AS A LONGTIME FRIEND and colleague of David Horowitz, I must rigorously protest Jack E.White's absurd and dangerous characterization of David as a "real, live bigot." Mr. White is certainly free to disagree with David Horowitz's views and to differ with his political assessments. But to portray him as a crude racist an intellectual version of David Duke is simply an effort to dismiss his views by engaging in character assassination, instead of seriously dealing with the issues David Horowitz has raised.

Moreover, Mr. White gets his facts entirely wrong. He writes that Horowitz was defending Huey Newton "years after everybody else had figured out that . . . Huey P. Newton was . . . a dangerous thug." Not true. David was perhaps single handedly a figure in the Left community who dared to tell the truth about the Black Panther Party, while the likes of the late Murray Kempton and the Yale psychologist Erik Erikson were singing his praises and even writing books with him.

As a Time subscriber, I have come to expect serious arguments and honest journalism. Mr. White's diatribe is a departure from the magazine's usually high standards.