Dear Editor

...the PSOE...

...Historical Literacy (NL, November 27, 1989), is a fine contribution to the discussion of the problem of making the study of history meaningful...

...The UGT, embittered by the Socialist government's economic policies, has engaged in a tactical alliance with the Communist-controlled Workers Commissions Trade Union Confederation, but has been careful not to be drawn into broader political cooperation...

...In October 1989 about 100 members of the UGT left the PSOE's Catalan branch to create a new political platform...

...It is also wrong to say that the October 1989 parliamentary elections marked the first time the UGT withheld formal endorsement of the Socialist Party (PSOE...

...media on Spanish political developments...

...In other words, it is not the mere holding of municipals that results in a retired person having benefits taxed...

...Somewhat confusedly, Martin strives to show that the Socialist Party and the UGT are hand in glove, while acknowledging the union's three-year-old "policy of political neutrality...

...Redondo introduced that policy after disagreement with the government's labor program, stressing that his union should have "free hands...

...History Joseph E. Mick's review of the Bradley Commission-sponsored book...

...It is indeed lamentable that your Madrid correspondent displays such a lack of elemental knowledge about what is actually taking place in the Spanish Left...

...No leading UGT figure has in any way offered public support for the United Left, because this would have deadly consequences: Most of the Socialist labor organization's activists and leaders continue to be PSOE members...

...Conversely, Redondo asserted in April 1988 that "in this union there is room for honest workers affiliated with the [conservative] Popular Party or the Social and Democratic Center...

...Rather, he is an honest, old-fashioned Socialist who has been disillusioned by, as he once told me, "former companeros so dazzled by power and monetarism that they have lost sight of the human being and seem to have forgotten they are Socialists...

...Bonds between the PSOE and the UGT are not what they used to be...

...Sarasota, Fla...

...At its National Congress, scheduled to be held next April, the UGT will consider whether to maintain its close links with the PSOE or to permanently adopt an independent Socialist stance...

...To assert, as Valls-Russell does, that the Communist Party leader, Julio Anguita, is "supported" by the UGT displays an incomprehensible ignorance of Spanish political realities...

...My point, however, still stands: I believe that the tax exemption of municipal bonds should be rescinded, but I think it unreasonable to do so only for some of the tax-exempts held by some senior citizens...

...That's more or less true—more true because I do have some income from municipal bonds, less true because I also have some other income, and both types of income are included in determining the tax I pay on my Social Security benefits...

...On February 28 it refused Democracia Socialista permission to set up as an internal party "current...

...I hope that as a nation we won't end up like Plutarch's fools, who think the brief present "no longer pertains to us...

...Yet on October 30 Antonio Puerta, a former UGT leader and an active member of the PSOE, cited "the statement Nicolas Redondo made on the eve of the election, declaring that the United Left is the only party to defend the workers," and asked: "What else can they [i.e...

...Washington, D. C. Benjamin Martin Janice Valts-Russell replies: Benjamin Martin questions my accuracy, particularly onthesubjectof Nicolas Redondo...

...I have not tried to suggest that the UGT is infiltrated by Communists or that Redondo is a Communist stooge...

...In contrast, the Socialist leadership saw to it that members of the dissident Democracia Socialista, linked to the UGT, did not figure prominently on the PSOE's ticket...

...And the candidates occupying the second and third spots on the United Left's ticket were two former PSOE members still close to the UGT...

...Few thoughtful articles appear in the U.S...

...Some UGT leaders, though, have recently given their backing to Democracia Socialista, a dissident movement within the PSOE...

...The same day, a government minister grumbled to a small group of journalists about the UGT's "implicit" support for the United Left throughout the campaign...

...Not a single prominent figure proposes support for the United Left...

...Bronxvilie, N. Y. Melvtn L. Rogers Spanish Politics Janice Valls-Russell's "'Shifting Politics in Spain" (NL, November 27, 1989) is seriously flawed by factual and analytical errors, most notably concerning the position taken by the Socialist General Workers' Union (UGT) in recent political developments...

...Redondo and his followers] do to harm us [i.e...

...Surely the article's most damaging howler is its statement that the UGT leader, Nicolas Redondo, came out in support of the Communist-front United Left ticket on the eve of the October election...

...The policy of political neutrality was first applied three years earlier...

...Some PSOE members, particularly lawyers, doctors and journalists, consider it ridiculous to have to belong to the UGT...

...The UGT is not, of course, a monolithic institution and, healthily, not everyone in the union agrees with Redondo—as I wrote in my article...

...Clarification In my column on "Social Gains and Capital Security" (NL, February 5-19), I wrote, "Because I own some municipal bonds, half of my [Social Security] benefits are now subject to income tax...

...Otherwise we might come to resemble his image of that ropemaker in hell, "with an ass gobbling up all the rope he makes as he plays it out...

...George ?. Brockway...

...But the October contest did mark the first time that he and others in the UGT spoke of another party with electoral sympathy...