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DR. SCHWEITZER OF LAMBARENE is in

the nature of a personal appreciation
of one of the towering figures of the
twentieth century. Written on the
basis of firsthand knowledge and ob-
servation, it is an informal, intimate
account of Albert Schweitzer at work
and in repose. Norman Cousins at-
tempts to convey some idea of the bur-
den Schweitzer has taken upon himself
and why he chose to take it. He also
tells of Sehweit/er's deep concern for
the natural rights and the safety o the
human community on earth.

This book also portrays the people
around Dr. Schweitzer the young
doctors and nurses at his Hospital
why they came to Lamberene, the dif-
ficulties they face daily in their work,
how they respond to the person of
Schweit/er.

Abounding in remembered detail,
in anecdote and description, DR.

SCHWEITZER OF LAMBARENE meets

squarely and with intelligent under-
standing the stubborn legends and
partial truths about the man, his work
and his thought.

Norman Cousins flew to Lambarene
to observe and visit; he remained to
probe some of the deepest problems

(Continued on back flap)

No. 9629A 0560

DR^. SCHWEITZR
of -LAMfii\RENE !

"It is good to be reminded now and then that even in a world struggling with the momentou
issue of war and peace the individual has problems."

DR. SCHWEITZER
of LAMBARENE

by Norman Cousins

With Photographs by Clara Urquhart

Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York H|B

DR. SCHWEITZER OF LAMBARENE

"Peace or Atomic War?" by Albert Schweitzer
Copyright 1957, 1958 by SATURDAY REVIEW, INC.

All rights in this book are reserved.

No part of the book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Brothers

49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N. Y.

Library of Congress catalog card number: 609134

To My Father

6107924

Author's Note

This book is in the nature of a personal appreciation. It does not seek
to be either an historical analysis of an eminent contemporary or a
detailed biographical treatment. It is concerned with the carrying
power of a symbol and with some of the people who are part of it. It
was constructed from notes taken on a trip to Africa. Though most of
these notes are about a man at Lambarene, some of them are in the
nature of digression. Lambarene is a good place for digressions,
especially those of a retrospective turn.

A word about the photographs. The initials CLU. belong to Clara
Urquhart. Mrs. Urquhart is not to be taxed with the responsibility for
the photographs that carry no initials; these were taken by the author.

Mrs. Urquhart, who was with me in Lambarene, has given me the
benefit of her own recollections and has made important suggestions
about the manuscript. Erica Anderson, who made the major film about
Dr. Schweitzer, checked the facts in this manuscript and spared me the
agony of a number of errors. Nicholas Balint helped check the proofs.
Sallie Lou Parker picked up after me graciously and generously, and
put up with an author whose changes on manuscript necessitated at
least a dozen retypings. To all these, and to a forbearing wife and
daughters, I give acknowledgments and thanks.

AT THE END of dinner each evening at his jungle Hos-
pital in Lambarene, French Equatorial Africa, Dr. Albert Schweit-
zer would fold his napkin, announce the number of the hymn to be
sung, get up and walk over to the upright piano on the other side
of the room. He would arrange the hymn carefully on the music
stand, study it for a moment, then start to play.

I doubt whether I shall ever forget my shock and disbelief when,
the first evening of my visit, I saw him approach the upright.
Earlier in the day, while exploring the Hospital on my own, I had
wandered into the dining room where Dr. Schweitzer and his staff
of fifteen eat each day. The first thing that caught my eye was the
piano. It must have been at least fifty years old. The keyboard was
badly stained; large double screws fastened the ivory to each note.
I tried to play but drew back almost instantly. The volume pedal
was stuck and the reverberations of the harsh sounds hung in the
air. One or more strings were missing on at least a dozen keys.
The felt covering the hammers was worn thin and produced
pinging effects.

Before coming to Lambarene, I had heard that under equa-
torial conditions of extreme heat and moisture one doesn't even
try to keep a piano in tune; you make your peace with the inevi-
table and do the best you can.

Even so, when I saw Dr. Schweitzer sit down at the piano and
prop up the hymnbook, I winced. Here was one of history's greatest
interpreters of Bach, a man who could fill any concert hall in the
world. The best grand piano ever made would be none too good
for him. But he was now about to play a dilapidated upright
virtually beyond repair. And he went at it easily and with the
dignity that never leaves him.

I knew then that I would never be able to put out of my mind
the image painful in one sense, exalting in another of Schweitzer
at the old upright in Lambar&ie. For here was the symbol, visible
and complete, of everything he had given up in order to found a
hospital in Africa. Renunciation by itself may mean little. What
is renounced and the purpose of the renunciation that is
what is important. In the case of Albert Schweitzer, renunciation
involved a distinguished career as organist and pianist; it extended
to the intimate study and analysis of the nature of music in general
and the organ in particular; it embraced a detailed understanding
of the life 4 and meaning of Johann Sebastian Bach. In all of this
work there was the meticulous pursuit of perfection. Yet this did not
exhaust the renunciation. There was a record in theology, philoso-
phy, and history, in each of which Schweitzer had made major
contributions as teacher and author. Solid foundations had been
built for a lifelong career in any of these fields.

I wrote a moment ago that I felt not only pain but a certain
inspiration in the image of Schweitzer at the old piano. For the
amazing and wondrous thing was that the piano seemed to lose
its poverty in his hands. Whatever its capacity was to yield music
was now being fully realized. The tinniness and chattering echoes
seemed subdued. It may be that this was the result of Schweitzer's
intimate acquaintance with the piano, enabling him to avoid the
rebellious keys and favoring only the co-operative ones. Whatever
the reason, his being at the piano strangely seemed to make
it right.

And, in a curious way, I discovered that this was to be true of
almost everything else at Lambar6n. Schweitzer's being there made

it right. Much of what you saw for the first time at the Hospital
seemed so primitive and inadequate as to startle. But when Dr.
Schweitzer walked through the grounds, everything seemed as it
should be. More than that: the profound meaning of Lambarene
suddenly came to life. And I was to learn that there was a reason
behind everything at Lambarene.

And I was to get close to one of the things that drew me to
Lambarene not Schweitzer's purpose, which was clear enough,
but the sources of that purpose, about which I had long wondered.

"YOU MUST COME to Lambarene," Emory Ross had said early in
1955. "There is something there that I can't capture for you in
words but it will mean much to you when you come near it."

Emory Ross was the head of the Schweitzer Fellowship in the
United States. He was a former missionary who was now devoting
his life to advancing the cause of the African people. He had helped
to build schools in various parts of Africa; he had brought promis-
ing African students to American colleges and universities; he ted
raised thousands of dollars for Dr. Schweitzer's Hospital in Lam-
barene.

After being with Emory Ross for only a minute or two, you felt
you were with a country doctor whose knowledge and skill could
put him at the head of almost any hospital in the country but who
preferred to sit at the non-specialized bedsides of people who needed
him. Emory Ross's manner was extraordinarily kind and reassuring;
you never left him with the feeling that half of what you wanted to
talk to him about had been left unsaid.

One of the things Emory Ross and I had discusssed at those early
meetings was Dr. Schweitzer's unfinished literary works. There were
at least two books on which he had been working off and on for
more than a quarter of a century. One was concerned with philos-
ophy and history; the other with theology.

Dr. Ross said he believed the manuscripts were fairly close to
completion, but that the Hospital's demands on Schweitzer's time
were increasing with each passing year. So far as Dr. Ross knew,

months would go by without the Doctor's being able to touch his
manuscripts. Worse still was the fact that there were no carbon
copies. The Doctor wrote in longhand on faded sheets of paper.
He was in the habit of hanging them on nails in his room; Dr.
Ross spoke of the hazards of moisture, wandering goats, possible
fire, and just plain loss.

"I tremble when I think of what would happen if some of that
manuscript should come undone," he said.

We discussed various means of persuading the Doctor, then in
his eighty-first year, both to take the time necessary to finish his
books and to provide for the safety of the manuscripts. We also
considered various methods for making duplicate copies, and we
agreed to investigate the comparative merits of microfilming, dupli-
cating machines, and plain photography. None of these devices, of
course, could be used without the permission and co-operation of
the Doctor himself. And here we anticipated trouble. Emory Ross
emphasized that Dr. Schweitzer was a perfectionist who was severely
reluctant to part with anything he wrote that was not absolutely
final and complete. Dr. Ross was contemplating a trip to Lamba-
rene, but he said he didn't feel in a position to press the issue.

"It's too easy for the Doctor to say 'no 5 to me. You've got to
come and put it to him. It won't be easy. If his mind is made
up about something, it takes some real powers of persuasion to
move him. Even if we don't succeed, it is important that you
corne. It will be an experience you'll never forget."

I could feel the beginning of an irresistible tug; but I had only
recently returned from Japan in connection with the project to
provide reconstructive surgery for some young women from Hiro-
shima who had been disfigured by the atomic bombing, and my time
away from the magazine was limited. And so I told Dr. Ross that
much as I wanted to go, I couldn't quite be sure I could do so.

In the weeks that followed, Dr. Ross and I met with other mem-
bers of the Schweitzer Fellowship. I recall with particular pleasure
a luncheon with Erica Anderson, Jerome Hill, and Eugene Exman.
Miss Anderson had just returned from Lambaren where she

worked on a film biography of Dr. Schweitzer. Miss Anderson had
also just completed, in collaboration with Eugene Exman, vice-
president of Harper & Brothers, a picture-and-text book about Dr.
Schweitzer and the Hospital.

Emory Ross explained the purpose of the luncheon to the small
group. He spoke of the invaluable literary treasures now at Lamba-
rene and the loss to the world if they should be damaged or lost.

Then he asked: "What do you think the chances are that we
could persuade the Doctor to have the manuscripts duplicated?"

"I can tell you," Miss Anderson said, "that the Doctor is sus-
picious of anyone who arrives at Lambarene with a lot of mechani-
cal equipment."

"If you approach the Doctor about it directly, it's my guess he'd
give you a flat 'no,' " Eugene Exman said. "He just doesn't like to
be prodded about his manuscripts either with respect to finishing
them or taking precautions for their physical safety. You've got to
give this real thought."

Jerome Hill nodded assent.

As I listened, a picture formed in my mind of Schweitzer as an
austere and remote figure who could be approached only with the
greatest care. I found it interesting that even those who knew him
best had to conjecture about his response to situations. They had
to plan any action involving him as carefully as they would the
strategy for a military campaign.

"Perhaps we ought also to find out what Dr. Schweitzer's friends
in Europe think," Dr. Ross said. "I am sure Emil Mettler in London
would know something about the manuscripts. And Dr, Schweitzer's
daughter in Zurich ought to know something about it. J. D. Newth
in London, who is Dr. Schweitzer's English publisher, may be able
to give us a lead."

Erica Anderson's eyes were sparkling with the challenge.

"I think maybe the best thing to do would be just to go there,"
she said. "After you are there a while, tell the Doctor what you
want to do. But just don't turn up with a lot of equipment showing.
I made the mistake of doing that once and I ought to know."

I recalled that several years earlier Erica Anderson had received
a flat refusal from Dr. Schweitzer when she wrote to him about
her hope that she might do a film story of his life. But he invited
her to come to Lambarene just the same without the film equip-
ment. She went and got him to change his mind.

Incidents were then related at the table that gave me a contrast-
ing picture of the Doctor to the one I had had earlier. I had associ-
ated him with warmth and responsiveness. The new image seemed
somewhat aloof and austere. And a paradox began to emerge.
Later, I was to learn at Lambarene, that this was only one of
several paradoxes about the man whose life embraced at least four
full careers.

THE RECEPTIONIST at The Saturday Review announced Mr.
Newth from London, representing A. & C. Black, publishers. He
said he was on a short visit to the United States and had learned
from Emory Ross of the prospect of our trip to Lambarene.

I told Mr. Newth, as I had earlier told Emory Ross, that eager
as I was to go, the matter was far from settled. I explained the
circumstances that were holding me back.

"We are still hopeful that we can publish the Schweitzer manu-
scripts during his lifetime/ 3 he said. "I don't want to prod, but it
might be helpful if you could manage the trip. A new voice is
needed to talk to the Doctor. He has heard the same arguments
from his old friends for so many years that it is too easy for him to
wave them aside. We need fresh reinforcements. I hope you will
do it. 35

What Mr. Newth said was most persuasive; I thanked him and
told him I would keep the matter open. As the weeks passed,
however, my reluctance to leave the family and the magazine so
soon after the Far East trip became strengthened. Besides, the
project for the Hiroshima Maidens was now in full swing, with
dozens of operations yet to be performed by Dr. Arthur Barsky,
Dr. Bernard Simon, and Dr. Sidney Kahn. The medical program,
too, under Dr. William Hitzig, was far from complete.

When the time neared for Dr. Ross's own trip to Lambarene,
he spoke to me again about the possibility of my accompanying
him. The chances were now nil. But he exacted a promise that I
would go when I could. Dr. Ross would take no photographing
equipment with him but would attempt to clear the way for my
visit when I could make it. Meanwhile, I was to write to Dr.
Schweitzer, urging him to give favorable consideration to our project.

Several weeks later, a reply arrived from Lambarene. The Doctor
was most cordial and thanked me for my interest, but said that
he just did not have enough time to do anything about the manu-
scripts. He invited me to visit him at the Hospital when I felt free
to do so. A postscript referred to an editorial I had written some
time earlier, called "The Point about Schweitzer." In that editorial
I had differed with recent visitors to Lambarene who had com-
plained about the primitive aspects of the place. The point I tried
to make was that the Schweitzer symbol was more important than
modern facilities. Dr. Schweitzer's postscript said that he hoped to
justify the kind things I had written about him.

When Emory Ross returned from Africa several months later,
he brought back a report of cautious optimism. The Doctor didn't
seem to want to talk about his manuscripts at first. But Dr. Ross
managed to find him alone one afternoon and spoke to him fully
about the concerns of his friends. Dr. Schweitzer's response enabled
Emory Ross to come away with the feeling that the project now
had an even chance at least.

By this time, the surgical program of the Hiroshima Maidens
was well advanced. Nine of the girls had completed all their opera-
tions and would soon be ready to return to their families in Japan.
The others would probably be ready to return as a group in the
fall. My obligations were thinning out.

ONE DAY IN September, 1956, Mrs. Clara Urquhart, who had
been associated with Dr. Schweitzer for many years and who had
just come from Lambarene, visited the offices of the magazine.
She had much to relate about Schweitzer about his work and

manuscripts and, in general, about his state of mind. She had
been with the Doctor at the time he read my letter concerning his
books, and she had something to say in that connection.
"You must not be discouraged," she began.
Later, I was to discover that no five words were more charac-
teristic of Clara Urquhart than "y u must not be discouraged." She
never underestimated the difficult but never made the mistake,
either, of confusing the difficult with the impossible.

"You must not be discouraged," she said again, "just because the
Doctor said no' to you in his letter. He is so overburdened with
work at the Hospital that he almost automatically says 'no' to
anything that would make additional demands on his time. A
certain innate modesty often makes him seem negative. But I think
he really wants to complete his books."

"Has he done any work on them recently?"
"Very little, if at all. I've been after him for years about it."
"Can anything be done? Should anything be done?"
"Recently," she said, "he promised me he would do some work
on the manuscripts. He came to his room early in the afternoon
and began to write. I returned an hour later and peeked into the
room. The Doctor was no longer there. A breeze had blown some
of the sheets of the manuscripts off the desk. An antelope had
wandered into the room. Some of the sheets had been trampled
upon. I had no way of knowing whether any had been eaten.

"I gathered up the papers and smoothed them out. Right then,
I became determined to see this through.

"When the Doctor returned to the room I told him what had
happened. He shrugged. I said that even though he was reluctant
to finish the manuscripts, the least he could do was to attend to the
physical safety of his papers.

"Unlike previous occasions, when he brushed that kind of talk
aside, this time he said nothing. My guess is that he is about ready
to change his mind. I hope you will accept his invitation to come
to Lambarene. And so, if you want an accomplice in the project
to copy the manuscript, I'd like to volunteer."

You didn't have to be with Clara Urquhart very long to know that
this slight, dark woman possessed a rare combination of intensity
of feeling with calmness of manner. She knew how to establish
rapport in ten minutes that would take some people ten weeks.
Also, she had the art of absolute relevance. When she listened, you
had the feeling that all her energy was being mobilized in absorbing
every sound and capturing your total intent. And when she spoke,
she would address herself with precision to your questions or the
things that interested you and frequently to the thought behind
your questions.

She had brought with her some photographs she had taken at
Lambarene over the years. Many of them were being incorporated
in a book about Schweitzer shortly to be issued in London. Several
of the photographs were intimate portraits of Dr. Schweitzer. They
showed a face of vast power and purpose. It was lean and strong,
with lines associated with expressiveness and sensitivity rather than
with age. The eyes were set wide apart; they were like steel lanterns
in the rugged landscape of his face.

Other photographs were of the people associated with Schweitzer
at the Hospital. These were people I wanted to meet, and I
said so.

"When are you leaving for Lambarene?" Clara Urquhart asked.

I said I thought very soon.

THERE WAS YET another reason why I felt compelled to go to
Lambarene.

Ever since the end of the war, there had been one voice which
might have had a powerful effect on the biggest issue of the age,
but that voice was silent. I knew that Albert Schweitzer had delib-
erately avoided political issues in order to confine himself to the
fundamental and overriding moral questions of concern to the entire
human community. But such an overriding question now existed. It
was whether the conditions which made human life possible on this
planet could be maintained. The means now existed that could
alter or destroy those conditions.

Could anyone who was concerned about the problem of ethics
in modern man exempt himself from such a question? Albert
Schweitzer believed in the sacredness of man. Was there no moral
issue if man's genes were to be twisted, if the air he breathed was
to be fouled, if unborn generations were to be punished for his
present failures?

This crisis could not be easily met by the political leaders of the
nations. For the requirements of sovereignty too often came first.
The political leader was the spearhead of that total sovereignty, its
chief presiding officer. In order that the entire human grouping
be served, it would become necessary to create something higher
than the nation itself; indeed, it would be necessary to create the
means whereby the nation would find security through means other
than massive armaments or coalitions. And if something beyond
the nation had to be advocated, the national leaders might not be
the most logical spokesmen. A man like Albert Schweitzer might
enable people to see the need for fashioning allegiances to each
other as members of the human commonwealth. What man most
lacked was a consciousness of his relationship to other human beings.
He lacked adequate awareness of the gift of human life and what
was now required to preserve it. Alongside the real threat to life on
earth the razor-sharp distinctions he insisted on making between
himself and others now served as a dead weight for his hopes.

If I was wrong about the nature of the problem; if I was wrong
about the feeling I had that time did not work for us but against
us, then the man who could convince me of this was Albert
Schweitzer. But if Albert Schweitzer agreed that the problem was
real and universal, then it was important and proper for him to
speak. And if his reluctance to speak was the result of humility or
doubts as to whether his words would be heard, then I could at
least attempt to remove these doubts. I did not take lightly the
privilege of being in a position to try.

NOW THE REAL planning for the trip began. I had two more meet-
ings with Clara Urquhart before she left for London. She also

came out to the house at a picnic for the Hiroshima Maidens and
met my wife Ellen and the four girls.

At one of these meetings she had a long checklist of questions to
be asked and things to be done.

"How's your French?" she asked. "The Doctor does not speak
English though he reads it with little difficulty and understands
far more than he admits."

"My French is about the way you describe the Doctor's English."

"What about German?"

"Nil."

"You must not be discouraged," she said. "The Doctor is ac-
customed to communicating with English-speaking visitors through
an interpreter, in German."

When I asked who would do the interpreting, Clara Urquhart
said this was all part of the work of the "accomplice's" job that she
had volunteered to perform.

Her next question concerned our approximate date of departure.

I made some hasty calculations. The Hiroshima Maidens still in
the United States would be returning in October or November.
The busy season at the magazine tapered off just before Christmas.
That would mean that I might be able to get to Lambarene late
in December or early in January.

Mrs. Urquhart's plan was to leave for London and Rome to see
some friends, then to return to her home in Johannesburg for a
month. We could meet in Johannesburg, perhaps, she said, then go
to Lambarene. Meanwhile, she would write to Dr. Schweitzer to
say that we were definitely coming.

"You'd better make up your mind to stay for a full week or
more," she said. "The Doctor says that short visits make him nerv-
ous."

I agreed to stay for as long as was required to do the job.

"Now," she said, "comes the most important matter of all. You've
got to promise that you won't be disillusioned."

I smiled.

"You mean a hospital ward without bedsheets, lack of sanitation,

and all that sort of thing? 53 I said. "Please don't let it worry you;
I know all about it. It was this kind of argument that seemed to
me all along to miss the main point about Schweitzer."

"There's something more important than that," she replied. "I'm
talking about Schweitzer himself."

This startled me. "Why is there any danger that I or anyone
else would be disillusioned about Schweitzer?"

"Some people are. They come to Lambarene with an image of a
sort of sweet saintly St. Francis feeding the birds and they see instead
a driving man fighting the jungle and African lethargy and they do
not remain for a sufficiently long period to see or sense the goodness
and saintliness underneath. They go away feeling hurt and un-
happy."

I was touched by her concern but still puzzled. What was there
about Schweitzer that created "hurt and unhappy" feelings in
people? Whatever the answer, I couldn't guarantee Clara Urquhart
what my feelings would be after I met him.

"Of course not," she said. "I just want to be sure you'll stay
long enough to get over some first impressions that may not be so
favorable."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that those who do not know the Doctor will
think that his manner toward the indigene or black is unfeeling
and authoritarian.

"Such as the fact that his views seem to reflect little confidence
in the Africans to whom he has given his life. Schweitzer has deeper
and wider dimensions than anyone else I have met. If evaluated
from a superficial viewpoint the image is distorted. For better or for
worse Schweitzer is a patriarch. I remember saying to him that he
was an enlightened despot to which he replied: 'An enlightened
despot is able to give the greatest amount of freedom. 5

"If one fails to remember that his basic motivation is reverence
for life he might seem arbitrary in his dealings with those around
him. Just wait and observe for the first few days. 35

Three months later, I was on my way to Lambarene.

THE AIR CONNECTION from Brazzaville to Lambarene in
French Equatorial Africa was probably the most hazardous regularly
scheduled flight in the world. It was operated by Air France over
jungle mountain country. But the safety record of this particular
run was close to the top among the world's airlines.

The men who flew the DC-3 on these jungle hops had earned a
high reputation in the society of world airline pilots. The African
"airports" at which they stopped had no radio beams for guiding
planes through fog and rain, no light towers or signal beacons
flashing across the sky, no neon ground markers or flares, no paved
landing strips to pick out from the air just a clearing with a dirt
or grass strip. There were no sprawling cities to help a pilot get his
bearings, no air terminal buildings or anything approaching them;
generally, just a single small structure that served as an open
shelter. Jungle country tends to look pretty much alike when you
fly north from the Congo. Yet these airmen had a homing-pigeon
touch at the controls that was the talk of their trade.

While we were waiting at the Brazzaville airport for the an-
nouncement that our plane was ready, Clara Urquhart called out
to a tall, slender young man of about thirty who had just walked
into the terminal building. She identified him as Dr. Frank Catch-
pool, from the staff of the Schweitzer Hospital.

Dr. Gatchpool was obviously deeply pleased to see her. It devel-
oped that she had made the original arrangements with Dr.
Schweitzer for Dr. Catchpool to go to Lambarene. Frank Catchpool
was an English citizen and a Quaker who, like many others, had
been inspired by Dr. Schweitzer's example. When he first met
Clara in London, he inquired about the Hospital and his chances
for joining the staff. Clara wrote to Dr. Schweitzer and the matter
was arranged.

Now, at the Brazzaville airport, Clara was able to chat with him
for the first time since he had been at Lambarene. We learned that
he had been at the Hospital a little more than a month. He had
come to Brazzaville five days earlier, he said somewhat ruefully,
because of a little dog.

It all began about a week ago, he explained. One of the managers
of a nearby French lumber camp had brought his pet dog, breed
anonymous, to the hospital. The dog had been suffering for some
weeks with a persistent cough. Dr. Schweitzer's Hospital turns away
no patients, regardless of color, species, 01: previous condition of
servitude. And so the manager put his dog under Dr. Schweitzer's
care. The staff held a consultation; the consensus was that a bone
was stuck in his throat. There being no X-ray machines in oper-
ation at Lambarene, the diagnosis could not be confirmed. In
any event, it was decided to operate.

Dr. Catchpool, who had had some previous experience, volun-
teered to apply the anesthetic. He cautioned the other surgeons and
nurses about the astounding power in the sudden moves of even a
small animal at the time the anesthetic is applied.

His apprehensions were all too accurate. Just as the anesthetic
was applied to his mouth, the dog jerked free and bit Dr. Catch-
pool on the arm. A second attempt was successful, and the small
obstruction was removed.

That evening, Dr. Catchpool's arm began to swell and showed
discoloration. There being no antirabies serum at the Hospital,
Dr. Schweitzer ordered both Dr. Catchpool and the dog to depart
immediately for the hospital at Brazzaville, the former to receive

antirabies injections, the latter to be put under observation. And
now, four days later, both patients were returning to Lambarene,
the doctor having had his shots, and the dog having developed
no symptoms of rabies. The dog was now in a crate which was
already checked in and waiting to be loaded.

"I wish I could say I didn't feel pretty silly about this whole
business," Dr. Catchpool said. "Dr. Schweitzer must have a rather
poor opinion of me for having allowed myself to get into this mess.
Here I am at the Hospital only a few weeks and I get immobilized
by a little dog."

Clara said she was certain that Dr. Schweitzer had only the most
sympathetic understanding of the situation.

"That brings up something else," he said. "I'm afraid I don't
know where I stand with the Doctor. We've hardly spoken, except
for the most routine things. I haven't wanted to go directly to him
and tell him about the kind of work I'd like to do at the Hospital
or to discuss other things on my mind. I just haven't got the heart
to take up a moment of his time.

"You sound discouraged; you mustn't be," Clara said. "You
recall that I asked you not to form any judgments until you had
been there at least a month. Give yourself a little more time. Many
of the things that are troubling you now will fall into place. What
kind of work have you been doing at the Hospital?"

Dr. Catchpool grinned.

"I'm the chief electrician and engineer," he said. "I diagnose
faulty wiring and operate on sluggish generators."

"I'm sure what you are doing is most essential," Clara said. "Be-
sides, if I may say so, some of this at least is your own fault. You
insisted that I say nothing to the Doctor about your excellence as
a physician or your very high recommendations. The Doctor is
disposed to take people at their own evaluation of themselves. And
I'm sure that when you got to Lambarene, you persisted in under-
rating yourself. But you must not be discouraged. Your chance will
come."

An attendant came over to announce that our plane was ready.

Dr. Catchpool went off to look after the dog. Clara and I collected
our hand luggage and boarded the plane. A moment later Dr. Catch-
pool joined us.

The air distance between Brazzaville and Lambarene is perhaps
no more than four hundred miles on a straight line. But the planes
fly a zigzag route in order to cover the various jungle air stations
en route to Lambarene. The flight therefore generally requires from
five to six hours. I memorized the colorful names of the jungle
towns at which we stopped so I could tell Ellen and the girls about
them when I returned names like Djambala, Mayumba, Tchi-
banga, Mouila.

At each stop, curious children from surrounding villages would
gather near the open shelter close to the landing strip. They would
cluster together and stare with open-eyed wonder at the gleaming
steel bird. At Tchibanga two children at the edge of the crowd
were having a short game of catch with a rubber ball. I walked
toward them and made the kind of throwing motion that indicated
I wanted to be invited to join in. One of them tossed me the ball.
I threw it back, then he smiled broadly and put some muscle into
his next pitch.

I looked at the other children. They seemed astonished to observe
a white man obviously enjoying himself in a game with black
children. Then, suddenly, a clamor went up as at least fifty young-
sters called out to join the fun. I would toss the ball into a sea
of waving arms and out it would come again. One boy, about
twelve or thirteen, sprang high in the air and caught the ball with
one hand. Then he ran off at a distance of about forty yards so
that he could show me how far he could throw. This in turn set
up a cry from at least a dozen others who wanted to do the same.
Almost before I knew it, children were streaking all over the
airport clearing. It made me think of one of those bull-fighting festi-
vals when the spectators come swarming down into the arena to try
their luck with the brave bulls.

The two African policemen stationed at the field seemed agree-
able enough when the game of catch had started innocently a few

minutes earlier. But now the point of diminishing returns in their
good will was just being reached. I beckoned to the youngsters
that the game was over, handed the ball to its young owner, and
thanked him.

Then I opened my camera and asked my ball-playing companion
for the privilege of his photograph. Instead of ending the clamor,
this merely set a new stage for it. In a matter of seconds, the crowd
closed in on me and pinned me to the spot as each child called
out for his right to be photographed.

All this while, Clara and Dr. Catchpool stood on the far side
of the crowd, close to the plane. They were enjoying themselves
hugely. Clara's expression as much as said : "You got yourself into
it; now get yourself out of it."

Finally, the two African policemen made it clear to the youngsters
that the big steel bird was ready to go into the sky again, and they
helped to detach me from their midst. I doubt whether I shall ever
forget the high-pitched deafening yells of "au revoir* 3 and the wildly
waving arms of the children as I boarded the plane.

"I hope you noticed how the children drew back at first when you
approached but how quickly they responded when they saw that
you wanted to make friends, 53 Clara said after the plane had leveled
off in flight.

It was, I agreed, very striking.

"You will find that this same thing is true of Africans of all
ages almost everywhere on the continent," she said. "There is that
initial hesitation. They are not sure what you want or intend to do.
They are conditioned to react almost chemically against a white
skin. But once you make it clear that you approach them as friends,
the response is warm and hearty, almost overwhelming."

She paused, and her words seemed to hang in the air for a mo-
ment.

"Let me amend that a bit," she said. "I suddenly realize that this
is the kind of observation I would have made almost automatically
only a few years ago. But it is no longer true; at least, not to the
same extent."

"No longer true in what way?" I asked,

"Things are changing in Africa, very fast/' she said. "So fast that
it becomes necessary to check one's ideas and reactions now and
then just to make sure they are up to date. I am not sure that it
is as easy now for a friendly white person to gain the good will
and confidence of the Africans as it was only a short time ago.

"The atmosphere has changed. It's more tense. The color lines
are hardening. More and more Africans are getting caught up in
the nationalist movements. Just as many white people have a
tendency to make generalizations about the characters and abilities
of the blacks, so there is now a tendency by the blacks to make
blanket generalizations about all whites. The feeling is growing that
all whites are to be feared and opposed. And a white is identified
as anyone who stands or appears to stand in the way of their
eventual control of their nation.

"But even here, I've got to be careful not to overstate," she con-
tinued. "I don't want you to think that Africans don't smile any
more or won't be friendly. Of course they will. What I'm trying
to do is give you some idea that those of us who have lived in
Africa a long time are aware of a tightening in the air. It's like a
far-off storm. You continue to do everything you usually do in
good weather but there's that uneasy feeling in the back of your
mind that you'd better get ready for a sharp change."

AS SHE SPOKE I thought back to my experience involving those
"uneasy" feelings a few days earlier in Johannesburg.

In planning my trip to Lambarene, it had seemed foolish to
travel that far without seeing even a little of the Union of South
Africa. For distance, these days, is measured not by miles but by
hours. And hours are translated into air units. A nonstop air hop
is regarded as one unit. For example, in 1956 before the large-
scale use of jets New York to San Francisco took seven to eight
hours but was nonstop and therefore one unit. New York to Paris
was nonstop and one air unit (ten hours, flying East). Johannes-
burg to Brazzaville was one air unit (six hours).

". . . Suddenly, a clamor went up as at least fifty youngsters called out to join the fun. I
would toss the ball into a sea of waving arms and out it would come again."

Arrival at Tchibanga: A white man out of the sky can be a frightening experience.

With only one unit separating me from South Africa, the decision
to make the additional stop was almost automatic. In this I had the
encouragement of Alan Paton who, on his visit to New York some
weeks earlier, said that even a brief visit would be well worth the
journey. The trials of more than a hundred South Africans under
the new, extreme "treason" laws were coming up in Johannesburg
and this was a good time to see history in the making.

Clara, who had lived most of her life in Johannesburg, arranged
an intensive schedule. I was to meet people who were intimately
involved in the problems of the Union. This would include persons
of varying political opinions and backgrounds all the way from
owners of large gold mines to African writers and nationalist
leaders.

One of the persons Clara was especially eager to have me meet
was Henry Nxumalo, one of Africa's leading journalists. His writ-
ings appeared regularly in Drum, a monthly magazine, and in The
Golden City Post, a newspaper, of which he was news editor. Drum
was written by Africans and claimed the largest circulation of any
non-European magazine on the continent.

Several people referred to the fact that Nxumalo was presently
writing a book on South Africa for an American publisher. His
growing importance, I was told, was largely the result of his crusad-
ing articles. Everyone I met who knew him said he was one of the
soundest and most courageous among African observers. His achieve-
ments in journalism were prominently described in the book Drum
by its former editor, Anthony Sampson.*

Consequently, I looked forward to meeting him at dinner the
first night of my visit in Johannesburg.

Nxumalo didn't come to dinner. He had been murdered earlier
in the day.

Right then, I learned one of the main facts about life in the
Union of South Africa. I learned that there are two worlds. One is
the world of graciousness, spaciousness, and infinite natural beauty

* Published in London by Collins (1956) and in the United States by Hough-
ton Mifflin (1957).

and color, heightened in its loveliness by crisp air and sparkling
sun. Then there is the other world, made entirely by people. It is
taut, harsh, violent. The charming villas by day become places to be
closely guarded at night. When two men approach each other after
dark, each is apprehensive about the color of the other. Thus,
passing a person on the street at night takes on the aspects of
an encounter. For when the sun goes down the coolness seems to
enter the human soul and the mood of the land hardens.

I knew I could never begin to understand South Africa unless I
could understand the nature of this change, unless I could compre-
hend the proximity of the loveliness to the terror, and the interrela-
tionship between the two. Perhaps if I could find out about Henry
Nxumalo why he wrote as he did, why he was feared and why
he was murdered I might learn a little about the two worlds.

The newspaper obituaries established that Henry Nxumalo,
thirty-nine, lived with his wife and five children in the "location"
called Orlando, some miles outside Johannesburg. (Africans are
not permitted to live in the city itself; they live in "locations"
most of which are slum areas consisting of old huts and shacks and
some of which are new housing developments with their well-built
though fairly small homes. Orlando was one of the earliest of such
developments. )

Nxumalo was born in Port Shepstone, on the East Coast near
Durban. He came from a Zulu family. Both his parents died while
he was a boy. Henry's first job was as a kitchen boy in Durban.
Like thousands of Africans, he found himself lured to the big city,
Johannesburg; and he became part of a giant paradox. Once having
left the way of life of the village or the small town, the Africans
who come to Johannesburg seldom want to return. They resent
the white man's world not because they are forced to stay but
because they are not fully accepted. What they seek is not freedom
to return to the village but freedom to live decently and honorably
in the city.

Henry Nxumalo came to Johannesburg as a youth and worked in
a boilermaker's shop. After hours he wrote poetry, which he sent

to the magazine, Bantu World, and much of which was published.
This led to a job as messenger for the Bant u World, of which he later
became sports editor. He enlisted during the war and became a ser-
geant. This brought him to North Africa. At the end of the war he
went to London. When he returned to Johannesburg, he resumed
his writing for the Bantu World. In 1948 he married a nurse. In
1951 he joined the staff of a new magazine called Drum. The same
publishing house also put out The Golden City Post, of which he
became news editor.

His exploits on Drum and, to a lesser extent, in The Golden City
Post, made him perhaps the best-known non-European journalist
in South Africa.

Why was he murdered?

The facts of the killing were elusive. The body had been found
on the dirt sidewalk of a crowded location. Heavy footmarks
indicated a struggle. Several persons apparently had been involved.
A trail of blood showed that Nxumalo had crawled more than
fifty feet from the scene of the attack before he died. Robbery did
not appear to be a motive for the killing; his valuables were un-
touched. The police had no theories.

Most of Nxumalo's friends were reluctant to talk; they looked
away and said nothing. I spoke to a leader in the YMCA who had
known Henry Nxumalo as a boy. He said that from the beginning
of their acquaintance Henry had talked about wanting to be a
journalist.

"He came to see me after he got the job on Drum and told me
the kind of thing he wanted to do. He wanted to expose the brutal
conditions of the jails. He wanted to write about forced labor on
the farms. He was not a revolutionary. He believed that many
white people who were in a position to effect basic reforms really
knew very little about what was happening. And he had confidence
in his ability to reach their consciences with documented facts."

I learned that after Nxumalo started his series of articles under
the byline "Mr. Drum" he began to get threats of various sorts.
But not until now had any of them materialized. At that, no one

"... Before I left, Mrs. Nxu-
malo handed me some photo-
graphs of her husband that had
turned up while she was looking
through his papers. They showed
a young man with a strong, alert
face. He was sitting at his type-
writer."

Henry Nxumalo at home with
his three children. The Nxumalo
family had only recently moved
into their house in the new
Orlando "location" when this
photograph was taken.

could say that any of these threatening letters had been received
recently. Two close friends, however, mumbled their suspicion that
it had been a political killing but would say nothing further.

I paid a visit to the publication offices of Drum. It was located
just off one of the main streets in the heart of Johannesburg.
Drum's reportorial staff was African, though the editor, Sylvester
Stein, was white.

The arrangement of the office and the general atmosphere were
more suggestive of a daily newspaper than that of a monthly maga-
zine. I chatted with several men on the staff. They spoke freely
about Nxumalo and his contempt for danger. They spoke, too,
about his heartiness, his ready sense of humor, his joy of living.

"Despite everything that man went through, and it was quite a
bit," said Zeke Mphahlele, himself one of the leading African
writers, "Henry never became embittered. That's the most im-
portant thing for any writer, not to become embittered. Bitterness
enters the eyes and keeps you from seeing the full story. It turns
you away from the people you have to reach. All of us here envied
Henry because he wasn't bitter. But we never knew how he man-
aged it."

I met William Modisane, the music critic on the staff, who had
been with Nxumalo only a short time before the murder. Mr.
Modisane spoke about Nxumalo 3 s part in building up the circula-
tion of Drum until it became the biggest magazine by Africans for
Africans on the continent. He told of the time Nxumalo committed
a minor law violation in order to be put in jail, served his sentence,
and then wrote about the actual conditions. There were official
denials, but the reforms he called for came about.

Then there was the time that Nxumalo, disguised as a laborer,
got a job on a farm in Bethal. He had heard that prisoners were
being sent to Bethal in what amounted to forced labor. At Bethal
Nxumalo was beaten up along with the prisoners. He worked
alongside young men, not prisoners, who had been "recruited" on
the understanding that they would be taken to an entirely different
place but were shipped to Bethal and deprived of the right to leave.

The legal pretext for keeping them was that they had "held the
pen." It is not necessary for Africans to sign their names to labor
contracts. If they "hold the pen" over the contract, witnessed by a
white man, the contract is considered to be binding.

The big need in South Africa is for human labor, and intensive
efforts are made to recruit the Africans from the villages. Nxumalo
was concerned both about the dishonesty of the recruiting and the
dreadful conditions under which the men worked and from which
there was no legal recourse. He escaped from Bethal, and presented
the documentary evidence of what had happened. A large part of
the continent was stunned by the disclosures and, once again, there
were denials; but the basic reforms were made just the same.

Mr. Mphahlele and Mr. Modisane offered to take me to see
various parts of Johannesburg that were indispensable for any
understanding of the place. But first, I wanted to talk to Drum's
editor, Sylvester Stein.

They brought me to Mr. Stein's office. Mr. Stein is a "European/ 5
as all white men, regardless of their geographical origin, are desig-
nated. I judged him to be about thirty-six. He was in the middle of
a magazine deadline situation not unfamiliar to me. I watched
sympathetically as he worked quickly to keep the production ma-
chinery moving. I could see that he knew his business.

