LETTERS
LETTERS to the Editor IN MEMORIAM I was very saddened when I I learned of Erwin's death. With him goes one of the last conspicuous voices speaking out against the sanctimonious chorus of zealots...
...David Brinkley reported that the banned article, which I had authored, contained instructions for anyone "who might like to build a hydrogen bomb in his garage...
...He wrote several books, and was working on a new one when he died...
...If Erwin had lived a few more years, I'm sure that, added to everything else he was doing, he would somehow be letting that crusty, witty, disrespectful voice of his be heard on the Internet, and on whatever new means of spreading the word will come...
...Knoll's voice will be sorely missed...
...We'll miss him very much...
...I'll miss Erwin's sharp commentaries, but I trust there will be successors both at the magazine and elsewhere who, inspired by his fearless example, will keep trying to wake up and shake up Americans, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable...
...He will be missed...
...Our side has precious few voices like his around...
...His presence and thoughtful, succinct comments at the conference of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters this year gave depth and breadth to our discussions...
...Of all the new family members I met, Erwin was the one with whom I felt immediate rapport, and with whom I stayed in constant touch...
...He both sustained the La Follette tradition and put his own unique stamp on the magazine...
...He was my companion, compatriot, and mentor during a great adventure for a noble cause...
...The other was that the best way to safeguard the First Amendment is to practice it...
...His candor and good, down-to-earth common sense were greatly appreciated by his readers and viewers...
...Like Izzy Stone, he was a journalist's journalist, and he served as a beacon for many of us who have followed him since...
...My sympathies to you folks and especially to Erwin's family...
...Despite the many fond anecdotes and funny stories as well as serious recitations of Erwin's battles, it was depressing...
...The 1979 H-bomb case, which catapulted The Progressive into international prominence, arose out of the magazine's decision to publish an article puncturing the secrecy mystique which protects the Federal Government's nuclear weapons program from public scrutiny...
...It was just what they needed to hear...
...This, of course, took place at the steps of that city's illustrious Capitol building...
...JeffSweesy and 34 fellow inmates Arizona State Prison Tucson, Arizona It was with shock and sadness that we learned tonight of the untimely death of Erwin Knoll...
...We Native Americans believe the eagle to be in direct contact with the Creator, and we call the eagle "the bird with faraway vision...
...You have to create them yourself, often carving them out in a very hostile, resistant world...
...E.W...
...At a time when sane voices from the Left are heard too infrequently in our country, it goes without saying that Mr...
...Ardelle Hough Corrales, New Mexico We have read The Progressive for years, especially Mr...
...And I will miss that voice, both inside The Progressive and out, as I continue to subscribe to your magazine and struggle to be an active citizen...
...and I sat down to write him a letter of thanks for upholding the family honor...
...Today, The Progressive case is taught on every college campus in the country...
...One was that an editor's battle against official secrecy must know no bounds...
...Please accept my heartfelt condolences...
...Knoll's work each month...
...I am very concerned about the future of our country in its current mindset, as I know you are...
...John Kenneth Galbraith Cambridge, Massachusetts I have just heard of the death I of Erwin Knoll...
...That summer, we toured California together, appearing at fund-raising parties and proselytizing on late-night radio talk shows...
...He was an inspiration as well as a resource, and we join the progressive community in mourning his death...
...We hope The Progressive can keep going—for him, for you, and for us...
...Bacia Edelman Madison, Wisconsin In memory of Erwin Knoll, I whose passing renders the world a bit duller, a smidge sadder, and certainly less hopeful a place in which to live...
...And to do that requires additional qualities that Erwin had: persistence, and the ability to charm people who didn't agree with him...
...But Erwin knew that these ideas need to be preached beyond just the circle of those already committed...
...Knoll's editorials, and we have listened to him on talk shows...
...But we celebrate a life that enriched all of us who witnessed his unbending courage and irrepressible determination in the struggle for peace and social justice and for the preservation of our fragile freedoms in this increasingly perilous world...
...I am saddened and shocked...
...Knoll's "Memo from the Editor" each and every month...
