LOUISE W. WIENER

November 15, 1974

Secretary and Mrs. Henry Kissinger
State Department
Washington, D. C.

Dear Secretary and Mrs. Kissinger:

I am writing to you in regards to your Siqueiros painting, Background Figures, a study for the Chapultepec mural. I was the guest curator for the Homage to Siqueiros exhibition at the High Museum during the Organization of American States meeting and have been asked by the curator of the Mexican exhibition, Fernando Gamboa of the Museo de Arte Moderno, to assemble works in American collections to participate in the major retrospective in Mexico City. The exhibition, which will be held at the Palacio de Belles Artes in Mexico City, is scheduled for January 29 through April 28, 1975. The exhibition will not travel.

The United States Embassy in Mexico is working very closely with Senor Gamboa on this exhibition, and Mr. Jerry Inman, Cultural Attache, will be personally supervising the arrangements for customs, uncrating and recrating the works, etc. I know that it would be of great importance to Mexico to have the "Kissinger Siqueiros" and hope that we may count on your participation.

We are trying to bring all the works from throughout the country into Mexico in one shipment. We will be dealing with Keating in New York, the art packers recommended by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for international travel, and with your permission would have them make the necessary arrangements to have your painting join the bulk of the shipment in New York on or about January 10, 1975. I anticipate that all works will go via Eastern Air Lines Air Freight.

The Mexican exhibition is planned to be the quintessential homage to one of Mexico's great heroes on the anniversary of his death. I believe it has great meaning to the people of Mexico and hope you will choose to participate.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

LWW:vu

1075 WEST CONWAY DRIVE NORTHWEST • ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30327 • 404 266-8953

THE SECRETARY OF STATE
WASHINGTON

June 5, 1974

Dear Mrs. Wiener:

Thank you for writing me about your
students. I appreciate their problem. It
is much easier to start fights than to stop
them. I am sorry that I was not able to
reply sooner, since I was trying to help
stop a fight elsewhere.

I would tell people who fight to re-
member that the world will soon not be big
enough for any of us, unless all of us learn
to live together peacefully. I should like
to think there is a peaceful first grade
classroom at Albany Avenue School.

I liked the cards and letters very much.
I wish I could draw well enough to send you
one, but I am enclosing a photo instead, with
warm good wishes to you all.

Enclosure.

Mrs. Myrna Dale Wiener,
Albany Avenue School,
Albany Avenue,
No. Massapequa, New York.

NBC NEWS

A DIVISION OF NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.

73, AVENUE DES CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES, PARIS 8, FRANCE, TÉL. 359-11-71

The Honorable Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger
American Embassy Residence
Paris, France

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Enclosed is a photograph taken during an interview
I did with you here in Paris.

I would be very grateful, if during your brief visit,
you would take a moment to autograph it for me.

If it is indeed possible, I'll telephone John Tratner
at the Embassy after your departure to pick it up.

Many thanks.

July 4, 1974

New York, New York.
239 Central Park West.
Mr. Elie Wiesel,

Personal Valetant
Suzanne 2. McFarlane

Sincerely,

asks his best wishes to you and Mrs. Wiesel.
he will be in touch with you. In the meanwhile, he
opportunity to do so should suddenly arise. I am sure
that he would very much like to see the play, and it an
New York has every moment filled. I know, though,
more crowded than usual, and his only planned trip to
ever, his schedule during the next few weeks is even
attend a performance of "Zalmen". Unfortunately, how-
he very much appreciates your thoughtful invitation to
The Secretary has asked me to let you know that

Dear Mr. Wiesel:

April 6, 1976

Elie Wiesel
239 Central Park West
New York, N. Y. 10024

March 29, 1976

Dr. Henry J. Kissinger
Secretary of State
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

It was good to have a chance to talk to you again at John's dinner party
for Hans Morgenthau.

It occurred to us that you and Mrs. Kissinger might be interested to see
my play Zalmen which recently opened on Broadway. Clive Barnes wrote a
generous review which I enclose.

If you have a free evening within the next few weeks, please let us know.
It would mean much to us--and to many Jews as well--if you, and any
member of your family, would choose to attend.

With every good wish, we remain--

EW/se

50

L+

THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1976

# 'Zalmen, 'Wiesel's Parable of Silence

ZALMEN OR THE MADNESS OF GOD,
by Elie Wiesel, stage adaptation by
Marion Wiesel. Directed by Alan
Schneider; setting by William Ritman;
lighting by Richard Nelson; costumes
by Marjorie Slaiman; assistant director,
Susan Einhorn; production stage man-
aer, R. Derek Swire. Presented by
Moe Septee. At the Lyceum Theater,
149 West 45th Street.

