Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream

Diaries 1963September 8, 1963My dear Uncle and Aunt:Not having heard from you for some time I am assuming that everything is not too well, but Iam so utterly busy, and pretty nearly confused too, that it is only a series of climaxes that impels meto write.Around 1958 when I was on Clementina St. my friend, Robert Clifton visited me and I said tohim: “Robert, you and I are mere nobodies. We can’t get an audience. Congress, the government,the newspapers, nobody pays any attention to us, but I do not think there is a King, Prime Minister,Cabinet Official, head of a university, professor … holy man … or peasant, from one end of Asia tothe other whom either you or I could not meet if we have not met already, yet we are more nobodies.”“Too true, Samuel, too true.”Robert died in 1962 but I have been commissioned to work on his biography. Indeed I ammeeting sons of his friends today. He worked severally for the Kings of Laos, Annam (Bao Dai),Cambodia, Thailand, was close to the government of Burma and died a close friend of Tunku AbdulRahman, Prime Minister of Malaya, and was a Malayan citizen.The reason for his having become a Malayan citizen is that when he came to warn of troublesin S.E. Asia, the late J. F. Dulles issued a directive that anybody giving him an interview would besummarily discharged. Robert returned to Asia, got caught in the Laos chaos, came back to claiman estate, and then go to Asia. In the course of events he found he was a third cousin of SenatorFulbright by marriage and this got him a very few interviews and this disgusted him more becauseit was his family and social connection not his knowledge. Yet he was responsible for the Buddhisttemple in Washington, and became one of the three top men in the Buddhist world.Then there is Sam Lewis. True, Sam Lewis’s name is up at Fort Mason on the heroes’ list butnobody close is going to believe that too much. More recently his name has become more and moreimportant in Pakistan. Even a letter was not only published but headlined in the most importantEnglish paper in the country (Pakistan Review) and the editorial given to him to send in ideas forsocial, educational and agricultural reform.Last week there was a top climax for me. I had to move and am back at 58 Harriet St. belowwhere I used to live. Money has been allocated for my autobiography in Pakistan, and I found thetop CIA official in S.E. Asia, Colonel Lansdale, is a man with whom I formed a very close friendshipduring the war and he gave me his picture which I should be glad to have copied and sent to you.Meanwhile Under-Secretary George Ball of the State Department has gone to Pakistan and fumbledand fuddled where I was a first-hand witness, and even participant in some of the events. So I geton the telephoned and asked an official, “Does one have to perform an act of treason for an appointmentwith anybody? I am not fooling. I am about to commit treason to save my country.” I won’t gointo details on this but the upshot is that everything I have done, and everything I have planned is tobe written and I have now an agent to cover … everything, and I mean everything.