DEAR EDITOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100960010-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: LETTER

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to tor
Tho- New Yc rk, ;,Times igook Her!evr
have just finishe" ..reading James Burnham s "Gont.a nmsn , auu
blushed
n comps ring my own mpresaion of the book with the review which you published
nit, on March 1, twder the signature of Joseph Harsch, can only conclude that
our reviewer was utterly unfair.
I also happen to be a life-lorg
t so happens that 1',/come from Eastern Europe.
student of international affairs, particalsr y well acquainted with Eastern
uropean affairs and familiar with all tha,. was written in the post-war years
n this country on the subject of fIo S. foreign policy. I an, therefore, morr
than just casually interested in the vastly important matters with which the
rnham book is concerned.
udging Mr. Harsch's review with this background, I can not refrain myself fr,n
ailing it a "cagey" attempt to kill one of the few truly important books the',
ere published in recent years on U, S, foreign' policy.
nstead.of acquainting the readers with Mr, Burnhames ideas and taking issue
ith them, Mr. Harach simply dismisses the whole book, by saying that since,
ith the advent of the new adtministration, containment versus liberation ceasid
o be an issue, any discussion of the poli t.i cal premises of a policy of liber i_
ion comes down to flogging a dead horse. Mr. Harach, whose record on the
soviet menace and how to deaf. with it, is, to say the least, inconsistent, adin
that Mr. Burnham would have written a t:meiy book only if he had answered in
great detail the question of tow to carry out in practice a policy of liberatio
And in support of his argument that Mr. Btrnhaa has failed to do so, he comet
forward with'the completely untrue statement that only four pages out of 254
are devotedto answering this question,
The truth of the matter, as everybody claiming to be a foreign policy expert
should know, is that the pblicy of liberation has hardly been enunciated by +he
seven weeks old administration., It has n,,t yet been officially defined in
practical terms and has only been diacuss?d in a most cursory way by the prere
and other publications. Therefore, any unbiased critic, wo dsayy anyscri iic
of Food _faith, whether he agrees or not with all or any of the is F e
t,y MIr. Burnham, should welcome the first, book that intelligently brings into
the public discussion the possible content, and the probable iiPlications of
policy that was publicly proclaimed by the U . S. Governmant. 1i).L critic of ga. -d
policy would certainly not brush aside such a book, well knipdng that in doitg
so he would discourage the bookshops froth ordering it and tJ . i prevent it fr )m
rea:.hang the attention of the public This amounts, in my, .Hw, to an in"c
form of censorship, to a d.eli.berate att.ernpt of preventing t Ittain views from
getting into the wide stream of ideas nn which an esiiighte? d public opinion
s
i
i
on
s
"coat feed in order to make intelligent p: l.tical dec
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44 ,3 re,p^n9ib`i writer,.`. "1' 3?.:rnham : 3 ii tr out to offer to the Soviets a
4 hint )f the concret?- a t~.rus whl-?, - is count 7y could undertake in
~m,~'_e"nting a policy of liberation, vie restrict:9 himself to several i11us-
t.~ ationf of such type of acti ,r:, carefclly noting that the means must be
emliri-ally developed It woald4 indeed, be the height of rrrre$ponaibility
for 9n}gone to spell out in detail t:r oos3Lble courses of action, since they
quay wr11 be precisely the f.-,n s that would alttmately be adopted by the
,,cave rnment? And they can be only a(-ti -)am f they type which should never be
publicized but carried out with utmost _li scretion.
The fact that you have selerted Mr. Haract, for the job of reviewing a Burnham
book speaxs for itself. In recent years Mr. Harsch was consistently wrong
both In his Judgement, of Sorlet policy and in his advocacy of politicies
designed to counter it effe:tively., He is of the washy-Trashy-do-nothing-leave
everything-in-the-care-of=history school of thought, which long ago has resigneld
itself to the idea that the initiative -should be left forever in the hands of
the Soviet dictators. (Needless to say that this can be easily substantiated
with "verse and chapter,")
Unfortunately, the Har5ch r*view is but the latest example of your policy of
discrimination against any and all uncompromising (i.e., in the present world
conditions, realistic and truthful) works on Communism and the Soviet Union.
it would seem that you have earned nothing from the history of these last
years. You still seem to stick to the attitude which not so long ago prompted
you to give to the self-apologia of Owen Lattimore (the most successful Commail
operator in the realm of "influencing people'), a first page display. Such an
attitude, I regret to say, is bound to raise serious doubts in the minds of
your readers with regard to your true political beliefs, or, at least, to the
soundness of your political judgment, And, in the long run, it would ruin yo
standing with the reading public on which you strive. As one of your regular
readers, I can only hope that the most respectable men in charge of that grtat
institution The New York Times, of.wriich Tam a sincere admirer, would cogs
around to take a close look at your avtivities.
Sincerely. yours,
(s) Brutus Coate
New York, March 15, 1953
47 East 61st Street, #3A
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