Chomsky accuses Skinner of, e.g., "play acting at science", using "pseudoscientic" terminology, and making "dogmatic and completey arbitrary claims". The review is:
"...ungenerous to a fault; condescending, unforgiving, obtuse, and ill-humored... The review's one kind word is in a footnote. It is almost impossible to reply... without at the same time sounding either defensive and apologetic, or as truculent as the reviewer. I have hesitated until now because I am an editor for the Series in which _Verbal Behavior_ was publshed. Caveat lector." MacCorquondale, JEAB Jan.'70
Chomsky's basic argument runs something like: if behaviorism is true then it is possible to control people. We ought not to be controlled (since it is in our nature to be free), therefore behaviorism is false.
His review of "Verbal Behavior" is restrained, though, in comparison to his "The Case Against B.F. Skinner", where he presents Skinner as a crypto-Nazi.
Chomsky's deep respect for, and appreciation of, science can be seen in this quote from _Noam Chomsky, A Life of Dissent_ by Robert F. Barsky:
Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice. - Noam Chomsky, letter to the author, 14 June 1993
-- bill