Notebook
In a letter to the Spectator this week (page 19) Sir Stephen Spender announces that he has withdrawn an article he has writ- ten for the Literary Review because of a Piece that appeared in it last month by Mr k°old Dahl. He was alerted to the existence of,* Dahl's review by Mr Paul Johnson who discussed it in the Spectator of 3 r, a Member, describing it as 'the most disgraceful item to appear in a respectable British publication for a very long time' and e9neluding: 'The most effective action the civilised community can take isfor reputable writers to refuse to be associated with a journal which publishes such filth., .r wo journalists, Mr Peter Hillmore of the Observer and Mr Frank Johnson of the 7:tines, are reported also to have heeded Mr 'nhnson's call. So what is all the excitement about? The charge against Mr Dahl is that IS review of a book called God Cried (Quartet, £15) about the Israeli bombard- Mein of West Beirut last year is ex- „that it nitY anti-semitic. There is no doubt 1S open to such an accusation, and cv el-141111Y the Israelis think that it is, because Israeli television has gone so far as to ban the Anglia Television series Tales of the tblexpected which was originally written and introduced by Mr Dahl. But apart from What Sir Stephen describes as 'the monstrosity of its contents', the most strik- ing thing to me about Mr Dahl's article was its frivolity. Despite his professed hatred of Israel and his description of Israel's leaders as exact carbon copies' of Hitler and Goer- ing, he sounds like a man who is not only c°o1pletely ignorant about but also, oddly !nclugh, completely indifferent to the sub- eet. he is writing about. It is difficult to Mbelieve that he has ever thought about the iddle Eastern tragedy before reading Mr il.,°,11Y Clifton's account of the siege of tiel.rut, or that he will ever do so again, He ,a,nticMates the annihilation of Israel within the next 50 years but contemplates this pros- iLect with a light-hearted nonchalance.
ow about that?' he asks cheerily. He con- ?iudes,by suggesting that it is only a lack of telicTelence' and 'guts' that is preventing
• e Jews of the world' from becoming, like `anti-Israeli'. While it is clear from "Us ludicrous article that Mr Dahl is a ejoc k ignorant ass, I differ from Mr oh.nY sonWhen he describes the case as serious'. Such twaddle could not be taken I seriously by anybody, So should 'the civilis- ed community', apart from not asking Mr _41,11 to dinner, go to the lengths of refusing ne associated with the Literary Review? ..1,ne answer obviously depends on one's ;view of the editor, Is Miss Gillian Green- Wood an anti-semite? I don't think I have ever m het -er, but I note that the same issue o,s her magazine which contains Mr Dahl's article also contains a review by somebody called Lisa Israel. This is encouraging. Hav- ing nothing else to go on, I suspect that Miss Greenwood is not in the least anti- semitic — that she has just been, in this in- stance, naive. The truth is that no serious anti-semite would have published such an article. As Paul Johnson pointed out, 'those who hate the Israelis, or the Jews in general, are careful to mask their views As I imagine it, Miss Green- wood will have thought to herself: `Famous Writer, provocative article, lively controver- sy — all good for the Literary Review.' By now she will doubtless have realised that she should have thought a little more deeply. I would be astonished if any similar article were ever to appear in the Literary Review again. So I think that 'the civilised com- munity' should now feel a little sorry for her and suspend its boycott;' we all publish rotten articles from time to time. I also feel a little sympathy for Miss Greenwood's employer, Mr Naim Attallah, who happens to be of Palestinian origin. Despite the fact that during the summer he was the object of vulgar abuse in the pages of this paper by Mr Jeffrey Bernard, he wrote a most gentlemanly letter to the Spectator in reply to Mr Johnson's attack. The letter was gentlemanly because it failed to point out that Mr Attallah is not the sole proprietor of the Literary Review. A large chunk of it is owned by the Spectator's revered pro- prietor, Mr Algy Cluff.
T feel that I ought to have known Mr Lyn
Blackshaw, the disgraced former head- master of Dartington Hall, because he is only a year older than me and was once, like me, a trainee with Reuters News Agen- cy. But his face in the newspaper
photographs does not seem familiar. Perhaps he wasn't with Reuters for very long, for I doubt if the place can have suited him. The training which Reuters of- fers — or at least used to offer — en- courages self-effacement and clarity of ex- pression. Mr Blackshaw is not only, as it turns out, a reckless exhibitionist but has what the Sunday Times calls `a taste for the- jaw-locking language of campus sociology' acquired during a spell at the University of Oregon. Talking to a Sunday Times reporter before his downfall about plans for broadening the lives of his students, he referred to activities which would be 'ex- periental, activity-based and outcome- oriented' He also used the expression `free- ly emote' as a description of the way some of the pupils behaved towards him. Now, it is reasonable to assume that Mr Blackshaw used this kind of language when he was in- terviewed by Dartington's trustees for the headmaster's job. Yet he was chosen in preference to 120 other candidates. Accor- ding to the Sunday Times, the trustees were impressed by his `massive bound CV' and by 'his air of alert,' almost iboyish I en- thusiasm'. What fools the trustees of bar- tington must be! Anybody who has ever in- terviewed anybody for a job knows that these are the classic trappings of the bullshitter. Combined with the sort of jargon the Sunday Times quoted, they should have disqualified him instantly.
Igot a letter this week from a town in Yugoslavia addressed to myself and the the `dear brothers and sisters in the head- quarters of the Spectator'. It was from a group of students asking for free copies of this magazine. `We hold here an indepen- dent academy for the political studies and wait some printed matters of you, counting on your solidarity to us as well as your generosity and kindliness. We cannot get here on the newsstands your journal nor others from USA or UK and depend totally on your mercy.' Lest I might turn out to be neither generous nor kindly nor merciful, the students — who said they were studying physics, chemistry and computers — pro- duced another argument to support their demand. 'We are people of western civilisa- tion,' they said. 'We support Mrs Margaret Thatcher and Mr Ronald Reagan. We believe that the Soviet Union should be destroyed as it's a criminal power ruled by Canibal Andropov, a secret police killer.' I get rather fed up with people in the Third World and other underprivileged places who write to me quite often demanding, as of right, that I send them free subscriptions to the Spectator. They seem to assume that the fact of their poverty alone entitles them to this privilege and do not even bother to be polite. So I normally ignore such re- quests. But I rather like the idea of these loony Thatcher-loving students in Yugoslavia.
Alexander Chancellor
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