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(TO BE SEALED?)

I'll be 62 next week -- this week, the 24th. Damn it, one of the things I've learned is, in regard to the distribution of frailties, God was a democrat. He really saw that each of us got our share. In regard to distribution of weaknesses, He saw that very few of us can put out perfect scores.

You know, when you're writing and a critic and what not, you are removed, you are detached, and that's supposed to be a virtue. But that virtue, to me, becomes a great big question mark, when you are in this role of evaluator of other people.

Now, there are some people who are bastards. I don't want to get too laissez-faireish, about it-- there are some people who are bastards, who are venal, and you showed -- you saw the letter I showed you about Pat Moynihan and what not. And as I said in that letter, I will not permit myself to be dragged into any public discussion of Pat Moynihan, because I am just damn sensitive about how strongly I feel about him, and I would not be particularly proud to expose this, and if I were to write anything about Moynihan and Glazer and that ilk, I would literally bend over backwards not to do what I think Halberstam did. Because if I remember correctly, in Halberstam's book, only two people came out with wings--Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson. Well, hell, you know-- if he wanted to put the kind of penetrating searchlight on Adlai Stevenson -- I don't know about Eleanor, except for her children -- that he put on Mac and some of the others around Kennedy, I don't know that Adlai would have come out that pure, either. But-- all right -- you bring out the most garrulous in me.