LETTERS

...LETTERS Better Read Than Red With Nicholas Lemann's "Putting the Mind Over What Matters," (October) The Washington Monthly takes a giant step toward competing with The New York Review of Books as "America's most important and influential intellectual magazine...

...A serious inconvenience that prevents some of us from accepting Mr...

...Nicholas Lemann replies: Mr...

...I will pass along Mr...

...It has always been the responsibility of the White House to inform Congress of the investigative results...

...I'm disappointed to see it in the The Washington Monthly...

...Navasky, not so fast...

...In fact, your "Tilting at Windmills" column (October) contains a generous plug for Mary Williams's article about the impact of Reaganomics on the President's hometown, Dixon, Illinois...

...53791 at $17 a year and The Nation at the introductory rate of $12 for half a year from 72 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...

...Greider by prematurely awarding him a prize that he should no doubt win on his own in the future...

...I think a fair test of whether The Nation is soft on Russia is how it reacted to the two most recent situations in which the Soviet Union was completely and inarguably the bad guy: the intervention in Afghanistan and the proclamation of martial law in Poland...

...Sixty yea rsago the Western proletariat and its political parties failed to come to the rescue of the victorious and isolated Bolsheviks," he writes, and this "tragic failure" laid much of the groundwork for Stalin...

...See "Tilting at Windmills"for the editors reply...

...The real villain in the Afghanistan situation, to Mr...

...My only hope is that we have not jinxed Mr...

...Simmons is president of Franklin Spier, Inc...

...As I read your major article on Afghanistan ("Wrong Moves on Afghanistan," January 26, 1980), its author, Fred Halliday, actually applauds the Soviet intervention...

...Several months earlier, in a long discussion of Soviet politics ("Socialism and the Soviet Bloc," February 14, 1981), Mr...

...And need I add that Mr...

...Singer took the position that while Russia has had its problems over the years, it would be a mistake to eliminate it from the ranks of potentially progressive societies...

...But he mentioned the Soviet Union only once, and only in passing...

...LEE SI M MONS New York, New York Mr...

...Fote would, I am confident, ask to be first among them) would take unpaid leaves of absence from theirjobs for the duration or, if their skills were such as to make them irreplaceable, would contribute their entire salaries to a fund to provide unemployment compensation to persons whose lack of appropriate skills or lack of mobility preserved them from taking the jobs of the voluntarily unemployed...

...To the participant it's entertaining, to the reader of a sports section, it's dull and of no interest...

...The adoption of my proposal, improving as it would both social justice and economic efficiency, would make all of us prouder to be Americans...

...Blue-collar workers flock to football, basketball, baseball, and hockey by the millions...

...As you may know, the Department of Justice is in the process of reviewing the background investigative procedures for presidential nominees...

...You indicated that Judge Webster has shown a reluctance to share information in this area with Congress...

...Fote's view of unemployment is that many of those who are "temporarily" thrown out of work while the economy adjusts cannot afford to be without an income...

...Nobody is sorrier than us artists that we have to eat and be sheltered from the elements...

...All members would be persons who either can afford to be without an income, or persons, like those occasional correspondents President Reagan professes to have heard from, who are so devoted to laissez-faire capitalism that they would be glad to starve in the service of their ideals...

...Their desire was to stabilize a situation that had spiralled out of control," he says, trustingly adding that, in general, "Russia does not have a detailed 'grand strategy,' and insofar as it has a single overarching policy, it is what it has been since 1920: namely to support revolutionary governments where it can...

...There is such a thing as Quality of Life, it is reflected in the city's tax base and its solvency, and artists do help to improve it...

...The FBI's role is to conduct investigations on nominees to assist the White House in its selection process...

...In the other matter, you attributed to Judge Webster a quotation indicating that groups which "produce propaganda, misinformation, and legal assistance may be more dangerous than those who actually throw the bombs...

...You may not be aware of the fact that The Progressive has always taken a clear-eyed, unsentimental view of the Soviet state—from the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution through the purge trials and other abuses of the Stalin era...

...We have condemned Soviet imperialism and adventurism abroad, as well as Soviet repression at home...

...To specifically answer your question, yes, Judge Webster has indeed heard of the First Amendment and I believe his record clearly establishes his respect, appreciation, and protection of all constitutional rights...

...I am referring to Nicholas Lemann's article, and particularly to his assertion that The Progressive and The Nation are "the only real continuing legatees of the soft-on-Russia side of American liberalism...

...Sports writers know their readers and cover every fumble, strikeout, and lay-up...

...Surely you do know our position on Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland and Afghanistan today...

...MAURICE BEESLEY San Francisco, California I know you read The Progressive from time to time...

...I know how infuriating it is for someone to make an offhand statement that ignores 30 years of work, and I'm sorry for having done that...

...Halliday's mind, is, of course, the United States, which engaged in "some of the most undiluted irresponsibility and crass demagoguery...

...he said he feels "a reluctance to accept that thechangesembodied in the October Revolution ultimately led to a dead end...

...If Weiss doesn't like the way the city has found to accomplish this, he should suggest a better PETER BASCH New York, New York Middle Level Snobs "The Day They Stop Returning Your Calls" (Doug Bandow, September) was sad as well as ironic...

