3 M,— Bernard Levin chooses, either ingenuously or lisingenuously, to ignore
the simple fact that no one :onnected with any 'Committee of 100 is responsible for what anyone else connected with any Committee lays or does. The central Committee of 100 has no )fficial policy beyond unilateral nuclear disarma- ment, no official leadership beyond those who are )repared to do the necessary work, no official func- ion beyond that of organising non-violent illegal lemonstrations against nuclear warfare. It has no :.orporate personality, no collective responsibility, no ',1gIcl set of rules or list of members, no conven- tonal political persona. This is also true of all the iutonomous regional Committees.
No doubt there are Communists who belong to or upport the Committee of 100—and the Anti- Apartheid Committee and the Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment and all the rest. But since the Committee has no official policy, they can't change it; since it has no official leadership, they can't capture it; since it has co official function, they can't pervert it. The Committee exists solely to organise its demonstrations. It continues to exist solely because so many people take part in its demonstrations. If it tried to organise a fellow- travelling demonstration, fewer people would come, and it would fade away.
The point is that the Committee opposes all nuclear weapons, and refrains from all violence. A demonstrator who accepts some nuclear weapons or uses some violence is no longer part of the Com- mittee of 100. If Communists want to come along, good luck to them. If Fascists want to come along, good luck to them too. If Bernard Levin and the whole Spectator staff want to come along, good luck to them as well. But what anyone from Bertrand Russell himself down to the Secretary of the Scottish Committee of 100 says or does is his own business. We are all free individuals.
NICOLAS WALTER
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