A.J. AYER TO RUPERT CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS, 3 MAY 1962
BRACERS 58187. TLS/ALS. McMaster
Proofread by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
FROM PROFESSOR A.J. AYER
NEW COLLEGE,
OXFORD
3 May 1962.

Dear Rupert,

I have been getting rather a lot of refusals and am beginning to fear that we may not be able to make up the numbers required by the Café Royal. In any case I think the whole idea of the dinner obliges us to secure a good turn out. I am, therefore, looking round for second choices and have on my own initiative invited Stuart Hampshire, the Wollheims, the Vice Chancellor and Mrs. Norrington of Oxford University, and various people such as the Rothschilds and the Fenner Brockways, who were on Edith’s original reserve list. There are various other people about whom I am doubtful because I do not know whether they disappeared from the original list by accident, or whether it was thought that Bertie disliked them. For example the Bronowskis, the Richard Hughes and the Philip Noel Bakers. I am also still worried about Gilbert Ryle. I do think that he ought to be asked, unless Bertie regards him as an enemy, and I can not remember what was finally said about this. Was it one of the points that Edith left to our discretion? If I can ask Ryle then I can also ask Professor Kneale and his wife.

If the numbers still seem likely to fall short, what is your view about asking eminent persons who are not specially friends of Bertie[']s, but might possibly qualify as admirers? Artists, for example, like Coldstream and Henry Moore, or writers like Stephen Spender and Pritchett, or academic dignitaries like the Provost of University College, London. Will you consult Edith about this and let me have the answers to all these questions as soon as you can? So far I have had twelve⁺ definite acceptances and two provisional (Clive Bell and E.M. Forster, both of whom say they will come if they are well enough), and fifteen^ø refusals. In both cases husbands and wives are counted. This is still quite a small sample and I shall know better what the position is likely to be by the beginning of next week, when I hope that most of the replies will have come in.

I have done nothing so far about the speeches, except to ask Julian Huxley whether he will be willing to speak.

In case you want to get hold of me urgently, I shall be coming up to London on Friday evening and staying until Monday evening.

Yours,
Freddie

Since dictating this, I have talked to Strawson who says that he has replied to Bertie’s rejoinder to his attack on the theory of descriptions in a private letter to Bertie. So I have asked him and his wife. I have also asked Trevor-Roper and Roy Harrod and their wives. They are both great admirers of Bertie. I have not asked your neighbour the Burns, whom Edith mentioned at one stage, because I don’t know their address. Will you ask them if you think they ought to come?

⁺ now 21.
^ø now 20.