26 JUNE 1959, Page 16

SI - 11,—In his review of my book, A Peer Behind the

Curtain, Mr. Ronald Bryden appears to suggest that Pasternak was used by the Western powers as a 'cold war propaganda windfall.' However that may be, it is unfair to imply, even through naïveté, that I was a party to endangering Pasternak's home and livelihood, and 'conceivably even his life', by calling on him at Peredelkino. His home and livelihood were threatened, not by any Western action (except, indirectly, the award of the Nobel Prize) but by his expulsion,as a subversive from the Writers' Union.

There was no 'perilous horde of Western journalists' clamouring to see him. The press corps knew very well that a gang of militiamen had been posted for a week or more on the main road to Peredelkino, and refused entry to all foreigners. No official announcement was made, but this happened to be removed the day before I drove out. It was certainly not at Pasternak's requebt that the militia had