I RENT BILL

LIUE. ...MENT MUST PROTECT OURENOMES Brothersure fighting the CERMANSSAN DOREENES We are the organized trade union movement on the Clyde was the vital element in winning that battle,' we are told. This-presumably proves beyond all doubt the correctness of the IS line on the 'fair Previous articles in the BIlL Is Assi ENT LL TRONASON Prussians of Germany fighting the Prussians of PARTICK only altenatire MUNICIPAL HOUSIN 1972) however, have analysed how the IS set out to distort this aspect of the history of the workers' movement in order to snatch some justification for the present position.

The empiricists of the IS

On May 14 the 'Sunday Times' became the first Fleet Street newspaper in Britain to publish an account of May 14 the 'Sunday Times' ne first Fleet Street newspaper in pu an the views of Brigadier Frank Kitson, in an article entitled "The guru of the new model army. In a subse- article entitled 'The guru of the new model army'. quent Tory Press Column in Workers Press Alex Mitchell sharply criticized the Sunday Times' writers for editor of the 'Sunday Times' and one of the authors of the original piece, has attempted to answer the in this Letter to the Editor. Picture from the 'Sunday Times'.

Press Dear Editor, My attention has been drawn to your article of May 19 concerning the article I wrote with Lewis Chester about Brigadier Kitson and his theories.

There can be no complaint about the manner of your attack. For all that, I must take issue with some of your arguments. (Lewis Chester, incidentally, is out of town. I'm not able to answer for him.)

First, of course, I do disagree quite basically with Brigadier Kitson's ideas, and I'm rather surprised that anyone who read the article could have thought otherwise. However, a reporter's first and most useful function in such a case should be to say what the ideas are, rather than advertise his own feelings about them.

I don't think myself that any reader of the Workers Press articles on Kitson would have gathered any very precise idea of the kind of military techniques Kitson was advocating. All he would have athered would have been a reeling that Kitson is some kind of old-style militaristwhich he certainly isn't-and that the Workers Press disapproved of Kitson the man.

Kitson were indeed the ferocious blimp your caricature, then i don't think he would be very formidable.

On respect for democracy: well, it seems to me that debates are a fairly important part of any democratic process. (I say, a part. Not even J. S. Mill thought that was the whole of it.) Brigadier Kitson says he's for debate-although personally I'd like to see him make his commitment a bit more consistent. However, on your own account vou don't seem to think that debate is even useful. Convicted, Id say, out of your own typewriter.

On details, you say that Brigadier Kitson was 'the key officer? in Ulster during 'three milestones in British imperialism's savagery there' (what type of • milestones are you using. round there at the • Internment. It's no purpose of mine to speak for Kitson, but I'm fairly satisfied that, for military reasons, he opposed internment in summer 1971. • Torture. If I thought there was any evidence that Brigadier Kitson was directly responsible for the 'hood torture' we. exposed in "The Sunday Times' ' then I'd have said so. I know of no such evidence, and I think even army officers should be considered innocent until it's shown otherwise. • Bloody Sunday. You're wrong. The Insight inquiry demonstrated, among other things, that Kitson — whose command never had anything to do with Derry-had nothing whatever to do with Bloody Sunday. No evidence has ever come into this office to suggest otherwise. Anyone who can be bothered is quite welcome to come and crossexamine us about this, and examine our evidence. You may know something we don't. But I'm sure we can convince you that we've been true to what we know.

I agree that the issues raised by Brigadier Kitson's writings are too important to be left to middle-class liberals — although, for the record, I'm a middle-class socialist. I don't think, however, that you'll get very far by suggesting to the members of any class that Kitson himself is other than an honourable officer. People who happen to come across him personally won't believe you.

Yours etc, Bruce Page, ALEX MITCHELL REPLIES Mr Page's letter is a complete equivocation. It will convince nobody that he 'quite basically' disagrees with Kitson's ideas.

On the contrary, it strengthens the correctness of our original headline that 'Kitson finds friends in Fleet Street'.

Dealing with Mr Page's letter at length becomes a serious and mandatory task, because each month sees a worsening crisis in British dapitalism. A big balance-ofpayments crisis is forecast in the autumn coupled with a run sterling, there is complete stagnation 1n the economy. with a continuing low level of investment, rapid inflation and unemployment certainly swinging back over the 1 million mark.

These are the symptoms which produce great conflict between the working class and the ruling class. And in this situation men like Kitson, groomed for special military tasks, are to be studied with close attention.

