6 West 73rd St.

New York

Arthur Kornfeld

Pembroke College

Cambridge

England

24.4.46

Dear Arthur,

This will be a quick note to say that I will be returning to England next month. They made me a citizen. Call it a reward. I won’t be returning to Cambridge. There’s a new place at Harwell (Oxfordshire somewhere?) to be devoted entirely to finding uses for nuclear fission. I am to be deputy director. Who knows, one day soon the lights on your Christmas tree could be lit by nuclear power? Or perhaps an atomic toothbrush?

I hope to see you in May or June. Your old friend, Karel Szabo

P.S. “Not with a whimper but with a bang?”

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.

P.P.S. Eliot or Auden? I seem to have forgotten.

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