THE HAUNTED FIFTIES* by I.F. Stone
I.F. Stone is already a legend in Britain. “His "Hidden History of the Korean War" is justly appreciated by every socialist who went through the agonies of the worst period of the cold war, His ‘eekly is read by quite a number of British socialists and know by very many more. This book consists of a selection of the best pieces appearing in it between 1953 and 1961. It reflects a most courageous and intelligent contribution to the struggle for a free press, and for freedom of thought. Begun in the worst days of the McCarthy period, I.F. Stones' Weekly never let up in its attempts to harry the witch-hunters, and never lost sight of the difficulties involved in the fight for humanist politics. “For me, being 2° . newspaperman has always seemed a cross between Galahad and William Randolph Hearst, a perpetual crusade. When the workers of Csepal and the Hungarian Revolution put a free press among their demands, I was thrilled. What Jefferson symbolised for me was being rediscovered in a socialist society as a necessity for good government. I believe that no society is good and can be healthy without qissent and creative independence." These pxfoundly liberal sentiments might echoed by a whole host of poetasters and kept scribes in the different capitalist countries: but what Stone has done, and what is revealed in this book, defies such patronising treatment,
His lone struggles, such as his battle on the test ban, in which he managed single-handed to kick the equivocations of the State Department from under them; or such as his valiant determination to tell the truth about Cuba, are not the material out of which second-class conformists lives are made. This is stirring honest stuff. All British socialists should read this book, if only for its first-rate reportage on Cuba. Although it is expensive, it should be in every public library in the country. * Published by Merlin Press at 42/~