12 AUGUST 1966, Page 15

Failure on the Left

SIR,—No doubt Arnold Beichman's dismissal of the American New Left ('Failure on the Left,' July 22) was based on considerable knowledge of the sub- ject, but why didn't he mention either the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley or the Students for a Democratic Society in Chicago?

True, both organisations are composed of people who are young and middle-class, and all that, the events of the Berkeley Revolt in 1964 and 1965 and the work of the Economic Research and Action Project since 1963 are surely of crucial importance in the development of the New Left, not only in America but also in this country.