Calvocoressi and Labour
Sir: Peter Calvocoressi tells us that he will vote Labour with more conviction than ever before (21 May). Is that because the new Labour Party programme is almost iden- tical with that of the Communist Party of Great Britain (to the explicit joy of the latter)? Evidently this incipient threat of a Soviet-model State does not worry him, or presumably he would say so.
Defence, however, does worry him. Well it might. He concedes that we (and the Americans) need NATO. Does he not see that if we kick the Americans out (as Labour wants; but again, he does not men- tion this important point) the logical end- result could be Britain's departure from NATO?
He says theatre nuclear weapons are pointless and strategically irrelevant. He says nothing about the range and accuracy of the Soviet SS-20s, which are capable of destroying all NATO's installations in one attack. Is this strategically irrelevant? Would the deployment of Pershing and cruise on our side, in the light of this Soviet capability, be 'pointless'?
All this, and Peter Calvocoressi also dismisses Tory thinking on such issues as 'flabby' and Labour (which he supports) as 'muddled'! I too voted Labour, in 1945. But the Labour Party of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin understood the Soviet threat and the needs of defence. Neither Michael Foot nor, it seems, Peter Calvocoressi does. I find this sad.
Brian Crozier
Ku1m House, Dollis Avenue, London N3
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