To the Editors:
As one of Dwight Macdonald’s two sons, I must reluctantly rebut the tasteless and misleading obituary of my father by Hilton Kramer in your January issue. I do this reluctantly on two grounds. First, my father rather than I should reply to such a vile attack. Second, I had previously thought Mr. Kramer one of the wiser anti-Communists around, if a somewhat humorless one at times. Imagine my genuine shock, then, to read this personal attack disguised as an obituary.

Before noting a few rebuttable details, however, let me stress the old Latin maxim invoked by Dean Acheson when asked by the press to comment on the death of Sen. Joseph McCarthy: “De mortuis nihil, nisi bonum est.” Similarly I must ask Mr. Kramer, why the rush to desecrate someone he apparently loathed? Why not let a decent interval pass for those who respected my father as a writer or political activist, not to mention those who loved him as well? On those familiar grounds of conduct alone, Mr. Kramer’s relentless attack—for that is what it was—went beyond spite to lack of character and taste. It was unworthy of a man who purports to elevate standards in a magazine whose very title suggests the ultimate in taste itself.

Now for a few details. Mr. Kramer’s basic point, if I may simplify his lengthy abuse, is that my father was a political “dandy” who put on various anarchist, pacifist, or socialist costumes to fit his passing