Noam

Happy 80th birthday!

I bumped into Tony Benn at a railway station earlier this year (on his way back from the Hay on Wye festival), and reminded him that a few years ago I sent him your review article of Reihhold Niebuhr's main books (Neibuhr was a family friend of the Benn family). It turned out he was due to do a broadcast the following day with you.

Tony Benn has written extensive diaries and therefore doesn't need to write an autobiography. But I really think you need to follow in Bertrand Russell's footsteps (as you have in so many other ways) and produce a late classic. Though Russell waited until he was 94, and we are bit more impatient than that.

I know you've got a thing about "personalities", but I think that book would be at least as important as any of your others.

After 20 years of banging on to my father (now 78) he eventually read one of your books (Hegemony or Survival) and now gets the point!

Best wishes

Gerard Watson