Steinbeck (100 page)

I shall be delighted to read Margaret Kennedy's view on the novel. I have been thinking about it a lot since I am in process of trying to write one. Once it was a long piece of writing attempting to set down a piece of generalized reality. But as with any form, rules began to be made for it and gradually the rules regulating what is permissible in a novel became so strict that it was forced away from reality. A perfect example of this is the criticism by a Communist of In Dubious Battle—“Even if it happened,” he said, “it is not true.” And as these rules became more strict, they pressed the novel farther and farther from everyday reality and in the process lost the interest of readers, who flocked to non-fiction which could still deal with what happens.

What I am trying to say, I guess, is that I should write non-fiction with the freedom the novel once had. Regrettable! It is permitted in non-fiction to see a flying saucer, but let anyone imply that “a piece of the sky” etc.—and he will be denounced.

And that is the end of this letter.

Love,
John

Sag Harbor
July 16, 1966

Dear John:

I do know what you mean. I remember the same feeling when there were areas of trouble. “What the hell am I doing here? Nobody made me come.” On the other hand, when it was over, I was usually glad I had gone. And one other thing. Once it started the blind panic went away and another dimension took its place. Thinking about it afterward I became convinced that there is some kind of built-in anaesthesia that balances and sets the terror back. Another thing that helps is the fact that you aren't alone. And everybody feels just as lousy when it is about to be. I don't know whether or not you took the Sneaky with you—that little leather flask. Fill it with whiskey—brandy is better. And it can be a great comfort to you. There's no law against false courage. It's better than none at all.

Now, let me discuss what you call your compulsion to be miserable. You think you had a choice—that you could just as well be in S. F. with all the amenities, comfort, ease and a certain immunity from gunfire. Well, the fact of the matter with you as well as with me is that there wasn't really any choice. You did and will do what you are. If you had forced yourself to make the opposite choice you would have been in violation of yourself, and I truly believe you would have been much more miserable than you are. Of course I am worried about you, just terribly worried, but I am proud too that you have not violated what you are.

Also check with yourself on this. I know it was true of me. I had deep down convictions that I was a coward. I think everyone has. If I had broken or gone to pieces, I wouldn't have been surprised. But when it came and I didn't go haywire, when I was scared but no more scared than those around me, the sense of relief was like a flood of compensation. Because I think a good part of this particular fear is a fear of how you will behave. And no one knows for sure, until he has gone through it.

I was horrified when you asked me to get you orders to go out, but I couldn't have failed you there. Do you know, that is the only request I have ever made of the President? The only one. And I was not happy about making it. But if I had had to request that you
not
be sent, I think I would have been far more unhappy.

Please keep in touch. I love you.

Fa

Sag Harbor
August 16, 1966

Dear John:

Your good long letter arrived yesterday and there is much in it to answer.

You are writing well—good, clean English prose. I thought this was so and let Edward Albee see your letter and he said, “Jesus, this boy can write. This is damn good writing.” Just keep doing it the way you are.

Your orphanage and hospital are very exciting. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I agree that the less government, the better. There is no reason why the Vietnamese should trust any government with their history. Hell, we don't really trust ours. But, would it make any sense if I tried to tap private sources for money for your orphanage? Would it make sense if the Authors' League or the Dramatists Guild or Actors Studio, for that matter, Actors Union—Stage Hands, etc.—couldn't they, as private organizations, endow beds, or adopt a wing and support it? If you, and your friends, think well of this and could give me some plans and programs, I could turn it loose among people who really care.

Now fo the last, and I confess to a certain shyness about discussing it. I remember our talk about my going over. And you mention it in your letter. Wouldn't this seem to you a little like “getting in the act”? It seems to me that for years I have been getting in your act, and I know you resented it, as well you might, although at the time I didn't know what else to do. Now this is very private. You are doing just great on your own. Wouldn't my coming over inhibit you? There are those on this side who think it would. There is always this damp cloud of publicity which follows me. I hate it. It makes people put on an act for me. They change. On the other hand, on the Charley trip when I was out of context, no one either recognized me or gave a damn and it was wonderful. I believe that if I went over quietly, without ballyhoo and did no writing while I was there, not a soul would bother. Newsday would send me on any terms I want to make. But I want you to tell me what you think.

Bill Attwood, the new Editor-in-Chief of Look, wants me to spend a week with the President and write his daily routine. I think it is a lousy idea. He has too much exposure already. In my opinion he should lie low for a while. So I don't intend to do that but I will have to see him to tell him why.

Let me know your thinking as soon as possible.

Edward Albee asked for your address. You know, you don't have to write letters. Just send postcards.

Love, and write soon.

Fa

[New York]
October 28, 1966

Dear Gadg:

As you may be aware, I've been having a bad time—work unacceptable, to me, and a strong feeling that my time was over. I brooded a lot because both in breadth and depth I had lost touch with this time and was and am abysmally ignorant of a great part of the world—the whole eastern half.

