27 NOVEMBER 1976, Page 18

Not acquainted

Sir: I am puzzled by Mr Christopher Booker's quotation from Evelyn Waugh's Diaries, where Professor J. K. Galbraith is apparently described as 'an ungainly and deeply garrulous American who called himself an economist' ( Notebook, 20 November).

There is no mention of Galbraith in my father's Diaries. My father never met him and had almost certainly never heard of him. Even if Mr Booker had no time to read the book before rushing into print, he must have known that a single telephone call would have sufficed to put him right.

Auberon Waugh Combe Florey House, Combe Florey, Taunton, Somerset