In praise of stealth
Sir: May I reply briefly—if belatedly—to Mr Brian Crozier's criticisms of my review of his book The Masters of Power (Letters, 25 October)?
When I wrote that his 'thesis' was that 'power now has to be exercised by stealth' there was no implication intended that this was what he advocated.
I did not say that he proposed to recruit politicians solely from graduates in political science. My point was, the fewer such recruits, the better for politics.
He denies that he proposes to 'create a bloc headed by the United States and dedicated to the overthrow of the present regimes in Russia and China'. The reader may judge from the following passage (p. 379): 'In the end the logical objectives for the West .. . must be the destruction of the enemy's ideological base. . . . This does not mean the physical destruction of, say, the Soviet Union or continental China. What • does mean is that the cold war must be waged until Moscow, Peking and other "ideological" capitals, cease to be hostile– presumably through the overthrow of regimes that are committed to permanent hostility'.
Robert Skidelsky School of Advanced International Studies. The Johns Hopkins University, 1740 Massa chusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, ix.
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