I have transmitted to Donald [Nicholson-Smith] your idea for [Charles] Radcliffe: we ask him to try to make a rectification[1] (it seems to me that all this -- and incontestably more -- comes unilaterally from the abusive expansionism of the "provotarian" scoundrel [Vries]).
The bulletin[2] is good.
The comics[3] appear very good to me. Naturally, they are not easy to use for the purposes of publicity. And the photographic form especially is a great weakening of what is possible in this genre. But the writing, the insolent tone, the cynical and ludic pleasantries, are all completely successful; and it is a good announcement of the pamphlet [On the Poverty of Student Life] at least in the Strasbourgeois student milieu -- and even further away: Le Monde Liberatire, etc.
Precisely because the comics are successful -- as a profession of faith by Joubert's group, which culminates with the announcement of "the most scandalous pamphlet of the century" -- and because your idea of official distribution on Tuesday is itself excellent and completely imposed by the logic of the action in progress, it seems to me that one must make the radical students aware that they can not escape from the "audacity" now. Who has done one must do the other. What good is it to try to make a half-scandal? Etc., etc.
As soon as possible, send me several of the first copies of the pamphlet (as well as several other copies of the comics).
Jean [Garnault] has explained to me that many lost their nerve to throw tomatoes at [Abraham] Moles. Since the B.A.P.U.[4] is almost attackable with only our forces, I believe that the solemn distribution on Tuesday will be the last effort necessary to require of these militants [archiviolents] who already turn back. Those who now want to limit the shock of "the most scandalous pamphlet of the century" -- a century that has seen many -- would have been much better off by not compromising themselves at all and by remaining in their ordinary state of chattering spectatorship.
Also anticipate that the abusive pretension of these animals to exploit for their profit the "glory" of all this in retrospect will be exactly homologous to their current restrictions of action in progress. We will thus perhaps have the occasion to make a record of the present tendencies to cop out.
See you soon,[1] Denouncing the amalgam of the SI and Provo ideology made by the media.
[2] News, the bulletin published by the National Union of French Students of Strasbourg (editor: Andre Schneider).
[3] The Return of the Durruti Column, realized by Andre Bertrand.
[4] University Bureau of Psychological Help.
(Published in Guy Debord, Correspondance, Volume 3, 1965-1968. Footnotes by Alice Debord. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! August 2005.)