BIB_ID
318613
Accession number
MA 2581.16
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1967 Jan. 14].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1967.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 31.1 cm
Notes
Date of writing from the publication details of this letter in "John Steinbeck and Newsday" by Robert B. Harmon; see publication details below.
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written during his travels in Vietnam in 1967. 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.
There is a note beneath the printed version of this letter in Robert Harmon's "John Steinbeck and Newsday" saying that this letter, though published in Newsday, was not in The Morgan Library collection; it is, in fact, in this collection, however the introductory phrase to the first sentence in the autograph letter was not published in Newsday.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written during his travels in Vietnam in 1967. 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.
There is a note beneath the printed version of this letter in Robert Harmon's "John Steinbeck and Newsday" saying that this letter, though published in Newsday, was not in The Morgan Library collection; it is, in fact, in this collection, however the introductory phrase to the first sentence in the autograph letter was not published in Newsday.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1967.
Summary
Discussing the differences in the American soldier in this war compared to soldiers in prior wars; discussing changes in attitudes and relationships between commanders and their troops; discussing "a new kind of warfare;" saying that for the first time in history, an army has undertaken a twofold mission--to defeat the enemy and by help, instruction and example to give a hard-pressed, defeated and often double-crossed people, the courage, the pride, the economy and the ability to defend themselves. That this has been spearheaded by the Army, backed up by the civilian agencies is the new thing, the hopeful thing and the only thing that can possibly succeed."
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