To the Editor:
On my return from several weeks in Europe and North Africa, I have been trying to catch up on my homework which, among other things, means on reading COMMENTARY. Against the background of things heard and seen abroad, I want again to tell you how immensely valuable I consider COMMENTARY’S approach to Communism and McCarthyism.
I had not been in Stockholm two hours before I was catechized on the evils of McCarthyism. I never escaped the subject in Europe or even in Africa. In particular, Messrs. Cohn and Schine seem to have given Europeans a tremendous rationalization for all their suspicions of our hysteria.
COMMENTARY is almost unique in its ability intelligently to oppose both McCarthyism and Communism and to realize that it is equally serving freedom and security by its stand. What ought to be a classic approach to our problem was illustrated by James Rorty’s article on the “Anti-Communism of Senator McCarthy” (August 1953), Nathan Glazer’s “The Method of Senator McCarthy” (March 1953), and Robert Bendiner’s “Has Anti-Communism Wrecked Our Liberties?” (July 1951).
I do not believe one can intelligently oppose Communism and at the same time condone McCarthyism; or successfully fight McCarthyism and condone Communism. Liberty suffers because of those liberals, unhappily too many, who may be reluctantly persuaded that Alger Hiss is guilty, but never can forgive Whittaker Chambers.
Norman Thomas
New York City
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