6 JUNE 1958, Page 19

Letters to the Editor

The Princess and the Archbishop Randolph S. Churchill Homosexual Law Refonn A. E. Dyson Archbishop Makarios and the Lambeth Conference Rev. E. ,Benson Perkins The Failure of President Benes Sidney Z. Eller Lord Goddard Eric Grimshaw, Glyn Jones, 'Psychiatrist,' Constantine Gallop Fluoridation Doris Grant St. Andrews J. B. A. Dow Sir Flinders Petrie Leonard Cottrell THE PRINCESS AND THE ARCHBISHOP

SIR,—The religious correspondent of the News Chronicle (without disclosing the nature of his re- ligion) has the effrontery in your issue of May 30 • to accuse me of circulating 'tittle-tattle' because in my article in the Spectator of May 23 I did not specify the books which the Archbishop had 'care- fully marked and cross-referenced' when Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret called upon him on October 27, 1955.

If I had known what books they were, I might Perhaps have stated their names. I merely confined myself to reporting those facts which were within my knowledge. if it be 'tittle-tattle' as the religious correspondent of the News Chronicle alleges, to con- fine oneself to facts rather than to fabricate them as so many newspapers did in this matter, then I must indeed be a 'tittler-tattle.'

May I, sir, at the same time, so as not to trespass unduly on your space, deal with the allegation of Mr. Graham Greene in the same issue that I 'should have attempted to slur General Salan's admirable record with this "battle dishonour" '?

Of course, I did no such thing. Unlike Mr. Greene I am not a novelist or a moralist. I am a reporter and I seek to report faithfully what I see and hear, instead of depending on my imagination, which is limited. When I wrote of Dien Bien Phu I was not thinking bf the houses that constitute that village any more than when one writes the word Munich one is thinking of the particular conglomeration of buildings which constitute that town. 1 was referring, of course, to the policy and decisions which resulted in the French evacuation of South-East Asia. I know very little about this and would not presume to form a judgment as to whether what was done was right or wrong. I confined myself to reporting the view, widely expressed, rightly or wrongly, in , Algeria during the last few weeks.—Yours faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL