[11-V-50]
Dear Nathan,
I think it really is your duty to make public the truth about the economic situation of Czechoslovakia and to counter intentional attempts at distortion such as Skala’s.
In detail, a couple of comments. Your introduction should make clear to the reader that you are a researcher in the field of economics and, with the assistance of local institutions, have conducted studies on location, which are published (there and there) in more detail. In this way, from the outset, the impression can be avoided that you are a “hired” propagandist, which in the present case the reader might suppose.
In the introduction, it should also be said that whoever has access to reliable information these days has the obligation to enlighten the public. For without such reliable information about the facts, not even a conscientious person can arrive at a reasonable attitude in the political sphere.
Factually, I find your point (1) very good. In (2), on the contrary, I find the comparison with USA’s foreign trade relations infelicitous, as the natural exchange of goods with a foreign country is proportionally higher for a small country than for a large one. Furthermore, the last sentence on page (2) should be conceived differently because it refers not to tangible facts but to opinions. Therefore, not “absurd and nonsensical,” but something like “unlikely from the economic point of view, because any strengthening of the industrial potential of its cooperating region must be advantageous to Russia itself.”
The last paragraph may be accurate, but it should be composed more nobly. Perhaps we could do that together. Perceptible anger always weakens the effect.—
Mr. Bliven’s letter is a sad sign of the times. It is something like when Jews look upon one another with the eyes of anti-Semites. It is the cheap catchwords that paralyze those people’s critical discernment. Your answer to both is good.
If you make your submission to the N. R. less emotional and less personal, it will have a good effect. 
Cordial regards, 
Yours,
	A. E.
Dear Nathan. Don’t let yourself be annoyed! You do know of what curious material we humans just happen to be made. One can mitigate but basically not change anything—by any means whatsoever.
[ALS]