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should have public appeal and the support of the press, but at the
same time should be authentic. It should not look as if it were gov–
ernment-sponsored or- as Mary [McCarthy] said- 'staged by Joe
McCarthy'."
Mary McCarthy could not have said it nor N abakov heard it in
the spring of 1949 when we organized our Committee. For Senator
Joseph McCarthy did not go on the anti-Communist warpath until
1950! None of us had even heard of him at that time.
* * *
Appendix
Thefollowing letters are riferred to in the text of the article:
Mr. Thomas Mann
Palisades, California
Dear Mr. Mann:
March 14, 1949
I am writing to you once more about the Cultural and Scientific Confer–
ence for World Peace which is meeting at the Waldorf Astoria, New York
City, March 25th and 26th. I have been refused permission to present a
paper by the controlling group of the Conference. In this paper I wished to
defend three theses which seemed to me of the greatest importance to-day .
1. There are no "national truths" in science, and that it is only by its
deficiencies that a science can ever become the science of one na–
tion or another.
2. There are no "class truths" or "party truths" in science. The belief
that there is confuses the objective evidence for a theory which, if
warranted, is universally valid with the
uses,
good, bad or indif–
ferent, that are made of it.
3. The cause of international scientific cooperation and peace has
been very seriously undermined by the influence of doctrines
which uphold the notion that there are "national" or "class" or
"party" truths in science.
Not only have I been refused permission to present a paper at any of the
sessions, but I have also been refused permission to lead the discussion at
the plenary session. I requested at least fifteen minutes. And this despite the
fact that some members of the Program Committee, including Drs . Herbert
Davis and Guy Emory Shipler, requested Professor Shapley that I be given
an opportunity to be heard.
Since your name is listed as a sponsor of this Congress, I am appealing
to you to support my request that I be permitted to read a paper at the
plenary session. No arrangements have been made, apparently, by the Pro-
