Politics and a free press

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33033, 28 September 1972, Page 23

Politics and a free press

(By

JAMES RESTON,

of the New York Times Aeu s Service, through N.Z.P.A. i

WASHINGTON. It has just been disclosed by “The Times.” of London, that George Orwell wrote a preface to “Animal Farm.” on “The Freedom of the Press,” which has never been published until now.

In it. Orwell defended his right to publish unpopular or unorthodox ideas — specifically, his feelings against Russia during the Second World War, when the Soviet Union was an ally—which may be relevant to the present controversy in the United States about politics and a free press. “Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England,” Orwell wrote, “but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious ef-

fort ... If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” This, of course, is simply a good rewrite of Voltaire’s famous declaration: "1 wholly disagree with what you say. and will defend to the death your right to say it.” And while this idea has often been challenged in Britain and the United States, and has always been condemned and vilified in totalitarian countries, the mail coming into my office during the present election campaign has never seemed less sympathetic to the old, hard Orwellian principle than it does these days.

It would be silly to draw general conclusions about the state of public opinion in America from letters written to newspapers and columnists. The public letterwriters are usually deeply engaged personally, for van-

I out reasons, on one side or the other, and. therefore, are not typical of the disillus- ■ ioned or indifferent voters. ; who probably outnumber the ! enthusiastic supporters of ; either President Nixon or | Senator McGovern. Nevertheless, the unsoltI cited letters coming into my office tell us something. A lot of them are saying, in effect: “I wholly disagree [ with what you say and will' fight to the death—preferably yours—your right to say it.” The assumption—and the writers are passionately selfrighteous about it—is that if your opinion differs from theirs, you are not only wrong but wicked and should be suppressed, or destroyed, as an enemy of the republic. If you support the letterwriter’s candidate all the way you are a "wise” and "subjective” numbskull, probably in the pay of the opposition, or under the malevolent instructions of your villainous publisher. The confusion over Orwell’s principle is matched in many of these letters only by the confusion between news and opinion over the difference between a straight report of events in the news pages, and an editorial page column of a writer’s analysis and personal views.

And this is not a partisan point: if you suggest that Senator McGovern’s campaign has not been a masterpiece of professional competence, but that he has wasted a good case against the Nixon Administration, the Senator’s enthusiastic supporters, many of them your old friends, write, not in sorrow, but in anger, that you have deserted the Liberal cause and are becoming Conservative in your old age. The root principle Orwell was writing about, and that which the Founding Fathers insisted on at Philadelphia, seldom comes up in these letters. On the Republican side, seldom does anybody say: “I’m for the President, and I’m going to vote for him, but the Watergate, and all this deceptive trickery about unauthorised bombing, and illegal bugging, and burglary, and special privileges for grain-dealers and milk producers, makes me sick.” Nor do Senator McGovern’s supporters recognise that when he is nominated for the Presidency, he must expect to be judged more harshly by the press as a potential President. The enthusiasts on both sides seem to be baffled when a columnist praises the President one day for historic opening to China, and condemns him the next for the attitude of the Republican Party to the bugging of the Democratic Party. Or when he praises Senator McGovern one day for insisting on ending the war and reconciling the races and the generations, but condemns him the next for supporting men and policies without checking out their history and probable consequences. The letter-writers may not be typical, but at least they take the trouble to write to disclose their honest doubts, and are significant of a confusion in the nation about the Western tradition of democracy, about the political process, and about the responsibility of the press in America, as part of it. “There is now a widespread tendency to argue,” Orwell wrote in that angry, unpublished preface to “Animal Farm,” “that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its

,-enemies by no matter what [means. . . . "The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every ■opinion, however unpopular, however foolish even. an« ■ titled to a hearing? "Put it in that form.” Orwell added, arguing for the ! right to oppose Stalin’s methods, even though Stalin was an ally in the last war. “and nearly any English intel ; lectual will fee! that he ought to say yes." But give it a concrete shape, and ask. "How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing? And the answer (more often than not will he (‘no.’ In that case, the cur [rent orthodoxy happens to be 'challenged, and so that prin [ciple of free speech lapses. ’’ This sort of thing is happening all the time in America now. The historical analogy is obviously not apt. but Orwell’s old principle still is: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And it is not only the letter writers of today who would have worried Orwell. What concerned him was not only the power of governments to suppress opposition, but the “sinister fact.” as he put it, that most suppression of dissent tended to be “voluntary opposition” to unorthodox thought. Fortunately for him, he didn’t live long enough to see the day when governments proclaimed his principle, and then used the free press, radio, and television to overwhelm it.