In response to:

A Diplomatic Alternative from the September 16, 1965 issue

To the Editors:

The biographical notes you gave Marcus Raskin and Bernard Fall in the September 16 issue of The New York Review of Books prompted me to write you and let you know something more about Bernard Fall.

Fall is the author of two books on Vietnam, Street Without Joy, and the more famous The Two Viet-Nams, which Praeger recently reissued in a revised and updated edition. He has been in and out of Vietnam since 1953, and only recently returned from a visit there a few days ago. He is one of the few Westerners currently permitted to freely roam about cities like Hanoi, and has on more than one occasion interviewed Ho Chi Minh. In short, he is probably the top expert on Vietnam among those uncommitted to the official U. S. posture. He is currently a legal advisor to the Department of State, and Professor of International Relations at Howard University…

A Vietnam Reader, edited by Fall and Raskin, will be published by us November 24 in simultaneous hard and softcover editions.

Tom Gervasi

Random House

This Issue

October 28, 1965