...Samuel H. Day, Jr...
...Casey Kasem Los Angeles, California Perhaps the most amazing thing about Erwin Knoll was that he was only one person...
...Although our politics and viewpoints were not always congruent, I was proud to light at his side during 1979...
...It was a pleasure to have known him, and I wish his family, and the magazine, well...
...More recently, I looked forward to his appearances on the MacNeil/Lehrer News-Hour and would telephone him whenever I was especially pleased with his comments...
...Howard Morland Arlington, Virginia Iwas deeply saddened to learn of the recent loss of Erwin Knoll...
...He did many noteworthy things in his life...
...He was my first-ever boss (and the first one I ever tried to organize against...
...Maybe it's because Erwin was one of those rare people who kept on fighting through the decades—and people like that make me feel it's possible to do likewise...
...I still remember the moment during the Watergate Hearings when my wife, Elsa, telephoned me excitedly: "Think of it...
...It was a comfort to know that I was not alone in the suddenly widened circle of relatives...
...I received my December issue of The Progressive and was immediately taken aback at the news that Erwin Knoll had passed on to the spirit world...
...Needless to say, I was both shocked and saddened when I heard the announcement...
...Erwin Knoll's was a voice of sanity in a crazy world...
...With him goes one of the last conspicuous voices speaking out against the sanctimonious chorus of zealots who have conveniently put all threatening and challenging notions out in the backyard...
...he will be missed to an extent that I don't believe is yet realized...
...Erwin's death, following Andy Kopkind's so recently, leaves us all diminished, but reminds us what the legacy is we are bound to carry on...
...Laura McClure Brooklyn, New York Ever since I discovered The Progressive years ago, I became enlightened to a way of seeing the world, the nation, business, and politics in a way that runs counter to the norm...
...I am glad he shared one of them with me...
...Despite his extremely busy schedule, he never failed to respond, and it was gratifying to sense his interest and to read his sympathetic comments...
...His voice made audible those strains of generous liberalism that are becoming ever more faint in these times of rampant reaction...
...In addition to looking forward to his "Memo from the Editor" in each Progressive issue, we have always enjoyed and agreed with many of Mr...
...Knoll sign the most recent copy of the magazine, a task he accepted with humorous astonishment...
...Anyway, I'm so glad for all the good work he did...
...Like every member of The Progressive's staff, I feel as though I've lost a close friend...
...Iwill miss Erwin Knoll inordinately...
...I had only recently asked my local public radio station to carry Mr...
...He was a true friend...
...He was a very smart, often cantankerous, very cultured man...
...My heart's with you as you struggle to handle this loss...
...The suicidal doctrine of nuclear deterrence was devised by public officials working in secret and was sold to the public by false advertising, including a failure to acknowledge the central role of preemption...
...We were one in our rejection of capitalism with its corrupt politics, its callous indifference to human suffering, and its bankrupt militaristic adventurism, even though, as a veteran of World War II, I never became the absolute pacifist he was...
...We chipped away at the mystique of the nuclear priesthood and its supposedly unimpeachable wisdom based on exclusive access to official secrets...
...Knoll's name will take his place on the masthead below Robert La Follette and Morris Rubin...
...To stop him, the Justice Department had obtained a restraining order in what seemed like a rare application of justified censorship...
...He was the editor of a national magazine...
...I first had occasion to meet Mr...
...I disagree with you more often than not...
...The media world went nuts...
...Real and unreal, that Erwin, who was so solid, so reliable, who should somehow have lasted into the next century, helping us to get there, should die so young...
...Andrew J. McErlean Gulf Breeze, Florida I got my first job in politics— I at no pay, I might add—from Erwin Knoll nearly twenty years ago when he took me on as The Progressive's first-ever intern...
...He held to his journalistic convictions in a time when the media of America is engaged in lapdog politics and is "corporate-sponsored...
...Nancy Mainland Fellowship of Reconciliation Nyack, New York I was terribly shocked to learn I of Erwin's death...
...Magazines like The Progressive are important because they bring information and inspiration to people who already care about righting the world's wrongs...