Then, the copy cleared from his desk, Stein sat back and talked
fully and openly. No, he didn't think the government had engi-
neered the killing or was implicated in any way. Whatever Drum's
political and social differences with the government and they were
substantial he didn't feel that it would sanction murder as a
technique for disposing of troublesome people.

"Things may be bad," he said, "but we're not dealing here
exactly with a Hitler-type government. The Union is up to its neck
in social injustices and problems, but it would be a serious mistake
to confuse this government with the kind of dictator state that
existed in Germany or Italy before the war or that exists under
communism today. Exactly why Nxumalo was killed, I don't know.
But you can be sure we're going to try to find out."

Stein went on to talk about Nxumalo's work for Drum and how,
by exposing brutality and callousness, he had helped to effect im-
portant reforms. There was still some responsiveness to honest and
dramatic fact-finding in the community at large. The executive and
legislative branches of the government were responsible for the
apartheid repressive legislation and restrictions. But a large part of
the judiciary was still rigorously honest. And there was a consider-
able section of the white population which, even though it might
go along with apartheid in general, balked about some of the
specific aspects of apartheid in practice.

This was one of the many complexities that one came to recog-
nize and respect in South Africa. Despite the iron will of the gov-
ernment about apartheid) the old forms of parliamentary govern-
ment and judicial machinery were in large part preserved. This
seemed at odds with the practices of the other branches of govern-
ment, but you accepted it as part of the puzzle. Nor was the grand
picture simplified by the sharp divisions among the whites es-
pecially between the English and the Afrikanders (Dutch) , with the
latter now enjoying a preponderance in government. And even
among the blacks, there were factions and frictions that not infre-
quently resulted in violence. This, too, was something that had to
be taken into account before accepting or making any generaliza-
tions about the situation in South Africa.

Sylvester Stein's business was to deal with this complexity. It
wasn't easy; the white world couldn't quite make up its mind about
him because of his connection with the blacks. And the black
world couldn't accept him all the way because he always had the
privilege of retreating to the world which shut them out.

Stein's predecessor, Anthony Sampson, also white, had written
about this predicament in his book.

"I could never explain [to whites]," he wrote, "that Drum was a
job, and our readers were human like anyone else. I saw white
people eyeing me as a crank; and I began to feel a crank. Probably
I ostracized myself more than they ostracized me. In white society,
I began to feel a slight chip on my shoulder.

"And as I penetrated farther into the world of the Africans, I
found myself caught between the two camps of black and white.
The contrast, from a cocktail party in the northern white suburbs
to a drinking den in the southern black locations, was absurd . . .

"The contrast was stimulating. I saw one world in terms of the
other, always slightly aloof: black against white and white against
black."

Stein, like Sampson, had to cut across the barrier of apartheid
constantly just in order to do his job. "At every turning are the
signs 'Slegs vir Blankes (For Whites Only), 3 c Nie Blankes (Non-
Whites),' sorting the two races like an infallible machine, and
sending them separate ways."

Once, Anthony Sampson and Henry Nxumalo stopped near a
sign along the road reading "Natives Cross Here." Nxumalo turned
to Sampson. "That sign is incomplete," he said. "It should read:
'Natives Very Cross Here.' "

Apartheid was more than a wall of color separation. It was a
declaration of white ownership and control. It meant that the
Africans, who constituted 90 per cent of the population, were
limited to ownership of 15 per cent of the land. It meant that
Johannesburg was out of bounds to blacks except for daytime
working purposes. In order to commute to work from the locations,
the Africans often had to spend four or five hours a day, much of
it waiting for buses.

Apartheid meant a license just to live. An African needed a
license to identify himself. He needed a license to work. He needed
a license to be out of work. A passbook sometimes contained as
many as six or seven separate items, each of which had to be
countersigned regularly and kept up to date. Irregularities in pass-
books indeed, just leaving a passbook at home could mean a
prison sentence. It was in this way that Henry Nxumalo got him-
self arrested in order that he could write about the wretched
conditions at the local prisons.

"I could never forget about apartheid''' Sampson wrote. "It cut
across nearly everything I tried to do. It made the job of a white

editor on a black paper awkward. I could never travel with Henry
in the same train, taxi, bus, or lift. We could not be together in a
restaurant, a bar, a theatre, or a park . . .

"Even in the contents of the magazine, apartheid intervened. We
were ticked off for showing a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt shaking
hands with Mrs. Edith Sampson, a Negro woman. We could not
print photographs of a black boxer pummeling a white boxer.
Mixed boxing is forbidden in South Africa, and photographs of
mixed fights were frequently held up by the South Africans as
constituting 'incitement.' "

Sampson had also written about the time that Nxumalo saw a
white woman fall down in the street.

"I was just going up to help her," Nxumalo told Sampson, "and
then I stopped and thought: what will the whites think? They'll
think Fin trying to rape her. If I pick her up it means I'll actually
have to touch her. A native touching a European woman ! Oooh !
Terrible! I couldn't risk it, so I walked on."

Ironically, it was the fearful reluctance of the Africans to become
involved in difficult situations that may have cost Henry Nxumalo
his life.

For his body lay on the sidewalk five hours before the police
were summoned. It is possible that he bled to death during that
time. Across the street was a hospital.

If Henry Nxumalo's own doubts about helping a fallen woman
seem unjustified, it may be helpful to consider a statement made
by Alan Paton, who for millions of white people around the world
has served as their conscience in South Africa. Paton was speaking
at a public meeting about both the ostracism and physical danger
involved in direct contact with Africans under the existing strained
circumstances.

"Who is there who would not hesitate to come to the aid of an
African who stumbled in the street?" he asked. "And if you say
that no one would hesitate, I must tell you that there is at least
one, and he is speaking to you from this platform now."

In talking to Sylvester Stein, I learned that when he took over

the editor's job from Sampson he was to go through the same
personal difficulties and challenges and also the same rewards.
Things happened as the result of articles such as Nxumalo liked
to write. And the magazine continued to grow. I had a strong
respect for the problems involved in building a magazine; but I
knew that such difficulties as I had experienced were minor along-
side the challenges that faced Anthony Sampson and Sylvester Stein.
And when the evidence came that the magazine was hitting its
mark, the satisfaction was bound to be rich indeed.

"Yes, 53 Sylvester Stein said, "I can't think of a more varied or
exciting job than this. But every once in a while the ceiling falls
in on you. That's the way I felt yesterday when I heard that Henry
had been murdered."

I thanked Mr. Stein for his time, then rejoined Zeke Mphahlele
and Bill Modisane. Zeke took the wheel of an old Chevrolet and
we started on our tour. Our first stop was a narrow shopping lane
which served as the supply headquarters for fetishers, or witch
doctors. Store after -store offered an endless variety of goods that
are part of the witch doctor's trade masks, ceremonial objects,
magic devices, herbs, potions, processed foods.

"Just how important is the witch doctor in a place like Johan-
nesburg?" I asked my escorts.

"Not as important as he used to be, but still a surprisingly large
factor in the lives of the people, 3 ' Zeke said. "Many non-Europeans
still go to them when they are ill and sometimes when they aren't
ill.' 3

The gap between the Africans who went to fetishers and those
who didn't was a wide one, I was told. But the conflicting opinions
held about fetishers were not the only major point of separation
within the African community.

"An educated African has a hard time inside many of the loca-
tions," Bill said. "He is resented by his fellow Africans because of his
knowledge and because he is believed to have an advantage over
most of the other non-European people. The same would apply to
any well-dressed African. And by well-dressed I mean any man who

wears a tie. According to this standard, it is generally easy to pick
out an educated African, for they are better dressed than the others.
It is not unusual for educated Africans to be beaten up."

I asked whether it was possible that this was what had happened
to Henry Nxumalo.

It was possible, they agreed, that it could have been something
as simple as a random act of violence directed against a black
man with a tie. But in Nxumalo's case, there were too many other
factors to be taken into account. He took too many chances in
the things he wrote about. Nor were his crusades limited to abuses
by whites against blacks. Violence by black against black deeply
concerned him.

"Henry was opposed to the gangs and everything about them,"
Zeke said. "He hated to see young boys drawn into these different
gangs, each with its own names and dress and habits. One particu-
larly strong gang is known as the Russians. There is no political sig-
nificance to the name. They just happened to fasten onto the name;
another is called the Berliners; and another the Americans, etc.
The Russians like to walk around wearing brightly colored blankets.
The Americans like to affect zoot suits.

"It makes no sense, but that is the way it is. And each gang
makes its own laws. No one informs on crimes committed by fellow
members of the gang at least, not if he expects to stay healthy.
Most of the gangs are tough, especially the Russians. They carry
small arms, generally long switch knives."

The favorite reading of many gang members, I learned, was the
American terror comics. And the favorite entertainment was the
American gangster film. We were not without influence in that
part of the world.

Then Nxumalo might have been a victim of one of the gangs,
I asked.

Yes, it was possible; in fact, anything was possible, they said.
But, once again, no one knew enough to be sure.

We were now passing through one of the locations where the
"Russians" lived. I observed a group of ten or twelve young men

wearing somewhat faded blankets in cape style. Zeke identified
them and said it would be a good idea to stay away from this place
after dark.

Soon we were in the famous black location or quarter known as
Sophiatown. Many novels written about South Africa had their
central settings here. Sophiatown was the largest of the locations.
But it was now being closed down. Few reasons were given pub-
licly. It was believed by some that the government felt Sophia-
town was too close to Johannesburg, too likely to become the center
from which mass violence against the whites might spring. Others
believed that the government was genuinely concerned about the
squalor and wanted to resettle the "natives 55 in the new housing
developments that were now being built far outside the city.

In any event, the decision to condemn Sophiatown had been
strongly resisted by the people who had to move. But the govern-
ment was proceeding with its plan. Much of Sophiatown would be
torn down, rebuilt, and opened up for settlement by whites.

Zeke discussed the situation in a matter-of-fact way. There was
no bitterness in his voice.

I recalled what he had said earlier about Henry Nxumalo's ability
to think and write without bitterness; and I told Zeke he had no
reason to be envious, for it seemed to me that he had succeeded
in that respect.

"I try," he said. "I try very hard. I am now writing a novel.
Some chapters I have had to write over and over again, maybe as
many as six times, because I am afraid that they sound as though
they were written by a sour old man. There's so much around you
that's hard to swallow that you've got to fight with yourself to get
it down and keep it down."

We arrived at Bill Modisane's home. It fronted on a small court-
yard. Some poorly dressed elderly people sat on the narrow stoop.
They watched with faint amusement as a toddling infant tried to
embrace a dog.

Bill invited me into his quarters. It was a single room made to
serve all the purposes of a small family. Mrs. Modisane was not

home at the moment. The room was about twelve by ten. It con-
tained a large day bed, table, electric refrigerator, small stove,
several chairs, and a bookcase. There wasn't much open wall space
but it was adorned with several attractive modern paintings. What
could have been a dingy cluttered thimble of a room had been
neatly and imaginatively decorated.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill Modisane was a music critic. Noticing
a small phonograph player, I asked Bill about his recordings. He
said he didn't have much of a collection but he was hopeful that,
circumstances permitting, he might be able to build it up and per-
haps even obtain a high fidelity playing unit.

He served some refreshments. Africans by law are not permitted
to possess or serve alcoholic drinks under penalty of arrest. On
occasions the law is observed, more the result of economic limita-
tions than determination to comply. The law, of course, does not
apply to whites.

Bill discussed his hope that some day he might be able to bring
his family to Canada or the United States. He was hopeful that
he could get a job on a newspaper as reporter or music critic. He
also wanted to study.

It was now late in the afternoon and I was due back in Johannes-
burg for dinner. We drove back under a deepening sky. The colors
of the landscape responded to the warm orange of the western
horizon. Man-made mountains of slag heaps from the gold mines,
as characteristic of Johannesburg as skyscrapers are of New York,
took on the color of gold itself. But the gold mines were also the
center of many of the most deep-seated economic and racial
problems of the country. Once again, I could reflect on the contrast
of the beauty and the squalor, and the incestuous relationship that
almost seemed to exist between the two.

When we came into Johannesburg, I saw long lines of Africans
stretching almost endlessly. There was one large open area where
the line wound in and out and around and was so long that I found
it difficult to see the end of it. In some places the line would swell
out until it was six or seven people thick.

The people were waiting for the buses to take them home. Some-
times they would have to wait two or three hours. The trip itself
might take an hour. Allowing the same amount of time to get
in to work early in the morning, Africans sometimes had to spend
many hours or more each day coping with the ordeal of transport,
And when the bus company announced an increase in the fares,
it touched off a series of riots.

Africans are not agreed among themselves about the methods to
be used in combating inadequate bus service or the fare increase.
When a movement for a boycott against the bus lines developed in
the Evaton location, thirty miles from Johannesburg, it was opposed
by a large number of people. The boycott went into effect. On the
next day, a clash took place involving about four thousand people
armed with sticks and clubs. The boycotters were in the majority
by a ratio of three to one. Two persons were killed. No one bothered
to count the injured. Eight houses were wrecked. Not much atten-
tion was paid to it in the outside world, but a number of whites
spent hours each day ferrying the Africans to and from their homes.
The significance of these acts was not lost upon the black com-
munity.

Henry Nxumalo was especially concerned about the fact that it
was illegal to engage in organized protest. The government had de-
clared the protest activities were acts of communism which were
outlawed under the Suppression of Communism Act.

I asked my escorts whether this didn't mean that anyone who
tried to get people interested in working together to bring about
essential reform even though the problems involved were of a
non-political nature could be brought to trial as a Communist.

This was exactly it, they said. The government had charged one
hundred and fifty-three people with treason under the Suppression
of Communism Act. No one knew exactly what the charges were,
but no one expected that the government would attempt to prove
that the accused were members of the Communist party. If incite-
ment to protest could be proved, then it was tantamount to com-
munism, and communism was treason.

J- -^

Johannesburg bus stop. "Africans sometimes had to spend many hours or more each day
coping with the ordeal of transport. And when the bus company announced an increase in
the faresj it touched off a series of riots."

"We drove out along the 'Main Reef,' as Johannesburg's principal artery is called. We passed
some of the largest gold mines and electric power stations, their mammoth vase-shaped
water-pressure towers standing like giant sentries over the rolling countryside."

Some of the most distinguished Africans were now involved in
the trials. Only a week earlier, preliminary hearings had been held.
And now the entire nation held its breath, wondering what would
happen next.

Once before, the government had been successful, through severe
measures, in throttling a movement which challenged the ideas
underlying apartheid. Manilal Gandhi in 1953 had attempted to
organize a passive resistance movement along the lines made famous
by his father in India. But the government used the jails and the
lash with such resolute effect that the movement collapsed.

Bill Modisane and Zeke Mphahlele dropped me off at the private
residence where I was staying in Johannesburg. I thanked them
and told them of my desire to keep in touch with them. I knew
that nothing would have pleased me more, on my return to the
States, than to be able to help Bill Modisane to find a newspaper
job in Canada or the United States, and to try to find a publisher
for Zeke Mphahlele's new book.

That evening, after dinner, when we discussed the plans for the
next day, I asked Clara whether it would be in order for me to pay
my respects to Henry Nxumalo's widow. She said she was certain
Mrs. Nxumalo would welcome my call. There were, however, some
technicalities. Whites were not allowed to visit African locations
without specific government authorization.

Clara said she would arrange with Dr. Ellen Hellman, a "Euro-
pean" and a distinguished anthropologist, to take me out to
Orlando. Dr. Hellman, like Anthony Sampson and Sylvester Stein,
moved in and out of both worlds in Johannesburg in the pursuit
of her work and concerns. She had helped to organize and main-
tain joint councils for improving conditions between black and
white. When prominent Africans got into trouble with the govern-
ment for one reason or another, they could turn to her for advice.
Her prestige and influence were considerable. She had helped to
arrange bail for many of the accused in the treason trials.

Dr. Hellman picked me up in the morning. Our first stop was
the old post office building where Dr. Hellman obtained the pass

for the locations without difficulty. We then drove out along the
"Main Reef" as Johannesburg's principal artery is called. We
passed some of the largest gold mines and electric power stations,
their mammoth water-pressure vase-shaped towers standing like
giant sentries over the rolling countryside. The gold mines were
having their troubles; prices had not kept pace with the inflationary
spiral, and salaries were low.

The vast majority of the Africans who work in the gold mines
are migrant laborers. They live in compounds furnished by the
mines and usually patronize company stores. Food is furnished by
the mine companies. The diet is well rounded and high in protein
value, unlike the average diet of most Africans. The physical con-
dition of the men who work in the mines is considered good.

Most of the migrant mine workers are signed up by recruiting
agents for a minimum of a year. The big lure is city life and a
chance to accumulate a modest amount of capital, something that
is rare in village life.

At the time the young married males of the village "hold the
pen" over the contracts to work in the mines, no doubt there is
every intention to return to their wives and children at the end of
their service. But it doesn't always work out that way. Some get
caught up in city life or become involved in new domestic situations
and never go back. The result is a permanent disruption in the
home lives of thousands of families in the villages.

On the way out to Orlando we passed several of the older loca-
tions vast sprawling collections of shacks and crowded alleys that
lay on the land like a giant fungus. But we also passed new locations
for Africans that were reminiscent of the Levittown type of housing
development in the United States. The houses were small and
repeated themselves endlessly, but they were neat, attractive, and
sturdy. Rent was modest and convenient terms had been worked out
for purchase by the tenants.

Some of these new developments near Johannesburg were spurred
into being by the leadership of Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the widely
respected philanthropist and civic leader. Sir Ernest had made per-

On Sundays, the mine workers who belonged to different tribes would put on their dances
before large crowds of visitors. The musical instruments were almost exclusively percussion
and were home-made.

sonal contributions of millions of dollars to help get the housing
projects started.

I asked Dr. Hellman whether we might stop and visit with some
of the people who had just moved into a new house. She agreed;
we stopped outside a home that couldn't have been completed more
than a few weeks earlier. She went in first to explain the situation
and find out if we would be welcome. I entered the home of a man
who turned out to be a coal dealer. The rooms were small but
pleasant. There was a good balance between window and wall
space. There were four rooms, altogether, including the kitchen. I
was impressed with the paintings in at least two of the rooms. The
people couldn't have been more cordial or responsive.

We resumed our journey. At Orlando, we were delayed momen-
tarily by the system of numbering houses not according to street
but according to a general area. In any event, we found the
Nxumalo home. Several people were standing outside. Three young-
sters who turned out to be his children were sitting on the stoop.
We introduced ourselves and learned that Mrs. Nxumalo had been
called to the police station in connection with the killing. Henry
Nxumalo' s brother suggested that we wait. Then he said that every-
one in the family was still completely mystified by what had hap-
pened. There had been some threats but Henry had convinced
everyone that they were not to be taken seriously.

After about half an hour, Mrs. Nxumalo returned. She was a
gracious, attractive young woman and she carried her grief with
great dignity. After we were introduced she said the police had
nothing new to report. They had asked her some routine questions
which she had answered to the best of her ability.

I told Mrs. Nxumalo that I had heard that Henry had been
writing a manuscript about South Africa for an American pub-
lisher. She replied that so far as she knew, the book was almost
finished. She had the impression that her husband had asked some-
one a week or so earlier to read it, and she had no way of knowing
whether the manuscript had been returned. In any event, she said
she would be glad to look for it in the study.

Very methodically, starting with the top of a heavily cluttered
table that had all the signs of being used for intensive research
purposes, she began her search for the manuscript. While she was
thus engaged, I glanced at some of the titles of books on the adjoin-
ing shelves many of them having to do with literary criticism or
collections of essays on writing. Among the authors represented
were Somerset Maugham, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Morgan, Des-
mond MacCarthy, Cyril Connolly, John Dos Passos, John Stein-
beck, Ruskin, and Proust. There were also a few books about
writing for radio and television.

In the corner of the table was Henry Nxumalo's typewriter. In
it was a sheet of copy paper on which he had started to write a
story. In the upper right-hand corner were the identifying initials
"nx"; in the center the slug line for the story "pass" and the
number of the page. There were just a half-dozen lines before he
broke off:

Last month a "Post" reporter was robbed of his pass in a Johannes-
burg township. He made a report to the police. But since then he has
been arrested twice and paid a total of 2 in fines before he was
issued with a duplicate pass. He got his new pass after weeks of going
from one office to another weeks of hardship, sweat, frayed tempers
and wasted time, and it cost him 12/ .

When I read this I remembered something Bill Modisane had
told me when he showed me his own passbook.

"If you want the story of hell, it's written right in this book.
You see a policeman and instinctively you reach in your back pocket
to make sure your passbook is there. When you're in a crowd you
keep your hand pressed against it lest it be stolen. Sometimes, in the
morning, you change your clothes and rush out of the house in
too much of a hurry. Then after you arrive at your job you reach
in your back pocket and you discover you left the book at home.
And all day long you wonder whether you are going to make it,
whether you are going to be able to get home that night. When
you see a policeman you are so terrified you hardly know what to do.

"A curious thing, this dread we have of the police. I suppose in
your country when you see a cop you feel reassured. In the U.S., if
you are walking through a bad neighborhood at night and you see a
policeman, a great deal of the fear goes out of the dark.

"But here the policeman is not the image of security and reas-
surance to us. If we are in trouble, the last thing we think of is the
police. We look at a policeman and say, 'My God, I wonder if I'm
going to be stopped. I wonder if I've got my passbook with me. 3

"It's no fun being arrested and being put in jail for a passbook
violation, not even under the reforms that have been put in as the
result of the articles Henry wrote during his brief term in prison for
being without his passbook."

It was ironic that the last thing Henry Nxumalo should have
written was about the injustice of the passbook.

Mrs. Nxumalo interrupted my thoughts and said that the search
for the manuscript was unavailing. She wasn't certain of the name
of the American publisher but seemed to remember having received
letters from Doubleday and Knopf asking whether her husband
would be interested in writing about South Africa. She asked me if,
when I returned to America, I might locate the publisher for whom
Henry Nxumalo was writing his book and explain what had hap-
pened. She said she would continue her search and also attempt to
find out if the book was still in the hands of a friend. It was
arranged that when the manuscript was found she would mail it
to me and I would undertake the necessary dealings with the pub-
lisher.

Before I left, Mrs. Nxumalo handed me some photographs of
her husband that had turned up while she was looking through his
papers for the book. They showed a young man with a strong,
alert face. He was sitting at his typewriter. Another photograph
showed him with three of his children in the doorway of his home

On the way back to Johannesburg, I asked Dr. Hellman about
Mrs. Nxumalo's circumstances and who would take care of her.

"She's a registered nurse," Dr. Hellman said, "and no doubt she
will be able to keep busy. But she has five children. I'm sure Henry's

One of the photographs taken secretly for the magazine Drum, in the series written by Henry
Nxumalo to expose prison injustices. "There was still some responsiveness to honest and
dramatic fact-finding in the community at large."

In addition to the dog, several humans occupied this particular abode. The government was
undertaking a resettlement program under which Africans would be moved into new housing
projects far outside Johannesburg proper.

friends, and there are many, will make up a purse for her or run
some benefits. She has a lot of spunk. Even so, it won't be easy.
It won't be easy at all."

Dr. Hellman was right about Henry Nxumalo's friends. Several
days later more than one thousand people attended the funeral,
and it lasted seven hours. All morning long at the Communal Mall
people stood up to speak their tributes. Dr. Ray Phillips, one of his
friends, said that if Henry Nxumalo's life and death were to have
any meaning at all, it was that each individual had a fixed obliga-
tion to put an end to the terror that was disfiguring their so-
ciety.

"Have we been shocked enough," he asked, "to grab the devil
of hooliganism by the neck and say, This is as far as you go!'?"

The evening before we were to leave Johannesburg for Lam-
barene, I checked notes with Clara Urquhart. I told her what had
happened since I first began to find out about the questing, restless,
wonderful Henry Nxumalo.

"No conclusions," I said, "just a lot of unassorted impressions.
The Union is far more complicated than I had ever supposed."

"In that case, you're lucky to be leaving when you are," she
said. "The longer you stay, the more complicated it gets."

"Sometimes it seems as though the trouble is actually a myth,"
I said. "Yesterday I sat on an attractive portico talking to reasonable
people. I looked out over a rolling lawn toward a bed of tulips.
Right then, all the turmoil and controversy seemed like a second-
hand tale or a nightmare. Then I remembered the long lines of
people waiting for the buses and I knew it was real enough. How
long can it go on before it explodes?"

"The Africans are a remarkably patient people," Clara said.

"Even patient people have a sense of justice."

"Yes, but it's amazing how large the capacity of the Africans
is to live with the impossible. And they're not easily stampeded into
political movements of one sort or another. The Communists have
tried hard to exploit the situation here but they've made hardly a
dent."

"And yet the government feels sufficiently concerned about It to
enact a Suppression of Communism Act," I said.

"Which has very little to do with communism. How many Com-
munists are among the one hundred and fifty-three who are being
accused of treason? If being aware of injustice makes a man a
Communist, then we've just made Communists out of every great
man who ever lived. The fact that the government uses the word
doesn't change its real meaning."

I said I wondered whether the government's interpretation of
protest as a Communist activity would stand up in court.

"That's the question almost everyone is talking about," she said.
"I just have to believe that our courts have not lost their good
sense or their independence. What other impressions have you
had?"

I said I was struck by the fact that almost no one close to what
was happening in the Union of South Africa had any clear answers.
Everyone seemed to be groping. Another thing that impressed me
was that the middle ground in South Africa seemed to be disappear-
ing. Day by day, there was a growing accumulation of the forces
at the extremes the kind of extremes that made for mighty col-
lisions and explosions.

"Most troubling of all," I added, "is the feeling I get that more
and more people are losing interest in any moderate approach. I
suppose there is nothing strange about this when we consider that
the government itself has taken up its own position at one of those
extremes."

"Isn't this another example of the hard time that moderates have
had to face whenever the social problem becomes acute?" Clara
asked.

"True," I replied, "but it bothers you just the same to see men
and women of good will of both colors become increasingly lone-
some in or near the center. Just in the process of existing, whether
you are black or white, you find yourself being pushed toward the
extremes.

"If you are black, you are confronted with the arguments of

those who have only to point to the policy of the government to
prove that it intends to keep the African permanently disenfran-
chised no citizenship, little personal dignity, even less land. Ac-
cording to this argument, the war has already been declared and
it is only a matter of time before the righting begins.

"If you are white, you are confronted with the arguments of
those who say that whatever should or could have been done in
the past, it is now too late to do anything except to hold fast.
For these whites, the issue seems to be simple : survival."

"One thing that makes the position of the South African whites
so tragic," she said, "is that some of them have been here for
centuries. This land and way of life they know and love. Where
else can they go ? What would they do? In the other parts of Africa,
the white people have basic ties to the European countries from
which they come or from which they may be only a generation or
two away. And they feel they can always go back if they have to.
Not so the white people of South Africa. This is their homeland.
Their ancestors came here many of them about the time Colum-
bus discovered America."

Yet the remarkable thing, I said, was that while almost every
white person knew the explosion was coming, none was willing to
say that it would come during his own lifetime. Thus a man of
about sixty would say that matters could probably be kept in hand
for another five or ten years. A man of fifty thought that the Union
had about fifteen years of grace. A man of forty guessed that the
big fireworks might not come perhaps for a generation. In the
meanwhile, life goes on. And it is a gracious and congenial way of
life, despite the occasional violence and subsurface tension.

"Even so, you have no idea," Clara said, "how much more tense
it is than it was only a few years ago. That was when a middle
ground seemed not only possible but inevitable. Now everything
is so tight and uneasy. To be decent now requires martyrdom and
I have insufficient courage/'

She was talking very slowly, very deliberately.

"I've decided to give up my home in Johannesburg. I've been

fighting against that decision for perhaps three, four years. But
how can I make my home here if I don't feel at home here? Every-
thing is changing, and I can't make the changes in myself that
have to go with it."

MUCH OF THIS conversation, and many of the things I learned
when I tried to find out about Henry Nxumalo, came to mind dur-
ing the flight over the jungle from Brazzaville to Lambarene, when
Clara said that the mood of Africa was changing and that there
was a tightening in the air.

"In three or four minutes we ought to be able to see the Hospital
from the plane," said Dr. Frank Catchpool from across the aisle
in the Air France DC-3. "These pilots are very thoughtful fellows.
When they know that some of their passengers are going to the
Schweitzer Hospital, they generally make a run over the place."

Dr. Catchpool was right. We flew over the Ogowe River, which
connects the South Atlantic with the interior of the middle Congo.
From the air, the Ogowe was a light muddy brown. Here and
there along the river, we could see small African villages. Then
there was a cluster of buildings, with a church tower in the center.
Dr. Catchpool identified this as the town of Lambarene.

Then, suddenly, Dr. Catchpool called out and pointed to the
Hospital. It consisted of a series of long, narrow buildings close to
the river. Red roofs interrupted the jungle only briefly. Immediately
beyond was the deep and endless green.

Approaching for a landing at the Hospital dock. Dr. Schweitzer calls out instructions to th<
leper oarsmen in the pirogue. At the extreme right is the head of Dr. Frank Catchpool.

Same general scene, one minute later.

Ill

THE LAMBARENE AIRSTRIP, like all the others we had seen
en route from Brazzaville, was just a dirt clearing in the jungle.
The "terminal" was a large lean-to in which waiting passengers
could shelter themselves from the sun. There were, of course, no
mechanical installations or gasoline trucks for servicing the plane.

The reception committee at the airport consisted of Dr. Jan van
Stolk and Mme. Oberman. Clara introduced us. Then, when they
turn'ed to Dr. Catchpool to inquire eagerly about his experience in
the Brazzaville hospital for his dogbite., Clara told me that Dr.
van Stolk was now the senior staff doctor at the Schweitzer Hospital.
He was a native Hollander who had gone to medical school in the
Union of South Africa and who had left a growing practice to
come to Lambarene. He was about thirty-two.

Mme. Oberman had worked with Dr. Schweitzer some months
each year for about four years. She, too, came from Holland. (Many
of the members of the staff, I later learned, came from Holland.)
She worked in a general supervisory capacity, taking care of the
needs of the Hospital personnel.

The entire party got into the back of a truck and sat on benches
along the sides. I was thankful for the overhead canvas. It was
noon and the equatorial sun was living up to its reputation.

We drove for perhaps a mile and a half over a bumpy dirt road,
alongside which were scattered African dwellings. Then we came to
a clearing, just beyond which was the river. At the narrow wooden
dock was a long pirogue, the sturdy and graceful native canoe
specially built to withstand the powerful currents of the Ogowe.

Our bags were loaded into the pirogue by a half-dozen young
men who comprised our crew. I sat up front near Mme. Oberman.
Behind us were Dr. van Stolk and Clara and the young men who
sang in rhythm to their strokes with the paddles. The trip to the
Hospital is against the current, and so we stayed close to the
shoreline. I marveled at the stamina, power, and good spirits of
the young Africans as they paddled us upstream. And I recalled
something that Dr. Schweitzer had written in one of his early books,
On the Edge of the Primeval Forest. Shortly after he founded his
Hospital in Lambarene, it became necessary to take an emergency
canoe journey into the interior. For hour after hour, the African
natives insisted on staying at their paddles. It was an endurance
feat that made a profound impression on the Doctor, and he re-
solved to remember it every time he was tempted to regard the
Africans as shiftless or lacking in energy.

I recalled, too, that it was on his canoe trips that Dr. Schweitzer
felt that conditions were most congenial for the exercise of the
moral imagination. This I could readily understand. There is a
total awareness of nature, if only because the contrasts are so com-
pelling. The stillness over the water is made dramatic by the cries
of the birds in the jungle. The sky is a silver sheath sparkling in
the sun in contrast with the soft filtered light of the forest. The
power of the current in the center of the stream contrasts with the
easy play of the waters near the shore. I could understand why
Dr. Schweitzer wrote that he could never take a canoe up or down
the river without reflecting on the importance of reverence for life.

"The Doctor loves the river," Mme. Oberman said as if reading
my thoughts. "Perhaps you will have a chance to take a ride with
him in a canoe. When you do you will marvel at his expression,
at his concentration.'*

I asked Mme. Oberman if the Doctor was in good health; some
reports I had heard recently were disturbing.

"You will see for yourself," she said. "He is in fine health. His
energy is high and he is in good spirits. Watch now; soon we will
see the Hospital."

The Hospital is around a bend in the river and you do not have
a good view of it until you swing around and corne toward it
downstream. In order to do this your canoe continues perhaps a
third of a mile or more on the opposite shore beyond the Hospital
so that when you cross the river the current will not carry you
beyond the dock.

As the canoe swung into midstream, I discovered some figures
dressed in white walking down the hill from the Hospital toward
the small dock. Clara waved toward the shore. When we were
about three hundred feet from the dock, I recognized the Doctor.
He was at the edge of the dock now, waving to us. Then, when the
canoe was within perhaps fifty feet, he began to call out directions.
It was like a ferry being eased into her slip by commands from
the bridge.

CC A gauche! A gauche! 33 the Doctor cried out. "Lentement!"

Then, sharply,

"Arrttez!"

He stooped and grabbed the prow, then eased the canoe alongside
the dock. The Africans held the pirogue firm, and the Doctor
reached over to help us out, one at a time. As he took my arm,
he introduced himself, then went over to greet Clara wannly. He
turned to Dr. Catchpool and inquired both about the health of the
doctor and the health of the dog. Dr. Catchpool replied that he
was well and that he had brought the dog back apparently none
the worse for the experience.

The Doctor then took my arm and escorted me up the hill to
the Hospital. The lane was narrow and we threaded our way past
some small shacks and enclosures on the hillside. The ground under-
neath was moist and slippery and had the consistency of a chicken-
yard. The reason was readily apparent. Almost everywhere I looked

Hospital Row and clinic. Arriving patients check in at the bungalow at the right.

c. u.

Same place, late in the afternoon.

there were chickens, ducks, goats. Then the path opened out on a
courtyard, with low-lying wooden structures. The building on the
left was mounted on concrete piles about six or seven feet above the
ground. This was where the doctor and the immediate members of
his staff lived. Directly opposite were some utility and storage
buildings, also set on concrete piles a few feet off the ground.

At the foot of the steps leading to the Doctor's quarters was
Mrs. Schweitzer. I had been told she was not well and was able to
get about the hospital grounds only with the greatest difficulty.
The Doctor introduced me. Mrs. Schweitzer spoke in English; she
was most gracious, apologizing for the fact that she was unable to
accompany me to my room, and saying she hoped I would drop
by for a chat after I got settled. We resumed our walk, the Doctor
leading the way past several other frame buildings, each with its
dark-red corrugated iron rooftop. One could hardly see the sky
because of the thick benevolent overhead shelter from the trees. In
a moment we were walking along the porch of a long single-story
bungalow consisting of about twelve rooms for members of the
staff.

The Doctor opened the door to my room, bid me rest a while,
then come to the dining room for lunch. He apologized in French
for the fact that he didn't speak English and said that the only
place in the world where he would dare to speak English was
Edinburgh, for the people there had a habit of speaking very
slowly.

I thanked the Doctor and began to tell him how privileged I felt
in being able to be with him at his Hospital. He cut me short with
a wave of his hand, saying with a smile, fC Pas des compliments"

The room was far nicer than I had expected. Walls and furniture
were painted white. The room was only six or seven feet wide but
it had everything one might need: small writing table and oil
lamp, bookshelf, wooden cabinet for clothes, a stand for water basin,
pitcher, and toilet articles. The bed was an iron four-poster, fairly
narrow, with thin mattress. It was firm, just the way I like it, and
did not sag.

One end of the room was screened in and opened out on the
slope going down to the clinic and the Hospital wards. Beyond was
the river Ogowe, shimmering in the midday sun. Some Africans
in their pirogues were drifting downstream. It was warm, but not
uncomfortably so. I was delighted with my first fifteen minutes in
Lambarene.

Clara came by to escort me to the dining room. There I met
several members of the staff : Dr. Margaret van der Kreek, a lovely
young lady of about thirty from the Netherlands, who was chief
surgeon at the Hospital; Dr. Richard Friedmann, a Czech who had
been imprisoned in German concentration camps during the war
and who now performed the full range of medical duties required
of a doctor at the Hospital; Mile. Mathilde Kottmann, who had
been the first to join Dr. and Mrs. Schweitzer at Lambarene and
who had served alternately as nurse, administrative assistant, hous-
ing supervisor, etc.; and Albertina van Beek Vollenhoven, a nurse
in charge of one of the wards. Dr. Schweitzer explained that the
rest of the staff was at work but that I would have a chance to
meet them during the afternoon or at dinner.

I looked closely at the Doctor as he chatted with Clara across the
luncheon table. His skin was pink and firm. His eyes were clear,
his manner was alert. He was in excellent health. It seemed to me
unbelievable that this vigorous, fully functioning man was about
to mark his eighty-second birthday. When he had led me up the
walk from the docks to my bungalow I had to step quickly to keep
pace.

He asked about his various friends in the United States by name
and I was happy to be able to tell him that they were all in good
health. When he asked about Erica Anderson and Jerome Hill,
who had just produced the motion picture about his life, I told
him that I had seen a preview of the film and felt certain that it
would be well received. I added that he was well on his way to
becoming a movie idol in the United States.

He smiled. "Well, who knows, I may be famous yet."

One of the attendants came into the room with a baby gorilla

Dr. Schweitzer's bungalow In the central compound. The Doctor is chatting with a member
of his staff at the steps of the porch.

c. u.

"The Doctor's eyes were clear, his manner was alert; he was in excellent health."

One of the non-working and peren-
nially relaxed members of the Hos-
pital community.

Dr. Richard Friedmann chats with "Joseph," who received his training as a medical attendant
at the Hospital.

clinging to her neck. She sat down on a bench in front of the wide
window. The Doctor beamed every time he looked over at the
gorilla. For the next few minutes he discussed gorillas and their
high order of intelligence, saying that the gorilla was much closer
to man in the scale of evolution than he was to the chimpanzee.
Then he got up and walked over to the bench and took the baby
gorilla in his lap. He put his head down so the gorilla could play
with his massive head of unruly gray hair. Now and then the
gorilla would tug fairly hard and the Doctor would wince, but
say nothing. He had the look of an adoring grandfather.

As we left the dining room, the Doctor advised me to rest during
the afternoon and to stay out of the sun.

The last thing in the world I wanted to do right then was rest.
I went back to the bungalow, got my floppy rain hat to protect me
against the sun, and then took off on an unescorted tour. I visited
the central compound, where Dr. Schweitzer had his bungalow,
and where the dining room was located. I walked down the slope to
the clinic and the Hospital wards. Dr. Friedmann and Dr. Margaret
were on duty at the clinic, handling the last few patients in the
afternoon line.

Dr. Friedmann invited me to sit alongside him as he explained
the kind of cases that turned up at a jungle clinic: venereal diseases,
leprosy, malaria, hernias, framboesia, sleeping sickness, ulcerous
sores, abscesses, malnutrition, miscarriages, toothaches. Not infre-
quently, patients would wait until their illnesses were advanced or
their suffering acute before they came to the Hospital. Hence, the
clinic more nearly approached an emergency ward than the outpa-
tient department of a hospital.

An African of about fifty, his face betraying no pain, was next
on line. As Dr. Friedmann examined the man, it was obvious he
was suffering from a massive hernia. It seemed inconceivable that
the man could get about.

"This is one of the astonishing things you come to accept as a
matter of course in this part of the world," Dr. Friedmann said.
"The people have an extraordinary fortitude. They don't usually

give in to sickness unless it is so serious that it hobbles them. It is
not at all unusual to find men like this, with hernias that would
hospitalize white men at the very start, continuing at their work for
many months or years before the weight and size of the sac make
movement literally impossible. That accounts for the fact that so
many of the hernias are strangulated. Much of the surgery done by
Dr, Margaret here has to do with strangulated hernias. By this
time she probably knows as much about strangulated hernia opera-
tions as any doctor in the world."