...Lemann's observations to our monthly columnist on Soviet Affairs, Professor Steven Cohen of Princeton University, who I know will be interested since his books have been banned in the Soviet Union...

...Bowled Over In your attack on snobbery at all levels you admonished The Washington Post for devoting such a small space in the sports section to bowling despite the fact that "4.8 million men and 4.1 million women bowl at least once a week" ("Tilting at Windmills," September...

...Historically, the White House deals directly with Congress in connection with presidential nominees...

...What I should have said was that in the panoply of liberal magazines, The Progressive is particularly unrepentant about conventional liberalism...

...But romantic expectations have little to do with the rigors of life in New York City...

...COLIN G. JAMESON Key West, Florida Premature Pulitzer In your October issue, an ad placed by this agency for the E. P. Dutton book, The Education of David Stockman and Other Americans, by William Greider, contained an error that was embarrassing to all concerned— us, the publisher, but particularly the author, to whom we mistakenly awarded a Pulitzer Prize...

...Singer feels that even the worst excesses of Stalinism were really in large part the fault of the United States...

...Always...

...If the reference to The Progressive in Lemann's article is not based on sheer ignorance (as it may well be in your author's case, but not in yours), it must be based on the doctrine that anyone who rejects the Manichean formulations of the Right and the simple-minded mumbo-jumbo of the Cold War must be on "the softonRussia side...

...Let's let bygones be bygones and forget the notoriously Stalin-apologist Nation editorship of Freda Kirchwey, turning our attention instead to the present...

...When an emergency arose which required some temporary unemployment, volunteers (Mr...

...I would expect to encounter that attitude in the pages of National Review or Cornmentary...

...The Progressive is available from 408 West Gorham Street, Madison, Wisc...

...10011...

...I read The Nation every week and often admire it...

...I can assure you that such is not the case...

...It's only fair that they share in the fruits of their labor...

...We would very much appreciate your readers knowing that neither publisher nor author were in any way responsible...

...While we are always pleased to be linked with The Progressive, we found Nicholas Lemann's characterization of our two journals as "the only real continuing legatees of the soft-on-Russia side of American liberalism" to be unworthy of your usually tough-minded magazine...

...I find it all the more perplexing, then, that the same issue should contain a wholly inaccurate, not to say malicious, reference to our magazine...

...J. M. Arena of Newsweek that it may be because "bowling is a bluecollar sport...

...Roger Young is assistant director of the office of congressional and public affairsfor the Federal Bureau of Investigation...

...What absorbing copy can be written about the repetitious, one-man act of rolling a black ball down a wooden path to knock over some wooden bottles...

...On Poland, your major coverage ("Jaruzelski Sends in the Tanks," December 26, 1981) was by Daniel Singer, author of the The Road to Gdansk (Monthly Review Press), and he was at least clearly outraged by the event...

...Lest your readers be misled, I advise that they see for themselves...

...This statement was actually made by a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism...

...NORMAN L. KAUTSKY Littleton, Colorado Federal Bureau of Clarification I would like to clarify two matters relating to Judge Webster which appeared in "Tilting at Windmills" in September...

...ROGER S. YOUNG Washington, D.C...

...The error had, in fact, been caught by the publisher, corrected by us, and then—due to the mysteries of computer typesetting and the failure of our people to perform the usual final check—reappeared in the ad as sent to you...

...Lemann is obviously a man with ideas and the ability and intention of communicating...

...VICTOR NAVASKY New York, New York Victor Navasky is editor of The Nation...

...I can only attribute this misinformation to lapsed subscriptions...

...Cover stories on these subjects have not been reassuring...

...ERWIN KNOLL Madison, Wisconsin Erwin Knoll is editor of The Progressive...

...But under the Knoll administration and that of Morris H. Rubin for many years before that, The Progressive hasn't been soft on Russia...

...for many a long year...

...The results of that review should be forthcoming in the near future...

...James Fallows will excuse the incorporation of a minor update in English usage in a description of the Office of Policy Development (!) and its ilk: Bandow's people seem to operate in a dense pettifog impenetrable except to ego trips...

...The Nation can speak for itself...

...You seem to side with Mr...

...PHILIP MOE Minneapolis, Minnesota Feed the Artists Re: "Artistic Licenses" by Philip Weiss, in the October issue...

...It suggests that our middle-echelon employees in federal agencies gauge career fulfillment not by success in serving the public interest but by the number of meetings attended and memos received or generated...

...advertising agency...

...It's possible that Lemann knows nothing about The Progressive—but you do, and I assume you exercise some editorial discretion over the contents of The Washington Monthly...

...Judge Webster is in full agreement with you that Congress should be given all pertinent information upon which to make its findings...

...I therefore propose that a corps of volunteers for the fight against inflation and technological obsolescence be formed...

...Knoll, I apologize...

...Volunteer for Jobless Corps Alfred A. Fote's dictum: "Unemployment is a necessary, temporary concomitant when an economy must adjust to changing circumstances" ("Letters," September) prompts me to offer a modest proposal...

...The first matter concerns background investigations for presidential nominees...

...But it prints enough articles that give the Soviet Union every conceivable benefit of the doubt, and then some, to qualify it fully as the legatee of the "soft-on-Russia side of American liberalism...