Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream

Diaries 19631088 Fulton St.,San Francisco 17, Calif.July 15, 1963My dear Dorothy and Haro1dsOn my last visit South I did not have time to call on you. My oldest and dearest friends inHollywood turned against me, but they have turned against all the rest of their old pals. This bunchcentered around my collaborator, Luther Whitman, and in the last few years his friends are the bestone can have. They all act like elder brothers and sisters. Luther, it is true, partly compensated formy father’s total lack of personal interest in my endeavors and this is not a tear-jerking letter.I did make some serious mistakes. I told you of plans to write, “How California Can HelpAsia.” I was urged by one acquaintance after another to work on my memoirs and to write also ongreat people I have met. This may have been a mistake. Every single one of those people turnedfrom me when a critical moment came. The chief ingredient was illness their part, but when I neededhelp or advice, it never came.In the midst of that there was a long stern brewing between two of my three closest friends.In the end I was compelled to lower the boom, take good whack at each which upended by theirboth accepting my conclusions, both are on better terms with me than ever before, but this upset mypersonal work. Bryn, who is a cousin of the late Tryggve Lie, is the most adventurous person I haveever known, one of the deepest thinkers, and he can help anybody but himself. He refused afteryears to pay any attention to me, and when his wife finally landed in the mental hospital I told himthat for ten years I have been trying to get a big job for him and he paid no attentions.Despairing of having a family life, he threw himself back into research and polities, has a goodUN job, but if it fails he finally accepted a list of introductions from me—and it is a big list and I amhoping research.My other pal, Paul Reps, is coming in two weeks. It just may be he may help me. I have justenough money for self, none for extra work or secretaries or anything, and have finally given up allfriends and activities not connected with science or art, or my personal benefits.I had better begin with the science story because that is where we left off. So far my interviewswith scientists have been 100% fine, with social scientists 25% fine, with newspapers, exactly onewent through but that may be the most important. Indeed the newspapers are printing such claptrapon the world’s food problems that it is nauseating and has nothing to do with anything. Subtleuses of “or” and “and” and particles which connect nothing but psychological reactions, mislead thepublic and stand in the way of our ever solving some practically easy problems. A tremendous numberof food problems are as solvable as pellagra and scurvy, and indeed belong in the same logicalcategory. But whereas pellagra and scurvy were tackled by doctors and scientists, the present problemsare tackled by politicians and diplomats and newspaper humbug. Thus is Japan a tree-plantingcampaign means the emperor will plant a tree followed by others; in Pakistan it means editorials andChamber of Commerce rallies and banquets—the same with the U.N.