BIB_ID
318622
Accession number
MA 2581.19
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1967 Jan. 21].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1967.
Description
1 item (3 p.) ; 31.2 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.
It is unclear whether this letter is written in pencil or, perhaps, a carbon copy.
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.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
It is unclear whether this letter is written in pencil or, perhaps, a carbon copy.
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.
Written on yellow legal pad paper.
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1967.
Summary
Describing a Viet Cong terrorist attack on a crowded restaurant and the resulting injuries and death; criticizing the anti-war protesters in the U.S. and suggesting that they might be more useful in the medical corps in Vietnam helping to treat the Vietnamese wounded by the Viet Cong; saying that this "would be a real protest against war. They would have to be told of course that their V.C. heroes do not respect peaceful intentions. They bomb hospitals and set mines for ambulances. It might be dangerous to see this method of protest and besides, if they left the country, their relief checks might stop. But in return they might gain a little pride in themselves as being for something instead of only against."
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