[p. 61]
Paris
Dear George:
Meanwhile, there has been a most disturbing development in the reunification situation. We have received (I imagine your national office will already have sent you a copy) an internal bulletin of your British allies violently attacking our Fifth World Congress discussion document, "The Decline and Fall of Stalinism," in which the position is taken that politically "the gulf. . .grows wider and wider." In a letter dated June 13, Burns [Healy] demands repudiation of the document as a condition for reunification (I enclose a copy, as also a copy of the letter on the subject sent by the International Secretariat to the International Committee).
Now not only Jim and you, but practically every other responsible U.S. leader I talked to, were of the opinion that the political lines of the two international tendencies had drawn more and more parallel and close—to the extent that not only did political differences not preclude unification, but political closeness suggested it as an organizational conclusion to be drawn. Hence the whole discussion about the organizational side could go forward because there was general agreement on the political side.
And here come Burns and Sinclair [Hunter] with the totally diametrical opinion that there is a deepening political gulf. Of course your English group has a perfect right to its opinion, but it seems to indicate a certain lack of political homogeneity in the International Committee, doesn't it? It strikes me, just personally, as an attempt, by putting you of the SWP before a fait accompli, to sabotage the reunification on which some progress was, I think we all agree, being made. I hope that you will not permit it to do so. Everything is doubtless being sent officially to New York, but because I have a special esteem for your and Jim's opinion, I am sending these copies of the letters direct; and I should very much appreciate having your opinion on this extraordinary and disturbing development.
We have not yet heard here the results of the discussion on unification at your National Committee plenum and convention, but doubtless a formal communication will soon be in from New York. The International Executive Committee is just meeting, so that we shall soon have official positions on both sides.
I hope that any of you who believe that reunification is possible and desirable, and who happen to have influence on Burns, will try to persuade him not to take further measures which will imperil unification and even render it impossible—at least with his group.
Yours fraternally,
s/P.