BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 26 APR. 1947
BRACERS 19837. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #478
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
27 Dorset House
Gloucester Place
N.W.11
April 26, 1947

My very dearest Colette

I don’t deserve to be called St. Augustine,2 because he prayed “give me chastity, but not yet” whereas I make the slightly different prayer “do not give me chastity yet”3 — at just on 75, I fear it may come soon. I can’t discover anything about Kapitza.4 The best opinion seems to be that he has been put in a remote place in Siberia, not as a punishment, but so as to make atom bombs5 without fear of American interference. But the world grows so melodramatic that I feel I know nothing.

People vexed with me about Russia: Haldane and Bernal6 ostentatiously turned their backs on me at a party; Kingsley Martin7 treats me as a Victorian parson would have treated a son become a freethinker; the Williams Ellis’s8 carefully avoid politics when we meet; and so on and so on. I had a stand-up public argument with G.D.H Cole,,9 in which we glared at each other, and felt ourselves on opposite side of the barricades. Feeling both ways grows more and more bitter. Unfortunately the slightest taint of liberalism is, in America, regarded as evidence of pro-Russian disloyalty; a heresy hunt is being got up,10 and will no doubt do untold harm.11

In some circles I am very popular. The B.B.C. loves me;12 so do some Bishops.13 I am thick with Gollancz, who is now very anti-Soviet.

The winter was very trying — great cold, with a shortage of light and heat, and a depressing feeling that the Government was muddling things.14 But now at last it is warm and sunny. I am sorry you are still so poor. Owing to my History of Philosophy, I am better off than at any time since you knew me; so if you would ever let me help you out, I should be very glad.15

From a personal point of view things have gone well with me. A year ago I was poor, it seemed that my marriage was coming to grief, John16 was quarrelling violently17 with me, and I was constantly ill so that I got no work done. Now all these troubles have cleared up. And my work goes well, and in the matter of the atom bomb I have some influence. 6,000,000 people heard my broadcast18 on it.

But, dearest Colette, I hate to have the time go by without any opportunity to carry on the re-birth of our mutual affection19 which began last year in London. I do hope you will come back to England sometime.

I go to France in June,20 and perhaps to Germany in October21 — in both cases to lecture.

Remember that I long to see you.

With love

Your
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200843.

• 2

  called St. Augustine In his letter of 20 February 1947 (BRACERS 19836) BR wrote that he was continuing to “go on with my big book [Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits], hoping that, like St. Augustine, it will be read when civilization revives 1000 years hence!”

• 3

  “give me chastity, but not yet” St. Augustine, Confessions, VIII, 7.

• 4

  Kapitza Peter Kapitza (1894–1984), Russian physicist. Peter Kapitza, F.R.S., was a Fellow of Trinity College and had been Director of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory at Cambridge, working with Lord Rutherford. He had been at Cambridge since 1923, although he always returned to Russia during the Long Vacation. In 1934, he was prevented from returning to Britain, and was ordered to stay in the Soviet Union to conduct his research. He did not return to Britain until 1966, and then only for a visit.

• 5

  to make atom bombs Kapitza was appointed to the U.S.S.R.’s atomic bomb project. He and the chair of the atomic committee, Liberia clashed. By mid-1946 Kapitza lost all his official appointments.

• 6

  Haldane and Bernal John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892–1964), geneticist, was professor of biometry at University College, London; (John) Desmond Bernal (1901–1971), physicist (crystallography), was a professor at Birkbeck College, London. Both men were Marxists.

• 7

  Kingsley Martin Kingsley Martin (1897–1969), editor of the New Statesman, 1931–60.

• 8

  the Williams Ellis’s Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect, and his wife Amabel, writer. Sir Clough created the holiday village of Portmeirion in 1925 in Wales. BR lived there in 1933 and 1934 with Patricia and had recently purchased a home nearby. While it was being renovated he stayed in the village during the summers of 1945 and 1946. Rupert Crawshay-Williams, also resident in the area, has written about the vexing subject of Russia in his Russell Remembered (London: Oxford U.P., 1970), pp. 20–9.

• 9

  stand-up public argument with G.D.H. Cole George Douglas Howard Cole (1889–1959), economist and guild socialist. BR took part in a discussion with Cole and others a year and a half earlier. The discussion was published as “What Should Now Be Our Policy towards Germany?”, World Review (Jan. 1946): 19–23 (B&R C46.03; in Papers 24 forthcoming). In it, BR and Cole disagreed about Russia and its possible role in an International Consortium in the Ruhr. BR accused Cole of appeasement with regard to the Russians. They may well have had further disagreements after this one.

• 10

  a heresy hunt is being got up On 21 March 1947 President Truman  signed Executive Order No. 9835, “Prescribing Procedures for the Administration of an Employees Loyalty Program in the Executive Branch of the Government”. Its purpose was to root out communists.

• 11

  do untold harm During the time this executive order was in effect 570 people were dismissed from their jobs and 2,748 resigned or withdrew their applications for jobs when they found out they were “suspect” (“U.S. Security Dismissals”, The Times, 26 Oct. 1953, p. 6).

• 12

  The B.B.C. loves me BR had joined the Brains Trust programme on the BBC some months after his return from America in 1944. Beginning in 1945, he began to give talks on the BBC on various topics, and by 1947 was popular with its programme directors, e.g. “A Scientist’s Plea for Democracy” (B&R C47.02); “The Dangers of State Power” (B&R C47.04); “The Outlook for Mankind” (B&R C47.05).

• 13

  some Bishops A letter from BR, Victor Gollancz and the Bishop of Chichester, “Food Parcels Still Needed”, appeared in The New York Times, 3 Nov. 1945, p. 14 (B&R C45.23). All three were involved with providing food for starving Germans through “Save Europe Now” founded by Gollancz. BR was entering the most “respectable” period of his life, culminating in the Order of Merit (1949) and the Nobel Prize (1950).

• 14

  The winter was very trying … government was muddling things. The winter of 1946–47 was one of the coldest on record in Britain.

• 15

  if you would ever let me help you out, I should be very glad She always refused.

• 16

  John John Conrad Russell, born 16 November 1921 to BR and his wife Dora.

• 17

  was quarrelling violently Earlier BR had written to Colette that John was undergoing complicated spiritual crises (16 July 1946; BRACERS 19832).

• 18

  heard my broadcast “The Outlook for Mankind”, broadcast on 8 March during the BBC’s “Atomic Week” (B&R C47.08).

• 19

  mutual affection At her sister’s flat in the Spring they resumed an intimate relationship.

• 20

  to France in June BR spoke on “Le Principe d’Individuation” at the Sorbonne in Paris on 10 June 1947 (B&R C50.01).

• 21

  perhaps to Germany in October He did not end up going to Germany in 1947; instead he went to France, Belgium and Holland. In Amsterdam he spoke on “International Government” on 30 September 1947 (B&R C48.02). He did not visit Germany until October 1948.