POOR PAUL SIMON

I never heard of any U.N. committee that was empowered to “clear” Americans before I read Robert Hilburn’s “Paul Simon’s Troubled Waters” (Calendar, Feb. 22).

This amazes and frightens me. When English pop critic Stuart Cosgrove can get away with attacking Simon because he did not seek the approval of the Marxist-led, Soviet-sponsored African National Congress, I begin to get the idea that the U.N. Special Committee on Apartheid has similar criteria for making its “clearances” or denying them.

That is what the controversy over “Graceland” is all about: an effort by a group of cultural mini-Stalins to co-opt the anti-apartheid movement into purely Marxist, Soviet-dominated channels.

By not playing the game by Moscow rules, Simon has done a number of important and good things. First and foremost, he has made an outstanding album. He has also released out of the pressure cooker of black South Africa and into the larger world a number of great musical talents.

It is this wild and wonderful fact that Moscow fears as much as Pretoria. It has something to do with freedom and human dignity, but then that’s not something mini-Stalins know much about. If Simon now finds himself the victim of some kind of reverse McCarthyism orchestrated by the U.N., I would be very upset but not overly surprised.

RICHARD WINSTON

Culver City

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