It Wasn’t Them

To the Editors:

As the only two people in any way connected with the National Forum Foundation who could even remotely be misrepresented as “propagandists for the contras” and whom Aryeh Neier complains the Sandinistas have had “to put up with” under the terms of the Arias plan [NYR, March 17], we’d like to set the record straight. We went to Nicaragua last October as lecturers under the auspices of a USIA program which has sent such leftist celebrities as Ed Asner and E.L. Doctorow abroad as well as ourselves. We went with the intention of sharing our experiences as former new leftists with the leaders of the democratic opposition parties in Nicaragua, including the Popular Socialists, the Social Christians, the Liberals and the Conservatives. If Aryeh Neier’s Sandinista friends had “put up with” this democratic opposition in the first place—as they so solemnly and mendaciously promised to do when they originally came to power—they would not have had to put up with us at all.

Peter Collier

David Horowitz

Los Angeles, California

Aryeh Neier replies:

I had no idea Peter Collier and David Horowitz were connected to the National Forum Foundation and did not have them in mind when I wrote my article. The person I was thinking of was Gary Moore, who writes for such journals as The National Interest and has identified himself as conducting investigations in Nicaragua for the National Forum Foundation.