Zalmen
Rabbi
Chairman of Synagogue Council

Shmuel
Sul
Motke
Chaim
Zender
Doctor
Inspector
Nina
Mischa
Alexei
Cantor, 2d Guard
Commissar
Guard
3d Guard
Secretary
Avrom
Feige

Richard Bauer
Joseph Wiseman
Paul Sparer
Edwin Bordo
Sanford Seeger
Carl Don
David Reinhardsen
Warren Pincus
David Marquelles
Lee Wallace
Polly Adams
Rodman Flender
David Little
John B. Jellison
Jack Hollander
Michael Haney
Irwin Atkins
Nancy Dutton
Michael Gorrin
Zviah Isdinsky

By CLIVE BARNES

In 1965 on the eve of Yom Kippur, the writer Elie Wiesel found himself in a synagogue in the Soviet Union. The temple was crowded, and it was stifling hot. Suddenly, Mr. Wiesel found himself convinced that the old Russian rabbi would shout out from the pulpit, that the pain of centuries would burst and that he would denounce the Soviet oppression of his people. Of course, the rabbi did no such thing. Rabbis do not do such things in Russia —they are what Mr. Wiesel once so poignantly called “the Jews of silence.”

However, the episode inspired the writer, and he wrote a novel called "Zalmen, or the Madness of God," and this has now been adapted for the stage by Marion Wiesel, and after making its debut at the Arena Stage in Washington last year, it came last night to Broadway at the Lyceum Theater. It is an extraordinarily strong and passionate work—and, most rewarding perhaps, the political message never once obliterates the wonderfully human,

credible and ironically tragic drama.

Mr. Wiesel's play is set in the late 1950's in a small town in Russia. The post-Stalinist thaw has started, and a certain amount of religious observance, closely studied by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, is permitted. It is the eve of Yom Kippur, a crazy buffer of a beadle, starts to tell us a story, which, he assures us, "is beautiful but not necessarily true. It couldn't really have happened. Not here, not now."

There is a meeting of the

Richard Bauer, standing, and Joseph Wiseman.

synagogue council. It appears that a party of touring actors has been stranded in the town—some are Christians, some are Jews, but all have asked to go to the Yom Kippur service. The ministry is thrown into a certain amount of confusion. But these are good Jews, and it is agreed that no one will rock the boat, and that none in the congregation will make an attempt to speak with the actors.

But the beadle is inspired with a crazy, holy madness, and he persuades the old, gentle rabbi to speak his mind from the pulpit. And thus inflamed, to everyone's consternation, the old man does just that—shouting against the oppression and injustice meted out to his people.

Naturally, an investigation must be made, and an informal interrogation is set up by an official from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the local commissar. Did the rabbi have any accomplices? Was the outburst even planned? What was its effect? The official hears from everyone and finally, with a crushing irony, decides he need do nothing. For the Jews of silence— not only in Russia but those other Jews of silence in the Western World who made little effective protest even in the days of Hitler's concentration camps—can be depended upon to remain silent. As the official says, "The event did not take place." And, of course, it did not.

Where Mr. Wiesel is dramatically shrewd is in making his Communists so rational and his Jews so cowed and beaten. And the characters of the Jewish community, some not religious, weave around one another with a

sad reality, embittered, broken and, in a sense, hopeless. Even martyrs are not needed, because they would not be useful.

Alan Schneider has directed the play with great skill—although I note that right at the end he does introduce an interesting touch of hope that does not exist in the play's printed text. Perhaps he was right here; certainly he was right in the full-blooded performances he elicits from the cast.

Set against William Ritman's subtly seedy suggestion of a Soviet synagogue and dressed in the authentic-looking costumes provided by Majorie Slaiman, these characters take on an unusual reality, larger than life, but with a stagy conviction.

As the rabbi, Joseph Wiseman is outstandingly good. From his stooped neck to his pale, puzzled eyes, he looks perfect, and when the moment comes for his outburst, he rises to it with a touch of the prophet, and a voice full of suppressed pain and agonized rage. Richard Bauer is also exceptionally fine as the frenzied Zalmen, half-God's-fool and half-lunatic-meddler.

Yet this is by no means a two-character play—all the roles offer their own chances. Paul Sparer was brilliantly evasive yet with a kind of integrity as the chairman of the synagogue council; Lee Wallace portrayed the Soviet official as a bureaucrat full of stealthy menace; David Margulies made much of a nonrebel with a cause, and Polly Adams and David Little did well as the rabbi's daughter and son-in-law.

This is a moving play to be seen and even pondered upon. No one could ever accuse Mr. Wiesel of being a Jew of silence—he is a Jew of golden eloquence.