Lionel Abel Replies

The two replies to my piece on Lyndon LaRouche, one by Mr. LaRouche himself, the other by Lewis Coser, are on about the same intellectual level: both writers evidently prefer name-calling to reasoned argument. I must add here that Lewis Coser has had the bad taste to remind me and my readers that I am a Jew, as if in my piece I had not taken note of the fact.

First I must consider Mr. LaRouche’s comments. He has certainly not disproved my suggestion that his political deliverances are tilted, in style and substance, toward a kind of fascism; but by his answer he has raised some doubt in me that he is serious in whatever he is doing or thinks he is doing. I suggested that he is a fascist and his reply is that I have obviously not heard all his television broadcasts. Now I did not say that I had heard all of them. The few I did hear were quite sufficient to make the judgment of him I made. To my quotations from his book, which indicate the zest and virulence...