Shadow of the Urals Sir: In his review of Professor
Laqueur's book Europe since Hitler (30 May), Pro- fessor Max Beloff has seen fit to introduce the phrase 'the imbecile nihilism of the "New Left" '.
Since it is by no means clear the 'New Left' generally are nihilists (is Naom Chomsky one?), and Mr Beloff's opinion about their wisdom is in this review com- pletely unsupported by any evidence, I must conclude that we have here an example of in- discriminate abuse unworthy of a scholar and a gentleman. Perhaps instead of preaching 'a faith in the values for which Europe still stands' it would be better for Mr Beloff to try to use some of those values in his writings and not to imitate those late friends of Salazar and Franco who used ex- actly the same style of abuse as he, for the same pretended end, only thirty-five years ago.
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