PISTOL-PACKING
Silt,—David Rees says, in defence of Western espionage, that 'a pistol held by a law-abiding citizen in self-defence is hardly the same as One wielded by a robber.' Why? Is it loaded with blanks, or do its bullets send their victims to heaven rather than hell, or what? A law-abiding citizen may not be the same as a robber (though legal robbery is not unknown), but a pistol is a pistol and espionage is espionage, whichever way it is pointed.
[David Rees writes: 'In his eagerness to equate democratic and Communist societies, Mr.Walter misses the obvious. In referring to the pistol of espionage I quite deliberately used the word "held" —as he notices. Now that implies a relationshiP, doesn't it, with whoever does the holding, gangster or citizen? And even Mr. Walter with his quaint relativist indifference to the problem of motive In human affairs concedes that a non-thug "may Doi be the same" as a thug. A pistol may be a Pistol: but one man--or an idea differs from another:— Editor, Spectator.]
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