I looked over at Dr. Margaret "La Doctoresse" as she was affec-
tionately known to everyone at Lambarene. She was busy filling
out some prescriptions. I could readily understand why Clara had
called her one of the most beautiful young women in the world.
There was nothing mechanical about her appearance. Light-colored
hair was combed straight back and held in place by a simple
ribbon. She wore no lipstick or other make-up. Yet she possessed
an unmistakable quality of classic loveliness both of feature and
expression. I wondered about this attractive creature how she
happened to go into medicine and surgery, why she came to Lam-
barene. Here was the raw material from which legends were
fashioned.

A young African mother, her face heavy with apprehension,
carried in a five- or six-year-old girl and set her down next to
La Doctoresse. The child was wide-eyed and fearful. She clung to
her mother's faded skirt with both hands.

La Doctoresse knelt down alongside the child and spoke to her
reassuringly, then stroked her head as, speaking through an inter-
preter, she asked the mother the trouble. The mother said the child
had persistent fever. Still kneeling and speaking softly, La Doctoresse
took her stethoscope and applied it to the child's chest. Then, very
deftly, she put a tongue depressor in the child's mouth. The little
girl coughed involuntarily, then cried out. La Doctoresse reached
behind her and took a little wooden doll from one of the drawers in
her desk. She made small clucking sounds as she held the doll
alluringly in front of the little girl. While the child scrutinized the

doll. La Doctoresse lifted the child's dress and examined the lower
part of her body.

Then she smoothed the little girl's dress and told her that it was
all over and that she would soon be well again. The child smiled
shyly, still holding the doll. La Doctoresse told the mother the child
had malaria but that it could be brought under control. The child
was assigned to a place in the wards and La Doctoresse wrote out
instructions for her care and a prescription to be filled by the Hos-
pital apothecary. Then she asked the African interpreter to have
the woman repeat everything said to her, just to be sure she under-
stood.

In keeping with the custom at the Hospital, the woman was
asked whether she could afford to pay anything. Dr. Schweitzer
believed that people are more respectful of advice, especially of a
medical nature, if they have to pay for it.

The woman was prepared for the question. She opened her hand
and offered La Doctoresse one hundred francs (equivalent of about
twenty-five cents), an amount that was slightly above the average.
La Doctoresse thanked her, then carefully made a notation of the
revenue in the accounts book in which the daily fees from patients
are entered.

I could see that the woman had something to say to La Doc-
toresse but was choked up. The heavy apprehension in her face was
gone; now there was measureless relief and gratitude. I wondered
what went through her mind as she looked at this white goddess
with the golden hair who had such knowledge and skill as only the
most gifted of men were supposed to possess. I could tell the woman
was struggling for a correct way to make known her feelings. Then
she reached out and lightly touched Dr. Margaret's arm. It was a
simple gesture but profound in intent. Dr. Margaret responded
with the smile not of a doctor but of one woman communicating
with another in a universal language.

IT WAS TIME now to close the clinic for the afternoon. Dr.
Margaret marked some notations in the accounts book, then closed

her desk. We walked up the short hill to the bungalow where the
staff lived.

"You must see my garden," Dr. Margaret said. "The jungle
flowers are just now coming up."

In front of the porch leading to her room, Dr. Margaret had
built a small wire enclosure of perhaps no more than six by eight
feet. Inside, protected from the goats and other wandering animals,
were the young shoots of jungle flowers. I couldn't identify them
nor do I remember their names; but Dr. Margaret named them for
me one by one as she ran a finger around the tender buds. What I
do remember vividly is the joy and pride that this lovely girl doctor
took in creating a tiny sanctuary for a few flowers.

It was late afternoon. The sun had lost its fever and a small wind
came up from the river and eased the heaviness in the air.

Dr. Margaret sat down on one of the porch steps. It had been an
exhausting day, and now she rested her head on her hands and
breathed in the coolness.

"Do you like Lambarene?" she asked. "It has all the things that
are difficult to find outside. A chance to concentrate on your work;
quiet when you need it; and most of all, freedom from all the non-
essential things that fill one's life."
"Non-essentials?"
She looked at me sternly.

"Surely you must know/' she said. "The non-essentials of life in
Europe and America. The endless running around in circles to do
things that seem a matter of life and death at the time but that you
can't remember two days later. The business of struggling with a
checking account at the end of the month to make sure there's
enough to cover all the things that we bought but that we don't
even know where to put. And the desperate way we try to enter-
tain ourselves.

"Here at Lambarene, we do nicely without the frills. We have a
purpose and we apply ourselves to it. We never have to ask our-
selves whether we are really needed. We are never at wits' ends
for what to do with our time. When our work is over for the day

we can sit down and rest or we can make our tea and we talk
among ourselves or we can read and we can think. It is very good.
Do you find this strange?"

I told Dr. Margaret that I had nothing but admiration for the
people at Lambarene and for their ability to come to terms with
life.

"It may take you a little time to understand Lambarene/ 9 she
said. "So many people come here just for overnight and go away
appalled. You know, there's a reason for everything at Lambarene,
but it takes a little time to find it out.' 3

I said that I had been carefully indoctrinated by Clara and that
I would do my best to get to know the real Lambarene.

"That is good," she said. "Maybe you will not make the mistake
of judging this as you would a modern hospital. It is a jungle
village with a clinic. If Dr. Schweitzer had put up a fully equipped
modern hospital of the kind you see in large cities, I am not sure
the natives would come to it. They would probably be afraid of it.
They must understand something before they give themselves to it.
The hospital here they understand. It is very simple. If a person
gets sick and the local remedies are of no use and the sickness stays
on, the entire family gets into a pirogue and paddles sometimes
many, many miles to the clinic here at Lambarene. When they
arrive, they find an African village very much like the one they
left. If the patient has to be hospitalized, we assign the entire family
to a cubicle in one of the shelters. The people go into the woods
for their toilet and take care of their own refuse. They get their
water from the wells. They cook their own food. They can get fish
from the river. We give them bananas and some rice. They get the
rest from the trees. We do the diagnosis and supply the medicines
and check up on the progress of the patients. When they get better
they go home/ 5

"Do you manage to establish any real contact with your pa-
tients?" I asked. "Do you find yourself getting caught up in the lives
of the people you treat so that you have a real emotional stake in
what happens to them?"

Some babies are king-sized

while others fit comfortably into a hat.

Three photographs of Dr. Margaret van der Kreek La Doctoresse chief surgeon at the
Hospital "She possessed an unmistakable quality of classic loveliness/'

Dr. Margaret looked up. "It is true that there are many patients.
So very many patients. Each day they come. It is hard to keep track
of them. And many of them we see just once. But at the time they
stand before you and tell you their story you make the contact. I
think this has nothing to do with Lambarene necessarily. It comes
with being a doctor. A person comes to you and describes his
ailment. You observe him carefully. You watch closely for a little
sign that will tell you what you must know. And the patient will not
have confidence in you if he senses that the contact has not been
made. 33

I asked the question I had wanted to ask her since I first saw
her in the dining room for the staff. I asked how it was she came to
Lambarene.

Dr. Margaret reached over the wire fence and ran her hand
lightly along one of the young shoots. She said she had wanted to be
a doctor ever since she was old enough to think about what she
wanted to do with her life. Her father was an artist, her mother a
poet. She grew up in an atmosphere of kindness, graciousness, and
intelligence. She was aware that the great happiness enjoyed by her
parents in their relationship to each other and her own resultant
happiness were not the lot of all people. Her family suffered no
deprivations, not even during the depression; and her father felt the
obligation to do what he could to help others when he could.

All this created a determination in her to serve. Medicine seemed
an effective way. Then she read about Dr. Schweitzer and his work
in Africa. She doubted that the Doctor would accept her, but she
decided she would get the most comprehensive medical and surgical
training available and then volunteer. She knew that many of the
persons on the Lambarene staff came from Holland; at least she
could get one of them to write a letter of introduction.

After she completed her internship the introductory letter was
written to Dr. Schweitzer.

"Then very soon after that came his reply," she said, reliving
the experience in her brightened expression. "He would take me.
His letter was amazing. Dozens of details. He put each one down.

How I was to travel, what the timetable was, where I was to
change trains and so forth, what my work would consist of in
Lambarene, how I was to go about making arrangements for pass-
ports, and the kind of clothes I would probably need. And there
was an air of great kindness in everything he said.

"It is now two years since I arrived. At first, like most of the
others who came, I was puzzled by many things, sometimes even
disappointed. But the more I stay the more I understand and the
stronger is my admiration for the Doctor. I know now why things
are done the way they are.

"People know the Doctor as a great philosopher and the-
ologian. I am lucky to know him as a human being. It is fan-
tastic all the things he does every day and the things he manages
to keep in mind. He has been after me for several months to take a
holiday. I have been putting it off but finally I will leave. Next
month I go to South Africa. A surgeon, Dr. Jack Penn, visited the
Hospital here recently. There are new techniques in reconstructive
surgery I want to learn. Dr. Penn invited me to work at his hospital.
After I accepted, Dr. Schweitzer took it on himself to make all the
arrangements for passport and visas. Only two days ago, he went
in the pirogue to the village and filled out the forms. He brought
back the forms for me to sign. Then, because there was some hurry
in the matter, he took the pirogue again to the village and didn't
return until long after dinner. Maybe he spent six or seven hours
that day to save me the trouble. No detail escapes him. Everything
has to be just so ; and whenever he comes across something that he
knows will be especially burdensome, he never asks someone else
to do it, though we pray that he will, but goes ahead quietly and
does it himself."

"Who will do your work while you are in South Africa?" I asked.

"Right now, we are very fortunate at the Hospital. We have
enough doctors. You have met Dr. von Stolk. He comes from
Holland, too. He is very young but he is very talented and he is
very precise. Dr. Schweitzer leans on him heavily. Dr. Friedmann
is a completely dedicated man. He has a fine background of ex-

perience. We have teamed up in the clinic and there is nothing
about the operation of the clinic he does not know. You probably
have heard that Dr. Friedmann lost all his relatives in the con-
centration camps of Germany during the war. He is not embittered.
He asks only to be allowed to serve because he himself was spared.
Then there is Dr. Cyril Coulon. He, too, is young. His wife is with
him. Soon they will have a baby. They will have it here at the
Hospital. Mrs. Coulon is such a fine young woman. The Coulons
have worked in the jungle before. They are Dutch. They have gone
out by themselves into the jungle villages to help supply medical
help. Now they are here to help Dr. Schweitzer. Dr. Coulon knows
the Africans well; he is a great asset to our staff. Dr. Catchpool you
have already spoken to on the plane. He has not been here very
long. He has done no medical work so far but I can tell that he
has had excellent training. He is a sensitive man. There will be no
shortage of doctors while I am gone. When I come back, Dr. van
Stolk will go on leave for six months. There is always a great deal
of rotation going on."

Dr. Friedmann came up the path and greeted us. He was soft
spoken and there was shyness in his manner. He had an enormous
jet-black mustache; it made me think of some of the photographs of
Schweitzer at the age of thirty. When Dr. Friedmann sat down on
the stoop and crossed his arms on his knees I could see, on the
inside forearm, the number tattooed on him at the concentration
camp. He would carry the number as long as he lived. He noticed
that I was staring at it.

"Just a souvenir; you're welcome to look at it," he said, holding
up his arm.

I told Dr. Friedmann that La Doctoresse had been telling me
about her approaching holiday and about the things that led to her
decision to come to Lambarene.

"Actually, it is not much different from the rest of us," he said.
"Some of us may have come here because we were in good circum-
stances and didn't feel quite right about it; others because they were
in difficult circumstances yet managed somehow to survive, and

they wanted to find some way of acknowledging their debt. But
always it is the debt. And always you will find that somewhere we
happened to read something by Albert Schweitzer that opened up
a big door in our mind and made us know we had to come."

Just then, we heard explosions of joy from the far end of the
porch. Three or four of the nurses were holding bright-colored
dresses to themselves, their arms clasping the garments to their
waists and their chins pressing against the necks of the dresses.
They swirled around and squealed ecstatically.

u Dr. Margaret, come quick," one of them shouted. "Clara
brought each of us a dress."

Clara was leaning against the porch railing near the end of the
bungalow. Even at a distance I could see that she was deeply
pleased.

Dr. Margaret jumped to her feet with the bright alertness of a
child being offered a surprise gift. She ran down the porch. Clara
reached into a box and took out a long blue cotton dress and
handed it to Dr. Margaret who exclaimed her thanks and then
rushed into her room to try it on. Three minutes later she emerged,
smiling and radiant. The dress fit perfectly.

"Look at Margaret!" exclaimed Trudi Bochsler, the nurse in
charge of the lepers. "She looks like a movie star. Only more
beautiful."

Then the other girls rushed into their rooms to try on their own
new dresses. When they returned, it almost seemed as though the
place had been touched with magic. Each girl was proclaiming her
delight with the appearance of the others. And indeed, each seemed
uncommonly attractive. But more appealing than anything else
were their expressions of satisfied wonder as they danced up and
down the porch, their dresses swooshing and swirling.

"How does it feel to be Mrs. Santa Glaus?" I asked Clara. She
was beaming.

"You have no idea how much they hunger for the chance to
dress up and do the attractive things most young girls take for
granted," she said. "It's so easy to forget that even dedicated girls

like this girls of serious purpose and high intelligence it's so
easy to forget that they are still girls in every way warm and
wonderful and full of eagerness and feminine charm."

Albertina spun around and clapped her hands. "Tonight we
will have a party," she exulted. "We will surprise Dr. Schweitzer.
We will wear our dresses to dinner. And we will fix our hair."

Albertina was auburn-haired. Even in the early evening light I
could see that her face was flushed with excitement. Yet there was
an essential quality of composure about Albertina that seemed to
cause her to draw back as soon as she saw she had become the
center of attention.

But Albertina never had the chance to develop any second
thoughts about her suggestion, for the others seized upon it with
whoops of agreement. They would wear their new dresses to dinner,
they would put ribbons in their hair and, some of them would
use lipstick. They would all gather in the dining room several
minutes early and would be in their places when the doctor
walked in.

The plan was a complete success. When Dr. Schweitzer walked
into the dining room, the girls scrubbed, shining, bright-eyed
were all wearing their new dresses. They were sitting in their cus-
tomary places, trying to make it appear that nothing special had
happened.

The Doctor, in a split second, took it all in. His eyes danced
behind the craglike brows. I could see he had a vast delight.

"Thank you for letting me come to your banquet," he said in
the manner of a man who had just arrived at the Queen's ball.
Then, when he sat down and the customary silence occurred so
that he could say grace, he said that he was so overwhelmed by all
the beauty around him that he had forgotten all the grace prayers
he ever knew.

The girls were charmed and showed it. Then the Doctor leaned
forward in the manner he adopts when saying grace, and the entire
table became silent. I couldn't help noticing that the prayer of
thankfulness had a special meaning for everyone on the staff.

Dinnertime at Lambarene.

The Doctor finished saying grace and looked up.

"I, too, have a contribution to make to the festive banquet," he
announced. "A case of wine that was sent here some time ago and
has been waiting for just such an occasion as this. It is a very fine
burgundy. We will all dine superbly tonight and drink to each
other's health. And tonight there will be butter!"

The mood of the staff that evening, like the wine itself, had a
delicious sparkle to it. Only a few hours earlier, nothing out of the
ordinary had been anticipated. Then, suddenly, the evening had
been transformed into a surprise party and each person was the
guest of honor.

I looked around the long table. The men were obviously pleased
with the sudden assertion of femininity by Dr. Margaret and the
nurses. Three of the four male doctors were young and unmarried.
While the men were certainly not unaware of the attractiveness of
the young women on the staff at any time, their appreciation under
ordinary circumstances was subordinated to the unending demands
of the Hospital. For the main part, their relationship was profes-
sional. But now, for the moment at least, the circumstances had
changed. The dining room was transformed into a small banquet
hall and young ladies, gay and lovely, adorned the table.

It was interesting to see the way the occasion affected the con-
versation. Usually the people on the staff spoke about the work of
the day or about matters related to the Hospital. But now, appeal-
ing nonsense was in order.

"Dr. Schweitzer, we want you to settle a bet," Dr. Margaret
said. "Trudi and I have just been talking about champagne and
how it is made. She says it is made just like wine and I said it can't
be because of the fizz and the sparkle in it."

Dr. Schweitzer was equal to the occasion. For almost five
minutes he expounded on champagne how it was developed his-
torically, what goes into it, why it is expensive, what kind of water
is necessary, how it is bottled in order to keep the carbonation, etc.
It was an astounding tour de force on the one subject in the world
that he might be expected to know least about.

Neither Dr. Margaret nor Trudi had been completely correct
and the bet was declared a stand-off.

Then the conversation somehow veered off into playwriting and
acting, and from there into exploration and geology, and finally
into furniture-making. On each subject the Doctor would listen
carefully and then come forward with a surprising wealth of ob-
servation backed with historical information, dates, and intricate
detail. With respect to furniture, the Doctor identified the soft
woods and the hard woods, spoke vividly of their uses, the relative
expense in their manufacture, and the competitive problems in the
world market for fine woods.

Whenever the conversation seemed on the verge of getting too
heavy, the Doctor restored the mood of gaiety with an amusing
anecdote, which invariably had a point to make. One of these
anecdotes grew out of a question on the declining powers of
observation of older people.

"Naturally, it all depends on the person you are talking about,"
he said with mock seriousness. "When I was a boy of sixteen, I was
very much under my grandfather's thumb. One day a cousin of
my age of whom I was very fond came to visit me. We wanted
to leave the house for a certain purpose but feared Grandfather
might not give us permission. And so we told him we wanted to
visit our uncle some blocks distant, and he said we might go.

"When we were out of viewing range from the house, we turned
sharply and went in the direction of our real destination a beer
tavern. After we were there about ten minutes a man sat down at
our table. It was our grandfather.

" 'An old man isn't as blind as you might think, 3 my grandfather
said. 'And sometimes he is just as thirsty as younger men. Why
didn't you invite me to come with you in the first place? Now pour
me a drink. 3 "

Then Dr. Schweitzer looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.

"I'd better be careful," he said, "or Mr. Cousins will think I do
nothing except tell funny stories."

The meal came to an end. The Doctor reached up and took his

napkin out from his open collar, folded it carefully, and put it in
his holder. The hymnbooks were passed out and the Doctor an-
nounced the number of the hymn to be sung that night.

It was then that I experienced the shock of watching him sit
down to play the dilapidated old upright piano. But all the others
were long accustomed to both the sight and sound, and it did not
diminish the general festive air of the party. And so tonight they
sang with added spirit, still flushed with the brightness of the
occasion. The Doctor finished the hymn, returned to his place and
read the Lord's Prayer in German. Then, the dinner over, the staff
went to the small side tables, carrying an extra cup of coffee and
tea, so the mood would not be broken, and they would chat and
relax in the cool of the evening.

The Doctor said good night and went back to his room to submit
himself to the inevitable tyranny of his correspondence.

I walked back to my room, turned on the oil lamp, and wrote
home to Ellen and the little girls. I was anxious for them to
know about a place called Lambarene and the people who worked
there. For nothing is more essential to young people than to have
their natural idealism nourished and this I felt I could give them
through what I had seen in my first day at Lambarene.

Long after I turned off the small light from the kerosene lamp,
I lay in bed listening to the sounds from the open wards a short
distance away. There was a hacking cough, and then a child's cry.
They were contrasting sounds to the ones I had heard a short
time earlier in the dining room, but it was part of the human mix-
ture and it was real.

THE NEXT MORNING, I rose early in order to see the
Hospital starting up on a new day. African women, wearing their
blankets or faded colored cloth in wrap-around style, were carrying
water jars on their heads and were on their way to and from the
wells. Some of them had babies riding on their hips in a sort of
side-saddle arrangement. In front of many of the rooms or cubicles
in the open wards, women were cooking over homemade burners. I
noticed one woman squatting close to an improvised stove consist-
ing of a large pit in which she was making a banana milk stew for
her family. The milk was her own. She deftly worked each breast
close to the pan, sending streams of her milk into the stew. Here
was the eternal woman in the oldest drama in the world giving
her totality to the cause of life near her, infinitely resourceful, in-
ventive, responsible. The banana milk stew sent up its steam and
the woman sang softly.

I continued down the path past the long rows of open rooms.
African women were helping to wash the ill members of their
families. A father of about thirty was playing with his little girl,
throwing her into the air and catching her just above the ground.
My homesickness was too much; in no time at all I managed to
join the party and both of us entertained the youngster.

One of the main occupations at the Hospital is ministering to new life.

"Some of them had babies
riding on their hips in a sort
of side-saddle arrangement."

To my great relief, I was still able to perform the trick I used to
play on my own youngsters reaching behind their ears and finding
all sorts of strange objects pennies, pencils, rubber bands, and but-
tons. Then the three of us walked down to the dock, the child riding
between us on our outstretched arms -as we skimmed her over the
ground.

The African father's name was George Malthen. I spoke to him
in French and learned that his wife had just suffered a miscarriage.
He had brought her and their child to the hospital just one day
earlier. There were no complications, and she was now resting
comfortably. Dr. Margaret had told him that in another two or three
days she would be well enough to go home.

I asked where home was. He said it was up the river perhaps
eight miles from the Hospital, where he worked at a lumber camp.
He had had enough schooling to learn to read and write French,
but that was all. He lived with his wife and child in a compound
built by his wife's grandfather who was still alive.

Two years earlier his wife's sister had died during childbirth. The
baby had been thought to be overdue and the local midwife tried to
induce labor. Then, when the woman's condition became serious,
the witch doctor or fetisher was brought in. The woman was given
potions and made to do strange things. Then external force was
used on her abdomen. The woman went into labor and died.

George Malthen said he resolved then that he would never let
anything like this happen to his own wife. And when, several days
ago, his wife began to bleed, her mother summoned the fetisher
who told his wife to do strange things if she wanted to save her
baby. When George said he wanted his wife to go to the Schweitzer
Hospital, the fetisher warned him not to interfere or he would
cause him to turn into a vampire at night and kill his own child.

"He told me he would cause me to kill again and again and then
I would be killed myself."

"Were you frightened?"

"Yes, I had much fear. The fetisher, he is a powerful one. But I
could think only about my wife and what had happened to her

sister. And very early in the morning, before the sun came up, I
carried my wife and child down to the dock, put them in my
brother's pirogue, and paddled as fast as I could to the Hospital.
I am glad, very glad, I have done so."

"And what will happen when you return to your village?"

George Malthen said nothing for a moment or two. His eyes were
fixed on a pirogue not far away.

"I have not thought much about that yet. I don't know what the
fetisher will try to do to me. I will try to be strong. I have seen
people under the spell of the fetisher do terrible things. Other peo-
ple who have disobeyed him have lost their minds or have died. It is
a strange power he has. I must be strong."

As he spoke, I thought back on something Clara had told me
about the witch doctors at Lambarene. They would hover on the
perimeter of the Hospital, weaving their spell on the patients or
members of their families as they came within range. Generally, the
witch doctors wore Western clothes, complete with white shirt and
tie, though the outfit would be somewhat frayed and unpressed.
Occasionally, they would affect the long diplomat's frock, wing
collar, and black tie again of a distinctly secondhand origin. They
would warn the patients to leave the Hospital and place themselves
in the fetisher's hands. The usual threat has to do with visions of
human beings transformed into vampires in the middle of the
night and sucking the blood of loved ones, sometimes until death.

Once, the entire leper village was tied up when a witch doctor of
obvious persuasive ability caused virtually the entire African popu-
lation to refuse any treatment. Patients went on a no-treatment
system. Dr. Schweitzer was angry and he was all for finding the
fetisher and settling the matter once and for all.

Even before the Doctor got to him, however, Clara had managed
to persuade the fetisher to call off the strike. Clara is about five feet
tall and looks as though she barely weighs one hundred pounds. I
had an image in my mind of this lovely, dainty little lady con-
fronting the African witch doctor in his stained diplomat's frock,
trying to convince him to rescind his authority and abdicate. Later,

Clara refused to tell exactly what transpired at the meeting or what
superior magic she herself had brewed in order to persuade the
African to cease and desist. Whatever it was, it worked, and the
patients submitted to treatment and diligently took their medicines.

When I asked Clara at least to tell me how she felt during her
parley with the witch doctor, she knitted her brows:

"I was terrified," she said, "that what the Africans said about
him might be true. I expected at any moment that he might get a
big hex out of his black bag and turn me into a vampire right on
the spot."

She shivered, then smiled: "Now let's not talk about it any
more."

The rational-minded Westerner finds it easy to scoff at the hold
of the fetisher over many Africans. But before we give ourselves
too much credit, we ought to take into account the countless
millions spent each year in America and Europe on mediums,
bogus doctors, tea-leaf readers, numerologists, astrologists, to say
nothing of snake oil, cure-all drugs, and quack potions for revital-
izing the blood. Both the quacks and the witch doctors can point to
people they have treated who have become well again. The human
body has an amazing capacity for overcoming both natural illness
and mistreatment by those who profess to cure. Indeed, even in the
West, doctors today are amazed that people should have been able
to undergo without too much apparent harm the kind of medical
treatment that not so long ago was considered routine. We need
also to remind ourselves that George Washington's physician tried
to treat his patient for a cold by bleeding him. It may or may not
be a coincidence that Washington died shortly thereafter.

In any event, the witch doctor has had and still has vast
power in many parts of Africa. And his exploits are sufficiently
dramatic for him to maintain the myth of his magic. While stand-
ing on the dock talking to George Malthen about his own ex-
perience, I recalled an incident that had been told me by Laurens
van der Post of the Union of South Africa, one of the most sensi-

tive and skilled writers to deal with the terrifying complex subject
of Africa. His The Dark Eye in Africa is a poetic and rich
presentation of the human situation in contemporary Africa.

Colonel van der Post had been in New York several weeks before
my departure for Lambarene, and discussed some of his own ex-
periences with witch doctors in the southern part of Africa. He
liked to visit African villages in the remote interior. Knowing the
ways of the tribes, he would wait with his African guide and com-
panion just outside each village until, eventually, one of the elders
would come out to look him over, and, if he were lucky, to bid him
enter.

On this particular occasion, van der Post and his guide had to
wait several hours. Finally, they were confronted by the witch
doctor, who was apparently torn between the natural curiosity and
friendliness of the villagers, which led them to want van der Post
to come in, and his own need for a sense of superiority, which led
him to try to keep van der Post out.

The witch doctor casually said he would permit van der Post and
his guide to enter on condition that they would agree to a test of
comparative magic which the fetisher would name.

Van der Post readily accepted.

"The fetisher smiled in triumph," van der Post told me, "then
bid me follow him. Inside the village a large crowd quickly sur-
rounded us. The fetisher announced that the white man had
accepted his challenge. Then the fetisher handed me his staff; it
was about four feet long. He told me to instruct my African guide
to keep the staff planted on the ground.

"This was to be a test of power. The fetisher said he would
cause the staff to rise despite anything my African guide could do to
keep it on the ground. My job was to exert all the influence I could
on my African guide to keep the staff from rising.

"I had known Joseph, my African companion, for a long time.
He was with me all the way. He understood exactly what he was
to do. He stripped to the waist, revealing a gleaming and powerful

torso. Then he took the staff and plunged it into the earth as far
as it would go. He spread his legs apart to assure his balance,
grasped the top of the staff with both hands, and anchored it firmly
to the ground.

"I announced we were ready for the challenge.

"The witch doctor seemed unimpressed with the sight of my
companion leaning on the staff with his full two hundred pounds.
Then the witch doctor began his magic incantations. He made
large swirling motions with his arms above the straining, sweating
body of my guide, clinging to the staff.

"Then the witch doctor, in African, began to chant: 'Let the
staff rise! Let the staff rise! 3 Some of the villagers had their drums
with them and took up the beat. Within a minute or two, hun-
dreds of people joined the chant. The drums beat louder.

"I watched my companion. Joseph was sweating profusely. His
eyes seemed somewhat glazed and they were fixed on the witch
doctor who continued his swooshing and swooping motions. And
all the time the witch doctor kept chanting, 'Let the staff rise ! Let
the staff rise !'

"I began to feel uncomfortably warm. My shirt suddenly seemed
to have the weight of a winter overcoat. And all the time the drums
got louder and louder, merging with the chanting of the crowd.
The volume of the sound was unbelievable.

"Joseph kept the staff pinned to the ground. I thrust my wet
face next to his and shouted to him above his din to hold on. His
muscles were taut and knotted with strain. His eyes were bulging
in their sockets. The staff seemed secure under his weight.

C The chant approached its crescendo. Its beat was irresistible.
Strange words began to form in my throat and on my lips. Almost
before I realized it, I found myself intoning hoarsely with the
others, first in a husky whisper, then in full voice: 'Let the staff
rise ! Let the staff rise P

"The cords were standing out on Joseph's neck and shoulders.
His arms and hands were quivering. There was a moment of agony
on his face, then the staff began to waver in his hands. The witch

doctor swooped even closer. The staff in Joseph's hands began to
rise.

"He held on to it with all the remaining strength he could
muster, but it was no use. The staff rose perhaps eight inches above
the ground, Joseph clinging to it all the way. Then the witch doctor
clapped his hands. The drums stopped, and the spell was broken.
Joseph relinquished his grip and the staff fell to the ground.

"The people began to disperse. There was neither elation nor
triumph in their manner. What had happened had been entirely
expected and predictable. The only excitement would have been
if the witch doctor had failed.

"As for the witch doctor himself, he couldn't have been more
friendly. Now that he had demonstrated the inferiority of the
white man, there was nothing more to prove; and he bid me wel-
come. We couldn't have enjoyed greater hospitality at that village
that night if we had owned it.

"The next day, several hours after we had left the village, I
decided to speak my mind to my African guide and companion.

" 'Joseph,' I said, picking my words carefully, 'how did you ever
let yourself fall for that old hypnotism trick? That staff rose from
the ground only because you lifted it. You were hoodwinked by
one of the oldest witch doctor tricks in Africa.'

" 'Colonel,' he replied, 'I'll be glad to tell you why I couldn't
hold that stick to the ground if you tell me why you kept screaming
in my ear to let it rise. 3 "

WALKING AROUND the Hospital with George Malthen as my guide,
I could understand why some visitors came away with negative
impressions.

The idea of a hospital creates instant images in the mind of
immaculate corridors, white sheets, total sanitation. These images
were badly jolted when one saw the Hospital at Lambarene for the
first time. Countless numbers of goats wandered at will all over
the place; even when they were not visible their presence was per-
ceptible. The ground was made moist and slippery by an equally

large number of chickens. Hanging heavily in the dank air was
the smoke from the dozens of crude burners used by the Africans
for their cooking. There was also an inexplicably sweet and some-
what sticky smell perhaps from the cooking or from fallen and
fermented fruit.

The sanitary facilities were at an absolute minimum. There were
only two outhouses, one for each sex. The sewer underneath was
open and sometimes the wind blew from the wrong direction.

There were no bedsheets. The Africans brought their own
blankets. There were no "wards" as the term is used elsewhere.
There were long, bungalowlike affairs with small cubicles. When a
patient came to the Hospital, he was generally accompanied by his
entire family. The mother did the cooking, as she would at home.
The children were usually on their own.

The difficulty, of course, was with the term "hospital" as applied
to the Schweitzer colony. It created false images and expectations
by outsiders. The proper term should be "jungle clinic," as Dr.
Margaret had explained. Dr. Schweitzer did not come to Africa
for the purpose of building a towering medical center. He came in
order to meet the Africans on their own terms. What he built was
an African village attached to a functional medical and surgical
clinic. The Africans were attracted to Schweitzer because of the
man himself and because this was a village and a way of life familiar
to them rather than a forbidding building where they would be
cut off from their families and frightened by a world of total white-
ness, of people and walls and machines. Modern medicine has come
to accept the emotional security of the patient as a vital part of any
therapy. Dr. Schweitzer knew this almost a half-century earlier
when he made his plans to serve in Africa.

Most visitors who stayed long enough became aware of these
things. While they might never be able to accept completely all the
crudeness, at least they developed a working perspective. Some visi-
tors, however, could hardly wait to get back to Europe or America
in order to make known their discoveries. I had read at least four
articles by disillusioned visitors to Lambarene who misunderstood

and misjudged Dr. Schweitzer and what he was trying to do in
Africa.

In addition to exposing the lack of sanitation, the articles would
invariably talk about the gruffness of Dr. Schweitzer, especially
toward the Africans. They would be disturbed especially by his
references to the "noble savage." These were some of the things
that Clara Urquhart had cautioned me about before I left for
Lambarene. I, too, was surprised when I first noticed it, but after
a while I realized it was more apparent than real.

The Doctor would bark out his orders to the Africans and scold
them when they were doing something wrong. The impression he
gave was that he was dealing with children. There did not seem
to be sufficient respect in his manner toward the Africans. But
this was not the complete story. To get the full picture, one must
realize that Schweitzer also treated most whites as his "small
brothers" and one had to find out how the Africans themselves
interpreted his manner.

I watched the Africans closely as they worked under Dr. Schweit-
zer's orders, pushing back the jungle or gathering up stray pieces
of lumber or moving crates of medicines. When he appeared to be
arbitrary or gruff in what he told them to do they would smile
broadly and carry out his instructions. Sometimes when he called
out sharply, he would have a glint in his eye which they would
catch and it would amuse them.

In talking to one of the African leper workers at some length,
I learned that the ones who had been with the Doctor for any
length of time had no trouble in understanding him. They knew
he was somewhat short-tempered when things did not go just right;
but they knew something, too, about the pressures under which
he worked. And what was most important to them was that they
knew the stern manner did not reflect any displeasure by
Dr. Schweitzer.

Even when the Doctor seemed to lose his temper, it was only for
the moment, the leper said. Sometimes, if he had been too severe,
he would go out of his way later to make amends. Once he scolded

the wife of one of the patients. Fifteen minutes later he beckoned
to her when no one was looking, said he was sorry and gave her
thirty francs.

"We do not become angry," the leper said. "How could we?
Could a man become angry at his own father for telling him what
to do?"

The fact that Dr. Schweitzer's role at Lambarene was that of
father with respect to patients, their families, the workers, the
white doctors and nurses, and even the visitors is vital to any under-
standing of his manner. He had a sense of total personal responsibil-
ity for everyone and everything at Lambarene. Time was his most
precious commodity and he was no longer able to expend it in
lengthy and cordial explanations for what he would like to see
done. When, for example, he ordered the staff and visitors to wear
pith helmets, he did not have time to explain that when he first
came to Lambarene he had to deal with serious cases of sunstroke
suffered by white people who had insufficient respect for the strik-
ing power of the equatorial sun. Once he had to take an overnight
trip by canoe to attend the wife of a French planter who became
seriously ill because she thought it was unnecessary to wear a helmet
even though the sky was overcast. She hadn't understood that
even the diffused rays of a hidden sun can cause trouble. Dr.
Schweitzer did not intend to use all his time in Africa treating
white people for sunstroke; his purpose was to provide medical treat-
ment for Africans. And it became a little wearisome having to go
through detailed explanations to each new visitor. Hence his "take-
my-word-for-it" approach, whether with respect to sun helmets
or other matters, each of which had its reasons.

At Lambarene I realized that the criticism of Dr. Schweitzer's
relationship with the Africans missed an important point. The
somewhat arbitrary or patriarchal manner was not reserved for
blacks only. Once, while Dr. Schweitzer was superintending a
jungle-clearing operation, he ordered the blacks to rest. Then he
turned to three white members of the staff and to me and said,
"Now it's your turn." We obediently took up the work, pulling

stubborn weeds from near the trunks of young trees. After about
ten minutes we looked as though we had been working ten hours.
Our white shirts and khaki pants were drenched. All the while the
Africans stood by, looking on us with boundless compassion and
appearing desperately eager to spare us further effort. Then the
Doctor said we could stop; he just wanted us to have some respect
for the requirements of physical labor in Lambarene. He had made
his point.

Not infrequently, his seeming brusqueness was leavened with
humor. When Adlai Stevenson visited Lambarene he was escorted
on a tour around the Hospital by the Doctor. The former presiden-
tial candidate noticed a large mosquito alighting on Dr. Schweitzer's
arm and promptly swatted it.

"You shouldn't have done that," the Doctor said sharply. "That
was my mosquito. Besides, it wasn't necessary to call out the Sixth
Fleet to deal with him."

Clara gave me another illustration of the fact that his sternness
knew no color lines. Once, he became particularly exasperated at
an African who was putting boards of lumber in the wrong place.
He mumbled that he could almost slap the man. Clara, who was
standing nearby, was shocked and said so to the Doctor.

"Well, Clara," he said, "I don't think I am going to slap him.
But if I should do so, I want you to close your eyes and imagine
that I am slapping a white man. In that case, it will probably be
all right with you."

BY SEVEN A.M., the sun had claimed the sky and the mois-
ture was heavy in the air. I was halfway down the path leading to
the dining room when Dr. Gatchpool fell in alongside me.

"Better not let Dr. Schweitzer catch you without a helmet," he
said. "He's very sensitive on this subject. He's had some experience
with other people who saw no reason for wearing a helmet when
they were going to be outside for only a few minutes. He's had to
hospitalize them, and if there's one thing that annoys the Doctor, it's
taMng care of people who have no right to be sick."

In the dining room at breakfast, a few minutes later, Dr.
Schweitzer referred to the matter. He instructed Clara to be sure
to get a helmet to fit me from one of the extras in Mme. Oberman's
possession. Clara nodded knowingly, then whispered to me that the
Doctor meant business.

Breakfast consisted of thick homemade bread, jam, warm milk.,
coffee, and bananas. The Doctor ate somewhat more heartily than
the rest. He supplemented the regular fare with an avocado pear
and an egg.

Toward the end of the meal, I told Clara that I hoped we might
have a chance to spend a few minutes with the Doctor. I didn't
want to impose on his time, but I did have a few commissions that I

felt ought to be performed as soon after my arrival as possible.
During the course of a correspondence with President Elsenhower
on various subjects related to the peace, I had mentioned that I
hoped to be able to visit Dr. Schweitzer in Lambarene at about the
time of his eighty-second birthday. The President proceeded to
write a letter of birthday greetings to Dr. Schweitzer which he was
good enough to ask me to deliver. In that letter he spoke of his high
admiration for the Doctor, saying that he had derived much
inspiration from his work and thought, and felt the world was
greatly in need of the kind of contribution he had been making.
He ended by wishing the Doctor many more years of effective
service to the human community. I had another message for the
Doctor from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, whom I had seen
on his visit to the United States In the fall of 1956 and who was
most eager to have conveyed to the Doctor his deep admiration and
affection.

I had a third commission. A fifteen-year-old boy by the name of
Marc Ghalufour in Concord, New Hampshire, was engaged in a
crusade to save an old organ in his church from being replaced with
an electronic instrument. He felt the old organ could be repaired
and that it was sacrilegious to let it die especially since he did
not feel the new machine was really an organ. When, through one
of his teachers, who was a friend of mine, he happened to learn of
my coming visit to Lambarene, he asked if I might deliver a letter
from him to the Doctor. He felt that if he could enlist the Doctor in
his crusade, he might win his fight.

I knew I would feel better when these various commissions were
out of the way. And so I asked Clara what she thought would be
a convenient time to act. When the Doctor got up from the break-
fast table, Clara followed and spoke to him on his way out. Then
she nodded to me, indicating the matter was arranged.

As I emerged from the dining room, Clara handed me a pith
helmet that had just been given her by Mme. Oberman. It was a
little large and I had the feeling I was walking around inside an
inverted laundry basket, but it served the purpose.

In the compound not far from where we stood, the Doctor was
giving working instructions for the day to perhaps two dozen
Africans. First there had been a roll call and now the doctor was
dividing the men into different groups, one of which was to collect
stray lumber around the place, another of which was to repair the
porch on one of the long bungalows occupied by the staff, and still
another of which was to carry on the war against the jungle,
cutting, pruning, weeding, pushing back. I could readily see the
truth of the remark that had been made in connection with
Larnbarene, that if you left the jungle to itself for two months, it
would close in over you and you would have to tunnel your way
out.

Dr. Schweitzer completed his instructions and motioned to Clara
and me to follow. He went up the several steps to his quarters,
which were at one end of the long bungalow facing the compound.
Just to the side of it was a fenced-in area for several antelopes.

