my interaction with Mandel in 1981 as Program Director of KPFK

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: I have just read William Mandel's account of my actions after I became Program Director. It alleges that I an an ultra-Left white person and for that reason took him off the air. In fact, he was not removed from the air as he claims, nor did I ever have any such conversation with a supporter of his in which I said I wanted someone objective, and that therefore he was cancelled. : Rather, my vision of the time slot on Friday afternoons that he had formerly inhabited (along with broadcasts at night on Roy of Hollywood's show that were not affected), was that there would be a variety of perspectives, hence the new title "Portraits of the U.S.S.R." Mandel was perhaps angry because he (along with Dorothy Healey) no longer monopolized opinion on that crucial subject. It should also be noted that Dorothy Healey remained on the air, and though I was friendly to her during my tenure as Program Director, she organized against my reinstatement after I was purged, thanks I am told, to the organizing activities of the local CPUSA. I believe their objection was that there were too many Trotskyists on the air, contesting such matters as the Stalinist accounts of the Spanish Civil War. : Suzi Weissman hosted interviews and commentary on the subjects formerly covered by Mandel alone, and to my recollection, he was to send tapes and that these would be played, but certainly not every week. I do not recall what happened next, but Dr. Weissman will have a clearer recollection. I do remember that all hell broke loose, with a letter-writing campaign in the Bay Area accusing me of all sorts of things. It is true that, after having listened to Mr. Mandel for years (since 1959), I came to suspect that he was an apologist for the Soviet Union, and told Peter Franck that when he called me to inquire about the controversy. That I should have held such an opinion was considered one of my fatal errors. : I have the impression from recent statements by Mandel on the Radical History list that he is now disillusioned with communism. Perhaps he feels he was misled in earlier years. If that is so, then he has come around to my judgment. : Moreover, I was not "an ultra-Leftist." My training was in science and science education, and my interests in politics tend toward the radical liberal, a position that finds little organized expression these days. : I expect Dr. Weissman to fill in those details that I no longer remember after over twenty-one years. : Clare Spark, Ph.D.

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