...Occasionally I would send him papers I had written...
...My respect and admiration grew during the fight about publication of the H-bomb article, when I watched his unyielding defiance of government pressure, even as too many of his journalist colleagues abandoned him...
...But I know The Progressive will continue and that Mr...
...The only hope of really changing the world is to spread our ideas to a far wider circle...
...He hosted a weekly half-hour radio program, Second Opinion, heard on several dozen stations...
...But real shock is rare, and today it was real...
...He did the amazing variety of things that he did, not because he liked to hear himself talk, but because, while remaining completely true to his longtime beliefs, he wanted to reach people who didn't already share them...
...In a world too often fraught with trash and trivia, he shone with uncommon luminosity...
...Mary and Jerry Ptacek Franklin, Wisconsin Many years ago, I was fortunate enough to shake Mr...
...I am hurrying to send a letter of my own acute sense of sorrow and deprivation...
...Murray Moskowitz San Diego, California The death of Erwin Knoll comes as a personal shock and loss to those of us who respected his wit, viewpoint, and honesty...
...not only in the violation of basic constitutional rights, but through prejudices handed down through generations...
...The Progressive almost always has a fresh perspective rather than a regurgitation of what the herd of journalists are saying...
...In standing his ground despite great risk and against great odds, Erwin won an enduring victory not just for himself and his magazine but for two fundamental principles which defined his journalistic career...
...Most of us in the world of progressive journalism would consider it a full-time job to do any one or two of these things...
...Madison, Wisconsin We did not know of each other's existence until the late 1960s, and did not meet personally until the beginning of the 1970s...
...Terence M. Ripmaster Hackettstown, New Jersey The last thing I was expecting from Erwin was this terrible premature death...
...I am a Native American, and I have experienced many of the inequities this Government has meted out...
...No one can take another's place, but in his memory I hope that The Progressive continues with his vitality and insight...
...He always seemed like "family...
...He was a sane and humane voice in our society...
...The doomsday weaponry was assembled by secret, government-owned factories, and the whole enterprise was protected by a sweeping, permanent gag order called the Atomic Energy Act...
...While it is usually presented simply as a probing of the limits of the First Amendment, it differs significantly from other landmark free-speech cases, such as Near vs...
...nor—what must have seemed stranger to him—could I ever abandon the illusion of voting for the lesser of two evils...
...David McReynolds New York, New York This morning I heard the news over the radio that Erwin Knoll had died...
...Rich Smith Seattle, Washington Iwould like to add my condolences and respect for Erwin Knoll...
...And we are grateful...
...I had been an avid reader of The Progressive for a number of years and was struck dumb by how approachable Mr...
...They can do this, I think, not primarily because they go without sleep, or work at high speed, or have the knack of getting the words right on the first draft, but because they are wise enough to know that life is short, injustice is vast, and there is no time to waste on the things that slow down ordinary mortals: fatigue, timidity, writer's block, or whatever...
...His voice will be sorely missed...
...Your writers sound like they're just talking to each other...
...I don't think I did go in until the end of my summer there, when Erwin took a piece I had labored on, a piece that had not a chance of running in the magazine, and edited it...
...Dopp Ann Arbor, Michigan Iam writing today because of of the untimely death of Er-win Knoll...
...Elmer C. Parish Conyers, Georgia...
...Knoll's comments each time he appeared as a panelist on the MacNeil/Lehrer News-Hour...
...as a reader I feel uninvited," he told the directors in his characteristic bluntness, putting his finger on a point I had labored in vain to get across in months of struggle with the Bulletin's powers that be...
...I felt he had become a special friend to me, so that once, several years ago on a trip to Madison, I found my way to The Progressive's offices solely to have Mr...
...Depressing also, in the wake of last Tuesday and its broader implications...
...Although suffering initial legal setbacks, The Progressive ultimately prevailed in court when the Government dropped the case...
...Leila Ward Grass Valley, California Ihave known and worked with Erwin for many years in his role as editor of The Progressive...