The Doctor's room, like all the others, was open at both ends,
covered by a wire screen and supporting woodwork. On the far
side he had his desk, part of which was under a mound of papers
and books. Opposite it was a medium-sized bookcase. The Doctor
asked us to be seated, then sat on a stool at least as old as the hos-
pital. I made a mental note of the fact that nowhere at Larnbarene
had I seen an upholstered chair or anything even resembling a sofa
or couch.

Dr. Schweitzer apologized for the fact that we did not have a
talk the previous afternoon. He pointed to a pile of forms on his
desk.

"All this is to be filled out," he said. "Now the French govern-
ment has asked us to prepare complicated forms for each patient
at the Hospital. Miserable paper work. Also now we have to fill out
workmen's compensation forms for the working people who come
to the Hospital. Dozens of items for each patient. And I hardly
know what to do with these."

He lifted his head in the direction of one end of his desk, indi-
cating a large bundle of new mail.

"My paper work is killing me," he said slowly. "Week by week
the mail gets larger. Mile. Ali and Mile. Mathilde help me as much
as they can. Even so, we keep falling farther and farther behind.
Many of them are important letters which must be answered. Some
of them are from theologians who raise significant questions in
connection with things they may have read that I had written at
one time or another. The least I can do is to try to answer them.
I am maybe fourteen months behind with part of my corre-
spondence. Some of the letters involve the work of the Hospital
people who volunteer to work here.

"While the turnover is not excessively large, we do have to bring
in new people now and then. The nurses and doctors here have to
take a leave of absence after a year or two just to rest up after
the exhausting work in this climate. And so new people keep
coming. Before a new nurse arrives at the hospital, some twenty-
seven letters have to be written. It is important, so very important,
to be sure about these things. It is not like a girl coming to the city
from the country to get a job. It is a long way from Europe and
America to Lambarene. And the only way I have of finding out
what I must know about each person is through letters most of
all the letters the person herself writes, but also what I can learn
from other people.

"After it is decided that a nurse or doctor is to come here, then
the real work begins. I must be very clear and very complete in the
instructions. Passports, visas, en-route accommodations.

"But we will not talk any more about this. Are you comfortable
in your quarters?"

I said I was very comfortable indeed. I told the Doctor I was
eager to take care of some matters, and handed him the letter from
President Eisenhower. He opened the letter carefully, then read it
without translation.

"A letter from the President of the United States," he said
slowly, then read it again. I could see that he was moved by what
the President had written. Then he looked up and smiled.

ioo

"Do you know, 35 he said, "that if, eighty-two years ago, my dear
mother had been told by someone that her little baby would some-
day receive a letter from the President of the United States, she
would have had the surprise of her life. This is a very kind letter
from the President. I will take great pride in returning the greet-
ing."

Then I conveyed the cordial good wishes of Prime Minister
Nehru. At the Doctor's request, I told him about the Prime Minis-
ter's recent visit to the United States, and the importance attached
to it by President Eisenhower. I referred to the fact that in the past
few years some misunderstanding had developed between the United
States and India. This was not merely a matter of differing foreign
policies. Public opinion in both countries had been growing apart.
In America, the mistaken notion existed that India had ranged
itself on the side of the Soviet against the United States, especially
as it concerned the decisions made in the United Nations. In India,
a large segment of public opinion took the view that the United
States was insensitive to the independence movement in Asia and
Africa, and that we were determined to preserve the interests of the
colonial powers in that part of the world.

The result of both these views was that the two peoples of the
world whose national historical experience had so much in com-
mon and who, by standing together, could contribute so mightily
in the building of essential bridges between East and West, were
drifting apart. Hence the significance of Mr. Nehru's trip to the
United States. Both the President and the Prime Minister had
developed an instant mutual admiration and respect.

In talking to the Prime Minister before he returned to India, I
learned that the exchange of views with the President had ckared
up many matters in his mind. At the same time, he was able to
impress on the President the reasons for the positions taken by
India with respect to affairs in Asia and the Middle East.

The Prime Minister attached the utmost importance to the
uprisings in Poland and Hungary. What happened in Hungary,

"If, eighty-two years ago, my dear mother had been told by someone that her little baby would
some day receive a letter from the President of the United States, she would have had the
surprise of her life . . ."

102

he said, would have a profound effect everywhere, especially among
young people who would now realize that communism could no
longer be the headquarters for their natural idealism. And even
though the uprisings were suppressed, there would be profound
internal changes in the Communist world, he felt, changes that
would inevitably move away from the old dictatorial shape of
things. People were demanding something better than what they
had known ; they were demanding greater liberty and a better life.
And there was no way for this demand to be resisted. He was there-
fore hopeful that, given world peace and a little time, there would
be long steps forward for a large part of the world community.

Dr. Schweitzer listened carefully. He recalled the time he had
met Nehru in Lausanne in 1936. He was impressed by the interest-
ing combination in Nehru of the contemplative man and the man
of action. And he was fascinated by the way Nehru complemented
Gandhi.

But enough of politics, he said. There was work to be done
around the Hospital and he invited me to tag along if I wished.

There was still the matter of Marc Chalufour and his crusade to
save the church organ. I decided to bring it up another time. As
for the main reasons I had come to Lambarene making duplicate
copies of the Doctor's unpublished and unfinished manuscripts, and
the possibility of direct action by him on the matter of world peace
these would have to wait for an hour when there might be some
easing of the pressures of the Hospital. But the more I learned
about the Hospital and about Dr. Schweitzer, the more pessimistic
I became that such an hour might be found.

In any event, I accepted the Doctor's invitation to accompany
him as he discharged his morning chores. The first job we had was
to move planks of lumber that had been stored in several places
to the porch of a bungalow that was now under repair. The wood
was the finest mahogany in the world. Its use as floor boards was
dictated by two factors: first, the abundance of mahogany in the
general area of Lambarene, making it inexpensive; second, the
need for the hardest woods as protection against termites. Much of

103

the Hospital, in fact, had been built with the kind of hardwoods
that in Europe and the United States were reserved for the most
costly cabinets or luxury paneling.

The Doctor worked alongside the Africans as the wood was trans-
ported by hand and placed in neat piles under the bungalow
porch being repaired.

Our next job was to get rid of crates of medicines that had spoiled
because they were improperly packed before being shipped. Ship-
pers in Europe and the United States, apparently, have little ex-
perience in preparing medicines for storage under equatorial
conditions. In addition to the heat and the moisture, medicines
have to contend with raiding ants. Large crates would arrive with
labels saying they had been specially sealed to guard against
heat and moisture; but within three weeks after arriving at Lam-
barene they had to be repacked. Even sealed metal drums some-
times failed to do the job. I watched two such drums containing
millions of cathartic molasses tablets emptied into wheelbarrows
for dumping into the river because they had spoiled or turned into
tar.

Then several large packages of aspirin had to be dumped. There
was some evidence indicating successful ant raids into the aspirin
stores. Judging by the size and activity of the ants at the Hospital,
I would have supposed that they were in no need of pain killers.
In any event, they kept coming back for more. The ants, who have
an appetite for paper, made it necessary to do double labeling on
each bottle. In fact, almost everything connected with the medi-
cines required two or three times as much work as it would in a
temperate zone. Every bottle, for example, had to be resealed with
paraffin after it arrived.

Ideally, of course, a hospital should have large refrigeration
facilities for its medical supplies. This is especially true with respect
to the new antibiotics. But there was very limited refrigeration equip-
ment at the Schweitzer Hospital. For the most part, the medicines
had to be stored in the empty space underneath buildings that were
so situated on the hillside that they had relative protection against

104

the sun. Sometimes the Doctor had to get down on his hands and
knees and crawl through the dirt in order to check on the medicines
and help move them as might be required.

After two hours of working alongside the Doctor I was ready to
throw in the towel. The Doctor's shirt was wringing wet. His hair
lay in moist gray clumps on his forehead.

Again I had to keep reminding myself that the Doctor was
entering his eighty-third year. Just trying to keep up with his stride
as he hurried from place to place was a feat of endurance. I could
hardly wait for the afternoon siesta.

When I entered the dining room, I felt fully at home for the
first time. For I knew that the look of severe midday fatigue on all
the faces of the staff was reflected on my own. The Doctor, too,
showed the effects of his exertions. Yet it was astounding and
wonderful to see the way even a brief respite and a good meal
enabled him to recoup his energies. After he had had his soup and
was halfway through his cheese and noodles the color began to
come back to his face. By the end of the meal he was sitting straight
in his chair, his eyes were twinkling, and he had some stories to
tell the staff that lifted their spirits.

"I have an announcement to make," he said. "Civilization in all
its glory has finally come to Lambarene. Less than a mile from the
Hospital today there was an automobile accident. There are prob-
ably only two cars within miles of the place; today they inevitably
met in a crash and we treated the drivers for some minor injuries.
If anyone here has reverence for automobiles he is welcome to
treat the cars."

Then he turned to Albertina.

"How is your pet monkey doing these days?" he asked.

"Not very well," Albertina replied. "I set him free in the morn-
ing but he has a terrible habit of wandering too far and has
increasing difficulty in finding his way home."

The Doctor smiled. "Maybe he drinks too much," he said.

On my way out of the dining room, I asked Clara when she
thought we might discuss with the Doctor the two main purposes

105

that brought us to Lambarene. She said we might have to wait
another day or two, perhaps longer; when the right time came, the
Doctor would come to us.

Walking toward my room, I passed the Doctor's quarters.
Through the wire screen I could make out his silhouetted form
perched over his correspondence. For the rest of the afternoon I
stayed in my room, taking care of office matters that had been air-
mailed to me from The Saturday Review in New York. Like
everything else in the world, my job had been revolutionized by
the air age. There is hardly a place in the world that cannot be
reached by person or mail in forty-eight hours. I have had airmail
bundles of work from New York only two and a half days old
delivered to me in a Moslem village fifty miles from Dacca in East
Pakistan. On another occasion, a postman on a bicycle met me
coming out from a small Japanese inn near Nagasaki and handed
me page proofs of the forthcoming issue of The Saturday Review.
And now in a jungle hospital in Africa, I was no farther away from
my office than I would have been twenty years earlier in Colorado.

The airplane has made it not only possible but necessary for an
editor to move his desk from place to place in the world. Indeed,
the airplane itself has become an efficient and productive office.
Nowhere outside of a plane have I found such ideal working and
thinking conditions. When at my job in New York, my main
business each day is to preside over interruptions. I have little time
for reading, less time for writing. Sequence is annihilated. One
takes things as they come, and they come in short, uneven bursts.
Once, I became sufficiently objective about my job to keep track
of everything that happened in the course of an average day. I dis-
covered that the telephone rang on the average of once every six
minutes; that there were at least six callers each day, three of
whom came by previous arrangement; that the important business
that had to be transacted with the staff had to be squeezed into
less than an hour and a half. In between the telephone and the
appointments, I would work on my unanswered-mail folder, which
weighed heavily on me even when out of sight. I would type my re-

106

plies on the back of each letter for retyping by my secretary on office
stationery.

On a plane, however, especially when we are high above the
clouds, the fragmentation disappears. Sequence comes to life again
and the mind has a chance to reorganize itself for consecutive
thought. The meal tray serves as an excellent stand for my typewriter
and the seat beside me becomes a side table for working papers.
I estimate that one hour in the sky office is the equivalent of about
four hours on land in terms of actual output.

There are, of course, distractions. The sky itself. Even so, it is
the kind of distraction that nourishes thought. For nowhere else in
the world is there grandeur like this. Sometimes, when flying above
a storm, vast, clearly defined cloud masses catch the light of the sun;
the result is a Grand Canyon of color multiplied by infinity. Once,
flying from Seattle to San Francisco, I saw three distinct cloud
levels, with clear sky in between. Each level had its own character.
The first was a massive purple floor, swelling and bulging when we
were close to it. The second layer was full of tunnels and canyons,
exploiting every gradation of gray and black. The third level aban-
doned itself to color, with gentle formations suggesting lakes of
gleaming silver, or long lemon-colored slopes meeting a light green-
blue sky.

Another time, flying from Beirut to Karachi, we darted in and
out of vast thunderheads, each of which looked as though it was
made up of the combined masses of all the mountains in the world.
The thunderheads each ran up to forty thousand feet, growing
fatter and more menacing on their way up, and then, suddenly,
they flattened out on the top, connecting with each other to make a
giant white roadbed. Underneath were the long caverns, deep gray
on one side, streaked blue on the other. For more than an hour,
we rode through the caverns until we finally hit a long open
clearing.

I need not even mention the sunsets. The combination of the
setting sun, the winds, and the swift movement of the plane changes
the landscape so rapidly that no two minutes are the same. It is a

107

developing wonder and makes a moving picture that stays in the
mind. And, if you catch the late sun just right as you fly west, it
will cause thin golden threads to spin off the propellers.

As I say, these are nourishing distractions, and I welcome as many
of them as I can find. Indeed, I have made a hobby of collecting
skyscapes, and now have some two dozen in my memory box to
think back upon. It is the kind of hobby that goes naturally with
the kind of job that has the world for its locale.

ON MY THIRD MORNING at Lambarene, after breakfast, I
crossed the small compound from the dining room to the porch
of the Schweitzer quarters in order to pay my respects to Mrs.
Schweitzer. She was seated in a dilapidated beach chair. In her
hand was a long bamboo rod which she used to fend off some of the
animals that would otherwise disturb her rest. In particular, there
was one bird she had to guard against. He looked like a cross
between a raven and a parrot. He would come swooping down and
alight on your shoulder or the back of your neck. If you weren't
used to this sort of thing, it could be somewhat unnerving, for it
would happen very suddenly and you hardly knew what hit you.
Generally, it would be accompanied by a sudden flapping of wings
and occasionally a nip of the ear. This bird was totally gregarious
and it was hard to persuade him that his attentions were not always
the ultimate in human enjoyment. Mrs. Schweitzer liked to doze in
her chair. So long as she held onto the bamboo rod, the bird
respected her solitude. But when the rod was absent, the bird
invariably interpreted it as an invitation to a shoulder.

The first time I saw Mrs. Schweitzer I could see she was not well.
The blue veins stood out in her forehead and seemed stark against
the pure whiteness of her skin. She had lovely gray-brown eyes but

108

109

they seemed to look at you through a mist. When she spoke it was
with considerable effort. Her breathing was labored. Despite her
difficulties, she would not allow anyone to treat her as an invalid.
She insisted on coming to the dining room for lunch and frequently
for dinner. It was easy to see how much of a struggle it was for her,
even with the aid of a cane, to negotiate the two dozen or so steps
across the compound and climb the short stairs to the dining room.
Once, I saw Mrs. Schweitzer start out across the compound, her
weight bent forward on the cane and her whole being struggling
for breath. I rushed to her side and took her arm. She looked up
at me, somewhat puzzled, as though I did not know the rules of
the game at Lambarene. Then she smiled and thanked me but said
she was in the habit of getting around by herself. She expressed
the hope that I might corne to visit her on the porch and talk to her.

"You know," she said, "I am so interested, so very much in-
terested, in what is happening in the world, and here one does not
often get a chance to talk about it. The Doctor is very busy with
the Hospital and all his other work and I do, not want to tire him
by asking him about things. So there is very little talk. And I am
hungry for talk, especially about the world. It would be very nice if
you could come to visit with me; that is, if you are not too busy."

I accepted the invitation gratefully. And now,, the next day, I
visited Mrs. Schweitzer on the porch. She bid me draw up a chair
and told me she would do her best to protect me against the bird
now making short circles above my head in preparation for a
landing.

She apologized for the fact that she was unable to escort me to
such parts of the grounds as I might like to see. Many years earlier,
she had had a skiing accident that had broken her spine; in recent
months she found it increasingly difficult to get around. Hence the
cane and her seat on the porch.

"It makes me feel so foolish," she said, "this being so helpless.
I ought to be working with the Doctor. He is an amazing man. I
really think he is working harder now than he did twenty years
ago. And twenty years ago I was afraid he was killing himself with

110

work. He has always said that he has a favorite prescription for
anyone over sixty who does not feel well hard work and more
hard work. As you can see, it is a prescription he follows him-
self.

"I am only sorry I cannot work hard, too. We have been working
here a long time . . . more than forty years. I used to be able to
help the Doctor; but in the last few years it has no longer been
possible for me to do so."

I asked Mrs. Schweitzer which place she considered her real
home Gunsbach or Lambarene.

"Actually, there are three homes," she said. "When I was young,
shortly after I was married, I contracted tuberculosis, so we went
to live in the Black Forest of Germany, where the climate was
considered helpful for people in that condition. We liked it very
much, so very much that we kept a home there even after I was
cured.

"Then there is the home in Gunsbach in Alsace, as you know.
At first it was very 'much a home, but we spent less and less time
there. And whenever we returned, there would be so many people
who wanted to see my husband that I came to regard it more as an
office than a home.

"And so, of the three places, this place seems most like home to
me. It is very hot here in Lambarene; it is very moist and there
isn't much more than a bedroom to our own quarters. But this place
to me has been our main home for more than forty years."

When I asked about their daughter, Mrs. Schweitzer said that
she wasn't sure that Rhena had the same feeling about Lambarene
being a home for her.

"You see," she said, "when Rhena was small, the Doctor did
not feel that Lambarene was a good place in which to bring up a
child. And so we sent her to boarding school. In later years, when
she was fully grown, she came here for a visit for a few weeks.
She is now married, to Jean Eckert of Zurich, an organ builder,
and she of course has her own home."

Mrs. Schweitzer then got up from her chair and went inside.

Ill

After a moment she reappeared, holding the family album. One of
the early photographs showed the Albert Schweitzers with their
little girl. Albert Schweitzer was young and sturdy, with black
wavy hair, a thick mustache, and an unwrinkled face. Helena
Schweitzer was pretty and vivacious; her features were thin and
sensitive but there was great strength and directness in the face.
Rhena had large dark eyes and held her mother's hand. She wore
the expression so familiar to parents of little girls part shyness,
part curiosity, part uncertainty, part feminine delight in being asked
to pose.

Another photograph showed Dr. Schweitzer at the age of thirty-
seven or -eight. This was about the time he was getting ready to
come to Lambarene. He was in a reflective mood. His wide-set eyes
had caught a distant light and seemed to carry him outside the frame
of the photograph. His chin was resting on his closed right hand.
There was a quizzical look around the mouth. There was no trace
of whiteness in the hair.

Then there was a picture taken of Rhena and her husband just after
they were married. Mr. Eckert was alert and well groomed. Right
after this were other family pictures of the Eckerts, the most recent
of which showed their sixteen-year-old boy, Philippe, who had re-
cently been very ill but who was fast recuperating. Mrs. Schweitzer
said the Doctor was very fond of Philippe.

"Here," Mrs. Schweitzer said, "y u were interested in our home
in Gunsbach. This is a picture of the street and this is a picture of
the house itself. It is a nice house, not pretentious, but very sturdy
and comfortable.

"I like these pictures. I turn to them very often. Those early
pictures were taken so many years ago that it is hard to remember
exactly how many. Now we do not take pictures any more.

"I know I am talking like an old woman. But it is true. I am
old. I am very old. And now I have very little to do except to look
at these pictures and old letters and think back upon our life
together.

"You will forgive me? Thank you. I am so eager to hear about

112

your own family. Clara has told me about your wonderful wife
and your children four or five girls, which?"

I took out a small group photograph showing Ellen and three of
the four girls. I did not happen to have a picture of the youngest
girl.

Mrs. Schweitzer lingered a long time over the photograph, asking
me to describe each child. This I did with relish and supporting
anecdotal material. Then, at her request, I told her about our home
and the openness and sense of freedom it afforded the children.
She eagerly devoured the information about my family and made
me promise to send additional photographs from time to time.

I feared I might be intruding on her rest, so I got up to leave.
She made me sit down again, saying that it had been a long
time since she had had the opportunity to talk to anyone so fully.
Besides, we hadn't even mentioned the world situation. What about
the political situation in the United States? What about the struggle
between East and West? What about communism? What about
atomic energy?

"You must understand," she said, "that there aren't many visitors
from the United States. And those who come do not stay for very
long. They have urgent business, or so it seems, with the Doctor,
and there isn't much opportunity to talk to them."

For the next hour I answered Mrs. Schweitzer's questions as best
I could and she had comments of her own to make now and then.

"It is so terrible," she said, "the world gets rid of one monster
like Hitler but there are always others waiting in the wings to take
his place. Isn't it strange? Human beings allow themselves to be-
come all twisted under the influence of these men. I have seen it
happen to many people I knew in Germany. I have seen the change
that came over these human beings. I have seen decent people turn
into killers and sadists."

She was of Jewish origin; she knew what she talked about.

"Anyway, we do the best we can and we work for better things.
I don't know why I say c we.' My time is over. I am too old. But
I can hope. No one is ever so old that he cannot hope even if his

113

hopes are for others. I have done much such hoping hi my life
and some of the hopes have come true. In recent years for me there
has been not much to do except to hope and to look at the pictures
and think back."

Mrs. Schweitzer did not come to dinner that night. I feared that
our conversation had been a drain on her energies, but Clara told
me that she had been coming to dinner with decreasing frequency
in recent weeks.

I next saw Mrs. Schweitzer at lunch the following day. She was
at least fifteen minutes late in coming to her place. For the longest
time after she sat down she had difficulty in getting her breath.
Her lips were a stark blue. But she smiled graciously and did
her best to engage in conversation. All she had for the noonday
meal was a cup of tea. When she got up to leave she beckoned
to me. Once we were outside she said she hoped I would visit her
again on her porch. It meant so much to her, she repeated, to talk
to people who have just come from the United States.

I had several visits with Mrs. Schweitzer while I was at Lam-
barene. I came to admire her pride, her resourcefulness, her tenac-
ity, her continuing interest in the outside world.

Two months after I returned from the Hospital at Lambarene,
I picked up a newspaper and learned that Mrs. Schweitzer had
died. Her life had not been an easy one, but it had known purpose
and hope and grace.

"There is such a thing as being too detached."

"One can't expect philosophers to be romanticists ... the philosopher must deal not only,
with the techniques of reason or with matter and space and stars, but with people."

H!!

"Goethe became a prisoner of his own promises. I don't want that to happen

to me."

VII

ON THE AFTERNOON of my fourth day at Lambarene, Dr.
Schweitzer came to my room and said he hoped it might be con-
venient for us to talk. He said it would be nice if we could be
incommunicado from the rest of the Hospital for about two hours.
We found Clara who suggested that we meet in her room which
was out of sight from the main Hospital paths.

Dr. Schweitzer seated himself on the bed, his arm resting on the
white metal tubing on the lower end. I don't recall how we hap-
pened to get on the subject of philosophy, but for at least two
hours he discussed his debt to the great thinkers in history.

At one point, he stopped short, saying that one did a disservice to
philosophy in general and certain philosophers in particular if one
had nothing to offer them except praise. He pointed out, as Bacon
and others have done, that the uncritical acceptance of Aristotle
for many centuries actually had the effect of retarding speculative
and systematic thought. There was a tendency to view Aristotle
as the be-all and end-all of philosophy, with the result that hardly
anyone felt there was any point in further exploration or develop-
ment.

"Philosophy will never be complete and can never be complete,
by the very nature of philosophy. The human mind is capable of

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118

infinite growth. There are endless adventures in creative thought
ahead of us. It is only when men bow low before great thinkers
and proclaim them to have said the last word that philosophical
growth becomes arrested.

"Aristotle wasn't the only one. There was Kant. He was such a
giant that men who should be working on the philosophical frontiers
drew back and confined themselves to endless interpretations and
theorizing about Kant. It was important, of course, for qualified
thinkers to analyze Kant, but they had a tendency to make this
analysis an end in itself. And since Kant was regarded as the last
word, the new words were delayed in coming. 5 '

Then Dr. Schweitzer ran his fingers through his long, shaggy
hair one of the most characteristic of his gestures.

"I can't blame all this on Kant, of course," he said. "But I can
blame him for being so much system and so little compassion. One
can't expect philosophers to be romanticists, but it is important to
remember that the philosopher must deal not only with the tech-
niques of reason or with matter and space and stars, but with
people. After all, it is the relationship of man to the universe, and
not solely the relationship of one galaxy to another, or one fact
to another, that should occupy such an important part of the
philosopher's quest. There is such a thing as being too detached.
I fear this may have been true of Kant."

There were other things in philosophy that bothered Dr. Schweit-
zer. Philosophical catchwords, for example. The way a phrase
would be picked up and used almost automatically whenever a
man's name would be mentioned, as though the phrase described
the sum total of his life and thought.

He spoke of Descartes.

"One would think that Descartes lived just to emit a line of
staggering profundity: I think, therefore I am. 3 How rare are the
full-bodied examinations of his work. There has been too much
genuflecting before 'Cogtto, ergo sum'; too many philosophical
monuments have been erected in its behalf.

"I find it difficult to be impressed by 'I think, therefore I am/

119

One might as well say, <I have a toothache, therefore I exist. 3
These catchwords are tricky things. I don't think they serve the
cause of creative thought in philosophy."

Then he looked up and said, "I have been negative enough.
Too negative. There are philosophers whom I like and who have
exercised strong influence on my own thought. Hegel, most of all.
A man of reason. But also a man with a deep respect for the
possibilities of the human being, especially the capacity to embrace
important new concepts. Hegel is a philosopher who deserves well
the mind concerned with the problems of its own growth.

"As for a school of philosophical thought, I acknowledge my
great debt to the Stoics. To my mind it is the greatest formal
philosophy in human history. To the extent that I can be identified
with any one school, I should be proud to be related to the Stoics.
There have been other influences, of course. I have a high admira-
tion for the English philosophers of the late seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. They were imaginative but precise. They were
concerned with man's estate.

"I have also found myself influenced by the early Chinese
philosophers. There is an intense human quality hi their thought.
They never allow themselves to get too far away from their specula-
tions about the nature of man or the purpose of man. And it is
only logical that out of all this thought should come such a creative
naturalism."

Dr. Schweitzer stared at the opposite wall. He said that these
real influences in his philosophical thought were sometimes over-
looked in the appraisals by others. It would be said, for example,
that the Buddhist influence in his work was pre-eminent. This was
a mistake.

"The mistake is natural enough," he said. "There is a disposition
to think that because I am so deeply concerned with the need for rev-
erence for life that my philosophy must be Buddhist, especially in
connection with the Buddhist emphasis on the importance of animal
life. But there is much more to Buddhism than that; and I hope
there may be more to my own philosophy than that

120

"A moment ago I was talking about the need to be careful of
philosophical catch phrases. It Is true that no single phase of my
own philosophy is more representative of my thinking than 'rev-
erence for life.' But the phrase is related to a whole line of thought.
Rather than have people speculate on whether this phrase connects
me to this philosophy or that, I would have them look into the
purpose and the meaning of my work as a whole, such as it is.

"Christian theology has found it difficult to come to terms with
my thought, though Christians have not. 3 '

He paused as he made this distinction.

"I have the feeling that the Christian theologians are reluctant
to come in through the door I have tried to open. I have tried
to relate Christianity to the sacredness of all life. It seems to me
this is a vital part of Christianity as I understand it. But the
Christian theologians, many of them, confine Christianity to the
human form of life. It does not seem to me to be correct.- It lacks
the essential universalization that I associate with Jesus. Why limit
reverence for life to the human form? As I say, I have tried to open
the door; I hope the Christian theologians will come in."

I asked Dr. Schweitzer whether these philosophical ideas were
reflected in the two books I understood were now close to com-
pletion.

He replied, yes, these ideas were reflected in the two books, but
they were not necessarily the main theme. And he proceeded to
describe the two unpublished works. He had published two of four
volumes which together he calls The Philosophy of Civilization.
The last two volumes were not quite completed. They were a
continuation of the work which had appeared more than a quarter
of a century ago. Another book now in manuscript form would be
called The Kingdom of God. It would be a fairly short book. It
would contain his ideas about Christianity and the reality of the
human spirit in general.

"In the early 1930 9 s I was determined to finish the two last
volumes of The Philosophy of Civilization. But I kept being di-
verted. We were in a period of considerable building at the Hospital

121

in Lambarene and I found myself putting off my writing from
month to month.

"Then, in 1938, I decided to leave Lambarene in order to work
for at least a year on the books. But even before we arrived in
Europe in fact, while we were crossing the Bay of Biscay by boat
I learned that Adolf Hitler had just made a speech in which he
tried to reassure the world that his sole aim in everything he did
was peace. The speech was such a patent cover-up that I realized
the war was not far off. I put all thoughts of my book aside and
concentrated on planning for the Hospital's needs in the event of
war. I obtained a large stock of medical and other supplies, know-
ing that we would be largely cut off from Europe. Then I returned
to Lambarene in order to prepare for the war."

He knitted his craggy brows and I could tell that he was reliving
the anxieties of the late thirties, when the heavy clank of the iron
heel grew louder and nearer with each passing day.

The war came and only occasionally, late at night, was he able
to work on the books. And then, at war's end and in the years that
followed., a whole new crop of problems sprang up at the Hospital,
resulting in yet other postponements for his serious writing. First
of all, he said, additional buildings were needed. Then there was
the biggest single new project since the Hospital started his leper
village, built with the money he received from the Nobel Peace
Prize. And, of course, his visit to the United States in 1 949 in con-
nection with the bicentenary celebration at Aspen, Colorado, of
Goethe's birth.

"Interruptions important interruptions but interruptions all
the same, 53 he said. "I worked for months on the Goethe lectures
to be given in America. I worked for almost half a year on the
Nobel acceptance speech."

I asked if the original Nobel acceptance manuscript was still
available; I felt that any number of book publishers would feel
privileged to issue it. Perhaps some of the matter might be adapted
for article purposes. In that case The Saturday Review would like
to put in a bid for the material right now.

122

Dr. Schweitzer said he had not looked at the material for some
time, but would, at a later date, send me a copy. He feared, how-
ever, that it might need a great deal of work. And he shuddered
when he thought of all the other work that claimed priority. Here
he was telling me of the difficulty he was having in finding time to
finish his two major manuscripts and now, just in the act of talking
about it another book was being mentioned.

"Perhaps I had better do what I can, when I can and if I can,
on the Philosophy and The Kingdom. Even though it has been some
years now since I have been able to do any sustained writing on
these books, my mind has kept ticking away like an old clock a long
time after the key had been lost. The central ideas have been de-
veloping in my mind ; I have a fairly good idea of what it is I should
like to say; now all I need is time to say it."

His reference to time jolted me into the awareness of my own
responsibility for having taken up so much of his afternoon. I told
the Doctor that there was much I wanted to discuss with him,
especially as it concerned his manuscripts; but perhaps we should
leave it for another time.

He said he had understood from Emory Ross that I had some
mission or other in connection with his manuscripts but the whole
thing was very mysterious. He smiled and got up to leave.

"Tomorrow, at four o'clock, I will come here again to Clara's
room and we will talk. And the mystery will be no more. 33

As he walked out the door he turned around and cautioned me
to wear my helmet at all times. He said it would take him too long
to give me all the reasons why it was necessary for me to do so
but he hoped I would take his word for it. I told him that by now
I was completely indoctrinated.

After he left, Clara said she had a feeling we would get what we
came for. She was deeply pleased to see the Doctor so relaxed.

"It's been a long, long time since he has talked this fully about
philosophical matters with anybody. He needs it. It is a busy but
lonely life here for him at Lambarene. Always it is the pressure of
the Hospital. And he does not have the chance to exchange ideas

123

In the fields that mean so much to him. He will come tomorrow
and we will put the two propositions to him."

BUT AT FOUR o'clock the next afternoon, Dr. Schweitzer did not
come. Fifteen minutes later we were in the middle of an equatorial
squall. I had a large umbrella and I asked Clara whether I ought
to take it to him. Clara said that even though the Doctor had no
umbrella and seldom used a raincoat he would not be stopped by
the heavy rain. This troubled me and when, at four-thirty, the
Doctor had failed to arrive, I put on my raincoat and set off after
him with the umbrella.

He was not in his bungalow. I learned that he was out in the
rain, looking after a new shipment of medicines, making sure they
were in a dry place. When he came to his bungalow and saw me
standing there with outstretched umbrella, he shook his head slowly
and said he hoped I had not thought he had forgotten our engage-
ment.

We walked together to Clara's room. He took off his helmet,
hung it on the bedpost, then seated himself on the bed as he had
done the day before, resting his arm on the metal tubing. He
started off by lightly scolding the both of us for having thought it
necessary to come after him. I exonerated Clara and said I had
come to fetch him because of the storm. He put me at my ease at
this, saying that even old ducks can shed water.

"Now then," he said, "there are some matters you wish to take
up with me?"

There were two such matters, I replied. One of them concerned
the manuscripts. It was this that Emory Ross had in mind when
he had told him of my coming. The other matter was of a more
general nature. I would like to defer it until we had had a chance
to discuss the first.

"Very well, then, 33 he said, "let us proceed with the first matter.
Emory Ross has asked me to give it my most careful and favorable
attention. Judging by the way he mentioned the matter, I almost
have the feeling of approaching doom."

124

His face lighted up with a big smile. This put me at ease. I told
Dr. Schweitzer that his friends in America and throughout the
world, in fact, were deeply concerned about his unpublished manu-
scripts. They felt it a matter of the most urgent importance that
these works be completed and issued. In this latter connection, I
said there was serious apprehension over the physical safety of the
manuscripts.

"All right, 35 he said, "we will discuss the manuscripts. So that
you will know fully all there is to know about them, I will review
the situation as it stands at this moment. As I told you yesterday,
there are two unpublished manuscripts. Having mentioned The
Philosophy of Civilization at our meeting yesterday, we will now
discuss The Kingdom of God.

"No one has seen this book and I have not talked about it. This
book is practically complete. The thesis is that Christianity has
veered away from Christ. Christianity has constructed an elab-
orate dogma but it has not really comprehended that the mission
of Jesus was to enable every man to discover the Kingdom of God
in himself. Jesus wanted to prepare man for the Kingdom of God ;
it was his dominant concern. But Christianity, as it has developed,
has been more concerned about the forgiveness of sins and the
resurrection than it has been about the thing that was closest to
Jesus the fact that mankind must understand the meaning of the
Kingdom of God. Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah. He
claimed to be none of the things that have been claimed for him.
He claimed only to know the reality of the coming of the Kingdom
of God.

"There is not much more to say about it. An author is really
a poor person to talk about the central ideas in his book."

I asked where the manuscript of The Kingdom of God was.

"Right here in a trunk at the hospital," he said.

"When will The Kingdom of God be ready for publication?"

"As well ask a hen exactly when she expects to produce her egg.
I do not know. There are so many things for me to do here at the
Hospital. Everything is changing. Now that the Africans have all

125

become French citizens, our whole relationship to the patients is
different. Now there are elaborate forms to be filled out for the
administration. Each African who wants workman's compensation
has to have detailed information supplied about him.

"Formerly, I would just dash off a short note, sign my name to it,
and that was that. Now it's endless. And if I say that a patient
has been treated and is ready to go back to work, he may become
outraged for he would like to stay away from his job yet get paid
for it. Little by little, all the joy is going out of our work."

(I recalled reading that when he first came to Lambarene, Dr.
Schweitzer wrote to his friends in Europe, saying that he wished
they could come to see his joy when a patient left for home after
being treated at the Hospital well and smiling.)

"And this is not all," he continued. "There is so much work to be
done. Little things that have to be done that no one else will do.
Look at that curtain. It should have a rod at the bottom, too, so
it won't blow into the room when the wind is strong. I must really
get to it.

"A few years ago, I thought that my long-range problems at the
Hospital were in the process of being solved. I had a doctor here
who could take over and keep the Hospital going after I died.
And I felt that I would soon have the time I needed to finish my
books. But it became necessary for him to leave the reasons are
long and complicated and then I had to take the entire burden
of the Hospital again. The doctors who are with me now are very
good but they are very young and so I cannot relinquish the super-
vision of the running of the Hospital.

"It takes two years before a doctor is really on his own here at
Lambarene. There is so much to learn that can only be learned
by experience. When a doctor first comes out, we have to go
through certain stages. They all have the same ideas for bringing in
electricity and for doing this thing and that things that many
years ago we had decided against for specific reasons and one has
to be patient."

I remarked that the wonder to me was not that he had been able

126

to write so little but that, under the circumstances, he should have
been able to write at all.

"The published writings have turned out to be helpful friends/ 3
he said. "As I may have told you earlier, the first buildings at this
Hospital were paid for by Johann Sebastian Bach. The royalties
from my book on Bach, that is. Who knows, perhaps these other
works, if I am able to complete them remote as this may now
appear to be may be similarly helpful. 5 '

I asked if we could revert to his Philosophy of Civilization. What
led him to conceive of it and write it?

"Just before the First World War," he said, "I received an invita-
tion from the London representative of Harper & Brothers to do a
book on my philosophy. I started work on it, finishing it shortly
after the end of the war. Then I sent it to Harper's, which ap-
parently lost its old enthusiasm for the project, saying they were
very sorry, and they returned it. I guess the idea of a book by
anyone with ,a German background even a French-speaking
German from the Alsace was not too popular in those days.

"And then I sent the book to my publisher in Berlin. And he,
too, had no taste for the manuscript. Finally, I didn't know what to
do with it, so I asked my friend Emmy Martin, who was going
to Munich, to dispose of it any way she wished on almost any
terms.

"Emmy took the manuscript under her arm one day to a publish-
ing house named Beck. I don't think she knew that Beck was
primarily interested in legal books, but she went in anyhow and
asked to see Mr. Beck. She was told that Mr. Beck was out but
that the bookkeeper would see her. He was Herr Albers. Emmy
introduced herself. Her hands trembled as she held the manuscript,
and with an air of defeat she said she supposed that there would be
no interest in a book on philosophy.

"Herr Albers took the manuscript, leafed through some of the
pages and said nothing for ten minutes. Then he said that Emmy
couldn't have the manuscript back. He wanted to read the entire
thing.

127

"When Emmy Martin wrote to me that Beck would take my
book, I was overjoyed. On my next trip, I went in to meet Heir
Albers who was to become my close friend for many years until
his death by suicide during the Hitler regime."

At this point Dr. Schweitzer interrupted himself.

"Are you sure that you are interested in this sort of thing?" he
asked.

I assured Dr. Schweitzer that nothing could interest me more.

Dr. Schweitzer looked at me closely, smiled slightly, and said he
did not want to seem like a garrulous old man. He continued :

"It was just about that time that Albers had persuaded his
associates to publish another very long book, this one by a writer
named Oswald Spengler, who gave his work the ominous title,
Decline of the West. And so now Beck had two non-legal heavy
philosophical works on his current list.

"One day, the three of us Albers in the center, Spengler on one
side, myself on the other were going out to lunch together. And
I burst out laughing, and said he reminded me of a butcher out
walking with his prime oxen.

"There was much trouble before my book was published. All
the money Beck made on Spengler was wiped out by the runaway
inflation. And my own book was held up because the printing
press had been requisitioned by the government in order to turn
out more paper money. Finally the book appeared and I was
pleased when I learned that it would be translated into other lan-
guages.

"But the Decline and Restoration of Civilization, as the book was
called, was actually only part of a much larger whole. And it is
the last part of this larger work that I have had such difficulty in
finding time to work on. Most of my time was spent in building up
the Hospital. Then one day, during the early thirties, two doctors
who were here at the time came to me and insisted that I work
at the Hospital during the mornings only and that the afternoons
and evenings I give to my manuscript. It was wonderful. I was able
to accomplish a great deal. In fact, I even had time to undertake

128

a collection of various autobiographical papers. And so, Out of
My Life and Thought was born. It was this book, I am told, that
called my ideas to the attention of people who had not heard of
me before. 53

That was how I happened to hear about him, I said. Because of
my interest in the organ a friend had sent me a copy of the book
in 1938, with a slip marking the chapter on organ building. And
I remembered what a pleasant discovery it was to find among the
moderns someone who still used the Aristotelian system for exploring
a subject. The way Aristotle explained plant life was the way Dr.
Schweitzer's chapter on the organ treated the art and science of
organ building what kind of wood to use in the pipes, where to
place the organ, where to place the choir, what kind of nave was
most suitable dozens of factors that had to be correlated before
an organ was built and installed.

