Henry Regnery Company · PUBLISHERS

20 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago 4, Illinois · WEbster 9-3854

4 April 1955

Dictated 4-1-55

Mr. William F. Buckley, Jr.
103 E. 37th Street
New York 16, New York

Dear Bill:

I am sorry not to have seen you lately, but it looks as though I will in New York for a week some time later this month. We are all going down to West Virginia tonight to be there until Easter Monday, and I am planning to spend either the week of April 18th or April 25th in New York. I hope that I will see you there at that time, or, better still, here before then.

I just had a note from Bill Casey, who has read your talk on the liberal mind with great enthusiasm. He tells me to urge you to make it into a small book, that it might easily sell as well as that silly book of Elmer Davis!. As I told you before, I think you have an excellent idea, and with your usual sense of timing that the book would not only sell very well, it would also have a considerable impact. I hope very much that you will be able to do it. I might add that Robert Welch, who wrote the little book May God Forgive Us, has given me something along the same line as your The Liberal Mind--he calls it "An Appeal to the Liberals". It isn't bad, but Welch somehow lacks finesse and he is so humorless that I am not at all sure that anyone would pay much attention to it.

In the next issue of The Reporter, you will find a very silly article about me; the author, among other things, accuses me of "chipping away" at academic freedom. If you have a chance to read it, let me know what you think of it.

Kirk's new book is getting some good reviews, but sales so far have been rather disappointing. As a matter of fact, nothing has been going too well the past two or three weeks, but in spite of this, our showing for the spring won't be too bad. The comparison with last year when we were booming along with McCarthy and His Enemies isn't so good. That is the sort of book that makes publishing lots of fun.

I hope to see you soon and that all goes well.

HR/ag