am glad to see from Mr. Carleton Greene's letter in
last week's Spectator that he will be giving a detailed answer to the allegations made in the report you have published on the Yugoslav Service °f the BBC. Mr. Wiles's comments a few months ;Igo in your magazine were rather disturbing, and was surprised that the BBC did not deal with the Unifier there and then. A good many of your readers will be awaiting Mr. Carleton Greene's reply with great interest. But I feel some exception should be taken, before the case for the BBC is formally opened, to the manner in which its leading counsel has presented his credentials for pleading. His personal experiences as Head of the Eastern Service in 1949 and 1950 entitle him to our respect, but, as I understand it, he has had no direct personal experience of affairs in the Yugoslav Service since 1950. Things may well have changed there since.
I don't think it is a very good preliminary to his case for him to imply that the evidence in the report can be disregarded because it reflects 'émigré resent- ments and faction squabbles.' Resentments and squabbles there may be in the Yugoslav Service (are they confined to this section of the BBC, I wonder?). Even so, until he has given us the evidence on his side, it is a little too much for Mr. Carleton Greene to ask us to accept that 'emigre resentment' as such is sufficient condemnation of the accuracy of the allegations made against this Service. Before asking us to lay the blame on the emigres, he might have waited until he could have told us why in this par- ticular Service there is faction, and why emigre resentment alone is to be singled out for his rather supercilious disdain. My impression is that Mr. Carleton Greene has done less than his duty as Director-General of the BBC in colouring your readers' minds with pejorative remarks before pre- senting the evidence he has to call against your report's allegations,—Yours faithfully,
21 Cliveden Place, SW 1
JULIAN JEFFS
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