Similar Evils

Patrick Goldstein’s doting interview with the unrepentant communist Abraham Polonsky is as offensive as it would have been if Goldstein had adopted a similar tone in interviewing a Nazi (“He’s Been There, Survived That,” Jan. 20). Polonsky deserves our contempt for his political views, not our admiration.

It is a tragedy that these two monstrous, totalitarian ideologies are regarded so differently in our historical memory, to the point where The Times would see fit to publish an affectionate interview with Polonsky but (quite properly) would never remotely consider publishing a similar interview with a Nazi who, like Polonsky, had “no regrets.”

ROBERT A. PHILIPSON, Santa Monica

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“Fighting for lost causes is a perfectly proper activity for a human being,” Polonsky says.

No way, not when your lost cause slaughtered tens of millions of people in Russia, China and around the world, including legions of writers and artists for whom “blacklisting” under Communism meant the gulag or the firing squad.

Polonsky may have once been a pretty good screenwriter, but for him to make a breezy, no-regrets defense of his support for a tyranny that soaked the planet in blood, is intellectually and morally obscene.

AL RAMRUS, Pacific Palisades

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I applaud Karl Malden’s efforts to get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to finally recognize the artistic achievements of Elia Kazan (“Film Director Elia Kazan to Receive Oscar, Forgiveness,” by Patrick Goldstein, Jan. 15).

I had the great good fortune to be directed by “Gadge” Kazan in his first (and only) musical directorial chore, “One Touch of Venus,” and also in the film “On the Waterfront.”

The man is a brilliant, forceful and imaginative director and his achievements in film and in the theater are indeed deserving of this belated recognition. Malden is quite right in his contention that Kazan’s political misstep, egregious as it might have been, should in no way detract from his artistic accomplishments.

ZACHARY A. CHARLES, Burbank