Also in file: a duplicate TL(CAR) at document .174120.

"... everything is going better than for years past." "Simon and Schuster will owe me $19,000 on August 1...." BR asks Kate to attend to their trunks at the Farr's. BR is not sure if he would advise her to return to England.

"All is well between Peter and me." She is staying at Festiniog "to get the work done on our house". BR has done half the work on Human Knowledge.

BR has always wished he knew Gothic. "... England as a place to live and work in is overshadowed by the atomic bomb. Nine-tenths of the population will be wiped out during the next war, which may come within 10 years. And one feels England's powerlessness: every mouthful eaten by us or by the Germans in our zone is eaten by Washington's gracious permission, and fails to materialize if Americans think it would be fun to have a strike. Whereas in America there are large areas in the Middle West where the food supply is secure and where the Russians would not think it worth while to drop bombs."

On tolerance.

BR's Human Knowledge is about 3/4 done. "Peter has a tiny flat in London where I join her one or two days in the week." No private worries, financial or other.

BR found geometrical optics and spherical astronomy incredibly dull, but he had to learn them.

Kate should persist in the Ph.D., "as it will very greatly increase your earning capacity, and you cannot tell what may be necessary...." Amiel was "feckless". Kate is right about wickedness, and John wrong: "It is not all ignorance."

On human knowledge; on God and veracity, and damning all who believe in him, "as having sinned against veracity". Religion. Patricia is happy and calm.

Re treating her fears and the connection with celibacy.

On Amiel. "Whatever you do, I will not find fault, even in my private thoughts." On unrequited love: "wasteful and miserable".

"We had an appalling time of cold weather plus fuel shortage; it was one of the coldest winters I have ever known in England."

"The most interesting thing about the Crusades is how they stimulated pogroms, and transferred trading from Jews to Christians."

On Amiel.

"Yes, the winter was very trying. There is no lack of food, but when they cut off our fires half the day during the frost it was miserable. However, now all is well."

BR believes John has delusions.

"I did a broadcast about atom bombs which had enormous success, and yesterday evening I broadcast my views on religion—the first time the B.B.C. has allowed a freethinker to do so." Mr. Dana and his likeable grandfather.

Parents like their children to tell them their troubles. John and family are flying to England on 31 July; Peter will be in Wales furnishing the cottage. Kate could stay in 27 Dorset House until 25 Sept.. It consists of living room, bedroom, kitchen and bath.

BR is glad Kate won't be marrying Amiel, for whatever reason.

"Your newspapers much exaggerate our discomforts. It was unpleasant during the great frost, when we had to economize fuel; otherwise, we have no sufferings. There is plenty of food, and there are more things in the shops than there were. We expect real hardship when the American loan runs out; then we may all suffer hunger. But in the meantime all is well. I am sorry people in U.S. are beastly about it; I can just imagine it."

Patricia is convalescing from the removal of her gall bladder. BR is at Festiniog for only a few days more.

BR is glad Kate has broken off her engagement to Amiel. BR met "an elderly legal big-wig in hall at Trinity" who spoke very nicely of Kate. BR prefers Charles Tait.

"The sort of nightmare you describe is not very different from one that I suffer from: I imagine myself behind plate glass, like a fish in an aquarium, or turned into a ghost whom no one sees; agonizingly I try to make some sort of human contact, but it is impossible, and I know myself doomed forever to lonely impotence. I used to have this feeling often before I had children; since then it has been rare."

"I am very busy. In addition to my Cambridge work I do a great deal of broadcasting, and a certain amount of speaking, mainly on the atom bomb. I have become unbelievably respectable: I speak at the Imperial Staff College, Chatham House, and the House of Lords, and I hobnob with the Archbishop of York; I broadcast on foreign policy the day before yesterday, and yesterday Bevin said just the same sort of thing that I had been saying. But next Sunday the B.B.C. is getting me to defend atheism against a Jesuit, which will perhaps cool the ardour of Archbishops."

(BR's broadcast on foreign policy was probably his "As I See It" broadcast on 20 Jan., not the 21st. On 22 Jan. Bevin spoke on Western Union in the House of Commons.) (BR's diary note for the BBC on 20 Jan.: "Western European Coop'n"; 1500 words.)

