SIR,-1 am sorry to see your correspondent Bernard Levin giving
credence once more to the hoary legend that there is no telephone directory in Moscow. As a matter of fact, I am writing this with a copY of the Moscow telephone directory in front of me. It was bought in Moscow last year on a bookstall. It has 464 pages bound in hard covers like a novel, costing ten roubles. Unlike Western telephone direc- tories, it does not waste space with private numbers, which, as we all know, arc constantly changing. It has a most fascinating collection of advertisements for shops, loans, railways, etc., at the back.
Whilst I agree with most of Mr. Levin's condo' sions, I am shocked that he should accept the tele' phone book as a pointer to a free society. I have looked up Mr. Levin's name in the London telephone directory in vain. Does this mean that he is enslaved? On the contrary, omission from the telephone book usually means either that he is so persecuted by fame in a free society that he has asked to be left out; or that he is too poor to afford a telephone; or that he is so prosperous that he moves into a better flat each year.
Fat telephone books have for long been a status symbol for Western cities, as becomes clear in pre* tentious towns like Salisbury, Rhodesia, where names are repeated in large type to fill up the book. It seals a pity if Mr. Levin should hang his defence of Western society on this flimsy symbol.—Yours faith- fully,
ANTHONY SAMPSON
The Observer, 22 Tudor Street, EC4
[Bernard Levin replies to his critics on page 462.-- Editor. Spectator.]
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