Kitson has already given us a glimpse of how he sees the situation developing in his book 'Low Intensity Operations'. We quoted this passage in our articles on Kitson last December, 'The Sunday Times' did not. In the context of this reply, Kitson's words are worth repeating:

'If a genuine and serious grievance arose as such as might result from a significant drop in the standard of living all those who now dissipate their protest over a wide variety of causes might concentrate their efforts and produce a situation which was beyond the power of the police to handle. Should this happen, the army would be required to restore the position rapidly.' It is precisely because of Kitson's succinctly expressed class views that Mr Page's equivocations won't get through these columns unchallenged.

First of all, he pleads that he is 'rather surprised' that anyone could conclude he supported Kitson's ideas.

We weren't the only people to draw this conclusion of the original article. Most of Mr Page's own colleagues on "The Sunday Times' thought so as well. We are still forced to this conclusion in the absence of any definite statement by Mr Page in which he explains that what Kitson is talking about amounts to a direct threat to the working class in this country.

Mr Page's refuge is to read us a lesson in journalism in which he says 'a reporter's first and most useful function in such a case should be to say what the ideas are, rather than advertise his own feelings about them'.

This is the crudest idealism. Mr Page seriously suggesting that journalists should be spectators on the great panorama of society passing on messages like a vacant cypher?

Operating by this standard Mr Page would feel prepared to uncritically report and publish the views of a Hitler or a Mussolini without changing so much as a full stop or comma of the text.

We know, however, that Mr Page doesn't really believe this. We know because his article-along with most of the others he writes - was paragraph after paragraph of pure Bruce Page giving his personal views about Kitson and the role of the army. How can it be any other way? And it's Mr Page's views that we now want to deal with just as much as Kitson's.

It is quite wrong to say we have presented Kitson as a 'ferocious blimp'. On the contrary, we have always characterized him as very much a contemporary figure just as we were the first to warn that the Heath government was vastly different to the old Tory regimes run by Home, Macmillan and Churchill.

Pathetically, Mr Page returns to his wish for 'an informed debate'. One can only say that during his muchdecorated service for imperialism in. Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, Kitson • demonstrated no interest in 'informed debates' with the local residents. In the meantime, thousands of workers and their families were killed in these campaigns.

Mr Page's call for a debate is extremely reactionary. It would, you understand, be about whether the army should be used as an auxiliary to the police force in Britain. If the situation continues to develop along the lines that we and Kitson both think, the great debate could be in progress on 'Late Night Line-Up' while workers were being brained with batons out on the streets.

There's nothing 'undemocratic' in our stance. Only a confused liberal approaches Kitson for a debate. We approach him • from a class standpoint recognizing what he stands for. In that sense there can be no debate with Frank Kitson armoured patrol mand in Belfast.

Kitson, Heath, Barber, Davis or Lord Thomson for that matter. They are part of the enemy class.

On the points of 'fact' we have difficulty in replying because of obvious legal problems. Suffice it to say that we stand on our earlier comments. On internment, however, it is intriguing to find Mr Page doing a spot of public relations on Kitson's behalf and on Bloody Sunday we have him attempting to completely cover up Kitson's role.

Yet it is a fact that Kitson gave the orders to Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford to take the First Parachute Regiment to Derry. It is a fact that General Ford and Kitson discussed the plan (which was authorized by the Tory Cabinets at Westminster and Stormont) and agreed to it.

Their agreement on this strategy caused disquiet in some sections of the army. On January 25, six days before the massacre, Simon Hoggart of 'The Guardian' quoted worried captain as saying: Wading into people as if this were Jungle warfare simply isn't on in Belfast.' Kitson is, of course, one of the army's leading 'experts' on counter - insurgency and counter- subversion and jungle warfare.

Mr Page can't resist a final paragraph to repeat again that Kitson is an honourable officer. (In the original article Kitson was a 'patently sincere and honourable officer'). So were they all honourable men! It was in the name of 'honour' that most of imperialism's deadly campaigns-at home and in the colonies-were carried out.

Mr Page wants to defend the honour of the regiment against the slings of the He's entitled to do that. At least he's more clearly out in the open. Now we await to hear from Mr Chester.

Mr Page informs us he is a middle-class socialist. One can only ask-what type of 'socialists' are they turning out there at 'The Sunday Times'? account In a subsewriters for criticisms (above)

during his comTuesday