Trahison des clercs
LETTERS
From Kingsley Martin, L. E. Weidberg, P. E. P. Routley, George W. Dowse, John Biggs-Davison, MP, and others, William Phillips, R. L. Archdale, Felix Kacser, Sir Hamish MacLaren, C. Roussen, K. P. 0 bank, Dorothea Viscountess Chetwynd, Charles Race.
Sir: You very rightly applaud the constitutional tactics of Senators Fulbright and Eugene McCarthy in opposing the war in Vietnam (8 December), but your condemnation of the unconventional means proposed by the signatories of The Times advertise- ment shows that you are unaware of the intensity of the feeling and the strength of the opinion aroused by the Vietnam war.
Those who think that a third world war is being manufactured by President Johnson are not much bothered by questions of legality. Those who have burnt themselves to death on the steps of the White House, by way of protest, have tried to move American opinion in a strikingly uncon- ventional way. Others march and demonstrate and go to jail, so far without effect. Some beliive that the refusal of young men to fight may be More influential. No doubt their motives are mixed, as you suggest, but there are some who refuse to drop napalm bombs on innocent people fighting for their liberty in a war which is neither legal nor defensible because to do so is wicked. And there are some here who think they deserve our help very much as German patriots would haye done if any had fled their country rather than act as guards and torturers in Nazi concentration camps.
Previous page
