Double Speak

To the Editors of the Crimson:

The purpose of this letter is two-fold: firstly to protest the unsubstantiated diatribe on the integrity of Harvard Faculty in Mr. Lagon's letter to The Crimson (Wed. 14 March), and secondly to contest the political assessment within the letter.

The letter attempts to discredit Harvard Faculty through invective and innuendo ("...force students to regurgitate knee-jerk radicalism"), and meaningless Double-speak ("Harvard...must also be made a home of open discussion instead of an oasis of utopian radicalism) without providing substantive evidence in support of the allegations.

Mr. Lagon's criticism is also factually incorrect in a number of respects. Professor Hoffmann is described as an unremitting pacifist despite the clear statement in his book Duties Beyond Borders that "while I am not a pacifist...I have a strong belief that no war is very often better than war." In his letter of 8 March Prof. Womack has already rebutted the "false accusations" that he organised the Grenada demonstration, but it appears that Mr. Lagon considers even speaking at such a meeting to be inconsistent with a faculty position. At a gathering outside of his normal academic responsibilities John Womack surely has a right to criticise President Reagan (as has Richard Pipes, for example, in his support of Reagan), particularly in a political environment which effectively proscribes widespread dissemination of left-wing opinions on the mainstream political agenda.

Further, the assessment within the letter that "a virtual monopoly of political thought and discussion has been achieved by the left wing of the students and faculty" does not stand up to scrutiny. Given that the Harvard Admissions Policy does not take political leanings into account, one would assume that the political bias of Harvard students is at least partially representative of educated American youth. The statement that "those who are conservative or moderate are few in number" therefore suggests that the author's term "leftist" encompasses an extraordinarily broad spectrum of political opinion. Furthermore, if the "conservative and moderate" students and faculty are unwilling to enter into political debate, their apathy can scarcely be blamed on the "left wing."

Finally, Mr. Lagon's comments on the relevance of socialism in the United States; "Socialist thought pervades the community in defiance of its irrelevance and lack of influence in the real world of the United States" highlights his unwillingness to bring coherent and specific evidence to support his political and educational accusations. Colin D. Bain   GSAS