6 MARCH 1964, Page 16

TOWARDS A NEW SS?

SIR,—Pierced by A. Edkins's flashing wit and pul- verised by the subtle sledgehammers of his satire, it has taken me a little time to grasp the truth of the corrective that he dealt out to me last week. But I believe that I now see his point. My mistake was not to realise that the date is always 1944 and that we are forever allied with the Russians in the war that they so gallantly brought upon themselves when they signed their clever and courageous alliance with Adolf Hitler.

Misled by what A. Edkins calls scriveners (there's a nasty word for you!) I had been under the impres- sion that the British and American armies had con- tributed to the defeat of the Nazis, and that in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa the Communists occasion- ally have pursued policies that might, by an ignorant scrivener, be described as not altogether friendly to us. I was even under the delusion that this was the cause of the Cold War. It is a relief to know that the Russians and indeed any other Communists, even German ones, are still our allies, while the Cold War is a mere scriveners' fantasy.

The conclusions, of course, are obvious. We should immediately break the American alliance, dissolve NATO, disarm totally, declare war on the Nazi gov- ernment in Bonn and start a Second Front now. Even a scrivener can learn.