"In reply to your letter, I enclose [not present] a short pamphlet published in Japan and I should advise you to write to the Japan Council against A and H bombs whose address is given in the pamphlet."

"Read the best books of the kind that you would like to write." "I think the first necessity in writing is to have something definite that you very much wish to say, and, the second is to practice clarity and simplicity." BR suggests starting with Defoe's Journal of the Plague.

"The danger of overpopulation is imminent and it seems almost inevitable that there will be a lowering of the standard of life in Asia, Africa and South America ... research on a wide scale should be promoted with a view to the making of a satisfactory anti-conceptive pill." BR allows Best to use this letter in the meeting he wrote about.

BR thinks that his suggested paper for the young is not practicable. BR suggests a more feasible project: "... a campaign to improve the teaching of history in schools which at present is too apt to encourage an undesirable outlook. It is too nationalistic and too much concerned with war."

BR encloses a cheque for £50 and asks how much of his tax reserve certificate will remain.

"The sombre horror of your pictures expresses better than words can do what is felt by those who have imagination and the courage to use it. They express not only the hatred and the evil, but also intense compassion towards the victims ... You are welcome to send this letter to Dr Dale and to let him use any part of it that he and you think would be useful as an introduction."

"I am quite willing to give the permission that you ask for in your letter of February 1." Theobald had asked BR if he could reprint "Prospects of Mankind" in his Britain in the Sixties.

BR sees the importance of his work, but his time is completely booked and he does not have competence in the field.

"It is a pleasure to send a message of good will to the Congress at Ahmedabad which I hope will be both successful and fruitful. I much regret that I cannot be present in person."

BR is unable to accept an interview as his time is taken up with a demonstration on February 18 and likely consequences.

" > Children and Flora and Medlock".

"Return MS & Secretary—No time to read it > Sifer".

"You are entirely right in saying that the pill must be sugar coated and the sugar coating must deal with other matters than nuclear disarmament."

BR advises her to apply to the CND headquarters as they would likely be willing to help with her campaign.

"No > Shrewsbury—Forum Society".

"I am glad to know of your missionary activities and I hope they will bear good fruit."

"I am much touched by your generosity in sending £5 for the Committee of 100 and also for your kind wishes that I shall escape injury from police, dogs, horses and humans." Since adopting the liquid diet, BR has had no discomfort, except for increasing deafness.

"I enclose a cheque for £5 which has been sent to me."

"I am glad to note your favourable opinion of the volume concerned. I enclose the agreement duly signed by me."

"Blurb for Fact and Fiction".

"Thank you for sending me the New Republic of February 6 and for your accompanying letter inviting me to reply to Mr. Tucker. I enclose a reply herewith."

"I am sorry I exceeded my allowance of words. In your original letter you mention 1500 as a suitable number. I have now made cuts in the proof which ... make the article consist of exactly 1500 words."

"Thank you for your report of the Moscow Pugwash Conference, which is admirably done and, on the whole, gives ground for hope."

BR will be completely occupied with the demonstration on February 18 and its aftermath and foresees that it will be impossible for him to come to Rome.

"The passage in Lucretius that I had in mind was the one just before the end of book IV. It is translated by R.C. Trevelyan where he says that certain women behave in a manner 'that Venus may give men more pleasure. But of this surely our wives should have no need.'"

"I am very sorry that work already undertaken makes it impossible for me to contribute a paper. I much regret this as I have a great respect for Popper."

"Income—U.S.—forms > Madams".

"I enclose an envelope originally addressed to you and forwarded by you to Telegraph House, Harting, Petersfield. I have not lived there since 1938." [I.e., 1937.] BR asks him to forward any letters for him to his address on the letterhead.

"I have read with very complete sympathy and approval your Chairman's address 'Why We Are Here'. I am very glad that such energetic work towards nuclear disarmament is going on in Canada...."

"Another matter has just been brought to my notice: at the beginning of the Chapter on Spinoza in my History of Western Philosophy the date of his birth is wrongly given as 1634; it should be 1632. As a reprint of this book is in progress, I should be glad if this correction could be made."

