24 NOVEMBER 2001, Page 38

Pacifists in wartime

From Professor John Spencer Sir: Peter Mullen seems to know little about free speech or episcopal dissent during the second world war (`Holy fools', 10 November). Has he never heard of a former Bishop of Chichester's outspoken condemnation of the saturation bombing of German cities? And if he believes that Churchill would have interned the current editor of the Church Times for what he refers to as 'his proclaimed "liberal" views', he is presumably unaware that a number of pacifist journals, religious and secular, continued to be published throughout the war, being allocated rationed newsprint for the purpose.

John Spencer

Blockley, Gloucestershire