It was not a letter to the editor, for which a tolerant journal needs not be responsible, but an article, something featured as information, so that its laudable attitude is more than a mere expression of opinion. There we read:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called communists….Is it not to the everlasting shame of the Ameri­ can people that those folk in the world who struggle for noble concepts are dismissed as communists? … There is no point in anyone being alarmed by the alliance between black or Latin nation-states in this hemisphere and the Soviet Union. Where else could any Socialist government find assistance?

These lines sound as if they were taken directly from the manual of a Soviet journalist whose commitment is to propaganda at any price  — be it truth or mere correctness — as he is fully prepared to be an employee of Pravda, Trud, or Izvestia. But it was not found in any of those papers. It was published in the Village Voice. (The Village Voice, incidentally, is owned by Mr. Rupert Murdoch, who, according to the Chicago Tribune, is:

a paragon of the old-fashioned Puritan work ethic who drinks only white wine, smokes not at all and is deeply devoted to his wife and children.

Devotion to wife and children as evidence of morality is of specious value: Goebbels was also an exemplary husband and father.) The article in question was signed “John F. Davis.” We don’t believe it. As Western journalists have re­ported of late, no one has seen Mr. Andropov recently; he even missed the November Day parade. This comes as little surprise to us. Could it be that Mr. Andropov is working for Mr. Murdoch under the pseudonym “John Davis”? After all, he needs hard currency to satisfy his addiction to Glenn Miller records and Red Label scotch.  cc