Letters | 28 November 2009

Not so special

Sir: The only ‘disrespect’ Obama can really be accused of is a degree of indifference to the British delusion of a ‘special relationship’ with the USA (‘A special form of disrespect’, 21 November). One would have thought that after the con-trick of Lend-lease, the wholesale vacuuming-up of British nuclear and aviation technology, Roosevelt’s barely concealed desire to see the British empire dismantled and the Suez fiasco, scales might have dropped from post-Churchillian Britain’s eyes.

Despite General McChrystal referring to two British Generals as ‘Jacko’ and ‘Lamby’, there is not and never has been a special relationship unless it suited Washington. Is it ineradicable Francophobia that prevents us recognising that de Gaulle had it right all along?

J.M. Hallinan
NSW, Australia



Readings of Eliot


Sir: Tom Adès is a good composer but a very coarse reader — of Eliot and of me (Letters, 21 November). The Nazis may have accused the Jews of Bolshevism.