Extinct volcano Sir: Arnold Beichman says in his review of
Jack Newfield's book, A Prophetic Minority : The American New Left (3 November), that 'there is no New Left in America except for a lot of rhetoricians who write about the New Left.' This is clever, but is it true?
Does he really believe that the 'New Left in the world,' which—as he rightly says—includes Djilas, Mihailov, Daniel, Sinyavski, Brodski, and so on, does not include anyone in America? Doesn't he recognise that such groups as the Student Non- violent Coordinating Committee from 1960 to 1966, the Students for a Democratic Society since 1962, and the Free Speech Movement since 1964, which are described in detail in this book, belong to a left different from the old left of liberals, social democrats and communists? Does he really believe that there is nothing more to this new left than 'giggling pyromaniacs' and 'flower-power, narcolepts?' Doesn't he recognise anything in this book apart from another opportunity for a sneer at the left, old and new?
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