Whittaker Chambers

Westminster, Md.

Talk, here in the farmlands, is chiefly of the heaviest frost of this date in a decade, and what it may have done to stands of late corn. Yet it cannot be said that we are wholly out of touch with the capitals of the mysterious East—Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, New York. Thus, a friend, a state legislator, dropped by, a month or so ago, to discuss a matter that was plainly burning a hole in one of the multiple pockets of his mind. Another legislator (from a Western state) had dreamed up a see-it-your-self plan. Paying their own way, a group of lawmakers from all over the country would, one day soon, step into a plane at Idlewild, and, hours later, put down in turn at Cairo, Tel Aviv, Damascus, Baghdad; then, veering north, and again east, at Belgrade and Moscow. Back to the West, if I remember rightly, by way of Warsaw. Everywhere, they hoped to see what eyes can see. In the capitals, they would talk with the makers and shakers. Should he go along? my friend asked.

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Westminster, Md.

Talk, here in the farmlands, is chiefly of the heaviest frost of this date in a decade, and what it may have done to stands of late corn. Yet it cannot be said that we are wholly out of touch with the capitals of the mysterious East—Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, New York. Thus, a friend, a state legislator, dropped by, a month or so ago, to discuss a matter that was plainly burning a hole in one of the multiple pockets of his mind. Another legislator (from a Western state) had dreamed up a see-it-your-self plan. Paying their own way, a group of lawmakers from all over the country would, one day soon, step into a plane at Idlewild, and, hours later, put down in turn at Cairo, Tel Aviv, Damascus, Baghdad; then, veering north, and again east, at Belgrade and Moscow. Back to the West, if I remember rightly, by way of Warsaw. Everywhere, they hoped to see what eyes can see. In the capitals, they would talk with the makers and shakers. Should he go along? my friend asked.