14 OCTOBER 1972, Page 30

Hot or cold

Sir: The opening sentences of Lord Blake's review (October 7) do not agree with my recollections of 1944. I can well remember people prophesying not a Cold but a Hot war between Russia and the Western Allies during the next ten years. Even at the time, I believed as well as hoped that they were wrong. But they struck me as over-pessimistic rather than insane.

J. C. Maxwell

Balliol College, Oxford