Sir: Your 'outing' of Richard Gott is to be welcomed.
I always wondered why the Guardian devoted so much space to obitu- aries of obscure Communist Party hacks. A recent instance of Gott's lack of scruple In his work at the Guardian was the article he published by Ken Livingstone MP on 6 September, which claimed, quite falsely, that the leading opponents of Gerry Healy, when he was expelled from the Workers Revolutionary Party in 1985, were MI5 agents. Livingstone's article appeared as a book review. Yet the MP had written the preface to the book he was reviewing. Gott's aim in commissioning this article seems to have been to make mischief among the KGB's traditional Trotskyist enemies. In the process he was not averse to helping along a nasty smear campaign. This ought to be borne in mind when the Guardian complains that your exposure of his links with Moscow's blood-stained lie machine is `slimy'.
John Spencer
38 Earlsfield Road, London SW18
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