And when Solzhenitsyn reminded Americans at Harvard in June 1978 that freedom demands voluntary self-limitation, that it requires civic courage and lucidity about the totalitarian threat, when he dared to criticize the superficiality and irresponsibility of the free press, he was once again denounced against all evidence as a “fanatic,” “a fierce dogmatic,” “a mind split apart.” Solzhenitsyn thought Americans welcomed criticism but soon discerned that intellectual elites only welcomed criticism that came from the Left.
