The Mission of Staughton Lynd

1) Why all the publicity? Mr. Staughton Lynd is not himself objectively important. He is an assistant professor of history at Yale University, of which there are others who are non-kook and, therefore, blissfully unnews-worthy. His traveling companions were a) Herbert Apthe-ker, the Marxist historian regularly identified as the “chief theoretician” of the CPUSA who is, for the professionals, not uninteresting. Apthe-ker’s ideological works are a little vein off the mother lode of Communist theory, a little vein which, if you hack away at it, will help you eke out a living as a student of Communist theory. And b) Tom Hayden, a dryasdust young ideologue of haggard mien who revolutionizes before breakfast every morning.

And it isn’t as if they had come back with anything. They were received by the leaders of the Communist totalitarian state they visited, and they exchanged the usual ideological objurgations, none of them of any particular novelty or interest. Would a priest have got headlines if he had come back from seeing the Pope, called a press conference, and announced that he had said to the Pope, “Dominus vobiscum,” and the Pope had replied, “Et cum spiritu tuo?”

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

1) Why all the publicity? Mr. Staughton Lynd is not himself objectively important. He is an assistant professor of history at Yale University, of which there are others who are non-kook and, therefore, blissfully unnews-worthy. His traveling companions were a) Herbert Apthe-ker, the Marxist historian regularly identified as the “chief theoretician” of the CPUSA who is, for the professionals, not uninteresting. Apthe-ker’s ideological works are a little vein off the mother lode of Communist theory, a little vein which, if you hack away at it, will help you eke out a living as a student of Communist theory. And b) Tom Hayden, a dryasdust young ideologue of haggard mien who revolutionizes before breakfast every morning.

And it isn’t as if they had come back with anything. They were received by the leaders of the Communist totalitarian state they visited, and they exchanged the usual ideological objurgations, none of them of any particular novelty or interest. Would a priest have got headlines if he had come back from seeing the Pope, called a press conference, and announced that he had said to the Pope, “Dominus vobiscum,” and the Pope had replied, “Et cum spiritu tuo?”