BIB_ID
317949
Accession number
MA 2519.3
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1965 Dec. 24].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1966.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 31.6 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written from New York and during his travels in Ireland, England, Israel in 1965-1966. Alicia Patterson Guggenheim was the editor and publisher of Newsday from 1940 until her death in 1963 and Steinbeck addressed his letter "not....to someone who is dead, but rather to a living mind and a huge curiosity" (see MA 2519.39). Steinbeck wrote the letters in this series as a weekly column for Newsday. Letters in the collection have been cataloged individually; see collection-level record for more information.
Place and date of writing from the publication details of this letter in "John Steinbeck and Newsday" by Robert B. Harmon; see publication details below.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Place and date of writing from the publication details of this letter in "John Steinbeck and Newsday" by Robert B. Harmon; see publication details below.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1966.
Summary
Continuing the discussion of his suggestion, in an earlier letter, to create a cabinet level Department of Nonsense; saying that whole sections of the Department of Defense could be "shifted to the Department of Nonsense.... This should not seem unusual since war itself is probably the most unqualifiedly absurd activity in which our species indulges;" discussing the anti-war protests against the Vietnam War and the issue of the draft and the burning of draft cards; saying "I have always been an anarchist. I don't like any government of any kind and I only accept what I have to because it makes me safer and more comfortable. But that doesn't make me any less rebellious."
Catalog link
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