"I am grateful to you for pointing out the error as to the date of Spinoza's birth in my History of Western Philosophy. I had never noticed it and have now taken steps to have it corrected."

Re G.D. Morgan's letter dated February 18, 1960 on John's mental illness and re legal statements on custody of his children. For a typed version see document .101563, record 116343.

"I am no longer the president of the CND, having resigned because the Executive disapproved of Direct Action. I cannot, therefore, send you the literature that you desire."

"I am very sorry that my work in England makes it quite impossible for me to come to the United States at any time in the foreseeable future."

"It would be a pleasure to meet you sometime when I am in London, but at the moment all my time is filled up."

"I am very sorry that I cannot accept your invitation to speak to the Students' Union as all my time in the near future is already booked."

"I am sorry that it is not possible for me to go to India at the time you mention owing to engagements here, but I hope you will have a very successful session and I enclose a short message conveying my hopes."

"I enclose a letter from California asking for information about our campaign. Could you or someone at the office find time to answer it and to send the material that is asked for?"

"Contract > BBC".

"In continuation of our telephone conversation I find that the Working Committee of the Committee of 100 is at this moment discussing cooperation with Direct Action in the matter of the Polaris demonstration."

"The best arrangement for the forthcoming holidays seems to us to be that the children should go straight from school to their grandmother Dora in London and spend one week there, returning to us at the end of that week."

"No > Cowie, World Affairs".

"I look forward to coming to Birmingham on March 11 and shall be glad to make the opening speech, after the Chairman's, at that afternoon's session beginning at two o'clock."

BR declines to address a meeting in Worsley Town Hall.

"No > Koreans".

BR's views on Christianity are set forth in Why I Am Not a Christian.

BR is "sorry to say" he has never written anything "salacious".

BR deals with Preston's various points raised on Communism, especially working with its adherents.

A thank-you for "the very beautifully bound volume" of My Philosophical Development.

BR sends his best wishes.

"My best thanks to you and to the members of the North East Lancashire New Left Club for the very kind message conveyed in your letter of February 21."

"My best thanks for your kind letter of February 20. Such letters are very encouraging."

"To the best of my knowledge, I never received the formulary that you write about."

"Thank you for your letter of February 23 and for the enclosed account of the association between Joliot-Curie and myself in 1955." BR does not think he will object to the publication of the two letters but asks if Biquard would send him copies of the letters before he gives a definite answer.

"I look forward to seeing you again but, at the moment, as you will understand, I have so much business on hand that it seems impossible to plan to see my friends."

"I am very sorry to learn of the difficult time that you have had in carrying out your work. I wish that I could do something to help, but my time is so completely taken up with anti-nuclear work that I have no time for anything else."

"Many thanks for your "Tale of Two Deterrents" which I have read with a great deal of pleasure."

"It would have been delightful if you had been present on February 18, but obviously your doctor was right to insist upon your absence and your name and support counted greatly, even in absentia."

"I am sorry to learn of your painful mental state ... I am quite persuaded that nothing done by the living can have any effect upon the dead and I should like you to be also persuaded by this as it would diminish your suffering...."

"I am sorry that press of work makes it quite impossible for me to sit for you or for anyone else, though if it were possible I should have gladly accepted."

"I am entirely willing that you should make the slight verbal alterations that you suggest in printing my letter."

"No—Secretary".

"At the meeting in Trafalgar Square where you and I met, I had intended to make an announcement in favour of civil disobedience, but it was suggested to me that such an announcement might be an embarrassment to Cousins at Scarborough. I wrote to him to ask whether he felt this would be the case, and he replied that, on the whole, he thought it would be. It was for this reason that I postponed the announcement." 

BR likes the idea of "an argumentative Trojan Horse".

"Moreton Hall bills > Tylor".

BR is sending Brown's drawings to the Direct Action Committee.

BR sends copies of anti-war drawings by Brown. See record 126968.

