Letters to the Editor: 12.19.96

Most Thorough Job

Sag Harbor

December 12, 1996

Dear Helen,

I just want to thank you, heartily, for that lovely - and lengthy! - review of my book in this week's Star. I don't know who David Muhlbaum is, but he did the most thorough job of anyone who's reviewed it - and that includes The Los Angeles Times, whose writer has been covering electric vehicles from Detroit for years.

With real care, he wove in all the various strands of the story and - happily - made it sound worth reading. If you can, please convey my thanks to him as well.

Best,

MICHAEL SHNAYERSON

Known In The Field

Sarasota, Fla.

December 8, 1996

Dear Mrs. Rattray:

Several years ago, the late Alden Whitman, an obituary writer, wrote a letter to The Star in defense of Alger Hiss, which demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the true nature of the Hiss case.

Now we have The Star's editor providing us with an opinion that Mr. Hiss was wrongly convicted of his spying for the Soviet Union.

During my 25 years of service in the covert intelligence field, including some of the time frame in which Mr. Hiss operated for the U.S.S.R., it was commonly known in the counter-espionage field that Mr. Hiss was a recruited agent of the Soviet intelligence service. It was also known that he was one of several penetrations of the U.S. Government which included Harry Dexter White at the Treasury and Laughlin Currie, a Presidential adviser, among others.

Spies can be cultured, kindly-appearing, and self-effacing. A good example was the British traitor Kim Philby, whom I met in the early '50s. This does not make them less guilty of treason.

I never met Hiss, but I have always had the same disgust and dismay at his actions as I did over Philby's. We will never know how much damage these traitors have caused their countries. They deserve no apologies.

Another subject. I enclose a copy of an article about coastal erosion and the role of the U.S. Army Engineer Corps in attempting to control it. I thought you might find it interesting because of its application to our Wainscott and East Hampton beaches.

Being a property owner in Wainscott for over 70 years, and being very familiar with what the Juan Trippe/Army Corps of Engineers groins have done to damage the beach areas west of them, let's hope we are spared more of the same.

Sincerely,

LAWRENCE GOURLAY

Drowned Out

Amagansett

December 14, 1996

Dear Editor:

I was greatly troubled by this week's "Guestwords" by Roger Rosenblatt, "The Silence of the Liberals." Liberals aren't silent; they are being drowned out.

They are being drowned out by the greedy and those who lust for power, people and interests who regard liberals as the enemy, people who have made the word "liberal" a curse.

We have a cacophony of bought politicians. We have countless highly paid "spin doctors," "political consultants," and other media manipulators. We have an increasingly monopolized media run by interests that are hostile toward liberals.

And, we have a public whose attention span has been reduced through remote control TV clicking to the point where it is measurable only in nanoseconds, a public so besotted by TV that it reads less and less of the fewer and fewer newspapers that still exist. Is it any wonder then that many think that liberals are silent?

But they are not. Last I looked, the Progressive Caucus of the House had over 50 members, none of whom can be accused of silence. Ted Kennedy, Paul Wellstone, and other liberals in the Senate cannot be accused of silence. The Nation, The Progressive, Dissent, The American Prospect, a few of the liberal magazines that come quickly to mind, all appear regularly.

No, liberals are not silent. But those who would like them silenced do everything they can to make liberals difficult to hear. And, they must love it when good people think liberals are silent so liberals can be blamed for that too.

Liberals are not silent. They can be heard if you are willing to listen.

Sincerely,

ARTHUR H. ROSENFELD

Injustice In Silence

New York City

December 14, 1996

Dear Mrs. Rattray:

Thank you for publishing the excerpt from Roger Rosenblatt's lecture "The Silence of the Liberals" ("Guestwords," Dec. 12). Once again Mr. Rosenblatt's elegant humanity confronts evils that imperil our country - in this case, censorship and the silence of liberals who no longer express the compassionate intentions of American democracy.

Thinking back to a recent "Connections" column on the tragedy of Alger Hiss, as well as to your general forthrightness on social issues, I feel grateful that you do not accept injustice in silence.

On a personal note (perhaps somewhat connected to the above), I wish you the best with Bonnie and Clyde. You have given them the second chance at life most mortals need.

With warmest holiday wishes,

D.H. MELHEM, Ph.D.

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