Walker run down
Sir: Ever since Martin Walker was appointed Moscow correspondent of the Guardian, Tim Garton Ash has used your columns to denounce him, often with undergraduate-standard insults, as some kind of Soviet stooge. Now you yourself have attacked him in the leader headed `Kremlin's Guardian' (2 August), the most contemptible contribution so far to this running libel.
You are entitled, of course, to have your doubts about the provenance of the docu- ment published by Martin Walker, and you are free to disagree with Walker's inter- pretation of the document. But by your grotesque and mischievous description of Walker's coverage of the Soviet Union as `the authentic sound of tongue licking boot' you forfeit any right to have your comments on this matter taken seriously. As for Mr Garton Ash, he is usually a thoughtful writer, but his weird obsession. with Martin Walker is propelling him back to the kindergarten.
I ought to declare an interest: I have been a friend of Martin Walker for many years, so Garton Ash may, in his recent mental condition, assume that I am a KGB agent. But I would point out that the last person to complain about your hounding of Walker was the Sun's famous leader-writer Ron Spark, who is neither a friend of Walker nor, even by Garton Ash's stan- dards, a tool of Moscow.
Francis Wheen 1 Blenheim Cottages,
Church Crescent, London E9
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