While we were talking about Out of My Life and Thought one
of the nurses came in to ask a question about some drugs that were
needed. He disposed of the matter, then resumed :

"I was saying that after Out of My Life and Thought appeared,
I began to make interesting connections in many places. I received
an invitation to give the GifTord Lectures in Edinburgh, which I
accepted. I was glad that I did so, for I worked on the lectures
for almost two years and derived much intellectual stimulation
from it.

"Then came World War II. You will recall that I told you
yesterday that I happened to be on a boat passing through the
Bay of Biscay, when I became convinced that the war was near,
upon hearing that Adolf Hitler had just assured the world that all
he wanted was peace. I then returned to Lambarene in order to
prepare the Hospital for carrying on its work even though it might
be cut off from a large part of the world in the war years. I was
able during that time to give little sustained attention to my writ-
ings. Now I don't know whether I shall ever finish The Philosophy"

"How much more work is there?" I asked.

"Once again, the mother hen: I have no idea. There is more

129

work to do here at the Hospital than ever before. More patients.
More new buildings. More letters. And the forms to fill out, of
course."

"Where is the manuscript of your third volume of The Philosophy
of Civilization?"

"It is also here at the Hospital in my trunk. 33

It was at this point that I told him that his friends were worried
about the condition of these manuscripts. I understood that there
were no duplicate copies. There were hazards of fire, flood, decay
any one of a number of things that could happen to his work.
We believed that it would be wise to have photograph copies made
of the manuscripts. And it was for this purpose that I had come
with Clara with special camera equipment that would enable us to
have film negatives made of all his unpublished work.

He looked somewhat startled at this.

"It would take many, many hours," he said.

I assured him that his own presence would not be necessary, that
Clara and I would team up to carry out the project, and that all
that would be needed would be the manuscripts.

He said he would consider this and give his answer the following
day.

I moved on to the next point and told him that a publisher in
New York had authorized me to offer him an advance against
royalties of twenty-five thousand dollars for his manuscripts.

"Two things about this,' 3 he said.

"The first is that Goethe taught me a lesson that has become a
stern rule. Goethe made the mistake of committing himself to
deliver books by a certain date without being absolutely certain
that he could fulfill the commitment. It tore him apart. He became
the prisoner of his own promises. It affected him deeply. I don't
want that to happen to me.

"The second thing is that I have learned from the Niebelungen
to keep one's loyalty to one's associates. I already have several
publishers in the United States who have worked with me. 3 '

This matter was discussed rather fully, and I told Dr. Schweitzer

130

that I felt that at whatever time the manuscript would be read)
we could go to the other publishers and inform them of the par
ticular proposal I had just relayed to him, and receive from then
some idea of their own capacities and desires in the matter.

"This, too, I will think about," he said. "But now tell me wha
the other matter is that you wish to discuss."

I took a deep breath, then plunged in. I approached the questior
of world peace at its largest, discussing existing world tensions ir
the context of an age that had available to itself total destructive
power. No people and no nation were really secure. And the raa
for security, inevitable under conditions of world anarchy, had the
paradoxical effect of intensifying the insecurity. For the ne\v
weapons placed a high premium on surprise. Yet the nations fell
they had no choice except the pursuit of military strength in a
lawless world.

But far more serious was the fact that man was now able tc
tamper with his genetic integrity. Through radioactivity he was in
a position to pursue and punish the unborn generations. He now
had the power to change and cheapen the nature of human life.
This was power of an ominous order indeed.

I watched Dr. Schweitzer carefully as Clara, speaking very slowly
in German, relayed my message. His eyes were closed and his
brows were knit. He sat with his head bent forward.

I asked Clara to emphasize that I realized I was not saying any-
thing that he did not know far better than I. My reason for bringing
up the subject was that I felt there was no one in the world whose
voice would have greater carrying power than his own.

When he asked what it was that we would have him do, I said
we had nothing specific to suggest other than that he might feel
free to express his concern to the world.

At this moment, Dr. Margaret rapped on the door. She apol-
ogized for interrupting but there was an emergency case a woman
with an extrauterine pregnancy who had just been brought to the
hospital. An immediate operation was necessary but the woman
was already too weak to undergo surgery.

131

Dr. Schweitzer stood up to leave.

"La Doctoresse has come at just the right time," he said. "It is
good to be reminded now and then that even in a world struggling
with the momentous issue of war and peace the individual has
problems.

"We will talk further."

The operating room at the Schweitzer Hospital. Power for the electricity is furnished by a
generator. The rest of the Hospital is illuminated with oil lamps.

A young African mother in a pensive mood while waiting for her baby to be examined.

VIII

THERE is ONLY one place at the Schweitzer Hospital
where electricity is available. This is the operating room, where
there are modern overhead surgical theater lights. The electricity
is furnished by a generator. When the motor is turned on, the
throbbing noise alerts everyone that the operating room is going into
action. During the night, an African medical orderly is assigned
to the river landing. When an emergency case arrives and it appears
that surgery may be necessary, he switches on the noisy generator.
The effect is that of a gong in a fire station. Doctors and nurses swing
out of their beds like firemen, jump into their clothes, and do every-
thing except slide down a brass pole.

Not long after midnight on the day Dr. Margaret came to Clara's
room to tell Dr. Schweitzer about the woman with the extrauterine
pregnancy, the generator started up. Instantly, I could hear activity
in some of the rooms. There were hurried footsteps on the porch.
The steady throb of the generator continued for perhaps an hour and
a half, or two. Then the motor stopped and after a while I could
hear the shuffling footsteps on the porch of the doctors and nurses
trudging back to their rooms. I didn't need the sounds to tell me
how exhausted they must have been. It was 4:30 A.M. In another
two hours the Hospital would be starting on another day. I won-

135

136

dered how many on the staff were too tired even to sleep. The air
was heavy and the act of breathing was almost a conscious one. Little
wonder that Dr. Margaret, for all her loveliness, showed darkness
under her eyes and at times seemed to walk with a stoop. She was
no different from the others; fatigue was their constant companion.

About a half hour after the doctors and nurses returned to their
quarters, I heard strange voices coming up the hill. At first, the
sound was a low rumble. Then, all at once, the voices, now sharp
and insistent, seemed to be collected at the end of the porch. These
were African voices and they were angry. I got out of bed quickly,
put on my khaki pants, and went out on the porch. Not far away
in the dim light I could make out some two dozen people in a
cluster.

I walked toward the group and perceived the small, slight form
of a person who was apparently saying something to the Africans
in subdued tones. It was Clara. One of the Africans had stepped
forward and said that the group wanted La Doctoresse to produce
the body of the woman who had just died on the operating table.
They had been instructed by the witch doctor to obtain the body
in accordance with their customs.

In a voice that indicated understanding but also strength, Clara
said that La Doctoresse was sleeping; she was exhausted from her
night's work. Under no circumstances should she be awakened.
Then Clara stepped down from the porch and approached the
tall African who was spokesman for the group. For a second I feared
for her safety but only for a second. Clara was saying something
to the tall African that caused him to nod, then turn around and
speak to the group in a native tongue. There was a brief exchange,
but the voices became increasingly moderate, and then the tall
African said something to Clara, politely and almost in a whisper,
and turned away and started down the hill. The others followed
him.

Clara sat down on the steps. I could tell from the way she did it
that she had spent herself emotionally. I know she didn't want to
talk about it, so I said nothing and went back to my room.

137

Later, at breakfast, sitting next to Dr. Coulon, I learned what
had happened.

The woman had been brought into the Hospital late the previous
afternoon. The case had instantly been diagnosed as an extrauterine
pregnacy. That is, fertilization had taken place outside the uterus.
The embryo had been allowed to develop long past the danger
point. Apparently the woman's parents had insisted on witch-doctor
treatment, but when the pain became fiendish, the woman's husband
took the matter into his own hands, put his wife into a pirogue,
and paddled thirty miles to the hospital.

Dr. Coulon said that all the doctors had agreed on the need for
an emergency operation to save the young woman's life. But the
woman had lost so much blood by the time she had arrived at the
Hospital that La Doctoresse felt any immediate surgery would al-
most certainly kill her. Under the circumstances, they decided on
immediate transfusions in the hope that the patient might regain
sufficient strength to endure an operation.

At about 2 : 00 A.M. it became clear that the decision to operate
could be put off no longer. The embryo had ruptured and an imme-
diate operation became mandatory, however small the chance for
success.

La Doctoresse did the operation assisted by the others. The pa-
tient died during surgery. It had affected La Doctoresse deeply.

"After something like this, it is natural that a doctor should
torture himself with doubts," Dr. Coulon said. "Would the patient
be alive if we had operated earlier? Perhaps we should not have
operated at all? Was there something that should have been done
that hadn't been done? I know that Doctoresse did everything
possible, but I know how she feels."

This sort of experience was not new to Dr. Coulon. He had
studied graduate medicine at the Union of South Africa. Then he
became an itinerant jungle doctor. He worked in the African
villages. The only apothecary available to him was what he car-
ried in his bag. Surgery would generally be performed in the open,
on a flat board.

138

When he arrived at Dr. Schweitzer's Hospital, he marveled at the
facilities.

"People come here from New York and are appalled at the
crudeness and the startling lack of modern sanitation and instru-
mentation," he said. "When Mrs. Coulon and I came to the Hospital
after working in the open jungle, it was as though we had come
into a fairyland. It was wonderful. There was a ward in which
patients could be kept under observation. There was a good supply
of modern medicine, including the newest antibiotics. There
was an operating theater, with overhead electric spot. There was
a wide variety of operating instruments. I couldn't have been
happier."

I asked Dr, Coulon about the mortality statistics at the Hospital.
He said that the mortality might be high by Western standards, but
that one had to keep in mind that a larger number of the serious
cases had been brought to the Hospital too late for effective medical
or surgical care.

All this time we had been conducting our conversation at the
breakfast table in very low voices. The death of the young woman
after such a long fight to save her had darkened the spirits of the
staff. Even Dr. Schweitzer, who ordinarily could be counted on to
keep a mood from becoming too heavy, remained silent through the
meal. Dr. van Stolk and Dr. Friedmann came in late for breakfast.
Neither had shaved. The Doctor nodded to them; they ate quickly,
saying little.

After breakfast, on the way back to our quarters, Clara spoke to
me about the incident earlier in the morning on the end of the
porch. She had been awakened by the voices and she had inter-
cepted the group before they could get to La Doctoresse's room.
The Africans lived in the constant presence of death. Even so, its
mysteries gave birth to many dictates and rituals. And one never
knew at the hospital when the fact of sudden death would cause a
group to act in an inexplicable and apparently hostile way.

I asked what she had said to the group to cause it to turn back.

She said she had tried, as simply and sincerely as she could, to

139

give them some idea how Dr. Margaret and the others had fought
to save the young woman's life.

"I told them that only La Doctoresse had the authority to release
the body," she said, "and that when she did so she would turn it
over to a member of the family as was the custom, and not to a
crowd. For if the body were turned over to a crowd every time
it asked for it, people would lose their confidence in the Hospital
staff. I said I was certain the tall African could see this.

"These are basically very kind people and they respond to kind-
ness," she continued. "Somehow they had gained the notion that
the young woman had been sacrificed in some way or another. I
knew if I could make them see how Dr. Margaret had given of
herself to save the young woman, and how unkind it was to make
demands on her now that she had finally earned some rest, they
would change their minds. The leader of the group must be a
very fine man; just before he left he said he was sorry that they had
awakened me and sorry that the group had wanted to disturb
La Doctoresse. As I say, these are wonderful people."

Just before we came to our bungalow, we met George Malthen,
with whom I had had a talk some days earlier and who had brought
his wife to the Hospital against the orders of the local fetisher. He
said his wife was now well again, thanks to Dr. Margaret and the
other doctors. They would be leaving for their village directly and
he wanted to say good-by.

I thanked George Malthen and we made our farewells.

When we came to the end of the porch, Dr. Margaret was
working in her little flower enclosure. She looked up at us and
smiled and said how happy she was that two more of her jungle
flowers had just bloomed.

Neither Clara nor I referred to the events of the night and early
morning. I think that both of us, without saying anything about it,
were marveling at Dr. Margaret's ability to become absorbed in
the miracle of new life and growth and to have it nourish her at a
trying time. She had apparently rested well, brief though it was,
and now she was ready to face the Hospital again.

- 1

g 2

< Q

141

A young African woman carrying a baby walked up to Dr.
Margaret. There was a slight hesitation in her manner but it was
obvious she had something to say.

Dr. Margaret put her at ease. Then the mother exclaimed that
her baby was all well again and she was eager to have La Doctoresse
share her joy.

Dr. Margaret took the child and cradled him in her arms and
held him close. He couldn't have been more than six or seven
months old.

I had no way of knowing what had been wrong with the baby;
but I was glad that the incident had happened just then and in
just this way. I also thought of George Malthen's wife. The scales
were being balanced; it couldn't have happened at a better time.

Dr. Margaret handed the little boy back to his mother, then
turned to us and said she was going down the hill to release the
woman's body to the family, so that it could be brought back to
the village for burial in accordance with tribal customs.

I went back to my room to take care of some more work that had
been mailed to me by the office. But I couldn't put my mind to it.
I was thinking of the hospital and of the young people who had
come there to help Dr. Schweitzer. I wondered whether they had
been prepared for the drama that was waiting for them for the
pain of occasional defeat and the constant challenge of unpredict-
able human response. Life at the Schweitzer Hospital involved much
more than the glamour of being associated with one of the great
figures in history. It meant hard work, fatigue, heartbreak. All
this came with the decision to be a doctor, of course; but there was
an extra dimension at Lambarene that was almost beyond anticipa-
tion.

And what about the Africans themselves? How did they feel
about the young men and women in white who had a method of
treating them and their families far different from the treatment
their own customs sanctioned or dictated. Why, when death oc-
curred, was there such a powerful tug of reversion? Did they regard
this inability of a white doctor to save a black life as proof of the

142

fallibility of the white man, and as punishment for the Africans
for having wandered outside that which was part of them?

I looked out the screened door and saw a small procession in
single file led by Albertina going up the hill. Mme. Oberman was
walking behind Albertina, followed by two Africans carrying picks
and shovels. Behind them two Africans were carrying a litter on
which an object of human size was wrapped in ferns and large
leaves.

I put down my work and followed the procession along the
narrow path leading up the hill toward the leper village. A little
more than halfway toward the village, Albertina led the procession
on a path off to the right. Very shortly we came to a clearing; it
was a burial ground for those persons who had died at the hospital
and had no relatives or friends to claim them. In accordance with
the custom of the Africans who lived in this part of the Continent,
the dead are carefully wrapped in long ferns before they are laid
to rest.

Two Africans were at work preparing the grave. Their picks and
shovels cut easily into the soft rich ground. Albertina and Mme.
Oberman stood off to one side. When the grave was ready, Al-
bertina read from the Bible while the body was put to rest. She
continued the prayers for several moments and closed the book.
Then the Africans filled in the grave again, working steadily. When
they were through, they looked up at Albertina who said a final
prayer. Then we walked in single file down the narrow path again.

As we neared the bungalow and the path widened, Albertina
waited for me to catch up with her. She told me that the man who
had just been buried had been deranged and had been put in an
isolation cell. For days he had refused to eat, yet there was some-
thing about him that Albertina liked and admired. So far as anyone
knew, he was alone in the world. He had come to the Hospital
on his own, unusual for a mental case. As his condition became
progressively more acute, he seemed to know that he had come to
the right place. He would have periods of agony and violence,

143

which necessitated his isolation, but he would also have moments
of apparent clarity.

Only the previous evening, when Albertina came to look after
him, she found him in a rational and quiet mood* He beckoned
to her and told her that he thought he was going to die. He reached
out and took her hand and said he was grateful to her for taking
such good care of him. Then he lapsed into silence for a long time.
Albertina could tell he was slipping. After a few moments he said
in a low voice that he had always feared that he would be alone
when he died. But now he was not alone because of Albertina,
and he was content and grateful.

He asked Albertina to pray for him, which she did. Before she
w r as through, he passed away.

And now, on the way down the hill again, Albertina was telling
me about the man.

"Sometimes I wonder, 53 she said, "whether my coming here
makes sense whether I am doing anything that is really useful.
Then something like this happens, and my doubts no longer seem
so terrible."

In the days that followed, I was to learn that Albertina fulfilled
a dual role at Lambarene nurse in charge of the psychiatric ward
and ministerial assistant to Dr. Schweitzer.

There was no chapel at Lambarene. Sunday services were held
in the open air. The Sunday I was there I was directed to the long,
narrow compound in front of the Hospital clinic. The Africans sat
on the steps or in the doorways of the small wooden structures in
order to get the protection of the shade. Albertina stood in the hot
sun; she wore her customary white pith helmet. During most of
the service she read from the Bible. There were a few hymns and
the voices of the small African choral group off to one side were
heard above the rest.

Like everything else hi Lambarene, the services were simple but
effective. After Albertina gave the final benediction, the Africans
chatted with each other. A number of them were dressed in their

144

Sunday best : several men wore long pants and clean shirts, Instead
of the customary shorts and frayed undershirt. The women, for the
most part, wore colored cotton dresses and their hair was neatly
done.

Albertina exchanged pleasantries with the people who went up
to her after the sendees. Then she walked slowly up the hill to
her room. I watched her until she disappeared from view. Here
was a young woman of about twenty-eight or thirty, tall, slender,
attractive, Intelligent, compassionate. She had defined a mission for
herself in life. It was not an easy one. It involved a constant drain
on her energies physical, mental, emotional. Her satisfactions were
centered In her exertions. Most of what little time she had to herself
she spent In study reading intensively in the field of mental disease
and psychiatric treatment.

And the more I thought about Albertina and the other young
people on Dr. Schweitzer's staff, the more I realized their impor-
tance and the greater was my admiration. For it took purpose of
a very high order to work at Lambarene. The glamour of the work,
such as It Is, eventually fades. Those who came expecting to spend
most of their time communing with Dr. Schweitzer, or working
valiantly alongside him, soon discovered that Lambarene was no
playground for the human spirit. The contact with the Doctor,
except at mealtime, was necessarily brief. For the most part a staff
member was on his own that is, if he did a competent job. If not,
the Doctor stepped in and attempted to set him straight. Then,
if his work was still substandard, the Doctor might switch him to
something else. He didn't waste time on idle flattery or trying to
keep up appearances; there was too much that had to be done, too
little time to do it. More than a few people never made the grade
at Lambarene and came limping home.

That is why Dr. Schweitzer tried to be so careful in screening ap-
plicants why It required a prolonged exchange of letters and
detailed checking before a person joined the staff. As a result, an
extraordinarily high percentage of the people who came to Lam-
barene stayed for years.

145

Some of the staff members, for example, had served for a quarter-
century or more. To be sure, not all of them made their acquaint-
ance with Dr. Schweitzer by mail. A few knew him in Europe
and followed him to Africa to serve in any way he wished them to.
Mile. Mathilde Kottman, general supervising assistant who has a
total dedication to the Doctor, came to Lambarene from Alsace
about 1923. Mile. Ali Silver, from Holland, general secretary and
personal assistant to the Doctor, and who helped to translate letters
from and into English, had served the Doctor for over ten years.
Mme. Oberman, who was in charge of billeting, had worked with
Dr. Schweitzer on and off for forty years. Mme. Emma Hauss-
knecht, who died in 1956, was the second person to join the
Schweitzers at Lambarene.

While I was at the Hospital, considerable excitement attended
the departure of one of the nurses, Maria Langendyk; she had
served at the Hospital for sixteen years. And now she was leaving
for a rest in Europe. She had completed the term of service she had
set for herself.

When I walked into the dining room on the evening before
Maria's departure, I could tell that something special was hap-
pening. Dr. Schweitzer was wearing his black clip-on tie; some of
the younger nurses were wearing lipstick; and there was butter on
the table. Clara told me about Maria, a tall woman of about forty-
five, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a face of quiet strength. Maria
had come to the Hospital, as did the others, asking nothing except
the privilege to serve. But her service was now coming to an end.
She had spent almost one-third her Me with Dr. Schweitzer. This
dinner was now in her honor.

Halfway through the meal, just outside the window on the far
end of the room, a choral group began to sing. It was a passage
from Handel's Messiah. The choir was most unusual in the range
of its voices. I was able to pick out perhaps a dozen children's
voices and the voices of perhaps eight or ten grownups, some of
which were deep and strong. The singing was superbly blended.

Clara whispered to me that the voices belonged to African lepers

146

and that they had been trained by Trudi Bochsler, the young
nurse In charge of the leper village about a third of a mile from
the main body of the Hospital. They had now come to serenade
Maria and wish her Godspeed.

I was profoundly impressed by the singing and told Clara so.
She said she hoped she might be able to persuade Trudi to have
these same lepers put on a repeat performance of the Nativity
Play that had so captivated the staff when it was produced at
Christmas.

The next morning, virtually the entire Hospital turned out to
wave good-by to Maria as she left by pirogue. I saw Trudi, holding
a small leper child by the hand, standing not far from Dr. Schweit-
zer, on a bank overlooking the dock. Dr. Schweitzer was standing
in his most characteristic manner his head forward and his hands
folded behind his back. Dr. Friedmann 3 standing close to Dr.
Schweitzer, was waving his helmet as the pirogue carrying Maria
slid away from the dock. Perhaps a dozen others rounded out the
tableau, as the pirogue, aided by the swift current, eased down-
stream. I remember thinking that the group on the bank would
have made the ideal subject for a mural symbolizing the Schweitzer
Hospital.

On the way back from the dock, Clara spoke to Trudi about the
possibility of having the lepers do another performance of the
Nativity Play. Trudi was delighted by the suggestion and said she
was certain that the members of the cast all remembered their
parts and would welcome the opportunity to play before the people
who hadn't been at the Hospital during Christmas.

Trudi herself was clearly excited about the prospect. Her large
gray-blue eyes sparkled as she anticipated the joy that the idea of
a repeat performance would bring to the lepers. It would take no
time at all, she said, to prepare the production. Perhaps it could
be done as early as the following afternoon. Since our next meeting
with the Doctor was to be in the evening, the suggestion seemed
ideal.

As I got to know Trudi, I was to learn that nothing was more

147

characteristic of her than her spontaneous enthusiasm and sense of
immediacy for things that were worth doing. She was open and
direct in her dealings with people; no one who knew her enter-
tained any doubts about her intentions or purposes. Nor did she
hesitate for a single second to put up a battle for her point of
view concerning the operation of the leper village.

Two years earlier Trudi had had a disagreement with Dr.
Schweitzer on an administrative matter regarding the leper village.
Unable to persuade the Doctor, she left the Hospital and returned
to her native Switzerland. For the next six months, neither Trudi
nor Dr. Schweitzer rested easily about her departure. Then she wrote
to him, asking whether she could return. Though Dr. Schweitzer
had strongly espoused his own viewpoint, he was big enough to tell
Trudi he was glad she would return and that she could administer
the village in accordance with her own ideas.

Trudi returned to Lambarene at once. While she had been away,
she had put each minute to good use, studying every book she
could find on the subject of leper colonies. In fact, there was very
little that had been published on lepers whether with respect to
medical treatment or their social problems that Trudi had not
read. Her nurse's training had been of a general nature. When she
had come to the Hospital for the first time, and she had started
to work with the lepers, she went at it as though it would become
her lifework. This combination of day-by-day experience and ob-
servation and her constant study had now made her, as Dr. Fried-
mann had remarked, one of the best-informed and most competent
persons on the subject in the world.

When Trudi returned to the Hospital she resumed her work with
the enthusiastic devotion that is basic in her personality. Increas-
ingly, Dr. Schweitzer tended to give her autonomy in the admin-
istration of the village. She became general manager, nurse, interne,
teacher, confidante, minister, and family head. And she was getting
good results. It was fascinating to see Trudi at work. The lepers
worshiped her as though she were their queen, which in many ways
she was. She was directly concerned not only about their physical

148

but their emotional well-being. Their trust in her was absolute.
When she prescribed a certain routine of medical treatment at the
leper clinic, they would accept it without question.

Trudfs only real difficulties were with the witch doctors who
hovered just outside the village. Once, when Trudi discovered that
some of the patients were not taking their medicines because of
omens cast by a witch doctor, she tracked down the fetisher and
threatened right then and there to wreak all sorts of havoc on him
if he didn't remove his hex at once. The fetisher lost no time in
notifying the patients that it was proper and necessary for them to
resume their medication.

This young white goddess looked the part. She was twenty-four
or twenty-five, flaxen-haired, slender, attractive, intense, inex-
haustible. It was clear that her work was giving her 'the kind of
fulfillment she sought in life. She was responsible for the education
of the leper youngsters, and each morning she conducted classes
and arranged for the purposeful use of the childrenfs time during
the afternoon when she had to attend to her medical duties.

When Trudi proposed to her lepers that they put on a perform-
ance of the Nativity Play for the visitors at the Hospital, they re-
sponded with gleeful anticipation, as she knew the/y would. Getting
up the production for the following day was not an easy under-
taking the costumes had to be located and repaired; the stage
props had to be put in order; each person had to brush up on his
part; and there had to be a complete rehearsal. But Trudi's cer-
tainty that the project was well within their reach was shared by
all those who had a part in the play.

The next afternoon, I joined Clara, Dr. Frank Catchpool, and
the stafl members who were eager to see the play again. We walked
down to the leper village. The compound in front of the leper
clinic had been transformed into an open-air theater. There were
several rows of benches, one of which was already filled with
visitors from the Catholic Mission across the river. Back of the
benches were perhaps two dozen young African girls from the
Mission who had come to pay their respects. They comprised a

1 i I ii. , " I,, ''"%f.i si'iii; '*" ,*

The cast.
SCENES FROM THE NATIVITY PLAY, ACTED AND SUNG BY LEPERS AT THE SCHWEITZER HOSPITAL.

Mary and the infant Jesus.

The audience (from a world of total options) .

The audience (lepers; no options).

151

choir and were to sing during the intermission and at the end of
the play.

At the sides of the compound, sitting on benches or on chairs
or on the ground, were the lepers. Some of them had bulky band-
ages on their feet. Others had crutches stretched out alongside
them. Even without the bandages and the crutches, the effects of
the disease were clearly visible. Toes or fingers were missing, or
the feet would be stubbed. A little boy of about ten whose foot
had been amputated several weeks earlier went hopping around as
he helped put the props into place.

Within five minutes after the play began, a spell of magic settled
over the compound. The singing of the actors was full of life and
conviction. Two or three of the leper voices had excellent depth
and tone. The costumes were crude, very crude, but they
helped to create the necessary illusion. The baby Jesus was beauti-
fully behaved, and did not cry until the intermission, and then
only briefly. The Three Wise Men were very deliberate in their
roles. The leper who took the part of Joseph was compassionate and
gentle in his interpretation. Mary obviously relished her role and
sang with vigor.

And all the time the play was unfolding, Trudi sat off to one
side, her hands clasped and held close to her chest. Her mouth
moved in the manner so well known to prompters.

If I say that the entire experience was almost beyond awareness
or comprehension, what do those words suggest? Can they possibly
indicate the range of emotion or the stretches of thought produced
by watching condemned people give life to a spiritual concept?
The play was concerned, essentially, with the triumph of hope
through faith; but the brief moment of the lepers in a glittering
spiritual universe was surrounded on all sides by the evidence of a
closed-in world. Yet in that brief moment, they were connected
to the things that meant life for most people.

There was something else. The play, in a sense, was almost a
symbol of forgiveness. For the white man in Africa had not, in the
main, been a friend. Historically, he had not been a liberator or a

Tradi and Dr. Frank Catchpool tend a nature-study class for leper children.

Leper children rehearse for the production of the Nativity Play, under director-producer
Trudi Bochsler.

153

benefactor. He had used his superior knowledge and power to
capture the Africans and Impress them into slavery. He had brought
with him venereal disease. He had caused the African women to
bear children and then he had discarded the mothers and their
young. He had advertised a religion of mercy and compassion but
there had been little of either in his manner. While I watched the
lepers at Trudi's village in the Nativity Play, I became conscious
of the fact that the play was saying something about a world large
enough to hold both black and white. This was close to the original
purpose of the play, but original purpose in religion is not too often
a remembered part of life. The actors, however, clearly seemed to
reflect this original purpose, to which forgiveness belonged.

All this was possible because we were in a segment of Africa
where there was a Trudi and an Albeit Schweitzer and a Dr.
Margaret and an Albertina and a Dr. van Stolk and a Dr. Fried-
rnann and all the others who rescued their whiteness from the evil
that the others had spawned.

To the lepers who were on the sidelines, the spotlight for them
frequently moved from the actors to the white audience. Com-
paratively, the poorest among us were rich as kings alongside an
African, for we were in a place where wealth was measured by a
pair of shoes or an extra pair of pants or an unfrayed blanket. And
the lepers heard that we had come from an unbelievable world
where people lived in beautiful dwellings of more than one room
and could turn a knob that would produce water right in the house,
and another knob that would control several fires for cooking.
And, miracle of miracles, they saw that education for everyone in
the white world was free. There are now schools for the blacks in
French Equatorial Africa, of course, but these were mainly in the
large cities. And the schools didn't go as far or teach as much as
every white child was able to get.

There was nothing resentful in the gazes of the African lepers
as they watched us. From their vantage point, we were the main
show. The imaginative play of their minds was directed to us rather
than to the actors. We probably touched off all sorts of wonderment

Trudi Bochsler, nurse in charge
of the lepers, makes her morn-
ing rounds of the leper village,
located about one-third of a
mile from the main body of the
Hospital.

155

and speculation, especially for the children. Nothing is stranger
to the eye of an African child than a white person when seen for
the first time. The lack of color creates an aspect of ghastly pallor.
It is as though layer after layer of skin had been stripped away,
producing what Africans generally refer to as a "peeled" look.
The thinness of the facial features of a white person gives him a
pinched, closed appearance. I could almost feel the scrutiny of the
African children near me.

After the play ended, we sat still for a few minutes. I had no way
of knowing whether the same thoughts that had preoccupied my
mind were being shared by the others; in any case, the other
white visitors sat quietly. They seemed far away in their thoughts.
Then the children's choir from the Catholic Mission sang for a
few minutes.

We got up to leave. Trudi announced that the leper children had
a surprise for us. They had made gifts for each of us hand-carved
letter openers or ship models for the men and beads or pendants
or necklaces for the women. Each child had a little presentation
speech to make in French; he said he hoped we had enjoyed the
play and that we would come to visit the village again.

LET ME DIGRESS a moment.

I suppose people will ask: Is it safe to touch things handled
or made by lepers? Is it safe to shake their hands or get close to
them?

I have heard much conflicting medical testimony on the subject.
Modern theory tends to support the view that leprosy is somewhat
akin to tuberculosis and that there are varying stages and degrees
of contagion. If the leprosy involves the muscles or nerves, it is
not believed to be infectious. If it involves the skin, however,
especially where open sores are concerned, then there is the pos-
sibility of contagion. Lepers who have lost fingers or toes are in this
category. Inflammation of the nasal mucosa with consequent dis-
charge can be a source of infection. Children contract the disease
through constant intimacy with leprous members of their families.

156

Generally speaking, however, outsiders who are in good health
are not considered to be in any danger as the result of casual
contact with lepers.

It goes without saying that Dr. Schweitzer and his staff expose
themselves constantly, regardless of the virulent condition of some
lepers. But Dr. Schweitzer is careful to the point of seeming over-
cautious in his policy about visitors. He advises them not to get
too close to the leper patients and not to shake their hands or touch
them. The reason, of course, is that he feels a total responsibility
where any risk, however small, to outsiders is involved.

It isn't always easy, however, to follow the Doctor's admonitions.
When the little leper boy who handed me the hand-carved letter
opener also offered me his hand, I did not see how I could turn

away.

On the occasion of another visit to the leper village, a leper
introduced me to his wife who was carrying a baby boy of perhaps
twenty months or two years. The father told me his child was
leprous, too. The baby's nose was running and he had sores all over
his face. As I chatted with the parents, the baby twisted in his
mother's arms and reached out for me to take him, which I did.
To do otherwise, under the circumstances, would have been awk-
ward and indeed impossible.

In general, if you want to see something of Asia or Africa
which is to say, if you want to get close to the people you would
do well to leave your apprehensions behind and take the plunge.
If you are in good health, you will have little to fear. Now and
then, of course, you are apt to find yourself in delicate situations
where a few uneasy thoughts may cross your mind. Once, in a
grove not far from Calcutta, I came across a crying child of three
or four who was obviously feverish. I carried the child to the
nearest village compound. There I learned that the child's parents
had died several days earlier, the victims of a smallpox epidemic
still raging that had decimated the population of the village. I
turned the child over to one of the older women. Certainly it oc-
curred to me that I was in an exposed situation; but I tried to take

157

some comfort at least in the fact that I had been inoculated against
the disease.

This is not to say that I have been totally immune to infection
or illness while abroad. I think I have sampled every species of
dysentery recorded in the annals of medicine. I have had to make
numberless, unscheduled, and speedy departures from receptions
or social functions or public platforms all the way from Djakarta to
Mexico City. There were times on the lecture platform in univer-
sities in Asia when I was certain I was capable of setting new
records for the short sprint and I desperately longed for nothing
so much as the chance to prove it. At such times, philosophical
calm seems only vaguely attainable and, in fact, quite academic.

On occasion, I fear I may have made a washed-out impression
on my hosts. At the University of Yokohama some years ago, for
example, I was having dinner at the home of a professor of med-
icine. I was in my third week of dysentery, having just come from
Indo-China. I was as diligent as possible in making it appear that
I was enjoying the meal.

All this time my host was observing me closely. Then, at the
end of the dinner, he asked to examine my hand. He scrutinized it
carefully but dispassionately, as though it were so much disembodied
flesh. Then he put his head close to mine and peered into my eyes.
His manner became increasingly grave. Finally, he shook his head
and said something in Japanese in a low voice to a fellow professor
sitting next to him. This gentleman shook his head in turn and
passed the word along to another colleague. Soon almost everyone
at the table was nodding apprehensively. I felt like a prime exhibit
in a surgical theater.

I asked the man at my right what it was that the professor had
seen in my hand and in my eyes that had apparently made him
so sad. My companion replied that the professor could tell at once
that I was dying from cancer. When I inquired about the time
factor, I was told that I had at least six months. That was in 1949.

In defense of the professor, it should be said that he had seen
me under misleading circumstances; I had had a fairly prolonged

158

adventure in non-retention and no doubt I looked even worse than I
felt. It did not seem to him that what was bothering me could
be anything short of the worst.

Five years later, I saw the professor again in Tokyo. He had
come to call on me at my hotel but I was out at the time in the
public park across the street. Some students had read in the news-
papers that I had once played some baseball and they had invited
me to join them in a game. The hotel clerk had informed the
professor where I might be found. I happened to be on second
base when he caught my eye. One of my teammates hit safely and
I sprinted for home plate, arriving just ahead of the throw. It
occurred to me as I did so that the professor must have thought my
ghost was doing the running. It was also true that this was the only
time the professor had seen me run when I exercised some option in
the matter.

Afterward, when we spoke, he made no reference to his earlier
forecast. We discussed various matters. He was eager to come to the
United States. He said he had some ideas about medical diagnosis
he was eager to put before his professional colleagues in America,
and wanted my advice about arranging such meetings. I gave him
such help as I could, though I was not unmindful of the fact that
I was something less than the perfect advertisement for his theories.

This digression, of course, is touched off by a consideration of
the inevitable questions generally asked by prospective travelers
about the personal health factor. Generally speaking, the risk while
traveling is extremely small. Such deviations as occur are more the
result of sudden changes in one's living routine than of basically
unhealthy situations. Just the business of adjusting to severe time
changes can be constitutionally unsettling. The pursuit of new foods
is a delightful adventure; when carried to unreasonable lengths, it
can produce deceptively intense but fortunately temporary dis-
comforts.

Experiences such as these, of course, are not peculiar to Americans
abroad. They apply equally to visitors to our own shores. The
foreign visitor also has to adjust himself to exhaust gasses from

159

buses, trucks, and cars on a scale far beyond anything he would
experience in his own city, wherever it may be. The heavy mon-
oxide fumes added to the industrial smokes of American cities, to a
person unaccustomed to them, can produce severe headaches and
nausea.

There is also the matter of crowds. When Americans think of
dense population masses, they are apt to think of cities in India
or Japan. But nowhere in the world are more people crowded
into a smaller space than in New York City. I have seen the teem-
ing millions in Asian cities, but never have I seen greater human
congestion than in the Grand Central section of New York City
during the lunch hour. The business of navigating even a short
distance through the crowded sidewalks calls for a special knowledge
and a certain conditioning. Little wonder that people from abroad
who see New York City for the first time have the feeling of being
overwhelmed and exhausted almost to the point of illness.

I have had the good fortune to be the host in the United States
to visitors from Asia. And I could tell that the noonday crowds
charging through New York streets produced an effect on some
of them akin to panic. They had never seen so many people under
such compressed conditions before. All this, combined with the
new rich diet and the accelerated American pace, caused more
than a few of them to long for the comparative openness of Cal-
cutta or Tokyo.

In any event, Americans need not fear that they are in mortal
jeopardy every time they leave their own country. Nor need they
believe that such minor discomforts as they may encounter are the
exclusive products of foreign places.

THIS DIGRESSION OUT of the way, I should like to revert to the
people at Lambarene.

Like the Schweitzer Hospital itself, the leper village was under-
manned. Trudi received some assistance from the regular staff
members and she had considerable assistance from the lepers them-
selves. But her personal workload was very heavy indeed. One of

160

the newcomers to the Hospital, Olga Deterding, was aware of this
and volunteered to work full time as her assistant. In particular,
she wanted to accept responsibility for the education of the young-
sters. But Olga had been at the Schweitzer Hospital only two
months at the time of our visit. Her apprenticeship was not yet
complete. It was necessary for her to spend a few more additional
weeks on kitchen duty and mop-up detail before she would feel
justified in asking Dr. Schweitzer to assign her to the leper village.

Olga Deterding came to Lambarene almost by accident. She had
started out across the African desert in a large jeep with some
friends. The jeep had broken down several times and the expedition
finally broke up. Olga decided to press on by herself and see some-
thing of Africa. That was how she happened to arrive at the
Schweitzer Hospital. What she saw she liked and she decided to stay
on and work for Dr. Schweitzer for as long as he would have her.

Olga arrived with a secret and did her best to keep it. She was
the daughter of an English multimillionaire. She said nothing about
her economic and social station because it might appear to others
on the staff that she was staying on at Lambarene for a lark. Also,
she didn't want the staff people to feel any disparity in their rela-
tions with her.

Unfortunately for Olga there were factors beyond her control
that made it impossible for her to keep her secret. Word slipped
out in London, with the inevitable result that stories began to appear
in the press, some of which filtered back to Lambarene. Olga began
to get cables from magazines or news services asking for permission
to send writers and photographers to the Hospital to do feature
stories.

All these Olga ignored. But one day Dr. Schweitzer received a
cable from a Paris picture magazine saying it wanted to send staff
members to the Hospital for a story built around Olga. Dr. Schweit-
zer, after talking to Olga, politely declined. Despite this, two days
later, there arrived at the Hospital, unheralded, a French pho-
tographer-writer and his wife and a Japanese correspondent (also
carrying a camera).

Olga Deterding visited Lambarene on a safari and stayed to serve.

Olga was working in the scullery when the photographers passed.

162

Dr. Schweitzer was informed by the French correspondent that
his editor had discovered that his magazine's files were somewhat
out of date and he wanted some fresh material about the Hospital.
Dr. Schweitzer was aware that the correspondents had made a long
trip and did not want to send them away empty-handed. He said
he would be glad to escort them around the Hospital grounds. Then
he put a direct question to them: was there anything they wished?

