THE B.B.C. AND FOREIGN POLICY SIR,—May I correct a sentence
in your friendly note on the B.B.C. debate? You say that I " emphatically condemned broadcasts embodying attacks on other countries." What I condemned was the denial of facilities to answer them. I hold that controversial talks ought to be allowed, and not least on foreign policy. Such talks will in present circumstances often contain strong criticism of one foreign Power or another, if the speaker is to be honest and sincere. Nor need such a talk, on balance, do any harm, provided that an opponent who holds the opposite view is given an equal opportunity to broadcast it, and the two broadcasts are not too much separated in time. What I condemn is the practice under which one speaker is selected to give a series of highly controversial broadcasts over a period of weeks, in the course of which he strongly attacks a friendly Power, and no speaker holding the opposite view is given an equal opportunity or the same freedom to broadcast it, either in the same period or at all.—I am, Sir, your
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