Reader to Reader

Reader Jay Pellisier suggests that the similarities between the plots of the film “The Red Violin” and John Hersey’s book “Antonietta” are “more than coincidence,” and that “somewhere credit is due Hersey and his book” (Letters, June 13). Plagiarism is a serious allegation, but, alas, the late Mr. Hersey was himself a serial offender.

I direct Pellisier’s attention to pages 109-111 of Anne Fadiman’s book “Ex Libris: Reflections of a Common Reader.” In her essay on plagiarism, “Nothing New Under the Sun,” Fadiman offers devastating evidence that Hersey was a “compulsive plagiarist” whose many targets included author Laurence Bergreen and Fadiman’s mother, Annalee Jacoby Fadiman, a World War II correspondent.

NEAL McCABE

Los Angeles

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Reader Stan Schwarz states that there was no conspiracy by the oil interests to sabotage the Pacific Electric railway system (Letters, June 13).

Wrong.

Standard Oil, Firestone, Mack and GM were found guilty of “criminal conspiracy to monopolize ground transportation,” case No. 186 F2d 562, 1949. The actions of the conspirators is documented in the transcripts of the 1974 Kennedy-Collier hearings on anti-trust violations.

JON HARTMANN

Los Angeles