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Thought Control

THE MAIL

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

To the Editors of The Crimson:

[Professor] Noam Chomsky's equation of "thought-control" in the United States with that of the Soviet Union is only an illustration of a man whose paranoia about this country has become so acute that it has pushed his judgment over the edge of rational boundaries.

Mr. Chomsky cites the massacre of 100,000 persons in the Timors by Indonesian forces as an illustration. That may well be true. But how many persons have known of the massacres of the Kurds by the Iraquis in recent years, or the Nagas by India, let alone the hundreds of thousands of African peoples in the bloody tribal wars in Central Africa?

The issue is a simple one. Where a press is not free to go, we shall remain uniformed. And the greater guilt lies with the Communist and Third World countries who, increasingly, are seeking to reduce the level of free reportage in these countries. At this moment, there are resolutions by these countries in UNESCO on the "responsibilities" of joirnalists--by which they mean not to report what is observed.

Mr. Chomsky is a genuine man of conscience. It is a pity that, increasingly--as in his defense of the Cambodian government--his has become more and more divorced from intellect. Adam Kadmon

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