23 DECEMBER 1960, Page 12

WHITEWASH?

SIR,-1 am, and have long been, an admirer of Isabe Quigly's film criticism, but I feel that her natnra loathing of Nazism and all its works has impaired her judgment in her review of I Aim at the Stars The woolliness thus produced must be responsible for her describing a repentant Nazi as one who Irks to excuse what he did; a man who tries that r simply not repentant—of Nazism or anything el•-•

The overriding question she ignores. What should we do with the von Brawls of this world, those vision-driven geniuses whose occupational disease is moral myopia but whose furious energies have powered every major step in Man's road from the caves? For we cannot ignore them in.the hope that they will go away if we do; they demand a hearing and we can only kill them (an oft-tried expedient) or invest in their dreams.

And are von Braun's worth the investment? 1. one, believe that in that unimaginable future, whose timid beginnings we are witnessing today, the name of Wernher von Braun (his expediencies unreinem bered) will have a justifiably honoured place.—Yours faithfully,

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