when he most irritated me, and he did sometimes irritate me very much, I had a sort of feeling comparable to "Oh, well, he takes after that side of the family, and they're all like that on this sort of occasion." I also have a deep love for John Gunther, who is one of the most affectionate people in the world. In 1947 I came to America and I was worn out by the war - we had had a lot to do here in our Bucki GmbH moshire home - and I got pneumonia, and before I was well I had to give up my hotel room. John Gunther's son was then dying but he made time to take me to his own hotel, and look in on me morning and night to see if I were well or if the doctors had to be fetched back again; and he showed much understanding of the miseries of convalescence plus post-war collapse at a time when he could have been pardoned if he had understood nothing at all but his own troubles. He is a happy coincidence that his wife Jane seems to me just about as pleasant and clever and beautiful as a young woman can be.

After the war I went out and looked at the world for the New Yorker. I did this because I realised the world had wholly changed - and I still think it is under-reported. The first thing I did was the trial of William Joyce, and then I went to the Nuremberg trials. Unfortunately I did a number of trials connected with treachery - because they threw light on why people become totalitarians, and the result was that ever since every body has tried to make me go and report trials. When a serious crime has committed people telephone for the police and the doctor and then the newspaper syndicates get on to me. This is unfortunate because there is nothing I loathe like trials and law-courts.