The right of reply
Sir: Mr Amis has accused me in your columns (30 January) of in- accuracy, illiteracy and incom- petence.
Now he goes too far, for in admitting (13 February) that I wrote about him in 'a perfectly friendly tone', he reminds me of the one aspect of my article which in retrospect seems ill-judged. In putting the record straight I will therefore try to be less amiable, and for the sake of any SPECTATOR readers unaccountably wearied by Mr Amis's peculiarly virulent brand of egotism, brief.
My interview with him in the Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake column, the casus belli, was an ac- curate account of our conversation in so far as the laws of libel and current newspaper policy on the publication of obscenity allowed. Mr Amis will know that this is not saying a great deal, for his object in inviting me to his house was ap- parently to abuse a third, absent, and to me unknown individual. But then Mr Amis's knowledge of what does or does not constitute libel seems, at best, hazy. In any event, at no stage did he ask to see a proof of the article before publi- cation.
It only remains to be seen whether his lengthy and choleric outpourings will bring the right of reply itself into disrepute.
Rosemary Collins The Sunday Telegraph, Fleet Street, London Ec4
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