Yes, there was. They said they would like to meet the members of
the staff and do some stories about them, too.

Was there anyone in particular they would like to meet, the
Doctor asked.

Why, yes; they would like to see Miss Deterding.

Well, then, said the Doctor, this was something only Miss Deter-
ding could decide. He would put the question to her.

The reporters waited in the dining room while Dr. Schweitzer
sought out Olga. Her reply was given without hesitation. She did
not under any circumstances wish to see the journalists. She felt
that any publicity would be inconsistent with the character of the
Hospital and that of the people who worked there. She felt, too,
that her purpose in staying on at Lambarene would be defeated
if she were placed in the spotlight. Besides, she was a comparative
newcomer and wanted to prove herself.

Dr. Schweitzer relayed this message to the waiting reporters.
They tried to convince Dr. Schweitzer that he could persuade Olga
to change her mind.

The Doctor said he did not feel free to do this. Was there any-
thing else he might do for them?

The reporters consulted among themselves and then said they
were eager to accept Dr. Schweitzer's offer to escort them around
the Hospital grounds.

Dr. Schweitzer replied that he would be happy to do this on
condition that they would agree not to pursue Miss Deterding.

They agreed.

The tour of the Hospital began, but every now and then one
of the reporters would quitely detach himself from the party and

163

go searching for his quarry. It was apparent that they had no
idea what Miss Deterding looked like, for they confronted Dr.
Margaret, Albertina, Trudi, and at least three nurses and proceeded
to act as though they knew the person was Olga.

They did see Olga but failed to make the identification. Olga's
assignment that week happened to be kitchen detail. The reporters
peered into the kitchen. It didn't occur to them that the girl with
the soiled apron involved in the messy job of cleaning the innards
from fish and peeling vegetables could possibly be the glamorous
multimillionairess they were looking for.

It was hot in the skullery. Olga was drenched with perspiration.
Her hair clung to the sides of her face. When the reporters looked
at here she smiled politely. They smiled back and passed on.

Finally, the party gave up the chase and left the Hospital. When
Dr. Schweitzer met us that evening in Clara's room, he sat down
hard and breathed deeply.

Well, now, he said, maybe we could see the way it was. Another
day very largely lost. One day is given over to filling out elaborate
forms for the government. No sooner is that finished than another
day has to be devoted to parrying with the fourth estate.

Then, characteristically, the Doctor's sense of humor lifted him
out of his despairing mood.

"The tour of the Hospital was most thoroughly done," he said.
"Even if it wasn't what they really wanted, they saw aU that there
was to see. Finally" and here he grinned widely "just to keep
them occupied, I gave them a lecture on philosophy. It was a good
lecture, but I'm not sure they were in a philosophical mood. Any-
way, they have now gone and we can get back to our various
projects."

"WHICH OF YOUR two purposes do you consider more im-
portant?" Dr. Schweitzer asked. "You and Clara have said you had
two principal objectives in coming here: one was concerned with
my unpublished manuscripts, the other with the general question
of world peace. Now, which one are you most eager to pursue?' 5

I told the Doctor that we felt the purposes were related, but that
we were perfectly willing to have him decide which one was to be
taken up first.

"But you are leaving in a few days," he said. "We may not have
enough time to do both. Therefore, I ask you again: which one of
your two purposes are you most bent on achieving before you
leave? 35

I said Clara and I had hoped to leave with some statement by
him having to do with world peace. We also wanted to photograph
such unpublished material as he had with him at Lambarene. Our
further presence was not essential for the statement. We had already
put the case for the statement to him.

As for the manuscripts, however, this was something that would
have to be done while we were at the Hospital. And since his
presence was not required for the photographing of the manuscripts,
Clara and I could work on this project by ourselves. We could de-

164

165

vote the mornings to it; it shouldn't take more than three or four
days.

The Doctor assented. Let us revert, however, he said, to the
matter of the peace. Over the years he had been collecting materials
on the question of nuclear energy, military and non-military. When
he had visited Europe some months earlier, his concern had been
considerably increased as a result of a meeting of Nobel Prize win-
ners in Lindau, Germany. Many of the scientists there spoke with
the utmost sense of urgency and gravity about the growing problem.
Alongside the problem of peace, everything else seemed small.

Nothing to me was more striking than Dr. Schweitzer's face as
he contemplated and spoke about the situation that confronted
people in the world today. There seemed to be an infinity of detail
in that face ; it seemed as though every event in human history were
clearly recorded there. Most of the time he sat forward in his
straight chair, his eyes seemingly fixed on a distant object.

Only a few years ago, he added, the statement that this planet
could be made unfit for life seemed absurdly melodramatic. But there
was no longer any question that such power now existed. And even
without a war, the atmosphere could become dangerously con-
taminated.

"After our earlier talk," he said, "I reflected that danger of this
magnitude is not easily grasped by the human mind. As day after
day passes, and as the sun continues to rise and set, the sheer
regularity of nature seems to rule out such terrible thoughts. But
what we seem to forget is that, yes, the sun will continue to rise
and set and the moon will continue to move across the skies, but
mankind can create a situation in which the sun and moon can
look down upon an earth that has been stripped of all life.

"We must find some way of bringing about an increased aware-
ness of the danger," he continued. "It is a serious thing that the
governments have supplied so little information to their people
on this subject. There is no reason why people should not know
exactly where they stand. Every once in a while, the governments
will reassure the people but this comes only after there has been a

166

serious alarm. What is needed is genuine information. Nothing that
a government knows about the nature of this new force is improper
for its people to know."

Dr. Schweitzer asked me if I had brought any documentry data
on the matter we were discussing.

I took out from my bag a number of papers, among them an
abstract of a report, of which Dr. Willard F. Libby was a co-author,
that had been prepared for the United States Atomic Energy Com-
mission in August, 1954. The report was concerned with the effect
of fallout of radioactive strontium on milk resulting from the ura-
nium and plutonium nuclear explosions that had taken place up to
that date.

Samples of milk taken from various places showed evidence of
some contamination. The quantities of this radioactive strontium
were found at the time to be well under dangerous levels. Even so.
Dr. Libby's report showed evidence of growing apprehension, es-
pecially in his recommendation that the federal government under-
take estimates on the cost of decontaminating milk. The decon-
tamination would be effected by removing the calcium from the
milk. Calcium has an affinity for radioactive strontium.

Three things were significant about that report. The first was
that most of the radioactive fallout resulting from previous nuclear
explosions had yet to come to earth at the time the survey was made.
The second was that the biggest nuclear explosions were to occur
after the report was published in August, 1954. The third was that
no precise data are available on the tolerance limits of human beings
to radioactive strontium.

In other forms of radiation, it is definitely known that there is
far less safety than had earlier been supposed. Only ten or fifteen
years ago, for example, the public was being assured that it had
nothing to fear from regular X-ray examinations. More recently 3
however, it was disclosed that the tolerances were astoundingly
lower than once had been so confidently claimed. Scientists had
yet to perform the same kind of exhaustive researches into the
tolerance limits of radioactive strontium that had been made on

167

X-ray radiation. If, through additional research, it developed that
the effects of radioactive strontium had been underestimated, as
in the case of X-rays, then colossal damage to all living creatures
would have been done. And this is the kind of damage that cannot
be undone.

The discussion with Dr. Schweitzer then turned to the power of
the new bombs. One way of visualizing this new power would be to
imagine a procession of one million trucks, each of which contained
ten tons of TNT. The total tonnage would form a man-made
mountain of dynamite several times the height of the Empire State
Building. If this mountain were to be detonated it would represent
the approximate power in a single twenty-megaton hydrogen bomb
that can be carried by a single plane.

Dr. Schweitzer said that a very high order of public understand-
ing throughout the world was necessary in order to deal with this
problem.

I then told him that this was precisely what he was in a position
to do. He was among the few individuals in the world who would
have an almost universal audience for anything he might say.

His eyes turned from a distant object and he looked at me di-
rectly.

"AH my life," he said, "I have carefully stayed away from
making pronouncements on public matters. Groups would come to
me for statements or I would be asked to sign joint letters or the
press would ask for my views on certain political questions. And
always I would feel forced to say no.

"It was not because I had no interest in world affairs or politics.
My interest and my concerns in these things are great. It was just
that I felt that my connection with the outside world should grow
out of my work or thought in the fields of theology or philosophy
or music. I have tried to relate myself to the problems of all human-
kind rather than to become involved in disputes between this or
that group. I wanted to be one man speaking to another man."

I asked whether the Doctor felt that the matter we had been
discussing was as much moral as it was scientific or political. I told

168

him I believed there was no living person whose voice on such an
issue would be more widely heard or respected.

Dr. Schweitzer thanked me for the compliment, but said that
this was a problem for scientists. He believed that it would be too
easy to attempt to discredit any non-scientist who spoke out on
these matters.

I told him that I thought it inconceivable that this would be true
in his case. Moreover, this was not solely a laboratory question. If
nuclear power could have the effect of damaging the genes of
human beings, then the nature of man himself was involved.
Sovereign nations were now in a position to make decisions that
were not properly theirs to make.

In saying this, I told him I recognized that the problem could
not be considered apart from the larger uncertainty in the world
today. Nuclear experimentation did not exist in an otherwise placid
world. This, of course, added to the peril of mankind. For what we
had most to fear was not merely the tests themselves, hazardous
though they might be, but a saturation of tensions resulting in all-
out nuclear war.

Dr. Schweitzer agreed, saying that anything that would be done
against nuclear experimentation should not have the effect of
putting the West at a disadvantage with respect to Soviet Russia.

He said, however, that the very real challenge of world com-
munism should not be used as the reason for withholding vital in-
formation from the human race concerning the dangers of unlimited
nuclear testing. It was possible that an informed and determined
world public opinion could serve as a powerful force in bringing
about enforceable agreements with respect to arms control and in
leading to other long-range measures for peace.

In view of all this, I asked the Doctor whether he felt justified in
putting aside his reticence about making a public statement.

He said that he would continue to give careful thought to the
matter. He was still troubled, he said, about the form a construc-
tive statement might take. How would it be issued? How would one
go about drafting a statement that would be outside the context of

169

the ideological struggle in the world today? He re-emphasized that
he didn't want people to think that he was admonishing the United
States or trying to intrude into domestic concerns. He wanted more
time to think about these things.

When we resumed our discussion the next day he said he was
still uncertain about the form of a statement or the method of its
release.

Meanwhile, he was eager to consider an aspect of the problem
that was highly significant. This was the fact that nations which
were setting off nuclear explosions in the pursuit of their own
security were possibly jeopardizing the health of other peoples.

On the basis of recent visits to Japan, I could report to Dr.
Schweitzer that the Japanese government was confronted with a
profound dilemma. It did not wish to oppose the American gov-
ernment, nor did it see any way of condemning Soviet Russia at
the United Nations without including the United States. But Japan
had increasing evidence of soil contamination as the result of the
Russian tests and fish contamination as the result of the American
tests. Autopsies had indicated the presence of radioactive strontium
in a number of corpses. The American hydrogen bomb explosion
called "Operation Castle" had not been under complete control.
Japanese fishermen outside the prohibited area had been hit by
radioactive ashes. The Japanese government had just issued in-
structions to its people about precautionary measures in the prepara-
tion of leafy vegetables and fish. But decontamination of food was
a complicated laboratory process; it was doubtful whether even the
most careful washing and boiling would be adequate.

As a result, Japanese public opinion was sensitive on the subject
and was now becoming articulate and potent. Meanwhile, Com-
munists were exploiting the issue of testing against the United
States, making it appear that America was responsible for the
failure to arrive at cessation agreements, and saying little about the
fact of Soviet nuclear testing.

As we discussed the role of the bystanders with respect to nuclear
testing, I could see that Dr. Schweitzer felt that this was a vital

170

issue. As a citizen of a democratic nation, I did not feel that we
had any right to take measures that were of possible danger to
others without their consent. Indeed, the principal argument against
Nazism and more recently against communism was that they were
scornful of the rights of others and did harm to innocent people in
their pursuit of military advantage. Is it any less immoral for any
nation to jeopardize the health and safety of other peoples through
uncontrolled air dispersal of radioactive poisons? If other peoples
are involved, then they have a right to participate in the basic
decisions involved in testing. There is no more basic tenet in demo-
cratic government than that people who are affected by the acts
of government have a right to participate in the affairs of that gov-
ernment.

If it is wrong to impose a tax on a man without giving him a
voice in government, is it any less wrong to deprive his soil or water
of their purity without giving him a chance to be represented and
heard?

There was no argument about any of this, the Doctor said.
What concerned him was the propriety of his making any state-
ment. It was something he wanted to think about carefully. Mean-
while, he asked me if I would put down in writing a summary of
such facts on the question of nuclear fallout as I happened to have
with me.

Then he got up to leave. He opened the door, then said, as
though by afterthought, that he would put together the manu-
script of The Kingdom of God and would turn it over to us in the
next day or so.

WHEN DR. SCHWEITZER came for our meeting the next
afternoon, he was carrying a small bundle. It was neatly wrapped
in a large napkin. He handed it to me. "This is the manuscript of
The Kingdom of God' 3 he said simply. "It is practically complete."

I opened the bundle. Here, for all I knew, was one of the most
important books of our time. The sheets had been perforated at the
top and were tied together by a string. But I gasped when I saw
the kind of paper that had been used for the manuscript. There
were sheets of every size and description. Dr. Schweitzer had writ-
ten his book in longhand on the reverse side of miscellaneous
papers. Some of them were outdated tax forms that had been
donated to Lambarene by the French colonial administration. Some
were lumber requisition forms used by a lumber mill not far away
on the Ogowe River. Some came from old calendars. I couldn't
even begin to count the number of manuscript pages which were
written on the reverse sides of letters sent to him many years earlier.

In any other man, this would have seemed quixotic and inex-
plicable. In Schweitzer, however, it represented a complete con-
sistency with everything else in his life. There was the crude piano
in the dining room he wouldn't replace or repair because the money
could better be used elsewhere. There was the fact that he shaved

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172

without soap or lather because he considered it a luxury. There was
the fact that he traveled third class only because "there was no
fourth class." He could no more think of buying paper for his own
literary use than he could buy an easy chair.

This, then, was The Kingdom of God. It was written in German
longhand. The interlinear editing was prodigious. To conserve
space, he had written in a very small hand. Down the right-hand
margin, in even smaller longhand, were penciled notes.

Thrilled though I was with the manuscript, I was severely appre-
hensive over the ability of the camera to deal with such close and
faded written material. I feared, in fact, that the penciled notations
might be substantially lost and said so to the Doctor.

"That is nothing to worry about," he replied. "The penciled
notes are for me alone. That is the way I like to write. When I sit
down to my work, the first thing I do is to write my outline down
the right-hand margin of each page. Then I use the main part
of each sheet for the actual writing by pen."

He sat down, then bid us do likewise.

Dr. Schweitzer said that he had started the previous evening to
assemble the manuscript. All the pages were in a trunk, but they
had not been in the proper order. It had taken him several hours to
get all the pages together and put them in sequence. I shuddered
at the invasion of his time represented by this special effort.

As for The Philosophy of Civilization, Dr. Schweitzer feared that
getting this manuscript together would take several days of uninter-
rupted work, at least. There were more than four hundred thou-
sand words in the Philosophy, which made it several times longer
than the Kingdom. It was doubtful, he said, that he would be able
to get to this for several months. But he promised that he would
make a special effort in this direction.

Then the Doctor said that if there was nothing further to discuss
about the manuscript, he would like to revert to the matter of the
statement about the peace.

"Even while I was sorting the manuscript papers last night and
this morning I have been thinking about the declaration or state-

173

ment or whatever it is you want to call it,** he said. "I have no
reason to believe that anything I might do or say would or should
have any substantial effect. Even so, if there would be even the
smallest usefulness that I or anyone else might have on this ques-
tion, it would seem almost mandatory that the effort be made.

"This crisis intimately concerns the individual," he continued.
"The individual must therefore establish a connection with it. The
leaders of the world today have to act in an unprecedented way if
the crisis is to be met. Therefore they must be strengthened in their
determination to do the new and bold things that must be done.
That means that the individual has a greater role to play than
before. The leaders will act only as they become aware of a higher
responsibility that has behind it a wall of insistence from the people
themselves. I have no way of knowing whether I can help in this.
Perhaps I may be justified in trying."

This was the first intimation Clara and I had had that he was
giving favorable consideration to the issuing of a statement. We
exchanged glances that revealed clearly how heartened each of us
was by what the Doctor had said.

"I am still worried, however, about some of the special problems
involved in this declaration," Dr. Schweitzer resumed. "I am not
sure that I agree with you that a broad statement addressing itself
to the danger of war and the consequences of war would be the
most effective way of approaching it. Yes, the world needs a system
of enforceable law to prevent aggression and deal with the threats
to the peace, but the important thing to do is to make a start some-
where before we get into the broader questions."

He paused for a moment. Some baby goats were bleating just
outside the rear of the bungalow and he went to the screen to see
what was happening. The bleating stopped and he returned to his
seat at the end of the bed.

"I think maybe the place to take hold is with the matter of
nuclear testing," he said. "The scientific aspects of testing may be
complicated but the issues involved in testing are not. A ban on
testing requires no intricate system of enforcement. All peoples are

Beach at Lambarene: "Mankind can create a situation in which the sun and moon can look
down upon an earth that has been stripped of all life."

175

involved, therefore the matter transcends the military interests of
the testing nations. It is clearly in the human interest that the tests
be stopped. Even if there is a small chance that the tests are harm-
ful, it is important that the nations set aside the tests until they
are absolutely certain what this chance involves.

"If a ban on nuclear testing can be put into effect, then perhaps
the stage can be set for other and broader measures related to the
peace. That is why I am inclined to a fairly limited objective. Later
we will be in a better position to do the bigger things you have
been talking about."

I told the Doctor that I agreed it might be easier to rally world
public opinion around the need to suspend nuclear testing by all
nations than it would be to deal with the basic structure of a work-
able peace. The main problem was war itself. But if he felt that it
might be wise to confine his initial efforts to the matter of nuclear
testing, I would of course respect his decision.

Dr. Schweitzer said his mind had not been finally made up on
this question; he had been thinking out loud. He would continue
to study the alternatives. Meanwhile, he said, there was yet another
important question : what form would the statement or declaration
take? How would it be issued?

Had I given any thought to these questions, he asked.

I said that I felt a direct statement, released to all the news
agencies, might be effective.

He shook his head at this, saying that he had serious doubts
about the news release type of story. What it gains in immediate
attention it tends to lose in long-term impact. Besides, he said, one
runs the risk of competing with all the other news that may be
breaking on a certain day. Here he reverted to one of his favorite
themes.

"I am worried about present-day journalism," he said. "The
emphasis on negative happenings is much too strong. Not infre-
quently, news about events marking great progress is overlooked or
minimized. It tends to make for a negative and discouraging at-
mosphere. There is a danger that people may lose faith in the for-

176

ward direction of humanity if they feel that very little happens to
support that faith. And real progress is related to the belief by
people that it is possible.

"Well," he continued, "maybe this is the wrong time to worry
how the statement is to be issued. Our first job is to bring the baby
into the world. Then we can decide what to do with it. We will
therefore worry first about what the statement should be; then we
will study it and determine how it might be used."

Mathilde Kottman came to the room and reminded us that it
was getting late. I could see she was concerned about the Doctor. I
stood up but the Doctor put me at my ease.

"In a way," he said, "the two of you in coming here have broken
down my resolve not to involve myself in anything remotely con-
cerned with political matters. But as I said the other day, the
problem goes beyond politics. It affects all men. All men must
speak. Some way must be found to bring about an increased aware-
ness of the danger. Anything that is done should above all be
simple and direct. It should not be ponderous or academic. 53

Once again, as he spoke, he leaned forward in an aspect of
intense concentration. His eyes were closed and he seemed to
measure every word. As Clara interpreted, I could see that he lis-
tened to her carefully in order to make sure that the precise nuance
or emphasis would be given to what he was saying.

It was clear, both from his words and manner, that this subject
was now preoccupying most of his thoughts. He looked out through
the latticed window at the scudding clouds in the late afternoon
sky.

"I know the weather in this part of the world like the back of
my own hand," he said. "For forty-three years I have observed its
habits and variations. And this is the time of the year when un-
failingly there is hardly a breeze. And yet now there are winds that
I have never known before. One must always be prepared, of
course, for sharp changes in natural phenomena. But it is important
at the same time not to ignore new factors which may not be of
nature's making. Some scientific reports I have seen raise serious

177

questions concerning the effect on weather caused by nuclear ex-
plosions. Obviously much more study is required. But at least the
question exists. If there is the slightest chance that man's crops are
being jeopardized, it is the duty of the nations to find out definitely
before they proceed blindly."

I told the Doctor of the report The Saturday Review had carried
by Dr. Irving Bengelsdorf of the General Electric Company in the
United States. Dr. Bengelsdorf had correlated freak weather occur-
ring in various parts of the world with hydrogen explosions and the
patterns of weather movements.

"All things are now possible," Dr. Schweitzer said. "Man can
hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation."

Mathilde Kottman was still waiting in the doorway. The Doctor
rose to leave.

"If you are not too tired tomorrow, we can think and talk
further," he said. "Meanwhile, you now have the manuscript of the
Kingdom for such use as you wish to make of it."

Late that evening, after most of the oil lamps at the Hospital had
been turned out, I walked down toward the compound. From the
direction of Dr. Schweitzer's quarters I could hear the stately
progression of a Bach Toccata. The Doctor was playing on the piano
in his small workroom. I had heard that this piano had an
organ footboard attachment so that the Doctor could keep his feet
in playing condition.

I went up on the porch and stood for perhaps five minutes near
the latticed window, through which I could see Dr. Schweitzer's
silhouette in the dim-lighted room. Then there was a pause in the
music and the Doctor called out to me. It surprised me that he
should have known I was standing outside in the dark. I entered his
room and he bid me sit on the piano bench next to him while he
continued the Fugue. His feet moved over the organ footboard with
speed and precision. His powerful hands were in total control of
the piano as he met Bach's demands for complete definition of each
note each with its own weight and value, yet all of them intimately
laced together to create an ordered whole.

178

Sitting there in the dim light with the vibrations of the Toccata
racing through me, I had a stronger sense of listening to a great
console than if I had been in the world's largest cathedral. I knew
there might be things about Albert Schweitzer I would never com-
prehend or reconcile; but this particular Albert Schweitzer I felt I
knew and had complete access to. The yearning for an ordered
beauty; the search for a creative abandonment yet an abandon-
ment inside a disciplined artistry; the desire to re-create a meaning-
ful past; the need for outpouring and release, catharsis all these
things inside Albert Schweitzer spoke in his playing. And when he
was through, he sat with his hands resting lightly on the keys, his
great head bent forward as though to catch any still-lingering
echoes.

He was now freed of the pressures and tensions of the Hospital,
with its forms to nil out in triplicate and the mounting demands of
officialdom; freed of the mounds of unanswered mail on his desk;
freed of the heat and the saturating moisture and the fetishers and
the ants that get into the medicines. Johann Sebastian Bach had
helped make it possible for Schweitzer to come to Lambarene in the
first place, through book royalties. Now Bach was restoring him to
a world of creative and ordered splendor. For perhaps half an hour
we chatted on that piano bench in the thin light from the flickering
oil lamp at the far side of the room. He was speaking personally
now about his hopes mostly, like a young man just starting out
in a career and musing about what he would like to accomplish.
First, he would like to see his Hospital in tiptop running order.
Second, he would like to be able to train others to run the Hospital
after he is gone. Third, he would like to have just a little time to
himself to work quietly and finish his writings.

He did not wish these longings of his to give the impression that
he was unhappy in his work. Actually, he never thought much
about happiness or unhappiness in terms of his own life. Generally,
he thought in terms of what had to be done and the time required
for doing it. Now and then something would happen that would
give him a sense of fulfillment and deep reward. Only a few days

179

earlier, for example, he received word from a professorial colleague
in France about an examination paper turned in by a nineteen-
year-old boy. The question that had been put was: "How would
you define the best hope for the culture of Western Europe?" The
answer given by the student was: "It is not in any part of Europe.
It is in a small African village and it can be identified with an
eighty-two-year-old man."

Dr. Schweitzer paused. He held in his hand the letter that had
told of the student's conception of his role in the modern world. He
was profoundly moved.

"In the morning," he said, "when the sun is up and I hear the
cries of the Hospital, I do not think of these lofty ideas. But at a
moment like this, when the Hospital is asleep, it means much to me
that the student should believe these things, whether they are true
or not."

"We must find some way to bring about an increased awareness."
"There is no reason why people should not know exactly where they stand.'

"I wanted to be one man speak-
ing to another man."

"I have tried to relate myself to the problems of all humankind rather than to become
involved In disputes between this or that group."

HOW DO YOU go about preparing to make copies of a
literary treasure?

Tlie problem was complicated by equatorial conditions fungus
that insisted on finding its way into the most delicate parts of
precision machinery; moisture with knifelike powers of penetration;
a sun directly overhead that cut down human efficiency.

Then there was the manuscript itself. From the handwritten let-
ters of Dr. Schweitzer I had received, I thought we would probably
be dealing with small, even writing in a light blue or green ink. But
I wasn't prepared for the variations between pen and pencil, or
the varieties of paper, some tinted and some not.

Before leaving for Lambarene it seemed to me that, theoretically
at least, the best method would be microfilming. This had to be
ruled out, however, because of the size of the equipment and be-
cause there was no electricity at Lambarene except in the operating
room. While it might be possible to tap the power from the generator
for our purposes, there were other problems of voltage and cycles
that made this approach too complicated and risky. For the same
reasons, we had to eliminate various other copying devices, some of
them otherwise beautifully suited to our needs.

This left plain photography.

For two weeks before I left New York, I experimented with

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183

various cameras borrowed from friends. I went all the way from
the Italian "mini" cameras to the Speed Graphic, including my
own Rolleiflex. I photographed the smallest specimens of hand-
writing I could find and used films with different speed ratings.
Nothing I tried seemed adequate. Finally, I decided to turn the
problem over to the people who knew best Eastman Kodak of
Rochester, New York. I took one of the executives, Robert Brown,
into my confidence. He responded most favorably and put some
of his experts on the job. Five days later, Charles Kenyon, repre-
senting Eastman Kodak, came to my office with a complete plan
of battle.

First of all, he handed me a Retina IIIC. He annotated the
various requirements it met:

1. Automatic unit correlating shutter speed with f.1.5 opening.

2. Built-in light meter.

3. Maximum speed and ease in reloading.

4. Handled films with 36 frames.

5. Had special magnifying attachment for close-up copying work.
Charles Kenyon said Eastman Kodak recommended that I use

slow-speed Panatomic-X film. It had a fine grain and was especially
adapted to enlargement problems. Then he patiently instructed me
in the use of the camera, which the company would lend me.

Now, at Lambarene, we had the manuscript of The Kingdom of
God in our possession and it was time to get down to work.

The biggest single factor in our favor, of course, was that Clara
Urquhart was a superb photographer. I had seen the high quality
of her work the first time we met in New York when she showed
me the proofs of her new book of photographs-with-text on Albert
Schweitzer. What I had not known but now discovered was that
she was an expert technician in the business of copying a manu-
script.

Dr. Schweitzer had told us that he wanted the photography
project to be carried out as unobtrusively as possible. He didn't
want the undertaking to become a topic of conversation at the
dinner table or anywhere else. Hence we could not do the work

184

outdoors, which would have afforded the best light. We set up our
improvised studio in Clara's room. We placed a low table up
against the latticed window in order to have maximum light. The
iron bedstand we used as the base for a clamp to which we at-
tached the Retina IIIC. We then placed a two-inch board under
the table in order to provide a camera range of fifteen inches. The
close-up range finder was attached and the special lens for correct
parallax was inserted. The first page of the manuscript was put into
position, we crossed our fingers, drew a deep breath, and started to
shoot. Clara moved with characteristic ease and dexterity as she
arranged the manuscript, placing each page in position, numbering
each page, and unpacking and repacking the film. All I had to do
was to focus, press the trigger, and reload. By the end of the first
roll, I knew that if I had been left to myself, it would have taken
me two hours just to complete one spool. As it was, Clara's help
enabled us to shoot thirty-six frames, or one spool, in from fifteen
to twenty minutes.

On this basis, we calculated it would take about six hours to
complete The Kingdom of God. Assuming The Philosophy was in
the same physical condition, we guessed it would take us about
eighteen hours to complete that, too. But Dr. Schweitzer was
unable to put the manuscript of The Philosophy of Civilization to-
gether. He came to the room and said that he had gone to the
trunk, looked over the manuscript, and calculated that it would
take too many hours to put it together in the same orderly form in
which he had given us The Kingdom of God. But this he would
do in the months ahead; perhaps arrangements might be made for
later copying.

That was entirely reasonable, I said. Meanwhile, we would at
least have one of the two books on film.

As we had anticipated, the photographing of The Kingdom took
about six hours, spread over two sessions. During the rest of the
time I worked on a memorandum covering the nuclear situation as
Dr. Schweitzer had requested. This memorandum was based on
various documents I had brought with me to Lambarene, including

185

the Libby report on radioactive strontium in milk, the report of the
National Academy of Science in the United States, the report of
the British Academy, and the official findings of the Indian gov-
ernment.

The following morning at breakfast, Dr. Schweitzer told Clara
that he wished to spend most of the day with us and asked if we
might be available. He would come to us at 11 :00 A.M. and stay
with us until lunch; he would meet us again at four In the after-
noon; then we would spend the evening together.

The morning meeting was devoted to a discussion of the nuclear
situation. The Doctor had been giving his constant thought to It.
Concerning the matter of a possible news release, of one thing he
now seemed certain: a direct press statement would be unwise. It
was too pretentious, smacking of publicity-seeking. Perhaps a small
journal would be best. If the statement were of any value. It might
be reprinted in various ways. It might stay in circulation for a
period of time and have a cumulative value.

I recognized that such an approach would be entirely In char-
acter, I said. At the same time, it was important to face the likeli-
hood that anything the Doctor said on this subject, even in a
small journal, would be picked up instantly and made into head-
line news.

In any event, I added, it seemed clear that the best way for the
Doctor to proceed would be in a manner that he felt was natural
to him.

We come now to the statement itself, he said. He felt that he
should not aim at any arbitrarily chosen length as being especially
desirable but rather should concentrate on making the statement as
clear and as complete as was humanly possible regardless of length.

"I must be careful to develop the facts very fully," he said. "I
don't want to be criticized for leaving large gaps in the argument."

The Doctor then recalled an experience in Oslo in connection
with the Nobel Prize. It was an experience from which he had
learned a great deal.

"I was told I was expected to give an acceptance talk, I worked

186

on the talk for several months, developing my theme with great
care. When the message was completed, I estimated that it would
take from seventy to eighty minutes in the reading.

"But when I arrived in Oslo I learned that I would be given
thirty-five minutes for the talk. That meant cutting the message in
half. I was most unhappy but I proceeded according to the limita-
tions. The original message had been as closely knit as I knew how
to make it; the shortened version was uneven and the main points
inadequately developed.

"For a moment, just before I got up to speak, I was tempted to
reach for the full message even at the risk of being stopped halfway
through my speech. But I downed the temptation out of courtesy
to my hosts. After all, it was up to them to decide what kind of
program they wanted.

"The printed version, of course, was of the short talk as delivered.
I didn't like it and had no interest in seeing it or acknowledging its
existence. Even so, I was surprised to see how it kept being re-
printed by various journals throughout the world and how long it
seemed to stay alive."

He leaned back and drew a deep breath. Then he said the reason
he brought up the matter was that he felt the question of length in
the new statement should be put to one side; the only thing that
should concern him was the accuracy and the relevance of what
it was he had to say. I agreed.

What should be of most concern to him now and in the weeks
ahead, he said, was to complete his study of the materials I had
turned over to him. He would also correspond with some of the
names I had given him and with various scientists in Europe who
had expressed concern to him about these matters the last time he
had seen them in Europe, at the meeting of the Nobel Laureates in
Lindau, Austria.

At the afternoon meeting, he did not sit down on the edge of the
bed, as was his usual manner. Instead he cleared the small table
and arranged three chairs around it. He had brought with him his
regular stub pen and a bottle of ink.

187

u We must clear up our remaining business," he said. "Are there
any new matters you would like to discuss?"

I broached a subject that had been very much on my mind but
that was awkward to bring up in direct discussion with him.

He said that if this had anything to do with his affairs in the
event of his death, it would please him if I felt free to proceed.

What about the manuscripts? I asked. If anything should hap-
pen, who would have the authorization to edit them and approve
them for possible publication?

Did I have a suggestion to make on that score, he asked.

I replied that I felt a small group, consisting perhaps of Emory
Ross, J. D. Newth, his English publisher, and Clara might be in
a good position to superintend the publication of the books.

"Yes, that would be a good idea," he said. "If anything happens
to me, you have the authorization to bring such a group together
and make the essential decisions about my unpublished work. I
ask only that you observe the following conditions:

"1. That you consider carefully whether the material is actually
worth publication, and, if so, what form it is to take.

"2. That nothing be added to my work of any nature.

"3. That no one be permitted to write anything in my name."

I gave him my assurance that I would convey these conditions
to the other members of this literary trustee group. As I did so,
however, I could not help thinking that the Doctor would probably
outlive all of us. His skin had the color and texture of a man at
least forty years younger. His eyes were clear and sharply focused.
His hands perhaps the most impressive hands I have ever seen on
a human being, combining strength with sensitivity were without
the slightest trace of any tremor. I could recall, too, that three days
earlier I had accompanied him on his "rounds," which included
everything from moving large boxes of medical supplies in a hot
sun and carpentry work to an inspection tour of the Hospital, walk-
ing up hill and down. He was less fatigued at the end of four hours
than I was at the end of one. In fact, I found it difficult to think
of any middle-aged man who could have kept up with him.

188

This matter disposed of, the Doctor inquired about other items
of business.

I told the Doctor that a Schweitzer Fellowship group in Darien,
Connecticut, was raising money for his Hospital and had asked me
to obtain his autograph on various papers that might be auctioned.
This commission was quickly executed.

Next, I referred to the fifteen-year-old boy, Marc Chalufour and
his fight to save the old organ in his church from being replaced with
a new electronic machine. Marc, who knew something about the
subject, felt that the church was giving up a superior instrument,
and had given me a letter for Dr. Schweitzer. The letter identified
the old organ according to make and year, and reported on its con-
dition. Marc felt that if he could have a note of support from Dr.
Schweitzer, he might win over the elders.

Twenty-five years ago, as a youth myself deeply interested in the
organ, I had dreamed that it might some day be possible to talk to
Albert Schweitzer about the art of organ building. No man alive knew
more about the Silbermann organ the finest church organ up
through the nineteenth century. And now, a letter from a fifteen-
year-old boy was the open sesame. To my great delight, he spoke at
length about the wonders of the Silbermann organ about the
knowledge and craftsmanship that went into it, about its tone and
its unique features, about methods for keeping it in good working
condition.

Then, with obvious relish, he reached for paper and pen, and
wrote a letter to Master Chalufour:

Dear Marc:

If the organ was made in 1858, it is a good one. That was an age
of fine organ building in Germany, France, England, and the United
States. The period of good organ construction lasted from 1850 to
1885. After that, organs were built in factories. The organs built in
the 1850*s had an excellent tone sweet, not too strong, but noble. If
your church organ is still in reasonable good physical condition, it is
certainly worth conserving and restoring, for it is most valuable.

189

In Alsace, there are organs dating from 1730 that are still in use In
the churches; and If your church does not want the organ, perhaps
you may be able to find a place for it yourself. One day its value will
be realized. The old organs are better because they were built by
artisans. In those days there was not the competition in price that
there is today. The organ builder was able to use the finest material
and did not have to count the hours necessary to put into it, as one
has to do today. He could deliver an instrument of the highest quality.

Good luck from my heart to the courageous and intelligent young
man who wants to save an organ.

ALBERT SCHWEITZER

The Doctor put down his pen; the conversation about the organ
and the letter had taken the better part of an hour. Despite the
expenditure, I had no regrets for having opened up the subject; he
had enjoyed himself thoroughly.

We went off to dinner, at the end of which several members of
the staff remarked that they had seldom seen the Doctor in such a
joyous mood.

After dinner, Dr. Schweitzer came to Clara's room again. The
first thing that had to be done, he said, was to write a letter to
President Eisenhower. In this letter, he wanted to thank the Presi-
dent for the cordial birthday greetings. He was also eager to express
his concern about the world situation, especially with reference to
the armaments race. After about twenty minutes, he showed us
the draft:

Lambarene
January 10, 1957

The Hon. Dwight D. Eisenhower

The White House

Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. President:

I send you my heartfelt thanks for your friendly letter In which you
send me your good wishes and those of Mrs. Eisenhower on the oc-
casion of my eighty-second birthday. This expression of your good

190

wishes was the first birthday greeting I received. Your generous and
kind thoughts touch me deeply.

In my heart I carry the hope I may somehow be able to contribute
to the peace of the world. This I know has always been your own
deepest wish. We both share the conviction that humanity must find
a way to control the weapons which now menace the very existence
of life on earth. May it be given to us both to see the day when the
world's peoples will realize that the fate of all humanity is now at
stake, and that it is urgently necessary to make the bold decisions that
can deal adequately with the agonizing situation in which the world
now finds itself.

I was very happy to have Mr. Cousins, who will take this letter
to you, here with me in Lambarene. It was rewarding to spend time
together and to see how many ideas and opinions we shared.

With assurance of my highest esteem, I am,

Yours devotedly,
ALBERT SCHWEITZER

He then wrote a final copy on thin white paper, put it into an
unsealed envelope, and handed it to me to transmit to the Presi-
dent. He leaned back in his chair and asked whether I was glad I
came to Lambarene.

Most certainly, I replied. I hoped he didn't think it presumptu-
ous of me if I asked him the same question.

He said he had some forty years in which to reflect on the answer
to that question, so that there need be no hesitation in his reply.
Yes; he was glad he came to Larnbarene, very glad. It was while
he was coming up the river Ogowe one day many years ago, passing
one of the luxuriant islands in the river and looking up at the
scudding clouds, that the idea of reverence for life occurred to him.

Lambarene had also made it possible for him to make his life his
argument, he said.

This puzzled me and I looked up quizzically.

"As a young man, my main ambition was to be a good minister,"
he explained. "I completed my studies; then, after a while I started
to teach. I became the principal of the seminary. All this while I

191

had been studying and thinking about the life of Jesus and the
meaning of Jesus. And the more I studied and thought, the more
convinced I became that Christian theology had become over-
complicated. In the early centuries after Christ, the beautiful
simplicities relating to Jesus became somewhat obscured by the
conflicting interpretations and the incredibly involved dogma grow-
ing out of the theological debates. For example, more than a cen-
tury after Christ, there was a theological dispute growing out of
questions such as these:

"Is Jesus actually God or the son of God?

"If he is God, why did he suffer? If he was the son of God, why
was he made to suffer?

"What is meant by the spirit of Jesus?

"What is the true position of Mary in Christian theology?

"Elaborate theology dealing with such questions disturbed me,
for it tended to lead away from the great and simple truths revealed
in Jesus' own words and life. Jesus Christ did not proclaim himself
to be God or the son of God; his mission was to awaken people
to the Kingdom of God which he felt to be imminent.

"In my effort to get away from intricate Christian theology based
on later interpretations, I developed some ideas of my own. These
ideas were at variance with the ideas that had been taught me.
Now, what was I to do? Was I to teach that which I myself had
been taught but that I now did not believe? How could I, as the
principal of a seminary, accept the responsibility for teaching young
men that which I did not believe?

"But was I to teach that which I did believe? If I did so, would
this not bring pain to those who had taught me?

"Faced with these two questions, I decided that I would do
neither. I decided that I would leave the seminary. Instead of try-
ing to get acceptance for my ideas, involving painful controversy, I
decided I would make my life my argument. I would advocate the
things I believed in terms of the life I lived and what I did. Instead
of vocalizing my belief in the existence of God within each of us,
I would attempt to have my life and work say what I believed."

