Letters

Arts Council policy

Sir: The latest piece in your anti-Arts Council series (17 December) is concerned pre dominantly with the Council's literature policy, so perhaps you would allow me to reply.

Mr Wheatcroft thinks it 'worth noting'

that 'at least six awards in recent years have been made to writers who at other times [my

italics] served on the Panel'. Would it not be more worthy of note if no awards had been made to them? Such a situation would suggest that we had confined Panel mem bership to only the most mediocre of writers. Incidentally, the giving of grants does not place the Literature Panel in an invidi ous position, or any other kind of position. The Literature Panel, like the Council's other specialist Advisory Panels, advises the Council on broad areas of policy. It does not decide who is to receive individual grants.

The amounts quoted by Mr Wheatcroft as having been paid to publishers are, in fact, guarantees against loss on the indi vidual books mentioned, and not contributions towards the annual profits of any

commercial publisher. As for the New Review, well yes, I think it is, in general, very good indeed. Of course the standard varies from issue to issue. Does it not everywhere? Even in the Spectator?

Mr Wheatcroft's informant has let him down badly over the affairs of the Lit erature Panel. I have never, at any time, mentioned to the Panel a short list of names of possible Panel Chairmen, nor are Panel Chairmen chosen in this manner. The Council appoints one of its own members to chair its Advisory Panels. Appointments to

the Council are made by the Minister for the

Arts. In the event, the position went to Melvyn Bragg, who has outlined his views in the

New Review, with a greater clarity than is to

be found anywhere in Mr Wheatcroft's befuddled article. However, lam grateful to Mr Wheatcroft for that sentence which is a close paraphrase of him. 'The foregoing', if I may end with a direct quote, 'is written without ,enthusiasm'.

Charles Osborne Literature Director, Arts Council of Great Britain, 105 Piccadilly, London W1 like to clarify my own position on these differences.

I cannot accept Professor Carr's argument that 'the proof of Nationalist com plicity [in the bombing] is feeble.' In 1970, a copy of a telegram sent on 7 May, 1937, eleven days after the bombing, by Spanish Nationalist Headquarters to the Condor Legion Command in Spain for forwarding to Berlin was published in Spain by persons who failed to understand its significance. In 1974, I published my interpretation of the message, insisting that the telegram meant exactly what it said in the following sentence, concerning the source of the order to bomb: `Unidades primera linea pidieron directamente a Aviacion bombardeo cruce carreteras, ejecutandolo Aviaci6n alemana e. italiana, alcanzando por falta de visibilidad por humos y nubes polvo bombas aviones a la villa [Guernical.'

Leaving to one side the known misinformation in the message concerning the accidental nature of the bombing of the town, we must admit that the telegram affirms that the Franco land forces requested the attack that destroyed the town. When I published this interpretation in 1974, I declared that if the defenders of the pro-Franco theses had an alternative interpretation to give to the telegram, I should be delighted to hear it. All comment from these persons has so far sedulously avoided mentioning the telegram. I do not consider this documentary evidence to be 'feeble'.

The most vigorous effort made to date to prove the innocence of the Spanish Nationalists in the bombing of Guernica is probably that of George Hills in his 1967 life of Franco. Professor Carr asserts that I 'might have investigated Mr Hills's evidence more seriously.' Mr Hills presented a series of scenes which he asserted took place at Franco's headquarters during the days immediately following the burning of Guernica. These scenes were brushed in by Hills on the testimony of unidentified persons supposedly present. I have given 142 lines of text, without counting the notes, to a thorough demolition of Hills's story. I have shown that it is absolutely impossible to situate Hills's account chronologically into the activities of 27 and 28 April. The most important testimony, that of an eyewitness, implicated the German military attaché of the time, Colonel Hans von Funck. Hills was told that Franco, on learning of the bombing, was so angry that he convoked von Funck and gave him a tongue-lashing. However, a Spanish historian, Angel Vihas, has talked with von Funck, who denied the story completely, and confirmed the denial by a handwritten letter dated 19 June 1973. Von Funck wrote: 'What Hills says about "Colonel Funck" is from the beginning to the end pure nonsense' ('1st von A bis Z blanker Unsinnl. I consider that there remains no;hing, absolutely nothing, valid in Hills's account intended to exculpate Franco from any responsibility in the Guer

nica attack.

I am baffled by Professor Carr's position that the documentary proof contained in the telegram of 7 May 1937 is 'feeble', whereas he attributes credibility to the disproved hearsay evidence presented by Mr Hills. I do not regard 'contact with Francoist officers as moral and intellectual contagion,' but I do regard a tendency to place blind faith in their memories and testimony as moral and intellectual weakness. For this reason I did make a serious and complete investigation of Mr Hills's account, and I found it wanting.

If, as Professor Carr asserts, my 'addiction to the printed word is excessive,' it is because I learned in the course of long years

of research into the Spanish Civil War that, whereas anything written on the subject needs careful scrutiny, everything said on the subject deserves careful scrutiny in doubled doses. This is especially true of books (history or memoirs) written by journalists, who, having laboured for years in reporting, day by day, what they have been told, often fail to see the need for documentary corroboration of such reports when placed between hard covers. Hills, delighted to hear what he wanted to hear, apparently made no effort to verify the defamatory remarks made to him about von Funck, by Nationalist officers eager to prove the non-complicity of the Spanish rebels in the Guernica outrage. This is a research problem that the research historian Raymond Carr can doubtless understand and should apply in judging between Hills's evaluation of the Guernica events and my own.

. Finally, nowhere in my book do I reproach Mr Carr for inviting Ricardo de la Cierva to dinner. I do not give a damn with whom he sups, and it is none of my business. Herbert A. Southworth Château de Roche, Concremiers, 36300 Le Blanc (lndre), France

Deir Yassin

Sir: Mr David M. Jacobs (Letters, 24 December) cannot find the quotations concerning the Deir Yassin massacre which I cited from Menachem Begin's book: 'The massacre was not only justified but there would not have been a state of Israel without the "victory" at Deir Yassin. . I do indeed claim that Menachem Begin published these words; I can also substantiate my claim. The full reference is as follows: The Revolt: Story of the Irgun by Menachem Begin, published in New York by HenrY Schuman, 1951. The passages quoted by me appear on pages 162 and 165. However, it is interesting to note that these passages are omitted from some editions of the book — a fact which I find most revealing. I suggest that Mr Jacobs has probably referred to one of these latter editions, and has only consulted one source. (Miss) Anne Connell 6 Vanburgh Close, Orpington, Kent.