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here at Sixty-second Street; and, after about an hour, it became quite obvious that Erskine was, to me, infinitely more valuable than Taylor. As it turned out, Taylor, in about a year, left to go to Hollywood. He worked for MGM. Albert has been with us now as the editor of O'Hara, Mitchener, and Warren. He was the editor of William Faulkner. He's the man that Faulkner said was the greatest editor of all.

That's right. We want to get into that story sometime, but Helen Thompson... so Dave is in the Spanish...

So Fred Thompson said, “I'm going over there to get him out.” Suddenly I decided that I was going to go, too. I said, “This is the only country where they are really fighting for liberty.” You're too young to know, but every liberal was in favor of Republican Spain. It was the Fascists that were trying out their airplanes and what not. We didn't realize that the Communists were also trying out their airplanes and bombs. The whole thing was just a proving ground for the war that was in the wings.

Well, you couldn't get a visa to Spain. The State Department would stamp their passports, “Not valid for travel in Spain,” but I went over to Paris, anyway--not really caring...

Did you go over with Mr. Thompson?

I met him there. That was when I found out that he was living with the fine girl I've described to you.