{"id":67,"date":"2016-09-17T19:01:30","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T19:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/2016\/09\/17\/peter_and_the_soviet_universit\/"},"modified":"2018-01-05T11:13:59","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T19:13:59","slug":"peter_and_the_soviet_universit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/2016\/09\/17\/peter_and_the_soviet_universit\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter and the Soviet university"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2013\/04\/03\/14474.html\">Peter&#8217;s FBI file<\/a> was a letter that he wrote to his parents (at least it seems to be to his parents), which someone had turned over to the FBI as evidence that Peter was a dangerous radical who needed to be investigated. (My strong impression from various bits of unredacted info in the FBI file is that it was specifically Peter&#8217;s father who called in the FBI.) I don&#8217;t have the original probably-handwritten letter, but here&#8217;s the FBI&#8217;s transcription of it.<\/p>\n<p>A few preliminary notes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the below, the word &ldquo;[REDACTED]&rdquo; is a standin for the blank white redaction boxes the FBI used.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m guessing that the first redacted word was something like &ldquo;folks,&rdquo; and the second was something like &ldquo;Pop.&rdquo;<\/li>\n<li>I mostly kept the FBI&#8217;s formatting, including hyphenation, but presumably they didn&#8217;t try to closely duplicate the original letter&#8217;s formatting, except at the end.<\/li>\n<li>The typos and misspellings were almost certainly introduced by the FBI; it wouldn&#8217;t have been like Peter to make those kinds of mistakes.<\/li>\n<li>The early paragraphs about Peter&#8217;s friend aren&#8217;t especially relevant; it&#8217;s the rest of the letter that made me want to post this.<\/li>\n<li>Peter was twenty years old when he wrote this. He had already flunked out of CalTech for drinking too much; he was living in Seattle (his parents were living in Ellensburg), but I&#8217;m not sure what he was doing at that point. He hadn&#8217;t yet gone to Mexico.<\/li>\n<li>This isn&#8217;t the ten-page letter I mentioned in my first entry about the FBI file; that&#8217;s still to come in a future installment. This is the letter before that one.<\/li>\n<li>Thanks to Kathleen for scanning this document.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the letter:<\/p>\n<hr width=\"25%\" \/>\n<blockquote>\n<pre>\r\n          This source furnished the following letters\r\nwhich were received by the source from the subject during\r\nthe Spring of 1960:\r\n\r\nHi [REDACTED]-\r\n\r\n     Sorry I didn't make it down to the Y the\r\nnext morning,[REDACTED]- I fell asleep.  Got the\r\nsuitcase &amp; briefcase though - briefcase is ex-\r\ntremely useful.\r\n     Kind of bad thing happened which you\r\nmay have read in papers - [REDACTED] who\r\nalternates shifts with me, was drinking two\r\nor three glasses of beer the other night, and,\r\nperhaps in part because of his recent split-up\r\nwith girl-friend, apparently went temporarily\r\nberserk - stole taxi-cab, led police on 70-mph\r\nchase through U.-district, rolled the cab, re-\r\nsulting in totalling out of both patrol-car\r\nand cab.\r\n     He is in jail now, after having gotten\r\noff active (reporting) parole only 1 month\r\nago (from burglary &amp; term at Monroe - age 18).\r\nEveryone is really sick about the whole thing -\r\nhe had been going so straight, doing so well;\r\nhadn't missed a day of work, went to school\r\nlast quarter, was reading a lot, et al.\r\n     Since I went to hear [REDACTED] I\r\nhave begun to take a real and increasing interest\r\nin politics - am currently entering into Seattle\r\nYoung Socialist Club activities with much satis-\r\nfaction, anticipation.  Passed out leaflets\r\nadvertising rally tonight, attended rally, am\r\nparticipating for next four weekends in protest\r\npicketings of Woolworth's in connection with\r\nsegregated lunch-counters in South.\r\n     Which subject laterally introduces main\r\ntopic of letter, namely, the Friendship Univer-\r\nsity.\r\n     You see, I have been receiving for about\r\na month, gratis, in order to get propaganda\r\nslanted the other way than the American press,\r\nthe 'Soviet News Bulletin' from the Soviet em-\r\nbassy in Toronto, Canada.  (By comparing this\r\nand Hearst and taking an average, I believe I\r\ncome out somewhere in the vicinity of what\r\nactually happens).\r\n     At any rate, a recent issue introduced\r\nme to the 'Friendship University'.  The main\r\nfields of study are mathematico-physico-scienti-\r\nfix realms, and politico-economic-philosophical\r\nareas.  