BITTER DRAUGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 759, 5 February 1954, Page 12

BITTER DRAUGHT

THE TRUMAN ERA, by I. F. Stone; Turnstile Press, English price 12/6. ENATOR JOE McCARTHY’S assaults upon human dignity have now reached a point where the voicing of criticism of governmental action in foreign affairs, so necessary to health in any democracy, has been inhibited to

the point of extinction. He hasn’t succeeded in inhibiting I. F. Stone, who brings to the task of castigating the follies of United States foreign policy the gusto of an old-fashioned school matron giving a bilious child a good dose of Gregory powder. It is ironic that when the articles reprinted in _ this volume were collected Stone regarded Truman and his associates as the major menace, the menace provided by ignorance and inadequacy. Today Truman himself-is under fire retrospectively by the same witch-hunters who have done so much to enfeeble United States public opinion. Stone, like most radicals, sees the faults’ of his own side much more clearly than those of their opponents. But in spite of occasional wrongheadedness, frequent stridency and an excess of belligerency, these astringent articles, with their gift of corrosive irony, are the most heartening evidence of America’s surviving political vitality since Adlai Stevenson published his

‘campaign speeches.

David

Hall

‘THE ZB. Book Review for February 14 will be on all-New Zealand session. Alan Mulgan is to review "Katherine Mans-

field Selected Stories" and "New Zealand Short Stories," both edited by Dan Davin; "The Life and Times of Sir James Wilson of Bulls," by L. J. Wild, is to be discussed by Dr. G H. Scholefield; and "New Zealanders with the R.A.F.," by — WingCommander H. L.

Thompson, will be reviewed by Sir Keith Park (above).