(1) In its first issue the magazine New International, launched by the leaders of the Canadian RWL and of the SWP of the United States, publishes an introduction signed by Steve Clark, Larry Seigle and John Riddell, in which the following passage is found concerning Jack Barnes's article "Their Trotsky and Ours":
"A United States police agency also went into action, carrying out a 'cointelpro'-style sabotage operation. A tape recording was sent anonymously from the United States: it was claimed to be the recording of a speech (given by Jack Barnes). Those who received it, believing it to be authentic and making the mistake of not checking it, made a transcription of it which was widely distributed, from Germany and Britain to Australia. The political nature of the differences between the speech and the Paris transcription clearly shows that the anonymous recording had been falsified."
Proceeding by amalgams and insinuations, this introduction suggests that the United Secretariat circulated, "without checking it", a version of Jack Barnes's Chicago speech "falsified by a police agency".
(2) These insinuations are grossly dishonest:
– At its meeting of January 1983 the USec heard, in the presence of a comrade from the SWP leadership, a detailed report by its representative at the YSA convention on comrade Barnes's speech. So as to be able to discuss precisely the serious political problems raised by this public speech, the SWP comrades were asked to provide, for the March meeting of the USec, a transcription of the speech edited by themselves or, if they did not have the time, a recording which the Bureau of the USec would undertake to have transcribed and translated. In the absence of any reply from the SWP comrades, the Bureau of the USec took the initiative of having the recording received in the meantime transcribed and translated. The recording and the transcription were checked by the comrade who had represented the USec in Chicago. The transcription was sent to the SWP leadership, which returned neither an acknowledgement nor any comments. The USec therefore did what was in its power to "check" the authenticity of the version circulated to its members, and to them alone, with the precautions attested by the covering letter dated 11 March 1983.
– The version of the speech finally prepared and published by New International in the form of an article, more than six months later, confirms the content of the text distributed to the March USec and the authenticity of the original recording.
(3) Consequently the USec:
a) categorically condemns the unsubstantiated insinuations published by New International;
b) stresses that, had they been sincere in their concerns and loyal to the Fourth International, those responsible for N.I. would not have waited several months before making such serious accusations public: they would have done so immediately, and within the regular bodies of the International. Their silence, followed by their public accusation, therefore amounts either to irresponsibility or to pure and simple provocation;
c) stresses that the public accusation of having been deceived or manipulated in a police falsification is one of the traditional slanders against the Trotskyist movement, from which the SWP itself has often had to suffer. It is intolerable that this kind of procedure should be introduced into the very ranks of the International;
d) asks those responsible for N.I. to publish the present clarification in their next issue and themselves to correct the insinuations against the USec;
e) decides to publish the present motion in the review Quatrième Internationale.
[Translator's note: the passage from New International is translated back from the French; the original English wording is in New International no. 1 (1983). The French prints "John Riddle" for John Riddell.]