"I wish to congratulate you on the great success of your organization of the demonstration on February 18 … the smoothness and dignity of the occasion ... If we can continue as we have started, I believe that we can sweep forward in a great mass movement towards the abolition of war."

"Gennaio > Foulkes".

"In your issue of February 28, beneath an excellent cartoon <of BR being carried away by 2 big Soviet soldiers>, you quote the defence minister as advising me to squat in the Red Square. The advice is sound, but somewhat belated." In 1920, BR, on the steps of the Foreign Office in Moscow, shouted at the Foreign Secretary "I shall denounce you to the whole world as a murderer."

"A Swiss artist named Hans Erni, whose work I much admire, has done a number of illustrations of my nightmare 'The Queen of Sheba'." BR would be glad if Unwin gave his permission for Erni to produce a limited edition de luxe to be sold to collectors. Two sentences are in BR's handwriting.

"Cheque > Randle".

"What I know about Claude Eatherly is derived partly from statements of his own which have been reported to me and partly from a correspondent <Gunther Anders> who is devoting much time and energy to the case." See record 126978.

For BR's discussion of Peirce, see Wisdom of the West, p. 276ff., and BR's Schilpp article on Dewey.

BR hopes Opitz's suggested visitors will see the chairman of CND.

"I enclose a letter asking for information about Claude Eatherly...." See record 126974. 

BR easily understands why he likes the Rev. Eva, though not why Eva likes him.

"I am very glad that you are bringing out a paper-backed edition of Why I Am Not a Christian and I am quite willing to agree to your suggestions as regards finance."

BR thanks him for his generous monetary contribution to the Committee of 100 and also for his approval of their work.

"Formal No > Pandit".

BR sends a statement of support of those partaking in the Harrington demonstration.

"No > Worcester Academy, Massachusetts".

"No > Ray—Radical Humanist of India".

"I am sorry that I know much too little of the work of Dr Sven Hedin to be able to write about him."

The Russells will complete affidavits as soon as possible.

"Thank you for letting me see Lewis Mumford's letter which I have read with interest. I return it herewith."

"Wood's income affidavit > West and Drake".

"2 cheques and Jap dollar cheque > Child".

"At a time when America had a monopoly of atomic weapons and offered through the Baruch Plan to internationalize the supply of atomic power, I thought this a wise and, at that time, generous suggestion. I thought and I said privately, though not publicly, that the United States would be justified in bringing pressure to bear on Russia to agree to the internationalizing of atomic energy and I thought that Russia would almost certainly yield to such pressure, since the Soviet Union had as yet no atomic arms of its own. If the Baruch Plan had been accepted, the world would not be in the dangerous position that it is in at present."

"Sign and send Euthanasia letter".

"Letter about Jap $100 cheque (income already paid in Japan) > Madams".

"My dearest wish for the coming year is for agreed universal disarmament and the achievement of secure peace."

"Would you be so kind as to let me have a copy of the last prescription for reading spectacles (Oct. 15 1957, I believe) that you gave me as I wish to have a spare pair in case of accident...."

"I do not disagree with anything in your letter except that, before UN can be considered suitable as a World Authority, China must be admitted and the veto abolished."

"I do not see how the fact that human life will probably cease some day bears on what is desirable meanwhile. If you knew you had exactly thirty years to live, you would rather they were happy that <than> that they were spent in agonizing toothache." BR recommends his book Mysticism and Logic. 

BR has had a request for any literature that the Committee of 100 has published from Henry John Lawson-Smith. BR asks if Randle could send him this as well as two copies of all their literature.

"I have asked the secretary of the Committee of 100 to send you their literature."

"Guinea > H of L Sports Club 'from Earl Russell'."

BR answers various questions regarding nuclear disarmament. "I see no point in principles which result in there being no human beings to hold them." BR refers him to Herman Kahn's On Thermonuclear War.

"The broadcasts that you enquire about are published in Portraits from Memory and the rights belong to Allen and Unwin."