THE YOUNG REBELS
S1R.-1 am disturbed by the misleading innuendoes of Mr. Marius Bewley, who in your issue of June 5 reviewed The Young Rebel in American Literature, the published version of a lecture series given in 1957 at the American Embassy in London by five Ameri- cans and two Britons.
It is fair enough for Mr. Bewley to suggest his own pet list of literary rebels and to make any com- ments he wishes concerning the scholarly merit of the lectures. That is not my concern.- What I object to are Mr. Bewley's statements that these lecturers 'obviously had been restrained by warnings from the American Embassy; that the lec- tures served to make a group of artists 'conform to a preconceived pattern devised by the United States Office of Information,' and the absurd remark that 'the latitude of Whitman's sexual views is clearly something the American State Department prefers to keep locked in its attachd case.' Mr. Bewley has cer- tainly allowed free rein to his imagination!
His statements imply that in arranging these lec- tures, the American Government (State Department. American Embassy, United States Information Ser- vice and all!) got together a herd of trained seals, told them just what was wanted and just what was verboten, and in effect pre-censored the whole enter- prise. Can Mr. Bewley seriously believe this?
The facts are that the lecturers were chosen because (as Mr. Bewley himself notes) 'they are well- known and competent scholars in their field' and because they were available in Britain at the time, and by no other criteria. The series was arranged locally and with no reference to the State Depart- ment. Secondly, the lecturers emphatically were not 'restrained by warnings from the American Embassy.' Nor was there any sinister 'preconceived pattern,' beyond the setting of a general title and theme for the lecture series by the Embassy's Cultural Attache, Dr. Carl Bode.
The preface of the book accurately states that 'each lecturer interpreted his broad assignment in his own terms.' Each lecturer had complete freedom. He sub- mitted no scripts or notes in advance, and at the moment of his introduction to the audience, what he was going to say was anybody's guess.
Any such censorship as that implied by Mr. Bewley would be contrary to the spirit and policy that governs our US Information Service.—Yours faithfully, F. BOWEN EVANS Acting Public Affairs Officer The American Embassy, WI
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