Gen, Repeat Gen
SIR,—One of your readers in Washington received the other day his copy of the Spectator of January 20th containing an article of mine on United States policy in the Far East ; and a sentence he read there caused him to sit bolt upright in his chair. The sentence was:
He (Secretary of Defence Johnson) sent a military delegation to Japan which consulted General MacArthur, flew back to Washington with the General, and provoked what is described as an all-day meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs.
Your Washington reader lost no time at all in demanding to be told how I alone of all the newspapermen here knew of a secret visit to Washington of General MacArthur—a mildly sensational bit of information, all things considered.
I have read the article in the Spectator and that is what it says all right. I have also read a copy of the article as despatched, and what it says is this:
He sent a military delegation to Japan which consulted General MacArthur, flew back to Washington with the gen, and provoked, &c. It is clear enough now that I should have said that the military delegation flew back with the dope or the low-down. This will be a lesson to me not to puzzle 1Britla readers with English slang when it is possible to use the better-known American lingo.—Yours, &c., ROBERT WATTHMAN.
National Press Building, Washington 4, D.C.
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