Endangered species
Sir: I am distressed that Paul Johnson thinks that. I have been abusing him (The press, 12 January). Ex-editors of the New Statesman should stick together, for we may be an endangered species.
He is wrong, though, to imply that I have not read his writings from his days with the magazine. Browsing through the bound back numbers of the NS on my shelves was once my regular delight. So I can correct an error in his memory about the history of the magazine. He says that while Kingsley Martin was editor (until 1961) he and John Freeman managed to keep the paper firmly committed to Nato and collective security and that Kingsley `was only allowed to make pro-CND noises under his own byline'. He should look again at the unsigned leading article in the issue of 2 November 1957, which warmly endorsed J.B. Priestley's call for Britain to renounce the H-bomb, an article which led directly to the founding of CND. The leader includes the sentence: `Those who believe that British manufacture of the bomb any longer provides us with a serious bargaining position delude themselves'; and it concludes with the words: `. . . his [Priestley's] divine irresponsibility has all the ring of sanity'.
Hugh Stephenson
City University, London EC1
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