"My advice is: marry at once." BR feels he will like Charlie Tait.

BR congratulates Kate on her marriage and relates a tongue-twisting rhyme about "Tait".

Re the Taits' visit to Wales, BR remarks that if an interesting event should be due, "I think Cripps, for all his austerity, would allow something better than a manger."

BR will want to talk about Eastern Europe with Charles Tait. "I should not advise going to live there, as it would probably involve liquefaction, which is unpleasant except for St. Jannarius."

BR's travels: just off to a congress at the Hague. Then Sweden for a lecture tour, returning May 31. "In August I go for a week to a philosophical congress at Amsterdam, and in early October I go to Norway for the British Council." BR tells Kate to address "Ffestiniog", "if you like pedantry".

BR offers 27 Dorset House for Kate's visit.

BR "took to my son-in-law amazingly".

BR hopes Kate's "inorthodox Ph.D. thesis" will be a success.

"I wouldn't come back to England if I were you. The danger of war is acute, and if war comes England will be dangerous and disagreeable."

BR's "adventures in Norway" "added greatly to the success of my tour". "Now I am just off for 5 days in Berlin."

BR gives initial details of the "Trondheim incident". The only baggage he saved was his attaché case.

Patricia sent this transcription to Kate Tait. In the Autobiography, this letter is run on with the one Russell wrote next day (record 52622).

BR provides further details of the "Trondheim incident". Patricia sent this transcription to Kate Tait.

One of those who drowned was a professor concerned in the arrangements for BR's lecture. In the Autobiography, this letter is run on with the one Russell wrote the preceding day (record 52621).

"... we feed like fighting cocks...." BR has been "overwhelmed with work—chiefly the Reith Lectures for the B.B.C. which will in due course be published as a book." "Patricia is ill and difficult." Conrad and BR are about to go to Provence and Sicily.

Patricia and BR have agreed to separate.

BR will send Kate the ms. of "The Free Man's Worship" to sell when he is dead (for the price to be at maximum). The separation from Patricia is definitive.

Australian Lecture Tour (1950)

Letterhead: Lennon's Hotel, Brisbane.

BR wonders "how the Korean trouble affects" Charles Tait. "The questions you raise about democracy, Asia, etc. are just what I am lecturing on." BR read Robert Payne, The Revolt of Asia, for facts, not opinions.

"What I think about Asia is that we ought to let it alone, and leave Nehru to create a neutral bloc. But I don't quite see how we could have done otherwise in Korea when the moment came; the mistakes were earlier."

BR is "here" until Oct. 22; then c/o Schuck, Mount Holyoke, until Nov. 1; touring Nov. 2-16, but c/o Erdman Nov. 14-16; then he can come to Washington for 3 nights. On Australia: the Aborigines are "very pathetic".

BR asserts that Robert Payne is a fool, but his book [The Revolt of Asia] contains useful information. "My own view is this: the day of Western imperialism in Asia is past, but there is a new danger of Russian imperialism. If Asia is to be made aware of this danger, we of the West must make it obvious that we no longer threaten Asia's independence. The British have done well in India, and in recognizing the Communist government in China. If America and France could be induced to follow suit, and not to oppose land reform in Asia, S.E. Asia would become a large neutral block. Nehru has the right ideas. China would adopt Titoism if the West did not stand for everything corrupt and reactionary in China. We ought to give up Hongkong—the French ought to abandon Indo-China. Malaya is difficult because it earns dollars, but I think an arrangement should be possible."

"To return to Asia: my grounds are partly strategic. The most important thing is to protect W. Europe from Russian invasion, which requires concentration of forces. If there is war, we shall lose everything in Asia, so we had better surrender it voluntarily and get good will for doing so. Protecting W. Europe is the utmost we can hope to achieve."

"The state of the world gets worse and worse, and U.S. Republicans get madder and madder."

"I can't, as things are, advise Charlie to get transferred to Europe—there is too much danger of being gasified by an atom bomb or liquified by the NKVD."

There is a handwritten postscript by Edith Russell at the bottom.

Also attached is a Committee of 100 flyer. Two of the newsclips are about Kate Tait.

Attached is an Indian stamp honouring BR.