WHEN a line from Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf appeared in the Dartmouth Review's masthead on Yom Kippur, conservatives across the country picked sides. Some right-wingers, including William F. Buckley, rallied to the paper's defense, calling the incident a fake and the Dartmouth equivalent of the Tawana Brawley case. Others argued that the Review's patently offensive tactics discredited a more thoughtful conservative voice.

But at Harvard, the staff of the conservative Peninsula does not "take a position on the Dartmouth Review as a newspaper."

Leaving aside the question of whether Peninsula editors take a position on the Dartmouth Review as, say, a vegetable, the Peninsula arguments begs the question: why not? On such a key issue, why are Harvard's most self-confident truth-seekers so afraid to find the truth?

Peninsula lists three reasons for their non-position.

Reason number one: "We have not seen enough issues of the Review to be able to judge its quality or content."

Ironically, in the same article, Peninsula betrays a startling knowledge of the intimate details of the Review. Peninsula correctly points out the Crimson's error in alleging that the Review printed the list of students who attended a confidential gay students' meeting. (The Review published proceedings of the meeting, according to the New York Times).

Peninsula lists the Review's total circulation, notes its "longstanding support of Israel" and even specifies how many relatives one Review member lost in the Holocaust.

But even with all this knowledge--and the fact that it wouldn't be so hard to actually get some copies of the Review and read them--the magazine does "not take a position."

Why?

Reason number two: "The Dartmouth Review serves the Dartmouth community, which we are unfamiliar with and therefore incompetent to assess."

In the very same issue, Peninsula overcomes its essential ignorance of South Africa, Wellesley College and the state of Minnesota to comment on issues in all of these places. And surely Peninsula shouldn't limit itself to areas of the world they have personally experienced; after a few more issues, tired jokes about "p.c." at Harvard would begin to grate.

Reason three: "Just as we have our own publication and can speak for ourselves, the folks at the Dartmouth Review have their own publication and can speak for themselves."

So where does this response leave Peninsula's insistent sniping at The Crimson and Perspective? Don't we have our own publications? Can't we speak for ourselves?

Obviously, the press should not be immune from criticism--not daily news papers, liberal magazines or conservative journals. The "folks" at the Review may indeed be able to speak for themselves, but that doesn't mean other publications can't speak back.

IN ITS editorial, The Crimson did speak back. While acknowledging that the Hitler comment was probably a fluke, The Crimson condemned the Review for its vicious and debasing approach to conservatism and traditional thought.