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PARTISAN REVIEW
"political climate of our times" is taken for granted requiring no anal–
ysis and no protest. Instead, the case is treated, by various highly du–
bious critical devices, as if its only significance lay in the mistakes com–
mitted by the "liberal culture" of the '305 and '405. Now it may be
naive to think that there is a grand liberal tradition (including Zola)
whose function was to raise its voice against organized injustice. But
liberalism is surely reduced to absurdity if any attack upon the liberal
tradition only finds an advocate sustaining and deepening it within the
ranks of liberal critics. That is unworthy and undignified. It is also
false; for it is based upon a historical reconstruction of our age-the
so-called background material and theory of motivation in Mrs. Trill–
ing's article-which is completely one-sided, unbalanced, and distorted.
It is impossible here to defend this claim; but perhaps it is high time
for some competent student of our society (without guilt feelings) to
redress the historical balance in order to do justice, if not to Dr. Oppen–
heimer, at least to the liberal record and cause.
Hans Meyerhoff
A REJOINDER TO MR. MEYERHOFF
I think I must rely upon PR readers' memory of my article,
and upon Mr. Meyerhoff's style in controversy, to answer many of the
imputations of his letter. Only by reprinting my article in its entirety
could I put back into coherent sequence my argument which Mr.
Meyerhoff shuffles around with such polemical fervor or refute his
statement that I treated Dr. Oppenheimer's case as if its sole signifi–
cance lay in the mistakes committed by the liberal culture of the '30s
and '40s. But it is of course the fact that I gave
any
credence or space
at all to Dr. Oppenheimer's Communist past or to the culture which
supported it that bothers Mr. Meyerhoff.
It
is Mr. Meyerhoff's opinion
that were I faithful to the liberal cause and tradition, I should have
used the Oppenheimer case only as an occasion for attack upon our
present-day political culture. This, as I read it, is the central matter of
his communication and what I shall address myself to very briefly.
Since Mr. Meyerhoff introduces the Alsops as the ideal of liberalism
of which I fall so far short, I too shall cite them. I do not believe that
either Dr. Oppenheimer or liberalism is served by the way in which
the Alsops treat Dr. Oppenheimer's Communist history. I consider it
disrespectful to Dr. Oppenheimer as an individual and disastrous to
his defense to skip over his period of close Communist connection as
