TO BERNARD DIEDERICH

One of the most important figures in Graham’s later life, the journalist, biographer and historian Bernard Diederich⁶was born in New Zealand in 1926. He left school at sixteen and joined the crew of the four-masted barque the Pamir, the last of the great square-riggers, and finished the war in a modern ship of the United States merchant marine. He settled in Haiti from 1949, operating an English-language newspaper, the Haiti Sun. He was the resident correspondent for the New York Times and other international news organisations during the early years of François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier’s dictatorship, reporting on killings, repression and corruption. In 1963 the regime determined to silence him; he was arrested by the Tonton Macoutes, imprisoned and finally exiled.

Diederich, whose memoir of Greene is eagerly anticipated, first met him when he visited Haiti in 1954 and got to know him better when he returned with Catherine Walston in 1956. After Greene’s trip to Haiti in 1963, Diederich met him at the airport in Santo Domingo and acted as his guide in the Dominican Republic. In early January 1965, Diederich took him on a tour of the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which became the setting for the climactic scene in The Comedians (1966).

C.6 Albany, | London, W. 1 | 19 January 1965

Dear Bernard,

Thank you so much for sending me those publications. I have been meaning to write again and again to say how much I enjoyed our time together and how grateful I am to you [for] giving up two days to the trip. I always suspected that that tyre was no good. I tried to point out a hole in it to our friend the priest but he didn’t seem to think it mattered!⁷

I had already sent off a copy of the play to you when I got your letter. I hope you won’t find it as boring as the critics did. All good wishes to both of you.

Affectionately,
Graham

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 609