Record of a Friendship

by me some 20 years ago. It was the psychoanalytic movement, which
he so arduously defends, which choked those demands off wherever it
could-Freud among them. He did not understand a thing, and he is
fresh to boot. Such a man has no idea whatsoever what it means to
build up a school practically to keep it going as you did. I would not
bother about them. The forming of the "New Era" will surely not be
the work of fellows of this type.
I hope to see you soon no matter what will happen in the world.

Summerhill School

Leiston, Suffolk

My dear Reich,

• I •

July 15, 1950

I thought it best to Roneograph [mimeograph] the story, for

to write it over and over again" would be too much.

U.S. Consul refuses visa for A. S. Neill and Family.

On Friday July 14th at 9 a.m. we went to the London Embassy to

ask for visas. For two hours we saw others being served, then we were

handed back our passports and told to return at 2 p.m. We then

saw the Consul. He of course knew that I had been twice in U.S.A.

lecturing, and he asked if I were going again under the sponsorship of

the Orgone Institute. I said yes, but also that of a group of New

York teachers led by Mrs. Elizabeth Badgeley, and showed him letters

from the Institute telling me about my lecture there, and from Mrs.

Badgeley telling of the two seminars arranged for me in New York. I

also showed a letter from my banker saying that I had funds to pay

expenses. The Consul then said that we could not have visas. I asked

why but was not told. He said we could apply again but that it might

take up to six weeks to get an answer. I said that was impossible, for

then I could not hold the seminars nor attend the Conference in

Orgonon, Maine; also that we would have to cancel our passages on the

Q. Elizabeth sailing first August, and could not possibly get other pas­

sages. Moreover we have to re-open our school end of September.

We are left to guess underlying motives. A political one is improb­

able, for I have never been a member of any political party, and in my

books have strongly criticised the later developments in Russian edu­

cation, which to me are reactionary. There remains the question of Dr.