Mr. Alec Peterson, the head'rnaster of Adams' Grammar School, who
flew to Malaya this week to do a two months' tour of duty on General Templer's staff, is ,probably unaware that he has already established, in a fortuitous sort of way, a foothold on the Peninsula; his recent article in the Spectator on " The Cost of Indo-China " has just been reprinted, without acknowledgment, as a leader in a Malayan newspaper. His qualifications to advise General Templer on psychological warfare and related problems rest, however, on far sounder grounds than this. In the last war, long before the South East Asia Command was thought of, Peterson was pioneering in this field under Wavell. Like all pioneers in what was then a conspicuously ill-found , theatre of war, he worked under formidable handicaps. Resources of all kinds were lacking (as a small instance, thorns were used instead of pins to fasten papers together at G.H.Q.), communications were bad and slow, and the all-conquering Japanese had the initiative. Patient, resourceful, imaginative and diplomatic, Peterson travelled India in stifling trains and unreliable aircraft, never sparing himself until he had built up an organisation which in the end contributed to the downfall of the enemy.
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