Round Four

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Mr. Dan Swanson, in justifying a policy of selective pressure against unjust nations, asks rhetorically: "How much investment does the United States have in the Soviet Union?"

This is a simple ("Marxoid") way of thinking about politics. Actually, the Soviet Union is increasingly dependent on Western technology and food. It has asked the U.S. to sell it submersible pumps to increase its oil production. It buys grain from the U.S. If we are to boycott South African products, should we refuse to sell technology and grain to the Soviet Union as well?

Mr. Swanson thinks that the Soviet Union is a criminal society and its use of the word socialist an obscenity. I agree. He thinks Cuba is a shining beacon of revolutionary hope. Yet Cuba is the indentured servant of the Soviet Union, and is now paying off its debts by spilling Cuban blood in Africa, as we spilled American blood in Vietnam. And, as for Castro's story as to why he imprisoned Huber Matos, as a veteran reporter Mr. Swanson should know that one does not take at face value the reason given by the jailors, expecially when the jailed have no possibility of replying. In any event, the holding of several thousand political prisoners (and not Batista followers, but former Castro men) in unspeakable conditions for more than a decade is itself a cruel mockery of Cuba's pretention to revolutionary morality. --Daniel Bell   Professor of Sociology