This letter contains numerous distortions about my article and about the movement itself. To mention only the most blatant of them:

It is simply false to imply-as this letter does-that all those who walked out of the 1069 SDS convention became Weathermen. Members of NAC and other radical groups were also among those who left. [It is unfair and opportunist-though not altogether surprising-that these people are all branded Weathermen-"crazies."]

Second, it is misleading to separate support for the NLF and support for a radical workers' movement in the U.S. Such a distinction exists only for those who view the NLF as a reactionary, anti-popular force.

It is silly to suggest that I view any criticism of the Panthers as racist. My point is that PL's "criticism" of the Panthers has been un-comradely and factional in tone. It is also disingenuous to portray SDS as "active participants" in a struggle where unarmed Panthers are arbitrarily rounded up, jailed, or killed in cold blood.

Last, it is untrue that I am anti-radical. Where the SDS of 1966 was not radical-that is, in its virtual ignorance of workers as a potential agent of social change-PL's ideological influence on that organization was constructive, as I said in my article. What I object to in PL is an obsession with its own organizational "purity" which results in non-cooperation with liberals and callous attacks on radicals.