Letters to editor

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SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1985 15 done if I had a gun? that way!"

tim will shoot, are they not likely to shoot first?

shot them? Would he be a "Death Wish" hero?

economy it will tend to disappear.

eliminating the market and competition.

end poverty and see what happens to the crime rate.

Nancy's New Year's resolution culed." Dear B.W., Thanks for your letter. We have already received two letters from people who listened to the program and were impressed by the Schoenman article. We are happy to say that both requested a subscription to Socialist Action. The editor correction Dear editor, The January 1985 issue of Socialist Action arrived and was appreciated. Just stay with the "Old Man" [Leon Trotsky] and the spirit of the almost-as-old man James P. Cannon.

One point of constructive criticism: The Jake Cooper article on the Austin, Local 9, packinghouse workers was very good, but "meatpackers" is the name of the employer— and has been since 1904. The wage slaves are referred to as "packinghouse workers."

I ought to know since I was one of the founders of this early CIO movement in Minnesota and Kansas in the mid30s.

Paul Rasmussen, Miami, Fla. Socialist Party. Harry Fleischman, an associate of the old campaigner, started things off with a laudatory article in the Nov. 21 issue of In These Times. Michael Harrington, DSA's chair, followed with a similar piece in the Jan. 7 New Republic.

But neither Fleishman nor Harrington bothered to tell their readers that Norman Thomas ended up in the pay of the CIA. According to the Feb. 22, 1967, New York Times, Thomas' Institute of International Labor Research received $1,048,940 between 1961 and 1963 through a CIA conduit, the Kaplan Foundation.

Thomas later confessed that he was "ashamed we swallowed this CIA business, but he was just up to his old tricks. In the mid-1950s, for example, Thomas had personally solicited Allan Dulles, head of the CIA, for funds for another of Thomas' groupsthe American Committee for Cultural Freedom. Soon afterward, according to the Nov. 30, 1968, Ramparts magazine, Thomas wrote that he was "delighted that the Farfield Foundation [a CIA front] came through....I am happy to think I had a little to do with the proposition in certain quarters."

The younger members of Despite false rumors in the popular press of "upswings" in our economy, it is obvious to those of us who are selling Socialist Action in Cincinnati that people in increasing numbers are looking for answers to their own economic problems and the many social problems that arise from them.

In the area surrounding the University of Cincinnati campus, the response from students and others is exciting, as more and more students are searching for some constructive political actions to participate in. The "Yuppie" oriented false optimism that has prevailed, at least on the surface, on most of our campuses seems to be eroding in the face of stark reality.

In working-class Black and white communities people seem eager, after buying a paper, to stay and discuss the economy, joblessness, etc. An extraordinary interest in international affairs-threats of nuclear war and U.S. aggression in Central Americaseems to be on the agenda also.

If sales in Cincinnati, touted as a relatively stable and conservative city, are any indication of national attitudes, we who are selling Socialist Action can take heart that the slumbering American public is waking at long last. Doris Marks, Cincinnati, Ohio

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