Re: [Marxism] From the latest LRB

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ruthless Critic of All that Exists wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> Eric Hobsbawm on Joseph Needham:
>>
>> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n04/hobs01_.html
> 
> Needham, unfortunately, seems to have been a very dishonest man. In
> his new book of reminiscences, George Steiner speaks of a meeting
> where Needham, a biochemist, falsely asserted that he had found that
> the United States had used bacteriological weapons in the Korean war.
> Apparently, Needham was prepared to falsify the record as long as it
> suited his propaganda needs. (See
> <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/my-unwritten-books-by-george-steiner/>
> for a review of Steiner's book.)
> 

Ruthless, you supplied a link to an article that included the following:

 >>In the case of Needham, Steiner’s project disintegrated after Steiner 
met him and asked about his claim, as an activist against the Korean 
War, that the United States had used bacteriological weapons. “The 
temperature in the room plummeted,” recalls Steiner. Needham’s 
“irritation, his anger, were manifest. ... I never wrote the little 
book. But the wish to do it has stayed with me.”<<

How did you draw from this the conclusion that "Needham was prepared to 
falsify the record"?

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