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[[Handwritten letter. first page]]

Lake Valhalla
Cold Spring, New York 10516. 

February 11, 1968. 

Leider Dear Leader,

Here we go again.  It would please me if you would publish the enclosed typed reply to your editorial.  It is the remains of an unhappy chore; nevertheless, the writing was necessary enough and it is satisfactory. 

Now, to answer your letter of February Sixth, etc. as briefly as possible.  No, there probably has been, is and will continue to be a "credibility gap" between artists and critics.   Theoretically, there need not be one "dividing" you from me as editor to artist-writer; but, that that misunderstanding can and has emerged is largely the result of my rejection of your assumption of critical prerogatives which no artist need recognize about the so-called layman.  (I consider my art to be exempt from irrelevant, proto-art historical, post-graduate, corrective "expertise.")  As with the exercise of vituperation in my writing, I have attempted to name names and not with purposeful discretion.   The niggardly Gregory Battrock deserved to be noticed overtly; Ron Davis could be recognized mainly from a