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Israel's survival, and to fight the terrorism and the ideologies of both right
and left that keep taking on newer and more sophisticated forms. And like
Trotsky, I wondered why even democracy and human freedom, the only
conditions under which we want to live, have to be defended-also-against so
many careerists for whom they have become slogans furthering intellectual
or political careers.
As we go to press, we are saddened by the news of the death of
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), a friend and early contributor. He was
one of the few surviving traditional men ofletters: a novelist, poet, critic, and
an exemplary figure of a writer possessed of a wide-ranging literary
intelligence. All his work had a classic quality, free of the wild and modish
trends that have become so popular lately.
W.P.
