Kondracke on Muravchik

In his column (“A Reagan Fan Heats Up the Clinton Camp,” Column Right, Dec. 17), Morton Kondracke cites the “editors of The Nation magazine” as some of the detractors of Joshua Muravchik, the neoconservative supplicant aiming for the State Department human rights post in the Clinton Administration. To dismiss the magazine’s criticism of his friend Muravchik, Kondracke claims “the Nation often was an apologist for communist regime and resistance movements.” Point one: The harsh words regarding Muravchik appeared in my bylined column. Point two: I have never apologized for a totalitarian force in or out of power. And that distinguishes me from the neoconservatives who too often overlook the human rights record of a regime or insurgency if it is sufficiently fervent in its anti-communism.

I assailed this potential appointment because Muravchik through the 1980s was a cheerleader for the Nicaraguan Contras, the Unita rebels of Angola, and the El Salvador military. Now we can argue the geopolitical merits of their respective causes. In fact, we spent much of the previous decade doing so. But there are bushels of evidence that show all of these entities, at some time or another, engaged in human rights violations, occasionally gross ones. Yet Muravchik and other neocons saw their supposed battles against communism as priority number one. Someone who sacrificed human rights for realpolitik does not deserve to be the leading U.S. spokesperson on this issue.

DAVID CORN

Washington Editor

The Nation