Letters to the Editor

COMMIES BACK IN STYLE (posted 2-10-03)

To the Editor:

I've recently discovered your entertaining and informative web site. After several weeks of perusing articles and comments, I've learned a great deal. One of the bigger surprises that your site has revealed is the dogged mania of anti-communist ideology.

In the past 10 years, I think I had heard or read of maybe ten people denounced as Communists. In just the past few weeks of reading the History News Network, I've read of at least twice that many alleged Communist cabals operating within the deepest recesses of American institutions. Surely the resurgence of this always ideological and now absurdly dated campaign is a sad retreat from the more complex and pressing problems created by the supposed"victory" over Communism.

Sincerely,

Sam Haselby
Ph.d. candidate
History Dept. [Columbia University]

Editor's Response

Remember Art Linkletter's old line?"Kids say the darndest things." Well, so do adults.

WHY DON'T YOU ... (posted 2-8-03)

To the Editor:

You asked for comments, here are some of mine. I think that you do a good job in collecting the best that is out there and making it available to all who wish to pursue the leads. What surprises me is what is not the subject of comment. For example, for over six months Bill Moyers TV program NOW on PBS has had material on many disturbing aspects of American life, but I have never seen any reference to him or any of his programs or topics on the web. A few weeks ago 60 Minutes did a interesting segment on cheating in colleges. Again no response. The Washington Post ran an little piece a week or so ago by a professor from Duke on grade inflation. The few comments in the paper appeared to be from high school teachers. Perhaps the two last topics are too close to home and too dangerous for people now in academic life to comment upon. It may also be that many historians no longer watch anything on TV or read newspapers but get all their information from their computer screens.

I also wonder about the nature, content and historical value of many papers offered at the annual meetings of various historical associations. I have listened to many a verbal comment about such things, but have seen no extended discussion. So, since you do extensive searches, I assume that there is not anything out there on these topics.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,
H. Langley

Editor's Response

Thanks for your comments.

I watch Bill Moyers's show every week. We do indeed get story ideas from his and other television shows. Recently, we listed articles about the history of smog as a result of the interview he ran a few weeks ago on the subject. The link appeared in the department: On Other Websites. A week ago Moyers ran an interview in which it was alleged that President Bush had lied to the country about Iraq's capacity to build a nuclear weapon. The president cited as proof a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, though there was no report. We related the facts in an excerpt posted in our regular feature: Gotcha!

We did not follow-up the"60 Minutes" story on cheating because it did not take a historical perspective. And in any case, it is very difficult to do follow-ups on"60 Minutes" stories. The CBS show does not provide transcripts and does not post links on the web to the information broadcast. We do not have the resources to transcribe excerpts.

Questions have been raised from time to time about the papers presented at conferences devoted to history. In December we published an article by Jonathan Harris of Campus Watch, which was critical of the subjects discussed at a recent meeting of the Middle East Studies Association.