192

I recalled a discussion I had had several nights earlier with
Dr, Friedmann and Dr. Margaret. We agreed that it was necessary
only to see Dr. Schweitzer working with his hammer or making the
rounds of the Hospital to recognize a profound symbol. The
symbol, of course, had to do with the carpenter and the healer.

And so I asked Dr. Schweitzer if this symbol to him was a con-
scious one; in short, whether he had come to Lambarene in imita-
tion of Christ.

When I asked the question, I couldn't be sure whether I had
asked the most obvious question in the world, or whether I was
pushing at a door that was meant to be kept closed.

Dr. Schweitzer looked up and said simply that the pursuit of the
Christian ideal was a worthwhile aim for any man.

Then, after a moment, he said that he did not want anyone to
believe what he had done was the result of hearing the voice of God
or anything like that. The decision he had made was a completely
rational one, consistent with everything else in his own life.

Indeed, he said, some theologians had told him that they had
had direct word from God. He didn't argue. All he could say
about that was that their ears were sharper than his.

He said, however, that he believed in the evolution of human
spirituality, and that the higher this development in the individual,
the greater his awareness of God. Therefore, if by the expression,
"hearing the voice of God," one means a pure and lively and ad-
vanced development of spirituality, then the expression was correct.
This is what is meant by the "dictates of the spirit."

By an advanced spiritual evolution, he emphasized that he was
not thinking so much in theological terms as in ethical and moral
terms. Thus he disagreed with the impression created by some of the
Psalms that if people were good they would receive their reward.
Goodness need not depend on rewards, or on the absence of
punishments. True spiritual evolution means that there is an
awareness by the individual of the natural goodness inside him;
therefore he is not reaching out but actually discovering his true
self when he brings the goodness to life. There is the need to do

193

good. If one does it because he expects tangible rewards he will
be mistaken.

This led to a discussion of man's expectations with respect to the
Deity. If man conceived of the Deity as an omnipresent guarantor
of the good he was stretching the concept of the Deity to suit his
own needs and therefore he was mistaken. There is no point in
expecting God to prevent injustice by man. He said that after the
last great war, with all its killing and injustice, with its persecution
of religious minorities and the concentration camps and gas cham-
bers and soap made from the remains of slaughtered Jews after
all this, he did not see how it was possible to hold to the concept
of a God who would intervene on the side of justice.

This, he felt, is not how God manifests himself. God manifests
himself through the spiritual evolution of man and through the
struggle of man to become aware of the spiritual nature of his
being and then to nurture it and give it scope. The existence of
evil or the occasional triumph of the evil over the good, as in the
case of persecution and concentration camps did not mean that
God was oblivious of evil or indifferent to it. It means that man had
the responsibility to deal with the evil and should not sit back and
expect divine intervention.

Not infrequently in history, he said, religious leaders themselves
would invoke the name of God for acts that were unjust. Calvin
killed his enemies; Luther failed to speak out against the persecu-
tion of Jews; the early Israelites believed at times it was their divine
mission to kill; the Crusaders used the sword freely in the name of
God. Modern instances were many. One example was furnished
by religious Spaniards who went to Mass and then went to see
creatures slaughtered in the bull ring.

To talk of the "will of God" was a presumption and often a
profanation, especially when one used the term to purify ungodlike
acts. Moreover, to speak of the "will of God" is to use illusion. We
must accept reality. And the dominant reality, to repeat, is that
God manifests himself through the human spirit. Insofar as the
individual is able to discover and develop his spiritual awareness, he

194

is at one with the Deity. Nothing is more wonderful or mysterious
than the workings of the inner awareness by which man discovers
his true spirituality.

I asked Dr. Schweitzer whether I detected an echo of Hegel's
"only the spiritual principle, which is synonymous with God, is
real. 35 Hadn't Kant made a similar distinction between believing
God and believing in God?

He replied that he had always regarded Hegel as one of his
most important teachers; he also reminded me of his debt to the
Stoics and the early Chinese. As for Kant, he agreed with the dis-
tinction but said that so far as Kant's ideas in general were con-
cerned, he could be impressed by them without being moved by
them.

There is no reason why religion should not grow and evolve, as
man himself must grow and evolve, he continued. When, for ex-
ample, Apostolic belief is used as final authority for theological
positions, it should be remembered that the Apostolic doctrine was
not developed by the Apostles but was created by interpretation in
the middle of the second century after Christ.

Theological rigidity, he feared, was hurting religion. Young
people, especially, were looking to religion as a great spiritual ad-
venture but were being disappointed because it was not searching
and probing for expanding truths. Instead it was holding to fixed
ideas which young people could not fully accept. There is nothing
irreligious in the search for true religiosity. The more we think and
the more we are aware, the greater our concentration on the de-
velopment of human spirituality and the more religious we become.

A great cathedral may help to awaken the human spirit, but it
cannot create it.

Each man, in a very real sense, carries his cathedral inside him.

St. Paul preached out in the open, so that all could hear. At the
Hospital in Lambarene, there is no chapel. The preaching follows
the pattern of St. Paul; it is in the open.

In all these respects, the Reformation is not yet complete. It has
not given adequate weight to the Christianity of the Spirit. Ref-

195

ormation means change; Christianity must not be afraid of change;
it must not be afraid to examine and re-examine and grow, Jesus
symbolized change and growth.

The ideas contained in Reverence for Life are consistent, he said,
with an evolving Christianity. The door is open but Christian theol-
ogy has not gone in.

To the extent that his thinking on Christian theology and re-
ligion in general have created differences of opinion. Dr. Schweitzer
said that this was a matter that affected him deeply.

"I have not wished to create problems for Christianity," he said.
"I have suffered deeply because some of my ideas have become
problems for Christianity."

"Wasn't this what had happened to Ernest Renan?" I asked.
"Didn't Renan suffer because his own thinking caused him to veer
away from the tradition in which he had been brought up?"

Dr. Schweitzer replied, "It is true that Renan, who was con-
cerned with the life and meaning of Jesus, found himself at odds
with the Christian theology he himself had been taught. This
caused Renan great pain. In the end it tore him to pieces because
he failed to find an outlet by which he could make his own new
Ideas come to life. New ideas in this field of thought are powerful
things. One cannot just conceive of them as mere intellectual
properties and then take leave of them. My own ideas do not hap-
pen to coincide with Renan's. I am much more concerned with the
actual shape of history in the life of Jesus. But I think I can under-
stand how Renan's work affected him when he didn't allow It to
redefine his Me for him. This is what I mean when I say I came to
Lambarene because I wanted my life to be my argument. I didn't
want my Ideas to become an end in themselves. The ideas took hold
of me and changed my life. Resistance to those ideas would have
been impossible."

c. u.

Earthquake under conscience.

Same man, same situation.

Open door.

C.U.

Communicator.

Encounter.

Special Delivery.

Intermission,
c.u.

Responsibility as an art.

XII

THE DOCTOR GOT up to leave. It was now close to 11
P.M. I was angry with myself for having caused him to use up so
much of his time, but, after his earlier admonition on this score, I had
avoided any mention of the hour or the need to conserve his
energies. I consoled myself with the thought that even St. Paul
recognized there were limits beyond which it was unreasonable to
berate a weak conscience.

I looked over at Clara. She was tranquil and content. But she
had been scrutinizing me and could read my concern.

"You^mustn't worry about the Doctor," she said after he left. "He
does exactly what he wants to do. That is one thing no one can take
from him. Besides, he feels cut off from the world and relishes the
chance to talk to people from the outside.

"We should be proud and happy," she continued. "Everything
we wanted to accomplish has been done. The Doctor will do the
statement and it will be a good one, a very good one, and he has
promised to work on his manuscripts, and I believe this time he
will do it.

"You know, for the past week or so I've been watching you
closely and I have the feeling that this place had no strangeness for
you from the start. I don't know how to explain it except to say that

204

205

you made me think you had once lived here or a place like it and
knew the kind of thing to expect/ 5

She was right about one thing: I did have a special feeling about
Lambarene long before I came. This grew not only out of Schweit-
zer's own descriptions of life in the jungle, but out of some ex-
periences I had had as a child. For when I read his account of the
Hospital, it made a connection with part of my boyhood.

His books had been for me, as they have been for countless
others, an intense reading experience. What he wrote had the effect
of reawakening incidents and ideas in one's own life. The ideas may
be only half-formed in your mind, and the incidents may be part
of long-slumbering memories; but they spring to life full-size under
the stimulation of his descriptions. When, for example, I came
across a passage in Schweitzer's On the Edge of the Primeval
Forest I had a burst of recognition.

This particular passage was concerned with the effect of illness
on Dr. Schweitzer in his early forties. His future seemed uncertain.
Two operations were necessary. They were a success and the recov-
ery was complete. After it he could write :

"The misery I have seen gives me strength, and faith in my fel-
low man supports my confidence in the future. I do hope I shall
find a sufficient number of people who, because they themselves
have been saved from physical suffering, will respond to those in
need."

He had coined a striking phrase : "The Fellowship of those who
bear the Mark of Pain." He identified the members of this Fellow-
ship as "those who have learned by experience what physical pain
and bodily anguish mean. They belong together, all the world over;
they are united by a secret bond."

It was at this point that the magic junction of Schweitzer's ideas
with my own experience took place* Years earlier, as a boy of ten,
I had been sent to a public sanatorium for tuberculosis. The pain
I felt was not one of sickness but of loneliness. It was the pain of
being detached from everything warm and meaningful and joyous
in life.

206

There was also the pain of being separated from hope. On Sun-
days I would find my perch on the wall near the entrance gate to
the sanatorium and would watch the healthy people, many of them
young married couples, as they walked up the hill from the bus
station. They had come to visit relatives and friends but they owned
the miracle of being able to leave when they wanted to. I won-
dered about their world of health and total option and whether
they rejoiced in it. I had no reason to believe I might ever be able
to join that world. The boys in my age group in the ward seldom
spoke about a life beyond the sanatorium. We knew that cures took
place but we also knew that although people who left the sana-
torium lived a careful, disciplined life, many of them came back.

In those days, antibiotics had not yet been born and tuberculosis
sanatoriums existed as much for the purpose of keeping infectious
people out of society as for treating them. As a result, the outside
world was something of an unreality. We longed for it but it was
like pressing our noses against the windowpane of a non-existent
tomorrow.

The physical suffering was not severe. There would be some diz-
ziness, a slight fever in the evenings, but we were used to it. Most
of the discomfort, I suppose, came during the winter nights. Cold
was considered useful therapy at that time and the ward would be
converted into open-air shelters at night. Each patient had two
blankets, ample for most weather, but there were a dozen or more
subzero nights during the winter when it was too cold to sleep and
we shivered violently until daybreak.

There was also the pain of human relationships. As in most de-
pendent or disciplined groups, whether in a sanatorium, school, or
penitentiary, there was a sharp division between the strong and the
weak. Weakness was not necessarily a biological trait but was as-
signed to the newcomers, who were treated as outcasts. They served
the old-timers and took orders; and they marked time until the
shine of their newness wore off, when they were relieved of much
of their underprivileged status. It had never occurred to me until
then that individuals who were in the midst of suffering themselves

207

could be cruel, but I soon realized that when people are thrown
together, whether ill or healthy, some of them assert power by being
bullies, just as there are some who have positive qualities of leader-
ship. We had our share of both, especially the former.

On occasions, there would be something of a dissolution of the
animosities within the sanatorium; indeed, the dissolution would
extend to the barriers that separated us from the outside world.
One such occasion, of course, was at Christmas, when we put on
the Nativity Play for the visitors. Even the bullies became just so
many good voices in the choir. The feeling we had then of being
able to join the world of the healthy and the warmth of being in
their favor was a feeling I have never been able to forget. And
when, years later, I sat in the section for the healthy outsiders at
Trudi's leper village at the Schweitzer Hospital and watched the
leper children perform in the Nativity Play, I could sense their emo-
tions in this hour of glorious connnection with the rest of the world.
I could also sense their emotions when, after many rounds of ap-
plause, the connection ceased and the outsiders returned to the
universe of unlimited options. The feeling the youngsters had, I was
certain, was that only a miracle would enable them to become
whole again.

The miracle had happened for me at the sanatorium. Six months
after being admitted, I was discharged and went back to family
and school. It took many years before I could comprehend the fact
that I was fully cured. I didn't quite know how to go about estab-
lishing my membership in the world of the healthy. I hesitated to
ask other boys whether I could play ball with them for fear they
would laugh at me. And well they might : on my fourteenth birth-
day I weighed seventy-eight pounds. But we lived near a public
park and I invested my weekly allowance of twenty-five cents in
baseball practice, I hired a boy of ten to throw grounders to me and
retrieve my throws from the outfield. Within two years some six
inches taller and forty pounds heavier I became the captain of
the neighborhood baseball team, alternating between first base and
shortstop. Sometimes, after league games, I would stay on the field,

208

practicing running bases and sliding, so that I would know auto-
matically where my feet should leave the ground without taking
my eye off the ball in order to hook my slide away from the bag.

My debt to baseball was great. Even when, at college, I had a
head-on collision in attempting to catch a fly ball, resulting in a
serious concussion and temporary loss of memory, I almost rejoiced
in the fact that this was the sort of thing that sometimes happened
to healthy people in the fullest use of their physical resources. What
was happening, of course, was that I was enchanted with the idea
of being alive. The magic of being able to run swiftly was worth
almost any price. I gloried in the fatigue and perspiration that
came from muscular activity, for earlier in my life the only perspira-
tion I had known came from fever.

Even after I was able to accept fully the fact that I could live a
normal life, I carried with me the feeling that I had the obligation
somehow to pay back. The sense of debt was much more than an
intellectual one. It lay deep in my bones and I had no way of
ignoring it. Indeed, from the moment I walked out of the sana-
torium and looked back at my Sunday perch on the old wall near
the entrance, I knew that my life would be unbearable unless I
could find some way of making good a debt I couldn't quite define
but that I knew would be with me as long as I lived.

Albert Schweitzer expressed this feeling for me in On the Edge of
the Primeval Forest when he wrote that "he who has been delivered
from pain must not think he is now free again, and at liberty to take
life up as it was before, entirely forgetful of the past. He is now a
man whose eyes are open with regard to pain and anguish, and he
must help to overcome these two enemies and bring to others the
deliverance which he has himself enjoyed."

If I felt "at home" in Lambarene, as Clara put it, perhaps it was
because there had been something in my own life years earlier that
enabled me to recognize the chemistry of human emotions that
existed in a place like this. I could also recognize what Schweitzer
meant when he spoke about the sense of summons he felt. He was
not tormented by the tragic question that has stunted the growth of

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civilizations the inevitable question asked by the individual:
"What can one man do? 5 ' If the purpose were strong enough, the
question answered itself. The fact that thousands of doctors were
required to take care of the millions of people who were in need
of them in Africa did not produce in Schweitzer either awe or sur-
render. A single doctor, he knew, could show what was possible.
In the very act of accepting a responsiblity, he could make it visible
to others. Besides, to deprive one man of help because many more
also needed help was to design the moral paralysis of society.

"A single doctor in Africa," Dr. Schweitzer has said, "even with
the most modest equipment, can mean very much for very many.
The good which he can accomplish surpasses a hundredfold what
he gives of his own life and the cost of material support he must
have. Just with quinine and arsenic for malaria, with novarseno-
benzol for the various diseases which spread through ulcerating
sores, and with emetine for dysentery, and with sufficient skill and
apparatus for the most necessary operations, he can in a single year
free hundreds of men from the grip of suffering and death."

It may be said that only a Schweitzer has the knowledge and
personal power to answer satisfactorily the question: "What can one
man do? 33 Certainly we can't all be Schweitzers. But what should
concern us is not what it takes to be a Schweitzer but what it takes
to be a man. Nature has not been equally lavish with her endow-
ments, but each man has his own potential in terms of achievement
and service. The awareness of that potential is the discovery of
purpose; the fulfillment of that potential is the discovery of strength.

For Albert Schweitzer, the assertion of this potential was not a
matter of charity but a matter of justice. Also moral reparations.
He had always been troubled by the fact that the white man, carry-
ing with him the cross of Jesus, not infrequently also carried the
means of cheapening the lives of people he sought to change or
dominate.

"Ever since the world's far-off lands were discovered, what has
been the relationship of the white people to the colored?" he has
asked. "What is the meaning of the simple fact that this and that

210

people have died out, and that the condition of others is getting
worse because they were 'discovered' by men who professed to be
followers of Jesus? Who can measure the misery produced by the
fiery liquids and hideous diseases we have brought to them?

"We are burdened with a great debt. We are not free to confer or
not confer benefits on these people as we please. It is our duty.
Anything we give them is not benevolence but atonement. That is
the foundation from which all deliberations about 'works of mercy 3
must begin."

And for the appropriate time to act? The time, inevitably, is now.
It can only be now. "Truth has no special time of its own." When
circumstances seem least propitious, that is the correct time.

These were some of the thoughts I carried to bed with me in the
bungalow overlooking the wards on my last night in Lambarene.

XIII

The plane made a half circle as it rose from the jungle
clearing. Looking out the right side I could see the fast-shrinking
figure of Dr. Schweitzer slowly waving his white helmet. In a few
seconds the airstrip was obscured by the jungle Mis,

I observed my fellow passengers in the plane. Their faces were
close to the windows. This was Lambarene country. It had some-
thing to say to the moral imagination; its images and symbols filled
the mind. I looked down at the Ogowe River and thought of the
thousand-year gap between the pirogue paddled by the lepers and
the man-made metal bird that had lifted us out of the jungle and
into the clouds.

I thought, too, of the gap between the Hospital at Lambarene
and science in modern dress; but that was not what was important.
Nor was it important that the Schweitzer Hospital should be at odds
with advanced hospital design and practice. What was important
was the timelessness of the Lambarene message and the enduring
nature of the teachings and the commitment and the symbol that
belonged to it. The lesson was not new; in fact, it was one of the
oldest lessons in the world, but it had yet to be fully understood.
The lesson was concerned with the nature of human connection

211

Everyday is washday on the Ogowe.

One of the transportation centers at the Hospital.

213

and obligation, with the reality of pain, and the chemistry of human
response, and the reach of the moral man.

I thought back to the long discussions I had had before coming
to Lambarene of Clara's compassionate cautions and her concern
lest I leave Lambarene under a burden of disenchantment and
hurt. I thought, too, of the talk with Frank Catchpool in the plane
just before arriving at Lambarene. And now I could dwell on these
earlier cautions and anticipations in the full play of retrospect.

The biggest impression of Albert Schweitzer that emerged was of
a man who had learned to use himself fully. Much of the ache and
brooding unhappiness in modern life is the result of man's difficulty
in using himself fully. He performs compartmentalized tasks in a
compartmentalized world. He is reined in physically, socially,
spiritually. Only rarely does he have a sense of fulfilling himself
through total contact with total challenge. He finds it difficult to
make real connection even with those who are near to him. But
there are vast yearnings inside, natural ones, demanding air and
release. They have to do with his moral responses. And he has his
potential, the regions of which are far broader than he can even
guess at a potential that keeps nagging at his inner self for full
use. Schweitzer had never been a stranger to his potential.

This is not to say that Schweitzer achieved "happiness" in acting
out that potential. He was less concerned with happiness than with
purpose. What was it that had to be done? What was the best way
of doing it? How did a man go about developing an awareness of
important needs? How did he attach himself to those needs? Was
he able to recognize the moral summons inside him? To the extent
that he lived apart from these questions, he was unfulfilled and not
genuinely alive.

A full life, thus defined, however, is not without the punishment
of fatigue. Albert Schweitzer was supposed to be severe in his
demands on the people who worked with him. Yet any demands
he made on others were as nothing compared to the demands he
made on himself. He was not concerned about the attainability of
perfection ; he was concerned, however, about the pursuit of perf ec-

214

tion. He considered the desire to seek the best and work for the best
as a vital part of the nature of man. When he sat down to play the
piano or organ, and he was alone, he might stay with it for hours
at a time. He might practice a single phrase for two hours or more.
The difference between the phrase when he first played it and when
he himself was satisfied with it might have been imperceptible even
to a trained musical ear. But he had a stern idea of his own capacity
for interpreting Bach, for example, and he felt he must stretch
himself to whatever extent was necessary to achieve it. This was no
mere obsession. He sought his own outermost limits as a natural
part of purposeful living. If he seemed to prod and push others, it
was an almost automatic carry-over of his own work habits.

There were other thoughts that occurred to me as we flew over the
jungle hills of French Equatorial Africa. I considered the matter of
Dr. Schweitzer's relationship with the Africans, and the many mis-
conceptions about it that had found their way into print. When the
Doctor first came to Lambarene the life of the African had barely
been touched by industrial civilization. It was difficult to get
Africans to work steadily in putting up the buildings and in doing
hard jobs for the Hospital.

There was the temptation at first to think that the Africans were
naturally lazy. But Dr. Schweitzer very early realized that it made
a difference when one lives in a climate and in an environment
where the needs are few. Living close to nature, the African saw
no need to work beyond that which was necessary to the imme-
diate well-being and the minimal needs of his family. The idea of
putting up extensive buildings, making concrete piles, sawing and
storing woods all this seemed to have little connection with reality
as the African lived it. But the lack of incentive did not mean, as
Dr. Schweitzer soon came to realize, that the Africans would not
work hard under any circumstances. When they understood the
reason for making a special effort, they were more than equal to
the challenge.

"Watching them one day as we made an emergency trip in the
canoe to save the life of a woman who was seriously ill," Dr.

215

Schweitzer had said, "I marveled at their stamina and their deter-
mination and I resolved never to fall into the careless habit of
regarding them as shiftless."

Here we come to the real point about Schweitzer.

It is not whether he was severe in manner toward the Africans,
any more than it is whether he failed to bring a gleaming modern
hospital to Lambarene.

The point about Schweitzer is that he brought the kind of spirit
to Africa that the dark man hardly knew existed in the white man.
Before Schweitzer, white skin meant beatings and gunpoint rule
and the imposition of slavery on human flesh. If Schweitzer had
done nothing else in his life than to accept the pain of these people
as his own, he would have achieved eminence. And his place in
history will rest on something more substantial than an argument
over an unswept floor in a hospital ward in the heart of Africa. It
will rest on the spotless nature of his vision and the clean sweep
of his nobility.

The greatness of Schweitzer indeed the essence of Schweitzer
is the man as symbol. It is not so much what he has done for others,
but what others have done because of him and the power of his
example. This is the measure of the man. What has come out of
his life and thought is the kind of inspiration that can animate a
generation. He has supplied a working demonstration of reverence
for life. He represents enduring proof that we need not torment
ourselves about the nature of human purpose. The scholar, he once
wrote, must not live for science alone, nor the businessman for his
business, nor the artist for his art. If affirmation for life is genuine,
it will "demand from all that they should sacrifice a portion of their
own lives for others."

Thus, Schweitzer's main achievement is a simple one. He has
been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for a moral principle.
Like Gandhi, the power of his appeal has been in renunciation. And
because he has been able to feel a supreme identification with other
human beings he has exerted a greater force than millions of armed
men on the march.

The Doctor and members of his staff await the arrival of a visitor.
Schweitzer to Stevenson: "That was my mosquito."

217

It is unimportant whether we call Schweitzer a great religious
figure or a great moral figure or a great philosopher. It suffices
that his words and works are known and that he is loved and has
influence because he enables men to discover mercy in themselves.
Early in his life he was accused of being an escapist. He was criti-
cized for seeming to patronize the people he had chosen to serve.
Yet the proof of his genuineness and his integrity is to be found in
the response he awakens in people. He has reached countless millions
who have never seen him but who have been able to identify them-
selves with him because of the invisible and splendid fact of his own
identification with them.

"I must forgive the lies directed against myself," he wrote,
"because my own life has been so many times blotted by lies. . . .
I am obliged to exercise unlimited forgiveness because, if I did not,
I should be untrue to myself in that I should thus act as if I were
not guilty in the same way as the other has been guilty with regard
to me."

Albert Schweitzer is not above criticism. Few men of our cen-
tury have come closer to attaining the Greek idea of the whole
man the thinker, the leader, the man of action, the scientist, the
artist. But like all great figures in history, he becomes real not de-
spite his frailties but because of them.

Men, like history, come to life in their paradoxes. Gandhi welded
a nation of four hundred million people but he couldn't hold his
own family together. The cause he defined required a Congress
party to fight for it, but Gandhi never gave it the power of his
own name. He was the apostle of non-violence in the attainment of
national freedom, but once the freedom was won he did not object
to the use of military force in the Kashmir.

No man was more effective in defining and working for the
liberties of the American people than Thomas Jefferson. He was
permeated with the cause of human rights; he saw it in all its
aspects historically, philosophically, spiritually. His great subject
in life was the anatomy of freedom. Yet he owned slaves. Like
Solon and Pericles centuries before him, he made prodigious

218

contributions to the democratic design of his nation. But, also like
the Greek leaders, he did not become passionately involved in the
fight against human slavery. All this is now seen in perspective. It
is what Jefferson did father than what he failed to do that inspired
his generation and has given him his place in history. Moreover, the
principles defined by Jefferson later became the philosophical
structure for the victorious fight against slavery.

The American name most associated with the uprooting of
slavery, of course, is Abraham Lincoln. Yet only a few days before
he became President, Abraham Lincoln said that he did not argue
against slavery where slavery existed; he would argue only against
its extension to new states. He said he would not eliminate slavery
in the South even if he had the power to do so. He appalled those
who did not want to compromise on the issue. But when the moral
summons was presented by history in its final form, Lincoln ac-
cepted magnificently.

The story of Lincoln in his relations with the Negroes would
be incomplete if told only in terms of his attitudes during the early
days of the Presidency. The Inconsistencies and the paradoxes are
neither ignored nor set aside by history; they merely yield to the
consequential and to the main impact made by the man on the
lives of others.

The sublimest paradox of all, of course, is represented by the
fact that the most important prophecy of Jesus was proved to be
historically false, yet this did not interfere with the establishment of
a religion based on the total truth of his mission. Jesus prophesied
the imminent end of the world. By imminent he did not mean
a matter of several generations; he meant a few years. The fact
that this did not eventuate was no obstacle to the creation or the
growth of Christianity, based on the divinity and omniscience of
Jesus. What was central and what made its impact on the spiritual
nature of man were the Godlike qualities of Jesus. His example and
moral teachings awakened the natural spiritual responses of people;
the rest was subordinated or forgotten.

History is willing to overlook almost anything errors, paradoxes,

219

personal weaknesses or faults if only a man will give enough of
himself to others. The greater the ability to identify and serve, the
more genuine the response. In the case of Schweitzer, later genera-
tions will not clutter their minds with petty reflections about his
possible faults or inconsistencies. In his life and work will be found
energy for moral imagination. This is all that will matter.

Albert Schweitzer will not be immune from attack. There may
be a period of carping and intended exposure, much of it with an
air of fresh discovery and all of it in a mood of disillusion. But in
the long run the inconsistencies and paradoxes will be as nothing
alongside the real meaning of Albert Schweitzer and his place in
history. For Albert Schweitzer has done more to dramatize the
reach of the moral man than anyone in contemporary Western
civilization. No one in our times has taught us more about the
potentiality of a human being. No one in our times has done more
to liberate men of darkened skin. No one in our times has provided
more inspiration.

If Albert Schweitzer -is a myth, the myth is more important than
the reality. For mankind needs such an image in order to exist.
People need to believe that man will sacrifice for man, that he is
willing to walk the wide earth in the service of man. Long after
the Hospital at Lambarene is forgotten, the symbol of Albert
Schweitzer will be known and held high. It would simplify matters
if Albert Schweitzer were totally without blemish, if his sense of
duty toward all men carried with it an equally high sense of for-
bearance. But we cannot insist on the morally symmetrical. In the
presence of renunciation and dedicated service such as few men
are able to achieve, we can at least attempt responsible judgments
and we can derive spiritual nourishment from the larger significance
of his life as distinct from the fragmented reality.

There is something else we can respect: we can respect the
image of Schweitzer that exists in the souk of people. This image
gives them strength and purpose; it brings them closer to other
people and establishes connections beyond the power of machines
and explosives to alter or sever. This is what men most need for

220

today and tomorrow but especially for today. For the making of
tomorrow requires most of all a sense of connection beyond reward
or compulsion. Also a sense of service that has something to do
with reverence and compassion for life. This is more meaningful
to man than the things he makes or the conveniences he acquires
or the ornamental props of his personal kingdoms. For he reaches
his full growth only as he believes in the essential beauty of the
human soul. It is this that Albert Schweitzer gives him.

Albert Schweitzer is a spiritual immortal. We can be glad that
this is so. Each age has need of its saints. A saint becomes a
saint when he is claimed by many men as their own, when he
awakens in them a desire to know the best that is in them, and
the desire to soar morally.

We live at a time when people seem afraid to be themselves,
when they seem to prefer a hard, shiny exterior to the genuineness
of deep-felt emotion. Sophistication is prized and sentiment is
dreaded. It is made to appear that one of the worst blights on a
reputation is to be called a do-gooder. The literature of the day is
remarkably devoid of themes on the natural goodness or even the
potential goodness of man, seeing no dramatic power in the most
powerful fact of the human mixture. The values of the time lean
to a phony toughness, casual violence, cheap emotion; yet we are
shocked when youngsters confess to having tortured and killed
because they enjoyed it. Mercy and respect for life are still basic
lessons in the taming of the human animal.

It matters not to Schweitzer or to history that he will be dis-
missed by some as a do-gooder or as a sentimentalist who frittered
his life away on Africans who couldn't read or write. "Anyone who
proposes to do good," he wrote, "must not expect people to roll stones
out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few
more upon it." For the tragedy of life is not in the hurt to a man's
name or even in the fact of death itself. The tragedy of life is in
what dies inside a man while he lives the death of genuine feeling,
the death of inspired response, the death of the awareness that makes
it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in oneself.

221

Schweitzer's aim was not to dazzle an age but to awaken it, to make
it comprehend that moral splendor is part of the gift of life, and
that each man has unlimited strength to feel human oneness and to
act upon it. He has proved that although a man may have no
jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme com-
mand over the meaning of existence for him. Thus, no man need
fear death; he need fear only that he may die without having
known his greatest power the power of his free will to give his life
for others.

If there is a need in America today, it is for Schweitzers among
us. We are swollen with meaningless satisfactions and dulled by
petty immediacies but the threat to this nation and its freedoms
and to human life in general has never been greater. To the extent
that part of this threat is recognized, it is assumed it can be ade-
quately met by a posture of military and material strength. But
the crisis is basically moral and demands moral strength.

We can't save the nation by acting as though only the nation is in
jeopardy, nor by acting as though the highest value is the nation.
The highest value is the human being and the human potential.
In order to safeguard this human potential we have to do more
than to surround ourselves with high explosives. We have to make
the supreme identification with other people, including those who
are different from us or who have less than we. If sacrifice is re-
quired, we shall have to sacrifice. If we are to lead, what we say
and what we do must become more important in our own minds
than what we sell or what we use. At a time when men possess the
means for demolishing a planet the only business that makes sense
is the business of inspired purpose.

We live in eternal dread of hunger; but we shall never escape
the hunger inside us if we are starved for Inspiration or are empty
of vital purpose. And if we see not at all into these things, the
things that make for a single body of all those who now live or
who have ever lived, then we shall have lived only half a life. It is
in this sense that Albert Schweitzer has helped to make men
whole.

222

We can rejoice in this, for Schweitzer has given an infusion of
spiritual energy to our age that is real and that will persist.

Returning home, I felt happy that my two specific purposes in
going to Lambarene had been met. But even more important was
the fact that the image of Albert Schweitzer I carried away with me
was intact fortified, if anything, by a direct view. For at Lam-
barene I learned that a man does not have to be an angel to be a
saint.

Horizon time*

APPENDIX

The first part of Albert Schweitzer's statement, "Peace
or Atomic War?" was completed in Lambarene early in
April 1957. It was released to the world by Radio Oslo
on April 24, 1957. Four years earlier, Dr. Schweitzer had
gone to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, the money
from which went into the building of the leper hospital
at Lambarene.

Again, in April 1958, Radio Oslo issued a second
Schweitzer declaration for world broadcast and publica-
tion.

The text of the complete statement appears on the
following pages.

Peace or Atomic War?
by Albert Schweitzer
PART I

SINCE MARCH 1, 195^, hydrogen bombs have been tested
by the United States at the Pacific island of Bikini in the Marshall
group and by Soviet Russia in Siberia. We know that testing of atomic
weapons is something quite different from testing of non-atomic ones.
Earlier, when a new type of giant gun had been tested, the matter
ended with the detonation. That is not the case after the explosion of
a hydrogen bomb. Something remains in the air, namely, an incal-
culable number of radioactive particles emitting radioactive rays. This
was also true of the uranium bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiro-
shima and those which were subsequently tested. However, not much
attention was given to this fact because these bombs were smaller and
less effective than the hydrogen bombs.

Since radioactive rays of sufficient amount and strength have harm-
ful effects on the human body, it must be considered whether the
radiation resulting from the hydrogen explosions that have already
taken place represents a danger which would increase with new
explosions.

In the course of the three-and-a-half years that have passed since
then [the test explosions of the early hydrogen bombs] representatives
of the physical and medical sciences have been studying the problem.
Observations on the distribution, origin, and nature of radiation have

227

228

been made. The processes through which the human body is harmfully
affected have been analyzed. The material collected, although far from
complete, allows us to draw the conclusion that radiation resulting
from the explosions which have already taken place represents a
danger to the human race a danger not to be underrated and that
further explosions of atomic bombs will increase this danger to an
alarming extent.

Although this conclusion has repeatedly been expressed, especially
during the last few months, it has not, strange to say, influenced public
opinion to the extent that one might have expected. Individuals and
peoples have not been aroused to give to this danger the attention it
unfortunately deserves. It must be demonstrated and made clear to
them.

I raise my voice, together with those of others who have lately felt
it their duty to act, through speaking and writing, in warning of the
danger. My age and the generous understanding so many people have
shown of my work permit me to hope that my appeal may contribute
to preparing the way for the insights so urgently needed.

My thanks go to the radio station in Oslo, the city of the Nobel
Peace Prize, for making it possible for what I feel I have to say to reach
far-ofT places.

What is radioactivity?

Radioactivity consists of rays differing from those of light in being
invisible and able to pass not only through glass but also through thin
metal discs and layers of cell tissue in the human and animal bodies.
Rays of this kind were first discovered in 1895 by the physicist Wilhelm
Roentgen of Munich, and named after him.

In 1896 the French physicist Henri Becquerel demonstrated that
rays of this kind occur in nature. They are emitted from uranium, an
element known since 1786.

In 1898 Pierre Curie and his wife discovered in the mineral pitch-
blende, a uranium ore, the strongly radioactive element radium.

The joy that such rays were at the disposal of humanity was at first
unmixed. For the rays appeared to influence the relatively fast grow-
ing and decaying cells of malignant tumors and sarcomas. If exposed
to these rays repeatedly for a longer period,, some of the terrible neo-
plasms could be destroyed.

After a time it was found, however, that the destruction of cancer

229

cells does not always mean the cure of cancer, and that the normal
cells of the body may be seriously damaged if long exposed to radio-
activity.

When Mme. Curie, after handling uranium ore for four years,
finally held the first gram of radium in her hand, there appeared
abrasions in the skin which no treatment could cure. With the years
she grew steadily sicker from a disease caused by radioactive rays which
damaged her bone marrow and through this her blood. In 1934 death
ended her suffering.

Even so, for many years we were not aware of the grave risks in-
volved in X-rays to those constantly exposed to them. Through oper-
ating X-ray apparatus thousands of doctors and nurses have incurred
incurable diseases.

Radioactive rays are material things. Through them the radioactive
element constantly and forcefully emits tiny particles of itself. These
are of three kinds, named after the three first letters of the Greek alpha-
bet- alpha, beta, gamma. The gamma rays are the hardest and have
the strongest effect.

The reason why elements emit radioactive rays is that they are
constantly decaying, and radioactivity is the energy they liberate little
by little. There are other elements besides uranium and radium which
are radioactive. To the radiation from the elements in the earth is
added some radiation from space. Fortunately, the air mass 250 miles
high that surrounds our earth protects us against this radiation. Only
a very small fraction of it reaches us.

We are, then, constantly being exposed to radioactive radiation
coming from the earth and from space. It is so weak, however, that
it does not hurt us. Stronger sources of radiation, as for instance X-ray
machines and exposed radium, have, as we know, harmful effects if
one is exposed to them for some time.

Radioactive rays are, as I said, invisible. How car we tell that they
are there and how strong they are?

Thanks to the German physicist Hans Geiger, who died in 1945 as
a victim to X-rays, we have an instrument which makes that possible.
This instrument, called the Geiger counter, consists of a metal tube
containing rarefied air. In it are two metal electrodes between which
there is a high potential. Radioactive rays from the outside affect the
tube and release a discharge between the two electrodes. The stronger

230

the radiation., the quicker the discharges follow one another. A small
device connected to the tube makes the discharge audible. The
Geiger counter performs a veritable drum-roll when the discharges are
strong.

There are two kinds of atom bomb uranium bombs and hydrogen
bombs. The effect of a uranium bomb is due to a process which liberates
energy through the fission of uranium. In the hydrogen bomb the
liberation of energy is the result of the transformation of hydrogen into
helium.

It is interesting to note that this latter process is similar to that which
takes place in the center of the sun, supplying it with the self-renewing
energy which it emits in the form of light and heat.

In principle, the effect of both bombs is the same. But according to
various estimates the effect of one of the latest hydrogen bombs is
2,000 times stronger than the one dropped on Hiroshima.

To these two bomb's has recently been added the cobalt bomb, a kind
of super atom bomb. It is a hydrogen bomb surrounded by a layer of
cobalt. Its effect is estimated to be many times stronger than that of
any hydrogen bomb made so far.

The explosion of an atom bomb creates an inconceivably large
number of exceedingly small particles of radioactive elements which
decay like uranium or radium. Some of these particles decay very
quickly, others more slowly, and some with extraordinary slowness.
The strongest of these elements cease to exist only ten seconds after
the detonation of the bomb. But in this short time they may have killed
a great number of people in a circumference of several miles.

What remains are the less powerful elements. In our time it is with
these we have to contend. It is of the danger arising from the radio-
active rays emitted by these elements that we must be aware.

Of these elements some exist for hours, some for weeks, months.,
years, or even millions of years, undergoing continuous decay. They
float in the higher strata of air as clouds of radioactive dust. The heavy
particles fall down first. The lighter ones will stay in the air for a
longer time or come down with rain or snow. How long it will take
until everything carried up in the air by past explosions has disap-
peared no one can say with certainty. According to some estimates, this
will not happen sooner than thirty or forty years from now.

As a boy I witnessed how dust hurled into the air from the explosion

231

in 1883 of the island Krakatoa in the Sunda group was so noticeable
for two years afterwards that sunsets were given extraordinary splendor
by it.

What we can state with certainty, however, is that the radioactive
clouds will constantly be carried by the winds around the globe and
that some of the dust, by its own weight, or by being brought down
little by little, by rain, snow, mist, and dew, will fall down on the
hard surface of the earth, and into rivers and oceans.

Of what nature are these radioactive elements, particles of which,
carried up in the air by the explosion of atom bombs, are now falling
down again?

They are strange variants of the usual non-radioactive elements,
having the same chemical properties, but a different atomic weight.
Their names are always accompanied by their atomic weights. The
same element can occur in several radioactive variants. Besides Iodine
131, which lasts for only sixteen days, we have Iodine 129, which lasts
for 200,000,000 years.

Dangerous elements of this kind are Phosphorus 32, Calcium 45,
Iodine 131, Iron 55, Bismuth 210, Plutonium 239, Cerium 144, Stron-
tium 89, Caesium 137. If the hydrogen bomb is covered with cobalt,
Cobalt 60 must be added to the list.

Particularly dangerous are the elements combining long life with
a relatively strong, efficient radiation. Among them Strontium 90
takes the first place. It is present in very large amounts in radioactive
dust. Cobalt 60 must also be mentioned as particularly dangerous.

