71b
A LETT ER OF
RESI GNATION
To the Editors
Dear Friends:
I should like by this letter to sum
up what I took to be the main sense
of our recent conversation.
You told
me
that a number of the
readers of PARTISAN REVIEW found it
an anomaly that I, a "McCarthyite"
(as they defined me), continue to ap–
pear as a member of PR's AdvP30ry
Board. They felt that the presence of
my name cast doubt on
the
integrity
of PR's "stand" on
"the
issue." You
had yourselves, you said,
come
reluc–
tantly to this same opinion. And I,
once
you had said this, could not but agree,
of course, that my name should be
removed.
I do not want to inflate this little
episode beyond its modest deserts. The
function of the Advisory Board is large–
ly nominal, as we know, and nothing
much is at stake whether my name ap–
pears or is absent. Still, there is :llso a
sentimental problem. My connection
with PR goes back a good while, to
the earliest stage after its break with
the Communist Party. I have been hap–
py in my association with PR, for per–
sonal reasons (because you are my
friends), and because of two partic–
ular features of PR's editorial standard.
PR has steadfastly resisted compromise
on quality of writing-it has kept its
brow defiantly high. And PR, almost
alone among the world's advanced in–
tellectual magazines, remained anti–
Communist throughout all the shifts of
these past fifteen years.
I must now assume that for PR,
"McCarthyism" has become the dom–
inant issue, which determines the char–
acter of the magazine's basic editorial
policy as well as its relation to individ–
uals. This is the implication of what
you said to me, and of the action with
respect to me which seems to you ap-
PARTISAN REVIEW
propriate. It is implied also by symp–
tomatic articles that PR has published
over the past year.
I want to make clear that, for me,
"McCarthyism" is not a dominant or
even important issue, and that I do
not regard myself as either "pro-Mc–
Carthy" or "anti-McCarthy." I ap–
prove many things that McCarthy has
done, and certain of his "methods"; I
disapprove some of his actions, and a
number of his methods. My attitude
toward Senator McCarthy is in these
general respects no different from what
it is toward many other political fig–
ures.
But "McCarthyism" is not McCarthy.
I believe "McCarthyism" to be an in–
vention of the Communist tacticians,
who launched it and are exploiting it,
exactly as they have done in the case
of a dozen of their previous operations
in what might be called
diversionary
semantics.
The
Daily Worker
of Sept.
24,
1953,
made the objective plain
enough: "McCarthyism is the tech–
nique of the Big Lie-the Big Lie that
Communism, at home and abroad, is
the main danger."
The intellectuals of the Eastern sea–
board take the bait, rush to gobble it
indeed, as if the past twenty-five years
had never been. Why, at an anti-Mc–
Carthy cocktail rally, the very gleam in
the eyes and fervent crack in the voice
carry a middle-aged memory right back
to the good old days of the League
against War and Fascism.
In a recent communication to the
The Commonweal,
on an occasion very
similar to this one, my brother, Philip,
exactly expressed my own standpoint:
"On the basis of what can be known
now-and of inferences, suppositions,
feeling and smells-the party of the
anti-McCarthyites
is
one I will not
join." PR has evidently decided (or
perhaps has been tricked into deciding)
to join that party, and to become, as
it then must, an "organ" of that party,
its voice among advanced intellectuals.
It is surely inappropriate, then, that
my name should continue on your mast–
head.
