SIR,—We have been running the Gallup Poll for twenty-one years
and we are now used to journalists attacking us without troubling to ascertain the facts. We did not expect to find the Spectator in the list.
In your 'Notebook' you attack us once more. This time you accuse us of 'another flagrant instance' of 'angling' our question. I have to request you very formally to withdrAw the accusation. The facts are these :
We asked, as an open question, 'What do you think is the best way of avoiding a future world war?' and the person interviewed was free to say what he liked, which was then written down verbatim by the inter- viewer. The answers were classified (coded) in the office and where there was any mention of military measures that was the heading under which that answer was put. Hence, people giving what you re- garded as the 'real alternative'—continue to arm and continue to negotiate—were not put in 'negotiate' but into 'military measures.' Just to spell it out; if we had adopted your alternative the proportion saying 'military measures' would have been still lower.
The same procedure was followed in 1952, when we put the question, of which the present one is an exact repeat.—Yours faithfully,
HENRY DU RANT
Social Surveys (Gallup Poll) Ltd., 59 Brook Street, Mayfair, WI
[This letter is referred to in 'A Spectator's Note- book.'—Editor, Spectator.]
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