CORRESPONDENCE
L'AFFAIRE MATTHIESSEN
Sirs:
The fact that your review of my
book
From the Heart of Europe
was
virtually indistinguishable from the one
in
Time
should be of more concern to
PARTISAN REVIEW than it is to me.
But I must ask the courtesy of your
columns to correct a defamation of
the group of students who composed
the American Seminar at Salzburg. Your
reviewer refers to them as "a gang of
future culture commissars," whereas
my text makes clear-and you can veri–
fy it from anyone else who was there–
that out of the whole group of over
a hundred from sixteen different coun–
tries there were only three or four who
were sympathetic with Communism.
F. 0. MatthiesStln
Boston, Mass.
REPLY
Sirs:
Mr. Matthiessen's initial remark
shows how Stalinized his thinking has
become. Instead of answering my argu–
ments, he indulges in the hoary fellow–
traveler device of equating the views
of those who, for a variety of reasons,
disagree with him; the anti-Stalinist
left thus becoming "virtually indistin–
guishable" from the conservative right.
Might it not be more to the point to
note that my review was "virtually
indistinguishable" from the one in
The
Nation
by Franz Hoellering, a Euro–
pean socialist?
Matthiessen's book does not make
clear that only a few Salzburg students
were "sympathetic with Communism";
his writing is so imbued with the fel-
1256
low-travelers' tone that anyone reading
it (e.g., pp.
30-33)
might well gain
the impression, as I did, that the bulk
of the
Sal~burg
students were Stalinists
or fellow-travelers. Still, I was at fault
in extending this impression into an
unqualified statement.
By doing so, I may have led some
unwary readers to conclude that Alfred
Kazin, also a teacher at
Sal~burg,
shares Matthiessen's views. Since I
know that K
a~in,
as an anti-Stalinist,
rejects those views, I wish to state that
I regret exceedingly any embarrassment
or harm my unqualified reference to
his role at
Sal~burg
may have caused
him.
My isolated factual error should not
deflect anyone from the fact that, if
not in
Sal~burg,
then in Prague-and
in his book above all-Matthiessen as–
sociated himself politically with "a
gang of future culture commissars."
Though ready to rise in indignation
about a quite tangential point, he re–
mains mum about the vastly conse–
quential center of my attack: that he
is an apologist for a brutal totalitarian
state and its agents.
Irving Howe
Princeton, New Jeney
VOTE OF APPROVAL
Sirs:
Here is one vote of approval for
the review of F. 0. Matthiessen
in
the
October PR. I hope there are a great
many more. It is distressing for the
liberal position that the views expressed
in the article are not universally ac–
cepted. Our values and faith rest on
the view that facts are facts. Mr. Mat–
thiessen and a great many other "lib–
erals" seem incapable of taking this
view nowadays.
Your statement strikes a blow for
the liberal values.
Bernard Barber
Northampton, Massachusetts
