Burnstein was simply had...
...Trinity College, Bertrand Russell Cambridge...
...As I stated earlier, the conference ended on a much greater note of unity and harmony than it began...
...Many black people within the caucus hoped the demands would not be accepted, so they could storm out of ncnp...
...I do not think the Russians will yield without war...
...I had several times asserted, particularly in the period when Russell was inveighing against the wickedness of the West, that he himself had advocated a policy of preventive atomic war against the Soviet Union if it continued to reject international control and inspection of atomic energy, even at the cost of the total destruction of Western Europe and its inhabitants...
...that at present neither air power nor atomic bombs could prevent Russia from overrunning all Western Europe up to the Straits of Dover...
...The reference to Foreman's speech purports to indicate an irreconcilable gulf between the black and white delegates to the conference and the impossibility of a meaningful coalition...
...These views may or may not be correct, but at any rate they are those of the best experts...
...legally, an act of war...
...as were the delegates as a whole, and little would be accomplished in debating whether the "black caucus demonstrated a serious willingness to engage in mutual activity...
...1 do not know where Hodes was during some parts of the conference about which he presumes to speak authoritatively, but some of the things that he says occurred simply did not...
...Arnoni denied that Russell had said this...
...It is, of course, too early to gloat over the success of that coalition, as the new National Executive Board of ncnp has not yet faced any serious political problems...
...Even at such a price...
...And in conversations since the conference, the feeling emerges that the caucus' 13 resolutions were something of a put-on...
...Perhaps I did say something like that during the debate on the 13 points...
...They say that in a few years we shall be in a better position, and that Russia will not yet have atomic bombs...
...They were hard-nosed, ideological third-party adherents to the end, and when their own perspective lost they snifted en bloc to the third ticket??and attempted to prevent adoption of the compromise position...
...Marseille follows: I have read your paper with great interest.I agree entirely with all the underlying assumptions...
...Hook's brazenness in citing a false example of my falsely alleged ignorance is a measure of the questionable integrity of his reply...
...It is ludicrous to assert that the leaders of the third party forces shifted their position to that of support for the community organizers perspective...
...Hodes should have been aware, however, that (1) Foreman was, in fact, joking and said so, and (2) that the speech was nothing more than a speech and was not a plenary session of the conference— so parliamentary procedure was totally inappropriate because no conference actions were in fact taken...
...During the past year, conversations with professional strategists have slightly modified my views...
...The evidence clearly shows that I did not misstate the content of his article about me, or Russell's position, or the content of the captured U.S...
...Prior to the final conference vote on the question of a third ticket or a year of community organizing, the leadership of both the third ticket caucus and the white organizers' caucus had agreed to our compromise, but both felt that the militants in their ranks insisted on a test of floor strength...
...Practically the whole educated population will be sent to labor camps in Northeast Siberia or on the shores of the White Sea...
...Atomic bombs, if used, will at first have to be dropped on Western Europe, since Russia will be out of reach...
...Thus, no matter who won the floor vote between the third ticket and the community organizing perspective, the leadership of both caucuses were committed to thereafter supporting our compromise amendment...
...The text of the 1948 letter to Dr...
...I am convinced that when it attained its parity of power in the convention, the black caucus exercised that power responsibly and reasonably, and I have every hope and expectation that it will continue to do so in the future of ncnp...
...Hodes might also have noted that the overwhelming majority of the audience was in strong sympathy with Foreman's content and demonstrated that sympathy by tremendous applause...
...Thus Hook's claim of our unawareness is not only ridiculous, but hides our article's unchallengeable documentation that he had misstated Russell's position (and many other facts...
...To say that Foreman was joking when he opted for dictatorship almost demands a suspension of reality itself...
...The most important criticism of Hodes1 article is that its tone is so essentially negative, whereas most of the people who attended the Chicago conference came away with a much more affirmative attitude...
...HOOK In his reply to my letter ("Dear Editor," NL, September 25), Sidney Hook purports to present an example of "Arnoni's ignorance" by alleging my unawareness of Bertrand Russell's one-time recommendation of threats against the USSR as the West's means of obtaining a nuclear accord with Moscow...
...and would be so viewed by the Soviet government...
...In handling them with kid gloves, just as Burnstein is asking me to handle ncnp, the white radicals are covertly encouraging their violence and, consequently, forcing the militants to retreat into black power—or what Kenneth Clark calls "super-segregation...
...The other major error of which I would complain concerns Hodes' treatment of the ''Burnstein" amendment...
...And if his views are symbolic of those he represents, it suggests the naive, gullible mentality that pervades today's Pop, emotional political activists...
...M. S. Arnoni, Editor The Minority of One Sidney Hook replies: M. S. Arnoni's rejoinder is all bluff and bluster...
...DEAR EDITOR NEW POLITICS I write to protest some clear misstatements in Jeffrey Hodes' article on the National Conference for New Politics (ncnp) in Chicago ("The New Left in Disarray," NL, September 11...
...Marseille...
...by waiting, we could defend our present lines in Germany and Italy, it would be an immeasurable boon...
...One would hope that all those on the Left, however, would attempt to understand the new moods of black and white militancy sweeping the country and also attempt to come to grips with them, rather than engage in destructive attacks upon those who do try to solve the age-old problem of the division of the Left...
...All of his non sequiturs combined do not obviate the fact that he has misstated not only the content of my article about him, and that he has misstated not only Russell's position, but that he has also misstated ("Dear Editor," NL, August 14) the content of a captured U.S...
...I am supposed to have displayed that ignorance in an article dedicated to Hook—"A Professor's Accident," in the October 1963 issue of the Minority of One (a copy of which we will be glad to send free to anyone interested in checking the respective veracity of Hook and myself...
...I think war would be worthwhile...
Vol. 50 • October 1967 • No. 21
