Stn,—It will avail Sir .Colin Coote nought when he has
made a mistake to think he can get out of it by being rude and irrelevant. He should be old enough to know by now that when you have made a mistake the most honourable and effective thing to do is to admit it and say you are sorry. Bluster will deceive no one.
I wrote the letter which Sir Colin Coote suppressed on Saturday, January 18. Sunday, January 19, was a working day at the Daily Telegraph but Sir Colin states that he did not get my letter till January 20. As my letter was not printed on the Monday and I had received no acknowledgement of it, I rang Sir Colin on the Monday evening to check that my letter had arrived. 'Oh, yes,' replied his secretary, 'it was sent up to Mr. Berry.' I thought this might expedite matters but no, the letter was neither published on the Tuesday nor the Wednesday morning. No ac- knowledgment arrived till Wednesday afternoon when it was too late for me to alter the copy which ap- peared in the Spectator.
Sir Colin enclosed a paragraph from the Daily Telegraph of January 18 which he apparently thinks mitigates the offence he committed. It stated that: 'Church authorities particularly appreciated the Sun- day Telegraph's colour supplement on the Pope's visit to the Holy Land because no charge was made for it and it was free from advertising and material .on other topics.' Unlike Italian magazines which 'carried their usual 'advertising for nylons, domestic appliances and what not' the paragraph added that the colour photographs in Epoca and Oggi to some extent made the Daily Telegraph's claim to be the first in colour incorrect.
What has this got to do with my charge against the Daily Telegraph which was that the Sunday Tele- graph's colour photographs of the Pope's visit to the Holy Land were not 'the first to be published any- where in the world'? My complaint had nothing to do with the Pope's pleasure at not being mixed up with nylons and whatnots; it was solely confined to the fact that the Daily Telegraph made a false claim on behalf of the Sunday Telegraph. This 1 have proved. What use is it for Sir Colin to beat his breast and say that I am ridiculous? I never find, the truth ridiculous- falsehood when detected often is.
RANDOLPH S. CIIURCIIII L
Stour, East Bergh alt, Suffolk
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