Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. I'll answer what's fresh on my mind.

When you say I advocate telling the patient's less rather than more,
you have it backwards. I doubt that there are many, if any other
Boston eye doctors whose patients tell them, - as Professor Hatfield
told me on the occasion of a medical consultation,  - Doctor,
I'm sorry I don't have time to talk to you today. He was Karl Vietor's
successor at Harvard, and he liked to talk with me about Hoelderlin.
It was he who would start the conversations. His lack of time, I think 
was an expression of his embarrassment at not being able to compete
with me in this particular area of literature. Lately, I've been
allotting more and more time to the few appointments I have, because
my patients and I take such satisfaction from long, animated conversations.
I like to give lengthy, detailed, often dialectic explanations of
medical issues when I have reason to believe they are understood.

As for the historical "what if" questions which you raise, I too find
myself tempted to rethink history, to ask how the worst could have
been avoided. With respect to the Nazis, I think there is general 
agreement among historians that the wild inflation and mass unemployment
in the 1920's created the social and psychological basis of National
Socialism. A more generous, less vindictive U.S. foreign policy under
Harding, Coolidge and Hoover would have precluded Hitler's rise.
Early intervention in 1936 against the invasion of the Saarland
might also have altered the course of history. But I believe such
retrospective judgments are fundamentally flawed. I would prefer
to devote my energies to the present; but as I've pointed out, I
find no takers for my political opinions and keep them to myself.

Good night.

Jochen