...Ford Ballantyne Verona, Wisconsin Erwin spoke for us on nearly every issue...
...Howard Park Washington, D.C...
...Richard Parker Cambridge, Massachusetts Greetings from Arizona State Prison...
...As co-defendants in the year's most sensational court case, Erwin and I were overwhelmed with sudden but fleeting fame...
...I wish he were with us still, in the gloomy political season when we need his voice more than ever...
...politics, needed all the more now that we have the nightmare come true of Dole, Gingrich, Helms, Thurmond, and D'Amato running the country—perhaps into the ground, or even lower depths...
...We all have lost a dear friend and a fighter for civil liberties and civil rights for all people...
...I will never forget the sound or the meaning of his voice...
...Our loss is indeed great...
...Since the time when I received my first issue of The Progressive in 1979, I've looked forward to reading Mr...
...Erwin's utter integrity as a journalist and his zealous defense of freedom of the press were an inspiration...
...He will be missed by many, many readers and viewers...
...Minnesota or the Nazi march in Skokie, in which civil libertarians defended morally objectionable speech as a matter of principle, while they privately held their noses...
...He was also a gifted editor who could move a few words around and make a clumsy writer seem articulate...
...We mourn his untimely death...
...Truly, this world has lost another eagle...
...Knoll's radio show, sad now that we won't have him...
...He was a regular TV commentator on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour...
...I admired his work for years and listened regularly to his weekly shows sent to me on tapes...
...He was the clear-thinking, original mind we hope to sometimes encounter—and he made it possible...
...And he, of course, was stumping for his magazine, The Progressive...
...The Progressive will, of course, survive now in a political atmosphere in which it is more needed than ever...
...At eighty-three, I am more than likely the oldest representative of our family, and it is my privilege to express how proud and honored I feel that Erwin was one of us...
...and the editor of the magazine I love to write for...
...I was going to call him after his last appearance—now I am deeply remorseful that I never did...
...In this way he has deeply touched our lives and shaped our thinking...
...It is studied in detail by law, journalism, and library school students...
...And I can still recall how he turned a leaden opening into a graceful one, teaching me something in the process about writing and politics...
...It was as if the voice of peace and justice spoke freely in The Progressive every month, and it was Erwin's...
...Chuck Hansen Sunnyvale, California Like so many other Americans, I was saddened to hear of the death of Erwin Knoll...
...Knoll through a letter I sent to him with a copy of several newspaper articles I had published here in Tucson...
...But even when fueled by this kind of energy and passion, you don't, of course, find all these forums for speaking out ready-made, especially when you are a writer of the Left...
...One opens the obituary section of The New York Times each day expecting that the ancient and mighty have fallen—or too often that the young and talented have died from AIDS...
...Knoll helped reinforce my beliefs and has given me strength to continue in my battle against these violations of the mind and body...
...Ours was a genuine situation of government misbehavior discovered and reported by a free press, a perfect example of why free societies disallow government censorship...
...And when I saw Erwin for the last time this spring, he mentioned casually that thanks to satellite technology, he had now started broadcasting a daily radio commentary...
...Samson B. Knoll Carmel, California Both in my days at Ramparts, then founding Mother Jones, I viewed Erwin as an inspiration...
...Not only have many shared his particular area of concern for world peace but most of us saw him as our mentor in this area...
...Marty Durlin KGNU Boulder, Colorado Years ago, when I was editing The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in Chicago, Illinois, Erwin Knoll did me a favor by appearing as my guest at a directors' meeting called to evaluate the editorial content of the magazine...
...In contrast, what we said in 1979 was at least as important as our legal right to say it...
...Christopher Kox San Francisco, California II is not a joke to say I am Itorn between expressing "personal and organizational grief" on behalf of the Socialist Party, as a co-chair of that organization, or on behalf of the War Resisters League, where I am on the staff...
...He will be missed but always respected...
...Daniel Cantor New York, New York Community radio stations and their audiences across the country have lost a friend, an advocate, and a program (Second Opinion) with Erwin Knoll's passing...
