A compelling artefact of Russell’s involvement in the mediation between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with his ownership inscription dated October 17, 1962 - one day into the crisis.
Russell played an often-dismissed role in the cessation of tensions, frantically writing telegrams to Kennedy, Khrushchev and Macmillan willing the leaders to pull back from the brink. His intervention was thrust into the spotlight when Nikita Khrushchev broadcast a reply to one of Russell’s telegrams on Russian radio. “I beg you, Mr. Russell, to meet with understanding our position… We shall do everything possible to prevent this catastrophe” (American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1962, p. 421-422). The ensuing press attention brought many of the nation’s news correspondents to rush to the countryside of North Wales to interview “the nonagenarian intellectual in carpet slippers in his cottage” (Ronald Clark, Bertrand Russell and His World, London: Thames and Hudson, 1981, p. 110)
A long-term campaigner for nuclear disarmament, Russell’s anti-war stance was clearly invigorated by Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Russell was such an admirer of Heller’s debut, which he had been sent by the pair’s mutual American publisher Simon & Schuster, that he invited the author to visit him in Wales. When Heller arrived in September 1962, he presented Russell with a second copy of Catch-22 inscribed “To Bertrand Russell, who has honored me, and has honored all mankind.” In a letter dated 31 October 1962, Heller wrote to Russell thanking him for his hospitality: “My awe and gratitude that someone of your great distinction should take the trouble to initiate a meeting with the author of a novel you had just finished reading, … We curse that blasted English fog which made it necessary to shorten the time we spent together.” (Letter from Joseph Heller to Bertrand Russel dated 31/10/62 in the Bertrand Russell Archives, Box 10.48, Document 110799, McMaster University).
The present copy is one of three known editions of Catch-22 from Russell’s personal library. Based on available information, it seems likely that, shortly before the arrival of Heller in Wales, Russell purchased a new copy of Catch-22, at that point in its fourth impression, and was then unexpectedly presented with an inscribed copy from Heller. While speculative, one could assume that, at the outbreak of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russell returned to this present copy and inscribed it with the date of “October 17, 1962”. The location of the pre-publication copy sent by the publisher to Russell remains unknown.
A near fine copy, with slight rubbing and slight foxing to blank verso of dust jacket.
