Sir, - Ms Adi Riche has been accused of having a "Stalinist" style of management. The policies pursued by Stalin in the USSR were directed toward soviet-style centralist socialism and were totalitarian in nature. They included pogroms (the planned massacre of hundreds of thousands of Jews), nuclear arms, central economic plans which led to great hardship - and indirectly to the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power station.
The charge of "Stalinism" seems particularly calculated to cause the greatest possible degree of personal offence and political damage to Ms Adi Roche. Such a hyperbolic and sensationalist charge is hardly consistent with the claims of those making it that they themselves are "non-political". Not a shred of evidence has been produced to substantiate this allegation.
I do not know Ms Roche, but I can think of no public figure whose deeds are inherently less Stalinist than one who has worked for CND and campaigns against the nuclear power industry and, most notably, who seeks (with others) to rescue the victims of a truly Stalinist policy in Chernobyl.
Criticisms blown so greatly out of proportion may tell us more about those throwing the stones than they do about their intended target. - Yours, etc.,
Seafield Road East, Dublin 3.