The Week

■ national review regrets to announce that its patience with the Carter Administration is now exhausted.*

■ British journalist Robert Moss’s book Chile’s Marxist Experiment, which caused a great scandal in Britain because of its alleged CIA subsidy, is now stirring up Washington as well. Representative Don Edwards, California liberal Democrat, now charges that the book “seriously violated” the First Amendment, which guarantees the free flow of information “unpolluted by secret government propaganda.” This is particularly serious, Edwards said, because if the CIA did subsidize the book, it would also be a violation of its own charter. In fact, the case is significant for other reasons: Edwards, as chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, has turned upside down First Amendment strictures against Congress’ interfering with freedom of speech, i.e., against Edwards’ interfering with Moss and his freedom to publish. His attack on Moss’s book is part of an apparent campaign against individuals in the U.S. and Europe who are connected with or sympathetic to the anti-Allende policial forces. (Former Ambassador to Chile Edward Korry has not been able to obtain work as a journalist, though he had been a distinguished one, because of his alleged anti-Allende role; cf. “The Korry Case,” NR, Jan. 21.) It will be interesting to see if the civil-liberty and free-speech types call Edwards to account for his assault upon constitutional rights.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

■ national review regrets to announce that its patience with the Carter Administration is now exhausted.*

■ British journalist Robert Moss’s book Chile’s Marxist Experiment, which caused a great scandal in Britain because of its alleged CIA subsidy, is now stirring up Washington as well. Representative Don Edwards, California liberal Democrat, now charges that the book “seriously violated” the First Amendment, which guarantees the free flow of information “unpolluted by secret government propaganda.” This is particularly serious, Edwards said, because if the CIA did subsidize the book, it would also be a violation of its own charter. In fact, the case is significant for other reasons: Edwards, as chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, has turned upside down First Amendment strictures against Congress’ interfering with freedom of speech, i.e., against Edwards’ interfering with Moss and his freedom to publish. His attack on Moss’s book is part of an apparent campaign against individuals in the U.S. and Europe who are connected with or sympathetic to the anti-Allende policial forces. (Former Ambassador to Chile Edward Korry has not been able to obtain work as a journalist, though he had been a distinguished one, because of his alleged anti-Allende role; cf. “The Korry Case,” NR, Jan. 21.) It will be interesting to see if the civil-liberty and free-speech types call Edwards to account for his assault upon constitutional rights.