The radioactivity in the air, increased through these elements, will not
harm us from the outside, not being strong enough to penetrate the skin.
It is another matter with respiration, through which radioactive ele-
ments can enter our bodies. But the danger which has to be stressed
above all the others is the one which arises from our drinking radio-
active water and eating radioactive food as a consequence of the
increased radioactivity in the air.

Since the explosions of Bikini and Siberia, rain falling over Japan
has, from time to time, been so radioactive that the water from it
cannot be drunk. Not only that: reports of radioactive rainfall are
coming from all parts of the world where analyses have recently been
made. In several places the water has proved to be so radioactive that
it was unfit for drinking.

232

Well-water becomes radioactive to any considerable extent only
after longer periods of heavy rainfall.

Wherever radioactive rainwater is found, the soil is also radioactive
and in a higher degree. The soil is made radioactive not only by
the downpour, but also from radioactive dust falling on it. And with
the soil the vegetation will also have become radioactive, because radio-
active elements deposited in the soil pass into the plants, where they
are stored. This is of importance, for as a result of this process we
may be threatened by a considerable amount of radioactive elements.
Radioactive elements in grass, when eaten by animals whose meat is
used for food, will be absorbed and stored in our bodies. Or we may
absorb them by drinking milk from cows grazing on contaminated soil.
In that way small children run an especially dangerous risk of absorb-
ing radioactive elements. When we eat contaminated cheese and fruits
the radioactive elements stored in them are transferred to us.

What this storing of radioactive material implies is clearly demon-
strated by the observations made when the radioactivity of the Co-
lumbia River in North America was analyzed. The radioactivity was
caused by the atomic plants at Hanford, which produce plutonium
for atomic bombs and which empty their waste water into the river.
The radioactivity of the river water was insignificant. But the radio-
activity of the river plankton was 2,000 times higher, that of the ducks
eating plankton 40,000 times higher, that of the fish 15,000 times
higher. In young swallows fed on insects caught by their parents in
the river the radioactivity was 500,000 times higher, and in the egg
yolks of water birds more than 1,000,000 times higher.

From official and unofficial sources we have been assured, time and
time again, that the increase in radioactivity of the air does not
exceed the amount the human body can tolerate without any harmful
effects. This is just evading the issue. Even if we are not directly af-
fected by the radioactive material in the air, we are indirectly affected
through that which has fallen down, is falling down, and will fall
down. We are absorbing this through radioactive drinking water and
through animal and vegetable foodstuffs., to the same extent as radio-
active elements are stored in the vegetation of the region in which we
live. Unfortunately for us, nature hoards what is falling down from
the air.

None of the radioactivity of the air created by the explosion of atom

233

bombs is so unimportant that it may not, in the long run, become a
danger to us through increasing the amount of radioactivity stored in
our bodies.

What we absorb of radioactivity is not spread evenly in all cellular
tissue. It is deposited in certain parts of our body, particularly in the
bone tissue and also in the spleen and in the liver. From those sources
the organs which are especially sensitive to it are exposed to radiation.
What the radiation lacks in strength is compensated for by time. It
works day and night without interruption.

How does radiation affect the cells of an organ? Through being
ionized, that is to say, electrically charged. This change means that the
chemical processes which make it possible for the cells to do their
job in our body no longer function as they should. They are no longer
able to perform the tasks which are of vital importance to us. We
must also bear in mind that a great number of the cells of an organ
may degenerate or die as a result of radiation.

What are the diseases caused by internal radiation? The same
diseases that are known to be caused by external radiation.

They are mainly serious blood diseases. The cells of the red bone
marrow, where the red and the white blood corpuscles are formed,
are very sensitive to radioactive rays. It is these corpuscles, found in
great numbers in the blood, which make it possible for it to play such
an important part. If the cells in the bone marrow are damaged by
radiation they will produce too few or abnormal, degenerating blood
corpuscles. Both cases lead to blood diseases and, frequently, to death.
These were the diseases that killed the victims of X-rays and radium
rays.

It was one of these diseases that attacked the Japanese fishermen
who were surprised in their vessel by radioactive ashes falling down 240
miles from Bikini after the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. Being strong
and only mildly affected, all but one were saved by continued blood
transfusions.

In the cases cited the radiation came from the outside. It is unfor-
tunately very probable that internal radiation affecting the bone
marrow and lasting for years will have the same effect, particularly
since the radiation goes from the bone tissue to the bone marrow.
As I have said, the radioactive elements tend to be stored in the bone
tissue.

234

Internal radiation threatens not only our own health but also that
of our descendants. The cells of the reproductive organs are particu-
larly vulnerable to radiation, which attacks the nucleus to such an
extent that it can be seen in the microscope. Profound damage to
these cells results in corresponding damage to our descendants, such
as stillbirths and the births of babies with mental or physical defects.

In this context also, we can point to the effects of radiation coming
from the outside. It is a fact even if the statistical material being
published in the press needs checking that in Nagasaki, during the
years following the dropping of the atom bomb, an exceptionally high
occurrence of stillbirths and of deformed children was observed.

In order to establish the effect of radioactive radiation on posterity,
comparative studies have been made between the descendants of doctors
who have been using X-ray apparatus over a period of years and
descendants of doctors who have not. The material of this study com-
prises about 3,000 doctors in each group. A noticeable difference was
found. The descendants of radiologists showed a percentage of still-
births of 14.03, while the percentage among the non-radiologists was
12.22. In the first group 6.01 per cent of the children had congenital
defects, while only 4.82 per cent in the second. The number of healthy
children in the first group was 80.42 per cent; in the other it was
significantly higher, viz. 83.23 per cent.

It must be remembered that even the weakest of internal radiation
can have harmful effects on our descendants. The total effect of the
damage done to descendants of ancestors who have been exposed to
radioactive rays will not, in accordance with the laws of genetics, be
apparent in the generations coming immediately after us. The full
effects will appear only 100 or 200 years later.

As the matter stands we cannot at present cite cases of serious
damage done by internal radiation. To the extent that such radiation
exists it is not sufficiently strong and has not lasted long enough to
have caused the damage in question. We can only conclude from the
harmful effects known to be caused by external radiation what we
must expect in the future from internal radiation.

If the effect of the latter is not as strong as that of the former, it may
become so through working little by little and without interruption.
The final result will be the same in both cases. Their effects add up.

We must also remember that internal radiation, unlike that from

235

outside, does not have to penetrate layers of skin, tissues, and muscles
to hit the organs. It works at close range and without any weakening
of its force.

When we realize under what conditions internal radiation is work-
ing,, we cease to underrate it. Even if it is true that, when speaking
of the dangers of internal radiation., we can point to no actual case and
only express our fear., that fear is so solidly founded on facts that it
attains the weight of reality in determining our attitude. We are forced
to regard every increase in the existing danger through further crea-
tion of radioactive elements by atom bomb explosions as a catastrophe
for the human race, a catastrophe that must be prevented.

There can be no question of doing anything else, if only for the
reason that we cannot take the responsibility for the consequences it
might have for our descendants. They are threatened by the greatest
and most terrible danger.

That radioactive elements created by us are found in nature is an
astounding event in the history of the earth and of the human race. To
fail to consider its importance and its consequences would be a folly
for which humanity would have to pay a terrible price. We are com-
mitting a folly in thoughtlessness. We must not fail to pull ourselves
together before it is too late. We must muster the insight, the serious-
ness, and the courage to leave folly and to face reality.

This is at bottom what the statesmen of the nations producing
atomic bombs are thinking, too. Through the reports they are receiv-
ing they are sufficiently informed to arrive at their own judgments,
and we must also assume that they are alive to their responsibility.

At any rate, America and Soviet Russia and Britain are telling one
another again and again that they want nothing more than to reach
an agreement to end the testing of atomic weapons. At the same time,
however, they declare that they cannot stop the tests so long as there
is no such agreement.

Why do they not come to an agreement? The real reason is that in
their own countries there is no public opinion asking for it. Nor is
there any such public opinion in other countries, with the exception
of Japan. This opinion has been forced upon the Japanese people
because, little by little, they will be hit in a most terrible way by the
evil consequences of all the tests.

An agreement of this kind presupposes reliability and trust. There

236

must be guarantees preventing the agreement from being signed by
anyone intending to win important tactical advantages foreseen only
by him. Public opinion in all nations concerned must inspire and
accept the agreement.

When public opinion has been created in the countries concerned
and among all nations, an opinion informed of the dangers involved
in going on with the tests and led by the reason which this information
imposes, then the statesmen may reach an agreement to stop the
experiments.

A public opinion of this kind stands in no need of plebiscites or
committees to express itself. It works through just being there.

The end of further experiments with atom bombs would be like the
early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for.

PART II

IN APRIL of last year I, together with others, raised my
voice to draw attention to the great danger of radioactive poisoning
of the air and the earth, following tests with atomic and hydrogen
bombs. With others, I appealed to the nuclear powers to come to a
workable agreement to stop the tests as soon as possible and declare
their genuine desire to renounce the use of nuclear weapons.

At that time there appeared to be reasonable hope that this step
would be taken. It was not. The negotiations in London last sum-
mer achieved nothing. The conference arranged by the United Na-
tions in the autumn of last year suffered the same fate when the
Soviet Union withdrew from the discussions.

The question of nuclear arms control, however, cannot be put
aside. Any discussions among the major nations will have to con-
sider this problem.

Cessation of nuclear tests has often been proposed as the first step
in any comprehensive and workable plan for arms control.

One might have thought it would be comparatively simple for
all those involved to agree on this first step. No nuclear power
would have to sacrifice any of the atomic weapons in its possession.
The disadvantage of not being able to try out new bombs or nu-
clear devices would be the same for all.

237

238

The United States and Great Britain have been reluctant to take
the first step. They spoke against it when the matter was discussed in
the spring of 1957. Since then many statements have been issued
claiming that radioactivity resulting from nuclear tests is not danger-
ous. For example, in an official statement coming from the United
States, we read the following: "The necessary steps should be taken
to correct the present confusion of the general public [with respect
to the effects of testing]. . . . The present and potential effects on
heredity from the gradual increase of radioactivity in the air are
kept within tolerable limits. . . . The possibility of harmful effects
which people believe to be outside control has a strong emotional
impact. . . . The continuation of nuclear tests is necessary and justi-
fied in the interests of national security."

Despite these assurances, however, people are becoming increas-
ingly apprehensive concerning the possible dangers resulting from
nuclear tests.

The reasoning behind the somewhat obscure statement that "the
effects on heredity from the gradual increase of radioactivity in the
air are kept within tolerable limits" is that the number of deformed
children that will be born as a result of the harm done to the sexual
cells supposedly will not be large enough to justify stopping the tests.

During this campaign of reassurance, a prominent American nu-
clear physicist even declared that the luminous watchdials in the
world represent a greater danger than the radioactive fall-out of
nuclear tests thus far.

This campaign of reassurance sets up anticipations of glad tidings
that science has succeeded in making the prototype of a hydrogen
bomb with a considerably less dangerous radioactive fall-out. The
new explosive is called a "clean" hydrogen bomb. The old type is
being designated as the "dirty" bomb.

The so-called "clean" hydrogen bomb differs from the other in
having a jacket made of a material which does not release immense
quantities of radioactive elements at the enormous explosion tem-
perature. That is why it is less harmful, as regards radioactivity,
than the usual ones.

However, the new highly praised hydrogen bomb is let it be
said in passing only relatively clean. Its trigger is a uranium bomb
made of the fissionable Uranium-235 an atomic bomb as powerful

239

as the one dropped over Hiroshima. This bomb, when detonated,
also produces radioactivity, as do the neutrons released in great
numbers at the explosion.

Earlier this year, in an American newspaper, Edward Teller, the
father of the "dirty" hydrogen bomb, sings a hymn of praise to the
idyllic nuclear war to be waged with completely clean hydrogen
bombs. He insists on a continuation of the tests in order to perfect
this ideal bomb.

Here are two stanzas from Edward Teller's hymn to idyllic nu-
clear warfare:

"Further tests will put us into a position to fight our opponents'
war machine, while sparing the innocent bystanders."

"Glean weapons of this kind will reduce unnecessary casualties
in a future war."

The idea of limited nuclear war is a contradiction in terms. Each
side will use all the power at its disposal in an attempt to annihilate
the enemy. The U.S. Department of Defense has quite recently de-
clared that the irradiation of whole areas has become a new offensive
weapon.

The "clean" hydrogen bomb may be intended, I fear, more for
display-case purposes than for use. The intention seems to be to con-
vince people that new nuclear tests will be followed by less and less
radiation and that there is no real argument for the discontinuation
of the tests.

Those who think that the danger created by nuclear tests is small
mainly take the air radiation into consideration, and persuade them-
selves to believe that the danger limit has not yet been reached.

The results of their arithmetic are not so reliable, however, as
they would have us believe. Through the years the toleration limit
for radiation has had to be lowered several times. In 1934 it was
100 radiation units per year. At present the limit is officially put at
5. In many countries it is even lower. Dr. Lauriston Taylor (U.S.A.),
who is regarded as an authority on protection against radiation,
holds like others that it is an open question whether there is
such a thing as a harmless amount of radiation. He thinks that we
can speak only of an amount of radiation which we regard as toler-
able.

We are constantly being told about a "maximum permissible

240

amount' 5 of radiation. What does "permissible" mean? And who
has the right to "permit" people to be exposed to these dangers?

When speaking about the risk of radiation we must consider not
only the radiation coming from the outside, but also the radioac-
tivity that gets into our bodies.

What is the source of this radioactivity?

The radioactive materials put into the air by nuclear tests do
not stay there permanently. In the form of radioactive rain or even
radioactive snow they fall to the earth. They enter the plants
through leaves and roots and stay there. We absorb them by drink-
ing milk from cows or by eating the meat of animals which have
fed on it. Radioactive rain contaminates our drinking water.

The most powerful radioactive poisoning occurs in the areas be-
tween the Northern latitudes 10 and 60, because of the numerous
nuclear tests conducted mainly in these latitudes by the Soviet Union
and the United States.

The radioactive elements absorbed over the years by the body are
not evenly distributed in the cellular tissue, but deposited and accu-
mulated at certain points. From these points internal radiation takes
place, causing injuries to particularly vulnerable organs. What this
kind of radiation lacks in strength is made up for by its longevity,
working as it does for years, day and night.

It is a well-known fact that one of the most widespread and dan-
gerous elements absorbed by us is Strontium 90. It is stored in the
bones and from there emits its rays into cells of red bone marrow,
where the red and white corpuscles are made. If the radiation is too
great, blood diseases fatal in most cases are the result.

The cells of the reproductive organs are particularly sensitive.
Even relatively weak radiation may lead to fatal consequences.

The most sinister aspect of internal as well is external radiation
is that years may pass before the evil consequences appear. Indeed,
they make themselves felt, not in the first or second generation, but
in those that follow. Generation after generation, for centuries to
come, will witness the birth of an ever-increasing number of chil-
dren with mental and physical defects.

It is not for the physicist, choosing to take into account only the
radiation from the air, to utter the final word on the dangers of nu-
clear tests. That right belongs to the biologists and physicians who

241

have studied internal as well as external radiation, and to those
scientists who pay attention to the facts established by the biologists
and physicians.

The declaration signed by 9,235 scientists of all nations, handed
to the Secretary General of the U.N. by Dr. Linus Pauling on Janu-
ary 13, 1958, gave the campaign of reassurance a serious blow. The
scientists declared that the radioactivity gradually created by nu-
clear tests represents a grave danger for all parts of the world, par-
ticularly serious because its consequences will be an increasing
number of deformed children in the future. For this reason they
insist on an international agreement putting an end to the nuclear
tests.

The declaration signed by the 9,235 scientists did well in stressing
the danger of the harmful effects of nuclear tests on future genera-
tions resulting, according to biologists and physicians, from the ra-
diation to which we are now being exposed.

We must not disregard our responsibility to guard against the pos-
sibility that thousands of childen may be born with the most serious
mental and physical defects. It will be no excuse for us to say later
that we were unaware of that possibility. Only those who have never
been present at the birth of a deformed baby, never witnessed the
whimpering cries of its mother, should dare to maintain that the risk
of nuclear testing is small. The well-known French biologist and
geneticist Jean Rostand calls the continuation of nuclear tests "a
crime into the future" (le crime dans Favenir). It is the particular
duty of women to prevent this sin against the future. It is for them
to raise their voices against it in such a way that they will be heard.

No longer can we take any comfort from the fact that the scientists
do not agree on the danger of radiation, nor that we must await the
decision of international bodies before making positive statements
about radiation. Despite all the claims of safety, the truth about the
danger of nuclear explosions marches imperturbably along, influenc-
ing an ever-increasing section of public opinion. In the long run,
even the most well-organized propaganda can do nothing against
the truth.

It is a strange fact that few people have taken into consideration
that the question of nuclear testing is not one which concerns the
nuclear powers exclusively, a question for them to decide at their

242

pleasure. Who has given these countries the right to experiment, in
times of peace, with weapons involving the most serious risks for the
whole world? What has international law enthroned by the United
Nations and so highly praised in our time to say on this matter?
Does it no longer look out on the world from its temple? Then let
it go out, so that it may face the facts and do its duty accordingly.

International law should consider at once the compelling case of
Japan. That country has suffered heavily from the effects of nu-
clear tests. The radioactive clouds created by the Soviet tests in
Northeast Siberia and by the American tests in the Pacific Ocean
are carried by the winds over Japan. The resultant radioactive poison-
ing is considerable. Powerful radioactive rainfalls are quite common.
The radioactive poisoning of the soil and the vegetation is so heavy
that the inhabitants of some districts ought to abstain from using
their harvest for food. People are eating rice contaminated by radio-
active strontium, a substance particularly dangerous for children.
The ocean surrounding Japan is also at times dangerously radioac-
tive, and thereby the very food supply of the country in which fish
has always played an important part is being threatened.

As every new nuclear test makes a bad situation worse, the Japa-
nese ministers, having heard of plans for new tests to the north or
south of Japan, have presented their country's urgent appeal in
Washington or Moscow, beseeching the American or Soviet authori-
ties to give up their plans.

We generally learn about these appeals and the refusals through
short newspaper items. Unfortunately, there have been few respon-
sible editorials drawing our attention to the stories behind the news
the misery of human beings who are now in jeopardy. In that respect
we and the press are guilty of a lack of compassion. Even guiltier,
however, is international law, which has kept silent and indifferent on
this question, year after year.

It is high time to recognize that the question of nuclear testing
is a matter for world law to consider. Mankind is imperiled by the
tests. Mankind insists that they stop, and has every right to do so.

If anything is left of international law in our civilization, then the
nations responsible for nuclear tests must renounce them imme-
diately, without making this renunciation dependent on agreements
concerning the larger questions of general disarmament. Nuclear

243

tests have nothing to do with disarmament. The nations in question
will continue to have the weapons they now have.

There is no time to lose. New tests must not be allowed to in-
crease the already existing danger. It is important to realize that
even without new tests the danger will increase during the coming
years: a large part of the radioactive elements flung up in the at-
mosphere and stratosphere at the nuclear experiment is still there. It
will come down only after several years probably about fifteen.

The immediate renunciation of further tests will create a favorable
atmosphere for talk on controlling the stockpiles of nuclear weapons
and banning their use. When this urgently necessary step has been
taken, such negotiations can take place in peace.

That the Soviet Union has announced its willingness to stop its
tests is of great importance. The world now looks to the United
States and Great Britain for the kind of moral initiative and action
that goes along with great leadership.

Today we are faced with the menacing possibility of an outbreak
of atomic war between Soviet Russia and the United States. It can
only be averted if the two powers decide to renounce atomic arms.

How did this situation arise?

In 1945 America succeeded in producing an atomic bomb with
Uranium 235. On August 6, 1945, this bomb was dropped on Hiro-
shima. Another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9.

When America came into the possession of such a bomb it held
a military advantage over other countries.

In July 1949 the Soviet Union also test-exploded its first nuclear
bomb. Its power was approximately equal to the American bomb
then existing.

On October 3, 1952, England exploded its first atomic bomb on
the Isle of Montebello (situated on the northwest coast of Australia).

In the quest for nuclear supremacy, both the Soviet Union and
the United States moved toward the development of a nuclear
weapon many times more powerful the hydrogen bomb. A series
of tests was undertaken by the United States in the Marshall Islands
beginning in May, 1951, and culminating in a successfully exploded
hydrogen bomb in March 1954.

244

The actual power of the explosion was far stronger than had been
originally calculated.

At approximately the same time, the Soviet Union also started its
experimentations, exploding its first hydrogen bomb on August 12,
1953.

Today, guided missiles can be launched from their starting points
and directed with accuracy at distant targets. The larger explosives
are carried by missiles containing the fuel necessary for their propul-
sion. The gases from this fuel rush with tremendous velocity through
a narrow opening. Science is in the process of discovering a fuel
which is similar and more efficacious to deal with.

It is said that the Soviet Union already has available rockets with
a range up to 600 miles. Soon to come are rockets with a range up to
1,080 miles if they are not already in use.

It is said that America is attempting to develop rockets with a
range of 1,440 miles.

Whether the intercontinental ballistic missile, with its range of
4,800 mileSj already exists cannot be ascertained. The Soviet Union
has claimed it already has such a missile.

Even without respect to intercontinental ballistic missiles, sub-
marines could launch nuclear attacks on the United States.

The long-range rockets attain unbelievable speed. It is expected
that an intercontinental rocket would not take more than twenty
minutes to cross the ocean with a payload of nuclear explosive weigh-
ing from one to five tons.

How could an atomic war break out today? Not long ago there
was talk of local or limited wars that could be contained. But today
there is little difference between a local war or a global war. Rocket
missiles will be used up to a range of 1,440 miles. The destruction
should not be underestimated, even if caused only by a Hiroshima-
type bomb.

It can hardly be expected that an enemy will refrain from using
atomic bombs or the most devastating hydrogen bombs on large
cities at the very outset of a war. One hydrogen bomb now exists
that is a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb. It
will have a destructive radius of many miles. The heat will be 100
million degrees. One can imagine how large would be the number
of city-dwellers who would be destroyed by the pressure of the ex-

245

plosion, by flying fragments of glass, by heat and fire and by radio-
active waves, even if the attack is only of short duration. The deadly
radioactive contamination., as a consequence of the explosion, would
have a range of some 45,000 square miles.

An American general has said to some Congressmen: "If at an
interval of ten minutes 110 hydrogen bombs are dropped over the
U.S.A. there would be a casualty list of about 70 million people
besides, some thousands of square miles would be made useless for
a whole generation. Countries like England, West Germany, and
France could be finished off with fifteen to twenty hydrogen bombs."

President Eisenhower has pointed out, after watching maneuvers
under atomic attack, that defense measures in a future atomic war be-
come useless. In these circumstances all one can do is to pray.

Indeed, not much more' can be done in view of an attack by
hydrogen bombs than to advise all people living to hide beneath
a very strong wall made of stone or cement, and to throw themselves
on the ground and to cover the back of their heads, and the body if
possible, with cloth. In this way it may be possible to escape anni-
hilation and death through radiation. It is very important that the
immediate survivors are given non-radioactive food and drink, and
that they be removed immediately from the radioactive district.

It is impossible, however, to erect walls and concrete ceilings of
adequate thickness to cover an entire city. Where would the material
and the means come from? How would a population have time to
run to safety in such bunkers?

In an atomic war there would be neither conqueror nor vanquished.
During such a bombardment both sides would suffer the same fate. A
continuous destruction would take place and no armistice or peace
proposals could bring it to an end.

When people deal with atomic weapons, it is not a matter of su-
perior arms which will decide the issue between them, but only:
"Now we want to commit suicide together, destroying each other
mutually . . ."

There is a reason for an English M.P. saying: u He who uses
atomic weapons becomes subject to the fate of a bee; namely, when
it stings it will perish."

Radioactive clouds resulting from a war between East and West
would imperil humanity everywhere. There would be no need to

246

use up the remaining stock of atomic and hydrogen bombs, now run-
ning literally into the thousands.

A nuclear war is therefore the most senseless and lunatic act
that could ever take place. This must be prevented.

When America had its atomic monopoly, it was not necessary to
equip its allies with nuclear weapons. Owing to the end of the monop-
oly,, however, this situation is changing. A whole family of nuclear
weapons now exists that can be fitted into the military capability
of smaller nations.

As a result, the United States is considering a departure from its
stated principle not to put atomic weapons into the hands of other
countries. If it does so, this could have the gravest consequences. On
the other hand, it is comprehensible that the United States wishes
to supply the NATO countries with such new weapons for defense
against the Soviet Union. The existence of such arms constitutes
a new cause of war between the Soviet Union and the U.S., one that
did not exist before. Thus, the ground is laid open for nuclear con-
flict on European soil. The Soviet Union can be reached with long-
range rockets from European soil, as far as Moscow and Kharkov,
up to 2,400 miles away. Similarly, London, Paris, and Rome are
within easy reach of Soviet rocketry.

Rockets of an average range may be used for defense purposes
by Turkey and Iran against the Soviet Union. They could penetrate
deeply into its country with arms accepted from America.

The Soviet Union is countering those measures. Both America and
the Soviet Union may now seek alliances with the Middle East by
offering those countries various kinds of financial support. There-
fore, events in the Middle East could endanger the peace of the
world.

The danger of an atomic war is being increased by the fact that
no warning would be given in starting such a war. Indeed, it could
erupt merely on the basis of some incident. Thus, the time factor
enters the side that attacks first would have the initial advantage
over the attacked. At the very start, the attacked would find himself
sustaining losses which would considerably reduce his fighting capacity.

As a result^ one has to be on the alert all the time. This factor
constitutes an extreme danger in the event of a sudden outbreak of

247

an atomic war. When one has to act with such speed, he has to
reckon with the possibility that an error may occur on what is reg-
istered on the radar screen ; and that this could result in the outbreak
of an atomic war.

Attention was drawn to this danger by the American General
Curtis LeMay. Quite recently the world found itself in such a situ-
ation. The radar station of the American Air Force and American
Coastal Command indicated that an invasion of unidentified bomb-
ers was on the way. Upon this warning, the general in command of
the strategic bomb force ordered that reprisal bombardment should
be made. However, realizing that he was taking a great responsibility,
he hesitated. Shortly afterward it was pointed out that the radar
stations had committed a technical error. What could have happened
if a less balanced general had been in his place!

In the future such dangers are likely to increase. Because small
rockets exist which pass through the air with terrific speed and are
over the target within a few minutes, defense possibilities become
very limited. Only seconds remain to identify the markings on the
radar screen, so that the counter-attack can spring into being. The
theoretical defense consists in sending out missiles to explode the
attacking missiles of the enemy before they complete their job, and
also in releasing bombers with a view to destroying the ramps from
which they are launched.

Such split-second operations cannot be left to the human brain.
It works too slowly. The job has therefore been entrusted to an
electronic brain.

Such are the heights of our civilization that a cold electronic brain
rather than the moral conscience of man may decide human destiny.
Are we so certain that an arithmetical or mechanical decision is
really superior? The mechanism of the electronic brain may become
faulty. It is dependent on the absolute reliability of its complicated
functions. Everything has to click to the minutest detail.

Under the circumstances, the greater the number of countries,
large or small, that become part of the nuclear arms terror the
greater the terror. Naturally, America must assume that the weapons
it entrusts to other nations will not be used irresponsibly. But acci-
dents can happen. Who can guarantee that there may not be a

248

"blacksheep" acting on his own, without troubling about the conse-
quences? Who is able to keep all countries under a situation of ra-
tional control? The dam is punctured and it may break down.

That such worries have become very real is shown by the reasoning
of the 9,235 scientists who on January 13 petitioned the United Na-
tions to cease atomic tests. The statement says: u As long as atomic
weapons remain in the hands of the three great powers, agreement
on control is possible. However, if the tests continue and extend to
other countries in possession of atomic weapons, the risks and re-
sponsibilities in regard to an outbreak of an atomic war become
all the greater. From every point of view the danger in a future
atomic war becomes all the more intense, so that an urgent renun-
ciation of atomic weapons becomes absolutely imperative."

America has wisely declared that its objective is to outlaw nu-
clear weapons. Yet at the same time America seems to be moving
away from the measures necessary to achieve it. America insists that
the missiles it offers to other countries be accepted as quickly as
possible. It wishes to hold such a position as to be able to maintain
peace by nuclear deterrent. It happens, however, that most of the
NATO countries are in no hurry to acquire such weapons because
of an increasingly strengthening public opinion.

In recent months public opinion in Europe has been convinced
that under no circumstances should Europe be allowed to become a
battlefield for an atomic war between the Soviet Union and America.
From this position it will not deviate. The time is past when a Eu-
ropean power could plan secretly to establish itself as a big power
by manufacturing atomic weapons exclusively for its own use. In
view of the fact that no public opinion would agree to such an
undertaking, it becomes senseless even to prepare secretly for achiev-
ing such a plan.

Gone, too., is the time when NATO generals and European gov-
ernments can decide on the establishment of launching sites and
stockpiling of atomic weapons. In view of the fact that the dangers
of atomic war and its consequences cannot be avoided, political
procedure as employed hitherto can no longer be considered.

Only agreements that are sanctioned by public opinion are now
valid.

249

What about the negotiations that could lead to the renunciation
of nuclear weapons?

One reads and hears that the success of the projected Summit
Conference must depend entirely on its every detail being diploma-
ically prepared beforehand. The best diplomacy is objectivity. One
good way of preparing for a conference (if a respectful and well*
meaning criticism is permissible) would be for the statesmen and
other representatives to make a change from their present undiplo-
matic way of dealing with each other and to become diplomatic.
Many unnecessary, thoughtless, disccurteous, foolish, and offensive
remarks have been made by both sides, and this has not been advan-
tageous to the political atmosphere.

It would be fitting if those who have the authority to take the re-
sponsibility, and not those who have only nominal authority and
who cannot move an inch from their instructions, would confer to-
gether.

It would be fitting to go ahead with the conference. For more
than five months East and West have talked and written to one an-
other, without any conclusions as to the date and the work program
being reached. Public opinion everywhere is finding it difficult to
accept this state of affairs and is beginning to ask itself whether a
conference which comes into being so limpingly has any hope of
really achieving anything.

It would be fitting to hold the conference in a town in some
neutral European country, for example, Geneva, as was the case in
1955.

It would be fitting that at this conference only questions that have
to do directly with the control and renunciation of nuclear weapons
should be discussed.

It would be fitting if not too many people were present at the
summit meeting. Only the highest personalities of the three nuclear
powers together with their experts and advisers should take their
seats there.

Attendance could also be opened on a consultative basis to the
representatives of those peoples who like the NATO countries with

250

America have connections in nuclear matters; they could then state
their opinions on the decisions that hold such grave consequences
also for them.

Apart from this, experience teaches us that unnecessarily large at-
tendance brings no advantage to a conference.

The Summit Conference, therefore, is in no way an international
or half international one, even though its decisions are of great
importance to the whole of mankind.

The three nuclear powers and they alone must decide, in aware-
ness of their repsonsibility to their peoples and to all mankind,
whether or not they will renounce the testing and the use of nu-
clear weapons.

As for planning the conference, impartiality may justify one re-
mark, which is that to date such planning has not been done objec-
tively, and has therefore led nowhere. This leads to the thought that
the outcome of a Summit Conference is bound to reflect what went
into it.

What is the difference between the partial and the impartial, the
fitting and the unfitting in this matter? It lies in the answer to the
question on what basis the three nuclear powers decide whether or
not to renounce the testing and the use of nuclear weapons.

The unobjective reply would be that the decision will depend on
whether an agreement is first reached on comprehensive disarmament
or not.

This is a false logic; it presumes that there could be an agreement
acceptable to both the East and the West on this issue. But pre-
vious negotiations have shown that this is not to be expected; they
became stalled right at the start because East and West have been
unable to reach agreement even on the conditions under which such
discussions should take place.

The anticipated procedure itself is by its very nature not impar-
tial. It is based on false logic. The two vital issues so essential to the
very existence of mankind the cessation of tests and the disposal
of nuclear weapons cannot be made dependent on the Heavens
performing the impossible political miracle that alone could insure
that none of the three nuclear powers would have any objections to
a complete agreement on disarmament.

The fact is that the testing and use of nuclear weapons carry in

251

themselves the absolute reasons for their being renounced. Prior
agreement on any other conditions cannot be considered.

Both cause the deepest damage to human rights. The tests do harm
to peoples far from the territories of the nuclear powers endangering
their lives and their health and this in peace time. An atomic war,
with its resultant radioactivity, would make the land of peoples not
participating in such a war, unlivable. It would be the most un-
imaginably senseless and cruel way of endangering the existence of
mankind. That is why it must not be allowed to happen.

The three nuclear powers owe it to themselves and to mankind to
reach agreement on these absolute essentials without first dealing with
prior conditions.

The negotiations about disarmament are therefore not the fore-
runner of such agreement but the outcome of it. They start from the
point where agreement on the nuclear issues has been reached, and
their goal is to reach the point where the three nuclear powers and
the peoples connected with them must agree on guarantees that will
seek to avert the danger of a threat of a non-atomic nature taking
the place of the previous danger. Everything that the diplomats
will have done objectively to prepare the preliminaries to the con-
ference will keep its meaning even if used, not before renunciation,
but as the result of it.

Should agreement be reached on the outlawing of nuclear weapons,
this by itself will lead to a great improvement in the political situa-
tion. As a result of such an agreement, time and distance would again
become realities with their own right.

Nuclear weapons, used in conjunction with missiles, change a dis-
tant war to a war fought at close range. The Soviet Union and the
United States have become next-door neighbors in the modern world
but live in constant fear of their lives every minute.

But if nuclear arms should be abolished, the proximity factor would
be made less explosive.

Today America has her batteries of nuclear missiles readily avail-
able in Europe. Europe has become a connecting land strip between
America and Russia, as if the Atlantic had disappeared and the con-
tinents had been joined.

But if atomic missiles are outlawed on the basis of effective and
enforceable control, this unnatural state of affairs would come to an

252

end. America would again become wholly America; Europe wholly
Europe; the Atlantic again wholly the Atlantic Ocean.

The great sacrifices that America brought to Europe during the
Second World War and in the years following it will not be forgot-
ten. The many-sided and great help that Europe received from her
and the thanks owing for this will not be forgotten.

But the unnatural situation created by the two world wars., which
led to a dominating military presence in Europe, cannot continue
indefinitely. It must gradually cease to exist both for the sake of
Europe and for the sake of America.

Now there will be shocked voices from all sides: What will be-
come of poor Europe if American atomic weapons no longer defend
it from within and from without? Will Europe be delivered to the
Soviet? Must it be prepared to languish in a Communist-Babylonian
imprisonment for long years?

What Europe and the Europeans have to agree about is that they
belong together for better or for worse. This is a new historical fact
that can no longer be by-passed politically.

Another factor that must be recognized politically is that it is no
longer a question of subjugating peoples, but learning to get along
with them intellectually, culturally, spiritually.

A Europe standing on its own has no reason to despair.

Disarmament discussions between the three nuclear powers must
seek the guarantees that can bring about actual, total, and durable
disposal of nuclear weapons. The question of control and safeguards
is a vital one. Reciprocal agreement will have to be reached about
allowing international commissions to inspect and investigate on
national soil.

One talks of giving aircraft belonging to a world police the right
to fly at medium and high altitudes for purposes of aerial inspection.

One asks to what extent a state would be willing to subject itself
to such control? It may be said that unfortunate incidents could
easily occur as a result. And what about the power that should be en-
trusted to such a world control? Even the widest form of such
control could never insure that everywhere and all the time war
could be avoided. But it represents a reasonable basis on which,
given time and some relaxation of tension, a workable world system
of security might be built.

253

The same applies also in another matter. As a result of renouncing
nuclear arms, the Soviet Union's military might insofar as Europe is
concerned would be less affected than that of America. There would
remain to the Soviet the many armed divisions with conventional
weapons; with those divisions it could easily over- run the NATO
states in western Europe particularly Western Germany without
its being possible for anyone to come to their aid. With this in mind,
the Soviet Union should agree in the course of disarmament negoti-
ations to reduce her army., and to commit herself not to undertake
steps against Germany. But here, too, no manner of detailed agree-
ments and internationally guaranteed disarmament agreements
would be enough. Therefore, we must strive continually to improve
the situation, building brick by brick.

We live at a time when the good faith of peoples is doubted more
than ever before. Expressions casting doubt on the trustworthiness of
the next nation are bandied back and forth. They are based on what
happened in the two world wars when the nations experienced dis-
honesty, injustice, and inhumanity from one another. How can a
new trust come about?

We cannot continue in a situation of paralyzing mistrust. If we
want to work our way out of the desperate situation in which we
find ourselves another spirit must enter into the people. It can come only
if the awareness of its necessity suffices to give us strength to believe
in its coming. We must presuppose the awareness of this need in
all the peoples who have suffered along with us. We must approach
them in the spirit that we are human beings, all of us, and that we
feel ourselves fitted to feel with each other; to think and to will to-
gether in the same way.

The awareness that we are all human beings together has become
lost in war and politics. We have reached the point of regarding each
other as only members of a people allied with us or against us, and
our attitudes, prejudices, sympathies, or antipathies are all condi-
tioned by that fact. Now we must rediscover the fact that we all
together are human beings, and that we must strive to concede to
each other what moral capacity we have.

In that way we can begin to believe that in other peoples too there
will arise the need for a new spirit; and that can be the beginning
of a feeling of mutual trustworthiness toward each other. The spirit

254

is a mighty force for transforming things. Let us have hope that the
spirit can bring people and lands back to an awareness of
enlightenment.

At this stage we have the choice of two risks. The one consists In
continuing the mad atomic arms race with its danger of unavoidable
atomic war in the near future. The other is in the renunciation of
nuclear weapons, and the hope that America and the Soviet Union.,
and the peoples associated with them, will manage to live in peace.
The first holds no hope of a prosperous future; the second does. We
must risk the second.

In President Eisenhower's speech of November 7, 1957, we find
the following: "What the world needs more than a gigantic leap
into space is a gigantic leap into peace."

This gigantic leap consists in finding the courage to hope that
the spirit of good sense will arise in all peoples and in all lands, a
spirit sufficiently strong to overcome the insanity and the inhumanity.

Once agreement on renunciation of nuclear arms has been reached,
it would be the responsibility of the United Nations to undertake to
see that now, as in the future, they would neither be made nor used.
The danger that one or another people might attempt to manufac-
ture nuclear weapons will have to be kept in mind for a long time.

The future holds many difficult problems. The most difficult of
these will be the rights of access of over-populated countries to neigh-
boring lands.

But if in our time we renounce nuclear arms, we will have taken
the first step on the way to the distant goal of the end to war itself.
If we do not do this we remain on the road that leads to atomic war
and misery in the near future.

Those who are to meet at the summit must be aware of this, so
that they can negotiate with propriety, with the right degree of
seriousness, and with a full sense of responsibility.

The Summit Conference must not fail. The will of mankind will
not permit it.

(Continued from front flap)

of modern civilization with a man
whom many consider the conscience
of the a"! 1 .

NORMAN COUSINS

Norman Cousins has been editor of
Saturday Review since 1940. Under
his editorship, the magazine has be-
come an influential and unique
spokesman for cultural freedom and
for sanity and morality in public af-
fairs. He has lectured about American
life and cultural freedom in many
parts of the world, including India,
Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaya,
and the Soviet Union. In 1945, he
published the essay, MODERN MAN is
OBSOLETE, which anticipated the major
problems and challenges of the atomic
age. He is also the author of THE GOOD

INHERITANCE, TALKS WITH NEHRU, WHO
SPEAKS FOR MAN?, and "iN GOD WE

TRUST": The Personal Philosophies
and Religious Beliefs of the Founding
Fathers. He edited the volume A

TREASURY OF DEMOCRACY, and, with

William Rose BeneX THE POETRY OF
FREEDOM. He is a member of the edi-
torial board of the Encyclopaedia Bri-
tannica.

No. 9630A

6655

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