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country. When World War II came along, he was a great power in our land.

We would see each other occasionally, especially at the Dutch Treat Club, which is a club in New York where publishers and suchlike meet. George never forgot that I had been very kind to him at Columbia. He was embarrassingly grateful. He would always bring this up, but he would kid me a little bit, too. When I would come in, he would sometimes yell, “Here comes Bennett, the pinko publisher.” One day he did this at the Dutch Treat Club, with perfect friendship, but I became very irritated. At this time, “pinko” was a word that was becoming more and more opprobrious and I didn't like it and I didn't think that it was justified. So I called him on it. I said, “I'm pretty sick of your calling me the 'pinko publisher. ‘Have you ever looked at our list of books, George?” I said, “If you had looked over our list, you would realize that we print a lot of books that some people might call me a fascist for publishing.” George immediately said, “Oh, I'm only kidding,” which he was. I said, “Nevertheless, I'm going to send you this list, George,” which I did. I went to great pains to make a whole list of books we had done on the other side. I said, “We publish any book, if it's a good book.” George called up to apologize to me. He said, “I didn't realize that you publish some of these books.” He suggested that we have lunch together.

Well, I must have hesitated for a moment because being seen with George Sokolsky was enough to infuriate a lot of