Camus, Albert

Typed letter signed, 1 1/2 pages (10  5/8  x 8  1/4  in.; 270 x 210 mm) in French on  Gallimard/NRF letterhead, Paris, 12 November 1953, to Nancy MacDonald of Spanish Refugee Aid, Inc., New York, with 3 manuscript corrections in ink; vertical and horizontal folds, small holes from staple removal in upper left corner.  Brown buckram folding-case, purple morocco lettering-piece on spine.

"...the comic assertion that I am a supporter of communism in France ...."  Camus writes to Nancy MacDonald, wife of Dwight MacDonald and a founder of the recently established Spanish Refugee Aid, Inc. in New York, "I thank you very much for your letter.  I am divided between amusement and impatience in reading the report of the Medway Plan Foundation.  You have responded well and I agree with your arguments.  For the rest, I ignore Pablo Casals' personal position, but since the Paris Medway Committee is as resigned to him as he appears to be to me, we can be at peace.  I have read your letter and the comic assertion that I am one of the supporters of communism in France on the same day that a communist paper has again insulting me.  The question does not bother me personally.  It just establishes once again the incredible ignorance of some well-meaning Americans towards European affairs.  The vast majority of Spanish refugees in France are anti-communist.  In fact, many of them are anarchists, and the Medway Committe is free to think that that is even worse.  Therefore, it is possible to think Tolstoi, Kroptkin, Bakunin, Proud'hon and several others were loafers whose only dream was to dismantle the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.  You know, as I do, that Spanish anarchy is a doctrine and a school.  To me, it is in very bad taste today to ignore the fact that the anarchists fought the first battle of the third world war against our joint enemy and that after their defeat, they stayed on our side in the movement of resistance against Hitler's army."