Cockburn on Said

* Alexander Cockburn (Commentary, Aug. 29) utterly fails to contradict the evidence I amassed in uncovering his friend Edward Said’s autobiographical fictions. Cockburn made precisely one telephone call to a former teacher who claims to recall Said’s presence at St. George’s school in Jerusalem. I wrote that Said, who actually grew up in Cairo rather than Jerusalem, was not regularly enrolled in the school, although he may have been now and then a temporary student.

Cockburn should read Said’s forthcoming memoir, “Out of Place.” There Said himself states that from 1941 to 1951, he attended three different schools, all situated in Cairo, where he lived with his parents. Does Cockburn still wish us to believe that for those same 10 years, young Said was regularly commuting back and forth across the Sinai desert to attend St. George’s in Jerusalem?

JUSTUS REID WEINER

Jerusalem