In response to:

Laboring Fabians from the March 17, 1977 issue

To the Editors:

In his review of Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie’s The Fabians (NYR, March 17), Frank Kermode states that when “their great electoral moment came in 1945 the Webbs were not much interested; they went on listening to Moscow radio.” It has always been my impression that, while Lord Passfield lived on until 1947, Mrs. Webb died in 1943. If this impression is correct, it would not be surprising that Mrs. Webb was “not much interested,” when her “great electoral moment came in 1945”; but it would be startling indeed to discover that she “went on listening to Moscow radio,” instead.

Jonathan Kooperstein

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Frank Kermode replies:

Mr. Kooperstein is of course right, and I both apologize for my blunder and congratulate him on the caution with which he adduces his evidence for suspecting it.

This Issue

April 28, 1977