19 DECEMBER 1941, Page 4

I expressed confidence the other day that Professor Julian Huxley

could be relied on to avoid any suspicion of propagandism in the course of his present speaking-tour in the United States. I retain that confidence fully, but Dr. Huxley has, I hear, met with one initial contretemps, through no fault at all of his own. On arriving he was faced with the usual assemblage of reporters, whose questions he answered with complete discretion. He then received a number of personal friends with whom he was able to relapse into a perfectly free " off-the-record " talk. Un- fortunately, one journalist present at the former gathering had joined the latter unobserved, with the result that a great deal that Dr. Huxley had never uttered for publication was published. But that was a few days before America entered the war. It could not have mattered greatly then. It ceased to matter at all after December 7th.

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