27 APRIL 1991, Page 25

Fulsome

Sir: I don't want to quarrel with Sir James Craig, whom I greatly admire. He says in his letter (20 April) that I misquoted him, not grossly. I've looked again at my notes of our conversation. But for some trivial changes for the reader's sake (less Arabic, for example), I quoted Sir James verbatim.

If I misunderstood Sir James, I'm sorry. But his letter does seem to restate, if in more elegant English, what I wrote in The Spectator.

James Buchan

37 Gloucester Crescent, London NW1