tion, unless it suits his prosecutorial purposes.rnRaimondo refers to a passage inrnmy text where I am approached by arnKGB agent, who invites me to a series ofrnlunches. Raimondo: “These discussionsrnwere always held at the best restaurantsrn[as though 1 had chosen them!], and onrnsuch occasions Horowitz claims to havernargued against Soviet repression.” [Emphasisrnadded.] On one of these occasions,rnthe agent stuffed an envelope inrnmy pocket. Raimondo: “Horowitz saysrnhe ‘knew instinctively what was in thernenvelope,’ but claims to have been ‘sornfrightened that I didn’t dare removernit until I reached home.'” [Emphasisrnadded.] At home, I opened it and discoveredrnthat it contained 150 one dollarrnbills, and returned it.rnRaimondo: “Although he says [myrnemphasis] he returned the money ‘at ourrnnext meeting,’ a question arises. Whyrndid he open the envelope? If he ‘instinctively’rnknew it was money, then he mustrnhave wanted to know how much.” Inrnfact, the reaction I had to the money wasrnnot delayed and was this: “I was not sornmuch surprised [by the money] asrndumbfounded. How could these peoplernbe so stupid in their own interest, and sornreckless with mine? . . . they thoughtrnnothing of putting my work (to say nothingrnof my life) in jeopardy by attemptingrnto recruit me as an agent. The thoughtrnenraged me.”rnNow I ask the reader of this passage 1)rnWhy would I report this incident if I wasrnactually tempted by the offer and onlyrnhaggling over the price, especially if Irnwanted to conceal that fact? 2) Whyrnwould I recount another incident inrnwhich I actually did commit treason, if Irnwas intent (as Raimondo implies) onrncovering up a mere flirtation with treasonrneadier? In fact, my account is exactlyrnthe way it happened, and Raimondo’srnattempt to prosecute me for allegedlyrnfailing to admit what I freely admit a fewrnpages later only shows how relentless isrnhis determination to put me in a badrnlight, and how pathetic his execution ofrnthat task.rnThere is really no point in going further,rnbut I cannot resist one additionalrncomment. With typical reckless disregardrnfor the facts, Raimondo accuses mernof being an opportunist: “Horowitz . . .rnswims with the tide, not against it, andrnbreathlessly announces, at this late daternthat… the Black Panthers were not BoyrnScouts.” Readers of Radical Son willrnknow that I risked life and limb, lost familyrnand friends, to bring the story of thernPanther murders to light—over a 20-yearrnperiod—and have been punished professionallyrnby the liberal literary culture forrndoing so. If it were not for my efforts,rnno one—not even Justin Raimondo—rnwould know about the Panther murdersrndescribed in Radical Son.rn—David HorowitzrnCenter for the Study of Popular CulturernLos Angeles, CArnMr. Raimondo Replies:rnIt is truly odd to be called vindictive by arnman who celebrates the persecution ofrnhis own parents. This unattractiverntheme is further illustrated when Horowitzrndefends the firing of his father fromrnhis job as a teacher because he refused torndeny that he was a member of the CommunistrnParty: after all, “what actuallyrnhappened to my father” wasn’t all thatrnbad. American Communists “were neitherrnexecuted nor tortured, and spentrnhardly any time in jail.” In Horowitz’srnbook, his father should have been gratefulrnto his persecutors instead of defiant:rnRadical Son is a case study in the distortionrnof personality by ideology—in thisrncase, neoconservative ideology.rnIn spite of his strenuous attempt tornwriggle out of it, Horowitz never explainsrnjust why he didn’t simply hand thatrnmoney-filled envelope back to the KGBrnagent right there on the street. Horowitzrnreports an incident that raises questionsrnhe is not prepared to answer because, inrnworks of this kind, vanity trumps commonrnsense: after all, the KGB hadrndeemed him important enough to recruit.rnHorowitz justifies police state methodsrnand the virtual outlawing of thernCommunist Party on the grounds that itsrnmembers were engaged in “conspiratorialrnactivities” and that it was thereforernnecessary to “surveil them.” Like sornmany of those who have made thernodyssev’ from left to right, Horowitz hasrnmerely changed the color of his flag,rnwhile retaining the statist core of his beliefs.rnAt a time when it is the right that isrnunder attack from government agencies,rnand when the threat of governmentrnsurveillance is quite real in an atmospherernof anti-“extremist” hysteria, howrnlong before Horowitz is calling for thernsame methods to be used against his enemiesrnon the right?rnAs for any personal “animus” on myrnpart, I should state for the record that itsrngenesis had nothing to do with his enragedrnresponse to my attack on MartinrnLuther King, Jr., at a 1993 NationalrnReview conference, for at the time Irnhardly knew the man. But Horowitzrnshould know that one of the risks ofrnautobiography is that the author willrninadvertently reveal himself to be a thoroughlyrndisagreeable and even contemptiblernperson.rnOn H.P. LovecraftrnWhile I was grateful for the length andrndetail of Samuel Francis’s review (“Atrnthe Heart of Darkness,” May) of my biographyrnof Lovecraft and my edition ofrnLovecraft’s Miscellaneous Writings, therernare some serious errors and misconceptionsrnin the review that require correction.rnFirst, it’s peculiar that Mr. Francisrnbegins his review asserting that Lovecraft’srn”life and writing career… can onlyrnbe judged failures” and yet concludesrnby saying that he was “one of America’srnlast free men, living his life as he wantedrnto live it” and that his supernatural fictionrnwill survive “as long as that genre ofrnliterature is read at all.” If this is failure, Irncan hardly imagine what success is like.rnMr. Francis also seems to have a difficultrntime with Lovecraft’s philosophy ofrncosmic indifferentism, whereby the vastnessrn(both spatially and temporally) ofrnthe universe necessitates the belief in therninconsequence (on the cosmic scale) ofrnhumanity. He refers to it as a “dismalrncreed” and feels that it was “somethingrnof a crutch for an emotional cripple.” Itrndoes not seem to have occurred to himrnthat the philosophy is very likely to berntrue. It accords with all the hndings ofrnscience, and Lovecraft repeated it frequentlyrnin essays and correspondencernnot because he was somehow maniacallyrnattached to it but because he knew thatrnit was an unusual worldview that othersrn—especially those nurtured on therncomforting falsehoods of religion—rnwould find a “dismal creed.”rnIt is absurd to call Lovecraft arn”Nazi”—I do not think Mr. Francis realizesrnwhat he is saying here. Lovecraftrnwas one of many in England and Americarnwho welcomed Hitler’s rise to powerrnin 1955 (as a means of reviving Germanyrnafter what were believed to be the unfairrnconditions imposed upon it by the Ver-rnSEPTfMBER 1997/5rnrnrn