Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Autograph letter signed : [Pleiku], to "Alicia," [1967 Jan. 28].

BIB_ID
318689
Accession number
MA 2581.24
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1967 Jan. 28].
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1967.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 31.8 cm
Notes
In a note at the top of p. 1, Steinbeck indicates that this letter was written from "Pussi Mt. Culture and Rest Center / Central Highlands, South Vietnam;" Pussi Mountain is near Pleiku.
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.
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 1967.
Summary
Reporting on a land mine attack on the road between the mountain and Pleiku; relating his concerns over the lack of adequate protection for this unit should the V.C. attack; saying that his son was in a unit below him and was heard saying "Who in the world could imagine that on a night like this, my dad would be up above me with an M-79 covering me?" concluding that the night passed without incident.