Teaching Mr Worsthorne
Sir: Your issue of 2 January has just reached these shores. I read in it Mr Peregrine Worsthome's Diary, as charming as it was apocryphal, composed as though he had spent a long night out with Taki. He writes that it is not 'immediately obvious' to him why Mr John O'Sullivan is leaving Downing Street 'to edit a fairly obscure, right-wing American magazine'. The ob-
LETTERS
vious reason is captured in the adage, 'Thus les beaux esprits se recontrent' — in the spirit of Anglo-American comity, it is only fair that Mrs Thatcher should share the hugely talented Mr O'Sullivan with us, and only natural that he should move from the eudaemonistic centre of Great Britain, to its counterpart in the United States.
On the other matter, I don't quite know how Mr O'Sullivan, as my deputy, can make National Review less obscure. Ours is the leading journal of opinion in the United States (circulation 122,000). At our 30th anniversary celebration a couple of years ago, the guests included the Presi- dent of the United States and four mem- bers of his Cabinet. At our 20th celebra- tion, the principal speaker was Mr Michael Oakeshott, who once taught Mr Wors- thorne, though not quite enough.
William F. Buckley
National Review, 150 East 35th Street, New York 10016
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