F.O.R. REPLIES

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

There has come to my attention a copy of a letter addressed to you from Herbert A. Philbrick, erstwhile informant for the FBI and currently cloak-and-dagger columnist for the New York Herald-Tribune Syndicate. . . The Philbrick letter, stylistically, appears to be irony, though with somewhat less deft a touch than one likes to see. This is said not by way of criticism--even Swift produced some lemons in his time--but as explanation of the possibility that I might have have misinterpreted Mr. Philbrick's intent. As it stands, the inferences appear to be two: (a) that because the Soviet Union reports a large grain crop in 1954, it is ridiculous to suppose that the Yangtse River in China could have had its worst flood in history and left a great deal of suffering and hunger in its wake; (b) that the Fellowship of Reconciliation, either out of naivete or by design, appears to be more concerned with the welfare of Communists than with that of their victims. Dealing with the first item, I would acknowledge that it is not easy to get accurate information out of China these days. Such information as has come through, however, via Hong-Kong and some of the Asian nations, confirms the fact that the flood was a disaster of the first magnitude, and that the resultant suffering was great. Life, whose facilities for research are considerably in excess of the FOR's, reported that an area larger than the state of Texas (250,000 square miles) had been flooded; The New China News Agency, after at first claiming that the Yangtse dikes had held, reported the inundation of some 42,000 square miles and the necessary evacuation of 10 million persons. . . On the second point. . . The Fellowship of Reconciliation is totally opposed to totalitarianism of all kinds, of the right or the left. The Food-for-China campaign arose out of compassion for hungry people who are our brothers, and out of a real conviction that it is only as men attempt to express a sense of brotherhood even to their enemies that there can be a change in the direction of peace and away from the world's preoccupation with suspicion and violence. . . Alfred Hassier, Editor, Fellowship Magazine