S !rt. — Robert Conquest doubts whether an intelligent girl would have said,
in the Thirties, 'the Americans are Fascists.' Though I am reluctant to dispute such a. matter with so eminent an expert on things Ros- man, I remember, in November of 1942. Jack Lindsay (then the pride and joy of the Communist intellec- !I-la's) going even further. In a Chelsea pub he knformed me, and several others present, that all Americans were Fascists. I recall the date so clearly because it was a few days after the American land-
ings in North Africa. And I remember that I then assumed that Lindsay was out of date, that he had tripped over the party line, and had mistakenly produced a catch-phrase from the Thirties or from the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. I said as much, but was sternly reprimanded.
Jack Lindsay was far too intelligent 'to have thought up such an inanity for himself. So it must have been party line in 1942. Was it, in fact, a hang- over remark, or was it an early case of the present slandering of the United States by the apparatchiks? This would have some mild historic interest.
As for the young lady of Mr. Conquest's acquain- tance, perhaps some ornithologist among your readers can say whether the incidence of these red booby-birds has increased or decreased in the past thirty years. My own feeling, unsupported by any statistical evidence, is that it has remained remark- ably static.--Yours faithfully,
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