21 MARCH 1998, Page 31

LETTERS Short answers

Sir: I was delighted to see that Harry Evans decided to drop his threat to sue The Spec- tator and accept its offer to print his letter (14 March) instead — even if it was longer than my original piece. I won't bore your readers by responding to his letter point by point. Let me just say that the majority of the facts he complains about were widely reported in the American press and, to my knowledge, no similar letters have appeared over here. As a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, Harry does himself a disservice by threatening to make use of Britain's draco- nian libel laws. He has yet to withdraw his threat to sue me personally, though I don't suppose he'll go through with it. He proba- bly realises by now that his ridiculous over- reaction to my article has done his reputa- tion far more harm than anything I wrote.

Toby Young

269 West 4th Street, New York, USA