DEFENDING LA CAUSA

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I want to thank the Crimson for reviewing my book, Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa. It's nice to be noted.

I suppose I should feel honored to be described as "a former New York Times reporter." But I've never made such a claim nor had such an ambition. I would have been pleased, however, to have been described as a Harvard Crimson editor for four years and a member of its Executive Board in its golden era, 1949-50. To me, it beats the Times.

It's because of my fond memories of the Crimson that I write this, for I do not know Chris Daly and would not otherwise have responded to his review (which was just mailed to me). But I hope the Crimson still cherishes the first three rules of journalism--accuracy, accuracy, accuracy.

Mr. Daly's mention of the Times is only the first of several such major errors. For example, in the same first paragraph, he mentions that "the intense pain of marching on blistered feet" during the 300-mile walk to Sacramento "put (Chavez) on his back and almost killed him."

That is pure fiction and simple inattention to detail. As Chavez says (on page 212) someone gave him a cane, "and by the time we got to Modesto where I celebrated my birthday on the fifteenth day of the march, I was okay."

I can't comment on Daly's assessment that I "failed to bring out many of the latent elements in Chavez's personality" because my "sympathy for Chavez" kept me from asking Chavez "the hard questions." The only reason I can't comment, of course, is because Daly fails to mention what those "latent elements" are, or what the "hard questions" were. I strongly suspect, however, that if Daly made such a list, I could supply him with page references.

Daly also says I went to California five years ago when Chavez's organizing efforts began to attract national attention. Here, too, he is mistaken. My career in journalism took me to California in 1952, and I have been there ever since.

I am somewhat annoyed with Daly's suspicion that I "rushed the book out to aid the UFW in the crucial farmworker elections now underway." Had he checked, he would have learned that the book was completed and in galley form before there was any inkling that a secret ballot election bill could ever be passed through the California legislature. It is common knowledge that there is a one-year lead time between the completion of a major book and its publication date.

Using techniques I first learned on the Crimson, I was able to add one chapter giving the story of how Governor Brown accomplished the minor miracle of getting the controversial farm labor bill passed. That chapter was actually written before its final passage and involved an element of risk.

My deadline for returning the corrected galley proofs was a Wednesday noon, New York time. The final compromises that permitted passage of the bill were not reached until late Monday night. On Tuesday, I waited ten hours in Governor Brown's office before getting my interview to complete the chapter. It was a hundred miles back to my home late Tuesday night where I transcribed the interview and completed the chapter. The final copy was dictated over the phone to my publisher in New York Wednesday morning. He jokingly accused me of turning the venerable Norton publishing house into a daily newspaper.

So the book wasn't rushed to influence the elections, but an extra chapter was added to meet publishing contracts. Actually, anyone knowledgeable about California farm labor or any careful reader of my book would scoff at the idea that the book could influence the elections. They would realize that farm workers can't afford a $12.95 book, and that many of them can't speak, let alone read, English.

As for Mr. Daly's parting shot that I have "thrown five years of impressive research into a book designed to promote Chavez rather than explain him," I can only hope that truly perceptive readers will find otherwise. I am gratified that many other reviewers have disagreed with Mr. Daly's opinion. Jacques Levy