...Many an editor could have conceived and produced such a story, but what put Erwin's editorship in a class by itself was his insistence on printing it despite governmental opposition which blocked publication for six months, brought horrendous legal costs, and incurred the wrath of most of the media (worried about loss of their First Amendment rights) and scientific community (concerned about public intrusion into sensitive national-security areas...
...That is unimportant because you continue to raise the right questions...
...I was concerned that your magazine might be confiscated due to its highly controversial issues in dealing with human rights in this country as well as the world...
...His was a friendly, progressive voice that will be greatly missed...
...My sincere condolences to his family and many, many friends...
...His death hit me hard...
...When he interviewed me on Second Opinion about a book I'd written, he—unlike most talk-show hosts—had read the whole book...
...I'll decide about the answers...
...Erwin Knoll, with his honest editorials and straightforward style, always stood true not to mainstream values, but to true and human values...
...I feel very sorry for these people because hatred only poisons the soul, and this begets anti-intellectual hostility and violence...
...James Madison would have been proud...
...Knoll's hand at Madison's wonderfully political farmers' market...
...I think we figure that if someone as smart and world-wise as Erwin feels that change really is possible, that fighting for it really is worthwhile—well, then, maybe it is...
...This brings me to something else I particularly admired about Erwin...
...Erwin dedicated his life to seeking and publishing the truth...
...I wonder if Erwin knew how much he helped sustain the spirits and hopes of younger people—just by being there, fighting on, resisting...
...Later, as managing editor of The Progressive, I had the opportunity to return the favor by assembling some of the ingredients that enabled Erwin to put his finger on a more cosmic problem...
...We shall miss him on a global level as well as on a personal level...
...Adam Hochschild San Francisco, California This is indeed terrible news for The Progressive, the Madison community, and for all of us...
...We never determined the exact degree of our relationship, but it cannot have been too distant, for both of us independently knew about my great-grandfather, the legendary Rabbi Israel Knoll...
...Ann Morrissett Davidon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania On March 9,1979, Erwin Knoll faced the network television cameras as the nation's newest villain and a radical editor gone berserk who wanted to print the H-bomb secret...
...While I have not always given time to reading or scanning through the magazine I faithfully read Mr...
...He said he had not been asked to do so before then, and with a couple of laughs, dashed off a signature...
...Erwin was a fearless fighter and a good man—he was a fearless fighter because he was a good man...
...We have lost a friend, a coworker, a man of deep integrity—something in very short supply anywhere in our political world...
...Knoll was to me, an average person...
...Erwin was a fixture in my world: I read his columns in the magazine as a sixteen-year-old...
...No one else has ever given us the concern he has, and we thank him...
...I will miss him...
...For me the case also showed what I have always known about Erwin Knoll: He had a knack for getting to the heart of the matter...
...I went on to explain our situation here at the prison library and the lack of funding and staff concern for receiving The Progressive...
...While we send condolences to his family, we also recognize that we all have a continuing debt to him and to ourselves to continue vigorously to defend civil liberties for all and to continue our work for world peace, in his name...
...Knoll took the time out to write me back and to give us a gift of a year's subscription, and told me to keep him informed in case we failed to receive our issues...
...I went to the "celebration" of his life held today in Washington...
...I have been a faithful subscriber to The Progressive since the H-bomb issues of 1979...
...He gave lectures all over the place, especially on college campuses...
...Erwin is on Nixon's enemies' list...
...Matthew Stark Minnesota Civil Liberties Union Minneapolis, Minnesota This is to express the shock and sadness we feel at the untimely death of Erwin Knoll...
...He was truly a unique progressive voice in the wilderness of U.S...
...I met him once and considered it an honor...
...But there are rare people like Erwin who accomplish vastly more...
...All must seek to make it the happy, innovative journal which owes so much to Erwin Knoll...
...You would have thought there were about six of him...
...I can vividly remember Erwin's office, stuff piled absolutely everywhere, and how scared I was to go into it...
...Depressing because, at thirty-five, I was almost the youngest person there...
Vol. 59 • January 1995 • No. 1