Students are accepted regardless of race,\r\nnationality, citizenship, religion - i.e. anybody\r\nwho\r\n     1.  is a junior or better in high\r\n     school, in which case he goes to a\r\n     secondary school for 2 years in Moscow,\r\n     and then to the University for four\r\n     years (U. is in Moscow).\r\n     2.  has a high-school diploma, but no\r\n     knowledge of Russian, in which case he\r\n     goes to secondary school 1 year &amp;\r\n     U. 4 years. (me)\r\n     3.  has high-school diploma and adequate\r\n     knowledge of Russian, in which case\r\n     he goes to the U. 4 years.\r\n\r\nNow, the next things are:\r\n     1.  they pay your way <u>over and back<\/u> (ha-ha)\r\n     &amp; pay your room, board, tuition, fees,\r\n     books, and medical expenses while at-\r\n     tending schools,\r\n     2.  Russian mathematics occupies quite\r\n     emminent position in academic ratings\r\n     at present - i.e., about 1\/2 of all math\r\n     being published today is publ. in Russian,\r\n     they are supposed to be 12 years ahead\r\n     of us in linear partial differential\r\n     equations, etc., etc.  Thus I think\r\n     I could gain a mathematical education\r\n     without equal anywhere else in world.\r\n     3.  I have read so much Dostoiavsky,\r\n     Gogal, Lermoutov, Tolsto: et al., that\r\n     I would really like to read them in\r\n     the original language; and, I am\r\n     extremely desirous of examining at\r\n     first hand the present day culture of\r\n     Russia.\r\n     4.  Travel is br-r-roadening; I would\r\n     learn fluent, modern, idiomatic Russian;\r\n     Eurasian colleges are (<u>I<\/u> believe)\r\n     much better in general than American;\r\n     I would get to actually see and live in\r\n     this bugbear (bugaboo? bughear? bete\r\n     noir?) economic-political system of\r\n     Communism; actually see what the people\r\n     are like; make fast friendships with a\r\n     few of the students probably.......and\r\n     on, and on, (I invite comment on 'Friend-\r\n     ship U.')\r\n\r\n<u>So<\/u>, I am anyways going to apply for admittance\r\nto these schools (which are brand-new, just\r\nstarting this Sept.), though I doubt that I would\r\nstand much of a chance, since my competition will\r\nbe world-wide.  But, oh well, it won't hurt to\r\ntry. A A Ay Ay Ah!?  fantastic idea - [REDACTED] ought\r\nto apply too - take the whole family - live off\r\nroyalties from magazine articles - 'The Difficulties\r\nof Raising American Children in Russia..' ech. oh,\r\nwell.\r\n\r\nSo anyway, how's everything in E-burg?  Hope you\r\naren't patronizing Woolworth's or Kress's...no,\r\njust kidding - the only values these protest rallys\r\nhave are\r\n     1.  symbolic (in number of senses)\r\n     2.  a <u>large-scale<\/u> boycott can sometimes\r\n          convince a manager that his prejudices\r\n          are too expensive.\r\n\r\n     Ah, I've shot off mouth enough for one letter\r\n- write when anybody gets time - sorry to've missed\r\nsending you birthday present,[REDACTED]: will make it\r\nup to you.\r\n\r\nSee-what-I-told-you-dept. - I forgot to send in\r\nincome-tax --- never did find or get W2-forms\r\nfrom Boeing, have forms for $25 from U. math\r\ndept.\r\n                    WHAT SHALL I DO?\r\n\r\n                              H\r\n                               E       have commenced\r\nPS.  Oh, yeah -                 L      over-ambitious\r\nI certainly hope that my         P     study-program for\r\nnewly-burgeoning political        !    self, really\r\ninterests (or rather                   reading a lot,\r\ntheir socialistic tendencies)          both lit. &amp; math.\r\nare not disturbing to you - -\r\nif so, I just become more\r\nblack-sheep's-skeleton-in-closetey\r\nI guess -\r\n\r\n     PETE\r\n                             [REDACTED]         never wrote\r\nPPS:  current debts          should arrive      to Merit\r\n                             any time\r\n\r\nI owe               people owe me\r\n---------------------------------\r\n$20? Tall's          $3.60 )\r\n$??? Parents         $6.00 )  _________(illegible)\r\n$1.45 friend         $4.60 )\r\n$2.60 - \"            $(illegible) total     great, huh?\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early in Peter&#8217;s FBI file was a letter that he wrote to his parents (at least it seems to be to his parents), which someone had turned over to the FBI as evidence that Peter was a dangerous radical who needed to be investigated. (My strong impression from various bits of unredacted info in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peters-interests"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/peter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}