Now Harry Guggenheim wants us to go to the East. Take our time, go where we want and stay as long as we want to. And it's like a new life to me.

We don't know when we will start but it won't be long. I think we will go first to Vietnam because I think one phase of that war is nearly over. But afterwards the other parts—Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and of course Japan.

The reason I am writing is that we would like to join up with you along the way, particularly Japan which you already know. And maybe you would like to go to some of the others with us. What do you think?

Let me hear from you.

Yours,
John

New York
November 28, 1966

Dear Mr. President:

I am sorry not to be able to attend the dinner for the Arts Council but as of December 1 we take off for East Asia on a long and, I hope, rewarding trip starting in Saigon. There we will see my young son John, and in California we will see my older son Thom who is now in the army and in training at Ft. Ord. And, since I have now reactivated my old war correspondent's card, we are all involved, and that's as it should be.

My compliments, Sir, and our love to you and your family. And if I can be of service to you or to the nation, it is offered with a whole heart.

 

Yours,
John Steinbeck

[Caravelle Hotel]
[Saigon]
January 4, 1967

PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PLEASE

 

Dear Harry:

I have asked you for some very unusual things during our association. Now I want to ask about a possibility. I've been out in the really hairy boondocks, in the waist-deep paddies where your boots suck in mud that holds like glue. The patrols go on at night now down in the Delta area and are really ambushes set up against the V.C. There are caches of weapons everywhere and very few of them are found. All a running V.C. has to do is to sink his weapons in a ditch or in a flooded paddy and later return and retrieve them.

Yesterday, I was out with a really good bunch of men. We climbed out of ditches, went through houses, questioned people. We came on one cache of weapons and ammunition in the bottom of a ditch. They smear grease on the guns and seal the shells in jugs. Every house in the area is surrounded by water—in fact the raised place where the house and its garden stand are made by dredging up the mud in baskets and piling it up to dry to a platform. Our men were moving slowly along in the water feeling for weapons on the muddy bottom —a slow and very fallible method.

The C. O. is a Lt. Col. Hyatt, fine fellow, young and intelligent. I told him about something I use on my dock at Sag Harbor. It is a five-pound Alnico horseshoe-shaped magnet that will lift about a hundred pounds. If anything metallic falls off the dock I tie a line to the magnet and drop it to the bottom. I've brought up everything from a pair of pliers to an outboard motor with it. Dragged along these ditches and paddies, it would locate arms that are now missed. But such ideas submitted to the high command rarely get implemented. And surely Col. Hyatt knew it. So I engaged to try to get him a magnet to try out. Of course, if it brings up anything, he can then requisition them.

The other thing is more serious and more sensitive. As you must know, the V.C. are tough and secret. When one is taken he refuses to talk at all. And it's on information that our lives depend, where are the rest hidden, how many are there—what weapons, what plan of attack, where are the claymore mines set, where are the booby traps? Answers to these questions could save a great many of our kids' lives.

Yesterday I remembered something from the past. Did you ever see scopolamine used, Harry? I have. First it was called twilight sleep and later truth serum. It doesn't make a man or woman tell the truth, but it makes him a compulsive talker. He just can't shut up. It relaxes the inhibitions, causes boastful thinking and everything comes out. Now Col. Hyatt says if he had access to such an injection he thinks he could cut his casualties at least 50 percent. And I have no compunction about using any method whatever to that end.

I am marking this private and very personal but of course Bill Moyers [soon to become publisher of
Newsday
] can see it. But I wouldn't let it go farther.

Please let me hear from you.

Yours,
John

Saigon
January II, 1967

Dear E. O.:

I haven't written because I have been moving so fast and writing my heart out when I can catch the time.

I have one more week and a very full one, many missions but next Wednesday—Jan. 18—we are flying to Bangkok. I will complete the war pieces there. I've seen just about every part of the country now, every kind of fighting and every kind of equipment except for several which I will see in my last week.

There is so much here that there is little time for sleep. That can come later. And I never felt better in my life.

Your letters gratefully received. But N. Y. seems very far away. I find I'm putting most things in the copy I'm sending.

Love to all there. And I'll try to write from Bangkok.

Love,
John

Bangkok
January 23, 1967

Dear E. O.:

It is a very long time since I have written but I have been trying unsuccessfully to keep up with the work it seems I should do. So many things attract me and there just isn't time to put them down.

I may have come out of Vietnam too soon. I have a sense of unfinished business there, but I have kept the open visa so that I can go back if it appears good. It was hard on Elaine there and I was and am very proud of her for going. Staying in Saigon alone is kind of awful. But she did it and of course she knows the city far better than I do. I was hardly ever there.

Bangkok is perfectly lovely to look at. Maybe any place would be after Saigon. This hotel is a dream of heaven. They have us in a royal suite overlooking the river. Turns out it is the same suite Somerset Maugham lived in years ago. I haven't gone out much. Came over the border with so much left to write that I have been chained to the desk. Things have a way of dimming if they aren't done at once, particularly things as subtle as the small pictures of war.